That shibboleth word “diversity” just might have had its day. The myriad examples of what happens when a government attempts to compel “diversity” upon an institution or a society make it fairly plain that the notion is toxic. Resistance to such compulsion is mounting and will soon become insuperable.
It’s been the case for some time that the sort of “diversity” its promoters seek to impose on us has no intrinsic value. What do we actually get – what benefit do we derive – from being forced to endure the company of “diverse” others? I’m not talking about “net” benefit here. Anyone who can present me with a clear benefit of any sort, even if it’s heavily outweighed by the detriments that come with it, is invited to do so.
There have been no “diverse” societies that have enjoyed social harmony. Whether the “diversity” involved was racial, ethnic, linguistic, creedal, or any other sort, all have been accompanied by strife. Such societies often destroy themselves through internal conflict over the very divisions that make them “diverse.” Ours might do so yet.
This presses upon us the question of what kind of “diversity” we can tolerate, and how much of it.
The Peace of Westphalia, a term that comprises a series of treaties worked out in the early Seventeenth Century, is regarded by most historians as the origin of the modern nation-state. Those treaties ended two wars and recognized the dissolution of a failed continent-wide pseudo-state: the Holy Roman Empire. The ending of those wars and the termination of the Empire are regarded as the motivating forces behind the Peace. Yet it had a more significant impact that only came to be appreciated later on: it ended the religious wars that had ravaged Europe for more than a century.
The core idea that ended armed religious conflict in Europe was – strange as it may seem to a modern reader – the precept that the sovereign over a nation-state should have sole jurisdiction over what religions may be taught and practiced in his realm: Cuius regio, eius religio. That halted the strife that had followed the Protestant Schism that followed Martin Luther’s publication of his “95 Theses” in 1517.
What’s particularly interesting about those wars is that they were wars between Christian sects. Armies clashed and blood flowed over rituals and modest differences in theology. Yet all those Christians professed the same core faith, founded on the Two Great Commandments, the Ten Commandments of the Book of Exodus, and the teachings of Christ. For them to kill one another over their differences was insane.
A heightened degree of peace prevailed in Europe for about a century and a half after the Westphalia treaties. Whether those treaties were the reason, or whether it was more a matter of sovereigns consolidating their control of their realms, is open to dispute. Despite the wars prosecuted by Louis XIV of France and Frederick II of Prussia, overall Europe knew a degree of stability that had eluded it for centuries.
Napoleon shattered that peace, but after his defeat at Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna succeeded in reinstituting a prevailing degree of peace that lasted for a century. Yes, the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 marred it, as did the Crimean War that denied the Russian Empire access to the Black Sea. Yet until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, peace was otherwise prevalent throughout Christian Europe.
There were some non-Christian minorities in Christian Europe during those intervals of peace. A small population of Muslims remained in southeastern Europe after King Jan Sobieski III defeated the Ottomans at Vienna. And of course there was a small European Jewish population as well. Those minorities were not troublesome or restive. They accepted their status and the prevailing norms.
Europe’s acceptance of large-scale immigration from the Muslim Middle East and Muslim North Africa began in the late 1960s. It has completely destabilized European society. The major destabilizing influence is creedal: Islam is an aggressive, imperialistic creed that seeks to dominate the whole world. Where Islam goes, strife follows; it’s part of the creed’s dictates to its adherents that they will be at war with all other faiths until only Islam remains.
Until about 1965 the great nations of North America, Canada and the United States, knew social stability and peace. But those nations, like the nations of Europe, have opened their gates too widely. Populations previously mostly European and Christian have begun to experience the tensions that accompany an Islamic influx. Whether coincidentally or otherwise, the start of large-scale Negro unrest in the U.S. and the start of large-scale illegal immigration to both countries also date to 1965. The prevailing ethical norms of both nations – Christian in both cases – came under assault, especially as regards public conduct. Little to nothing has been done to check the accompanying disorder.
Yet these First-World nations, previously beacons of peace and prosperity to the world, have been barraged by propaganda to the effect that these disruptive influxes and influences are somehow to their betterment. “Diversity” is promoted as an absolute good and an end in itself. The resulting disharmony and disorder are therefore not weighed against it.
When we hear or read creed, our natural reaction is to think religion. That’s both understandable and, in the majority of cases, appropriate. But societies have creeds of more than one kind. The one that determines whether it will enjoy relative social peace is its creed of public ethics.
Over the two millennia behind us, societies’ ethical creeds have largely been derived from their dominant religions. Thus, in the First World nations of Europe and North America, an ethical creed derived from Christianity prevailed until recently in historical terms. That creed emphasizes non-violence, respect for property rights, general honesty, and fidelity to promises. Suffice it to say that a far different standard – or non-standard – for behavior has risen to challenge it. In consequence, our society is ever less stable and ever less safe.
The correlation between population movements and the deterioration of social peace is striking, so persuasive as to be all but irrefutable. Yet populations have changed places before this without bringing about great social disruptions. What’s different this time is the refusal of the influxes to conform to the prevailing ethical norms. They bring with them creeds that dismiss the previous norms; creeds that tell them that self-assertion, regardless of the consequences, is their “right.”
Other correlations remain to be examined: race, ethnicity, average intelligence, average propensity to aggression, and so forth. But the creedal connection, and the disorder that arises from dismissing the creed, is sufficient for today.
