A Parable For Our Time
By Mitch Berg
You’re on a cruise ship. It hits an iceberg and sinks. You climb into a lifeboat with nine other people, and break out the oars.
One of the people starts rowing toward the cruise’s destination. They paid for it, dammit.
Another starts pulling toward Florida, because Florida would be cool.
A third starts rowing toward where they think the nearest land is.
#4 starts rowing toward their home, in Cleveland.
A fifth just starts pulling. She hasn’t gotten her cardio and she’s feeling stale.
Six? She just complains that #3 is “mansplaining”, and pulls in a random different direction.
#7 just sits and heckles the other rowers, dangling the oar cynically in the water.
An eighth person stars rowing toward the light of what might be a rescue ship.
Number nine just says “We’ve got to dooooo something” and just picks a random direction.
You? You pull in whatever direction the current is taking you.
After an hour, the boat has just been spinning about, the light has disappeared, and you’ve moved nowhere.
“Diversity” in and of itself isn’t a virtue. It’s only meaningful if everyone is pulling in more or less the same direction.
January 2nd, 2024 at 6:35 am
A diversity fetish might do worse than take our lifeboat nowhere, it might sink us altogether, if someone insists on pulling more and more people from the water into the lifeboat ignoring all warnings as the gunwales sink lower and lower.
January 2nd, 2024 at 9:14 am
I always find it interesting when the America haters point to mono-cultures and bleat ‘why can’t we be more like them?!’
January 2nd, 2024 at 10:21 am
I’m still laughing that my answer to this question on Facebook last week was covered up with a “may be offensive warning.”
I suggested knocking the 8 idiots out with your own oar and joining the one guy pulling in the right direction.
Guess I did advocate for violence against eight nameless, hypothetical people, at least one of which identified as a feminist woman and the rest probably qualify as a protected class under the heading “Idiots.”
January 2nd, 2024 at 11:21 am
SmithStCrx, I saw Mitch’s post, but I didn’t see your answer. Very good answer indeed!