The Value of Diversity

[Lark]

Diversity is terrific as long as the diverse population doesn't consist of angry, violent, irrational types. Diversity with shared values would be the ideal.

Harmony rather than discord, great pizza toppings dont clash, eh?

Dont know if you're a pizza or a Calzone eater [MENTION=20113]Tellenbach[/MENTION]

 

[Coriolis]

Diversity is terrific as long as the diverse population doesn't consist of angry, violent, irrational types. Diversity with shared values would be the ideal.

I would prefer we all be left to our own values, which are just a step away from our beliefs; but have a shared set of commonly accepted behavior.

 

[sLiPpY]

I would prefer we all be left to our own values, which are just a step away from our beliefs; but have a shared set of commonly accepted behavior.

A shared set of commonly accepted behavior? Respectfully, and yet again..."that's not diversity."

 

[Coriolis]

A shared set of commonly accepted behavior? Respectfully, and yet again..."that's not diversity."

That's society. If you want to live with others, you need to agree on some standards of behavior. Diversity, or perhaps more accurately individuality, can be allowed and even encouraged up to the point that it keeps the next person from expressing their individuality. This requires everyone to compromise a bit. So, we generally agree not to do things like steal, murder, and slander; and to do things like pay our taxes, park in designated spaces, and pick up our trash.

If you are unhappy with this, you can always go off on your own, live as a hermit, and always do things exactly the way you want, but that isn't diversity at all.

 

[Deprecator]

The left is so obsessed with diversity that it's being valued above all else, up to and including competence and public safety. Apparently if the most qualified individuals to conduct air traffic control is 'too white', then public safety should be undermined for the sake of diversity.

 

[sLiPpY]

That's society. If you want to live with others, you need to agree on some standards of behavior. Diversity, or perhaps more accurately individuality, can be allowed and even encouraged up to the point that it keeps the next person from expressing their individuality. This requires everyone to compromise a bit. So, we generally agree not to do things like steal, murder, and slander; and to do things like pay our taxes, park in designated spaces, and pick up our trash.

If you are unhappy with this, you can always go off on your own, live as a hermit, and always do things exactly the way you want, but that isn't diversity at all.

That's "society!?!" If you want to "live" with others...you need to agree on some standards of behavior? WTF!?! you've got to be kidding me are you that incredibly RACIST!!!

You can't accept others choosing to do whatever?

 

[sLiPpY]

The left is so obsessed with diversity that it's being valued above all else, up to and including competence and public safety. Apparently if the most qualified individuals to conduct air traffic control is 'too white', then public safety should be undermined for the sake of diversity.

What blasphemous bull crap!! Air Traffic control should be perfectly open to all peoples!!! I mean who in the hell is racist enough to prefer even homogeneous interpretations of language? That concept is so freaking racist, I can't even begin to point out how wrong those notions are, in comparison to what superior humans already know! *unzips and beginz to piss*

Whoo whoo! Diversity! Let my sorry ass walk into some restaurant and be happy with the diversity for food! Without even questioning for a moment, why I'm perfectly content seeing 0 percent diversity vs. the 100 percent I expect of my own region locality.

F* everyone!

 

[Tellenbach]

Diversity with shared values? Doesn't sound very diverse, open or tolerant to me. The video posted on how the women in France are encountering and adapting to "Diversity." Seems a more authentic and realistic concept. Respectfully pointing out, shared values are homogeneous, in essence..."anti-Diversity."

The ideal would be a society of diverse libertarians. I don't care where you come from or what you look like, but if you are a libertarian, you're welcome. I would agree that having shared values means intolerance of different values; that's a good thing. Libertarians wouldn't want to tolerate a bunch of hateful, violent people; that would be stupid.

 

[ceecee]

The ideal would be a society of diverse libertarians. I don't care where you come from or what you look like, but if you are a libertarian, you're welcome. I would agree that having shared values means intolerance of different values; that's a good thing. Libertarians wouldn't want to tolerate a bunch of hateful, violent people; that would be stupid.

Congressional candidate boasts about being a pedophile, raping w - FOX Carolina 21

According to Larson’s campaign manifesto, his platform as a “quasi-neoreactionary libertarian” candidate includes protecting gun ownership rights, establishing free trade and protecting “benevolent white supremacy,” as well as legalizing incestuous marriage and child pornography.

 

[Lark]

The ideal would be a society of diverse libertarians. I don't care where you come from or what you look like, but if you are a libertarian, you're welcome. I would agree that having shared values means intolerance of different values; that's a good thing. Libertarians wouldn't want to tolerate a bunch of hateful, violent people; that would be stupid.

You'd like a multi-ethnic mono-culture from the sound of it.

I'd just like to say that as a socialist I'd tolerate you Tellenbach, I'm not sure I could say the same operates in reverse most of the time with libertarians, usually more violent than Jaguar style evil rich guys, plus they cant spell in some of the pics I've seen of them posing with guns outside spray painted shops or homes during civil unrest or rioting.

 

[Lark]

Congressional candidate boasts about being a pedophile, raping w - FOX Carolina 21

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've heard about libertarians lately.

They hate roads and they want to pay to have sex with children.

Was once a very different movement, maybe the money is corrupting, like maybe privatised corruption and tyranny is still corruption and tyranny?

BTW also that guy is why roof top voting was invented, surely to God there's an avenger out there for him

 

[Tellenbach]

I'd just like to say that as a socialist I'd tolerate you Tellenbach, I'm not sure I could say the same operates in reverse most of the time with libertarians, usually more violent than Jaguar style evil rich guys, plus they cant spell in some of the pics I've seen of them posing with guns outside spray painted shops or homes during civil unrest or rioting.

Libertarians are the most tolerant demographic; I don't really care what a person believes as long as we don't let them in the country.

Congressional candidate boasts about being a pedophile, raping w - FOX Carolina 21

Very flawed individual, but I'd still vote for him over every Democrat. Personal morals are not as important as policy decisions; as we've seen with Trump, you can be a flip-flopping guy who insults people daily and still be a much better president than Obama and Carter.

 

[Litvyak]

This is what I took the OP to mean. It's exactly what diversity does.

What if travel is fatal to optimism and open-mindedness? I don't see how cultural exchange necessarily leads to more acceptance. For the pessimist, it reinforces a belief in a "malevolently useless" human condition insofar as suffering, and the inadequate answers to suffering, are universal. The failed optimist is driven by a belief in a terra incognita with no discrimination, no hostility between the identities we adopt etc. - yet he finds none. The world is mapped out for him and slowly but surely, every image of a concrete sanctuary turns out to be ridiculous and infantile. Think Roquentin in Nausea.

Regardless of what history proves.

You have to be careful with historical analogies for both theoretical and practical reasons. Every time you cite Hellenism or whatever to support your claim, you better expect a plethora of counter-analogies ranging from the Roman Empire to the cultural climate of Weimar.

 

[The Cat]

I enjoy diversity. Same old same old gets boring fast.

 

[Lark]

What if travel is fatal to optimism and open-mindedness? I don't see how cultural exchange necessarily leads to more acceptance. For the pessimist, it reinforces a belief in a "malevolently useless" human condition insofar as suffering, and the inadequate answers to suffering, are universal. The failed optimist is driven by a belief in a terra incognita with no discrimination, no hostility between the identities we adopt etc. - yet he finds none. The world is mapped out for him and slowly but surely, every image of a concrete sanctuary turns out to be ridiculous and infantile. Think Roquentin in Nausea.



You have to be careful with historical analogies for both theoretical and practical reasons. Every time you cite Hellenism or whatever to support your claim, you better expect a plethora of counter-analogies ranging from the Roman Empire to the cultural climate of Weimar.

You mean if you go looking for shangrila you may not find it or that for every citation there can be a dozen others?

Pretty pessimistic wouldnt you say?

You may not find what you are looking for if you travel but you're sure to find something and I'm betting its something different to what you know.

Now, I'd say sure that if you are a western liberal protest warrior you could find that things are worse than they are at home, easily, that's what Peter Thatchell found when he went to Russia behaved as he often does at home pushing around elderly religious figures and to his surprise a skinhead broke his nose.

I would guess that most people would not be so naive and there has been lots of coverage of the cases of westerners who have had trouble with laws governing the casual transport of bottles of beer in their cars, ladies sun bathing, all those major cultural interface issues.

Personally, I dont think that travel should make the case for either pessimism or optimism, whatever your bias is will determine that in any case. Whether you travel or not. Although, it does make you realise that a whole other world exists which is nothing like the one you live in, coming from NI and disliking many of the aspects of the tribalism here I loved going places were it made no sense what so ever as it did not exist. Its highly unique in its toxicity and when I've seen alt right types try to integrate it with their White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideology its still not a perfect fit.

So far as history goes, I'm a socialist, there's lots of experience of projecting hopes on to history, whether its the linear "progressivism" of liberalism, which a lot of socialists inherited, or Marx's Hegelian historical materialism of thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis and new thesis arriving in the shape of class struggles and Marx's idea that communism was the riddle of history solved. So, yeah. Popper was probably right when he decried the poverty of historicism.

Even in an individual or family history there's nothing to say that lessons and insights follow on experience and events, so there's nothing to suggest that history automatically results in improvement on the micro, let alone macro level.

That's before you get into the pretty relentless revisionism and attempts to erase memory and history which is largely the greater part of liberalism. That's positively self-sabotage but because conservatism is so hateful, so hateful to the majority of people who live in the moment and are told anything is possible if you want it enough, the actual part of it that ought to make sense isnt going to go over well.

 

[Coriolis]

Very flawed individual, but I'd still vote for him over every Democrat. Personal morals are not as important as policy decisions; as we've seen with Trump, you can be a flip-flopping guy who insults people daily and still be a much better president than Obama and Carter.

How? "Flip-flopping" at least suggests inconsistency, even capriciousness, with nothing rooted in deeper principles. Regardless of one's political leanings, that doesn't sound like good governance. Also, do you see no connection between personal morals and the policy decisions an elected official would make or support?

What if travel is fatal to optimism and open-mindedness? I don't see how cultural exchange necessarily leads to more acceptance. For the pessimist, it reinforces a belief in a "malevolently useless" human condition insofar as suffering, and the inadequate answers to suffering, are universal. The failed optimist is driven by a belief in a terra incognita with no discrimination, no hostility between the identities we adopt etc. - yet he finds none. The world is mapped out for him and slowly but surely, every image of a concrete sanctuary turns out to be ridiculous and infantile. Think Roquentin in Nausea.

Ah, the dreaded "what if"? Of course it is readily answered simply by saying, "What if travel does indeed promote open-mindedness?" As someone who has travelled a great deal, I can say travel usually at least leads to greater awareness, to dispelling ignorance. Once you know more about something outside your own culture or experience, you can see better how it fits into your worldview, or perhaps leads you to modify that view. You have something to work with other than hearsay and prejudice. You don't have to adopt or even approve of these other ways to understand them better and even learn from them. [MENTION=7280]Lark[/MENTION]'s comments above are on the mark as well.

You have to be careful with historical analogies for both theoretical and practical reasons. Every time you cite Hellenism or whatever to support your claim, you better expect a plethora of counter-analogies ranging from the Roman Empire to the cultural climate of Weimar.

Sometimes proof of concept is all that is needed, or a few counterexamples to disprove an absolute.

 

[Litvyak]

Sure, it would be different, but different is not always better. No, I don't think it's a question of naivity, at least not in my case. If you're disappointed with the status quo, it's not unreasonable to expect "the different" to lift your spirits or change your mindset for the better, which doesn't necessarily happen. Those looking for calmness and a different perception of time in India will most likely be disheartened by inhumanity and poverty. Heck, even if you abandon as many presuppositions as possible before going on a journey, you won't necessarily like what you see, in which case you either reevaluate the conditions at home or feel that you've been robbed of yet another uncharted territory that used to hold the possibility of fertile otherness.

whatever your bias is will determine that in any case

No argument here, though bias is not always conscious or manipulable. You seem to use "bias" and "attitude" more or less interchangeably, I don't. Even if you adopt an attitude of openness and non-judgmentality, your preconceptions of how things should work at X can not entirely be left behind with conscious effort.

As for historicism, yes, Popper seems to have been more or less correct, though I'm very dismissive of his utilitarianism and political philosophy in general. Be careful not to attribute the thesis-antithesis-synthesis model to Hegel, it was mostly used by Schelling before his turn to negative philosophy. Hegel had been very critical of Schelling, and the philosophical system of the former resembles a circle, that which he called "true infinity" as opposed to "spurious infinity", rather than a triangle.

 

[Litvyak]

You have something to work with other than hearsay and prejudice.

Sure, I agree, interacting with other cultures leads to epistemic improvement, at least in a negative sense, i.e. it dispels myth. It's just that I don't accept the premise that gaining knowledge is necessarily beneficial.

Sometimes proof of concept is all that is needed, or a few counterexamples to disprove an absolute.

Sure, I guess you can disprove claims such as "cultural exchange is always harmful" through historical examples, but this is rarely disputed. Fundamentalists usually claim that "cultural exchange is not beneficial for us, in this and this context" etc., and you can not come up with strong inductive historical arguments in response, for obvious reasons.

 

[ceecee]

Libertarians are the most tolerant demographic; I don't really care what a person believes as long as we don't let them in the country.



Very flawed individual, but I'd still vote for him over every Democrat. Personal morals are not as important as policy decisions; as we've seen with Trump, you can be a flip-flopping guy who insults people daily and still be a much better president than Obama and Carter.

This is precisely why every libertarian experiment fails. Policy decisions and personal morals go hand in hand, this is blatantly obvious on a daily basis as far as the current administration is concerned, You would personally support the election of a person that deserves to be treated as the sub human that he freely admits he is, only shows how unhealthy your own judgment is. Get some professional help before you harm someone else.

 

[Coriolis]

Sure, I agree, interacting with other cultures leads to epistemic improvement, at least in a negative sense, i.e. it dispels myth. It's just that I don't accept the premise that gaining knowledge is necessarily beneficial.

This is where we disagree. I find it always better to have knowledge, especially on matters where we are about to take action or render a judgment. Much of prejudice and fear is based in ignorance and the assumptions we make in the absence of accurate information. As your example in another post about India illustrates, no culture is perfect. If someone visits India, as you wrote, "looking for calmness and a different perception of time", they may very well be disillusioned by the poverty and other social problems there. Someone who goes there out of some western moral crusade "to improve the lot of folks in the third world" may be taken down a peg or two by those elements of wisdom you reference. Better to visit India - or anywhere else - without any agenda broader than just to understand the place, the culture, and the people better. I find invariably in such situations, alongside the sometimes stark differences I see from what I know, I also see the threads of our common humanity.

Sure, I guess you can disprove claims such as "cultural exchange is always harmful" through historical examples, but this is rarely disputed. Fundamentalists usually claim that "cultural exchange is not beneficial for us, in this and this context" etc., and you can not come up with strong inductive historical arguments in response, for obvious reasons.

Sadly, I do see quite a few claims that cultural exchange is always harmful, and (not the same but related) that we never gain by it. The counterexamples are numerous and obvious. I would label this as regress, except that I cannot rule out that prior apparent efforts to embrace diversity were not mere lip service.