One of my first Supervisors in Psychiatry training was a world renowned expert on Schizophrenia. When he interviewed a Paranoid Schizophrenic, not only was he adept at elucidating the details of their delusional system but even more impressively, he was able to show how the delusion contaminated the patient's thinking and impaired multiple aspects of their relationship to reality, often in ways that were not immediately obvious. The Paranoid Schizophrenic could often seem quite rational. The brightest among them would arrive in the office with reams of paper, filled with their writings which purported to document the extent of the conspiracy that was afoot. At times it could be quite difficult to differentiate a plausible conspiracy from a paranoid delusion. It often required finding those areas in which their preoccupation overtly damaged their sense of reality before we could ascertain with any confidence that the patient was delusional.
The salient point that my Professor made over and over again was the way in which the delusion and the thought disorder of the Schizophrenic affected all areas of functioning, especially, but not limited to, their cognitive functioning.
In the past I have described Political Correctness as a societal thought disorder, in which we mouth statements and profess beliefs that are overtly disconnected from reality. The concept of "diversity" is a piece of PC-thought that cannot be reality tested because any questioning of the belief is proof of racism and bigotry and therefore beyond the pale of polite conversation. The infection of "diversity" is damaging to every institution which becomes contaminated by it:
Diversity Guidance I Can Believe In...
I was reading the June 26th edition of Rhumb Lines about diversity and really liked the key messages contained. Lets think critically about what this says one key message at a time.
1. Leaders who embrace diversity and differing viewpoints and seek talent that embodies a broad range of life experiences ensure naval readiness today and tomorrow.
2. The Navy must reflect the face of the nation. Further, we want an officer corps that is reflective of the enlisted force it leads.
3. Obtaining talent from diverse populations across the U.S. strengthens the force and ensures forward progress.
The first key message doesn't match the last two, and the last two are exactly how the CNO describes diversity. I think the first key message should be the only key message, but sadly it is rhetoric that does not reflect reality, while the Navy is completely guilty of failing on the last two primarily because the promotion system that deals with an abundance of talented officers really only sucks the same soda through a thin straw.
I would love to see the Navy "embrace diversity and differing viewpoints" but sadly, that isn't reality. The reality is, the way the Navy expects to call itself a diverse officer corps is to align minorities and women into the the right jobs that insure promotions. That is exactly what ADM Roughead told the Current Strategy Forum, nearly verbatim.
Galhran mistakenly believes that diversity means diversity of thinking and mind; in America today diversity merely describes the most superficial aspects of our being, our appearance. In fact, because "diversity" is in conflict with reality (you cannot have an effective quota based on diversity of identity groups and maintain merit as the primary metric) the effects of the Navy search for diversity is to homogenize thinking and develop a corps differentiated only by race (artificial and real), gender, (and eventually, sexual orientation) rather than by thinking. This is how an irrational idea contaminates thinking.
Today the Supreme Court is issuing their ruling on the Ricci case, one of the more blatant examples of the mischief that "diversity" insists upon.
[Apparently, reality has begun to reassert itself.]
Consider Steve Sailor's comments on the case:
That Sotomayor Decision: One Law For Frank Ricci—Another For Emily Bazelon?
This Monday, June 29, is supposed to be the day when we’ll find outif the Supreme Court overturns Sonia Sotomayor’s notorious decision in Ricci v. DeStefano.Sotomayor permitted New Haven to junk the results of its fire department promotional exams because too many whites had done well on them.
Last week, Slate ran a 5000 word article about the New Haven Fire Department, The Ladder, by senior editor Emily Bazelon and intern Nicole Allan. The article turns into an inadvertent reductio ad absurdumof the Sotomayorian conventional wisdom.
Bazelon’s ultimate objection to New Haven’s discarded 2003 testing process is that it wasn’t subjective and arbitrary enough to promote as many minorities as she’s like. She ends her article with a ringing call for a more random selection method that will produce less knowledgeable fire captains and lieutenants
"The city could come up with a measure for who is qualified for the promotions, rather than who is somehow best. And then it could choose from that pool by lottery."
Bazelon apparently doesn’t know that lotteries are exactly what cities such as Chicago are already doing with the results of firefighter tests, in an attempt to comply with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s "Four-Fifths Rule". This regulation puts the burden of proof in discrimination cases on employers when blacks aren’t hired or promoted at least 80 percent as often as whites.
There’s a reason you don’t see much in the newspapers about cities hiring firefighters by lottery: this method is terrifying to anybody who might someday be trapped in a burning building. So politicians don’t explain too vividly to the public what exactly they are up to.
Steve Sailor does an excellent job deconstructing the lower court ruling and the thinking behind it; we are exchanging merit for identity. This is a trade-off that is inherently unstable and damaging to our society in direct proportion to its insinuation into the running of our country. Steve notes that there are a limited number of complex reasons that can explain why Whites do so much better on exams than minorities:
But the New Haven Fire Department should use a lottery because rescuing people from burning buildings is for blue-collar lunkheads. How much do you really have to know about saving lives anyway?
Seriously, the careful reader can figure out from Bazelon’s article why New Haven’s white firemen averaged higher on the controversial tests for leadership positions: Because, on the whole, they knew more about how to fight fires
And why did the whites know more?
In part, because they studied harder.
And, to Bazelon’s mind, that’s just not fair. Bazelon is much exercised by the racial injustice inherent in white firefighters knowing more about how to do their jobs. She says:
"Is this the best way to choose the leaders of a municipal fire department—the best memorizers win?"
Worse, the white firemen are unjustly learning more about fire fighting because they care more about fighting fires. Bazelon continues:
As one Hispanic quoted anonymously by the New Haven Independentput it, the test favored ‘fire buffs’—guys who read fire-suppression manuals on their downtime …"
To Bazelon, evidently, this is a bad thing.
By the way, here’s more from the original newspaper article interviewing two Hispanic firefighters in New Haven:
"The pair contended that the real issue isn’t about race: Instead, they argued that the way the test was designed favored ‘fire buffs’ who have spent their whole lives reading fire suppression manuals, and studied like maniacs for the exam. Incidentally, most firefighters matching that description happened to be white, they said. … Those who aced the test were nerds who read fire-fighting booksjust for fun, said Cordova’s cohort." [Latino Group Backs White Firefighters by Melissa Bailey, New Haven Independent, February 6, 2009]
In Bazelon’s utopia of racial equality, the whites would be just as apathetic and uninformed about firefighting techniques as the minorities are.
Moreover, Bazelon laments, some of the white firemen fight fires for free in their spare time:
"Meanwhile, the [predominantly white] firefighters from the suburbs are more likely to have experience as volunteer firefighters—which gives them a leg up on skills when they apply for the job …"
The white firemen also are advantaged, Bazelon says, because they tend
"… to come from families in which firefighting is a legacy. … Frank Ricci has an uncle and two brothers who are firefighters. He studied fire science at college."
This annoys the Firebirds, the black firefighter’s association.According to Bazelon,
"The Firebirds see the family ties of men like Heins and Ricci as part of a network of influence that only white firefighters can tap into. ‘If you look at the history of the department there's a group of folks, their fathers, their grandfathers, their uncles—they're all part of this network,’ said Gary Tinney, the head of the Firebirds and one of nine black lieutenants out of about 50 in the department."
In other words, the white firemen often grew up in households where discussions of firefighting techniques were common around the kitchen table. Sure, this means fewer New Havenites burn to death—but it’s unjust to more ignorant firefighters.
[Although I have taken a rather sizable excerpt from his article, the whole thing should be read in full. There is much more to his discussion.]
The difference between White (and Asian) performance on tests of cognitive abilities is consistent and significant. Whether we can explain the disparity by virtue of nature (genetic endowment, constitution) or nurture (nutrition, parenting, culture) is immaterial at this point. The sad reality is that despite all of our social engineering attempts of the last 30 years we have been unable to alter that gap in any long term, consistent, significant way. Our efforts to deny that piece of unpleasant reality have pushed us farther and farther away from a meritocratic system and toward a Balkanized system of identity politics and tribal spoils. When the economy was booming and our international competitors lagged noticeably behind us, we could afford such affectations. Now, our ability to compete in a globalized economy is being impaired, we have exchanged debt for production, and we are endangering people's lives in the name of a rubric that is out of sync with reality. This is a prescription for ongoing erosion of societal reality testing (which leads to such irrationalities as a cap-and-Trade tax system which will neither cap CO2 emissions nor reverse global warming, while at the same time severely damaging our economic competitiveness.) In human affairs, the efforts to deny reality always eventually fail, usually at terrible human cost.
Identity politics, an offspring of "Diversity" and Multiculturalism, leads to such absurdities as the Black community celebrating the life of Michael Jackson, who among other things (in his public persona) disdained his Black heritage, and insisting on the innocence of OJ Simpson. Michael Jackson was many things, including a talented musician, but his life deserves more pity than celebration. He mis-used children (although was never convicted of child abuse) and abused plastic surgery and drugs. A more secure community would be embarrassed by him; an Honor-Shame tribal community denies his blemishes and celebrates him. This is where our celebration of Diversity in appearance and conformity in thought leads.
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