The diversity experiment failed.
Let me explain.
A couple years ago, I started having coffee two days a week at a local coffee shop with a few guys who, with one exception, I did not know.
I had just retired from teaching at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and had lots of free time. I did not know, or care, what the political persuasions of this group was. I quickly discovered they were all liberals. Although, as readers of my op-eds know, I lean conservative, I was willing to join this group for coffee if only to engage in some interesting give and take and possibly inject some diversity into the discussion.
My participation ended immediately after the November election. I had always been careful to respect the group’s views and, for the most part, not try to force my perspective on them. Indeed, I usually sat on the edge of the circle of chairs and kept my mouth shut, rarely challenging the dominant viewpoint.
However, after Donald Trump’s electoral victory, the group became unhinged, taking “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to a new level.
I should stress that it was not the entire group that behaved badly. It was mainly two members who had always been hostile toward me but whose hostility became unacceptable after the election. Most of these guys at least had been friendly, if not entirely respectful of my opinions. They were not especially open to diversity of ideas, but at least they were civil.
I could accept the latter. I could not accept the total obnoxiousness and rudeness of the two hard-left members of the group. One in particular, without any provocation from me, said he “did not respect me” just because he believed I would not be voting for Kamala Harris. He proceeded to utter insulting personal attacks on me.
I had to explain to him the week after the election that I also did not vote for Donald Trump. In a previous Jewish Light op-ed (Dec. 21, 2023), I had criticized Trump as “odious” and “reckless.” As questionable a candidate as Trump was, I felt Harris was no better and perhaps even worse. After all, she had the most liberal voting record as a U.S. senator, had been the “border czar” who allowed about 20 million illegal aliens into the country and was so woke that she shared the view of many liberals that uttering the statement “the most qualified person should get the job” was a “microaggression” to be avoided in public discourse.
Note that it was not good enough to my coffee mate that I was critical of Trump and would not vote for him. He required me to vote for someone who I felt was incompetent and ideologically extreme. After an angry exchange, I got up from my table, left the group and have not joined them since.
Why do I bother reporting this? Keep in mind that it is this group — all liberals — who claim to own the term “diversity,” who buy into the entire DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) paradigm and chastise those of us who question such. It turns out their idea of diversity is what Steven Pinker, the famed Harvard public intellectual, once said is the meaning colleges give to the term; that is, they want people who look different but think alike.
Pinker is a self-described liberal Democrat but one who is very critical of what diversity has become under the kind of liberalism represented by academia and by members of my coffee klatch. They cannot tolerate the most important type of diversity: the diversity of ideas! That was certainly my experience with this group.
This is an important issue we should all be concerned about. Not only do we need to promote greater civility in our political discourse, but we need to understand that nobody has a monopoly on truth. I always told my UMSL students on the first day of class that “the main goal of education is to get students to learn to cope with ambiguity,” by which I meant not the absence of truth but its complexity; i.e., most reality is not black or white but rather grayish — nuanced and complicated.
That is what diversity should be about, not the kind of absolutism that my coffee group stands for. I regret my experiment ended unsuccessfully. These guys are smart, successful, professional individuals who should know better.
I would only add that, being Jewish, and also an academic, most of my friends are liberal. Thankfully, most manage to tolerate my beliefs even as they disagree with me. This is how society should operate.
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