Washington Examiner: Diversity Is Not Our Strength

Finally, some regular stupidity to complain about.

You could be forgiven for thinking, based on the prior two entries, that this blog is where I complain about President Trump. (And it's not not that.) But I have a larger project in mind: complaining that “the national discourse” is a heap of rotting garbage.

With that in mind, I was excited to see an article entitled “Diversity Is Not Our Strength” in the Washington Examiner, by one Mike Gonzalez¹. As usual, I encourage you to read the entire thing before reading my very-negative take on it, although I will quote it considerably below.

To my surprise, it’s actually not an article about how immigration is bad. Instead, it’s mainly an article about how important it is for immigrants to assimilate. (Sort of.) But, it's also an article that acts like diversity is smothering our great nation, while at the same time being maddeningly unspecific about how, or presenting the tiniest shred of evidence.

Diversity Kills Puppies And Babies Alike

The article begins:

That “diversity is our strength” is one of those obvious contradictions that people with common sense instantly recognize as hooey. It is poisonous hooey, mind you. As the British historian Arnold Toynbee said, “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”

Okay, so diversity = civilization-level suicide, and it's super obvious to anybody, unless you're a big dummy. Aggressive take.

But the people selling diversity know that.

Correction, deliberately-inflicted civilization-level suicide.

They champion diversity not because it is a societal bonding agent but because it is the opposite. A culture made up of discordant groups with little in common — neither religion, habits, nor, especially, language — is no culture. Without these sinews tying it together, a body cannot rouse itself and undertake common endeavors.

So, it sort of seems like Gonzalez thinks that American needs to have a single religion, a single set of habits, and especially a single language, or we can't possibly accomplish anything, and our civilization will be destroyed.

Honestly I think a lot of people agree with the “language” part². Some people agree with the “religion” part, although none of those people would be Thomas F***ing Jefferson. And, “habits” is just way too vague - he mentions this several times but never actually describes it, as below:

The idea, it seems, is that members of the different groups can share a belief in equality and are then exempt from casting off their foreign skin and can eschew the collective institutions, habits, and civic engagement that Alexis de Tocqueville said turned foreigners into Americans.

So the implication is that “habits” covers things like, say, having your kids participate in a local sporting league, going to PTA meetings, or voting?

My first objection here would be that I don't really think when people say “diversity is our strength” they mean “it's essential that we have both people who participate in civic institutions and people who don’t”. Nobody thinks “non-voters” are a protected class³.

My second objection is that “casting off their foreign skin” is again not really explained (although he does basically repeat it later). I really feel like this article is designed to bait people into calling Gonzalez a racist by saying stuff like “diversity is not our strength” and “their foreign skin”, so he can then retort “Oh, so now it's racist to think people should vote and be a part of their community? Liberals have lost their minds!”

Anyway, I'm not gonna fall for that - the real problem is that all of this is stupid and meaningless. Gonzalez isn't proving himself racist; he's proving himself a sh***y writer⁴.

Nobody Thought There Were Different Kinds Of People Until The 1970s

This baleful system dates to the 1970s. Activists intimidated the bureaucracy into creating new racial groups, which the Office of Management and Budget did in the 1970s, crafting umbrella clusters such as “Hispanics” or “Asian Americans” to include in the 1980 census. To these were later added groups based on sex, gender, sexual preferences, etc.

Then, these groups were kept apart by pursuing a diversity policy in the schools that deters assimilation. Finally, you instill actual grievances into the members of some groups by teaching them that members of others are oppressing them.

Okay, so, a somewhat more concrete claim here - we created “new racial groups”, and identified people based on their sex, gender, and sexual preferences, and then “pursu[ed] a diversity policy in the schools that deters assimilation”, teaching kids that they’re being oppressed.

First, the thing about “new racial groups” is pretty dumb. There’s a fun flowchart on the Census website⁵ that shows the history of Census categories:

I don’t love the “every other entry is on the top or the bottom” thing, but otherwise I think this is pretty helpful. For starters, you can see that Gonzalez is full of sh** about the “Asian-Americans” thing - there was a “Chinese” category in the census starting in 1860. Does he think that was bad and we should have called all people from Japan “Chinese” instead of “inventing a new racial group”?⁶

But also, I’m confident nobody was confused about whether Hispanic people were identical to (other) White people before that. For example, I see from (read the whole link before you click on it or don’t complain) this Wikipedia article about a racial slur for Mexicans that it dates from the 1920s, and was used in the official name for a mass deportation operation in the 1950s. Everybody clearly understood Hispanic people were a thing long before the 1970s, even if they maybe weren't totally unified on what the exact bounds of [racial slur] were.

This goes way more strongly for “ groups based on sex, gender, sexual preferences, etc.” Nobody failed to recognize the differences between men and women (or gay and straight people, or trans and cis people) before the government stepped in.⁷

America’s Not An Idea, Or Maybe It Is Or Something, Honestly I Don’t Know

A big chunk of this article discusses the common contention that “American is an idea”, which Gonzalez does not agree with. Or something! Honestly I’m not sure what to say here. He discusses how President Joe Biden⁸ said this, as did President Abraham Lincoln⁹, and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, among others, but also:

Lincoln was not seeing these Americans as “German, Irish, French, or Scandinavian” whose diversity of views and separateness constituted America’s strength. The men he referred to were not “citizens of the world” but Americans. St. Paul was also clear: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Some sacred alchemy had worked its magic, and then civic participation, membership in common institutions, the natural adoption of the habits of the American nation, and, very importantly, casting off the old skin, would take care of the rest.

Does this really mean anything? Maybe. If I actually had readers¹⁰, I would invite them to share their interpretations, and then see how many of them were mutually exclusive.

This is the most disappointing section for me - I think you could actually have an interesting debate about “what it means to be American” or “what the American identity is”, because to some degree these categories are always simultaneously important and indistinct. But my take is that Gonzalez does a crap job of this and I can't distill a lot of concrete meaning beyond this unspecified “habits”, civic participation, and the skin thing again, like the secret to becoming a true American is being abducted by Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.

To briefly attempt this myself - I think this is a false dichotomy. America is defined both as a set of ideas and the body of people who try to carry them out through our governing institutions. You can't have one without the other - people who live their whole lives in Spain, even if they Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident, are still not Americans¹¹, and if America enacts a state religion, then, as far as I'm concerned, it's over¹².

I would even go so far as to say that his claim that America isn’t an idea - that by virtue of our civic rituals somehow people become Americans and cease to be whatever they were before - is itself an idea. “How you choose you identify yourself and others” is a thought process, not physical reality. Nobody's literally peeling off their skin¹³.

Americans Can Do Whatever But The Rest Of You Are On Notice

Gonzalez admiringly quotes G.K. Chesterton recounting a visa application for the US:

Chesterton tells us that “one of the questions on the paper was, ‘Are you an anarchist?’” The form also asked such questions as, “Are you a polygamist?” and “Are you an atheist?”

[…]

[T]his was America, and as Chesterton and others have understood, America is exceptional. In fact, the American system could not function otherwise. Americans were free to think what they wanted, but foreigners requesting the privilege of entry were another matter.

This again illustrates a major issue I take with this piece, much like the “language, religion, habits” thing above. Shove together a bunch of different things that you want to homogenize, and hope nobody notices that some of them are reasonable and others are bananas (or don’t clearly mean anything).

You could maybe argue that anarchists are definitionally opposed to the government of the United States and therefore it has no responsibility to admit them. I don’t really agree, but it’s not the worst point ever.

Polygamy is even less of a threat than anarchists, but it is literally illegal, so again you could say that, until that changes, it’s a valid reason to disallow immigration.

But everyone has a fundamental right to not believe in God. And Gonzalez only nods to this by saying that Americans can do what they want, but foreigners can't. Why? He doesn't say, and in fact mostly just lets Chesterton do the talking while effectively nodding along, perhaps so he doesn’t have to wrestle with the underlying question:

Why does forcing people into Christianity¹⁴ as a precursor to immigration not itself fly in the face of the basic founding principles of the United States?

That's rhetorical; it obviously does. If you want to preserve the essential character of America, you should ask people applying for visas, “Do you think America should only admit people of a certain religion?” and reject the ones who say “yes”.

Also, this section continues:

The fourth question in the visa form that Chesterton cited was, “Are you in favour¹⁵ of subverting the government of the United States by force?” This goes even further in helping us understand why such banalities as “diversity is our strength” are dangerous to survival.

Again, lots of people use the phrase “diversity is our strength” and they usually don't mean that in every possible way imaginable. Nobody's saying we need to celebrate the diversity of having both non-murderers and murderers, Civil Rights advocates and KKK members, upstanding citizens and crazed arsonists. This is just a particularly-braindead straw-man argument.

He goes straight from that to:

It brings us even closer to such contemporary matters as the case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian protester the administration seeks to extradite, and the more than 300 visas that Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he’s already revoked among people abusing their student status to create havoc here.

“I don’t care what movement you’re involved in,” Rubio said. “Why would any country in the world allow people to come and disrupt? We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.”

Again, my initial complaint is with the writing here. Gonzalez basically puts his stamp on this but lets Rubio do all of the talking. I can't actually tell if Gonzalez just wholeheartedly swallows the Secretary of State’s assertion that all 300+ people with revoked visas are “abusing their student status to create havoc here”. He certainly hasn't checked all 300 of them (and a quick search suggests it's potentially thousands at this point).

I have taken the position previously that the Trump Administration is unusually untrustworthy, even by the standards of politicians and governments, and I stand by that. But also, it’s amateurish for a journalist to just blindly accept whatever the government says, no matter who is in power. (For starters, Mahmoud Khalil hasn't been charged with a crime, and the administration obviously would charge him with one if they could, because it would make them look better. Apparently he was “tear[ing] up our university campuses” in some way that he was perfectly within his rights to do.)

And this section strongly implies that what Khalil did - lead some protests - is pretty much on par with “subverting the government of the United States by force”. This is obviously false. Campus protests may be a lot of things, but they are not attempts to overthrow the government.¹⁶

More to the point, protesting stuff is both “civic participation” and a “habit” of Americans. Americans love protesting! From the Vietnam War to George Floyd’s murder to the whole Stop The Steal thing, if there's one thing that unites us as a nation, it's being angry at our leaders and each other. Okay, I guess that doesn't actually “unite” us, but still.

Just So We're Clear, This Isn’t A Great Replacement Thing

The diversity crowd upended that system because it did not like the society that existed, the one that had grown over time. They know that Toynbee was right, and they wanted to assist with the suicide. Ultimately, though, their poet laureate is the German Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht, whose infamous line went:

“Some party hack decreed that the people had lost the government’s confidence and could only regain it with redoubled effort. If that is the case, would it not be simpler if the government simply dissolved the people and elected another?”

The diversity crowd wants to dissolve the people and elect another. This is not the fevered “replacement theory” that keeps the progressive PR engines running past midnight. Those seeking diversity will work hard enough to carve it out of a monolith.

Gonzalez isn't some cheap conspiracy theorist who thinks Democrats are trying to import Blacks and Hispanics to earn a permanent voting majority. That’s a fever dream from stupid Internet racists!

No, he holds the much more sober position that “the diversity crowd” just wants to force America to kill itself, for literally no reason that he ever explains.¹⁷

I mean, come on. The Great Replacement theory is gross, but at least we can all follow the alleged motivation of “political power”¹⁸.

If You Don't Say What You Mean By Diversity I Guess I Can Just Make Sh** Up

Earlier I pointed out that it seems like Gonzalez thinks he can describe any difference as “diversity” and then claim that pro-diversity people want to ensure we have people from either subset, like “non-voters” or “seditionists”¹⁹, even though people almost invariably use the word “diversity” to refer to race, ethnicity, nation of origin, religion, biological sex, gender identity, sexual preference, age, native language, and maybe a couple of other demographic groups I’m forgetting.

But this naturally goes both ways. Since Gonzalez only ever explicitly calls out language and religion, and then just sort of gestures at “habits” and civic life and then says “you guys get it”, I guess I’m free to just project literally any differences I want into my “things Mike Gonzalez thinks should go away” bucket.

I mean we already know he doesn't want people to identify with any race or ethnicity other than “American”, so I guess he must be really irritated by Columbus Day²⁰ and St. Patrick’s Day.

But why stop there? There are so many dimensions where people refuse to conform to the most popular category! Which is why I can confidently say:

• Mike Gonzalez hates kittens

• Mike Gonzalez is deeply involved in anti-Catholicism²¹

• Mike Gonzalez exclusively listens to the Billboard Top 100, and even then only Pop songs²²

• Mike Gonzalez thinks we should only eat mayonnaise on white bread²³

• Mike Gonzalez loathes both Despacito and Gangnam Style²⁴

• Mike Gonzalez says everyone should operate entirely on Eastern Time, the official time zone of our nation’s capitol, regardless of their location

• Mike Gonzalez insists that pornography should exclusively feature heterosexual couples doing it in the missionary position

Are these all a bunch of insane lies? Hopefully! But since he basically doesn't explain what he doesn't like about diversity, or what he even really means by it, they're just as valid as any other assumption I could make.

Seriously Though Diversity Is Obviously A Source Of Strength

You may have noticed that there is more than one species on Earth²⁵. Why is that? Wouldn't the planet be more resilient if there was a single species, not bogged down by all of this diversity?

Well, no. Obviously that’s really stupid. Different species fill different ecological niches. And monocultures, like the ones we make in farming, tend to be pretty fragile²⁶. I see no reason to expect a monoculture of ideas to be any more resilient²⁷.

You may also have noticed that people have different jobs. We used to mostly be farmers, but now we do all this other stuff. But it’s actually pretty cool to have medicine and air conditioners and video games and cars, so I guess that's not a regrettable type of diversity either.

Even for the more vague cultural stuff that (I think) Gonzalez is gesturing at, we obviously benefit. Different cultures have produced different artwork and music and clothing and food, and a bunch of it is really awesome, and we, the United States, gleefully steal and enjoy all of that stuff.

Gonzalez doesn't address any of this because what he really means²⁸ is that he wants an America where everybody, no matter who they are, basically aspires to be a Protestant, Republican auto worker from the 1950s, and he never has to listen to rap music, or smell ethnic food, or, may our legally-mandated Lord and Savior Jesus Christ preserve him, hear somebody speaking a language other than English.

But, do you really want to live in a world without chicken tikka masala and K-Pop and Buddhist monks and the Pyramids and every cool martial art? No? Then you value diversity.

If you'd rather have a world where everybody agrees with you than a world where we get all that dope stuff, I don't know what to tell you. I guess go get a job at The Heritage Foundation.

1. Who is the “Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation”, proving once and for all that liberal ivory-tower elitists do not have a monopoly on pretentious titles.

2. I personally do not think this is essential, though.

3. They're basically the least protected class ever.

4. A charge I imagine he will take much more personally.

5. Or at least there was when I wrote this. I make very few promises about government websites staying up these days.

6. If so, I think that would have gotten a little tense after WWII.

7. Although, how refreshing to see a conservative writer adopt the “men and women are basically identical” view that so often is seen as purely a fantasy of progressives. He must be a huge booster for trans women in sports.

8. Well, “then-President Joe Biden”.

9. For some reason it’s not “then-President Abraham Lincoln”. Maybe this is like how, if you die when you're 60 years old, you remain 60 years old forever?

10. Okay, I currently have three subscribers. Counting myself.

11. Unless you're the child of a US diplomat or soldier or something.

12. Given that it sort of seems like Gonzalez wants this, I would argue he actually is trying to get America to commit suicide.

13. I hope.

14. Presumably, although he also does not specify.

15. I’m way too amused that he preserves the British spelling here, without so much as a “[sic]”. This is America! Where are your habits?!

16. Among other things, you'd have to go off-campus to do that.

17. For that matter, he doesn’t even really explain what he means by “suicide”, since it’s apparently analogous to seizing control of the government(?).

18. Frankly, if you run into somebody who already believes it, probably one of the most compelling counterarguments you can make is “Yeah, but look at all these Hispanic Republicans - obviously the conspirators would recognize that their plan was pointless”. Coincidentally(?) Mike Gonzalez wrote a book about that. (I mean, Hispanic Republicans, not the made-up plot.)

19. Notably frowned on by the pro-diversity crowd circa 2020.

20. A source of Italian pride, as noted by diversity advocate and US President Donald Trump.

21. Itself a cherished American tradition.

22. Actually I’m pretty sure hip-hop/rap is the dominant music genre in the US, but I somehow also feel perfectly justified in assuming Mike Gonzalez doesn’t like it. And, deep in your heart, you do too.

23. White bread and mayonnaise are both delicious, but my point is still valid.

24. Unclear if this one truly counts as an exaggeration.

25. Citation needed.

26. You may not be aware that “Florida orange juice” is basically f***ed.

27. Did you know that Islamic banks were more resilient in the 2007-2008 financial crisis?

28. Again, as I am forced to assume, thanks to what a bad writer he is. If he wants to complain, he should go for it, but he'll need to actually f***ing explain himself.