Who Do You Think You Are?
It is an easy enough question, but is it a simple answer? At least for me, I don't think it is very easy to answer, because it depends on which aspects I am looking at. Sometimes I think I am a good person, sometimes not. Sometimes a success, sometimes an abject failure. Sometimes I feel I am valuable to others, often times, not. There are many sides to me.
Is diversity valuable?
No.
Diversity is not valuable. Unless....
We first define what is diversity.
diversity
/dʌɪˈvəːsɪti,dɪˈvəːsɪti/
noun
noun: diversity
- the state of being diverse; variety.
"there was considerable diversity in the style of the reports"
a range of different things.
"newspapers were obliged to allow a diversity of views to be printed"- the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.
"equality and diversity should be supported for their own sake"
The first definition is valuable. The second is not.
Diversity of thought and experience is valuable, because it allows for multiple perspectives to be included into the development of a solution to a problem of some sort. It includes not just thought diversity, but also skill diversity, where a number of potential approaches can be fronted and distilled into a better fix. The second definition of inclusion based on social, ethnic, gender and sexual orientation is largely useless, because none of those things inherently bring in diversity of skill or thought into the solution. They are labels, with no practical application.
Yet it is this second definition that is used when "diversity" is considered in the workplace or society, under the assumption that the colour of someone's skin or who they desire, automatically makes them valuable to the community, or less valuable as the case may be. What it is actually doing is creating the conditions that are diametrically opposed to what most people think it is doing. Where rather than being inclusionary, it is excluding valuable diversity in favour of assumed difference.
A high-level mathematician that is gay, isn't valuable to society because they are gay, they are valuable because they are able to do mathematics. Another gay person interested in math doesn't need a gay role model in math to be good at math, they just have to work at being a mathematician, regardless of their sexual orientation. This is the same for any skill. But excluding a gay mathematician because they are gay, is equally idiotic, because finding the best solution requires including the best thoughts and skills.
What do you bring to the conversation?
If you think that because you are gay, straight, black, yellow, blue, short, tall or have scaly skin, you are valuable to the conversation, you are mistaken. Yes, these things could affect your experiences in life to bring different perspectives, but it is not a given that you learned anything of value to others, or if you are actually willing and able to bring that experience to the table to add value to the conversation. In terms of a community, we are only as valuable as what we are able to build within the community. If you can build nothing, what value do you have?
Build comes in many diverse forms, but if we look at it from the old tribal perspective, there were the hunters, the gatherers, the builders, the teachers, and the healthcare providers. A diverse set of roles, each with different skill requirements to be good at the position and each part of a greater whole. In order for the tribe to function, all these roles and skills would need to work together for the common good of the tribe. And in order to advance, each role would have to learn from its diverse experiences and bring the value back to the tribe, to discuss and build outward.
Looking at modern culture though, where is the common good for the tribe? and this creates a problem, because we are increasingly foregoing tribal good of humanity to satisfy personal desire. I suspect that not many of us spend much time thinking about the value we bring even our local community, let alone the global tribe. Yet, we probably "feel" that we are valuable in some way, that our life matters in the greater context of the world. At least to the people around us. This is a big assumption.
So, who do you think you are?
Are you a value creator? A hunter, gatherer, builder, teacher, healthcare provider? What is your role in society and what diversity of thought or skill do you bring to the discussion? How are you improving the community around you and what are you doing in the world that is larger than you?
Or do you think you are valuable because of a superficial label?
Superficial
/ˌsuːpəˈfɪʃl/
adjective
- existing or occurring at or on the surface.
- appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely.
Rather than superficial diversity, perhaps we should focus our attention on gathering people of substance.
Taraz
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