Policing Diversity OR The Fear of Chaos and the Closed Horizon - by Chat GPT and Me

The cry of our age is fear — fear of chaos, fear of ambiguity, fear of losing control. Across the political spectrum, people warn of rising totalitarianism. Yet, with eerie symmetry, the loudest defenders of “freedom” are often the ones building the walls that confine it.

You can't stave off totalitarianism by policing diversity. 

Philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer called understanding a fusion of horizons — an openness to the unfamiliar that lets truth appear between perspectives. When we close those horizons, when we decide that only our tribe or ideology has the truth, dialogue dies. And when dialogue dies, power rushes in to fill the silence.

That is the moment we are living through. In the name of order, politicians and pundits are banning books, purging school libraries, threatening teachers, and rewriting history to fit a single moral script. Universities are attacked as “un-American.” Journalists are labeled “enemies of the people.” Diversity itself is treated as subversion. The fear of moral chaos has become the justification for intellectual lockdown.

The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan would have recognized this perfectly. He taught that human beings are haunted by lack— an inner incompleteness we try to cover with fantasies of perfect order: a righteous nation, a pure faith, a leader who will make everything make sense again. When those fantasies falter, anxiety surges. Rather than face the uncertainty, we lash out at whoever seems to embody it — scientists, migrants, gender non-conforming people, anyone who reminds us that the world is bigger than our story of it.

This is why many who claim to fear “authoritarianism” gravitate toward authoritarian leaders. Figures like Jordan Peterson warn that deconstruction and pluralism lead to chaos — yet in longing for restored hierarchy and moral certainty, they risk enshrining the very tyranny they dread. Order becomes an idol. And idols always demand sacrifice: of nuance, of empathy, of thought.

We see the same reflex in climate denial. The planetary crisis exposes us to what Lacan called the Real — the ungovernable forces that make a mockery of human control. Faced with melting ice and burning forests, many retreat into disavowal: “I know very well, but even so…” God will fix it. The scientists are lying. The problem is too big to matter. Anything to preserve the illusion of mastery.

But the true abyss is not uncertainty — it is the silence that follows when we shut down the conversation. The open horizon Gadamer spoke of is not relativism; it is democracy itself, the messy, vulnerable willingness to keep listening and to keep being changed.

We are not saved by purity. We are saved, if at all, by openness — to evidence, to other minds, to the possibility that we are wrong. The world will not fall apart because we read difficult books or hear unsettling voices. It will fall apart when we stop daring to hear them.

The Yin and Yang of Politics

Have you noticed that almost every pundit and politician on the rise today is channelling machismo as some sort of answer to a huge problem, namely  _________________ ?

The interconnected Memes of this Machismo (Yang) Politics are

1. Lone Cowboy Individualism 
2. Military style Tribalism and Nationalism (zero sum competition)
3. Domination of Nature
4. A rugged outdoorsy manhood (rather than a cultured intellectualism)
5. The sense of being entitled not to have to edit one's own pronouncements or check one's own behaviours, or to receive more than to give care, regardless of effects on the wellbeing of others.

If you're Jordan Peterson or a supporter of his, the huge problem is Political Correctness and its extreme danger to freedom of speech. Any emphasis on equity evokes his fear that we are in a slide toward post-modern Marxist Maoist Totalitarianism. And he will threaten to sue you for using your freedom of speech to criticize him.

If you're a person who's lost his or her job, you might think that the huge problem is immigration and globalism. Or maybe you think government regulations that are meant to protect the environment and citizens are limiting local investments in new industry and reducing job growth. But did you consider that we are in an era of great technological change and that the mandate of corporations is to increase production efficiencies (where labour is considered another expense cutting into profits)?   In fact, more production is going on in the US now than in the past - but much of it is automated. The technology has changed so the economic system must adapt or leave people behind.

Meanwhile, economists believe that Free Trade improves the economy. It has also been shown that diversity improves outcomes for innovation. And without immigration, the average age of the citizenry will increase to the point that there are nearly as many retirees as working people (paying the taxes that pay for the old age benefits).  

The huge problem is that the technology has changed but the economic system has not changed. We produce more than we need, much of it disposable or wasted. We pollute the environment with producing it. Those that have jobs, many are what we know to be "bullsh*t" jobs that would not be necessary if large companies and governments were not piled high in unnecessary bureaucratic processes. All but a few jobs can be automated and will be in the future. What happens to wage labour and the relevance of "work ethic" then? 

And what of Yin politics?

The Memes of Feminine (Yin) Politics

1. Interconnectedness (individual human potential cannot be realized apart from society, culture, economics and technology)
2. Pluralism and Diversity (not a zero sum but a win-win)
3. Environmentalism, Sustainable Development
4. Resilience and the importance of ongoing learning

To be honest, I don't know if I'd really call the above Yin or feminine or feminist. The reason I did so is because they seem to be the memes disparaged or neglected by the resurgent patriarchy. 

I take it to be pretty self-evident that no one's potential can be realized apart from society, culture, economics and technology. Even so, neuro-palaeontology confirms it. We are immersed, regardless of whatever political system we live in.

Given the fact that we live in an ineluctably global economic system, we need to be more tolerant of diversity. Not so tolerant that we tolerate a lack of tolerance or abuse, though. 

We cannot continue to carry on producing in excess of what we need or that nature can give or absorb.

Exploratory curiosity and learning is what makes us human, gives us meaning and helps us to adapt. We are not adapting by insisting on a set idea of "human nature". Our flourishing and resilience, our strengths, lie in our creative responsiveness and adaptability. We change. Culture changes. Narrative that doesn't change becomes decrepit and toxic.