Every successful experiment in diversity requires commonality.

National Review
David French

Last week Tucker Carlson did what Tucker Carlson does so well. He sparked an online firestorm (and yet another attempted sponsor boycott) by touching a third rail in American politics — this time aggressively questioning the phrase “diversity is our strength.” Here’s the key part of the segment. Note the millions of views:

[video at link]

Quite a few people interpreted Tucker as racist. I did not. I interpreted him as raising an important question, and then torching a straw man. His core point was summed up in just a few sentences:

How precisely is diversity our strength? Can you think of other institutions, such as marriage or military units, in which the less people have in common, the more cohesive they are? Do you get along better with your neighbors and coworkers if you can’t understand each other, or share no common values? And if diversity is our strength, why is it okay for the rest of us to surrender our freedom of speech to just a handful of tech monopolies?

But is Tucker really taking on today’s diversity ideology, as practiced? The institutions in American life that claim to value diversity most — higher education, progressive corporations, and the military (yes, the military) — aren’t Towers of Babel, where people can’t comprehend each other, much less share any common purpose. Instead, each one of these “diverse” institutions is remarkably uniform in its own way.

The diversity that’s the alleged “strength” of higher education all too often manifests itself as a community where people of every race, religion, and gender all think alike on the core political and cultural questions that matter most on campus. A community that allegedly celebrates diversity relentlessly enforces ideological uniformity.

The same problem manifests itself in corporate America. The free-speech challenges that Tucker rightly decries in big tech often mirror the intolerance of the American academy. Silicon Valley employers will spend tens of millions of dollars attempting to create a workforce that “looks like America” yet at the same time foster a workplace culture that makes, for example, Christian conservative employees believe there is a real risk in speaking freely at the workplace — a risk their more secular and progressive colleagues don’t share.

The military — perhaps the most successful diverse community in America — welcomes men and women from every walk of life and then relentlessly enforces uniformity. Language is clipped down to a highly technical version of English. Everyone dresses alike. Everyone swears the same oath. Everyone adopts the same Soldier’s Creed. While there is enormous diversity in color and faith, when it comes to the core functions of military life, there is a uniformity that by necessity exceeds anything we see in civilian life.

In their own ways, American universities, progressive corporations, and the U.S. military have created functioning, diverse communities that depend on a core commonality. And if you share that common purpose, then diversity is an immense blessing. Among other things, it enhances your numbers, it increases the breadth of experience, and it fosters cultural adaptability.

If you’re a progressive, university towns such as Cambridge, Mass., or Boulder, Colo., are (weather excepted) truly lovely, welcoming places to live. If you’re a progressive tech nerd, Silicon Valley is your Vatican. If you’ve bought into the military ethos, you feel at home the instant you pass through the gates of a military installation. Everything outside feels just a bit alien.

But here’s the problem. When conservative Americans hear progressive Americans say, “diversity is our strength,” they filter those words through the prism of progressive communities, where “diversity” often either excludes conservatism or is barely tolerant of its existence.

Yes, there are rightists who reject diversity on purely racist grounds. But there are more people who instinctively recognize that diverse communities still require at least a degree of common purpose. Tucker does ask a key question: “How does a nation of 325 million people hang together?” And the answer isn’t that we hang together because we’re different. And our differences alone don’t make us stronger.

As Jonah Goldberg and others have explained so eloquently and urgently, in the absence of a transcendent, unifying American idea, tribalism reasserts itself. People seek common purpose and — once that purpose is found — can be remarkably welcoming of people from all walks of life who share that purpose. The ancillary diversity amplifies the strength of the unifying purpose.

The question of our time is whether Americans still share enough of that common purpose — and whether that common purpose is wide enough — to maintain the shared national bond. Or do we now have a red purpose and a blue purpose, and diversity is a “strength” only to the extent that it enhances our chosen tribe?

In other words, it would be easier to believe that diversity is our strength if the people who advance that idea weren’t also often among the most intolerant people in American public life.

Link

No. When some diversities are more previleged than other and rules are not applied to them equally.

I saw a bumper sticker this afternoon on a duct taped bumper on an old Honda Accord:

“IN OUR AMERICA
DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH
AND LOVE ALWAYS WINS”

or words to that effect. Obviously the sentiment of a numbskull who’s never repeatedly had migrants undocumented travelers illegal aliens ransack their house.

It about made me puke.

Diversity in thought, ideas, skills, experiences etc do add to our strength. Problem is that "diversity" is mostly used these days as a code word meaning race.

In that sense diversity loses its value. Skin color doesn't automatically add value to the organization. No one should be kept out on that basis just as no one should be included for no other reason than race.

This kind is OK.

Vacuous sloganeering


ETA: Unity is our strength.

diversity is our downfall

When too many minorities toe their tribal lines and suffer with group think, the idea of diversity is lost. First rule of diversity, be diverse.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
diversity is our downfall

Bingo right there. Borders, language, culture, shared values, common western Christian morays, basic civility, equal application of rule of law. Without those you have a sick country or a failed state. Diversity in any one of these, let alone all of them, is not a happy or good place to be. I've met plenty of naturalized US citizens who enjoy all the benefits of American life like the rest of us but don't give a rat's ass for the Constitution. These people are all professionals and basically nice people, but they're not Americans in the truest sense. That's a current and future threat to our way of life just by itself. Maybe it's unfair to expect people from dictatorships and communist governments to understand the value of the Constituion, but it seems that should have been sorted out before they were naturalized.

So where is the flaw or shortsightedness in this logic ? It really does seem that simple to me but I'm a simple man. Not always right of course but in this case I can't see it any other way.

Diversity? China town, somali town, and names like Korea town say otherwise. It only works when people come to America to live with our established values. When they hold on to their old national identities it is a disaster.

I don’t think so.

It seems to me we are best when there is a common belief in basic issues, manners, language, mating rituals, religion, social customs, etc.

It need not be rigid, but bounded with limits, not mutually exclusive as western culture and values seem to be with Islam in many ways.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

( From the article in the National Review )

The question of our time is whether Americans still share enough of that common purpose — and whether that common purpose is wide enough — to maintain the shared national bond. Or do we now have a red purpose and a blue purpose, and diversity is a “strength” only to the extent that it enhances our chosen tribe?

Let me think about the difference between the aftermath of Fukushima and the aftermath of Katrina...

I remember growing up in Chicago 70/80 years ago in the melting pot and enjoying the diversity. But today the mooselems here and in Europe don’t want to blend in with the native populations. They want their own areas. In Paris there are areas where the police cannot enter. Same I believe in London. So where is this wonderful diversity?

Clearly there's a wide gap between mono-culture and enforced diversity.

Both ends have their appeals to each side but they both have their drawbacks.

Look at Japan and their strict mono-culture. There are plenty of benefits, clean streets, low crime etc but there are tons of huge drawbacks, failing birthrates, huge suicide rates, lack of innovation.

Diversity gives you diversity of opinions, the ability to innovate and find new markets. It also allows you to take the best parts of other cultures and integrate them into your own (screw the concept of cultural appropriation, it's a good thing!).

Forced diversity though causes too much social friction, a lack of innovation and productivity because the best and brightest aren't allowed to go in the areas they are the most successful. See London.

There needs to be a happy median.

"Diversity" has a value....
But only when we can "discriminate" between the "good" and "bad" variations introduced by diversity.

To further the hackneyed analogies: America has always been a "melting pot". But in a melting pot, the "cream rises" and the "dreggs" can be discarded.
The Liberal Left has completely perverted these concepts. To them "diversity" implies a slack-jawed and classy-eyed acceptance of any preposterous idiocy or perversion that is presented. To adopt the "good" aspects of diversity is evil, because it is "cultural appropriation", while rejecting the bad portions of diversity is evil because it is "discrimination".
Notice how they do this sleight-of hand entirely with linguistic trickery: Political Correctness.

It could have been. Diversity of heritage and skill set is a strengthening combo. Diversity of culture and principles is a destructive one. The Left emphasized the latter.

Our national motto should mean something. E pluribus unum.

On October 12, 1915, in New York City, former President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt addressed an assembly of the Knights of Columbus at Carnegie Hall. He spoke on a subject that is near and dear to our hearts here at Unhyphenated America. In fact, his speech is the very basis of why we exist and what we stand for.
The entire speech can be found here in pdf form, but this post focuses specifically on what he called, “Hyphenated Americans”.

HYPHENATED AMERICANS

What is true of creed is no less true of nationality. There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

I appeal to history. Among the generals of Washington in the Revolutionary War were Greene, Putnam, and Lee, who were of English descent; Wayne and Sullivan, who were of Irish descent; Marion, who was of French descent; Schuyler, who was of Dutch descent, and Muhlenberg and Herkimer, who were of German descent. But they were all of them Americans and nothing else, just as much as Washington. Carroll of Carrollton was a Catholic; Hancock a Protestant; Jefferson was heterodox from the standpoint of any orthodox creed; but these and all the other signers of the Declaration of Independence stood on an equality of duty and right and liberty, as Americans an.d nothing else.

So it was in the Civil War. Farragut`s father was born in Spain and Sheridan`s father in Ireland; Sherman and Thomas were of English and Custer of German descent; and Grant came of a long line of American ancestors whose original home had been Scotland. But the Admiral was not a Spanish-American; and the Generals were not Scotch-Americans or Irish-Americans or English-Americans or German-Americans. They were all Americans and nothing else. This was just as true of Lee and of Stonewall Jackson and of Beauregard.

When in 1909 our battlefleet returned from its voyage around the world, Admirals Wainwright and Schroeder represented the best traditions and the most effective action in our navy; one was of old American blood and of English descent.; the other was the son of German immigrants. But one was not a native-American and the other a German-American. Each was an American pure and simple. Each bore allegiance only to the flag of the United States. Each would have been incapable of considering the interests of Germany or of England or of any other country except the United States.

To take charge of the most important work under my administration, the building of the Panama Canal, I chose General Goethals. Both of his parents were born in Holland. But he was just plain United States. He wasn`t a Dutch-American; if he had been I wouldn`t have appointed him. So it was with such men, among those who served under me, as Admiral Osterhaus and General Barry. The father of one was born in Germany, the father of the other in Ireland. But they were both Americans, pure and simple, and first-rate fighting men in addition.

In my Cabinet at the time there were men of English and French, German, Irish, and Dutch blood, men born on this side and men born in Germany and Scotland; but they were all Americans and nothing else; and every one of them was incapable of thinking of himself or of his fellow-countrymen, excepting in terms of American citizenship. If any one of them had anything in the nature of a dual or divided allegiance in his soul, he never would have been appointed to serve under me, and he would have been instantly removed when the discovery was made. There wasn`t one of them who was capable of desiring that the policy of the United States should be shaped with reference to the interests of any foreign country or with consideration for anything, outside of the general welfare of humanity, save the honor and interest of the United States, and each was incapable of making any discrimination whatsoever .among the citizens of the country he served, of our common country, save discrimination based on conduct and on conduct alone.

TR makes the point. E pluribus unum. It is “out of many, one”, not “out of many, many!”

Diversity in its implementation here is a definite weakness. I speak first hand.

Diversity can be good and even desirable IF it doesn’t compromise competency, good values and manners (accepted social behaviors).

But diversity for the sake of diversity at the cost of competency and values is a detriment to society and agree that it’s our implementation and is our downfall.

Diversity is never a strength. It doesn’t make anything. At best, it’s an enhancement to other strengths.

Remember E Pluribus Unum?

The way this country used to work is that anyone could come from anywhere, and the idea would be to assimilate into being American. Now immigrants (and some natives) don't want to assimilate, and want the country to accommodate their ethic issues and/or lifestyle choices. That's a big reason things are going to shit.

Edit: Gustopher got there first.