Gunman kills at least 20, injures 42 in Florida gay club shooting.

[The Mad Monk]

A Contrast.

[DinoDoc]

Gun sales surge among gays, lesbians after Orlando shooting

[Elok]

Yup. Great news. There will be a vote, which will be soundly defeated by the Republican majority, a fact which will then be used in attack ads by Democratic candidates against vulnerable incumbent Republican senators, possibly playing a small role in defeating some of those senators, which might shift the balance of the Senate slightly toward the left, which means that the next time there's an awful massacre (likely after tens of thousands more have died from gun violence), gun control measures will be defeated by a slimmer margin. Woo!

Sorry. I think maybe I should eat something.

I think we could achieve progress on this, but it would require a "perfect storm" scenario, a shooting that combined all the variables in such a completely and unequivocally horrible way as to leave no outlet for existing prejudices to overwhelm the revulsion. Sandy Hook could have done it--heaps of dead five-year-olds is bad even for us--except the guns were acquired legally, by a sane and healthy individual, who happened to have a bat**** crazy kid. Hard to think up regulation that would have neatly prevented that without infringing on the sovereign right of the individual to own a bunch of killing devices.

By contrast, this one had an obviously sick gun-owner who gave plenty of warning signs and should never, ever have been allowed to purchase firearms. But the shooter was Muslim and the victims were gay, which complicates the narrative so thoroughly that it almost instantly became a finger-pointing contest.

So, if, say, a hospital got shot up by an obvious nut who did not belong to any major American identity/bugbear (not rabidly Christian or Muslim or atheist or militia member), it would be almost impossible for anyone to muster effective arguments against legislation that would have prevented it. A political blitz could force some changes through before the news cycle pushed the whole issue out of mind again. I guess it could happen.

This'n, though, it's got the blue crowd blaming conservative Christians for the actions of a Muslim who killed a bunch of homosexuals. The red side has no reason to move one frickin' inch.

[DinoDoc]

I think we could achieve progress on this, but it would require a "perfect storm" scenario,...

Well the GOP nominee is coming out in favor of Democratic gun control proposals.

[Lorizael]

A Contrast.

Here's the difficulty with diversity. It is relatively easy to express a kind of acceptance like... gay/black/Muslim people are just like the rest of us... wherein you think that said minority is normal+minority trait. (To be clear, this level of acceptance is way better than hatred and bigotry and lynching.) But that's not what diversity and acceptance are really about. If minorities are really like the rest of us, then that changes who we are. Minorities are not just some respectable divergence from average, where average is some version of white, straight, and Christian. Minorities, if they are really a part of our community, change the makeup of our community as a whole and make it something less easily definable. We can't conclude that a gay person is normal if we don't also change our conception of what normal is.

And that's why you get angry minorities who still don't feel like they are listened to or part of the community, because even if the "normal" members of the community don't hate them for the color of their skin, they don't appreciate that a minority is an equally valid participant and representative of the community .

[DinoDoc]

So diversity is divisive?

[Elok]

There's a paper making the popsci rounds that argues to precisely that effect: communities in fact do better when they're monolithic, not diverse. Haven't read it to evaluate.

[Lorizael]

So diversity is divisive?

As I said, that's the difficult part. Diversity isn't divisive, but thinking that diversity only amounts to conceiving of America as made up of white, straight, Christian people as well as some minorities who are okay, too will lead to divisiveness. Diversity ultimately means that America is made up of white people, black people, gays, straights, men, women, Muslims, Christians, atheists, Jews, transgender people, disabled people, neurologically diverse people, etc... all of it at once.

This is a difficult concept, one not easily managed by the tribal parts of our brain, but one we have to contend with if we want a fully equal society. We can't expect that Latinos and gays should be just like Americans (speak, dress, dance, think, and love like normal people), because Latinos and gays get to decide what America is, too.

[Elok]

But what you're describing is a problem intrinsic to diversity. The atheists, all else being equal, aren't necessarily going to want to listen to a muezzin blaring five times a day. The Christians aren't going to want to accept mortal sin. The whites aren't going to want the whole neighborhood to go berserk every time their Latino neighbors go to a soccer match. Things go much more smoothly, are much less complicated, when everybody's more or less the same and has the same values and customs. Participating in shared rituals (whether church or a party or a sporting event) draws a community together. If everybody has their own sub-community, that's necessarily going to undermine the unity of the whole. You can mitigate the damage done there, but I think eliminating it entirely is out of the question.

[Lorizael]

I don't disagree, but it shouldn't automatically be the case that those who have held the power for centuries should be the ones who get to decide, unilaterally, what our shared values and customs are. Additionally, I'm fine with some degree of complication.

Which is part of why I'm fine with changing what it means to be human... better brains means better ability to handle complication. /crazy

[Elok]

I think the best, or at least most practical, answer at this point would be a kind of cultural divorce, where we all have our own little bubbles and agree to respect each other's bubbular sovereignty while coming together on points of shared interest such as defense, justice, commerce, and to some extent public health. It is easier than ever before to sort into like-minded groups (exhibit A: here), and thus sorted the groups get more radical and individualized to the point where they no longer wish to coexist. When discourse is segregated, persuasion rapidly loses power. I really don't have all that many shared values with either the bleeding edge of today's progressivism or the reactionary remains of traditional conservatism, and "adjust your values or you'll be a pariah" has no power when you're already part of another group that requires no such adjustment.

[Jon Miller]

Diversity is a value too.

Both I and my wife loved almost all aspects of Sweden. It really is a very lovely country.

We didn't like (1) while most people were nominally Lutheran, most people were also Atheists and (2) the country felt very homogenous and lacking Diversity.

The Christian point is a point where we want more than a few percent of the population to be Active and Believing Christians. That is desiring something similar/comfortable to us.

The Diversity point is maybe comforting to us (due to our very different backgrounds) but is an actual preference for a diversity of Cultures/Ethnicities and Religions.

We like Chicago because of the Diversity here.

Note that we would probably be happy in my wife's hometown in SA that is very very Indian.

But it is part of a very diverse city/country with very diverse religions and cultures.

JM

[Jon Miller]

I understand that people without our backgrounds/etc probably do not (And should not) value diversity as we do.

JM

[Elok]

Everybody has a line somewhere where they say, "okay, enough diversity, this is a hard norm that must be respected." I'm sure most people are fine with their Mexican neighbors holding a Cinco de Mayo party or a quinceanera. The more open minded would accept Dia de los Muertos processions and candy skulls, and maybe get into it themselves once they understood it was not necessarily related to Santa Muerte. Almost everybody would object to bullfighting, though, and machismo just isn't as popular on this side of the border as it used to be. We actually find catcalling offensive, which is just loco, ese.

Any coexistence between cultures, like coexistence within them, will involve a good deal of give-and-take, with decisions and compromises made on a case-by-case basis. Which requires maturity and goodwill, and we might not have an adequate supply of either in this country.

[Jon Miller]

One of the things about a Diversity valued group is that there is no group that makes up more than 60% of the population.

It is actually very different, as you know, to be somewhere were you are not part of the dominant culture (80+%).

So really Diversity is it's own culture and is different than diversity which should be just as happy with 99/1%.

JM