The NYT this morning declares "The end of affirmative action." Meh. I think the charade will continue with different costumes. Where there's a powerful will, a way will be found.
There is a difference between optimizing diversity and maximizing diversity. To optimize would necessarily include cycles of convergence and integration. It's how we move forward. Today, the objective is to maximize. More diversity. As if surrendering to the physical Laws of Thermodynamics, it's become a zero sum virtue signaling push toward maximum entropy and absolute zero. All is equal in stagnation and death.
This is untenable and leads to absurd situations where I, for example, as a old white guy with several biology degrees has been unwillingly elevated to a position of such authority that it is I who is qualified to tell a sitting supreme court justice whether or not she's a woman. (While I have this nanosecond of absurd authority, how about I just swing the gavel: She's a woman.) It's "off track," as you might put it.
21st century institutional diversity has evolved into a cultural dead end, an excuse to justify one's particular set of limitations and insecurities while reinforcing vapid echo chambers. Would that I had the power, every "safe space" would have a large placard above the entryway that said "Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
So where to next? How does one move forward? I think you sussed it quite well:
"I said that when people are possessed of an irrational conviction then let them rest with it. If the whole of this country is saying something goofy, perhaps other countries may not be. If everyone in the hemisphere is obeying foolish priorities then it’s time to reach back into history for wisdom. When people live long enough they will eventually come to understand “Everything they taught us was a lie.” You should have looked elsewhere. That’s the human diversity you were missing."
Much of what you write reminds me of Plato's remnants.
The NYT this morning declares "The end of affirmative action." Meh. I think the charade will continue with different costumes. Where there's a powerful will, a way will be found.
There is a difference between optimizing diversity and maximizing diversity. To optimize would necessarily include cycles of convergence and integration. It's how we move forward. Today, the objective is to maximize. More diversity. As if surrendering to the physical Laws of Thermodynamics, it's become a zero sum virtue signaling push toward maximum entropy and absolute zero. All is equal in stagnation and death.
This is untenable and leads to absurd situations where I, for example, as a old white guy with several biology degrees has been unwillingly elevated to a position of such authority that it is I who is qualified to tell a sitting supreme court justice whether or not she's a woman. (While I have this nanosecond of absurd authority, how about I just swing the gavel: She's a woman.) It's "off track," as you might put it.
21st century institutional diversity has evolved into a cultural dead end, an excuse to justify one's particular set of limitations and insecurities while reinforcing vapid echo chambers. Would that I had the power, every "safe space" would have a large placard above the entryway that said "Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
So where to next? How does one move forward? I think you sussed it quite well:
"I said that when people are possessed of an irrational conviction then let them rest with it. If the whole of this country is saying something goofy, perhaps other countries may not be. If everyone in the hemisphere is obeying foolish priorities then it’s time to reach back into history for wisdom. When people live long enough they will eventually come to understand “Everything they taught us was a lie.” You should have looked elsewhere. That’s the human diversity you were missing."
Much of what you write reminds me of Plato's remnants.