Do we need diversity? Rethinking what it means to be different
This is ‘book’ 6 in the series The Impossible Books of Keith Kahn-Harris. The cover was created by Gus Condeixa. For more on this series, read the introduction here.
What sort of book is it?
An intervention into contemporary political debate, with a firm foundation in the latest social scientific thinking.
How likely is it that I will write the book?
It’s possible. This idea has been knocking round my head for a few years now and I think the arguments I want to make need to be heard.
Am I happy for anyone else to write the book?
It would be a bit galling, but it’s probably only a matter of time before someone writes something along these lines. In fact, I don’t rule out the possibility that there is already a book out there making a similar argument, although so far I haven’t come across it.
Synopsis
Imagine a room crowded with people. People with different skin colours. People who follow different religions. People from different places of birth. People of different nations and ethnicities. People of different social classes.
This is diverse crowd, right?
Not necessarily.
In contemporary western societies, diversity is often treated as a key component of a good society. Diversity makes societies more vibrant, more open, more outward-facing, more tolerant. Homogeneous societies are more limited, more parochial, more bigoted.
Public institutions have to make a constant effort to respond to this diversity, to reflect the heterogeneity of their societies. When Greg Dyke, ex-Director General of the BBC, chided the organization for being ‘hideously white’, he was not criticizing ‘whiteness’ per se, so much as pointing out that the organization needed to reflect the multicoloured diversity of the UK.
Those who take issue with such arguments, who do not accept the social value of diversity, often make their opponents case for them: Proponents of homogeneity are, all too often, backward-looking, bigoted, frightened and defensive; they care little for the invigorating vibrancy of modern western societies.
Yet while the arguments for homogeneity are often repellant, that doesn’t mean that the case for diversity has automatically been made. Diversity is a more knotty concept than it sometimes seems and raises more difficult questions than is sometimes acknowledged. While there is research in psychology and neuroscience that seems to suggest that exposure to diversity brings certain cognitive and psychological benefits, what is much less certain is what sort of diversity might be desirable.
Are societies that are ethnically/religiously/nationally diverse necessarily better societies than those that are not? There are plenty of examples of diverse societies, both now and in the past, that have been scarred by deep inter-communal conflict. One can argue that the problem in societies that find it hard to live with their own diversity is not diversity itself, but the institutions in which it is embedded and, often, the desire of one particular group to dominate the others. Diversity usually leads to conflict when one or another group does not accept or recognize that diversity.
The fact diversity and conflict often coincide is not in itself an argument against diversity. It may, however, provide a degree of validation to some kinds of homogeneity. Even if diversity may provide certain significant benefits, that isn’t to say that homogeneous societies cannot be good societies. While conflict can and does occur in homogeneous societies, they may at least be better placed to avoid other kinds of conflict.
We should not be scared of affirming the legitimacy of at least some homogeneous societies. To some degree this argument is widely accepted: few people would argue that pre-industrial hunter-gatherer societies deserve to be annihilated for being completely inward-looking. It would also be unfair to delegitimize those modern westernized societies that lack ethnic diversity (Korea for example). It is when homogeneity is maintained through violence, oppression and discrimination that it becomes problematic.
In any case, regardless of the relative merits of homogeneity and heterogeneity, it may well be that we are looking at diversity too narrowly. Taking again the example of pre-modern, pre-industrial societies, anthropologists have shown how even the smallest, most insular societies are often highly adept at dealing with diversity. Small societies may lack some kinds of diversity, but they still have to respond to the astonishing variety in human character, personality, hopes, dreams and talents.
Perhaps the most important point that Do We Need Diversity will seek to make, is that we need to think of diversity more broadly. Even if there were no nations, different languages, religions, ethnicities and so on, human beings would not be identical. In the modern world we have over-estimated the importance of group identities and under-estimated the importance of individual personalities. A crowd of people may be diverse in some respects, but completely homogeneous in others. Ethnic diversity is only one kind of diversity.
It is precisely diversity’s multifaceted nature that can be the downfall of apparently homogeneous groups. Chauvinistic regimes can fall apart through personality clashes and policy differences even while they successfully suppress other kinds of diversity.
Conversely, ethnically homogeneous societies can also be diverse. Scandinavian societies before the arrival of non-western immigrants may have been largely ‘white’, but they fostered a rich cultural and intellectual diversity.
Do We Need Diversity is not a book attacking multiculturalism, ethnic diversity and immigration. Indeed, it upholds the necessity of anti-racist practice and of building societies that acknowledge and celebrate ethnic, racial, national and religious diversity. What it does seek to do though is to broaden out discussions of diversity. The book tries to name and celebrate the ‘hidden’ kinds of diversity that are rarely discussed in political debates. It suggests that there is more to being different than claiming a group identity.
So the crowd mentioned at the start of this synopsis might well be diverse, if it reflects the stunning capacity of humans to be different from each other: to be shy, gregarious, angry, passive, happy, sad, curious, cautious, quiet, loud and so on.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this Impossible Book, why not browse through the rest of the series here?
Also, please recommend and share it on Medium or elsewhere. I would love to read your comments too.
Many thanks!
Finally, here are a couple of alternate cover ideas:
