The Diversity Myth
Why Thiel and Sacks ideas ring true even nearly 30 years later
I recently finished the Diversity Myth - a book exploring the path of culture wars within Stanford university in the 90s. Peter Thiel has been somewhat reticent about this book until a few months ago, when he discussed it at length with Founders Fund.
Reading through the pages was sometimes almost a word for word description of the current set of campus and culture wars. In the summer of 2024, you could have probably replaced certain characters in the some paragraphs. For example, in the passage below, you could replace gym with university campus lawns, kiss-in for Palestine protests, football team for graduating students and end of practice for graduation ceremonies.
“If the posters [for the gay, lesbian, and bisexual dance] are constantly ripped down, you'll have a perfect excuse to declare the area a disaster and have a kiss-in outside the gym some afternoon, and be sure to stay long enough that you force the football team to walk past you at the end of practice.”
Excerpt From
The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford
Peter A. Thiel, David O. Sacks
Woke has replaced multiculturalism and it carries a lot of the same energy, ideas and forms that it had 30 years ago except it has also exploded onto other colleges, large corporations, NGOs and nearly all parts of the government. Although Thiel and Sacks have been prescient, they have failed to stop or even limited any part of this ideology.
Strangely enough, the book has recognized this and even called it out:
“Unlike the great political successes of the 20th century—such as the American triumph in World War II or the Apollo space program—the means and the ends are far less clear this time around. We must face the very real possibility that there may not be a silver bullet to finish off the multicultural hydra.”
Excerpt From
The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford
Peter A. Thiel, David O. Sacks
The proposed solution nearly 30 years ago was libertarian in nature and a somewhat weak championing of Western Culture - ideas which I am quite sympathetic to. The solutions still eludes me, and while Thiel has proposed fragments of new solutions in his talks, it is also deeply unsatisfactory to me. I may write more about this in the future. Looking from the lens of 2024 - Thiel thinks that part of the reason he was slightly embarrassed by this book in the past not just because he and Sacks were making a mountain out of a molehill by the early 2000s, not just that they were writing about campus hi-jinks, but that it was a massive distraction from the real issues that plagues Stanford University, plagues major organizations, and plagues America.
In 2024, Thiel ends his talk with many questions that linger long after being asked: What exactly has this book and multiculturalism has distracted us from? He sees the dualistic nature of the liberal arts and sciences, where the messiness of the liberal arts hides the decay and lack of progress in the sciences. He sees Woke as a branch of Christianity, deformed but religious in origin and soul. He sees Woke as a cover for landlords and big corporations so that they can accumulate wealth without much criticism. Finally, he ends with running down the etymology ladder for political correctness and ends with Totalitarian Communism.
I agreed with him all the way except to the end. I agree, from personal experience how both of them are intricately tied and it comes from the same ideology. The supporters are also one and the same - and these ‘victims’ use the rhetoric of Communism to raise themselves up and cast down their ‘oppressors’. There are sympathizers and totalitarian impulses but my interpretation is much simpler - this is the dominant ideology in America in 2024 and that is what people will adhere to.