“"Diversity" as an abstraction has no meaning. Today, however, it means racial preference and nothing else. A commitment to diversity, apart from the ends it may serve, is absurd.”

— Harry V. Jaffa

2000s, Is Diversity Good? (2003)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote ""Diversity" as an abstraction has no meaning. Today, however, it means racial preference and nothing else. A commitment…" by Harry V. Jaffa?

Harry V. Jaffa 171

American historian and collegiate professor 1918–2015

Related quotes

“However diverse they may be, they need not be utterly irreconcilable, because they will not be conquistatorial.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

Introduction
The Female Eunuch (1970)
Context: The fear of freedom is strong in us. We call it chaos or anarchy, and the words are threatening. We live in a true chaos of contradicting authorities, an age of conformism without community, of proximity without communication. We could only fear chaos if we imagined that it was unknown to us, but in fact we know it very well. It is unlikely that the techniques of liberation spontaneously adopted by women will be in such fierce conflict as exists between warring self-interests and conflicting dogmas, for they will not seek to eliminate all systems but their own. However diverse they may be, they need not be utterly irreconcilable, because they will not be conquistatorial.

“From the beginning, intellectual and spiritual diversity have been as characteristic of America as racial and linguistic.”

Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian

Who is Loyal to America? (1947)
Context: Independence was an act of revolution; republicanism was something new under the sun; the federal system was a vast experimental laboratory. Physically Americans were pioneers; in the realm of social and economic institutions, too, their tradition has been one of pioneering. From the beginning, intellectual and spiritual diversity have been as characteristic of America as racial and linguistic. The most distinctively American philosophies have been transcendentalism — which is the philosophy of the Higher Law and pragmatism — which is the philosophy of experimentation and pluralism. These two principles are the very core of Americanism: the principle of the Higher Law, or of obedience to the dictates of conscience rather than of statutes, and the principle of pragmatism, or the rejection of a single good and of the notion of a finished universe. From the beginning Americans have known that there were new worlds to conquer, new truths to be discovered. Every effort to confine Americanism to a single pattern, to constrain it to a single formula, is disloyalty to everything that is valid in Americanism.

“In any potential collectivity, members have different interests, capabilities, preferences, and so forth. They want to accomplish different things. However, to achieve some of these diverse ends, concerted, interdependent actions are required.”

Karl E. Weick (1936) Organisational psychologist

Karl E. Weick. "Group Processes, Family Processes, and Problem Solving," in J. Aldous, T. Condon, R. Hill, M. Straus, and I. Tallman, eds., Farnily Problem Solving: A Synzposizim on Theoretical, Methodological, and Substantive Concerns. Hinsdale, Ill.: Dryden Press, 1971, p. 26
1970s

“To discover meaning is somehow to see the relatedness with everything else,/ However vaguely it may be;./ To find meaning is to see the purpose of things,/ However hazily it may be.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Life: Relish It!
Life: Relish It! (2012)

“Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Statement by the President on the Occasion of Ramadan (11 August 2010) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/08/11/statement-president-occasion-ramadan
2010

“The problem of meaning today is the problem of how the diverse and superficially self-contradictory experiences of men can be put into a consistent picture that will provide contemporary man with a convincing basis from which to live and to act.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Source: Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966), p. 1278

“The wealth of our country and our institutional system lies particularly in the fact that our diversity is strength. Whenever we find a balance between unity and diversity, the strength of Belgium is precisely to give meaning to our diversity.”

Philippe of Belgium (1960) seventh king of the Belgians

Divided Belgium has a new King Philippe http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/10193295/Divided-Belgium-has-a-new-King-Philippe.html, Telegraph (July 21, 2013)

“The meaning of life is manifested in many different ways—infinite diversity in infinite combinations.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

“The double meaning has been given to suit people's diverse intelligence. The apparent contradictions are meant to stimulate the learned to deeper study.”

Averroes (1126–1198) Medieval Arab scholar and philosopher

Ch 2
The Decisive Treatise

“Today’s tyranny is achieved by flooding people with so much diversion, so much bullshit information and frivolous distraction, that they are unable to make smart commitments.”

Mark Manson book Everything Is Fucked

“"Diversity" as an abstraction has no meaning. Today, however, it means racial preference and nothing else. A commitment to diversity, apart from the ends it may serve, is absurd.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Harry V. Jaffa 171

Related quotes

Related topics