604 Unity and diversity

 Through the ages, some people strove for unity, in universal ideas or rules, applying to everyone everywhere, while other strove for recognition of diversity. Plato was a paradigmatic example of the first, Aristotle of the second. The latter proposed that only particulars exist, and generalisations are only notional.

 As recounted by Stephen Toulmin in his book ‘Cosmopolis’, in the Enlightenment in the 17^th century there was a revolutionary explosion of the drive towards universal absolutes for science and theory with geometry as the ideal. There is a mistake here. In ‘ordinary’ geometry there is a law that parallel lines do not intersect, but on a globe they do.

 In evolution, diversity, in the struggle of ‘survival of the fittest’ is needed for evolutionary selection to work. Diversity is needed for innovation; for the emergence of ‘novel combinations’

 The duality of unity and diversity is found in the history of ideas and knowledge, and in politics. In politics, some people strive for a homogeneous population, and the same rules for everyone, as in nationalism. This is inconsistent when accompanied with discrimination an exclusion or discrimination of foreigners, especially immigrants. To deserve the name, a democracy accepts and values variety of ideas, customs, and political views, and this diversity needs to be protected. It is a democratic duty to accept different views, as long as they remain within the law, and be prepared to listen and respond to them. Variety,  debate and demonstrations of rival ideas are essential.

 This makes democratic governance messy, confusing, and inefficient. Some universalists want to leave everything up to the working if markets,  without interference. They go for negative freedom, and concentration on national, short term welfare. Military support of Ukraine should be reduced or abandoned.  Maximum speed on road needs to be at a minimum. Farmers should be less constrained in ecological destruction. Airlines should be less constrained to produce noise and consume kerosene. Industries should be less constrained in pollution. Wealth should not be limited.

 Democrats acknowledge that some people are poor, different in potential, or otherwise constricted from resources, lacking positive freedom, and strive for social measures for help, and limits to negative freedom, to prevent outrageous inequality of wealth and income.

 If one rejects universality, is there then no generality and abstraction? Yes: without generalisation there is no theory. Most argument and all science need it But it is partial and temporary. In a world of ongoing change and transformation, generalisations apply only to a limited range of phenomena, and temporarily. The world as a whole is in ongoing turmoil, where fixed laws break down regularly.

 The wise person appreciates both diversity and generality, but generalises sparingly and incidentally, with a keen eye for exceptions.

 Take agriculture, where large corporations of animal feeds, chemical fertilizers, and export, enforce uniform procedures for economies of scale, that forces out individual farmers who want to experiment and adopt small scale ecological farming. Uniformity forces out variety. This is one of the banes of modern capitalism.