The Criticality of the Diversity of Thought | Weekbook #16

Diversity is a prominent topic across all areas of life, and for good reason. For far too long the underrepresented have been just that. Whilst there is no doubt that people are talking the talk, not all are walking the walk.

There is no doubt the moral obligation. Everyone deserves the opportunity to have a seat and the table and be heard, but it goes far deeper than just that. It is the diversity of thoughts and ideas that deliver undeniable value, beyond the value to the individual themselves. An endless amount of unrealised potential is waiting to be discovered, but it's being left untapped due to what can only be described as ignorance.

Each person that inhabits our planet has a unique life experience and no single journey is the same. As a result, everyone has marginally different perspectives on life, and that has unquestionable power. As a basic example, my own thoughts and opinions have undoubtedly been shaped by experiencing a parental divorce and spending my teenage years in an otherwise all-female household. Consequently, my perspective on marriage may differ significantly from someone who has grown to adulthood with their parent's marriage intact.

But why is this important in the broader topic of diversity? As alluded to earlier, many don't realise the criticality of the diversity of thought, which itself can only be acquired by achieving true diversity.

Reflect on any thought or idea you have ever had for a moment. Unless discussed with someone else, it was formed entirely on your own experiences. However, as soon as you begin to share it with others, and provided you give them the proper opportunity to express themselves, you can shape that idea into something far more meaningful. You can begin to understand the impact that thought may have on an individual, a community, or even an entire race. You are adding additional ingredients to a recipe, ones that you could never hope to access without embracing diversity.

Therefore, it should not be difficult to imagine that without diversity, progress is limited. How can you hope to realise the potential of an idea, a product, or a policy without embracing the unique qualities that diversity brings? In fact, how can you hope for it to have a meaningful impact at all?

Book Notes

I am currently reading Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.

• The fact is important enough to bear repeating: People organise their brains with conversation. If they don't have anyone to tell their story to, they lose their minds. Like hoarders, they cannot unclutter themselves. The input of the community is required for the integrity of the individual psyche. To put it another way: It takes a village to organize a mind.

• If you listen, instead, without premature judgment, people will generally tell you everything they are thinking - and with very little deceit. People will tell you the most amazing, absurd, interesting things. Very few of your conversations will be boring.

• "The great majority of us cannot listen; we find ourselves compelled to evaluate because listening is too dangerous. The first requirement is courage, and we do not always have it."

• Thinking is an internal dialogue between two or more different views of the world. Viewpoint One is an avatar in a simulated world. It has its own representations of past, present and future, and its own ideas about how to act. So do Viewpoints Two, Three, and Four. Thinking is the process by which these internal avatars imagine and articulate their worlds to one another.

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Ending Quote

"Diversity: the art of thinking independently together" - Malcolm Forbes

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