European Disunion, or Mere Diversity

The European Union's official motto is "United In Diversity." While the EU's ongoing struggle to implement a constitution mutually acceptable to its 27 member states may impugn its claim to unity, no uncertainty attends its claim to diversity. It has 23 official languages. Its 495 million people probably comprise every known race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and belief system. Such pervasive differences make the degree of unity already attained remarkable. The failure of the Union to achieve even more comprehensive integration may reflect problems less with the European political vision than with the nature of diversity itself.

Nearly every company, school, and government agency today has some sort of statement proclaiming its commitment to diversity. This emphasis apparently finds its impetus in the misconception that diversity is an asset or an attribute which by virtue of its mere presence benefits an organization. But diversity is not a thing, or even a characteristic of a thing, but rather a state of dissimilarity between discrete things. For a group to have diversity actually means that its members lack shared characteristics. Diversity, then, entails the absence of something, not the presence of something. For this reason philosophers would describe it as a "negative" characteristic. To merely have diversity is to not have something, to have no thing, to have nothing. If an organization has no philosophically "positive" characteristics, then, to adapt a phrase from Gertrude Stein, "there's nothing there, there."

The negative nature of diversity makes the EU assertion that its constituent countries are "united in diversity" particularly provocative. If the motto only means that the EU has both unity and diversity, then it is true but trivial. But if it means that the EU is united by its diversity, that its diversity somehow contributes to its unity, then it is absurd. No group could claim unity solely on the basis of its members having in common the fact that they have nothing in common. If such a union claimed to exist, it certainly couldn't claim any positive results from its negative foundation. Hopefully, the EU means its motto to indicate that it has forged unity out of diversity. Diverse entities can unite and make common cause with each other, provided they have at least shared values. But these values must themselves have a positive nature. A group cannot claim unity on the basis of having a shared view of the importance of diversity any more than on the basis of diversity itself. Having in common a belief in the importance of having nothing in common hardly improves upon simply having nothing in common at all.

However, proponents of diversity don't necessarily believe that it promotes or provides a basis for unity per se; they more likely believe that exposure to diversity promotes other, positive values conducive to unity, such as equality and tolerance. But while these values may inspire the acceptance of diversity, diversity doesn't inherently inspire the acceptance of these values. The fact that different individuals appear, behave, and believe differently doesn't imply that no appearance, behavior, or belief can be superior to another. It doesn't even imply that people ought to treat those different than themselves with respect. What is has no necessary bearing on what ought to be; diversity only takes on significance relative to an existing worldview not directly deducible from it. For diverse parties to unite around a value, they must share that value to begin with, and on account of considerations distinct from the simple fact of their diversity.

The EU maintains the core values of peace, prosperity, and unity. While nations and peoples cannot unite around unity any more than around diversity, they can unite around a mutual desire for prosperity and peace. But the struggle of Europeans to agree even on the mechanics of implementing the values which they already share demonstrates the enduring elusiveness of unity. For Europe as for every continent, diversity is but a brute fact of life; unity is the abiding ideal. Nearly everyone wants to see the members of the world's disparate races, ethnicities, genders, orientations, and belief systems united - if not under an exclusive creed, then under the banner of tolerance itself. Ultimately, then, the real challenge confronting humanity is not promoting diversity, but promoting unity - and cultivating the transcendent values that make unity possible.