OPINION: holding diversity up to the light

A new Harris Poll in the US reveals that 68% of Americans oppose “the lottery that randomly picks 50,000 people to enter the U.S. each year for greater diversity“. 80% favour merit-based immigration over family-based migration, in the answer to a question asking whether “the immigration priority for those coming to the U.S. should be based on a person’s ability to contribute to America”.

The Washington Post (which is as biased as the Guardian these days) reports the result as ‘broadly supporting the Democratic Party position’ which is a little like saying the British People broadly support the idea of getting a Brexit deal: it really isn’t the point, and tells us nothing. Of course, President Trump (who is on this, as with all issues, fond of rhetoric that accuses every Democrat of wanting “open” borders) prefers a simplistic and extreme analysis that supports his image as Man with Finger on Pulse. But when it comes to the diversity question, he certainly is MAWFOP: the Democrats do witter on about diversity, but it’s clear most Americans think the criterion is potty.

I agree with them; not because I’m a scumfascistbigotnazi, but because the evidence in favour of diversity being A Good Thing is at best flakey – and overall is just another of those must-have myths like global business, Me Too, comprehensive education and EU Good, Brexiteers Bad.

Just like Americans, the British are dead set on reducing and even, for the time being, stopping all immigration. The last study three years ago showed 78% wanting it far more controlled….and this was, without doubt, a telling factor in the Leave victory. Why? Simply because the EUnatics really do believe in open borders. And as ever, their rationale is diversity.

The questions I wish to raise are twofold: first, what sort of diversity are we talking about? And second – in a truly eclectic and empirical sense – what is the evidence in favour of diversity beyond fluffly Labour MPs and George Soros?

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In a socio-cultural sense (and as part of what adds up to civilisation) without question, a degree of diversity is a good thing. A simple list illustrates the point:

• Diversity of talents and working skills helps ensure a broader range of economic activities. 68 million educationalist intellectuals aren’t going to be a lot of help when the roof leaks, and 68 million plumbers are unlikely to produce the level of scientific creativity to drive the hitech sector forward. An emphasis on degree-level education in northern Europe has, for example, produced far too many admin sector skills and not enough skilled blue collar workers or tradesmen.
• Diversity in demographics shows how important it is when something or somebody messes with it. The ‘one baby’ policy in the PRC has left mainland China with chronic staff shortages in key economic areas, and the Second World War’s separation of men and women led to a baby-boom the consequences of which we are still wrestling with today.
• Diversity of education is absolutely vital. After 1964 in Britain, the State education system foolishly chose – for purely ideological ‘equality’ reasons – to ditch diversity in the system (grammar, technical and craft skill streams after the age of eleven) as a result of which many jobs were looked down upon, standards fell in educational results, and management skills declined markedly.
• Diversity of aspiration is equally essential. We are not all Alan Sugars, and there aren’t enough mansions to go round. As early as 1971, several academic and commercial studies had shown overwhelmingly that most citizens in Britain are infinitely more concerned about their kids, relatives, gardens, sex lives and family life generally then they are in working long hours. Thatcherism chose to ignore this reality (along with myriad other anthropological truths) and as a result of that ‘economic miracle’ there is more debt, frustration, tiredness and familial friction in Britain than ever before.
• Diversity of hobbies, sports skills, fashion sense, topic interests and so forth helps the development of a balanced retail mix less prone to supply/demand errors than in more dictatorial communist, military or totalitarian cultures. It also binds people together in tribes, which are essential to levels of social stability – unless they become obsessively rigid and demanding of others.
• Like it or not, unless some form of human evolution occurs naturally (or is genetically engineered) it is a scientific fact that Homo sapiens remains a pack species, and that those packs are stratified by some form of alpha, beta or other typological reality. Diversity of leaders and followers at every level is inevitable, and all attempts to force equality onto a civilisation are doomed to failure.
• Although dislike and resentment are natural human reactions to migration of “alien” ethnicities into their tribes, the vast majority of adverse reactions are the result of mass migrations, the formation of ghettos, and cultures that are incompatible with the host culture. Ethnic diversity alone is not a problem in First World cultures, and almost always produces huge benefits to the host in terms of music, sports, professional skills, retailing, cuisine and medicine.

From here on, however, we need to pin down what most social activists mean by diversity. As with so many uncomfortable truths, the Leftlib tendency almost always invents a word that suits their faux narrative better. Immigration becomes migration, positive discrimination becomes affirmative action, Militant becomes Momentum, anticapitalism becomes Greenpeace….and multiculturalism becomes diversity.

In the end, it’s all meaningless rebranding.

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The track record of multicultural societies within the Nation State construct is appalling. India, Nigeria, North Africa, Ireland, Mali, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Turkey are all examples from the last century of cultural conflict caused variously by imperialism and immigration.

Respect for cultural tradition is healthy so long as every citizen in the end signs up to one legal, educational and democratic contemporary host culture of tolerance. Aggressive refusal to bide by a civilisation’s values will eventually undermine that culture….be it early Christians in Rome, 21st century Islamists in Europe, or Sunni versus Shia Muslims in Arabia.

It’s too easy to say “really, you mean religion, not culture”. That is absolutely not true: dictatorial political ideologies and repressive militarism tore Russia, Germany, Korea and Vietnam apart. Other ideologies involving economics, gender, sexuality and globalism have rendered the US, Britain, France and Italy divided – perhaps irreparably – over the last twenty years.

Those who doubt this should cast their minds back to the days before migration involved planes, speed boats and high velocity trains. Being isolated by distance, water or jungle without doubt partially explains the phenomenal success of the ancient Egyptian, Chinese, 19th century British and south American Mayan cultures. None of them were based on societies that could in any realistic sense be termed culturally diverse.

The EU itself is a vast and doomed experiment in force-fitted multiculturalism. It is now finding out the hard way (at our expense, naturally) what a daft idea one currency for Italy, Greece, Germany and France is.

Opening its borders to mass migration by antithetical cultures was part fluffy idealism, part cynical wage control as clearly outlined by Mario Draghi in 2015. It has already produced crises from Andalucia via Calais to Sweden.

“Diversity” is just the latest in a long line of hooray-terms from cynical globalists and wide-eyed liberal dreamers. As I have tried to show, in many ways it can be beneficial. But aggressive cultural diversity is (as the noun suggests) divisive.