Dialogue About Diversity Contributed to Society

For your initial post, address the following:



1. Reflect on what you have learned and experienced throughout this course.

A. Describe the ways in which your definition of diversity has changed.

B. How do you see your shifting awareness of diversity affecting your future?



Module Overview

So the paradox is that it’s much easier to imagine the end of all life on Earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism, which means that we should reinvent Utopia, but in what sense? There are two false meanings of Utopia. One is this old notion of imagining an ideal society, which we know will never be realized. The other is the capitalist Utopia in the sense of new perverse desires that you are not only allowed but even solicited to realize. The true Utopia is when the situation is so without issue, without a way to resolve it within the coordinates of the possible, that out of the pure urge of survival you have to invent a new space. Utopia is not kind of a free imagination. Utopia is a matter of innermost urgency. You are forced to imagine it as the only way out, and this is what we need today.



– Slavoj Žižek (as quoted in Taylor, 2005)



Congratulations, you made it to Module Eight! You certainly deserve to take a moment to celebrate your success, dedication, and accomplishments. The past few weeks have challenged you to think about many big, important questions within diversity.



The skills you have learned all lend themselves to critical analysis of any current concept or social construction you might encounter. The core of our analysis has been understanding the ways diversity has been central to expanding our ideas of the possible. Within that, it is recognizing that including people different from us is what creates new ideas, new ways of doing things, and more insights into the work that we do.



As you complete this course, we offer one more way to think about diversity. In the larger societal conversation, achieving diversity in a particular context often hints at the idea that things will then be fine or even perfect. If a group can just find the right balance of people to include, peace and happiness by all will be achieved. This hints at a vision of utopia. A utopia is an idealized society or social system often imagined as a future solution for a current breakdown or complication within a given social system. It is a fine thing to wish for, but not one that necessarily reflects the deeper meaning of diversity. In truth, diversity means having differences and the tension involved in those differences, but also having the space for those differences to be heard and understood. This is something that gets lost in discussions about diversity: If diversity is the goal, then differences will create opportunities for new and different ideas to emerge—but that may not be a simple process.



The more ideal way to think about diversity with utopic intentions is to consider Frederic Jameson’s idea of the "utopian leap" (2008, pp. 632–634). When social constructs become too rigid and growth has felt impossible, a "utopian leap" occurs. Such leaps are the unpredictable human imagination at work, creating newly imagined ways to explore and address a seemingly unchangeable issue. In this sense, utopia is an imagined new way of thinking, being, or living that is often developed with the imagination first, and then attempted as an ideal construction. Although the constructions are never as perfect as the idea, they often result in new possibilities previously unimagined. These new possibilities allow people to break out of the social constructs that may have previously limited their opportunities or the ways that society could imagine their place.



A great example of this is the Afro-Futurist movement, which reconsiders what it means to radically rethink what the future can look like. Nichelle Nichols and Whoopi Goldberg both played characters in Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. They both have said that part of their desire to play their roles was to make sure that when U.S. culture created visions of the future, particularly those hundreds of years from now, that there would be Black people present. Their examples, along with such films as Black Panther (2018) and works by Nnedi Okorafor and N. K. Jemisin, have played important roles in inspiring Black people to imagine and create new visions for how they engage and advocate for equity and justice.



As you wrap up this course, take some time to reflect on how diversity changes your life. How can you apply information from this course to your relationships, work, or academics? How might you use what you learned to promote social change? How might you use what you learned in your day-to-day life, such as when watching the news, scrolling through social media, or engaging in conversation?



We hope you have a deeper understanding of cultural diversity and how awareness, inclusion, and dialogue about diversity contributes to society. We also hope you have developed a set of skills that you can use to critically examine the wide array of topics in diversity you encounter daily. Finally, we hope that you will be inspired by the knowledge and skills you have gained in this course.



Southern New Hampshire University’s faculty and staff congratulate you on making it through this course and taking a large step toward completing your goals. Celebrate this accomplishment and keep moving forward!



References



Jameson, F. (2009). The ideologies of theory. Verso.



Taylor, A. (Director). (2005). Žižek! [Film]. Hidden Driver Productions. http://www(dot)hiddendriver(dot)com/projects/zizek