Cultural Diversity

When I hear these words I count to ten.  It is my self-help technique for dealing with frustration.  Innocuous enough individually, the two words have been welded together by an American media intent on self-loathing as a path to absolution for its own crimes against humanity.  Hearing the phrase “cultural diversity” is akin to hearing Suzanne Somers' laugh: Annoying with a promise of vapid blather to come. 

In spite of my bristling at all things politically correct I recently delivered a short discourse on cultural diversity (la diversité culturelle) to my class at the Ecole de Guerre in Paris.  In my section of the 46-person class we are ten: Two Americans, a Cambodian, an Egyptian, a Singaporean, a Nigerian, a Netherlander, a Serb, an Argentine, and a Chinese.  Pretty diverse.  We have three things in common: We each wear a uniform to work (with a degree of flair ranging from business casual to Third World dictator), we all speak a little bad French, and we are all happy as hell to be living and studying in France.  We’ve been in class together for two weeks, and my little talk was an effort to express what I think we’ve all been thinking: Man, is this great.  I thanked my classmates for their insight into situations I was theretofore quite ignorant of, such as the violent border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, the nature of the Mubarak autocracy, and the mealtime protocol of the Chinese.  

The French have been a pleasant surprise as well.  They are delightful.  Delightfully quirkly, delightfully animated, delightfully French.  They seem committed to their own unique dysfunctionality, which requires that everyone smoke and take a two-hour lunch.  I’ve avoided the cigarettes (for the most part), but the lunches are quite agreeable.  In the world I come from, which is by no means one of restraint, wine and ice cream are consumed either after dark or on the weekend.  The café lifestyle of Paris is not hamstrung by such Puritan sensibility.  I have not tried it, but I suspect one could order un verre de rouge et trois boules de chocolat for breakfast and suffer only a raised eyebrow from the waiter and perhaps indigestion.   

Re-reading this, I realize I haven’t justified my harsh treatment of “cultural diversity” from the first paragraph. I suppose i’m just being cantankerous or showing my libertarian leanings.  Cultural diversity, literally by the grace of God, is all around us, and I prefer not to have it imposed upon me or explained to me as if I were a two-year-old.