He sees “diversity” happening because it is a effective political weapon not because some group found it the optimal tool for their goals.
I claim that there are certainly other effective political weapons that use identity politics and that the Left effectively used other weapons over “diversity” or “multiculturalism” up to the 1950s—class-warfare framing chief among them. “Diversity” works as a weapon because it can force people to associate with groups (like most African-Americans, etc) which are almost certain not to associate with the elites in competition with the Left. It breaks up the homogenity of the enemy elite’s power base; the enemy either has to put up with it or be ruined in its reputation.
But class, sex, religion, etc would work just as well, because the enemy elites are not just (almost completely) white, they’re also almost completely upper-class (sometimes industrialists, often financists, occasionally from academic or military clans), they’re almost completely male, almost never (in the US) outspoken atheists, Muslims, Confucians, Unitarians (would’ve been a beautiful gambit! although it’d need a little astroturfing) - in short, there are many potential angles of attack in this way, and before the 60s, race was practically never used for it, while class and wealth often were.
Therefore, there must have been a reason to pick “ethnicity” instead of other characteristics for crippling enemy freedom of maneuver in such a way—just think for a moment, why is our “diversity” an ethnic “diversity”, rather than a religious “diversity” or a class-background “diversity” (you only have people raised in rich suburbs at your organization? you’re an enemy of the People!) or “diversity” among some other such line? I claim that this was because the American Left had at that point already turned to using race politics for other ends. I’m planning to explain what those other ends were, in my analysis.
I claim that there are certainly other effective political weapons that use identity politics and that the Left effectively used other weapons over “diversity” or “multiculturalism” up to the 1950s—class-warfare framing chief among them. “Diversity” works as a weapon because it can force people to associate with groups (like most African-Americans, etc) which are almost certain not to associate with the elites in competition with the Left. It breaks up the homogenity of the enemy elite’s power base; the enemy either has to put up with it or be ruined in its reputation.
But class, sex, religion, etc would work just as well, because the enemy elites are not just (almost completely) white, they’re also almost completely upper-class (sometimes industrialists, often financists, occasionally from academic or military clans), they’re almost completely male, almost never (in the US) outspoken atheists, Muslims, Confucians, Unitarians (would’ve been a beautiful gambit! although it’d need a little astroturfing) - in short, there are many potential angles of attack in this way, and before the 60s, race was practically never used for it, while class and wealth often were.
Therefore, there must have been a reason to pick “ethnicity” instead of other characteristics for crippling enemy freedom of maneuver in such a way—just think for a moment, why is our “diversity” an ethnic “diversity”, rather than a religious “diversity” or a class-background “diversity” (you only have people raised in rich suburbs at your organization? you’re an enemy of the People!) or “diversity” among some other such line? I claim that this was because the American Left had at that point already turned to using race politics for other ends. I’m planning to explain what those other ends were, in my analysis.