There are substances that cannot mingle without exploding. There are forces that cannot mingle but in a tornado. Two such forces, in the Western democracies, are so-called cultural diversity, and centralized governments. These inevitably explode in violence.
“Cultural diversity” is the opiate, the mantra to certain minds. It evokes visions of rainbows. But on the ground, “diversity”.means nothing more than conflicting values, and that means social groups who cannot live closely together.
It’s easy to observe that people groups with different values do not naturally congregate. I’m not saying hatred is inevitable, I’m not saying these diverse groups cannot cooperate for some specific aim they share, I’m not saying there is zero sharing between such groups. I am saying it is natural — and healthy — for people with similar values to form, over time, into clubs, churches, and neighborhoods, and to avoid the neighborhoods where their values are not practiced.
Some like to imagine “cultural diversity” on the top and visible layer of society, with a deeper substrate of shared values. In this imaginary model the surface and visible layer holds a diversity of “lifestyle choices”, but at the bottom all people share the same values of kindness, tolerance, and smiling. This is largely an illusion. It is nurtured in academic and congressional ivory towers. There are, in fact, no diverse cultures that do not conflict, in their cores, over some religious value. Values, by definition, are precisely those beliefs you are not neutral about. So it is impossible to have neutral values, or a set of values that can live alongside differing values, and remain utterly indifferent to your neighbors.
In spite of conflicting values peace is possible, but, and this is crucial, only in the context of a small government. Because you can’t take the money from two culturally diverse groups, pool it, and do very much with it without doing something that offends a core value of one group or another. It is a small government that makes a melting pot possible.
Again — because straw men wander in flocks in this argument — I’m not saying there are NO shared values. I’m saying there are not enough for these diverse groups to normally combine their lives. Lives; I don’t mean the ability to go to a ball game together. I mean money. Taxes. As government’s role grows, taxes grow, and the room for diversity shrinks.
If you do find an example to refute me, take a picture of it, because it is disappearing, since the groups in question are becoming more diverse, and the reasons to take the money are increasing. Today’s successful public program breaks down tomorrow.
I offer as Exhibit A the American public school system. Those who don’t like the home school movement don’t seem to grasp it is the very “cultural diversity” that is the nirvana of the Left that is driving hordes of families out of that contrived community. They are saying “we won’t want your diversity, we don’t find it valuable, and we are offended in our core by your coercive synthesis. Sniff all you want; we walk out, and will more and more, until you pull out the gun.”
Those whose diversity project is rejected naturally look to label the renegades as evil. So there’s an imaginary reason: race, or gender,
And there is no end to these two processes an any foreseeable course in the West. Somebody will finally decide to fight.
****************