By DONALD DeMARCO
A Harvard undergraduate who, when his confreres were asked to list what they believed to be their virtues, wrote: “I am diverse.” In the kingdom of political correctness, there is no word that is more highly revered than diversity. Yet many are blinded by the glow of this fine-sounding term. Of course, one person alone cannot be “diverse,” but more significantly, a virtue must be acquired. Furthermore, one cannot practice diversity and real virtues must be put into practice. Virtue is not possessed by everyone simply because they call themselves “diverse.”
This gross misunderstanding of both diversity and virtue, comical as it may be, opens the door to a problem that is not only pervasive in the contemporary world, but has been a longstanding problem in American history.
Diversity without unity is chaos; unity without diversity is a stifling uniformity. How is it possible in the political realm, as opposed to the world of art, to harmonize diversity and unity? Sensible educators have posed the searing question whether the minds of college students should be developed or converted politically.
When Abraham Lincoln famously stated that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he was underscoring the importance of unity and harmony. He was fearful that conflicting factions could be ruinous for the country. At the same time, he recognized that America needed a common purpose, which is to say that it must also be “united.”
Stephen Douglas took strong exception to Lincoln’s position. He argued vehemently that the country could endure being half-slave and half-free. “Our government,” he declared, “was formed on the principle of diversity…and not that of uniformity.”
Douglas was both a champion of diversity as well as a proponent of choice. “We must take them [people] as we find them, leaving the people free to do as they please, to have slavery or not, as they choose.” He denied that there could be any moral foundation for judging the relative values of slavery and personal freedom.
Douglas (as well many others at the time) believed in “diversity” and “choice.” But his brand of diversity and choice would be completely unacceptable in today’s climate.
Nonetheless, his philosophy is identical with that of contemporary diversitarians and “pro-choice” advocates. The very same philosophy undergirds two utterly antagonistic results. Here is clear evidence that we are not clear-headed when it comes to philosophizing. We draw from the same well both what we believe to be poison as well as what we believe to be nourishment. We naively believe that the Islamic terrorist and the Quaker can lie down together in peace.
Lincoln was a true philosopher. Even in a democracy, he stated, “people do not have a right to do wrong.” In so saying, he appealed to the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed that all people are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. Thus he could remark, concerning a black female slave: “In her natural right to eat the bread she earns with her own hands without asking leave of someone else, she is my equal and the equal of all others.”
Lincoln’s concept of diversity extended to all people and was not limited to special groups, as it continues to be the case in today’s world.
St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine warned against what they called “counterfeit virtues.” According to the Angelic Doctor, a virtue must be directed toward a good. But if it is directed toward what is only “an apparent good, it is not a true virtue that is ordered to such a good, but a counterfeit virtue.” For Augustine, “the prudence of the miser, whereby he devises various roads to gain, is no virtue; nor the miser’s justice, whereby he scorns the property of another through fear of punishment.” Both Aquinas and Augustine teach that all virtues must be based on love, which is to say that love is the form of all virtues.
Dorothy Sayers, noted essayist and mystery writer, has devised her own set of counterfeit virtues which she calls the Seven Deadly Virtues. They are: Respectability, Childishness, Mental Timidity, Dullness, Sentimentality, Censoriousness, and Depression of Spirits. Her seven stand as a parody of the seven foundational virtues consisting of the four cardinal virtues (justice, fortitude, temperance, and prudence) and the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
Sayers is keenly aware of the fact that where true virtue is lacking, counterfeit virtues swoop in to take their place.
It should be clear enough that “diversity” is not a virtue. But false virtues camouflaged in the same language as authentic virtues may be more difficult to expose. Compassion is popularly regard as a virtue. When it is used, however, to rationalize killing the innocent, it is clearly a bogus virtue. We can say the same of the courage of the bank robber, the mercy of the doctor who euthanizes his patients, and the loyalty of the criminal whose allegiance is only to the syndicate.
There is an additional problem with diversity. It is a fine and noble thing to acknowledge the humanity of various groups of human beings and to refrain from offending them in any way. This alleged virtue, however, extends only to carefully selected groups such as feminists, homosexuals, racial minorities, and transgendered persons. Excluded from the list are pro-life advocates. Evangelical Christians, and orthodox Catholics.
Such diversity, of course, is a hoax. Nonetheless, being spellbound by the word “diversity,” diversitarians are blinded by their own presumption of being virtuous.
We are in love with the idea of love. Yet we are reluctant to accept the difficulties and disciplines that real love requires. Therefore, we accept a bogus love that expresses itself in counterfeit virtues to be more attractive. Real love — genuine concern for the good of others — is independent of politics. It is primarily personal and self-giving. And it is only through love that true virtues can be expressed.
Therefore, virtue is a delivery system that brings the good of the lover to the needs of the one who is loved.
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