Customer Reviews

Diversity: The Invention of a Concept

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My politics and Dr. Wood's are miles apart, but his book is exceptionally well-written, researched and timely (the Supreme Court will be hearing the U-M case next month). Though I disagreed with him on a nearly page by page pace, his engaging style and sincerity kept me at it. Shelby Steele is right--it really reads like a novel in places. The really surprising aspect of this erudite and on-the-face-of-it academic tome is it's humor. This is a very funny book with many laugh-out-loud passages. Wood makes us re-examine ourselves on the most passionate subject in our history with great wit and humor. That's why Diversity is head and shoulders above right wing screeds (anything by Ann Coulter, for example) it may be thrown in with--that would be a mistake. Diversity is an excellent read for unrepentant lefties like me who need to have their orthodoxy and intellectual cobwebs shaken up for review every so often. Highly recommend.

A brilliant dissection of "diversity." The quotation marks are necessary because the concept Wood is writing about--and all of AMerican higher education is obsessively talking about--has no relationship to the original meaning of the word--multiplicity and variety. "Diversity" is now a word describing schemes to manipulate people and numbers for racial and ethnic objectives. This is a book that shows how this happened. It is far from being a polemic, however. Rather, Wood, an anthopologist by trade, writes elegantly in tracing the back alleyways and intellectual boutiques through which "diversity" has passed on its way to the center stage in American life (and to a Supreme Court decision.)

Professor Wood admits that, in contemporary America, only the most intrepid minds dare question diversity's exalted stature as a cultural ideal. So it should say something Wood's disregard for his own reputation that he has written this book, which assails the ideal of diversity on page by page pace. I will admit that I bought this book hoping to see just this kind of thing-to see a credible author and skilled mind slay diversity in a "public setting." Of course, it's only a public setting if more people read the book.

My own antipathy toward diversity took root during my undergraduate experience at the University of Nebraska, where diversity pervaded official policy, speeches, campus news articles, and student government. Not despising diversity, I merely became irritated with its omnipresence, the way one might tire of a food group if forced to eat it at every sitting. In short, I was unaware of diversity's true malevolence before reading this book. But Wood documents diversity's self-contradictions, its empty thinking, its threat to individualism, its corrosive impact on higher education, and more. In higher education, for instance, Wood attacks race preferences for admission (carried out in the name of diversity) and notes that, at the U. of Michigan, a white applicant to law school scoring between 163-165 on the LSAT and holding a 3.25 GPA has about a 23% chance of being admitted. A minority student with the exact same academic credentials has a 99% chance. I mention this in this review so that the potential reader can get a feel for the content of this book.

Of higher education, Professor Wood also points out how diversity is cleverly used as a two-faced recruitment tool. Diversity is marketed to white American teenagers, Wood says, as a way to escape the social narrowness of their high school experience-as a "romantic mingling" experience with "the other". But diversity is then marketed to minority students as an assurance that they will feel welcome at State U., where increased recruitment of students of color will offer minorities a safe haven from the crush of the predominantly white student body. Fantastic observation, because it's true, and it reveals diversity's opportunistic nature.

Despite diversity's grotesque track record, Wood also realizes why diversity has maintained a near universal following in this country-it seems to command us all to be fair, helpful, open-minded, and above all, to avoid judgment of other people, other beliefs, and other ideas (is that such a good idea?). As Wood argues, despite diversity's more noble exhortations, we as neighbors, citizens, and co-workers can better achieve good will and social betterment if we set aside silly race-based distinctions and look instead at individual merit.

As an example of how holistic Wood's view of diversity is, take one of the early chapters. In it, Wood draws on his experience in anthropology to relate how Americans in the 1800s and early 1900s were avid readers of books and compendiums that provided rich, unabashed descriptions of the world's geographic and cultural diversity. True diversity. He contrasts this bygone interest in the world's people and places with the new diversity, which Wood argues accentuates slight differences between people (black Americans, white Americans, Hispanics, etc.) and asserts, against the evidence, that the differences between us are gigantic. Furthermore, he chastises contemporary Americans for believing themselves to be educated about and sensitive to cultural differences, whereas, these same Americans believe, past generations were parochial, ignorant, and unappreciative of these differences. "It is a sad delusion," he writes.

Although it wasn't the most enjoyable segment in the book, the best work Wood does (from an author's and researcher's point of view) is when he traces the growth of diversity from an LBJ speech through the Supreme Court's Bakke decision through the 1980s and then today. Wood's treatment of the Bakke case is remarkable in its detail, and is sure to startle the reader when one realizes how a marginalized, fringe idea (that there is real, measurable educational value in having a diverse student body), set forth by Justice Lewis Powell, spawned the monster we wrestle with today.

Overall, Wood takes a topic that had great potential to be tedious and academic and turns it into a delightful read that manages to deal with diversity comprehensively and delicately without compromising the reader's interest. Flat-out, this is a great book.

Peter Wood's book is written in an easy-to-read, logical, and well-reasoned fashion. Before earning my master's degree last year, I attended meetings at the university's "Diversity Task Force". I must admit to using some of Peter Wood's same arguments regarding the superficiality and shallowness of the "Task Force" criteria for measuring the diversity of the student body -- It felt like I was banging my head against the wall! I sensed that my white male status was seen as subtracting from the diversity of the student body, regardless of my diverse life experiences. Maybe if I were raised by a pack of wolves? How come this makes so much sense and many other people don't see it? Thank you Peter Wood for this timely book. I wonder if the logic and science will be enough to deprogram any diversiphiles. In my experience, they are close-minded to any argument, regardless of reason, that may disrupt their delusion. I would also like to add that most of the diversiphiles I met are good people who have good intentions; however, we all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This book should be required reading for all people who want to improve "diversity".

Must reads are everywhere. But few of them address such a toxic and dangerous plague as this one. The diversity movement, hiding in the garb of peace, love, and tolerance, is working hard to destroy the qualities that make America America. Sound harsh? It is. But Peter Wood documents with names and dates.

Why is education heading down the toilet? Well, there are many reasons, but diversity is certainly a major contributor. How about the fact that what passes for art these days leaves most people cold, if they're lucky, disgusted if they're not? Diversity again.

Diversity is a new concept, as Dr. Wood scrupulously points out. It is not an American ideal, but a recently coined invention to disguise the failure of affirmative action. Its purpose is to remove judgement and evaluation, to protect the incompetent and the insignificant, and to force everyone to embrace everyone else (except those cranky, right-wing wackos...don't embrace those nasty people!)

The reason I knock this down a point on style is that when Dr. Wood is good, he is very, very good. There are pages that are as funny as they are illuminating, Thus the weaker stuff looks much lamer in comparison. But minor quibble. This is an important book, a book that will go a long way to helping us rid the country of the bad ideas that are masquerading as the only possible good ones. If we read it. And share it. And promote it. Please do so.

Diversity: The Invention Of A Concept by Peter Wood (Professor of Anthropology, Boston University) is a cautionary look at the extent to what the idea of "diversity" is evolving within the context of contemporary American society. The modern notion of "diversity" represents a type of surprisingly narrow conformity, to the point where celebrations of cultural "difference" can have deleterious effects on the appreciation of commonly held cultural traditions. Warning that it is time to rethink the nation's idea of what "diversity" truly is and why it should not pre-empt the strength that lies in national unity, Diversity: The Invention Of A Concept is a timely, thought-provoking, and highly recommended reading.

I heard Dr. Wood speak in Washington before I purchased the book and he is as eloquent in person as he is on the page. It is difficult to discuss this matter in the public square given the emotional sensitivities in our society when one tries to talk about race, and no doubt many on the left will dismiss Dr. Wood out of hand. But he gives a reasoned, thoughtful discussion on an issue that is still very central in our lives and society - but as Dr. Wood points out, if the left weren't so focused on "diversity" we would likely be much closer to the colorblind society we all seek. An excellent and timely read!

Professor Wood offers a holistic look at this strange new ideology of diversity, particularly in how it has surged from an obscure portion of the Bakke case to an all-encompassing religion for its adherents that continues to encroach on virtually every aspect of public life. His best argument is that diversity, when brought alongside traditional American values of liberty and equality, always seems to trump the latter pair, and we end up forsaking both liberty and our belief in equality to preserve demographiclly correct proportions of essentially manufactured ethnicities.

Wood comes to some strong conclusions, but never commits the near universal sin of hyperbole that currently envelopes both political left and right. That alone should earn him four-and-a-half stars. Anyone interested in a thoughtful, well-researched critque of this concept of diversity need look no further than professor Wood. Please, delete Hannity and O'Reilly from your shopping cart and buy this book first!!!

If you really want to know the truth about "diversity", just read Peter Wood's new book. Of course, some in the diversity crowd don't want the truth told, but Wood provides a very competent historical background and analyis of this doctrine. An intellectually honest treatment that helped me pull it all together in its historical context. A fantastic contribution! His message is one that America needs to know.

The thesis of Wood's book can be stated in this way: With relative cultural unity having been achieved in America with the removal of legal barriers to opportunity for minorities, a more recent movement has arisen that seeks to undermine this unity by introducing a new type of "diversity". The former term refers to true diversity between cultures that involves deep and fundamental differences in worldviews that are more often an obstacle to overcome than something to be celebrated. (One example used by Wood is Herman Melville's extended experience with Typee people in the Marquesan Islands.) On the other hand, the new diversity (used in italics by the author) turns superficial distinctions into epochal differences (such as having a college roommate with fake Polynesian tattoos) that, according to the diversophiles, must be retained in the culture at all costs.

This is more than just a silly exercise in treating cultural fads as meaningful differences. Wood describes a two-phase process in which this concept of diversity is a means to a specific end. The first phase (diversity I) stresses hard that people must be defined by a race, even if the minority does not wish to do so, in order to create identifiable "groups" in society. The second phase (diversity II) uses the fiction that diversity of race, gender, sexual preference, etc. is equivalent to diversity of worldview. With this foundation, questions of diversity take on an ominous meaning - when this kind of diversity is emphasized as a policy in the workplace, on campus, or elsewhere, a conflict arises between the interest in selecting the best qualified individual(s) and preserving an overall profile of a workforce or campus population. And when these superficial race, sex, etc. characteristics of a person are given a preference over actual qualifications to do the job, it brings up the same issues of racism that America had been trying to move away from for so long.

An especially helpful passage in Wood's book is his breakdown of the Bakke decision, which upheld the race-preference factor in school admissions process. Justice Powell's opinion for the court made the "diversity" principle a major issue, which was unusual considering that no other justice on either side joined him in this portion of the opinion and that little attention was given to this issue during the case itself.

The bulk of Wood's book then explains how this principle has been applied in most areas of society - the workplace, campus, the arts, etc. The book was published in 2003, but came out before the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding in part the University of Michigan's use of race-based preferences. However, the book is a valuable resource in describing the problem beyond the immediate political debate.