Thursday, May 16, 2013

Why Big Business Promotes Diversity at its own Peril

There was an old word called cosmopolitanism which meant a universal ethic among all peoples. It would allow for people of different beliefs to overlook differences and interact more fluidly. In modern times, cosmopolitanism is required in the business world, where markets seek to expand to nations which are different from the West such as China or Singapore.

Diversity within an organization artificially arranges things so that people of different backgrounds have to constantly work together rather occasionally on business trips. This would seem to make interactions with dissimilar business partners much easier because of already having to relate to different people is already a necessity within the company.

But like cosmopolitanism, diversity tends to make people become worldly, consumerist, and less focused on "dirty" beliefs of religion and aesthetics-- beliefs that function as a selectively permeable membrane to things which are irrelevant to the success of the corporation and that serve only as potential barriers.

This is probably why corporations, who seek loyalty from workers even above religion, race, and ethnicity, don't mind if such allegiances are diminished. The company and other companies can thrive on the void left in their wake, which will presumably be filled with consumerism. And from consumerism comes the real payoff from diversity: profits.

Whether the loss of "dirty" beliefs will hurt people in the long run can only definitively be seen in the future. But forces like gender and racial equality which underpin the going diversity/cosmopolitan ethic would seem to prove dangerous in time.

For example, feminism leads to fewer children being born, and non-feminist cultures would seem to proportionately replace feminist ones. Moreover, an atmosphere of racial equality permits races of lower potential population IQ to mix with those which have higher average IQ, thus lowering the proportion of people suitable to fill highly skilled occupation necessary for the functioning of the modern world. So, a society reduced in number and genius may find itself reverting invariably to "dirty" beliefs of religion and ethnic identity as the potential for functioning of business and science is reduced.

Paradoxically, preservation of the mental material needed to sustain a cosmopolitan society seems to require the very same beliefs of religion and ethnicity which cosmopolitanism seeks to wear away.

But markets, along with cosmopolitanism, are focused on the present. The question is how long the present will last.