Ahh, writing about diversity, a minefield and an opportunity. One person’s words, even if carefully chosen, or a careless, fleeting expression can become a defining moment in this age of the permanence of anything uttered or viewed. That is why bridges are important, in the many meanings of the word.
There is a universal obligation, a shared human responsibility, to defend and further the principle that all are equal. Ensuring progress requires self-examination and casting as wide a net as possible gathering knowledge and insight into the familiar and the unfamiliar, building the desire and mind-set to progress and improve continuously.
Three topics in recent Proceedings issues—fiction, embracing cognitive diversity, and a request for an essay on diversity—may hint that even the meaning of the word “diversity” cannot be agreed on. Is it celebrating differences? Is it the failure of inclusion tactics and strategies? Homogeneity? If the word does not have meaning other than relative to an agenda, what does it mean to leadership and command—those charged with protecting the greater group? How do we relate cognitive diversity and fiction to a bridge team able to keep their noble mission of peace and human dignity on course?
Emanuele Castro’s “Reading Literary Fiction Boosts Leadership Qualities” in the December 2020 Proceedings includes the statement: “Being familiar with popular fiction, on the other hand, had no impact” in the context that popular fiction does nothing to improve “the recognition that others have minds that differ from our own.” The quote, “Entertainment is about the way things should be. Art is about the way they are,”attributed to film critic Roger Ebert, is another take on the difference between literary and popular fiction. Do self-examination and insight only come from literary fiction or art? Or does inspiration by popular fiction through idealized presentation of a better state make today’s and tomorrow’s bridge a better place? Dismissing popular fiction almost offhandedly may not consider how people visualize their own future, and how to work towards that better state.
Children of the 1960s may associate a bridge with the Federation Starship Enterprise and Star Trek’s original series. Popular fiction without a doubt. But Captain Kirk’s team—Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekhov—represented both physical and cognitive diversity because creator Gene Roddenberry presented them as products of different cultures. Roddenberry’s bridge team preserved a sense of individual origin—yes, to a degree stereotypically—which led to many examples of their different approaches creating the problem or crisis solution. And Roddenberry fought, and failed at times, ahead of his era, for diversity, equality, and inclusion, famously having to tell his wife, Majel Barrett, who played the executive officer (Number One) in the original series pilot, that the network suits would not go both for a woman in that position and an alien with a devilish appearance, so one of them had to go—he was going to have to write her part out. It is inconceivable today that such a discussion happened, much less that entire American states blocked the transmission of the episode where Kirk and Uhura kissed.
In “The Galileo Seven,” Spock, stranded on a hostile planet in a crashed shuttle with six crew members looking to him as the senior officer for a survival plan, must deal with a questioning team increasingly chafing at his insistence on relying solely on logic. Even his fellow officers and friends—McCoy and Scott—aggressively challenge him to open his mind to alternatives derived from a less logical risk calculation. In the end, Spock’s choice flowed directly from the team’s input—cognitive diversity saves the day.
At the conclusion of “Bread and Circuses,” Spock dismisses the planetary culture of the episode as “illogical” because a “sun worshipper” would not have developed the philosophy of “total brotherhood” he had observed. Uhura quickly contradicts him, on the bridge, say that “it’s not the sun up in the sky. It’s the Son of God.” Christian-centricity aside, Roddenberry encouraged this sort of bridge team interaction in his vision—no hesitation at contradicting, in public, the opinion of a fellow officer.
Popular fiction certainly, but the bridge of the Enterprise represented one man’s ideal future. Individuals with different backgrounds, shapes, colors, planetary origins, cultural traits, skills, and experiences united by a simple “Prime Directive” formed a bridge team supporting their commander’s intent while valuing both diversity and inclusion. Interestingly, later iterations of the Enterprise, in which everyone seems more and more cast from the same mold, is a bridge where diverse origins and experiences do not shape the characters or their contributions to the plots as much as in the original version. Yes, they still save the universe in an hour, but the later version of unity tended to portray individual cultures as quaint legacies, not defining qualities. Everyone sits at the table, but the cuisine is no longer Indian, or Thai, or Detroit pizza, but “food” and where Scotty’s precious Scotch is now “synthohol.”
While Star Trek became popular, Roddenberry inserted deep messages and fought to bring his version of a united and inclusive version to life on screen. Roddenberry executed his strategy by striving mightily to inspire his audience through plot and character to promote values and actions he calculated would lead to a better future. Perhaps the later versions reflect a natural continuation of his original concept, perhaps not. An open mind should be able to consider that something can be literary and popular fiction at the same time and accept both ideas as valid. Drawing conclusions instead of insight draws people into unassailable positions.
For a statistically unsound observation, check the car drop-off line at local private schools. While the students getting out may look different, their family Mercedes sport the same dealer stickers, and one can immediately see conformity in style, dress, action, and demeanor. The uniform is not as visible as in the armed services, but it is there. The real question is not where their football team ranks in a closed league, but who do they play? In another observation, two neighbors remark how coincidental it is that they live on the same street as both have similar hobbies and backgrounds when that should be expected—people whose formative years included similar experience and qualities would quite naturally perceive the same neighborhood as familiar and welcoming. People will gravitate to what they find familiar, but that should not turn into exclusion.
Looking back 35 years to the Challenger disaster and the process that created the chain of events responsible for the accident, the Wall Street Journal wrote on 28 January 2021 in an editorial titled “The Challenger Disaster and Its Lessons for Today”: “The usual response to such lapses is to add more layers of bureaucratic review and decision-making. But that is a two-edged sword. While reducing risk, it can also lead to soaring budgets, rigidity, groupthink, and less creativity and innovation. Just compare the cost and progress of NASA’s current rocket and spacecraft designs to recent private sector space efforts.” Capitalism-centricity aside, the editorial speaks to the need for cognitive diversity and a command and leadership environment and philosophy valuing individual contributions, even those that go at first, or second, look against prevailing wisdom. Look at how the U.S. Air Force treated Colonel John R. Boyd when he held firmly to his precepts. And his question to those he mentored: “Do you want to be somebody, or do something?” stands as an object lesson to reason, self-examination, and life lived according to principle. “You gotta challenge all assumptions. If you don’t, what is doctrine on day one becomes dogma forever after” is also attributed to him. Boyd valued inquiry and the search for knowledge and moved past preconceptions to invite and welcome disruptive thought.
So diversity is not simple inclusion, or expecting everyone to look or act the same, reflected in Lieutenant Commander Foote’s statement in “Embrace Cognitive Diversity” from the December 2020 Proceedings that “we must realize that the ‘Golden Rule’—treat everyone as you would want to be treated- creates a potential stumbling block for fostering diversity.” Yet, philosopher Immanuel Kant put forward, in paraphrase, that dignity and respect are central values needing to be applied to all humans, and human interactions. Do Kant and Foote disagree, or are they both describing the same bridge, or method of bringing diverse people together? It would seem simple that if each interaction occurred between two open minds, diverse thoughts, opinions, and their related actions should be able to work together to a common end, whether that end is practical, like who gets the last cookie, to the ideal, such as how will we rise above division due to prejudice, bias, and fear of others. Or, if you are a popular fiction hero, saving the universe in your allotted 60 minutes.
Progress on diversity needs to be thought of in terms of inclusion, but also in bridges. Bridges, in a structural sense, allow people, ideas, commerce, and security to combine while remaining independent. Bridges do not erase the river or canyon, but provide a means to cross, or to meet in the middle. The bridge of a ship got its name from a platform that allowed officers to cross from one side to the other, to observe and direct from different perspectives. Bridges on a guitar maintain string separation, while positioning the strings so that chords, strings playing simultaneously, sound their best. Dental bridges restore the ability to ingest sustenance. And there are other bridges, in chemistry, in billiards, and in physics.
The words “diversity and inclusion” need to be defined in terms of strategy, not tactics. Defining a prospective solution to the challenge of improving diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation requires cognitive diversity above all else. If people can visualize or imagine a better state, and share that, whether it is through academia, popular or literary fiction, or training focused on expanding an individual’s ability to absorb alien concepts and experiences, then the concrete steps required to move from one state to another can be defined. Proposing tactics to improve diversity will not help if a strategy, with some kind of “what should be” visualized, cannot guide the process and create the milestones. The mission to promote peace and human dignity starts with deleting fear of the unknown, seeking out differences, and boldly going forward by building bridges. Do not erase differences—build those bridges.
