Life would be so simple if words meant the same thing today as they did 50 years ago.  Or last year.  Or a month ago.  Or yesterday.

Have you picked up on this trend?  Definitions of words change on a daily basis, and it’s not just words like “queer” or “gay”.  For example, historically, “queer” meant you were an odd, socially awkward person; today it has to do with your sexual orientation.  “Gay” once meant you were happy; today it, again, has to do with your sexual orientation).

No, it is not the typical transition that words go through as they take on different connotations.  This is an Orwellian twisting of words.

“Diversity” is one of those words that has been twisted to benefit the social justice movement.  As Thomas Sowell points out in his book Discrimination and Disparities, words have an emotional appeal that numbers do not.  Words can be twisted to have new definitions that seem good, but nobody really realizes the meanings of those words changed in the first place.

Sowell says, “Slippery words are among the many ways of evading an empirical confrontation of opposing explanations” (p. 119, emphasis added).  

What Is the Original Meaning of Diversity?

Diversity is hard to pin down to just one definition.  In a nutshell, it originally meant “the historic sharing of cultural advances” (Thomas Sowell), as well as people of all different ethnicities, backgrounds, experiences, and worldviews living together in harmony.

We can see the positive effects of diversity all throughout history, and as Thomas Sowell points out in his essay “Cultural Diversity: A World View”, as the world has developed, some cultures did things better than other cultures.  As the world became more global, the cultures that did something better than another group of people gained precedence in that area.  

Sowell gives the example of German beer that is known to be very high quality.  Compare German beer to cheap sake.  The Italians are known for their wine.  Chinese immigrants to America excelled in running grocery stores.  Asians are known to be excellent in math and science.  These are disparities, but they’re not necessarily tied to discriminations.

Just because these people had a trait or value from their native culture that gave them an edge in a certain industry did not make them oppressors, privileged, or anti-diverse.

Sometimes differences in social groups is merely a result of cultural values and lifestyles.

Woke Diversity

On the other hand, woke diversity involves the government (or elite group, such as college administrations) stepping into everyday affairs and attempting to preserve what they call “cultural differences”.

This preservation freezes cultures in whatever state the social justice vision deems correct and does not allow the natural evolution of cultures over time.

Would it shock you to know that woke  “diversity” has its roots in anti-Semitism directed at Jewish applicants to Harvard University in the early 1900s?  Astonishingly, Harvard University limited how many Jewish students could apply to its academy because there was such a high concentration of Jews around the east coast.  These “quota limits” came in the name of “diversity”, but we see them clearly today for what they really are: racial bias.

Thomas Sowell makes the point that, “Today, as in the past, diversity is essentially a fancy word for group quotas.”

If you think about it, this is true!  Diversity is not about choosing the best applicant for a job.  It is about meeting a quota for skin color or gender.  Diversity is not about allowing the best student applicant into a prestigious university.  Everyone knows that if you are black, you have an edge in applying to Harvard or Yale.

Jordan Peterson writes that diversity actually means “‘let’s aim for fewer white men in positions of authority”, but these identity groups are not reasonable standards upon which to judge people.

Diversity doesn’t stop with just a certain quota of skin color or gender within an organization.  It continues to devour whatever comes its way, calling everything diversity.  This is what we know as intersectionality.  You can’t just hire a black, lesbian woman.  She fits into “two categories” (black and lesbian [sexual orientation]).  Her identity crosses over lines, which is fine, but we have to be diverse in both ways.  We have to start hiring both black women and lesbians.  And what about disabled people?  What about fat people?  The intersectionalities keep going.

From the concept of intersectionality, we are flooded with literally infinite possibilities of intersectionality.  Race, gender, religion, disabilities, ADHD, mental capacity, physical appearance (such as orthopedic impairment), and thousands more, not to mention cultural ethnicity or class or even height and weight.  The list is never-ending.

Let me be clear: I am not advocating that we exclude disabled people, overweight people, or lesbians from the workforce.  If they are qualified for the job, then they should be considered in the hiring process.  But a corporation or college shouldn’t accept an applicant who is black just because of their skin color to meet a quota.  If that person isn’t qualified, they don’t deserve to be accepted.  That’s just plain common sense.

The Trickery Behind Diversity

Diversity is an emotionally charged concept in its new definition.  It sounds good and plays on people’s best intentions.  Nobody wants to be accused of being a racist!

The fraud within woke diversity is abhorrent to human nature.  Most people don’t understand that when a corporation says they will be doing diversity training, they are actually going to teach their employees to hate white, heterosexual males and the American values of hard work, honesty, timeliness, and Western Civilization in general.  

The Critical Theory on which diversity is based “manipulates the language we use so that we sign up for what it’s selling while we think we’re buying something else” (James Lindsay, New Discourses).

Diversity, under Critical Theory, does not mean people of different backgrounds coming together in harmony and for a good purpose.  It means hiring or accepting applicants who have woke backgrounds, leftist political stances, and are die-hard social justice advocates.

Getting Back to the Original Definition of Diversity

America should base people’s identity on their ideas, not their skin color.  A person’s worldview and values determine who they are, not their gender or sexual orientation or ethnicity.

In describing this “delusion” in her book The Diversity Delusion, Heather MacDonald said, “It [diversity] involves three principles.  The first is that race and gender are the most important things about an individual; second, that discrimination based on race and gender is the defining characteristics of American society; and third, that any disparity in race and gender proportionality in any American institution is by definition the result of race and gender discrimination. “

The new diversity is not diversity of philosophy and capabilities.  It’s quotas of skin color, gender, and ethnicity.  

Conclusion

So now when your coworkers or friends talk about diversity, you’ve got the answers in your arsenal to open their eyes to real diversity, not the woke diversity that so many people espouse.  People shouldn’t be judged by appearance.  They should be judged (and hired, accepted, befriended, etc.) based on their values, worldviews, ethics, and philosophies.