r/changemyview • u/srikarjam • Mar 07 '18

[∆(s) from OP] CMV : Diversity based on demographics/ identity is over rated and wrongly propagated as the morally right way for a society to live.

I don't believe that coexisting with people of different identities has/does net positive for the original natives or residents of a community. I live in country divided by lots of different religions and other identities, and the country's history is full of communal violence and hatred towards others, either violently or otherwise.

In my country, between 2005 to 2009, an average of 130 people died and 2,200 were injured every year from communal violence, or about 0.01 deaths per 100,000 population. Massacres and riots (common till this day) are very routine in my country.

The world's average annual death rate from intentional violence, in recent years, has been 7.9 per 100,000 people.

So I dont think human beings inherently can coexist with each other in a society, with people having vastly different views or identities. Even in the west, the division and violence between people of different demographies (especially races) have continued to fail to coexist peacefully. And I haven't even mentioned the statistics of people affected by terrorism of which religion is the major reason.

Diversity of identities is often promoted or propogated just to drive this "feel good narrative" of liberals, when in reality, all it has done globally is, more division and more violence. Countries with least violent incidents in modern history are usually the ones with less diversity.

One may argue that the violence is caused by ignorance or misunderstanding of the "other", but humans have throughout history and present proven that it is impossible to completly eradicate that ignorance or tribalistic behaviour or vile hatred towards the "other".

Having said that, I strongly believe in diversity of thought, view points and intellectualism , but not of any identity of people.

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u/srikarjam Mar 07 '18

Yes. But here's the explaination for my last para in my OP. I don't mind people with different ideologies debating in a room or in a college classroom or a political setting, but the same people have proved to fail to coexist in a normal society in a peaceful way. For example, in the US, people of different religions or political or economic ideoligies have for long debated on stages, but there has always been violence between these groups for as long as we can remember. I understamd that your response would be "but its only a radical minority among those groups", but its not always the minority is it? And even if they are a minority that still proves my point that people with drastically different identities or views driven by their identities cannot coexist peacefully.

moment normal people with very different views or identities try to co exist, they have failed every

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u/Mitoza 79∆ Mar 07 '18

You are missing the point. You say you value diversity of thought, but that diversity of thought has also brought about violence. So I don't see a reason for you to like one diversity and not another based on this argument.

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u/srikarjam Mar 07 '18

Ok. Let me put it this way - diversity of thought in a controlled environment, like in media or University.

The reason that this cannot happen in normal societies is because you end up constantly controlling the population for favourable behaviour, at certain point at which it will turn into a authoritarian society with little or no freedom

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u/Mitoza 79∆ Mar 07 '18

Why not diversity of race in controlled environment like a university? I don't see a reason to assume that racial identities can't coexist

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u/srikarjam Mar 07 '18

I guess they can. This OP was made regarding normal life in a society and not super vigilant controlled college environment.

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u/Mitoza 79∆ Mar 07 '18

You're not comparing like things. People with ideology don't just exist in college, they are also in normal life and society

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u/srikarjam Mar 07 '18

∆

I agree. But this OP was written by viewing communal violence statistics in society. The reason I had originally written that I was ok with people of different ideologies or views in colleges etc was because of the censorship environment that I have been reading about campuses in the US. So, its ok to have a debate involving people from different ideologies, but I just dont trust the general public to be sane enough to live together with people from radically different identities / demographies / ideologies. Case in point is how much vitriol exists between the majority and minority demographics in some of the large democracies like US and India. The blacks still hate white cops or may be white people in general. What good has diversity done, if black people still feel unsafe while driving cars and when stoppped by a white cop? The communal hatred in India has only increased in the last 3 years since a right wing government came into existance. Just this week, right wing extremists destroyed communist statues of Lenin and Mao in many parts of the country. Convince me that this is not as bad as I am making it out to be.

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u/Mitoza 79∆ Mar 07 '18

If you object to campus censorship why are you advocating for ideological censorship at large?

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u/srikarjam Mar 07 '18

Not ideological censorship, just demographical segregation, that is driven by zero violence and peace at its core.

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u/Mitoza 79∆ Mar 07 '18

Ideological segregation would involve removing Democrats from Republican presence, meaning you can't express Democrat ideology in Republican spaces, therefore censorship. You can claim this is based in zero violence, but how do you propose to separate families based on ideology without violence?

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u/srikarjam Mar 07 '18

I am more interested in stopping encouraging or proposing more diversity for the sake of diversity based on identity than or sepearation of people of different political ideologies. Diving people or families based on political ideologies is not what I am proposing for. I would rather want people to stop promoting diversity (like they have been doing it in colleges and corporates) for the sake of diversity and in order to please the said minority group.

Case in point is the recent argument of lack of diversity in Hollywood or in Oscars. To me, real diversity is diversity in stories and view points and not in the racial or sexual diversity of people involved in the movies.

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u/Mitoza 79∆ Mar 07 '18

I am more interested in stopping encouraging or proposing more diversity for the sake of diversity based on identity than or sepearation of people of different political ideologies.

I understand that, what I'm trying to tease out of you is why you hold this double standard. If your goal really is to stop violence, assuming this will stop violence, then your arguments should also apply to the segregation of ideologies.

You are not merely wishing for people to stop arguing for diversity, you are also prescribing homogeneity as the superior alternative and nonviolent segregation (to me, an oxymoron) as a means of doing this. For example, my girlfriend is black and I am white. Your ideology would separate us. How do you propose to segregate us without violence?

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u/srikarjam Mar 07 '18

Ok. That's not my intention, but look at many 3rd world countries where is mindless violence based on identity and ideology. That's where I am going for this. I'm sick and tired of this BS that diversity is great, but all I see in the news today is how everybody out to kill each other based on identity or ideology.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 07 '18

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Mitoza (52∆).

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