Diversity is *Not* Strength (Identity Politics)

[pueblo]

Posted by Star Mariner (here)
The true message should really be the opposite: no, we're not all different, we're all One.

But what if we could supersede the inevitable cognitive dissonance of holding two opposing perspectives equally in mind at the same time?

The message could perhaps become We are all different, We are all One.

From a spiritual perspective it is possible that the only way for Source to know itself was though diversity, shooting out Divine Sparks to love, explore, create and reflect on itself. If so, then the message above could be on the money.

The One makes the many from itself and so loses nothing of itself in granting autonomy to a portion of itself. Even with this free will/autonomy/diversity the One is still the One, whole yet not unified.

Different but the same.

Incidentally each diverse individual Spark is also the One, just a portion of the One currently not unified with the other portions of the One.

[Constance]

Posted by pueblo (here)
Different but the same.

The unity within the diversity of the whole of creation.

[Denise/Dizi]

I agree with you on that last post PainterDoug.. And I do agree with your first post, to a point, but I may see it a tad bit differently.. I do agree that cohesion gives us strength. But I also believe that if you can have diversity within that cohesion, that strength is even stronger. Perhaps we can call it "Diverse Cohesion".. Meaning if we can work well together, cohesively, without allowing our differences to weaken the whole, we will be a better species as a result.

But it takes understanding and patience, and many other things as well. And to reach that, we all must want the same outcome, be able to let go of ego for the "whole", and agree that none are better than the other, just perhaps a bit different with our own individual strengths and weaknesses.. and as you said, realize that we are merely all different facets of the same gemstone.

So I can't argue that cohesion indeed gives us strength, but if we have diversity in the group, we are more capable then, of addressing many many more things, as a less diverse group, tends to focus their attention on less things.

I suppose if you had two groups, one that was solely cohesive, yet limited in their differences, and one that was equally as cohesive, yet very diverse in their interests, and their abilities, then I would suggest the "Diverse Cohesive" group would far surpass the plain cohesive group.

For example, if you had a group of cohesive people such as History majors in one group, and in another you had some who studied ecology, one that studied mathematics, one engineering, one flora and fauna, one, animal husbandry, etc. Yet they too, worked together cohesively.. Which group would survive better if left alone in the wild? I Believe it would be the more diverse group. You're post originally suggests that you can't have both, I disagree.

[ulli]

It is a balancing act. Unity without uniformity, and diversity without fragmentation.
Just by contemplating these concepts we can give our behavior direction.

[Star Mariner]

Some of the counter-points argued above I do not disagree with. I am certain that humanity, if left to mingle freely amongst itself, undisturbed and unmolested by the control matrix of social engineering, would no doubt soar to new and marvellous heights, in touching and exploring each and every surface of these, our many wonderful aspects of diversity. From that we would indeed draw great strength.

However when politicized (co-opted) as it has been, artificial divisions are created that weren't there before. It has created agendas, competition, and victimhood, and therefore discord. It is on this point I wished to dwell. When identity politics has us plant flags in this camp or that camp, we are thus encouraged to channel our energies into what 'makes us different', rather than what makes us the same.

What I'm trying to argue is that, contrary to what pundits and celebrities and political candidates vehemently claim (to score virtue-signalling points), politicized diversity is not a strength but an impediment. Collectively, I believe it's what humanity shares in common that ultimately gives us strength and cohesion. Even when we continue to have opposing opinions, belief systems, different creeds, sexualities, skin-colours or whatever, all these things are strongly outweighed by our basic common interests. The simple recognition, particularly of the spiritual, that we're all facets of just the same divine diamond, could end strife, disorder and war forever.

I'm very glad we're all different, and in so many ways. But if there's ever going to be a new and peaceful age for humanity moving forward, it will be built on the foundation of what, in our shared humanity, brings us together, not what sets us apart.

[ulli]

But Star Mariner:

those social engineers ARE part of humanity. Part of life, anyway. Like viruses in the environment.
As are the people who allow them charge ahead, up their power ladders, and do nothing about it, due to their innocence and perhaps naivete, or hoping that nothing bad will happen, ever.
Apathy has a huge part to do with this elite having accumulated wealth and power unlike the kings of the past.

But on the whole, the lower ranks still have my sympathy, given the shrewdness of the sociopaths.

The positive side of diversity is that when the masses say enough is enough, and pool their reserves together, seeing unity despite their divere backgrounds, the sociopaths don’t stand a chance.
Good laws are then needed, good legislators, elected with term limits, plus honest and brave law enforcement, to protect the rest of humanity against such sickos.

Posted by Star Mariner (here)
Some of the counter-points argued above I do not disagree with. I am certain that humanity, if left to mingle freely amongst itself, undisturbed and unmolested by the control matrix of social engineering, would no doubt soar to new and marvellous heights, in touching and exploring each and every surface of these, our many wonderful aspects of diversity. From that we would indeed draw great strength.

However when politicized (co-opted) as it has been, artificial divisions are created that weren't there before. It has created agendas, competition, and victimhood, and therefore discord. It is on this point I wished to dwell. When identity politics has us plant flags in this camp or that camp, we are thus encouraged to channel our energies into what 'makes us different', rather than what makes us the same.

What I'm trying to argue is that, contrary to what pundits and celebrities and political candidates vehemently claim (to score virtue-signalling points), politicized diversity is not a strength but an impediment. Collectively, I believe it's what humanity shares in common that ultimately gives us strength and cohesion. Even when we continue to have opposing opinions, belief systems, different creeds, sexualities, skin-colours or whatever, all these things are strongly outweighed by our basic common interests. The simple recognition, particularly of the spiritual, that we're all facets of just the same divine diamond, could end strife, disorder and war forever.

I'm very glad we're all different, and in so many ways. But if there's ever going to be a new and peaceful age for humanity moving forward, it will be built on the foundation of what, in our shared humanity, brings us together, not what sets us apart.

[Carmody]

Both perfection and chaos are dead things.

Neither has life.

Life exists in the stretch between the two.

[T Smith]

Posted by Denise/Dizi (here)

So I can't argue that cohesion indeed gives us strength, but if we have diversity in the group, we are more capable then, of addressing many many more things, as a less diverse group, tends to focus their attention on less things.

I couldn’t agree with you more. But I think this observation in relation to the OP may be a matter of semantics? I didn't infer from Star’s post that diversity is undesirable. See below:

Posted by Star Mariner (here)
...We are naturally diverse as individuals, and that's a good thing, a necessary evolutionary thing. It ensures that vibrant cultural richness and a multiplicity of ideas and viewpoints are upheld and carried forward, as well as a healthy genepool. Diversity is good...

Perhaps the precursor to the point wasn’t nailed down enough, i.e., diversity is not only desirable, it’s necessary… but in my view, the OP was advancing a more complicated idea, that diversity in and of itself does not make us more capable and able to address many more things (e.g. strong), but the ability to cohere diversity (e.g. cohesion) is what makes us strong, such that all those diverse components work in concert and are not atomized parts of a fractured and feckless whole. That cohesion is our sameness.

In other words, in this context, strength is not synonymous with virtue, ability, talent, resources, etc. They are not the same things. A society can have all the diversity in the world, but without cohesion of diversity, you have nothing…

This may serve as an apt analogy (at least how I inferred the meaning of the post): In order to produce water, one needs both hydrogen and oxygen. One could image an even more complex compound that requires multiple diverse elements. But let’s stick to water for sake of simplicity. If the goal is to water crops to feed the world, we'll need to produce water. Everyone agrees there can be no water without hydrogen or without oxygen; we will never sustain life with only hydrogen or only oxygen. One could argue, then, what makes water is not hydrogen or oxygen, or even hydrogen and oxygen together, but the cohesive bond between them…

Identity politics to me is kind of like throwing a bunch of oxygen and hydrogen in a tank (with the goal of making water) and hoping nobody lights a match…

[johnf]

I think that the title of this thread can be greatly improved by adding the word forced before the word diversity.
Natural diversity creates stability, I'm not sure strength is a very accurate word to use.
I have worked in many different diverse working environments where there was cooperation and respect.
One of those was a part of a graduate class in fisheries. We participated in a interdisciplinary study of a tide pool area.
There were various ethnicities involved, but back in the late seventies this didn't mean much. The mix was not forced, it was just the way
things worked then. But there were fisheries, marine botany, geology, invertebrate students involved, and we each went to work doing a survey of the area finding various species of the different types in different places, and after several hours of work we all sat down at a picnic table and made a large map of the area, and started coming up with a vary in depth picture of understanding of this area. We all understood better why we found the varying numbers of plants and animals in the various microcosms we encountered.



This experience changed who I was, and is something I will bring to all other experiences in my life. I have worked in various industries with a wide variety of people both culturally and ethnically. The levels of cooperation, respect and communication are what determined both the quality of the things accomplished, as well as how we all felt about each other at the end of the day. Wherever decisions were arbitrarily forced on us the quality of things suffered. Where ever decisions were made according to actual facts and needs of all concerned the quality on all levels improved. I hope I have

done justice to the spirit of this thread.


John

[T Smith]

Posted by johnf (here)
I think that the title of this thread can be greatly improved by adding the word forced before the word diversity.

I see your point, and yes, would agree. Although by putting "Identity Politics" in parenthesis sorta implies the same thing. And by not putting "forced" in the title also illustrates the hidden Orwellian nature of the slogan, as implied by the OP, i.e., as it stands in culture, the idea of Diversity is Strength, as employed by those who advance identity politics, is a very successful (but much more subtle) Orwellian slogan. It's subtle because both diversity and strength are desirable, and diversity can certainly produce and be strength, as you have aptly pointed out by your own experience. But engineering the slogan into being foists a much different and much more Orwellian connotation upon its meaning.

I'm not sure we're collectively so programed to swallow in whole the ideas that Ignorance is Strength, or War is Peace (although one could certainly argue to the contrary on this one) or Freedom is Slavery, but it's understandably easy to swallow the idea that Diversity is Strength. But when INGSOC starts saying it, not so much.

[Denise/Dizi]

Posted by T Smith (here)
Identity politics to me is kind of like throwing a bunch of oxygen and hydrogen in a tank (with the goal of making water) and hoping nobody lights a match…

That's fair..

It is semantics, and I don't much care for politics... But thank you for sharing your point of view.. Your last statement made me laugh.. That is kind like everything else in the world when it comes to politics, whether personal or otherwise.

[Star Mariner]

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. This is quite a difficult concept to coherently resolve!

First and foremost, I want to emphasize that diversity, on the one hand, is certainly a most desirable thing, and there are many instances where identity politics has a powerful and beneficial impact - as an example in generating tolerance of minority groups who might have been marginalized before. At the individual level, in the validation of identity, diversity is exceptionally, and positively, empowering.

The danger though, is when particularly the young, the vulnerable, and the suggestible, are encouraged to identify more with their perceived group than with the whole. That is where, on the macro level, 'forced' diversity can be disempowering. T Smith's excellent analogy of oxygen and hydrogen atoms in a water molecule is very on point. In focusing on our constituent parts, we tend to disconnect and diverge, convinced we belong merely to the fragment (our sub-group) and not the whole.

When identity politics reduces people to their base, biological attributes and dimensions, and when they believe this by itself defines them, it fosters the ideology that this only is what and who they are, that this factor alone, this label you are given, IS a sufficient foundation on which to build one's life experience.

I believe in its most dangerous expression, identity politics, when recklessly deployed, claiming to be the ultimate touchstone with which to articulate one's existence, risks giving rise to the equal and opposite doctrine, also identity politics by the very same token but on the far-right, and that is nationalism, and ultimately violence.

I wished to explore in this thread the idea that, given identity politics was at its root a benign, necessary and very desirable social development, it has transformed, one could say mutated, into a doctrine of dis-integration. As the march of globalization feigns with its efforts to bring us closer together, I feel the persuasion naturally has presented itself to many, to pinpoint and singularize only those things that make us different. So now, with wide swathes of particularly the younger generation scrambling for credibility, for definition, to belong solely to this tribe or that, and what's more engaging with their fellow beings with largely only a mobile phone in their hands, we, society, are losing something of the vital molecular bonds that unite us. As a result, the ground-tremors of social schism are already beginning to be felt. What does this portend? Where will all this lead to in the future?

[Orobo]

Hi,

I am missing something here in this discussion. It is mentioned a bit but not as I see it.

The migration is forced, I saw it mentioned. That is one thing.
The other is that The State, is pulling threads to make the split happen. There is an economic war around the world where SAPS are being set up and making kind of slavery zones. Bangladesh has the cheapest zone now, proudly so, where big companies flock to.48 dollars a month is the wage.
They try to set up one in Greece now, hence the resistance.
It is a thorough reorganisation by and for profit. WHO, UN, World Bank and whatever else is in there.
In the west industries are killed, under false pretences (climate, CO2), which hits the working classes hard. Less work and a lot more people competing for those jobs because of the open borders and "free work migration" like in Europe.
Housing prices are propped up by the flow of migrants making it hard for low income people.
Then The State favours migrants with the access to the housing market.
The migrants that are favoured to come to Europe are the ones with the worst chances of integrating ( Lowest average IQ (a whole other thread needed on this maybe but so it is), most violent religion/cultures )

I only have started now but you see the groundwork laid out for severe conflicts as it goes against all human ethics and morals. We are built to see and seek fairness, at least here in the west.

Then there is the favourable treatment and sentencing of foreign people in the court system. Just like how the laws are favouring women on all levels now.
The middle class is made to go down the drain, making the amount of people feeling and seeing the changes and challenges even larger.
All by The State.

I feel the discussion about diversity/ identity politics so far is too myopic as there are large factors in place to make sure the arising of natural conflict because of diversity+forced proximity, without fairness, totally overpowers any goodwill to get humans to feel safe and have time to learn to get along. It is so severe.

The problem is The Monster or Elefant in the room which is state power and who wields it. Our human nature is being played on the deepest level that goes beyond the kumbaya singing, and signalling that we are good people.
We are, but soon it will be only about brutal survival and machetes in the streets.... oh wait, that already started in Star Mariners UK. And here too in the north.

Diversity is not a strength, it is used as a weapon against us all.
And all possible discussion is quelled, making it even more dangerous than it already is. All is in place, and changing for the worst.

And I am feeling it, too, and hate it; the rising tensions, the fear that starts fuelling hate. I resist it, but feel it. I am honest here, it hurts to write this.
It is strong, it is inevitable, if things go along this path, that the sense for survival takes over the well meant efforts for communication and peace.

The disgust for The State and the direct physical threats against our peaceful people will get us all running. Running in the direction they want, because we can not help us.

Help us.

Note: This sounds ****ing terrible what I wrote, but it is what I see happening in and around me. People tell me.
Well I'll throw it in the discussion, and see what happens.

Love, O.

[Star Mariner]

Here's an interesting 'prophetic vision' you might say, quite startling in its clarity.

I discovered this in an interesting article on a related topic the other day, concerning a table-top RPG game from 80s, called Cyberpunk 2020. It envisioned a dystopian world 30 years in the future - or our present. Here's what it had to say of 'Diversity'.



Paul Joseph Watson also picked up on this:

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBT621ygQEo

I know this topic is just identity politics, but it's emblematic, I feel, of something wider, bigger, more nefarious.

In the last couple of decades particularly, I have become convinced that humanity has reached the "Atlantean Threshold" and is now gaping over the perilous edge of oblivion, down to the abyss of materialism, nihilism, and decadence. In the past, the fall of civilizations can in large part be blamed on greed and/or ignorance, and a reckless misuse of power, a misuse of energy, by the magicians and masters at the top of the control pyramid. Is it any wonder we have reached this degenerative state given the sort of people we see at the top of ours? Power, almost always, ends up in the hands of those who desired it most, and who stopped at nothing (and no one) to hold it in their hands. And these factors alone makes them expressly unfit for the privilege. When corruption is let loose to corrode a structure, collapse is inevitable. It is doomed to fail every single time. So it really is no surprise we're 'not doing very well' at the moment.

[Orobo]

There,

I was waiting for a post, especially Star Mariner.
My post was dark enough to be a possible thread-killer... Away from any spiritual attitude or presence, this is what the describing of the enfolding reality brings.
The weird feeling I have is a profound surprise at that I see this manipulation of our society clearly, but the media presents it as fact that most people are with the program.

Is this so, I wonder?

If an agenda is rolled out by a powerful few, and the controlled media is in on it, there should be enough confusion to press forward anything and leave the populace scratching their head and move on with their lives after a short stop.
Paid shock troops like antifa and protesters complete the whole.
As long as some ideas are seeded in advance, like games and hints on tv and in films, it works like a charm.

And that is exactly what it seems like; a charm, as in spell. Like the greedy, rude dwarf in our tales from Europe of old. We have been warned, but our tales have been ridiculed and we lost footing, our roots. And the evil ones haven't. They remember.

So thanks to Them, we have the chance to; loose ourselves, wake up and reinvigorate our past and stand firm into the future. The fact that it probably has happened before, gives food for thought... A culture maybe ruined in only one or two generations.
This is why religion can be a useful tool, and definitely so if it is bonded with ethnicity.
Wonder why this is such a big no no?


Eternal vigilance for the goldfish-memory-people.

O.