The reason why I hate diversity is because it’s a lie.

On a college campus, true diversity is actually a really great thing. It’s not easy but it’s a very important educational experience. Having people from different places, with very different opinions, of different races and ethnicities, etc is a great thing on campus. My department is diverse by virtue of teaching 7 languages, most of which are taught by native speakers. It’s so good to have all these different people. It’s also very hard. An Italian mentality is different from Germanic is different from Ukrainian is different from Kuwaiti, and so on. Totally worth it, though.

But the word “diversity” is never used in this sense. It definitely doesn’t imply a variety of opinions or cultural norms. It is only used to mean “we need more black people around to patronize and use to make ourselves feel virtuous.” I wouldn’t object to the first part. It’s not a bad idea at all to have more black people in any capacity on campus. But that wouldn’t be diversity. Nothing is really diversity until a bunch of very coddled individuals enacts some ridiculous self-flagellation drama around it.

A beautiful story from Turkey from the time when people still cared about such heart-warming, sweet stories. A group of garbage collectors started a library with the books they rescued from the trash.

Western European readers, have your countries gone as insane with “systemic inequalities,” “brown bodies,” “be less white,” “birthing parent,” “chest-feeding,” etc as Americans? I know this exists in all rich countries but do private companies force workers to recite “I have to be less white” as a condition of employment? Does the majority of academics grimly believe that asking students to demonstrate how they arrived at a solution is racist? Do people complain to the local periodical that the faces on the cover are “too white”?

In short, do as many people take this lunacy seriously as here in the US?

In Stoner, a beautiful novel by one John Williams, a character explains to a friend why academia is the perfect place for him:

You’re capable of work, but you’re just lazy enough so that you can’t work as hard as the world would want you to.

It’s really true. That’s how I am and that’s why I’m in academia.