Jess Brewer's Home Web Site

TREASURING DIVERSITY: It is indeed one of the most precious traditions of North American culture that we harbour and encourage a variety of subcultures which are welcome to coexist peacefully side by side. This gives us better restaurants and entertainment, entrepeneurial vigor, cultural cross-fertilization and other non-material benefits; more importantly, it exposes each of us to many other ways of thinking, acting and living, from which we learn tolerance, cooperation and the practical skills of negotiation. For some reason, however, we are reluctant to place the same value on INDIVIDUAL diversity, which is inevitably broader than the displacements of the centres of gravity of different cultures from one another. In the name of consciousness-raising or redressment of perceived injustices, we are happy to enforce correct thinking and force everyone into a uniform idealogical mould. Dark Ages, here we come! (2002-03-02)