A comparative balance between the scales of diversity and perversity

ARIZONA - What exactly does diversity mean? How is it any different from perversity? This has been an ongoing issue for me ever since I moved from Lebanon to the US - a completely different dynamic of a society.

To say “differences” are handled differently in these two cultures would very well be the understatement of the new millennium!

Like any curious soul of our time, I naturally resorted first to the World Wide Web for some basic definitions of the two words.

Diversity: Made up of distinct characteristics, or qualities

Perversity: Directed away from what is right or good

Of course, it is clear that the main difference between the two words (besides the complimentary nature of the first as opposed to the extreme negative connotation of the latter) is based on what is good or right.

I shall spare you the pathetic definitions of both words. If anything is gray, it would be the definition of right. They say one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Suicide bombers, graffiti artists, and drag queens are but a sample of a large pool of people laying on this very gray line on the moral and ethical agenda.

That said, and seeing that my online quest for an answer only resulted in a chaos of pop ups and porn advertisements, I wish to go further and examine lightly the two societies I have lived in drawing from each its social system pertaining to this issue, to perhaps find the answer.

It is very ironic to me that the average Lebanese would perceive America to be the culture of the mass of followers (often described as a herd even) when it would encourage and celebrate differences. Moreover, these Lebanese view Lebanon as a country for the rich and diversified when really it is nothing but a limiting social system which restricts individuality and demands absolute conformity.

I should say that the average American perceives Lebanon as a barren land full of American haters. (Could this be ironically a fact in the making? Some of the discussions I have had and some of the mountain drills I have seen suggest a future not too different to be honest?)

Lebanon unfortunately is a society that has handled diversity miserably. I visited my home — after a two-year absence — last summer only to find that the Lebanese are still bigoted and self-righteous about matters of religion, sexuality and race. Stop the average Lebanese on the street and ask him what he thinks of Sri Lankans, homosexuals, and Jews and you shall know what I mean. It seems to me that while all nations go through civil wars to emerge as a single unified society of equality and liberty (and fraternity in the odd case) Lebanon resolved its civil war, well, by calling on a 3rd party, dare I say the word Syria? Leaving its people still uncertain how anything was resolved and still blaming each other and festering hatred and intolerance.

Lebanon’s intolerance of diversity goes beyond the average man on the street. It is in fact written in its law books. Civil marriages, homosexuality… all is illegal.

But let us examine specimen B now: the USA; a culture built upon diversity and the socially exiled.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp by the golden door”

These are the words inscribed on the pedestal of America’s first lady, Miss Liberty herself. And for the cynic out there who calls for Americans to walk the talk, I say that this poem was penned by a Jewish woman. Point being that America doesn’t just preach diversity, America practices it and America indeed has benefited tremendously from this practice.

In fact, in some cases, it is a nation of laws that are more progressive than its society.

But enough about diversity, let us go back to perversity is not different than diversity if we went with the hypothesis that good and right are religious notions that have really no logical and rational basis.

Would you be able to accept for a second that respect, political correctness and diversity may be a hot bed for perversity? Sort of like civilization and syphylisation going hand in hand so to speak…

Let us illustrate this within the US. What started in ‘69 as a fight for gay rights has now festered in not only gay rights, but also marches of furries (people who identify with animals and enjoy sex in furry suits), S&M (people who enjoy pain and torture and dominance in sex) and transsexuals (people who believe they were born in the wrong sex). It seems to me that the only act that wasn’t embraced under this umbrella of diversity in the US is child molestation by the clergy.

I think mankind by nature has a tremendous amount of fantasies. No one comes close to understanding why and what goes through the brain of a growing person. Society so far, however made sure that whatever it is that goes on in there is shelved away for conformity’s sake.

What happens, though, when you ask someone to voice every little whim that goes through their brain? Worse yet, what if you encouraged them to join a group of people online who have had the same little whim? What if in an age of individuality this person took this little whim to an extreme, in search of an identity? What will this result in?

What then would be right and what would be wrong?

How will we handle this evolution? Can man handle everything that his twisted elegance of a brain can create? Can a woman even?

I offer to you, ladies and gentlemen, the experiment of the century. A society slowly breaking from its bounds: social, moral, and religious; and then a society that keeps sinking into all of the above. Let the best system win. I leave it to my reader also to set the measurement of success. I also challenge my readers to take part in this experiment of pulling the rope whichever way you deem suitable.

Hasan Makki is a Lebanese Arizona-based Computer and Communications Engineer. He wrote this commentary for Alternative