This column represents the thoughts and opinions of Kevin Stuart. This is NOT the opinion of the Taylor Press.
If you have change jingling in your pocket or paper money in your wallet, take it out. Somewhere, you’ll see “e pluribus unum,” the national motto and part of the Great Seal of the United States.
The Latin translates to “out of the many, one.” What has made the American project distinctive and a global source of hope is that we neither destroy differences nor do we settle for celebrating them – we transform people of all different races, religions, histories, and ideas into a unified people: Americans.
That is another way of saying that diversity is not an absolute good. Sometimes diversity is good, as in Blue Bell ice cream flavors or when a diversity of opinions leads to a deeper and richer exploration of truth. Sometimes diversity is bad. We don’t want a diversity of opinion on whether murder or assault is bad; there is one right answer to those questions and life is better when everyone agrees. The deeper truth is that there is a priority relationship between diversity and unity. Unity is more important and more fundamental because diversity is enriching only within a shared way of life. Family members share a home, neighbors share a town, Texans share a state, and Americans share a country. But we’re only really a community if there’s something binding us all together – the word “community” comes from a Latin word meaning “common, universal.” Too often today, the emphasis on diversity undermines unity, diminishes social trust, and thus destabilizes the community. We lose sight of what we have in common. The resulting strife is visible all around us. In times and places where unity runs strong and deep, an emphasis on diversity is good and perhaps even necessary to prevent stagnation and homogeneity.
But we do not live in such a time or place.
Our problem today is not a stultifying sameness, but a chaotic and paralyzing division.
President Joe Biden once said that there are not red states and blue states, just a United States of America. That noble sentiment now seems quaint, as if from a different era. Our society is currently struggling to reach unity on basic questions: whether America is lovable, how to define men and women, and whether children are blessings or burdens on global resources.
Under these conditions of radical disagreement, what we need isn’t more diversity – at best, that’s going to get us nowhere and research shows that diversity programs actually make bias and discrimination worse. What we need instead is to re-forge the bonds of unity, to re-commit to what we share and what unites us. Then, and only then, can we appreciate and integrate what sets us apart.
So, how do we do that? Well, let me suggest that a good start would be a change of institutional focus. We need to stop devoting so many public resources to what divides us and instead renew the ties that bind us together.
Shallow sentiment won’t do. Not with the depth of division and polarization we’re facing. Instead, we need to take a hard look at what fundamental beliefs, if any, unite us at our core. We need to settle the basic questions again and re-center American life on a shared foundation of knowing and loving our country, living out our faith, and building strong communities where children, families, and all of us can flourish. E pluribus unum: as our national motto says, we need to forge deeper unity out of all this diversity.
We need to focus on the “unum.”
