Pandemonium

Diversity is our strength.

Or so we are told.

Common sense suggests that unity is at least as important. Diversity is more like friction: energy dissipated without direction. Chaos is the ultimate diversity.

Granted that I love the diversity of the Catholic Church: the thought of people all around the world worshipping as one.

But then, it is not the diversity I love, is it? It is the act of deliberate unity. The old American motto, “E Pluribus Unum,” similarly celebrates a movement to unity, not diversity: “out of many, one.” One might as well say, “out of lead, gold.” “Out of manure, flower.” Diversity is the given, unity the ideal.

The liberal goal of equality is a call for unity: the idea is to treat all men the same.

The medieval scholastics considered unity one of the transcendental values, the ultimate goals of human existence.

So why this new and pressing desire for diversity? Very new in the idea that diversity is to be preserved and celebrated.

A thought occurs. Unity is equivalent to purity, and purity to morality. Sir Galahad said,
“My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.” Our prime directive, Jesus said, is to “love God with your whole heart.”

The devil, conversely, literally means diversity: the word comes from dia-bol, to set apart. Devils are multiple by nature: "pandemonium."

We are dealing with something diabolic.

The subtext to this emerging celebration of diversity, I suspect, is that it releases us from obligations to do what is right. We get to act at random, and nobody can object. That’s “diversity.”

The idiom “to hell in a handcart” comes to mind.