In Real Life, Few People Clamor for Diversity

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Last month, I began a continuing education welding course at my local community college. Eleven people signed up for the course—myself included—and to the casual observer, we represent a very diverse lot. Here’s a breakdown of our surface characteristics:

• 9 men
• 2 women
• 8 non-Hispanic whites
• 2 blacks
• 1 Hispanic white
• 7 high school graduates
• 2 high school students
• 1 person working on his GED
• 1 person with a master’s degree
• 6 30-somethings
• 2 40-somethings
• 2 17-year-olds
• 1 50-something
• 4 tradespeople
• 3 farmers
• 3 unemployed
• 1 retired
• 10 Southerners
• 1 Northerner

But when it comes to the really important stuff—how we behave in class and the welding shop—there’s a decided lack of diversity. Everyone is fully engaged. In the classroom, we all listen intently to the instructor and ask excellent questions. In the welding shop, we all help each other master whatever welding skill we’re working on, and we all help each other clean up the shop at the end of the night. And most important of all, we’re all very conscious of the dangers associated with melting metal with shielding gas and high voltage electricity. There’s absolutely no tomfoolery in the welding shop. Everyone behaves with textbook responsibility.

Cultural Uniformity Vs. Surface Diversity

I really enjoy my welding class—mostly because I want to learn how to weld but also because of the cultural uniformity of the class. If the class had cultural diversity and some of my fellow students were jackasses, I would’ve dropped the class and demanded a refund.

I’m very indifferent to surface diversity. I simply don’t care what skin color people have, what ethnic tribe they hail from, and what dangles or doesn’t dangle between their legs. In my mind, valuing surface diversity is as nonsensical as valuing jean-wearing diversity. And who in their right mind would be turned off by a group of people in a casual atmosphere all wearing Levi’s?

Because I’m indifferent to surface diversity—I neither value it nor fear it—some people conclude that I dislike people who “don’t look like me.” Nonsense. When I worked in government, 99 percent of my co-workers were white and all of my supervisors were men. And I loathed working there. When I worked in the private sector, half of my co-workers were black and half of my supervisors were women. And I loved working there. Why the difference? There was way too much cultural diversity at my government job. Half of my co-workers were bums, a quarter were chiselers trying to game the system, and a quarter cared about doing their jobs well. At my private-sector job, however, there was no cultural diversity. Everyone cared about doing his or her job well.

Nope, I’m a “content of character” dude all the way. Behavior and attitude are everything to me. I want to be around people who share my notions of civility and honor and I don’t want to be around people who don’t.

And here’s a dirty little secret for you. Most people care a lot more about cultural uniformity than surface diversity. If there’s a choice between surface diversity and surface uniformity, they’ll choose surface uniformity every time that means a better fit culturally.

Cultural Uniformity and Personal Finance

In the book Coming Apart, Charles Murray makes the case that 1) America has become increasingly segregated based on class, and 2) this is bad for the lower classes (poor and working-class people).

This is neither the time nor place for a review of Mr. Murray’s theories. I will say, however, that I think he’s onto something. When I was growing up, for instance, the rich had to sit amongst the scum if they wanted to watch a New York Islander game in person. There were no luxury skyboxes back in the day for the rich to escape to. Now those luxury skyboxes exist. And those luxury skyboxes—escape hatches, if you will—have proliferated throughout society. The upper classes (rich and middle-class people) no longer have to rub elbows with the lower classes. They have escape-hatch neighborhoods (e.g., gated communities), escape-hatch schools (e.g., Stuyvesant High School in New York City), escape-hatch professions (e.g., jobs that require advanced degrees or certifications), escape-hatch healthcare (e.g., concierge medicine), escape-hatch entertainment (e.g., Netflix), and escape-hatch shopping (e.g., Amazon). Heck, the upper classes even have escape-hatch food (e.g., Grubhub). They no longer need to endure the din of a Texas Roadhouse or the grime of a Taco Bell to get their fix of comfort food.

Let’s assume for the moment that Mr. Murray is right about class segregation. Is that a bad thing? Do the lower classes really need to fraternize with the upper classes in order to advance financially and build wealth?

Mr. Murray says “yes.” He believes that self-sabotage festers in isolation. People have a difficult time discarding financially destructive ways when everyone in their families and social circles behaves in ways that are financially destructive. They simply don’t know any better. And this reasoning is hard to dismiss. After all, would Robert Kiyosaki have become a renowned author and personal finance guru if there wasn’t a “rich dad” to hobnob with in his youth?

Okay, Charles Murray has his theories and I’m going to piggy-back on those with one of my own.

I don’t think the upper classes distance themselves from the lower classes because of snobbery or bigotry. I think they do so because of fear. They look at the lower classes and they see far too much violent crime, far too much indifference and hostility to education, and far too much unwed motherhood.

The American upper classes are very egalitarian. They not only want to help the lower classes but also mingle with the lower classes. The “Maginot Line” that has evolved between them and the lower classes makes them very uneasy. But they won’t abide by their egalitarian impulses if it means subjecting themselves and their children to lower-class mayhem and squalor.

So if Charles Murray and I are right, the lower classes would do themselves a world of good by simply modifying their behavior. If they committed far fewer violent crimes, took school seriously, and procreated more responsibly—hello, impulse control—they would find a lot more upper-class people in their neighborhoods, schools, and churches. And with more upper-class people in their midst, they would have more opportunities to observe financially sophisticated behaviors and attitudes.

Final Thoughts

Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? What do you find more important? Cultural uniformity or surface diversity? And what about the lower classes? Is their biggest problem the System and the One-Percent? Or is their biggest problem a failure to embrace the behavioral norms of the upper classes, especially the behavioral norms regarding crime, education, and child-rearing? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.