
of the latest buzzwords to hit the American
scene is "diversity." You find it in politics, on college campuses,
in hiring practices, just about everywhere. It’s being continually
touted as a kind of cure-all. So all we need for better government
is diversity. All we need for a better informed voting constituency
is diversity. All we need for a more democratic process is, you
guessed it, diversity.
But its proponents
never specify the kind of diversity they’re talking
about.
You see, there are
all kinds of diversity. As that old saying goes: different strokes
for different folks. Let’s just look at two of them — physical
diversity and mental diversity.
If they mean physical
diversity, then that would include the short and the tall;
those with big feet and those with little feet; people who are
skinny and people who are fat; the bearded and the clean-shaven;
people with long hair and people with short hair; people with big
noses and people with little noses; people with . . . Well, you get
the picture.
And if they mean mental
diversity, then that would include the bright and the
stupid; the optimistic and the pessimistic; the generous and the
miserly; etc., etc., etc.
Now if you’re going to have
diversity, wouldn’t you have to include one of each? You
sure would. But that would make the whole process unwieldy and
unworkable. Right? But that’s only if you do it the old way. So I’ve
got a better idea.
Webster’s says that "diversity" is "the condition of
being different or having differences." So given that no two things
in the universe are exactly the same, just put any two people
together and you’ve got diversity. Right? And a lot simpler than the
way it’s done now.
Just shows you what
you can do when you put your mind to it.
Think about it. 
