It was back in the early 60s when we were formally introduced to the Godfather of our present prolific and dangerous culture alteration dogmas. It was called Sensitivity training. An inane methodology whereby through group interaction people could be trained to become better managers in their chosen professions. It was a volatile paradox in that they were expected to be kindly and sensitive of one another and yet at the same time be brutally frank in discussing a member's alleged characteristic weaknesses.
In the United States, the theoretical foundation for this instrument seems to have grown out of the socio-psychological studies of Kurt Lewin who emigrated from Nazi German. With the founding of the National Training Laboratory in Bethel, Maine, research in how best to change individuals was undertaken. It was his contention, if I may over-simplify,that it is easier to change individuals formed into a group than to change any one of them separately.
Prior to the sixties, the basic concepts and principles of Sensitivity Training had been used in communist countries for years. B. P. Babkin in his biography of Ivan Pavlov states "Very soon after the accession of the Bolsheviks to power, Pavlov's teachings on conditioned reflexes were recognized by them as affirming that the intellectual life of people can be radically reconstructed and that the world-wide proletarian revolution would create a new human society.
In time, those industries of commerce and business who had picked it up as a management training tool, saw it for what it was and slowly squeezed it out of their programs. It rarely appears today except in a few back water places within general government trainingprograms as well as our overly smug judiciary. Like any cancer which has not yet been completely severed the squeezing process culminated with the popping out of suchcontemporary dogmas called Diversity, Political Correctness and the coattails hanger-on of multiculturism. Basically diversity was introduced into the arena in order to allow multiculturism a modicum of respectability. These were picked up and nurtured by the leftists in this country as bees to the queen. These have penetrated every facet of our culture from education, to industry, to the communications media, to the entertainment world and to the professions. These engines have been powered with communist infected fuel and the most telling has been the fields of education and communications. Lenin himself stated Give me eight years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
For purposes of this article we will deal principally with Diversity although it meshes with political correctness as neatly as do the Leftists with Socialism. It has been nurtured and nourished by the Liberals. It has run awash in our country and the little boy with a half inch wide thumb has not been able to plug the three quarters inch hole in the dike. A nation asleep is a nation in deep and that hole has yet to be plugged.
Diversity is the biggest scam perpetrated on the American public since P. T. Barnum sold his first bridge. Basically diversity is hate therapy. Diversity is venom run amuck. Diversity is as dry rot on a wooden ship. Diversity to the parachutist is the hole in the life saving silk. Its aim is not so much to unify a country as it is to balkanize it, to push it towards being multi-lingual and bi-cultural. Allow it to follow the national tragedies of history with two or more languages competing and a hundred or more different cultures fighting for prominence.
As was pointed out by Dick Lamm, the former governor of Colorado, The promulgation of diverse cultures encourages immigrants to adhere and embrace their native cultures to the detriment and eventual dissolution of the American culture. In the celebration of diversity rather than unity it is pointed out that all immigrants are encouraged to reinforce their differences rather than as Americans to emphasize their similarities. As a negative force in our society diversity has already been noted as a force in impacting a wider gulf between the educated and the uneducated. This further displays ethnic identities and encourages a grievance industry where minority failure can be blamed on the majority population.
As a political tool diversity is the chameleon of the Leftists. It can change its direction and its colors to whatever a particularly diverse group wishes to embrace. This allows for a strategy of being able to separate and control a block of constituents depending on the needs of the moment. In the process of identifying groups rather than individuals it is easier to determine whom to love and whom to hate. Who to support and which to squash.
Diversity is not a tool it's a weapon. It is an attack on the very essence, the very culture of our country. It is the antithesis to our very being as a nation since its emphasis is solely on differences rather than similarities. Diversity with its shirt-tail political correctness relative tagging along is a process of replacing the once evolutionary and successful doctrine of the melting pot, which influenced our culture in a positive way, to the revolutionary doctrine of diversity with its negative, divisive promulgation of divide and conquer.
Diversity like its counter part Affirmative Action is a prostituted attempt to allegedly strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
As an in-your-face tool diversity has fragmented this nation. Our country has never been attacked so relentlessly from within as it has been since 9/11. At least the enemy from without admits to hatingus and will kill women and children to prove it but a more insidious enemy from within hides under the cape and the cloak of patriotism as it embraces our Constitution and our Bill of Rights for its self protection. The cape allows it a modicum of respect and the cloak protects its lack of civility.
It was Ignatius Donnelly who reported that the Democrat Party is like a mule. It has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity. Its mascot is its badge of dishonor. These people have done as much to aid and abet the enemy as did their kin in the Vietnam war. These people represent a boil which we continuously attempt to lance with a feather when in reality it should have been pounded with a sledge hammer.
I am reminded of the individual who as a democrat and unwitting leftist fervently believed in diversity until he discovered that his children were Conservative Republicans. To the anointed this was repugnant. It's a beautiful concept but not for my family.
Diversity now overrides our Constitution. From a concrete living base as to what constitutes a free society it is now becoming a diverse organism twisted to meet the socialists agenda. For example, diversity recently pushed a dictum that the soldiers in the statue raising the flag at Iwo Jima needed to be molded and altered to a more diverse ethnic grouping.
Diversity is the sludge from the Sensitivity Training days. Diversity is a disease which has allowed our American culture to become diluted and bed-ridden. Those who love our country and its traditions have found it to be a fluid, slippery and a cruel companion.
Diversity is the mother of Group Think. A tried and true method of collectivized and group coercion. Thus far there has been no known antidote and none are expected until the sleeping giant finally awakens.
Basically, Diversity as presented in our society today does not blend with the fabric of America. Although it is admirable to recognize differences it is also deplorable when they are exploited. Allowing it to continue unabated will be to watch a nation being hoisted by its own sword.
George M. Haddad has a Bachelors Degree in Sociology and a Masters Degree in Social Administration with extensive work experience with the mentally ill. He is a World War II veteran having served in the Infantry; Interpreter of the French language; Interrogator in Technical Intelligence and Sgt.-Major of a Separation Center. Also the former Executive Director - National Institute for Burn Medicine - affiliated with the University of Michigan. He is retired from the National Staff of the YMCA as a troubleshooter in financial management and administration and has worked as a management consultant to non-profit corporations. He has written frequently on medical, social and political issues and has many published articles to his credit. He currently writes from Franklin, Michigan and can be contacted at gmhaddad@comcast.net