A Thought for Tuesday

A post on Facebook yesterday caught my eye. Yeah, I know, earth shattering. It's never happened before.

Mild and poor humor aside, the post claimed that diversity breeds tolerance. I immediately thought, it does?

We've had diversity for all of human existence and I see little evidence of tolerance bred by it. Indeed I find far more intolerance as a result of new people, new things, and new ideas along the way.  That's sad, but endemic to the human condition. Wars and rumors of wars abound. Let's all just get along because diversity is our strength? I'm not sold.

On the other hand, when people on all sides are reasonably open minded (in short, reasonable) we've had a decent amount of peace and solidarity. But it isn't because we're diverse. It's because on those far too few occasions, we've been unified. We don't emphasize our differences. We rejoice in our similarities.