Yes.

You knew the answer would be yes, because you know one of my mantras is, everything has its tradeoffs.

Since we have adopted diversity as a religion - an unmitigated good - in the US and most of the rest of the Western world, criticizing it is anathema. 

That hasn't stopped me, yet.

So, let's start by noting that there is no sanctioned mix of peoples, races, religions, whatever. There is no right answer. The fact that the Proud Boys are all for whites or that the far left is for anyone not on the right does not mean that those definitions came from god. They are made up by a group of humans, and, while not quite arbitrary, would probably fail any Platonic or Aristotelian tests. Fad is too strong a word, but not entirely inappropriate. These things come and go.

A stroll through history reveals an amazing kaleidoscope of combinations of races, religions, classes, nationalities, and a similar kaleidoscope of clashes and changes over time. And, things did not turn out great for Chinese or Muslims who turned inward.

Repeat after me, no right answer.

Everything has its tradeoffs is a corollary to setting your objectives; it depends on what you want. What are your objectives and how does (anything, but we are talking about diversity here) diversity fit in to all of that?

Some time ago, I wrote that in the US, diversity was making virtue of necessity. We woke up one day and there were all these blacks and all these whites and the doxology included, "we are a nation of immigrants," and "all men are created equal," so, there we are. Like it or not, we are in this together and so we have to get along.  The fact that essentially all immigrants who came here freely at and immediately after our founding were white was not worth discussing. We were having a tough time dealing with the Irish (and Catholics and Jews).

Diversity is an unmitigated good, and, by god, you will like it.

This dovetails into another of my discussions. I posit that all humans are not necessarily racist, but have an inborn fear of the "other." It comes in many forms - Hatfields and McCoys, Japanese and Korean, Shia and Suni, black and white, farmers and cowboys, people with used cars in their front yards. If you have a different skin color or speak a different language or have different habits, you are suspect from day one.

That means that, prior to the universal kumbaya moment, a successful diversity has to be reinforced by law and social norms.

And, by god, you will like it.

What do you do when whites don't get along with whites and Christians don't get along with Christians and nobody gets along with the Jews, as has been the case for, well, forever? You throw some blacks and Muslims into the mix. Might as well.

And then you get customized diversity - you know - my kind of people, no matter race or creed - not all kinds of people - just my kind of people. Famously, liberals are not excited about the Christian right and the right is not pals with the woke. Diversity these days is actually Diversity*, where diversity is not so much about diversity as it is the entrance criteria of a multiracial / multi-whatever club.

So, we are actually not doing diversity, we are actually reverting to the grouping that humans do best - tribalism. The fact that our tribe includes multiple religions is a prideful kind of thing. We feel better in our self-righteousness and about ourselves. It is still a tribe. A Diverse* tribe.

So what?

Well, you can't unscramble an egg. You have yourself Diversity*, and you have to deal with it.

Again, not going deeply into things I have written about before, your culture will evolve in multiple dimensions. Minorities will take shots at whites, not because they are really the bad guys, but because they were on top and their culture prevailed and now minorities (reasonably) want their say and the introduction of their cultures. Whites like the things the way they put them together in the first place. There would be a resistance against black supremacy in Zimbabwe, if anyone wanted to migrate there.

This is not a melting-pot kind of thing. This is an evolution where all sides affect the other. Everybody changes - some a little; some a lot.

Except conservative Muslims and a lot of blacks.

There is an unresolvable, perhaps existential, tension between Islam and the West. That evolution will be fascinating.

Black culture and white culture have been influencing each other over time. One of my observations is that whites are becoming increasingly black. But that is around the edges. In the middle, black culture and white culture do not mix well. So long as whites dominate in population, blacks who want to be black "code switch" - white in the white milieu and black in the black milieu. 

All of which gets us where?

We have a sufficiency of Diversity* fanatics and also those who long for the good old days. Lots of our tribe and code switching.

Diversity is neither a virtue nor a sin. It is what you want it to be.

Today, we want it to be Diversity* to the point that we are now not inviting relatives that are not in our tribe (think about that statement for a second, relatives that are not in our tribe - we may be the very first humans in all of history to be able to make that statement) to Thanksgiving dinner.

​The snowball is rolling down the hill.

Diversity is both a strength and a weakness.

Getting along in a diverse society is an imperative, because that is what we have.

Diversity* and our current demographics include irresolvable contradictions, so the conflicts will continue and evolve as demographics and ideologies change.

Given our current demographics, we need to constructively make virtue of necessity.

And there we are.

​

As an aside, I struck gold when I asked AI how Big Brother in 1984 would approach diversity. AI said that diversity was antithetical to Big Brother's governance and therefore he would employ Newspeak and Doublethink to redefine terms. Here are some of its thoughts:

​

• "Diversity of thought" would mean "Orthodoxy": The "good" form of "diversity" would be a universal adherence to the single Party line. The Party might praise the "diverse" ways in which citizens arrive at the same, correct conclusion, which is loyalty to Big Brother. As the character Syme explains, true orthodoxy means "not thinking — not needing to think".

• "Diversity in unity" would mean "Conformity": The slogan might be framed to celebrate the elimination of individual differences in favor of a collective, uniform identity under the Party's banner. All citizens would be "diverse" in their role within the state machine, but identical in their function and  beliefs.