Celebrating Diversity: Be Careful what You Wish For

Many a car can be found adorned with bumper stickers which read 'celebrate diversity' or a like sentiment. April, it seems, has become Celebrate Diversity month (great: another holiday season Hallmark can co-opt). There's nothing wrong with that so far as it goes, of course. But one cannot help but wonder exactly how far it's supposed to go.

If what you mean by recognizing diversity is what I call small 'd' diversity, I have no argument. If there weren't different people with different interests and abilities then an awful lot of great and necessary things would not get done. We couldn't play baseball if everyone were a catcher. But if you mean, as has been said in various quarters, that our diversity makes us strong, then I am not so sure it is a valid basis for our thoughts and actions.

What makes us strong as a nation and as individuals is an underlying unity which we all accept as the rock upon which society is built. What we bring to the table, so to speak, when we offer new insights or inventions is that our input will help strengthen that unity. Indeed, that such ideas are brought up in light of that union which holds us together. We act to improve upon it.

So if what you mean by diversity are things contrary to that unity, ideals which will harm or destroy the body politic or personal responsibility, then it is not something we should want. If by diversity we mean to accept and appreciate cannibals and cannibalism, then we should not celebrate it. Aristotle did not appreciate barbarians, nor should that have been expected of him.

I fear that many of the folks who wish us to celebrate diversity wish us to do just that; it is a hedgerow behind which they can hide their true colors and sneak beliefs into our system which will hurt or kill it in the long run. We are better off celebrating unity. It allows us to see what unites rather than divides, because in union their is strength. In mere diversity, we are just so many pebbles in the sand.