Thursday, July 30, 2015

Diversity Thursday

If you get the feeling that there is a dedicated effort to strip away a focus on the serious to the unserious - to burden critical institutions with political theory - you are not alone. Heck ... it isn't feeling, it is fact;
You have to wonder how seriously America’s enemies take us when our commander in chief tells our military that climate change is a top threat to national security, and CIA Director John Brennan makes diversity training and inclusion top priorities for intelligence services.

Russia and China are expanding their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and the South China Sea, respectively, while our spy agency is scrambling to remake its senior staff to be properly diversified by race, gender, sexual orientation and other demographic characteristics. Iran’s mullahs will chuckle about the Obama administration’s obsession with diversity all the way to their first nuclear-weapon test.
Wait, it is worse. This obsession with race and ethnicity has a long track record in human civilization; every nation that has pushed sectarianism has been destroyed by it. This isn't just bad social theory - it is governmental malpractice.

Those who have studied the history and foundation of the modern diversity movement know that it is based on this foundation - that the USA as founded was and is now is tainted by its racist, sexist, homophobic etc founders who designed a white male power structure that must be torn down and destroyed so this nation can be fundamentally transformed in to ... well ... something else than the hated entity it presently is. 

There are well meaning useful idiots who empower what is at its base a socio-political movement based on hate flavored with no small measure of self-loathing. The fact our institutions participate in this willingly or not is to our great shame. Those who hold those billets are as well the zampolit of a hateful and sectarian political movement. I don't think think we are there yet, but close, but I look forward to good people (hopefully a mixed race female of unknown sexual orientation) to start asking them, "Why do you hate heterosexual white males? You seem to celebrate everyone but them."
For one thing, “all leaders, managers, and supervisors” in the CIA should be subject to “mandatory stand-alone diversity and inclusion training.” This must include such “well-established tools” as “unconscious bias training” so that all CIA officers can “learn how societal forces and their own experiences mold their daily decisions and perceptions.” If done with sufficient thoroughness, such training could inculcate the conviction in CIA managers and supervisors that developing a diverse workforce is a “core job function.”

The trouble is, however, that training alone may not suffice to rewire brains prone to “unconscious bias.” Additional steps are therefore necessary. Managers and supervisors, the panel says, “must be consistently evaluated on their success and failure” in fostering inclusivity. The CIA should introduce an agency-wide performance-measuring tool, which “must be utilized on a 360-degree basis”—that is, imposed on everyone without exception—“to drive and institutionalize accountability for inclusive behaviors.”
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At a time when global terrorism is resurgent, when the Middle East is burning, when Russian boots are marching, when China is ramping up its military and Iran is on the verge of going nuclear, is it really a good idea to ask the CIA to concentrate on achieving a 30% minority quota in the agency’s leadership ranks?

Mr. Brennan evidently thinks so. In his statement accompanying the study’s release, the CIA director said he has ordered that beginning Oct. 1 every member of his senior leadership team will be required “to attend diversity and inclusion training.” As of that date, these top CIA officials will also be “evaluated on their actions to create, maintain, and sustain a diverse and inclusive environment.”
We all know what that means. The best will not rise to the top. Meritocracy will not bring the best results. There will be nepotism, fraud, and the best will never join or will leave when they realize the game is rigged against them. 

The best want to be part of a meritocracy - not some corrupt system based on racial and ethnic cronyism.

Hat tip M2.

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