I just completed an online equality and Diversity training course.
We are to respect diversity and promote equality for all irrespective of age, gender, sexuality, disability, ethnicity, religion.
I'm fine with it all except the religion bit. It got me thinking.
How can you promote equality by accepting its ok for religions to promote inequality?
Should we actually be saying believe what you like inside your own head but don't express out loud any view that declares another group unequal?

Thoughts?

I don't agree with a lot of ideas that people hold. That's not a requirement in the workplace. I only have to treat all people with the same respect. I don't have to distinguish between whether their beliefs are religious in nature or of any other nature. Beliefs are simply beliefs. Actions are different.

One cannot control organizations, individuals, and mindsets of others. To do so would be tyranny. This doesn’t just apply to religion; are plenty of other destructive “isms” out there. Diversity/inclusion training is to help us understand and respect the complex phenomenon of humanity.

antonymous Wrote:
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> How can you promote equality by accepting its ok
> for religions to promote inequality?
> Should we actually be saying believe what you
> like inside your own head but don't express out
> loud any view that declares another group
> unequal?

My first thoughts are that the issues regarding different religions are analogous to similar situations regarding someone else's gender self-identification or sexual orientation.

If someone else is self-declared transgender, or is of a sexual orientation "you" don't like or understand or believe in "inside your own head," then--while you are legally allowed to have your own opinions on this subject--you are not allowed to express out loud those beliefs and opinions, at least in the workplace. It is the same with religion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2020 03:34PM by Tevai.

It sounds like humanity is striving for perfection, even though we haven’t even come close to achieving the earlier set goal of equality!


I think we made a mistake bu not trying for a nicely structured anarchy; you know, an anarchy where everyone agreed on a set of comprehensive rules to ignore.

Diversity training is a fascinating subject that is a new field of study that began in about the year 2010. We are all pioneers in seeing this come to pass!

The present pillars are currently in the process of being articulated. The foundation is just now being set. Think about it for the last century it was business as usual for folks in power to red line, to make any kind of joke on a marginalized group, Jim Crow laws were all over the South. etc.

The civil rights act 1965 marked the end of discrimination in America (And also the American with Disabilities act 1994) But with the government sponsored diversity studies programs at public Universities, and disparities between groups continuing regardless, they sought new areas to look for injustices.

In the 2010s UCLA wrote the famous list of 'Micro Aggressions' that lays the groundwork of what is currently considered offensive. As I study the Micro Aggression list of how to offend and slight people, What is apparent is that Mormons are very judgmental and make a science out of violating good manners. Mormons believe they have the one right way. Perhaps this is where the whole issue stems, and why people of diversity feel slighted by them, constantly.

At any rate I encourage everyone to study the official Micro Aggression list.
https://academicaffairs.ucsc.edu/events/documents/Microaggressions_Examples_Arial_2014_11_12.pdf

macaRomney Wrote:
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> At any rate I encourage everyone to study the
> official Micro Aggression list.
> https://academicaffairs.ucsc.edu/events/documents/
> Microaggressions_Examples_Arial_2014_11_12.pdf

This is a clearly thought out and well-written list which is likely to be of benefit to everyone.

Thank you, macaRomney!

I don’t need a cheat sheet on how to be offended. It comes naturally.

bradley Wrote:
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> I don’t need a cheat sheet on how to be
> offended. It comes naturally.

The topic is not about being offended, it is about identifying what is offending so that you do not offend others.

My bad. I looked at the PDF and saw an instruction sheet. I wish people would try to offend me. All the niceness coming at me is good, but it sets the grace bar a little low.

I promise I wasn’t always such a hippie. I carried a John Birch Society card in my wallet.

I already had to sit through mandatory diversity training in 1995, and it was already a well-established industry that provided a living for countless "diversity consultants" and "diversity trainers" all over the country. Maybe you are referring to something more recent such as the contemptible little list of tips for thoughtcrime informers that you linked to.

"Microaggressions" = pretexts for certain people to continue to claim oppression, and certain others to continue to make a living from it in everything from the diversity industry to college ethnic studies departments, for time and all eternity, even after the situation has changed.

Whenever anyone reads or hears the word "microaggression," just know that the current identity-politics orthodoxy is inventing new crimes to hunt for new victims, like the Puritans, Stalinists, and Maoists before them.

They are nowadays the people to hate and resist in the name of free thinking. Otherwise one is still behaving like, say, a member of the Inquisition, but with a different world-saving pretext than it had, a secularized milleniarism.

As John Gray the philosopher has noted, for such people the insistently "correct" and warlike Christian ideology never actually went away, just grew a different skin.

"Mormons believe they have the one right way." And these other people don't? Most "atheists" and "free thinkers" are frauds too dim to even recognize their own fraudulence when they claim to be independent thinkers and the promoters of freedom. Yes, that includes more than one faithful patron of RfM. A paradox I'll be happy to leave behind when I die, which will be sooner rather than later.

I can see you have a problem with Universities teaching dangerous nonsense. It would be so nice if they did the science to weed out bad ideas, but religions are conglomerations of bad ideas.
Secular humanism is yet another religion.

That’s not to say Universities aren’t useful, but if they were doing their job there wouldn’t be a pandemic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2020 02:39AM by bradley.

> That’s not to say Universities aren’t useful,
> but if they were doing their job there wouldn’t
> be a pandemic.

What???

“Should we actually be saying believe what you like inside your own head but don't express out loud any view that declares another group unequal?”

What if you don’t believe in group identity? I belonged to a group called “The Mormons”. Meh, no thanks. I’m willing to identify as human, but that’s about it. Groups are just more crap made up by control freaks who never got over their childhood so they hunger for power. Why don’t they just climb the Mormon ladder? Then they really could lord over people.

bradley Wrote:
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> What if you don’t believe in group identity?

YOU can believe (or not believe) in anything you wish.

I have the same freedoms.

Group identity is a characteristic not only of human beings, but of most other-than-human animal groups as well. (Consider lions, or elephants, or orangutans, or birds, or dolphins, or fish, or bees....all seek, and accept, group identity as a fundamental part of life--to the point where it can be intensely difficult, or impossible, for any individual in that group to live alone.)

> I belonged to a group called “The Mormons”. Meh,
> no thanks.

Fine. Note that no one on this board is urging you to return to Mormon groupings or Mormon identity.


> I’m willing to identify as human, but
> that’s about it.

And we, the members of the human group, accept you as a human.


> Groups are just more crap made up by control freaks who never got over their childhood so they hunger for power.

There is no intrinsic link between "groups" and "power." Many groups, both human--even going back to pre-human times--AND non-humans, have no real (as we would perceive it) power structure in their cultures (though age/wisdom are usually paid attention to, because these can lead to one's own survival and the survival of those that entity protects and cares for).


> Why don’t they just climb the Mormon ladder?

The "they" you are referring to presumes a Mormon background. Most human beings do not, in fact, seek individual power for themselves....and neither do most non-humans, either.


> Then they really could lord over people.

It is interesting that "lording over" is why you believe humans and non-humans become [relatively] powerful. This CAN be true (especially with humans), but it is true for only a minority. Most people (and most non-humans) do NOT seek power (although some do)....but those individuals usually accept power if the circumstances determine that this is a best course for everyone.

Those who actually seek power [pretty much always, in my knowledge and experience] constitute a minority of the total members of that given group--and this is true whether you're talking about lions, or birds, or human beings.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2020 10:59PM by Tevai.

But isn’t there a dominance hierarchy within Universities? The humanities are so left-heavy that they have an elaborate game set up. It’s almost like a conspiracy to further their careers by pulling doctrine out of thin air the way Joseph Smith did.

Micro aggressions? “Nice weather we’re having.” “Oh, that’s racist! How dare you insinuate that my skin tone is better for absorbing sunlight!” Micro really means imaginary. I like Alice in Wonderland but I see no need to live it.

as a person more liberal than most, i see a lot on the micro-aggression list that is benign. many of the inferred meanings are pure nonsense to me. some i would never dream of saying to someone.

take the first one on the list.

"where are you from or where were you born?"

i can only guess how many friendships my wife struck up with that question.

Then there's "I don't believe in race."

Now, someone on the board has argued extensively that race doesn't exist, I believe. Is she a racist? She'd vehemently deny it.

That they have the luxury to pontificate on such things is a testament to American prosperity. Which, well, I’d rather not think about these days. America will be great again, but not in any way we’re used to.

All I get at work is Special High Intensity Training.

I’ve always found it fascinating that some people get so riled up by diversity or equity training. In actual effect, the better designed sessions I have sat through have often given me food for thought or new insights to consider. Maybe I’ve just been brainwashed by the new “Maoists”, but it mostly seems to boil down to “How not to be a Dick.”

> but it mostly seems to boil down to
> “How not to be a Dick.”

Yes. It takes a truly fragile person to say that courtesy and thoughtfulness are "brutality against individual opinion."

As a couple of choads on this thread have demonstrated.

Lol. I had to look that one up.

Rafael Wrote:
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> I’ve always found it fascinating that some
> people get so riled up by diversity or equity
> training. In actual effect, the better designed
> sessions I have sat through have often given me
> food for thought or new insights to consider.
> Maybe I’ve just been brainwashed by the new
> “Maoists”, but it mostly seems to boil down to
> “How not to be a Dick.”

It's the modern struggle session. Perfection is impossible, but self-criticism and humiliation are part and parcel of it. Don't disagree or you will be no-platformed (these folk support democratic free expression... never.)

You will end up full of guilt about birth characteristics you had no say in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session

are Unknown in Morland, probably illegal

According to Packer getting hit on by someone of your same gender justifies getting hit literally.

Well, with a name like Packer...

There's nothing wrong with equality or diversity inherently, except thag corporate and workplace ideas about diversity are some of the most meticulously cultivated images that are made. They usually include women, black people, a Hispanic and an Asian person or two. Seriously, look at websites that have some kind of diversity statement or a mission statement about diversity and inclusion and they will usually include a picture that looks like that. The only reason it bothers me is because it seems to perpetuate the idea that diversity just means people who look different.

It just seems to reinforce the whole 'only looking skin-deep' idea.

I'd agree with that. I'd add, though, that diversity training typically goes way beyond skin color and includes gender identity and religion, etc.

The brochure imagery may be deficient.

You're right. "Diversity" is whatever you wish it to be. You can never be diverse enough, it's impossible, and that's the whole point. It's a self-criticism session.

Do you have a gender balance? Start again, you need trans people and non-binaries (even though they're under 1% of the population).

Do you have an ethnic balance? You don't have enough Paraguayans, Palauans or whichever group you forgot to include.

Gay people? Unless you include pansexuals on your team or demiromantics.

Ironically the end result of diversity is conformity and uniformity. Globalism is destroying diversity (in the true sense). There is less of it than a hundred years ago.

I can't understand if you are bemoaning the lack of simplicity in your being able to label people or your bemoaning that conformity to a wide array of diversity is what you claim is simplicity?

Either way, your lack of understanding or ability doesn't necessitate societies enforcing and reinforcing norms that box people into uninformative and claustrophobic labeling.

We are the adaptive animal.

It's a shame this social engineering is finding its way into all walks of life. It isn't there to promote equality but division, so that society can be hollowed out from within.

Make friends with some diverse people. You will find you have things in common - just not the things you hate. But then you would have to keep some of your eruditions to yourself and that may not be possible.

Elder Berry Wrote:
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> Make friends with some diverse people. You will
> find you have things in common - just not the
> things you hate. But then you would have to keep
> some of your eruditions to yourself and that may
> not be possible.

So basically you're saying I should look for people with things in common? That's not real diversity. I don't use that term because it has become a codeword for something else. Peoppe like you don't know what the hidden agenda is here. Clue: not equality, not diversity (in its proper undistorted sense)

You're right in one way. In a real sense, individuality and local culture has been largely destroyed by globalism. We all have a lot in common. We listen to the same junk music. Eat the same junk food. We are all uprooted and alienated.

I don't "collect" people like beer bottle caps or stamps. I have met a number of different people. What use is it to meet someone who is like me who looks different?

I have traveled around the world and met people from more backgrounds than you've had hot dinners. I don't need sub-Frankfurt School checklists to fulfil that purpose. If I did, they would not be friends or individuals but interest groups to fulfil a bureaucratic quota.

What you have set yourself is an impossible task, and guess what? It's supposed to be impossible. The end game is to make society unworkable, not to create fairness for minorities.

“It isn’t there to promote equality but division, so that society can be hollowed out from within.”

Yeah, that’s it. Just like when Jesus said “Love one another” but what he really wanted was lots more killing.

Rafael Wrote:
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> “It isn’t there to promote equality but
> division, so that society can be hollowed out from
> within.”
>
> Yeah, that’s it. Just like when Jesus said
> “Love one another” but what he really wanted
> was lots more killing.

European philsophers of the late twentieth century, when rhwy realized that the fabled revolution was never coming in the west repackaged it and came up with new tactics. One of them was to make society unworkable, either by playing on existing tensions, inventing new ones or introducing new problems.

If it was completely unpalatable, naive people would never fall for it.

Even anticapitalists have their marketing departments.

> European philsophers of the late twentieth
> century, when rhwy realized that the fabled
> revolution was never coming in the west repackaged
> it and came up with new tactics.

Your assumption being that all "European philosophers of the late twentieth century" were Marxists or Marxians. I suspect that Milton Friedman and even your hero John Gray would disagree with that.

--------------------
> One of them was
> to make society unworkable, either by playing on
> existing tensions, inventing new ones or
> introducing new problems.

That logic means that the contemporary United States and Britain and other former slave-owning and slave-trading countries are less "workable" than they were 200 years ago. You likewise imply that the class-dominated pre-WW1 and pre-WW2 Japan and Germany were less successful than than they are today. You tell us that post-Deng Xiaoping China is less successful than the country was during the Maoist period, when people's lives and choices were completely constrained by their educational and class backgrounds.

So I ask, do you assert any principles that are true on the ground as opposed to merely in your mind?


---------------------
> Even anticapitalists have their marketing
> departments.

You aren't a capitalist. You argue in favor of aristocracy and oligarchy, systems in which an elite based not on individual strengths but on advantages conferred by the status of their parents dominate society. Thoughtful conservatives, people like Edmund Burke and Adam Smith and Hayek and Friedman, have rejected your thinking.

Or were they, like I, products of an insidious "federal" syllabus and unwitting agents of your anti-capitalist conspiracy?

That’s how American politics works. See how everyone buys it hook line and sinker? They saw through Mormonism but this is a challenge. Giving up after escaping one bubble are we? So many bubbles.

> It isn't there to
> promote equality but division, so that society can
> be hollowed out from within.

So a good society is an unequal one, and anger at inequality is inappropriate.

Damn that American Revolution! Damn that Civil War! Damn that defeat of Hitler! In fact, damn all movements by the unequal against their bosses.

Or as someone intelligent once said, all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.