A few weeks ago I wrote an article on the impressive resume of Jo Jorgensen. The previous prominent female candidate for President irked me with her private misogyny and public phony feminism, so I mockingly entitled my article: “I’m With Her”. Missing the tone of mockery, some libertarians were triggered and the keyboard warriors descended, making fiery posts concerned with identity politics.
Weeks before that I wrote another article on pearls of wisdom from C.S. Lewis, who wrote that we should put first things first, and second things second, to get a measure of both, but warned that if we put second things first, and first things second, we wind up with neither. He was referring to having our priorities straight with things like family, sex, money, our job, and alcohol. Put family before alcohol and you’ll enjoy a bottle with them at a BBQ, but put alcohol before family and you’ll wind up with no enjoyment of family or alcohol.
I believe the same applies to hiring practices. If HR puts talent before diversity then they will scour the globe looking for the best and brightest, and get a good measure of diversity along the way. If they put diversity before talent, they will more than likely wind up with neither.
I’ll share a tale of two financial institutions. One is a bank I worked for several years ago, and their objective with everything is diversity. Diversity was shouted at us on the job application. We had special diversity courses when training for the job. Posters were celebrating our diversity. Emails came out every week championing diversity. In the end, upper management was exclusively liberal-minded, white, women. There was no diversity at all.
Another institution I worked for was a hedge fund service company based out of the Cayman Islands. I believe they’ve heard of the word diversity, but I never saw evidence of this. They just hired top talent around the globe. I ate lunch with Russians, Iranians, Saudis, and Israelis. I worked on a team with ten Chinese people and a Haitian woman. Our accountant was Nigerian. Our office was led by a Korean man. We all had one thing in common: We were among the best in the world at what we did.
On the point of lacking diversity, it’s problematic in the financial world, although I’m positive this isn’t the case in every field. For example, in the first institution, none of the managers could figure out why a few of our clients were outraged when we offered them higher interest products for their savings. There wasn’t enough diversification of culture.
It was considerably costly, because other financial institutions that were able to cater to our Islamic clients that had Halal-based concerns about interest were able to get their large investment and lending business.
With the second company, we used each other’s cultural expertise daily. Employees in the marketing department, investment strategists, anti-money laundering officers, each borrowed from the cultural diversity we had at the office to make wiser decisions in international finance.
The question is how do libertarians wind up with diversity if we stand in opposition to identity politics. Precisely by not looking for it. By going about, and finding the most impressive resumes for the jobs we need done and diversity will manifest itself.
Diversity is of secondary importance compared with talent but of importance nevertheless. Against Joe Biden, a man who’s been caught on tape multiple times giving women and children a MeToo moment, and Trump who brags of entering women’s locker rooms, we have another candidate who doesn’t come across as a pervert inducing a visceral reaction to women potentially interested in politics. That should weigh a little in our present discussion.
Brandon Kirby
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