Diversity and Unity
Classical philosophers emphasized the importance of homonoia within any political regime because the opposite of homonoia is discord among citizens, distrust, envy, anger, hatred, and division.
“Our unity is our strength,” proclaimed the sage of our age, Kamala Harris, “and our diversity is our power.” While Ms. Harris's statement is partly true, it leaves much unsaid—especially what is most important.
The American Founders recognized that certain kinds of diversity—within certain moral, social, and legal parameters upon which all citizens agree—are beneficial. The capacity for greater diversity of interests was one of the reasons the authors of The Federalist Papers favored a representative republic over direct democracy, an argument I will address shortly.
At the same time, the parameters that should unify all citizens matter significantly. When diversity stretches beyond these limits, friendship, neighborliness, and even civil society become impossible.
If, for example, I am willing to protect your life and respect your rights, and you are willing to murder me when you get an opportunity, we cannot be friends or fellow citizens. Either you will destroy me, or I must destroy you in self-defense.
What, then, are the limits to diversity? Does Ms. Harris recognize any limits? What does she mean by “our unity?” In what ways are Americans today unified? In what ways should they be unified?
Diversity
As the example above illustrates, some forms of diversity are incompatible and inherently untenable. Multiculturalists who claim all cultures—including misogynistic cultures—are equally dignified, feminists advocating equal rights for women, Islamists willing to physically beat or even stone women as punishment, and controlling, censoring North Korean communists do not typically promote each other’s causes because each contradicts the others.
That is why it is intellectually shallow—bordering on silly—to celebrate “diversity” as if the concept, without qualifications, is unequivocally good. If we were serious about real diversity, we would promote within schools, government agencies, and corporations the mingling of rapists and their victims, Nazis and Jews, Hutus and Tutsis, and masters and slaves.
That would be diversity!
And, of course, this is unlikely what Ms. Harris and her fellow progressives mean when they cheer for “diversity.” For them, diversity means much more superficial attributes, such as a black progressive woman, a lesbian progressive, a transgender progressive, a poor progressive, a brown progressive, a homosexual progressive man, an artistic progressive, a progressive scientist, and a vegan progressive, on one team or within one organization.
Let us be clear: The fact that one woman is sexually attracted to women, another woman to men, and a third to both men and women, is not “diversity” in any meaningful intellectual or cultural way. If those three women—a heterosexual, a homosexual, and a bisexual—believe they have a right to take your property and waste your money by a vote, they are fundamentally wrong.
The bad politics they have in common matter far more than their “diversity” of sexual peccadilloes and turn-ons.
Consider John Locke and Karl Marx. Both were men. Both were heterosexual (so far as we know). Both had pasty-white skin. One argued that private property is the foundation for human liberty and flourishing; the other argued that private property is the source of every injustice and must be abolished by way of revolution.
Mark thundered in the Communist Manifesto: “In a word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend!”
Can there be any greater diversity than the differences that separate Locke and Marx? Or are skin colors and sexual preferences the only differences that matter? Can a Lockean and a Marxist be fellow citizens of one regime?
What unites Ms. Harris and other progressives—an effort to replace our self-governing constitutional republic with a bureaucratic state and substitute a culture of nihilism for moral virtue—alienates them from their fellow citizens who are not progressive, Americans who are unwilling to be ruled by unelected bureaucrats, who believe it is more important to be good and do what is right rather than being “authentic” and doing whatever one has the will to do.
The American Founders offered a much more thoughtful case for diversity.
Interests
In Federalist #10, James Madison argued that a republic, as opposed to a direct democracy, “extends the sphere” to include a “greater number of citizens and extent of territory.” This, in turn, ensures “a greater variety of…interests,” making it “less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.”
A republic that spans a large territory and includes large numbers of citizens will incorporate diverse interests, such as those of farmers, business owners, and artisans. Individuals living in seaside villages have different concerns than those residing on the interior plains; those in the seasonal North have interests distinct from those in near-tropical Southern states. Those who grow crops respond to different incentives than those who hunt, fish, or make things in a factory.
The vast diversity of interests in the United States, under the republican form of government established by the Constitution, makes it highly unlikely that differing regional and local interests will unite to form a national numerical majority for the purpose of confiscating property or violating the rights of those in the minority. In this respect, diversity is good because it helps prevent the emergence of a tyrannical majority.
This, however, is not the only teaching on this subject within The Federalist Papers. Differences in interests are not the same as differences in opinions regarding the most fundamental civic and moral matters.
Federalist #2 emphasizes the cultural commonalities that unify most Americans, describing them as “a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”
The conclusion reached is: “This country and this people seem to have been made for each other.”
Later, in Federalist #49, Madison remarks that with time comes veneration. People tend to respect and hold good opinions about that which has stood the test of time, that which has become old and traditional. Madison’s hope is that as the Constitution becomes old, it will become widely venerated and respected among United States citizens, that the opinions that unify Americans and “fortify” the Constitution—over time—will become both “ancient and numerous.”
For the authors of The Federalist Papers, a self-governing republic and a free society are possible only if there is a diversity of interests coupled with a common opinion in support of the Constitution and its principles that unifies all Americans.
About this important kind of unity, Kamala Harris has little to say.
Homonoia
The limits of Ms. Harris's intellect and imagination, however, do not impose limits on us. We are free to continue thinking and to go further, deeper, and wider.
When Ms. Harris asserts that “unity is strength,” she invokes a classical Greek concept—homonoia—which means something like civic one-mindedness, unity, concord, mutual trust among fellow citizens and agreement about the most important civic subjects.
Classical philosophers emphasized the importance of homonoia within any political regime because the opposite of homonoia is discord among citizens, distrust, envy, anger, hatred, and division.
Domestic tribalism, civil conflicts, and civil wars occur within a political community when there is no homonoia. People who despise and distrust each other do not make good neighbors or fellow citizens.
Yet today, we hear very little about what United States citizens have in common or why that might be important. Kamala Harris says “unity is strength,” but she never explains what could possibly unify us after a century of postmodern and progressive division.
Instead, we are bombarded with messages that emphasize the need for diversity, diversity, diversity. If one listens to the media, attends a typical American university, or participates in a common corporate employee training session, one might assume that the more differences there are among U.S. citizens, the better.
Yet, as we discussed above, diversity is only possible within certain moral, social, and legal parameters upon which all citizens agree. There must be unifying limits within which diversity of interests can thrive.
Rapists, rape victims, and moral relativists who claim there is no such thing as right or wrong represent great diversity, yet that combination of people within a business or school should be discouraged rather than encouraged, because rapists should be punished, rape should be denounced as a moral wrong, and relativists should know better than to repeat such vapid nonsense as the nonexistence of right and wrong.
E Pluribus Unum
The Great Seal of the United States features the motto, E Pluribus Unum, which means "Out of many, one" in Latin. Today, we are reminded daily of the pluribus. Where or what is our unum? We are one in what way?
In our postmodern, progressive United States, is civic unity or oneness still possible? Is homonoia possible? Can Americans today share a common civic culture and a mutual understanding of the rights, responsibilities, and virtues that characterize citizenship in a free, self-governing regime?
Without something in common—something that unites citizens—no political community can long endure.
Throughout most of our history, a common education in the great books, minds, and events of Western Civilization provided more than a modicum of homonoia for the American people.
Although Americans have differed on many subjects, they at least shared common references in literature, history, philosophy, and the lessons learned from them.
When Alexander Hamilton enlisted his friends James Madison and John Jay to write The Federalist Papers, they drew on examples from ancient Greek cities, the early Roman Republic, and medieval Europe, recognizing that ordinary readers would be familiar with those stories.
When Hamilton, Madison, and Jay appealed to Plato, Plutarch, and Montesquieu, ordinary American farmers, merchants, and craftsmen recognized who those thinkers were—that was part of the American homonoia—even if different Americans held different opinions about those thinkers and writers.
In the United States today, there is very little homonoia. It raises the question of whether U.S. citizens have anything in common. Is there any cultural or political unity? Is there any homonoia at all?
The oneness of classical homonoia has been almost entirely eclipsed in our nation by an obsession with diversity. Talk about what Americans have in common—or what they should have in common—and you’ll be censored on social media and might even end up on an FBI watchlist.
Conversely, talk about diversity and the various cultural, racial, and sexual tribes within the United States, and you can ascend to the highest ranks within our colleges and universities—becoming a dean, provost, or president. Major corporations will pay substantial sums for you to lead diversity training seminars, or they might appoint you as their next CEO, particularly corporations that contract with the federal government.
Education in the United States today actively promotes domestic diversity and tribalism—which contributes to civil discord—while the homonoia and civil concord supported by an education in the great books, great minds, and significant events of Western Civilization are mocked.
One can now climb the educational ladder from kindergarten all the way through an MD, JD, or PhD—or the myriad Master’s degrees that now number to the point of dilution—without reading a single sentence from Homer, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero, Plutarch, Livy, Shakespeare, Locke, Montesquieu, or the American Publius.
Today, one may hold the highest degrees available yet not know what the Peloponnesian War was, or the Gettysburg Address, or Magna Carta.
Are Americans still inspired by phrases like “Molon labe,” “Carpe diem,” or “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once?” How could they be? Most Americans don’t know what these lines mean or who said them because they have never encountered them in their education.
This reflects a significant failure of postmodern progressive education. And it is one of the reasons Americans today have little in common and view each other as enemies rather than as fellow citizens and potential friends. Every new “diversity” program promotes more discord among United States citizens, further eroding what little homonoia and civic unity remains.
Is it any wonder why the recent Administration of the first black President of the United States fueled more racial division and hatred than unity?
We Hold These Truths
This might be too little, too late. I hope that is not the case.
This likely does not promote the shallow and postmodern progressive politics of Kamala Harris, though it would be good for our nation if she would promote these ideas when she speaks of civic unity.
We fellow Americans have within our reach a viable, wonderful, beautiful set of ideas that can form the basis of an American homonoia: the principles enshrined within our own Declaration of Independence.
These were the principles early Americans relied upon to justify government by consent of the governed, and equal protection of the laws for equal individual rights.
These were the principles Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass used to demonstrate the intrinsic immorality of slavery, and inspired the hard work required to abolish it.
These were the principles by which Jim Crow, the KKK, and all race-based laws and unjust programs have been rightfully denounced.
These remain the principles by which we should live and govern ourselves today.
eIn 1926, on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, President Calvin Coolidge gave a remarkable address. Rather than attempting to explain why we should embrace the principles of the Declaration—why those principles should be a source of homonoia and unity today—myself, I will let President Coolidge close out this Substack:
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern.
But that reasoning cannot be applied to this great charter [the Declaration of Independence]. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final.
No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.