Motus Mentis

Ah, Diversity. How its worship enriches us!

It doesn’t, of course. But it does, at least, make for some last-minute entertainment, here on the deck of the Titanic.

There are some areas of human activity that lie forever beyond the reach of heartfelt wishes and fond imaginings: places where reality is still there even after you stop believing in it. One of these, for example, is competitive sports — where a runner’s velocity is still, stubbornly and implacably, distance over time. Another is engineering — which is difficult, and which makes certain non-negotiable demands. To build a bridge, or send an aircraft aloft, requires skills, talents and aptitudes that, whether we like it or not, are no more evenly distributed among the sexes and races than upper-body strength or fleetness of foot. You can rail against this all you like — and I’m sure some of you will rail against me for pointing it out. But when you’re done, there it is, nonetheless.

This means that places that do a lot of engineering are going to be staffed, very disproportionately, by members of certain population groups, and by males. For the sort of work that requires truly elite mathematical and spatial skills, the effect is going to be very noticeable indeed. This is a matter — not entirely, perhaps, but nearly so — of cold, hard statistics having to do with distributions of cognitive and behavioral traits. (As we must always point out, none of this tells you anything about any individual person. Seven-foot-tall men are far more common than seven-foot-tall women, but that doesn’t mean that they tower over them. Brilliant engineers, likewise, can be of any sex or race.)

This variety of trait-distribution is a real problem for companies like Google and Apple, who would — believe me! — like nothing better than to be able to make splendidly and durably engineered products with a workforce consisting largely, and ostentatiously, of females, blacks, Hispanics, and others likewise crushed by arbitrary forces of vile oppression. Sadly, though, the stubborn realities of the actually existing world require them to make a choice — and their having chosen good engineering over optics means that their technical staff is overwhelmingly white or Asian, and male.

This is a terrible predicament, and so they do what they can. Reality isn’t going anywhere, though, which leaves them little else to work with but theater, and spin. And so we have this news item, in which Apple’s black female Diversity chief attempts to convince her audience that if you squinch up your eyes just right, you can see Diversity anywhere — even among, for example, twelve blue-eyed, fair-haired males. You can imagine how that went over.

Mind you, in a more orderly and homogeneous (but I repeat myself!) society, such a group might, in fact, seem quite diverse. One might be a Calvinist, another a Catholic. One might be trim and athletic, another fat and flabby. One might play the bassoon, while another is putting together a Cannibal Corpse tribute band. They might vary enormously in temperament, style, political opinions, levels of education and wealth, and a thousand affinities and aversions. After all, the only things held constant here are hair color, eye color, and sex.

Ha! None of that matters, not at all. There are boxes to be checked here, comrade. Needless to say, the gambit was a failure, and the unfortunate spokeswoman was made to apologize. The problem, however, isn’t going anywhere: companies that do engineering are still going to face the same stubborn realities, and the same impossible demands.

Pass the popcorn!