ANCIENT ROME’S DIVERSITY PROBLEM

      Humans show a strong inclination to form such subgroups which

      eventually distinguish themselves from the others by dialect and

      other subgroup characteristics and go on to form new cultures...

      to live in groups which demarcate themselves from others is a

      basic feature of human nature.

                          -Ethnologist, Irenaus Eible-Eibesfeldt-

Hypatia of Alexandria

The city of Alexandria, long a part of the Roman Empire, was a magnificent cultural jewel of beauty and learning in the ancient world.  Founded by Alexander the Great to spread Greek culture and learning, its architecture, promenades, theaters, schools, museums and the most extensive library in the ancient world, were monuments of human achievement – of civilization itself.

Living in Alexandria in the early fifth century, was Hypatia, a dedicated pagan woman of extraordinary beauty and brilliance.  She was an accomplished scholar, conversant with music, astronomy, mathematics and philosophy.  Scholars travelled great distances to listen to her lectures.  Philosophers sought her endorsement.  She had an agreeable personality, an ease of manner, great intelligence and enormous fame. 

Hypatia was a rock star.

In 415, a frenzied mob, angry with her for defending the Jews, pulled her from a chariot, dragged her into a church, stripped her naked and flayed off her skin with broken pieces of pottery.  Not satisfied with this atrocity, they tore her body apart and burned it. All of this in one of civilization’s premier cities. Hypatia was not killed by German barbarians, or Huns, or pagans, or Roman soldiers; she was torn apart by Christians.  The murder of Hypatia, who represented the highest stage of civilization, illustrates the destructive nature of diversity.

 A century before Hypatia’s murder, Christians were the persecuted minority.  As late as the year 303, the pagan leaders of Rome were determined to destroy the rising faith of Christianity.  They announced that Christian churches should be destroyed, and their congregations dissolved.  Christian books were to be burned, their property seized.  Christians meeting to worship would be put to death.  A Christian observer, with probable hyperbole, reported that no brutality was beyond the pagans: Christian’s had their eyes gouged out, others had molten lead poured down their throats, some were crucified or beheaded, others were whipped until flesh hung off their bones, after which salt or vinegar was poured over their wounds, men tied to crosses were slowly eaten by starved animals.

The transition of the empire from pagan to Christian in the fourth century was agonizing, poignant and irreconcilable.  A conflict over pagan artifacts, for example, led to raging violence on both sides. Both factions committed atrocities; both were oppressors, both were oppressed.  Pagan anger was so intense, wrote a contemporary, it seemed as if “they had drunk a chalice of serpents.”  An angry mob of Christians smashed a pagan statue of marble ivory and gold.  The beheaded statue was dragged through the streets and burned.

Does this sound familiar?  Winners find great satisfaction toppling statues sacred to the losers.  At Washington University, the statue of George Washington was desecrated and defaced.  A hijab was wrapped around his head.  As far as I can tell, the father of our country was not involved with the war in Gaza.  Tearing down statues is much more fun than taking finals.

 When people, tribes, ethnicities, religions and cultures live in close proximity, the in-group out-group, us-against-them, Lord of the Flies mentality takes hold, and more often than not, they come to blows. "Tribal antagonisms," wrote historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., "have caused more dominating, fearing, hating, killing than any other single cause since time began."

Consider these – tip of the iceberg – examples.

·  In the nineteenth century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a crowded mixture of ethnicities and identities.  In 1897, the Parliament in Vienna passed a law requiring all civil servants to be able to speak both German and Czech. Angry disputes erupted over whether menus should be in Czech or German.  Conflict in the Parliament involved throwing inkwells and blowing whistles.     

They were not celebrating diversity in Austria – Hungary.

· According to Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning, Guns, Germs, and Steel, in New Guinea, "Highlanders dismiss lowlanders as effete sago eaters, while lowlanders dismiss highlanders as primitive big-heads, referring to their massive, coiled hair and to their reputation for arrogance."

They're not celebrating diversity in New Guinea.

· Diamond also wrote, "throughout human history farmers have tended to despise hunter-gatherers as primitive, hunter-gatherers have despised farmers as ignorant, and herders have despised both."

·  In the 1970s, an “ethnic conflict” broke out in Sri Lanka between the minority Hindu Tamils, and the Sinhalese Buddhists.  In an appalling act, a Tamil library was set on fire, destroying over 90,000 books, rare manuscripts and historical documents.  In 2009, the United Nations estimated 80,000–100,000 died in the conflict.  In 2018, a state of emergency was declared in the central district of Kandy after Buddhist mobs attacked business and homes belonging to minority Muslims.   Amazingly, just last week, on May 23^rd, the Sri Lankan government cracked down of Tamils who were commemorating the dead and missing from the civil war fifty years ago.

They are not celebrating diversity in Sri Lanka.

The real problem with "celebrating diversity" is that it does exactly the opposite of what it intends. It is supposed to teach us to respect and get along with each other, but instead it creates antagonistic groups.  It is supposed to teach us that we are all basically the same but goes out of its way to emphasize differences.  It is supposed to be positive, but often manifests itself as an in-your-face-us-against-them attitude. The more we "celebrate,” the more we divide. The more we emphasize our differences, the weaker we become as a nation.

A house that divides itself cannot stand. 

 Those who argue for diversity are really proselytizing for a segregated society. Familiarity breeds contemp. It separates; it discriminates; it demonizes; it encourages contempt for the out-group, it thrives on resentment.  The same can be said for nationalism which is tribalism writ large.    

                   The whole world is festering with

unhappy souls;

                   The French hate the Germans,

                   The Germans hate the Poles;

                   Italians hate Yugoslavs,

                    South Africans hate the Dutch.

                    And I don’t like anybody very much.

                            -The Kingston Trio -

Pagans, were not barbarians.  They were not German tribes. They were Latin; they were Romans, proud citizens of their millennia-long heritage.  But the purposeful removal of their centuries-old beliefs, was painful and poignant.  

Speaking to his colleagues in the Roman Senate in the late 300s, the pagan Senator, Symmachus, who was the newly chosen prefecture of Rome, made a passionate and beautifully crafted speech in the long tradition of Greco-Roman rhetoric.  Rome’s future, he argued, cannot be assured, unless it continues its religious traditions and customs.

      If long passage of time lends validity to religious observances,

      we ought to keep faith with so many centuries, we ought to

      follow our forefathers who followed their forefathers and were

      blessed in so doing.

     Let us imagine that Rome herself stands in your presence and

     pleads with you thus, “Best of emperors, fathers of your country

      …let me continue to practice my ancient ceremonies, for I do

     not regret them.  Let me live in my own way, for I am free. This

      worship of mine brought the whole world under the rule of our

      laws, these sacred rites drove back Hannibal from my walls

      and the Senones [Gauls] from the Capitol...And so we ask

      for peace for the gods of our fathers, for the gods of our native

      land. It is reasonable that whatever each of us worships is really

     to be considered one and the same.

     He closed with this heartfelt plea:

     We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same

     universe encompasses us. What does it matter what practical

     system we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue

     only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret.

     Let me live my own way, for I am free.

Symmachus’ pleas for tolerance could have been spoken by Pericles, or Voltaire, or Jefferson, or Madison or John Stuart Mill, or Lincoln or Martin Luther King, jr., but his lovely words were rejected by those that did not celebrate diversity, including contemporaries, St. Augustine and St. Jerome.  They rejoiced that the true faith now dominated the empire,

And so it goes with the Bloods and the Crips, the Capulets and the Montagues, the Hutus and the Tutsis, Serbs and Albanians, the Hatfields and McCoys, Jews and Moslems, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, all of whom take great pride in their identities.  They will continue to splinter, argue, chant, sing, legislate, pontificate and battle because of the deep need for affiliation and power.

Diversity worked well enough for the twenty million people who emigrated to America between 1880 and 1920.  They huddled in their own communities – like Little Italy, Chinatown, Germantown, and the Jewish neighborhoods. But they came to integrate; they wanted to be Americans.  My Ukrainian grandfather, Abraham Linetski, anglicized his name to Frank Linet.

The foaming hatred in today’s America feels like we “had drunk a chalice of serpents.”