Rudy Canoza
2023-10-30 18:06:24 UTC
By Jonah Goldberg
Jan. 15, 2018
10:50 AM
Sen. Lindsey Graham says he scolded the president for saying something
scatological about certain countries and their immigrants. “Diversity has always
been our strength,” he allegedly said. By my count, this makes Graham the
bazillionth person to proclaim some variant of “diversity is strength.”
Is it true? I think the only close to right answer is, “it depends.”
Specifically, it depends on what — often clichéd — analogy you have in mind.
Diverse stock portfolios are more resilient. Diverse diets are healthier. But
that doesn’t mean picking bad stocks will make you richer or that eating spoiled
foods is good for you.
I once heard Jesse Jackson explain that racial integration of the NBA made it
stronger and better. He was right. But would gender integration of the NBA have
the same effect? Would diversifying professional basketball by height? Probably not.
All of these analogies can take you only so far. Thomas Sowell once said, “The
next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many
Republicans there are in their sociology department.”
There’s a growing body of evidence that even if diversity— the kind that results
from immigration — once made America stronger, it may not be doing so anymore.
Robert Putnam, a liberal sociologist at Harvard, found that increased diversity
corrodes civil society by eroding shared values, customs and institutions.
People tend to “hunker down” and retreat from civil society, at least in the
short and medium term.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-goldberg-diversity-strength-20180115-story.html
Regarding Robert Putnam, read this:
"The Downside of Diversity"
http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/
"Diversity" is not our strength, at least not our cultural and social strength.
It is a millstone around our necks. It is a fact that the more ethnically and
racially *homogeneous* a nation is, the more social harmony there is.
Regarding Jackson's claim that integration made the NBA stronger: it did that
because many top-flight athletes were *excluded* from the league based on race.
When the league integrated, without expanding the league, that meant some less
athletic and less skilled whites were pushed out — not by discrimination, but
because they no longer were good enough. But this gets back to one of my basic
points: as long as there is no active discrimination *against* minorities
participating in areas of society — business firms, sports leagues, social
organizations, etc. — then there is nothing "wrong" with some economic or social
group not having very high diversity.
I work in information technology, and I'm part of a 17 person team. There is one
black male on the team, five white women, and all the rest are white males (I
think one of them is gay). It's a solid and productive team, mostly highly
collegial. There is *no* reason to think the team would be any stronger at
delivering high-quality IT performance — the *only* thing that counts — if we
had fewer straight white males and more racial/ethnic minorities, more women,
more gays, a couple of physically handicapped people, etc. In fact, the very
idea that increasing the diversity of the team would yield higher-quality IT
performance is both absurd and offensive.
There really is an element of racism in promoting diversity. The leftists who
push it claim that it brings "different perspectives" to bear on an
organization's or team's efforts. But what that's saying is that people
*necessarily* have different perspectives based on their skin color or ethnic
identity or whatever. That is *bullshit*. If someone shows up on my team as an
expert in, say, system security or database replication, that person had
*fucking better have* exactly the same perspective on how those things should be
done as another expert from a different racial/ethnic/religious/sexual
orientation. There is no such thing as a "handicapped black lesbian" perspective
in IT. There may be differences of opinion based on various technical criteria,
and some people may favor one technique over another, but they had *better* be
favoring it for technical reasons, and not for some intangible preference based
on identity.
Diversity is not "our strength," and the belief that it is is based solely on a
toxic ideology, not any facts or sound theory.
Jan. 15, 2018
10:50 AM
Sen. Lindsey Graham says he scolded the president for saying something
scatological about certain countries and their immigrants. “Diversity has always
been our strength,” he allegedly said. By my count, this makes Graham the
bazillionth person to proclaim some variant of “diversity is strength.”
Is it true? I think the only close to right answer is, “it depends.”
Specifically, it depends on what — often clichéd — analogy you have in mind.
Diverse stock portfolios are more resilient. Diverse diets are healthier. But
that doesn’t mean picking bad stocks will make you richer or that eating spoiled
foods is good for you.
I once heard Jesse Jackson explain that racial integration of the NBA made it
stronger and better. He was right. But would gender integration of the NBA have
the same effect? Would diversifying professional basketball by height? Probably not.
All of these analogies can take you only so far. Thomas Sowell once said, “The
next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many
Republicans there are in their sociology department.”
There’s a growing body of evidence that even if diversity— the kind that results
from immigration — once made America stronger, it may not be doing so anymore.
Robert Putnam, a liberal sociologist at Harvard, found that increased diversity
corrodes civil society by eroding shared values, customs and institutions.
People tend to “hunker down” and retreat from civil society, at least in the
short and medium term.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-goldberg-diversity-strength-20180115-story.html
Regarding Robert Putnam, read this:
"The Downside of Diversity"
http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/
"Diversity" is not our strength, at least not our cultural and social strength.
It is a millstone around our necks. It is a fact that the more ethnically and
racially *homogeneous* a nation is, the more social harmony there is.
Regarding Jackson's claim that integration made the NBA stronger: it did that
because many top-flight athletes were *excluded* from the league based on race.
When the league integrated, without expanding the league, that meant some less
athletic and less skilled whites were pushed out — not by discrimination, but
because they no longer were good enough. But this gets back to one of my basic
points: as long as there is no active discrimination *against* minorities
participating in areas of society — business firms, sports leagues, social
organizations, etc. — then there is nothing "wrong" with some economic or social
group not having very high diversity.
I work in information technology, and I'm part of a 17 person team. There is one
black male on the team, five white women, and all the rest are white males (I
think one of them is gay). It's a solid and productive team, mostly highly
collegial. There is *no* reason to think the team would be any stronger at
delivering high-quality IT performance — the *only* thing that counts — if we
had fewer straight white males and more racial/ethnic minorities, more women,
more gays, a couple of physically handicapped people, etc. In fact, the very
idea that increasing the diversity of the team would yield higher-quality IT
performance is both absurd and offensive.
There really is an element of racism in promoting diversity. The leftists who
push it claim that it brings "different perspectives" to bear on an
organization's or team's efforts. But what that's saying is that people
*necessarily* have different perspectives based on their skin color or ethnic
identity or whatever. That is *bullshit*. If someone shows up on my team as an
expert in, say, system security or database replication, that person had
*fucking better have* exactly the same perspective on how those things should be
done as another expert from a different racial/ethnic/religious/sexual
orientation. There is no such thing as a "handicapped black lesbian" perspective
in IT. There may be differences of opinion based on various technical criteria,
and some people may favor one technique over another, but they had *better* be
favoring it for technical reasons, and not for some intangible preference based
on identity.
Diversity is not "our strength," and the belief that it is is based solely on a
toxic ideology, not any facts or sound theory.
--
Canoza's law: AlleyPussyBitch (the narcissistic toddler) is *always* wrong.
Canoza's law: AlleyPussyBitch (the narcissistic toddler) is *always* wrong.