ABSTRACT
Chapter Ten attended to the processes unfair discriminationand marginalization that have been institutionalized and soare invisible as well as unconscious. I now want to turn to the more conscious realm in order to think about the notion of tolerance. I will do this through the problem that is called “cultural difference”, which is said to occur when one is faced with a way of life or a belief system that is at odds with one’s own. The diversity promulgator’s solution to this problem is celebration; they reframe the difference from problem to asset. In their view, there is no necessity to give an account or explanation for the differences, they just “are”: this is our way and that is their way and both are valid. Neither is there any necessity for the celebrator to engage their mental faculties, because if they just celebrate and party hard enough then they will somehow find themselves in equality heaven. As we have seen, there is no place for politics in the diversity movement, and so they are easily led to the presumption that “they” (the exotic others) think with one mind. To the diversity way of thinking, they really are “all the same” and not the problematic, politicized, and conflicted complex multiplicity that they actually are.
