Recently, I read an argument from a conservative pundit that Aristotle perfectly summed up why the “diversity/equity/inclusion” movement (fad, cant, scheme) is foolish and destructive. Primarily the author’s approach was to appeal to the authority of the philosopher, who lived in ancient Greece about 2,500 years ago. Aristotle is one of handful of amazing human beings, like Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci and Ben Franklin, who seem to have been visitors from another planet, so freakishly talented and astute were they for their times, indeed any times. If you are going to use the Appeal to Authority fallacy as the foundation of your arguments, it is certainly an optimum strategy to employ an authority who was much smarter than you or anyone you could possibly argue with.

Indeed, Tottie (his friends called him “Tottie”) did warn about the perils of too much diversity of culture and language in a democracy like the one he lived in. The likely consequences of unassimilated immigration were, he concluded, dire:

“Heterogeneity of stocks may lead to faction – at any rate until they have had time to assimilate. A city cannot be constituted from any chance collection of people, or in any chance period of time. Most of the cities which have admitted settlers, either at the time of their foundation or later, have been troubled by faction. For example, the Achaeans joined with settlers from Troezen in founding Sybaris, but expelled them when their own numbers increased; and this involved their city in a curse. At Thurii the Sybarites quarreled with the other settlers who had joined them in its colonization; they demanded special privileges, on the ground that they were the owners of the territory, and were driven out of the colony. At Byzantium the later settlers were detected in a conspiracy against the original colonists, and were expelled by force; and a similar expulsion befell the exiles from Chios who were admitted to Antissa by the original colonists. At Zancle, on the other hand, the original colonists were themselves expelled by the Samians whom they admitted. At Apollonia, on the Black Sea, factional conflict was caused by the introduction of new settlers; at Syracuse the conferring of civic rights on aliens and mercenaries, at the end of the period of the tyrants, led to sedition and civil war; and at Amphipolis the original citizens, after admitting Chalcidian colonists, were nearly all expelled by the colonists they had admitted….”

Note that Aristotle does not base his theories on what someone smarter than he believed, but on historical facts. Aristotle’s ideal of good citizenship demanded a strong common identity and a systemic differentiation between citizens and foreigners. Because foreigners, especially mercenaries, had no solidarity with the people they lived among, Aristotle warned that they would be the tools of aspiring tyrants:

“The guard of a [benevolent and legitimate] king is composed of citizens: that of a tyrant is composed of foreigners. It is a habit of tyrants never to like anyone who has a spirit of dignity and independence. The tyrant claims a monopoly of such qualities for himself; he feels that anybody who asserts a rival dignity, or acts with independence, is threatening his own superiority and the despotic power of his tyranny; he hates him accordingly as a subverter of his own authority. It is also a habit of tyrants to prefer the company of aliens to that of citizens at table and in society; citizens, they feel, are enemies, but aliens will offer no opposition.”

Aristotle also was suspicious of extreme democracies, which he concluded were often a prelude to totalitarianism. He believed that the institution of multi-cultural “diversity” had sinister motives:

“A number of new tribes and clans should be instituted by the side of the old; private cults should be reduced in number and conducted at common centers; and every contrivance should be employed to make all the citizens mix, as much as they possibly can, and to break down their old loyalties. All the measures adopted by tyrants may equally be regarded as congenial to democracy. We may cite as examples the license…permitted to women and children, and the policy of conniving at the practice of “living as you like.” There is much to assist a constitution of this sort, for most people find more pleasure in living without discipline than they find in a life of temperance.” 

Smart guy, that Tottie! On the other hand, citing Aristotle as a reliable authority regarding the specifics of 21st Century government, social and political theory or culture is disingenuous. Aristotle’s democracy relied significantly on slaves. He, like all men of his time, believed women to be suited only for having children, keeping house, and sex. He would have found the Founders’ vision of government certifiably insane and doomed to failure.

There are too many features of modern life to count that make Aristotle’s conclusions and analysis inadequate for direct applications to the U.S. in 2023.. His commentary is useful and worth pondering in the abstract, but it is impossible to know or even speculate upon what he would think about “diversity” or virtually any policies today. There are eternal truths, but we are constantly learning about and editing our descriptions of those truths, whil constantly discovering that some long-accepted truths are, in fact, not true at all . It is unfair to a period geniuses like Aristotle (or to mention another example, the authors of the Bible) to hold them responsible for conclusions they reached regarding ethics and societal practice without the extra 2,500 years of experience and accumulated wisdom we have had.

There’s another problem with using Aristotle this way. The man wrote a lot, and he wrote in ancient Greek. Translations, as we have often learned to our sorrow, are subject to bias and manipulation. Particularly when it comes to scholarly interpretations of philosophers as prolific as Aristotle, an advocate can cherry-pick support for almost any position.

Here, for example, two academics who (Surprise!) advocate DEI policies appeal to Aristotle’s authority to support the practice…

“For Aristotle, the state was better described as a plurality (made of many) than a unity (made of one); he understood the polity as requiring difference rather than homogeneity (Frank, 2005). Accordingly, Aristotle believed that diversity of services and of mind were instrumental for the functioning of an ideal state. In the Politics, Aristotle underscored that point, praising the wisdom that could be culled from many views, as opposed to the more limited perspectives that could come from the few: “For the many, of whom each individual is but an ordinary person, when they meet together may very likely be better than the few good, if regarded not individually but collectively, just as a feast to which many contribute is better than a dinner provided out of a single purse” (2000, p. 121, 1281a–b). Sounder political judgments would be produced, and for a well-functioning democratic society, this is crucial (Aristotle, 1962, 2000). The ideas that Aristotle put forward underscore that democracy functions optimally when a diversity of interests is considered in political decision making.”

The authors shrug off Aristotle’s warning about the perils of diversity in two sentences: “Aristotle was open to the ideal of diversity, acknowledging that it could be useful for political discussion. He believed that conflict was inevitable and that multiple points of view served to make democracy stronger.”

In short, to slightly paraphrase Laocoön, “Beware of advocates bearing gifted Greeks.”