Andrew Hagen

Writing in the New York Times about the plethora of bizarre stories emanating from the State of Florida, Abby Goodnough reports: (*)

California used to be the capital of cultural, political and environmental crises, the place that baffled and mesmerized with its vivid goings-on. . . .

Paradise is hard to sustain. . . in a place with so many ethnic, age and class groups coexisting in ever more crowded communities. Nearly 1,000 people move to Florida each day, and the churning mix of blacks, Hispanics, retirees from other states, urban liberals, suburban moderates and conservative-leaning rural residents make for a volatile place with deep divisions and conflicting priorities.

“We have more intense collisions between gray hairs and brown hairs, Midwest people and Northeast people, money and nonmoney,” said James Twitchell, a professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida. “The barriers are not very high, so the collisions can occur as if you’re on one of those little electric cars at the fair, banging into things.”

Apparently diversity is not a political virtue after all.

Is Florida a bellwether for social chaos that might spread to the rest of the country? Can the problems with too much diversity detected by the New York Times extend to racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity?

The problem with diversity is that, when combined with the need for some semblance of societal order, diversity can grow out of control and eventually threaten truly important political principles, including liberty and equality. Diversity should be kept to moderate levels.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 3rd, 2005 at 12:59 and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.