Diversity for its own sake: an encouraging story of resistance

The idea of diversity for its own sake makes no sense to me. It is unethical, and the premises and assumptions behind affirmative action and enforced quotas etc. seem all wrong. 

Appointing someone just because they tick the right boxes often leads to injustice and inefficiency; I have seen many examples of this for myself.

Some people are fighting for common sense, fairness, effectiveness and productivity. I have found an inspiring example from the US.

Cypress Semiconductor

This case goes back to 1996, but it is still relevant – and inspiring. I found online a letter written by a Mr T. J. Rodgers, the then CEO of US company Cypress Semiconductor, to a group of nuns, shareholders in the company, in response to their complaint that the Directors were all white males.

Summary of the complaint

"...Sister Doris, speaking for the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia as a Cypress shareholder, expressed the view that a company ‘is best represented by a Board of qualified Directors reflecting the equality of the sexes, races, and ethnic groups.’...she closed her letter with the exhortation, ‘We urge you to enrich the Board by seeking qualified women and members of racial minorities as nominees.'" 

Selections from the response

Mr Rodgers' reply is very well expressed. It deserves worldwide publicity. It is much too long to reproduce here, but can be found, together with the full background story, on the Cypress website.

In his position, I might have been tempted to reply, “Go to hell you stupid old fools”, but the shareholders must be humoured I suppose. He does tell Sister Doris to get down from her high horse though!

Charlotte Brontë’s St. John Rivers: Cult Leader

The inspiration for the title of this article came from the names of some recent mash-up novels such as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and the article itself was inspired by the sudden realisation that St. John Rivers, a character in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, has some of the typical characteristics of a cult leader.  

It was reading about people such as Corin Redgrave and Bronson Alcott to get material for forum posts about cults that stirred up memories of this fictional character. I went back to Jane Eyre to refresh my memory and look at St. John Rivers in the light of what I now know about charismatic cult leaders. 

The first few times I read Jane Eyre, I passed quickly through the chapters where he appears as he seemed an unsympathetic, not very exciting character; I much preferred Mr Rochester and other parts of the book. This time around, St. John Rivers was the main person of interest and his conversations with Jane the main scenes of interest. 

Re-reading the chapters in which he appears has confirmed my idea that he has some attributes in common with cult leaders and the two men mentioned above. St. John Rivers too is tall and handsome, with fair hair and blue eyes. He says himself that he has a hard, cold personality. He is a fanatic with a burning ambition to make his mark on the world.

In support of my case, here are some examples of the familiar attributes I found.

Unlimited ambition and a mission
Both Corin Redgrave and St. John Rivers had a compulsion to change the world - or even save the world.

In St. John Rivers’ own words:

“Reason, and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable.  I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence.“

This may have been spoken by a fictional character, but it is uncannily familiar. It could be Corin Redgrave speaking; his wife said he had an air of importance and purpose and became immersed in his role as a revolutionary hero. 

In Redgrave’s case it was political activism and the Workers’ Revolutionary Party; for St. John Rivers, his mission was to convert the Hindus to Christianity. I suspect that he too would have been a militant Marxist and atheist if he had been born in the 20th century. 

Benjamin Disraeli and the New World Order

This article contains more of the material I found while looking for answers to some of the outstanding questions I had about Benjamin Disraeli’s personality, beliefs, interests and activities.

There are allegations that Disraeli was involved with the New World Order. Did sinister forces conspire to put him into a very high and influential position? Was he a pawn and a puppet or a middleman? 

Was he even a member of the sinister organisations himself, working to further a secret agenda?

Could it just be immense amounts of persistence, ambition and determination that got him to the top of the world of politics – with the help of some patrons – or were unseen influences at work in his life? I suspect that they were.

Was it something he said?

It is Disraeli’s own words that have given some conspiracy theorists the idea that he had some connection with the Illuminati, the New World Order and similar secret organisations.

Here is a much-repeated line from his 1844 political novel Coningsby:

“So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."

Another quotation from Coningsby:

"Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand..."

The hidden hand is often mentioned in connection with Freemasons; it is seen in portraits of great statesmen and leaders such as Napoleon.

Books and films: big disappointments and pleasant surprises

On many occasions, I have gone to see a film or bought a book on the basis of a very promising trailer, extract or review only to have my high expectations severely disappointed.

On a very few occasions the exact opposite happened when I gave the benefit of the doubt to something that had bad reviews. I watched the film and read the book with very low expectations, only to get some pleasant surprises.

Perhaps it is time I learned not to fall for the very old trick where the best parts are used to entice people into watching the film or buying the book in the hope of getting much more of the same. The suckers discover the hard way that they have wasted their money; what they have already seen or read was as good as it gets.  

A very disappointing book

I need to learn to recognise misleading hype too. I am still feeling cheated and angry about a book I bought on the basis of a one-paragraph extract that resonated strongly with my interests and experience. This was a while back; there was no Look Inside option – there still isn’t, I wonder why - and not much in the way of reviews either.

I was disgusted to find that this one good paragraph was all the book had to offer: the rest was what seemed to me like rubbish and ridiculous drivel. I was expecting it to be serious and informational. There is now a very negative review on Amazon that I could have written myself. Interestingly, the good reviews are written by semi-literate people.

I won’t give the author publicity by naming it, and I won’t be getting the other books in the series either.

Two unexpectedly good films

Perhaps these things are partly a matter of personal taste, although when it comes to films, in the majority of cases I agree with the majority of reviewers’ opinions and classifications.

There are two big exceptions. I decided to give them a chance despite mostly bad reviews because something told me they were worth watching and because I could see them at home on TV via Freeview.

L. Ron Hubbard and Charles Fort: a problem in common

I have noticed that not only do some people not get what they wanted, hoped for or expected, but they may also get exactly what they didn’t want.

One example is when people who want a specific type of audience, follower or reader attract exactly the wrong sort of person.

By coincidence, I came across two examples of this phenomenon just a few hours apart, while I was looking into something else.

I read this about L. Ron Hubbard:

“Hubbard wanted to attract explorers and men of the world. Instead, he ended up with science fiction fans.”

I read this about Charles Fort:

“Fort’s horizons were boundless and in his day he lamented that ‘the majority of people attracted are the ones we don’t want; Spiritualists, Fundamentalists’.”

Very amusing, and rather sad.

It reminds me of an army recruitment centre I often passed; their window display attracted the attention of lots of children and old ladies, but I never saw any young men looking at it!