A very brief essay about how putting too much emphasis on diversity creates division. |
There is a comical kind of paradox about the celebration of diversity. At a young age we are taught to respect each other's differences. Yet we see so much discrimination and bias against those who do not think like us. As ideal as this sounds teaching people to respect diversity isn't nearly as important as teaching our youth to look for the similarities we share. Diversity shares it's terminology with words like division or divide and I fear that putting such a strong emphasis on diversity ultimately does just that. We can start with simple similarities that we all share. We are all human and in being human we are all imperfect, we all make the same mistakes, we all possess opinions and biases. When you put your intellectual stock into diversity you ignore the common similarities that we share. Our misguided celebration of diversity does not create unity, similarities create unity. Unity means "oneness, sameness, agreement," A misguided view of the celebration of diversity is in direct contrast to the idea of unity, and yet unity has been one of the greatest issues in our civilization. It is diversity that spawns borders, countries, ethnic wars, religious wars and intolerance. It is diversity that creates racism and prejudice. When we acknowledge that we all human, that we all have the same rights then we can truly say that we are united. I may work on this essay more when I have time. |