‘Groups which aren’t diverse ought to be made diverse’ — that’s the law of the land, with a few small exceptions, tolerated by the law, but not tolerated by respectable opinion. The appeal to diversity tends to be made without any evidence supporting the notion that diverse organizations are better able to meet the needs of the people who rely upon them than organizations of a more uniform composition in race, religion, gender, and behavior.
What distinguishes organizations from ordinary groups of people is in their homogeneity of outlook, behavior, and shared goals. What makes them special is that they’re more coordinated than people from outside the organization. Individuals within that group which are more similar are better able to cooperate.
Although they may miss much about catering to the needs of excluded types of people, that doesn’t really matter as far as the goals of the organization go. Organizations succeed when they fulfill a unique appeal within society better than all of their competitors. They can’t succeed nearly as much, owing to the nature of competition, if they fail to fill a market, military, or ecological niche which must be specific and limited.
The myth of plucky, unique people from completely different backgrounds and cultures who nonetheless form a highly effective organization is just that — a myth developed as a sort of propaganda for the idea that encouraging diversity also encourages success. Star Trek is a fantasy because in the real world, people of different ethnicities within the same species even within the same nation-state often struggle to cooperate effectively.
Aliens from different galaxies cooperating with each other under a common culture (with few of the common features of culture) is sort of an extreme version of the university diversity poster, but nonetheless one that millions of people adore.
In reality, if you need something difficult done on a tight deadline, you need a group of highly coordinated people who share a common culture and outlook. That can be, to a certain extent, trained and formed artificially. But that task becomes more difficult, more expensive, and more alienating the more people of different groups that must be included within the organization.
Encouraging human cooperation is difficult. There’s no technology that solves this problem instantly. Wishes can’t make people cooperate better. Repeated sloganeering can’t make people perfectly homogeneous, even if they’re the same race, gender, religion, and from the same region. It just helps if the people that you’re grouping together share a common background.
This perspective was once taken entirely for granted, but it’s now become impossible to speak, even within a shell of double-talk which avoids trigger words like ‘race,’ ‘gender,’ ‘sexuality,’ and ‘religion.’ The power of national culture is supposed to overcome all those differences — but it doesn’t, and can’t.
If such a thing did ever in fact exist, it would only mean an unimaginably brutal period of cultural extermination preceded it. Pay no attention to that lack of Aztec human sacrifice behind the curtain.
Especially in Europe the political power to shut down your opponent and reduce them to a jibbering mess of “I believe our diversity is a strength!” is mind-boggling.
If you watch ANY episode of Britain’s left wing political propaganda-fest ‘Question Time’ that contains a section on immigration, I can guarantee that in EVERY case, when somebody takes even a moderate position on immigration perhaps suggesting that the numbers be lowered just a little bit, the response from a member the panel or the audience always starts off with the same seven words.
“I believe our diversity is a strength!”
This is of course met with rousing applause from not only the grungy looking ethnic minorities (the time in which that description is accurate is fast running out) but also the giddy middle class whites. Nobody questions this. Not even the so-called ‘far right’ party UKIP ever tries to combat the fairy tale of strength in diversity. It’s just accepted as a brute, baseline fact. If you don’t succeed in refuting the chessboard of BS they serve up, don’t be surprised when you get checkmated.
One word should be enough to refute the entire abominable concept.
Yugoslavia
The question is this: Is diversity a means, or is it an end?
If it is a means, then what ends is it a means to?
If it is an end, then what is its inherent value, independent of any other end to which it may be a means?
Hard mode: Food and music cannot be included (natives can learn to cook ethnic dishes, music from anywhere is now available thanks to the internet).
“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power…There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.”
No one is paying attention to the mythology of public discourse regarding anything, whether that is ‘diversity’ discussions or anti-diversity discussions. There is relatively little
writers or journalists of any kind mainstream or reactionary can offer to the relatively exhausted literature concerning the theory of industrial organization, the firm, and workplace related performance.
“Star Trek is a fantasy because in the real world, people of different ethnicities within the same species even within the same nation-state often struggle to cooperate effectively. “
Not as big of a fantasy as the thought that random writers could have something relevant to say in regards to the nuanced discussions of workplace performance.
Domain specific factors are much more important than anything this article describes.
Factors such as
1) Whether the employee has the relevant knowledge or credentials required
2) Lack of industry experience or not
3) Whether you are in a location that best suits your companies performance such as
whether it is a industry hub for say technology, oil, or finance.
4) I.Q(See everything). , Executive Functioning(See Barkley), and Rationality(CFAR)
5) Family structure that can vary among ethnic groups easily decide your outlook and perception to liberty and some one who has an absolute nuclear family from an iranian household can work better with someone with a ANF in a white family than varying those factors within ethnicities.
6)Project based vs department based
7) Whether your company employs prediction markets in the correct domain or not
Various related domain specific bottlenecks will always utterly out-prioritize any vague
notions of diversity or not because the bottlenecks have always been stuff like geography, intelligence, competence, dedication, and related connections.
“Encouraging human cooperation is difficult. There’s no technology that solves this problem instantly. Wishes can’t make people cooperate better. Repeated sloganeering can’t make people perfectly homogeneous, even if they’re the same race, gender, religion, and from the same region. It just helps if the people that you’re grouping together share a common background. -” – Dampier
“The general mental ability factor—g—is the best single predictor of job performance.” – Where and Why g Matters: Not a Mystery Linda S. Gottfredson”
High intelligence, competence and rationality are technologies that solve this problem not vague intuition pumps regarding the homogeneity of an organization or lack of. These decisions and discussions are best left to those actually making decisions.
The correct area: http://rationality.org/reading/
http://rationality.org/testimonials/
>Not as big of a fantasy as the thought that random writers could have something relevant to say in regards to the nuanced discussions of workplace performance.
You don’t have to read it, you know. There’s always LessWrong, and the academic community, which you might prefer.
This is an awful lot of citation-flinging without an argument behind it. 1-7 are all important, but none of those require a jumble of ethnicities, religions, and genders. I also have no problem with people who form organizations based on ‘g’ and those other factors of excellence which you mention — the main issue is in portraying diversity as an essential requirement which requires anti-discrimination laws.
Also, you will have trouble maintaining all of those factors in any organization without a shared moral framework between all the members.
Everything you’re citing is tangential to the point made in this column.
Once again I would like to insist that while I agree with most of your structural arguments I still think you make mistakes that are seemingly correct but are not without malicious intent. I think you might disagree with these little disclaimers all the time but they are worthwhile to me.
I do not think being the same is that important and I’m afraid we will just transform into the same talking points “but reactionary” if you know what I mean. I think my points stand.
Excellent post.
However…respectfully: Let us keep something in mind. We are living through the reign of social engineers who by definition are attempting to mold society according to a scheme. This is believed by all here and many others – but not those in power – to be fatally flawed from conception forward.
Our particular social engineers in charge now are to my view degenerate, insane and in their own cowardly way Evil.
We have grown up in this if we we’re born from the 1960s to now. So all this dysfunction we deplore is nevertheless normal to us . We should bear this in mind.
We should bear in mind that none of this is normal, sane, healthy or even possible because we should not draw too many lasting lessons from our admittedly bitter indeed searing experiences that we would purport are eternal or indeed offer any lasting lesson beyond Do Not Do as Was Done In These Times.
For a recent reference: The Cold War. During the Cold War the terms Soviet and Russian, and Communist were interchangable. Few bothered pointing out these were not normal Russian behaviors, never mind East Germans, Czechs, Poles. Kennan was one of the few voices to point out very modestly that we weren’t looking at normal Russian behavior, and that the Soviets were twisting and warping them. We can also look to their example for Hope.
My point being that upon the end of this horrid farce we should not be committed to bending all our efforts in reaction to this warped time that seems normal to us.
With no endorsement of Diversity either as it would be in normal contexts, never mind as a fanatical bastardized religious dogma …indeed often different groups and types of people DO need to and successfully work together.
We rightly view diversity as it’s applied to us: DIVISION and Rancor for Power, Profit and Lust for Mischief.
The word will be and should be reviled for eternity in it’s present sense.
This doesn’t mean that we all need to break into monolithic and homogenous groups upon the end of the current mad reign. In particular if it means yet more suffering.
Just a note of caution. Ta.
We can hope that future generations call this The Dark Age.
We can strive that it doesn’t get any darker.
indeed often different groups and types of people DO need to and successfully work together.
Yes, when they have a goal they have all agreed to work towards.
But the problem in all too many companies and institutions is that they’ve forgotten the goals the company or institution was created to pursue. For far too many of them “diversity” has itself become the paramount goal. We’ve become quite effective at producing that diversity almost everywhere, but it’s come at the expense of our ability to achieve those forgotten original goals.