In the last six months, I’ve found myself stuck in two separate Sermons on Inclusion. These were public events. Neither was branded as left-wing. Both, however, gave the floor to speakers who explained the supreme value of making everyone feel included in the community.
In each case, my mid-sermon reaction was the same: “I don’t think I’ve ever before felt so excluded in all my life.”
Why would I react so negatively? It’s not because I disagree with the one-sentence summary of the sermons. Sure, be friendly to people. Make them feel welcome. It’s common decency. So what’s the problem?
I’m tempted to blame the glaring hypocrisy. It was obvious that the speakers had zero interest in making Republicans, conservatives, macho males, traditional Christians, veterans, or economists feel included. In fact, the Sermons on Inclusion were full of thinly-veiled accusations against members of these groups.
Yet on reflection, glaring hypocrisy is too ubiquitous in life to explain why I personally felt so excluded by the Sermons on Inclusion.
The real reason I felt so excluded was that the preachers of both Sermons on Inclusion spoke as if human beings naturally value their cultural heritage. Frankly, I usually don’t. I don’t value my religious heritage. My mother was Catholic, and I was raised Catholic. But I deem the religion false and don’t care about it. I don’t value my ethnic heritage. My mother was Irish, my father was Jewish, but neither identity matters to me. I don’t support Ireland or Israel… or any other country for that matter. My parents raised me to be an American nationalist; my schools taught me about the wonders of democracy. But in all honesty, the only institution I really believe in is business.
So what am I? A renegade. And I’m not alone. Lots of people turn their backs on the religion of their birth. Lots of people never feel – or lose interest in – their ethnic heritage. Lots of people dissent from “their” political culture. Cultural loyalists may call them traitors, sell-outs, self-haters, or gusanos. Yet despite our cosmic diversity, we renegades have one thing in common: We refuse to be ruled by the circumstances of our birth. And any sincere Sermon on Inclusion ought to acknowledge our existence and outlook.
Unfortunately, this omission is hard to correct, because one of the main goals of Sermons on Inclusion is to foster group pride… and the existence of renegades is an affront to group pride. You can’t favorably discuss the assimilated Irish without tacitly snubbing people who cherish their Irish identity. You can’t praise people who leave Orthodox Judaism without tacitly snubbing Orthodox Jews. Et cetera.
But don’t Sermons on Inclusion lionize some renegades, like anti-war veterans or the transgendered? Sure. But since the the Sermons barely acknowledge the existence of these renegades’ groups of origin, there’s little tension. It’s easy to welcome renegades from group X if your default is to exclude typical members of group X.
Are efforts to promote inclusion therefore self-defeating? Not if you’re careful, because actions speak louder than words. As I’ve argued before, the best way to make people feel included is just to be friendly and welcoming. Sermons divide us. Common decency brings us together.
READER COMMENTS
Scott Sumner
Feb 18 2019 at 6:50pm
These people also focus on the alleged problem of “cultural appropriation”, even as most people in the affected cultures don’t mind appropriation at all. It seems they are trying to create discord, not prevent it. True inclusion would welcome cultural appropriation—welcome new people into the cultural group.
Philo
Feb 19 2019 at 3:31pm
“[W]elcome new people into the cultural group”–or welcome outsiders who want simply to put one foot in the cultural group–or even just a little toe.
Hazel Meade
Feb 20 2019 at 4:35pm
I think the main objectors to “cultural appropriation” tend to be American blacks and to a lesser extent Hispanics. And this largely because of the history of African American artists who have had their works effectively stolen by whites and been unable to profit from them, particularly in the music industry. Thus African Americans are especially sensitive to seeing aspects of African American culture become adopted by mainstream white culture, since it’s sort of a reminder of how much African Americans have contributed to American culture without being recognized for it. Still, “cultural appropriation” is often, at some level, actually an attempt to include and recognize. I think the existence of “cultural appropriation” as an issue is a sad commentary on how racially divided we are – that many minorities don’t even want to be included, more or less.
Mark Z
Feb 20 2019 at 8:20pm
I don’t think it’s very often about inclusion in any sense. It seems to be like old-fashioned collective pride. After all, if a black artist in the 50s who’s music was ripped off by a white artist is the victim of plagiarism, his race hasn’t been the victim of cultural appropriation; rather, he has been the victim of plagiarism by the person ripping him off. I think the sentiment that “we” created such and such and therefore it’s “ours” belongs to the same species of emotions as European nationalists who waxed indignant at what “they” suffered at the hands of a rival country, referring to wars that happened generations ago. The “we” seems spurious to me.
Hazel Meade
Feb 22 2019 at 4:36pm
Well, unfortunately due to some historical events, African Americans do have an internal sense of community, and feel some collective pride and ownership about “their” culture. This even if and when white American’s aren’t continuing to treat them as a separate and distinct outsider group anyway. That’s what I mean when I say it’s a sad commentary on race relations. There really is not one American culture, there is white culture and black culture and we’re so alienated from each other that many people on both sides of this don’t really want to belong to the same culture.
Bedarz Iliachi
Feb 19 2019 at 1:15am
Existence of some (or even many) renegades does not invalidate the point that people naturally value their heritage.
Philo
Feb 19 2019 at 3:32pm
Many of us are “unnatural”!
Mark Z
Feb 19 2019 at 2:44am
Unfortunately, I think homogeneity is almost always conducive to exclusion, regardless of abstract beliefs of the group. Most of the people at these events probably have very similar beliefs, ideals, etc., and even if they imagine one of their ideals is inclusivity, it’s unavoidable that, the narrower the range of ideas present in the putatively ‘inclusavist’ subculture, the smaller the deviation therefrom necessary to be considered ‘beyond the pale.’ I’m reminded of Nicholas Christakis’s research suggesting obesity is ‘socially contagious;’ if you know people who are obese, you’re more likely to think obesity is socially acceptable and to become obese yourself. I think this applies to ideology as well. One’s inner-Overton window is perhaps largely determined by the ideological variation of one’s social circle. I wouldn’t be surprised if “exclusivists” forced by circumstance to regularly interact with lots of different-minded people were more broadly welcoming than “inclusivists” who only interact with very like-minded people.
Weir
Feb 19 2019 at 6:16am
Gusano, like boujee? (Boujie, bougee, bougie.)
Nick Ronalds
Feb 19 2019 at 1:22pm
Another refreshing, bracing post, Bryan. Thank you.
Philo
Feb 19 2019 at 3:39pm
I value this post, regardless of the fact that it is not part of my ethnic heritage.
Hazel Meade
Feb 20 2019 at 4:13pm
I favor a kind of inclusiveness that isn’t based on group pride. As in welcoming the infinite diversity of individuals in all their multi-faceted glory. That is, I don’t celebrate either assimilation OR diversity. I don’t praise people for becoming like me, or for NOT becoming like me. I welcome them regardless of whether they choose to be like me, or not, and leave it to their free choice which aspects of my culture they want to appropriate. The only thing that I demand is that they extend a similar welcome to others – that whatever values they adopt or retain, that those values allow others to make their own choices about whether to assimilate to their culture or not.
Niko Davor
Feb 24 2019 at 5:32pm
This essay offers an excellent and humorous take down on “inclusion” seminars. But beyond that, this essay doesn’t say much.
“Common decency brings us together.” That’s quite a vague conclusion. Does Caplan even want to be “brought together?” Elsewhere Caplan advocates “bubbles” which separate us rather than bring us together. Caplan advocates an anonymous society where you are free to turn your back on your neighbor without fear of a knife being stuck in it. That is an intelligent argument, but it’s not consistent with “bringing us together”. That phrase sounds more like rhetoric of persuassion or manipulation rather than an honest idea.
And “We refuse to be ruled by the circumstances of our birth.” Do you value family? Do you value biological parents, siblings, and most importantly children: Do you feed, house, and love your biological children much more so than the children of strangers? If so, it would seem you put a great deal of weight into circumstances of birth.
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