Diversity should not create adversity

KENNETT, Mo. -- Most of us, particularly those who make an effort to understand the historical, economic and cultural threads of the American quilt, are usually surprised to discover that the early stages of our nation-in-the-making were nearly as diverse and complex as those of today's society.

As the early colonists moved toward the goal of establishing an enlightened system of governance, they experienced problems to overcome and obstacles to hurdle that are not dissimilar to those being faced today.

Indeed, those living at this moment in this millennium, often express the theme that our Founding Fathers lived in a much simpler age and thus escaped dealing with the vagaries that often seem so complex and unsolvable today. This view is regularly advanced as a reason for our contemporary inability to resolve some of the dilemmas that hang around for years, even decades, awaiting an enlightened citizenry.

Life as it was developing in America in the late 18th century was really not much different than contemporary life in America if one is able to overlook such modern marvels as electricity on demand, numerous advances in communication and the building of an infrastructure that has in some ways become more master than servant.

The colonies then were a vast, culturally diverse society much like our own. Life existed not only in the original 13 colonies but also among the Spanish who settled north of Mexico in what is now Texas. There was a large complement of French in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions. The Russians were in Alaska. The Dutch sought unsuccessfully to conduct business in the Hudson Valley. And the British developed the West Indies to help fuel their world empire, even settling in Hawaii to develop it further.

This intermingling of peoples -- and of microbes, plants and animals from different continents -- was unparalleled in global history in speed and volume and remains so even up to this moment. Those who watched and waited while our ancestral visitors arrived, the Native Americans, dramatically exerted their influence in every colonial region in the new world.

In a very real sense, our new nation became a reflection of worldwide forces that exported their religions, their cultures, their beliefs and their weaknesses as well as their strengths, and so when we speak of the United States as a melting pot, we are more factual than hyperbolic. Indeed, we are being very realistic, and wisely so, since it would be folly to argue there is any chromosomatic characteristic that has shaped today's America and its population.

We are a varied mixture, to say the least, and so we must deal with today's challenges and dilemmas with an understanding of not only where we have come from and what we have inherited, but more importantly, an idea of how we want to proceed in the future.

Indeed, viewing the extensive and diverse nature of contemporary America, at least some of our problems could not only be viewed differently but can be used as the basis for launching solutions that will meet with something approaching majority approval.

Whether or note we want to recognize it, today's new world is growing older, with opportunity of discovery and development growing more limited by the year. The natural resources that our ancestors took for granted are gradually disappearing: coal fields are near depletion, petroleum reserves are rapidly disappearing, space for an expanding population is rapidly filling up, even our climate is shifting while raising problems we have yet to recognize, much less approach.

While striving to fashion our governance in the form of a democracy in which each person's view is taken into account and used as a part of the solution, the truth is we have grown too large and most certainly too diverse to achieve this splendid, if impossible, goal.

Instead of moving closer and closer to the Athenian ideal of each citizen serving as both governor and governed, the partitions within our polyglot society seem to make the ideal less and less realistic.

The disadvantages of creating a suitable form of governance for huge segments of fragmented societies that originated from hundreds of other cultures are neither clear in our vision nor comprehensible to our minds.

We cannot explain some of the conflicting views held by our neighbors. We cannot comprehend why certain religious cultures take such a dim view of our contemporary society. And we react to opposing views with an incredulous question mark, putting down our critics' dissent as a mark of inferiority.

Our ways seem so logical. Those on the other side seem so devoid of it.

America is not only a vast land of wonder and achievement and progress, but it is an even greater accumulation of diverse peoples and cultures. For the most part, we have dealt with foreign opposition by dismissing it as illogical and, or counterproductive. Sometimes we have even responded to our own native diversity by demanding that our differences be resolved by forced unanimity, as if this were possible.

We seek world peace through the pursuit of destructive technology; we seek global prosperity by demanding control over how foreign business is conducted; we seek conservation by furthering exploitation of the resources of others.

America cannot have it both ways. We cannot boast of our diversity and then fail to recognize and adapt to its existence. There is neither a Republican or Democratic way to meet our challenges and resolve our problems -- and we should stop insisting that there is.

Political parties are only one small part of our country, and neither had any role in its creation nor its finest achievements, nor is either one dedicated to reflect the diversity that lies at the heart of America's true greatness. If we forget this, we truly are at risk.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.