The importance of diversity for liberalism
By Luis Cano
It is hard to be a liberal these days. The world is full of people looking for simple answers, and our ideology often pushes us to give complex solutions to overly simplified problems. Usually, those problems are not even real. Conservatives and progressives play on the extremes to put people in boxes and make others fear anything different or to cancel anyone who dares to seek complexity.
We see growing anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric growing all around. Those rhetorics aim to simplify complex issues such as individual freedom and self-determination. These are not rhetorics anymore. In many places, the rhetoric has become governing policy. The rhetoric is not only anti-LGBTQI+; the rhetoric is against women for standing up for equal rights, against minorities for daring to join politics instead of grouping themselves in the civil sector, against youth for daring to dream, against the elderly for reminding us how the past was a place not ever to go back. The rhetoric is against us liberals.
It is a matter of pride to be a liberal these days. Our parties stand for equality not because we want to put people into boxes but because we see everyone as equal. We focus on the individual. Concentrating on individual freedoms is embracing diversity, embracing that we are all different and yet free to pursue happiness in our own understanding of it. Being a liberal is a matter of pride because we see the complexity and understand that we cannot just put everyone in a box.
Philosophically, being a liberal means believing in the equality of man before the law, believing that we are all born equal and deserve a fair chance to reach the goals we set for ourselves. Being a liberal is a rejection of ideologies that want to impose on any individual to be something. Being a liberal means standing against conservativism, pushing the individual to behave in a certain way. Being a liberal demands tolerance, as we believe in freedom of speech and thought. In that way, being a liberal means standing against the woke movement willing to cancel anyone who dares to question. Being a liberal means embracing diversity because we fight for the rights of each individual independently of their background or the human condition. We embrace diversity because we tolerate others. Diversity is a liberal value!
Yet, the human need to group ourselves often blind people from understanding the value of individual freedom. Many want a strong leader, and many want to fight for the interests of their own group and see others as competitors. Even within the LGBTQI+ community, many groups reject the concept of diversity, focusing only on one letter over the other. Civil society organisations representing specific groups, for instance, fight each other for resources and often need to remember the intersectionality and complexity of what it means to be human and an individual. Yet, those putting labels and group people are the ones who claim to be "diverse." They have claimed ownership over what diversity is, which has become so mainstream that many liberals fear the word itself.
Yet, diversity is a liberal value because we do not see only a gay man or a woman with disabilities. We see an individual with all its complexities. Neither the progressive left nor the green movement owns the word diversity. To be fair, they also have a commitment towards diversity. Yet, they do not own the concept. I would argue that any ideology trying to limit freedom of speech for the sake of diversity is betraying the idea of diversity itself. As liberals, we should not fear using a keyword representing our values. We have a lot of work to do to embrace diversity more, and we should not hesitate. It is in our liberal DNA.
Diversity is also a critical pragmatic concept for us to embrace. As I mentioned earlier, it is not easy to be a liberal these days. Our political parties are often stuck in the 5% voter threshold trap. This means many of our parties need to use diversity as a strategic tool to engage with wider audiences and to reach audiences disenchanted by conservativism and wokeism. We need diverse audiences to make our liberal agendas the governing ones.
Pragmatically, we need to make our candidates look like the individuals they want to represent. We must prepare all our politicians to preach a message of tolerance and commit to fighting for the individual, no matter how different the individual is from the politician. We need to make our parties more welcoming to people who believe liberal organisations are closed clubs. We need to remind the voter that liberals are committed to standing for equality, including the commitment to encourage members of underrepresented communities to join office and active political life.
As I write this piece, I am writing in an urgent call to return to our core liberal values. Many economic policies of the past indeed left many behind. Yet, as liberals today, we are fighting so we all have a fair chance to be free. I write as a gay man and an immigrant, a European of Latino descent, and a Hungarian. My identity and background did not lead me to believe in diversity. My liberal values did. Above all those things that might define me, I am a liberal because I strive for others to look at my individuality and not the past that defines me. In a truly open and free society, we should thrive not for the things that divide us but for our humanity, uniting us. Diversity is the liberal rhetoric. Diversity is the liberal policy, Diversity is a liberal value.
