The solar eclipse brought us all together for one day. Well, we do share common ground when, like Thales, our heads are craned upwards in wonder. That common ground is the home planet, spaceship Earth, upon which we stand, bitterly disagree, and slaughter one another when not distracted by an unusual celestial phenomenon. Clearly, common ground of the terrestrial sort is not enough: we also need ideological common ground to make the world less of an abattoir.
This is something the open-borders types don't want to understand. One of their fundamental errors is to imagine that all-inclusive diversity is compatible with social harmony.
It is not that diversity is not a value; it plainly is. Many types of diversity are good. One thinks of culinary diversity, musical diversity, artistic diversity generally. Biodiversity is good, and so is a diversity of opinions, especially insofar as such diversity makes possible a robustly competitive marketplace of ideas wherein the best rise to the top. A diversity of testable hypotheses is conducive to scientific progress. And so on.
But no reasonable person values diversity as such. A maximally diverse neighborhood would include pimps, whores, nuns, drug addicts, Montessori schools cheek-by-jowl with tattoo parlors and liquor stores, Hamas terrorists, outlaw bikers, priests both pedophile and pure, Sufi mystics, bank clerks, insurance salesmen, people who care for their property, people who are big on deferred maintenance . . . .
You get the point. Only some sorts of diversity are valuable. Diversity worth having presupposes a principle of unity that controls the diversity. Diversity must be checked and balanced by the competing value of unity, a value with an equal claim on our respect.
For example, one may value a district which is home to a diversity of restaurants (Turkish, Thai, French. . .), but only if they are all good restaurants. A diversity which includes ptomaine joints, greasy spoons, and high-end establishments is not the sort of diversity one values. Diversity of quality is not a value. The same goes for diversity of moral decency, diversity of criminality, and so on. Or one may value a philosophy department in which a diversity of courses is on offer, but not one in which the diversity extends to the competence levels of the instructors or the preparedness levels of the students. One wants excellent instruction on a diversity of topics – but that is just to say that the value of diversity must be kept in check by the competing value of unity: the instructors ought not be diverse in respect of their excellence.
Diversity unchecked by the competing value of unity leads to divisiveness. For this reason, one ought not ‘celebrate diversity’ unless on is also willing to ‘celebrate unity.’ And this is precisely what too many leftists and 'woke' folk cannot, or will not, comprehend. They unreasonably emphasize diversity at the expense of unity.
Liberty and security form another pair of competing values. The only liberty worth wanting is one that can be exercised in a secure environment. The liberty to quit my domicile at any time night or day is worth little or nothing if I am assaulted the minute I step into the street. On the other hand, the only security worth wanting is one that allows the exercise of liberty. The security of totalitarian lock-down is not a value.
So what is to be done? Job One for all of you is to do your bit to make sure that Joe Biden is sent packing.
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