DEI and the ‘Bigness’ Problem

For decades, the political left—and even parts of the right—have insisted that “diversity is our strength” and has striven to convince Americans (and other Westerners) of the importance and beauty of “multiculturalism” and other related social phenomena. Today, with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and ideology under attack by most of the right and by the Trump Administration in particular, the left is howling that the nation’s principles themselves are being harmed and that we, as a people, are doing tremendous damage to the fabric of our society, sacrificing one of our most important characteristics on the altar of white privilege.

Over the last couple of years, thanks largely to the efforts of a handful of honest and dedicated academics, an entirely new body of research has been created, debunking many of the assumptions inherent in the DEI worldview. Last year, for example, British finance professor (and, notably, a man of the left) Alex Edman’s penned an extremely important and well-received book, May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases—And What We Can Do About It, which thoroughly eviscerated many of the previous studies that formed the justifications for DEI and explained how these studies were created specifically to foster a false but socially acceptable business paradigm. Ironically, Edmans has said explicitly and repeatedly that he personally supports diversity and believes that it is “desirable in its own right,” even as he has just as explicitly torn apart the idea that there is “evidence” that supports diversity as the means to improve business or institutional performance.

Of course, even if Edmans is correct that diversity is desirable “in its own right,” the problem with the diversity industrial complex as it exists in society today is the same problem that plagues all left-wing populist schemes: the cure offered is often worse than the illness. Or, in this case, the cure is, in fact, the very cause of the illness.

As a general rule, the left believes that the ideal solution to any real or perceived lack of a social good can be found in the top-down imposition of that good. In this case, the solution to the lack of diversity is for the federal government to demand diversity in institutional practice. Short of that, organizations with control or influence over smaller institutions should demand the same, that all those hierarchically beneath them submit to their diversity mandates. An example of the latter can be found in the insistence by massive passive asset managers that corporations have detailed diversity hiring schemes and/or plans to diversify their boards of directors. Likewise, in the name of social justice, the NASDAQ stock exchange issued a demand that all its listed companies have superficially diverse boards of directors or face sanctions, up to de-listing. And though that demand was rejected by the courts, it previously had the tacit approval of the Biden-era Securities and Exchange Commission, making it, essentially, a public and private sector mandate.

The problems with such top-down approaches are both numerous and well-known. Rarely does the involvement of government in any matter simplify it. Far more often, government’s involvement exacerbates the problem, making it more complex and confusing. In this specific instance, government’s involvement is more aggravating still, as government itself is a big part of the problem.

Roughly seven decades ago, Russell Kirk, the intellectual godfather of American conservatism, noted that the overarching trend in human-social relations is toward greater centralization and away from “community.” This trend, he continued, had accelerated dramatically since the Enlightenment and carried with it significant destructive consequences. “All history, and especially modern history,” Kirk wrote, “is in some sense the account of the decline of community and the ruin consequent upon that loss.”

For Kirk, the culprit in this “pulverizing macadamizing tendency of modern history” was the state, which, he explained, is forever seeking to commingle its “clients” into a single, massive amalgamation of discrete yet identical drones whose needs can be met cheaply and easily and whose propensity to think outside the proverbial box is minimal. “What the state seeks,” Kirk contended, “is a tableland upon which a multitude of individuals, solitary though herded together, labor anonymously for the State’s maintenance.”

In other words, the state—i.e., “Big Government”—is largely responsible for destroying true diversity in our civilization. As Kirk concluded, “All those great gifts of variety, contrast, competition, communal pride, and sympathetic association which characterize man at his manliest are menaced by the ascendancy of the omnicompetent state.”

Unfortunately, in our society, Big Government is not the only culprit. As I noted above, Big Business (or at least certain varieties of Big Business) share Big Government’s pulverizing macadamizing tendency. Big Business or “corporate America,” or whatever one calls it, is also keenly interested in ensuring that the variety and distinctions of community are obliterated by the interests and demands of “the people,” “the nation,” or “the world.”

For the record, this commercial and economic eradication of individual, community, and regional variety is not or, at least, was not initially, intentionally malevolent. It was and is simply easier, particularly when the goal is to be bigger, better, and more profitable than one’s competitors. An agglomeration of the masses is far easier and more efficient to satisfy than an array of similar yet different local variations. If success in business breeds growth (as it often does), and if growth and size then become surrogates for success (as they often do), then the ability to pulverize community and herd individuals together becomes both a necessity for and a sign of ongoing and intensifying success.

Only through the bowdlerization of all that differs from the elite-designed and elite-sanctioned “acceptable” values can true progress be made, in the modern sense. Anything less is regressive or, worse yet, reactionary. Anything less will prevent man from achieving that which is his destiny and which is, not coincidentally, indistinguishable from Utopia.

You’ll note that the contemporary, government-sanctioned definition of “diversity” is very narrow and specific. It applies to physical appearance and sexual preference, but little else. And even those who meet superficial requirements but don’t share the worldview and the “values” are deemed unacceptably diverse.

As with so many other problems in society, when it comes to diversity, “bigness” is both the problem and the solution the activists offer to cure it. In truth, the only real solution is a return to the true diversity of community and localism.