Magoo Muses

Monday, April 04, 2005

The Limits of Diversity

The goal of producing a pluralist society can never be more than a heuristic and will inevitably turn into a covert means of excluding certain groups of people. You cannot include everyone in society. The secular understanding of diversity presupposes a certain metaphysical agnosticism: viz., either there is no ultimate truth, or if there is you can't know it, and if you did know it you couldn't communicate it to others. Unfortunately, this agnosticism must be taken dogmatically and becomes an axiom whereby some groups will not be included under the umbrella of tolerance. Wahhabism is only now beginning to expose the hypocrisy of the secular conception of diversity to the public consciousness.

Diversity is a religious concept. Secularity—conceived as that which is beyond religion—is incapable of producing any authentic form of diversity in society. The limit of diversity is always marked by reprobation. Diversity can be an attribute of the Elect, but always excludes the Reprobate. I'm using Christian terminology here, but this applies across the board. The terms may be different, as are the consequences of "reprobation", but the dynamic of inclusion/exclusion is universal.

Perhaps the most frightening thought is a secular reprobation. Nazi racial purification was a false temporalization of the Last Judgment. In it, Hitler assumed to possess the holiness of God. This assumption will always lead to one atrocity or another, but so will the assumption that God Himself does not possess this holiness.

Magoo

11 Comments:

  • It's true, there is no way (at least that I'm aware of) to be "all inclusive" but this does not justify going out of your way to be overly exclusive.

    By Blogger Ol Cranky, at 10:41 AM  

  • And how can we objectively determine when our exclusions are beyond the right limit?

    By Blogger Quincy Magoo, at 10:48 AM  

  • Alright, I give. I'm assuming I know you IRL, but I can't figure it out. Send me an email.

    By Blogger Dignan, at 1:25 PM  

  • Magoo:

    Well I know being punitive, mean-spirited, and/or judgemental especially for the sake of being those things (or as a way to show our own moral superiority) is probably beyond the right limit. I try (though I do not always succeed) to avoid that sort of exclusiveness, but I have the perspective of someone who's a member of a minority religion (and one who passes for whatever someone who doesn't know me wants to think I am) so knowing what it's like to be in this position, I feel an obligation to try to be objective, open-minded and respectful.

    By Blogger Ol Cranky, at 5:04 PM  

  • This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    By Blogger Ol Cranky, at 5:04 PM  

  • Cranky - OK, then be objective. Saying you know "such and such" is probably beyond the right limit is not objective. It's subjective. It makes the rest of us dependent on your judgments of right and wrong. Whatever your perspective, this is no way to structure a system of ethics.

    By Blogger Quincy Magoo, at 7:03 PM  

  • Structuring a system of ethics based on contentious descriptions of what an unproven entity says is right is a way to structure a system of ethics? You call that objective?

    Saying something is right or wrong because G-d says so makes morality completely arbitrary.

    By Blogger Ol Cranky, at 8:25 PM  

  • Cranky - you like to make value judgments without going through the trouble of providing any warrant for them. By what standard is a description "contentious"? You're contending with me. Is this some kind of self-deprecation on your part?

    By Blogger Quincy Magoo, at 6:11 AM  

  • Thank you!
    [url=http://pvrzkamz.com/lzxz/lhta.html]My homepage[/url] | [url=http://jveoclho.com/mztx/mynh.html]Cool site[/url]

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:46 PM  

  • By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:46 PM  

  • Great work!
    http://pvrzkamz.com/lzxz/lhta.html | http://qkdskzvj.com/okrp/hsbg.html

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:46 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home