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more likely they were belief systems adopted with the same unquestioning and ratcheting attitude as political and moral belief systems are today. they are stripped of fanciful metaphors nowadays but the core mechanism is the same.

an “Identity” is basically a moral lens that allows for Judgement. no matter how many books you read or how much LSD you take, the ship of theseus does not get a new Name unless the moral lens shifts in a meaningful way.

this is why identities are mostly singular. a compass cannot have more than One North because it cannot have two headings. to have more than one moral lens very easily leads to apathy, paralysis, depression, frustration, etc...

being able to switch moral lenses isn’t all that better since it makes you appear crafty and weasel-like in the best case and schizophrenic in the worst-case. after all.... what is the moral lens that is guiding the choosing of when to choose which moral lens?

what good does a diversity of a hundred True Norths do? all it does is desensitize to the blood being spilt through passive aggression as people are shoved into each other hating each other while being forced to say that they love each other.

so... is there a virtuous manifestation of Tolerance and Diversity? at a gut level they feel virtuous.

let’s start w/ tolerance. if “regular tolerance” is a subtle fragmentation and atomization of anyone and anything that doesn’t conform to the system then “true tolerance” is some form of “everything is a finger pointer to the moon.”

instead of the seductive “Everyone is Right.”, true tolerance proclaims the far more bitter “Everyone is Wrong.” instead of arrogance it creates humility. yet arrogance is the sureness that binds that raft of humanity together.

to see that everyone is wrong is to realize that everyone is Lost. can you actually handle this without falling into nihilism, cynicism, hedonism, or constant boredom? can you NOT hold seething resentment for all hierarchy of values, seeing them as PHONY.

what about diversity? if pseudo-diversity is just a militia-call for those who think the same but look different, or some way of getting the Elves to be the archers and the Dwarves to do the mining, what is the ACTUAL virtue in diversity of moral compasses?

nature provides a clue. every animal is a moral outlook that mindlessly replicates and attack everything else in an intricate dance of predator and prey.

despite ALL the technological advances we still have to enslave millions of silkworms to create silk despite the (relative) simplicity of the silkworm and the silk.

the virtue of diversity then is the SAME virtue of Chaos. that which is the Source of everything and into which all Order must eventually return.

in secular terms, this is “potential”, or “unknown unknowns” or “faith in God” or “emergence”. it is the the direct opposite of a hyper-clean hyper optimized system where everything knows its place.

within the framework of Chaos as “Good”, moral judgements are impossible just as we do not release or kill butterflies in an attempt to control hurricanes. we simply don’t know how the story will end.