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PARTISAN REVIEW
of boys, regardless of the needs such boys might have. Their response is,
"You can't do such a thing because it would privilege boys."
IfI
were to
argue, as I have, that boys who attend such single-sex schools might be
more inclined to do literary things, to do aesthetic things that they
wouldn' t do in a co-ed setting, the response of some women's groups
would be, "Boys are already too privileged. Too bad for them."
DB:
One of the conflicts that comes up in some of these discussions is di –
versity. How does one maintain cultural integrity and yet remain open to
diversity? How does one balance the two? How does one determine what
brands of diversity contribute to a community, and what kinds detract
from it? As we know, in the 1960s all sorts of things were done in the
name of diversity. How does an individual, or a culture or a nation, de–
termine which brands of diversity are legitimate and which are threats to
our cultural integrity?
DR:
Much that was valuable was destroyed in the 1960s - or largely de–
stroyed. I think my pre-sixties work would have to be qualified by post–
sixties caveats about extravagant individualism and its hazards - the tri –
umph of "You're not the boss of me." And so, the answer I've come to is
that what we have
to
preserve is diversity among institutions and pay less
attention to diversity within th em. We have developed what might be
called the "diversity industry," which is the homogeneity of insisting on
diversity, a standardized diversity which has been homogenized because
everyone must have it. Institutions ought to be free to be non-heteroge–
neous. I was aware of the diversity industry with respect to blacks very
early . When I was at the University of Chicago, I suspected that there
were "slave traders" who were coming from Southern black colleges to
the North and saying, "Do you want a few Negroes?" as they would then
have said . "I'll find a few for you." I imagined a finder's fee. And now
this is in full flower in the name of diversity programs in industry, and we
have affirmative action officers in universities.
DB:
So you support a diversity of institutions but within those institu–
tions, you believe, there should be less diversity?
DR:
There should be idiosyncrasy - the privilege of idiosyncrasy.
DB:
That raises another question: is there a point where diversity begins
to violate - maybe not violate but undermine - the traditional culture?
Do too many pressures for value neutrality invite social and ethical rela–
tivism?
