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Universal pluralism and the diversity impasse |
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Last month’s historic LGBT equality conference, hosted by Avon FRS, could act as a watershed for catapulting the Fire and Rescue Service beyond the limited horizons of current thinking on equality and diversity
When CFO Charlie Hendry talked about the strong possibility of the Service beginning to looking distinctly odd, prefaced by the remark: “The older I get, the angrier I get at the sheer unmitigated waste of talent of individuals,” it struck a chord with this reporter. The question is, how do we tap into the talent? Out there – somewhere – is an approach that is years ahead of its time, way off the government radar, far beyond the scope of everyday approaches to E&D.
Universal pluralism, true unity in diversity, moves beyond ‘identity’ politics and distinctions towards commonality through individuality. Universal pluralism starts with the commonalities we all share: the deep structure emotional, feeling, physical, biological components that unite us all as human beings. Secondly, and thankfully, we diverge on a surface level into millions of wonderfully divergent beings with various constructs that make us special and unique. Those constructs are then widened to the social, cultural, familial domains and our preferred groupings.
The beauty of universal pluralism is that we all start off the same – at a deep level we are peas in a pod – and we diverge only on the surface. The problem has been that society classifies in reverse: branding or labelling on the surface structure and dismissing the deep structure. Therein also lays the root of the problem. Our identities, rather strangely, are constructed of primarily surface level features. When we are challenged to take on board the opposite, it threatens to fragment our perceived identity, our self image, which in turn threatens our existence. Chief Jona Olsson suggested that homophobia was rooted in sexism: the male/female duality. If we are brought up as one or the other, to be forced to acknowledge that our friend or colleague is not that which we thought, not only is our perception of them threatened, it also endangers our perception of our own self. If we are not what we thought we were, our identity crumbles and we are left with nothing.
Terrifying. And that’s what E&D is to many when addressed the wrong way ‘round. Universal pluralism plugs into the mainframe, celebrating true individualism – the crux of diversity – whilst acknowledging the bond that links. It is easy to embrace E&D when one sees human beings of all varieties – black, white, gay, bisexual etc – as peas in our pod. Society, for some reason, has brought us up to believe the opposite to be true. “We are right, my son, go forth and differentiate…” So how does this work in practical terms? As stated, it doesn’t. We are nowhere near it, nor are we likely to be in the near future. For the record, it work likes this. The labels we affix to individuals and groups are just that, identity tags that can be useful. They do not have meaning in and of themselves. Somewhat contradictorily, in order to move beyond the surface structure and tap into deep structure talent, we need to differentiate further. Ideally, we would set off from the deep structure, but society has reared us in reverse, so for the moment, to undo what has been done, we have to use a structure of labels to work through the labels.
Every individual and his/her development within an organisation must be considered in terms of organisational, societal, cultural and self development. That is, the ‘I’ and the individual’s level of awareness; the cultural ‘We’ of the organisation (such as developmental levels, Clare Graves et al); the societal ‘Its’ of the external infrastructure, technological capacities etc; and the ‘It’ of the individual’s biological, physical and mental capacity.
A truly inclusive and comprehensive grid would then give a more complete picture of the individual going beyond colour, ethnicity, sexuality, religion etc. As long as this snapshot does not become another identity tag, then it must surely be more useful than categorising and catering for everdiverging groups, which are not and never have been the people themselves. Thus we land at a juncture where the organisation does not differentiate between the ethnicity, sexuality etc, only the contributions of individuals with multi-various talents and capabilities. No waste at all. Only abundance.
To reinforce, we are nowhere near this. A million miles away. However, supposedly people-centred organisations must surely be aware of and responsive to the interior as well as the exterior needs of the individual.
The first step may be recognising that each and every one of us is more than the colour of our skin, sexual orientation, or religious belief. Much more. Organisations need to learn how to find out how to tap into that ‘moreness’, or we will continue to polarise and victimise every supposedly ‘different’ human being walking the face of the planet. |
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