A Thought for Today

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; diversity is our strength. I immediately thought, it does? Followed by, it is?

We've had diversity for all of human existence and I see little evidence of tolerance bred by it. I actually see a great deal of intolerance from folks who preach diversity. Now I hear that 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.

The Truth Is

If we aren't seeking truth, then what are we doing? I can't think of a useful alternative.

Should we seek change? All that really means is doing something different today than yesterday. So why do it, unless we see that, ahem, in truth the change was worthwhile?

Perhaps we want diversity. Well, murder and carpentry are certainly diverse. It appears though that we can legitimately be a carpenter while we should not murder. How can we know this? By seeking truth.

Follow science? Science is a very raw and unfiltered discipline. It merely demonstrates low grade, rote truths: aspirin can cure headaches and the like. What we do with science is useful only through the guidance of higher truth. Science tells us poison will kill a life form and that is all. Whether we ought or ought not kill it comes from a consideration of the truth of such matters. 

Education? But don't we have to make judgments about what to teach and how to teach it? How do we determine that? By looking for truth.

I'm open to suggestion here. But you're going to need some incredibly convincing arguments to sway me. That is, if you want me to accept the truth.

Wait, What?

The Facebook page of the neighborhood I live in currently has a image of several fists in the air. Each fist is a different color; there is even a pride fist of several colors. The phrase which is superimposed over the picture proclaims, 'Together We Rise'. Well, okay.

It's nothing but a bit of modernist hokum, really, and relatively harmless in itself. Yet every time I see it my first thought is, but you folks on this same page routinely proclaim, 'Diversity is Our Strength' or some such other equally shallow hokum. So my question becomes, can we all rise together if diversity is our strength? Shouldn't diversity, a diversity typically preached above all else, mind you, hinder our rising in togetherness? Their standard of diversity after all means marching to the beat of a different drum, your own drum, as I understand our more progressive friends to mean. But if we're all marching to our own drums, how are we to, in fact how can we, rise together?

Perhaps I'm overanalyzing. I do believe in what I call small d diversity: we couldn't play baseball if everyone insisted on pitching, nor have a football game if everyone was the quarterback. Yet in the instances of sports, to continue that example, everyone is doing their own individual thing but within a certain coordination, with the same goals in mind. If we are truly marching to our own beats we must, almost by definition, be marching away from or into one another. In the football game of our example, the flanker must be allowed to run into the wide receiver on a play if that's what being himself, being inspired by diversity that is, means. He would have the right, indeed the moral imperative, to run the route he chooses. If, that is, it's all about an open ended diversity.

If our aim is to be our own self, no matter what and whatever that means, then we cannot be working together. Someone will, indeed likely many different and varied folks will, be pulling in separate and irreconcilable directions. It must happen.

If anyone can reconcile those two ideas, I'm willing to listen. But as it is, I believe they want the cake and to eat it too. You simply can't have it that way.

 

Whither Unity?

President Biden is calling for unity. Well, all right. I'm for unity too. Yet that is in fact where the trouble begins: unity for what purpose or to what degree is he asking of me?

If you wish me to unite with you for abortion rights the answer is a hard no. There is no unity on that issue: either you get your way or I get mine, simple as that. I will do what I can to fight the Biden Administration there. I will not unify with the President or anyone else in favor of abortion.

If you mean unite in the sense that we do not go to war on the question, I'm down with that. I'm okay with such basic unity. We agree to refrain from physically slapping one another around when we disagree, even emphatically. Cool beans.

Perhaps that is what the President meant in his inaugural address. Yet I don't believe so. I think all it was to him was a baseless platitude, a throwaway sentiment, a gushy pandering which serves little purpose but to appear, on the surface, good. "Did you hear that?" he hopes people will say. "Biden wants unity."

That is as empty of meaning as wanting diversity or education or tolerance. Diversity only means A isn't B. This fails to address the underlying and potentially critical questions of the real differences between A and B. 

Education towards what purpose? Tolerance of what and why? Those questions ask, properly, for the contexts in which those words might have useful meaning. The same with unity. The Soviet Union had unity. But would you really want to have lived there?

As it is, without consideration of the what abouts and whys surrounding it, pleas for unity belong on the trash heap of overused, overhyped, and little understood words such as diversity and tolerance. Biden wanted nothing but a sound bite. I'm sure he got it.

Diversity isn't necessarily a strength

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 diversity so far as it goes, perhaps. But I 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 even 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 I can agree with you. I'm not convinced that diversity as such 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, should be small-d diversity, innovations which will help strengthen and improve that unity. It is only when we concede that diversity is a tool of unity that we might make persons and societies better.

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 the diversity offered by the barbarian hoards who raided northern Greece, 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 exactly that: accept diversity as a guiding light, as a principle in itself rather than being subject to unity. It is a hedgerow behind which folks sneak beliefs into our system which will hurt or kill it in the long run. It allows for ideas which will lower the individual into a mere animal. We are better off celebrating a positive, rational unity. It allows us to see what unites rather than divides, because it is in union where there's strength. In capital-D diversity, we are just so many grains of sand, drifting into this or that form as the winds decide.

Tolerance of diversity

We have pointed out many times the number of empty words, words often used without real meaning such as peace, freedom, and education. There are also words used with very definite intentions even though they appear to be innocuous. Perhaps first and foremost among them are 'diversity' and tolerance'.

We are told that we ought to embrace diversity and that we ought to be tolerant. Interestingly enough, the very first problem with these terms is no different than testing the use of calls for education or peace or freedom. When someone asks us to accept diversity and become tolerant, we must ask: tolerate what? Tolerate it why? Accept what diversity by what reason? All of it, or only parts of it? For of course all that diversity really means is that A is different from B, and all tolerance means is allowing something to happen or be. It is only through the answers to these question that we can really know what the person is talking about or what they want us to do.

To actually understand what the preachers of tolerance and diversity want we find ourselves in the same boat as our friends who preach freedom and all: once we begin the discussion in detail, we aren't talking about toleration or diversity. We're talking about, at the least, acceptable personal and social behavior, and, at the most, good old right and wrong. For surely in asking those necessary questions we aim to draw conclusions about propriety or morals. Indeed, even the person asking for tolerance must mean that they want you to accept what they support as right and true. If your compliance didn't matter to them, they wouldn't make any demands upon you. They don't want tolerance from you: they want you to accept their view. That's not necessarily bad. But it is also not tolerance as such.

Another and better question to ask is, if all it's really about is accepting people as they are (which, you may notice, in itself only begs the same questions as the other descriptive words and phrases I mention do) then why don't you tolerate me? I'm diverse. All right, so maybe I am intolerant of your creed. Well, then. Put that in your pipe and smoke it too, if it's all about tolerance.

But, again, it isn't about tolerance and diversity. It's about making the more conservative among us accept what we cannot. The fact of the matter is they surely do not appreciate our diverse opinions; they most certainly do not wish to tolerate us. And why? Simply because we disagree with them, and have the audacity to say so.

That leaves us with one final question. Who between us is truly audacious?

Tolerate me; I'm diverse

We have pointed out many times the number of empty words, words often used without real meaning such as peace, freedom, and education. There are also words used with very definite intentions even though they appear to be innocuous. Perhaps first and foremost among them are 'diversity' and tolerance'.

We are told that we ought to embrace diversity and that we ought to be tolerant. Interestingly enough, the very first problem with these term is no different than testing the use of calls for education or peace or freedom. When someone asks us to accept diversity and become tolerant, we must ask: tolerate what? Tolerate it why? Accept what type diversity? All of it, or only parts of it? For of course all that diversity really means is that A is different from B, and all tolerance means is allowing something to happen or be. It is only through the answers to these question that we can really know what the person is talking about or what they want us to do.

So you see, to actually understand what the preachers of tolerance and diversity want we find ourselves in the same boat as our friends who preach freedom: once we begin the discussion in detail, we aren't talking about toleration or diversity. We're talking about, at the least, acceptable personal and social behavior, and, at the most, good old right and wrong. For surely in asking those necessary questions we aim to draw conclusions about propriety or morals. Indeed, even the person asking for diversity must mean that they want you to accept what they support as right and true. If your compliance didn't matter to them, they wouldn't make any demands upon you.

Another and better question to ask is, if all it's really about is accepting people as they are (which, you may notice, in itself only begs the same questions as descriptive words alone do) then why don't you tolerate me? I'm diverse. All right, so maybe I am intolerant of your creed. Well, then. Put that in your pipe and smoke it too, if it's all about tolerance.

But, as we all know, it isn't about tolerance and diversity. It's about making the more conservative among us accept what we cannot. The fact of the matter is they surely do not appreciate our diverse opinions; they most certainly do not wish to tolerate us. And why? Simply because we disagree with them, and have the audacity to say so.

That leaves us with one final question. Who between us is truly audacious?

Diversity in Education?

Almost all of the states along with the District of Columbia have signed on to to the Common Core State Standards blueprint, which calls for consistent standards across the board over who should know what when. The basic justification is that consistent national standards are needed to ensure that all children in all states will be adequately prepared for college and the world of work.

Alaska and Texas did not sign on. This is not surprising of either, particularly for the Lone Star State, as it has apparently gone its own way on content standards. Regardless of your opinion of Texas' education reforms, the one thing that stands out about the Common Core State Standards initiative is that it takes just a bit more control of education from the states and directs it towards the federal government.

Supporters say that it doesn't tell teachers what to teach but merely gives them goals. If there's a difference between what to teach as opposed to presumed goals to be met, we can't fathom it. Having a standard that says all kindergartners ought to be able to count to one hundred by tens sure doesn't leave a lot of room for imagination. Perhaps they are talking about the content of higher grades, and there would surely be more diversity of such content farther up the learning ladder. Still, even that seems little more than pablum. How much real difference can there be in teaching math or reading skills?

But the main threat here, again, is that that much more control will be lost to states and localities and that much more given to a national association of some sort. This has been put in place so that states may qualify for Race to the Top funding, a White House education program.

We see the true colors of the movement now. Schools have almost universally, at least in the last generation or two, praised diversity. Yet they now call for something which shall centralize education just that much more, and erode a little further the state and local control of teaching. And all for the sake of more money from the feds.

It strikes us that a new golden calf has been forged.

You want Tolerance? Tolerate Me

We have pointed out many times the number of empty words, words often used without real meaning such as peace, freedom, and education. There are also words used with very definite intentions even though they appear to be innocuous. Perhaps first and foremost among them are 'diversity' and tolerance'.

We are told that we ought to embrace diversity and that we ought to be tolerant. Interestingly enough, the very first problem with these terms is no different than testing the use of calls for education or peace or freedom. When someone asks us to accept diversity and become tolerant, we must ask: tolerate what? Tolerate it why? Accept what type diversity? All of it, or only parts of it? For of course all that diversity really means is that A is different from B, and all tolerance means is allowing something to happen or be. It is only through the answers to these and other necessary follow up questions about diversity and tolerance that we can really know what the person is talking about or what they want us to do. And, of course, whether we should do it.

So you see, to actually understand what the preachers of tolerance and diversity want we find ourselves in the same boat as our friends who preach freedom: once we begin the discussion in detail, we aren't talking about toleration or diversity. We're talking about, at the least, acceptable personal and social behavior, and, at the most, good old right and wrong. For surely in asking those necessary questions we aim to draw conclusions about propriety or morals. Indeed, even the person asking for diversity must mean that they want you to accept what they support as right and true. If your compliance didn't matter to them, they wouldn't make any demands upon you. Indeed, if actually right and wrong didn't matter to them, they wouldn't ask for your deference because it wouldn't matter. Either that, or they are supremely stupid and selfish. We used to call those people boors, didn't we?

Another and better question to ask is, if all it's really about is accepting people as they are (which, you may notice, in itself only begs the same questions which pleas for tolerance and diversity and freedom and peace and education left to themselves do) then why don't you tolerate me? I'm diverse. All right, so maybe I am intolerant of your creed. Well, then. Put that in your pipe and smoke it too, if it's all about tolerance.

But, as we all know, it isn't about tolerance and diversity. It's about making the more conservative among us accept what we cannot. The fact of the matter is they surely do not appreciate our diverse opinions; they most certainly do not wish to tolerate us. And why? Simply because we disagree with them, and have the audacity to say so.

That leaves us with one final question. Who between us is truly audacious?

Diversity and Education

An ongoing debate within the political sphere, one which has indeed been carried on since the dawn of the Republic, has been about the extent and nature of public education. it is time that we addressed the issue squarely, by stating unequivocally and emphatically that public education is not a right.

For starters, seeing as education is ultimately the obligation of the individual (if mature enough) or of the parents of young children, then it is up to the person or their moms and dads to see to their learning as much as to their housing, clothing, and food. Society should only step in when the individual or the family needs help, just as it does with housing, clothing, and food. This needs to be said emphatically and forcefully: if you are able to provide for your or your child's education then you should have to provide for it, not the rest of us.

Indeed, with all the blather which the purveyors of teaching at the public trough give towards such ideas as diversity, how much more diverse can you get than to leave education to parental judgment and inquiry? Imagine a world where parents send their kids to schools they like based on their ideas of right and wrong rather than having them indoctrinated by the often errant views of the general society, a society whose 'views' are all too often dictated by judicial and legislative fiat rather of by the rational analysis of the individuals who are more concerned with true education (it is their children involved, you know) than passing fancy? How much more diverse can you get?

Or is diversity not what they truly want? Is their real aim the propagation of erroneous creeds and disreputable acts? To wit, do they want diversity as diversity, which is really only different folks acting different ways with no regard to the value of those acts (something of which even traditionalists should be wary), or do they in fact want indoctrination, the acceptance and living of the acts they, the education elite, deem worthy? Do they really want diversity, or the interpretation of ideas in their own light?

But the bottom line is that education is not a right so much as a duty. When we live up to that, we live well. When we don't, we get whatever comes along. And exactly what we would deserve.

Shallow Words

We have pointed out many times the number of empty words, words often used without real meaning such as peace, freedom, and education. There are also words used with very definite intentions even though they appear to be innocuous. Perhaps first and foremost among them are 'diversity' and tolerance'.

We are told that we ought to embrace diversity and that we ought to be tolerant. Interestingly enough, the very first problem with these term is no different than testing the use of calls for education or peace or freedom. When someone asks us to accept diversity and become tolerant, we must ask: tolerate what? Tolerate it why? Accept what type diversity? All of it, or only parts of it? For of course all that diversity really means is that A is different from B, and all tolerance means is allowing something to happen or be. It is only through the answers to these question that we can really know what the person is talking about or what they want us to do.

So you see, to actually understand what the preachers of tolerance and diversity want we find ourselves in the same boat as our friends who preach freedom: once we begin the discussion in detail, we aren't talking about toleration or diversity. We're talking about, at the least, acceptable personal and social behavior, and, at the most, good old right and wrong. For surely in asking those necessary questions we aim to draw conclusions about propriety or morals. Indeed, even the person asking for diversity must mean that they want you to accept what they support as right and true. If your compliance didn't matter to them, they wouldn't make any demands upon you.

Another and better question to ask is, if all it's really about is accepting people as they are (which, you may notice, in itself only begs the same questions as descriptive words alone do) then why don't you tolerate me? I'm diverse. All right, so maybe I am intolerant of your creed. Well, then. Put that in your pipe and smoke it too, if it's all about tolerance.

But, as we all know, it isn't about tolerance and diversity. It's about making the more conservative among us accept what we cannot. The fact of the matter is they surely do not appreciate our diverse opinions; they most certainly do not wish to tolerate us. And why? Simply because we disagree with them, and have the audacity to say so.

That leaves us with one final question. Who between us is truly audacious?

Tolerate Me

Tolerance. The word leaps from the mouths of liberals as though a mantra. We need to be more tolerant of people, especially, it seems, those who violate long accepted mores.

Well, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If tolerance is so great, why are you trying to change my, or anyone else's, for that matter, outlook? Aren't we as representative of diversity in our divergent viewpoints as all those different folks and actions we're supposed to blindly accept? Don't we merit the same kind of acceptance which we are supposed to offer everybody else?

In the aftermath of the 2010 elections and in light of many recent legislative proposals here in Michigan, as well as in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere, there have been many liberal sympathisers who have bemoaned the ignorance of the electorate in putting the GOP back in play. Conservatives have been called dummies and bullies and worse, all because we don't believe in the creeds of the left. Even the President has lamented that he likely hasn't explained himself well enough, as though we poor neanderthals simply can't understand him or his ideals. All because we have repudiated the vast excesses of the past two and a half years.

Well, here's one conservative who's sick and tired of it. Think me dumb if you like; label me (oooh, there's another sin of the right: labeling people. Heaven forbid we know anything about them) a bully or what have you. I have one thing to say, one thing to put in your pipe to smoke.

I'm a right wing traditionalist who believes in the individual who believes in himself and his country when he and they are in the right. I believe in doing and supporting what's right while working against what's wrong, and most importantly I have faith in a just God. Tolerate me.

A Word on Public Education

An ongoing debate within the political sphere, one which has indeed been carried on since the dawn of the Republic, has been about the extent and nature of public education. it is time that we addressed the issue squarely, by stating unequivocally and emphatically that public education is not a right.

For starters, seeing as education is ultimately the obligation of the individual (if mature enough) or of the parents of young children, then it is up to the person or their moms and dads to see to their learning as much as to their housing, clothing, and food. Society should only step in when the individual or the family needs help, just as it does with housing, clothing, and food. This needs to be said emphatically and forcefully: if you are able to provide for your or your child's education then you should have to provide for it, not the rest of us.

Indeed, with all the blather which the purveyors of teaching at the public trough give towards such ideas as diversity, how much more diverse can you get than to leave education to parental judgment and inquiry? Imagine a world where parents send their kids to schools they like based on their ideas of right and wrong rather than having them indoctrinated by the often errant views of the general society, a society whose 'views' are all too often dictated by judicial and legislative fiat rather of by the rational analysis of the individuals who are more concerned with true education (it is their children involved, you know) than passing fancy? How much more diverse can you get?

Or is diversity not what they truly want? Is their real aim the propagation of erroneous creeds and disreputable acts? To wit, do they want diversity as diversity, which is really only different folks acting different ways with no regard to the value of those acts (something of which even traditionalists should be wary), or do they in fact want indoctrination, the acceptance and living of the acts they, the education elite, deem worthy? Do they really want diversity, or the interpretation of ideas in their own light?

But the bottom line is that education is not a right so much as a duty. When we live up to that, we live well. When we don't, we get whatever comes along. And exactly what we would deserve.

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.