Enhancing diversity

Increasing (a) the quality or state of: differing in kind; consisting of dissimilar constituents or parts (that may not be unified or compatible); having different values, opinions, or backgrounds; and/or (b) the quality or state of having numerous forms or types; and/or (c) the intermixture or succession of different things, forms, or qualities; and/or (d) the multiplicity of things within the same class or category that can be distinguished, often by marked differences.

The variety of anything is its number of distinguishable elements. Every conceptual step which enriches the nature of a system under study increases the information about it, increases the uncertainty informing it, and proliferates its variety.

1. There is great diversity among human beings. Physically we differ from each other in things such as size, body structure, skin color, and facial features. We also differ from one another mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. One of the greatest challenges of a healthy spirituality is learning to tolerate the differences we find in one another and not to view these differences as threats to ourselves. Moreover, a healthy spirituality should lead us to celebrate our differences and to see them as a reflection of God's beneficence and creativity. (Melannie Svoboda, [Traits of a Healthy Spirituality]).

2. Diversity may be both the hardest thing to live with and the most dangerous thing to be without. (William Sloane Coffin, [Credo]).

3. In this Theory of Everything, I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody -- including me -- has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious and compassionate embrace. (Ken Wilber, [The Simple Feeling of Being]).

4. In that which we share, let us see the common prayer of humanity. In that which we differ, let us wonder at the freedom of humankind. (Jewish prayer).

Diversity is promoted as a solution because it is claimed in diversity, as opposed to its absence, there lies a greater range of potential answers to problems, and a swifter ability to respond. However, while such an organizational devolution may enable local responsibility and local action to be indulged in, the situation at the global level, with its overwhelming problems requiring collective international and even wider regional action, mitigates against the effectiveness of such an approach. Self-determination and participatory democracy are promoted in this world as basic rights; but the paradox is that this aim may contradict the need for purposeful action at the global level. Can we reconcile the extreme of full self-determination and free choice (and the frequent paralysis of government), whatever the ecological cost, with the other extreme of world governance or even what might be called international ecofascism?