Pride Week, 2021

Littlechild@emperorsnuclothes.com/ July 4, 2021/ Uncategorized

Well, last weekend wrapped up “Pride Week, 2021.” While most American special occasion celebrations (even very important ones like Arbor Day [April 29] or National Chocolate Day [July 7]) make do with a one day designation, the annual celebration of American weirdness can’t be contained, apparently, in a single calendar day. No, Pride DAY, I’m afraid, just won’t do! Ladies and gentlemen, nothing less than “Pride Week” will suffice.

Now, “Pride WEEK,” it seems, bestows upon our great land nearly limitless opportunities for off beat “self expression”: dancing, parades, dressing up, cross dressing up, wearing costumes, wearing LOTS of makeup, public displays of affection, cavorting, acting out, and the inevitable sharing of numerous microorganisms including COVID, HIV, herpes and God knows what else. For all of this, we’re told to be grateful.

But what do the prideful revelers have to be proud about? In the past, pride was something one earned. It was a sense of well being that arose from completing a job well done, mastering a skill, defending our country, providing assistance to those in need or raising offspring to be productive and responsible members of society. And it always involved adhering to high moral standards. It WAS NOT, however, to be claimed simply for being an ODDBALL. (Please forgive my provincialism, but I must confess that I find a muscled construction worker sporting stiletto heels to be ODD). “Oddball-ism,” if I may coin a term, isn’t meritorious in its own right. If so-and-so is a lazy ne’er-do-well, it doesn’t matter one iota if that so-and-so is gay (or sad), straight (or crooked). That individual remains a lazy ne’er-do-well, regardless of what “he/she/it” may like to call themselves. If another so-and-so is a mean SOB, it doesn’t matter if they’re “binary,” “unitary” or “indeterminate.” They REMAIN a mean SOB.

So, what, if anything, is the LGBTQ “community” so proud about? The only claim to value of ANY sort would be in the realm of “diversity.” But, even though “diversity,” on first blush, might SOUND desirable, I would question whether “diversity,” of and by itself, is really a virtue.

Admittedly, diversity IS a “plus” when lunching at the food court. The option of choosing between a taco, egg roll, empanada or deep fried tofu IS, arguably, an improvement over the humdrum choice of hamburger, hamburger or hamburger, on offer during the dark days before multiculturalism. But, aside from the expanded culinary choices, is there real value in diversity per se?

Well, dear readers, the answer, I believe, hinges on what KIND of diversity we’re talking about. An amalgam of different cultures might be wonderful if we’re considering enlightened societies with vigorous and open intellectual traditions, strong family values and an ingrained work ethic (migrants from some areas in Asia, for example). Conversely, however, if we are considering a cohort of illiterates with few skills, little to no family structure and a work ethic that is, shall we say, questionable, diversity might be somewhat less attractive.

Further, when a society admits large numbers of migrants from primitive and barbaric cultures, such as what Western Europe has done of late (by throwing open its doors to MILLIONS of economic migrants from unstable warrens in the desert sands of the Mid East), the value of diversity becomes NEGATIVE. In fact, when a society admits large numbers of hostile, entitled migrants who adhere to a completely different moral code (child marriage, for example, polygamy, honor killings, spousal abuse, and many other practices we find morally repugnant), refuse to assimilate, refuse to pledge loyalty to the society that is generous enough to welcome them, and, furthermore, unabashedly describe how they plan to take over that society, accepting that type of diversity isn’t just negative – it’s suicidal.

Now, despite all of the above, we Americans have been “schooled” by SELF DESCRIBED “elites” in politics, the media and academia, that “diverse societies” are more “advanced” and more desirable than less enlightened homogeneous ones. Despite the ubiquity of these claims, there is evidence that those claims simply aren’t true.

Studies have shown that increased diversity is associated with decreased societal cohesiveness (this was discussed in detail in a 2019 report from The Migration Observatory of Oxford University), decreased trust (Costa and Kahn, 2003) and decreased collective action (Sampson, et al., 1997). A major study conducted by Harvard Professor (and, ironically, an avowed liberal) Robert Putnam looked at nearly 30,000 Americans in relation to diversity parameters (Putnam, 2007) and found that as DIVERSITY INCREASED, people reported:

1) Less trust in their neighbors.
2) Less interest in voting.
3) Less interest in volunteering.
4) Less charitable giving.
5) Less sense of community.
6) Less neighborliness.
7) Less altruism.

Shockingly, many of these trends were present WITHIN ETHNIC GROUPS as well as BETWEEN them. In a common sense explanation, it seems that people in diverse communities seemed to “hunker down” and be more withdrawn socially in comparison to people residing in more homogeneous societies. And these effects remained even when economic status was factored out. (Putnam, incidentally, found these results so disappointing to his liberal sensibilities that he waited YEARS before publishing them!)

Although not looked at specifically in the studies mentioned above, I suspect that the NATURE of the diversity (exactly which groups are intermingled) is as important, or more important, than the numerical extent of the intermingling. Some combinations of different ethnicity and culture, when mixed together, might be enriching and positive, whereas some combinations are poison. In our present age of mass migration (according to www.weforum.org there were 272 MILLION migrants, world wide, in 2020, or 3.5% of the world’s population) it is imperative that we, as a society, figure out which is which.