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10.1177/0275074003255682 ARTICLEARPA / September 2003Levine / DIVERSITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

THE IDEAL OF DIVERSITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

DAVID P. LEVINE University of Denver

This article offers a psychodynamic exploration of the organizational commitment to diversity. Based on a brief review of organizational rhetoric, two themes are identified. The first is the denial of hatred, which is argued to express the operation of a fantasy of the organization as the peaceable kingdom. This fantasy imagines the organization as a home for those with strong originary group identifications, while refusing to consider how attachment to group identity can foster hate and exclusion. The second theme is the equation of knowledge useful to the organization with life experience connected to group identity. The emphasis in the rhetoric of diversity on the value of experience is linked to a strategy for coping with loss that seeks to make the experience of loss a source of strength. The importance of acknowledging the reality of hate and of coping with, rather than denying, the consequences of loss is emphasized.

Keywords: diversity; organizations; hate; groups; experience

The analytic transformation process . . . is a specific form of Eros, it is the Eros called understanding, and it is, too, a specific form of understanding. It is above all the understanding of what is rejected, of what is feared and hated in the human being, and this thanks to the greater fighting strength, a greateraggres- sion, against everything which conceals the truth, against illusion and denial— in other words against man’s fear and hate towards himself, and their pathologi- cal consequences.

Racker (1968, p. 32)

The idea of diversity lately has taken hold in many organizations. The pursuit of diversity engages the matter of the organization’s workplace ideal. In becoming self-conscious about this ideal, the organization involves itself in shaping the com- position of its workforce, and in determining the sorts of interactions in the work- place it tolerates and encourages.

As an attribute of an organizational ideal, the termdiversityhas taken on differ- ent meanings that can lead organizations in different directions.1 Here, I pay special attention to only one of these meanings. The use of the term diversity to which I pay

Initial Submission: September 6, 2002 Accepted: May 1, 2003

AMERICAN REVIEW OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Vol. 33 No. 3, September 2003 278-294 DOI: 10.1177/0275074003255682 © 2003 Sage Publications

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special attention interprets diversity as primarily a matter of group identity rather than individual difference.2 Organizations committed to this ideal of diversity value their employee’s group identities and see themselves as places where members of different groups live and work together without the conflict that often characterizes intergroup interaction. I suggest that, in cases where diversity takes on this mean- ing, we find the operation of an underlying organizational fantasy, which I refer to as the fantasy of the peaceable kingdom. In this fantasy, rather than understanding the fears and hatreds often built into group experience, and rather than dealing with their consequences, the organization simply declares that, within it, they will not exist, and that people from different groups will live together peacefully.

I use the termfantasyhere to emphasize the hopeful element in the rhetoric of diversity.3 The presence of this element can have different implications depending on its intent. It can act as a powerful driver for organizational reform that will over time move the organization closer to a valued ideal. Alternatively, the fantasy and the hope it contains can be part of an effort to perpetuate a reality in which the prob- lems diversity-oriented policy is meant to alleviate are instead reproduced and intensified. In brief, I argue that, so far as the dominant organizational fantasy links individual identity to ascribed group membership, it tends to perpetuate and even exacerbate the difficulties posed by diversity in organizations. By contrast, an orga- nization that treats group identity as an aspect of individual identity rather than sub- suming the latter into the former functions to limit rather than exacerbate the diffi- culties diversity in organizations can create.

THE RHETORIC OF DIVERSITY

I begin with some examples of organizational rhetoric on diversity taken from organizational web sites. My purpose in presenting these examples is not to offer a systematic account of diversity rhetoric but to provide a sense of how the term is used by those organizations with strong commitments to an ideal of diversity. I con- sider the question: How do organizations committed to diversity use that term, and what do they mean by it? In answering these questions, I begin with Hewlett- Packard (2002):

Diversity is the existence of many unique individuals in the workplace, market- place and community. This includes men and women from different nations, cul- tures, ethnic groups, generations, backgrounds, skills, abilities and all the other unique differences that make each of us who we are. (para. 1)

For the CEO of Hewlett Packard, diversity means that her organization will “become a model of inclusion around the world.”

Employing similar rhetoric, Lucent Technologies (2002) tells us “respecting differences is an integral part of our culture and a key element for our success. We know that to achieve business excellence, decisions must be based on a wide range

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of contributions from people with diversity in ideas, backgrounds, and perspec- tives” (para. 3). From Aetna (2001), we learn that “success comes from having a diverse mix of talents, skills, backgrounds, and perspectives. We know that differ- ent views and attitudes breed exciting new ideas” (n.p.). The U.S. Coast Guard (2001) tells us “diversity is simply the mix of similarities and differences each of us brings to the workplace” (n.p.).

For the city of Denver (2001), valuing diversity means recognizing and appreci- ating “that individuals are different,” where different refers to “values, perspec- tives, and ways of doing things” (n.p.). The University of Colorado (2002) speaks of difference in a similar manner, announcing that “people are different” then, at one moment listing “ideas, thoughts, and perspectives,” the next referring to “ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds, individual and group differences” (para. 1). We are told that all differences are to be included: “Clearly, the quality of learning is enhanced by a campus climate of inclusion, understanding, and appreciation of the full range of human experience” (para. 4). In describing its commitment to diver- sity, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (2002) offers the same all-inclusive rhetoric:

At PriceWaterhouseCoopers, everyone can make a difference—from day one. We believe a commitment to diversity is the key to unlocking every person’s greatest potential. Our diversity is our greatest strength, as it is a business imperative tied directly to our bottom line—the key to our continued success. (para. 1)

For some organizations, diversity is a tool in service of efficiency. Thus, the CEO of IBM describes its organization’s commitment to diversity in the lan- guage of competitiveness: In a

hypercompetitive marketplace, we cannot succeed unless we can also field the best talent in our industry. So our commitment to build a workforce as broad and diver- sified as the customer base we serve . . . isn’t an option. For us, this is a business imperative as fundamental as delivering superior technologies to the marketplace. (Gerstner, 2001, n.p.)

In a similar vein, the city of Denver (2001) answers the question Why have a diversity initiative? with the following comment: “It makes good business sense to use the talent of all employees, to gain a maximum of effort, therefore affect- ing employee productivity” (n.p.).

If the language used by these organizations is at all typical, it suggests that orga- nizational rhetoric on diversity exhibits the following notable qualities. First, it is largely devoid of content. We read about diversity but gain little understanding of what it is. To be told that “people are different” or that “diversity is the existence of many unique individuals” or that “different views and attitudes breed exciting new ideas” is to learn little about diversity. Second, organizational rhetoric on diversity incorporates the proposition that differences in background—and therefore in life experience—offer the organization special benefits. This is implied in the notion that diversity not only makes the organization more inclusive, it also makes it more

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creative, or, as the CEO of Hewlett Packard insists, “diversity drives creativity.” Why does the rhetoric on diversity tell us so little, and how are we to understand the proposition that diversity promotes creativity and efficiency?

To answer these questions, we need to understand better what the rhetoric of diversity does. In the rhetoric just considered, language is used primarily to express a belief, and thus to assert what we know without thinking about it. Because we are dealing with organizational Web sites, we can assume that much of their purpose is to advertise the organization in a way that establishes a specific public image. In this effort, the diversity page plays a particular role, which is to broadcast an appeal for prospective employees by creating an image of the organization including espe- cially an image of the ideal workplace as that organization imagines it. The pur- pose, then, is not to engage the reader in a thoughtful encounter with a real organiza- tion and a real issue, but to engage the reader in an emotional encounter with an organizational fantasy.

So far as the term diversity operates as a symbol for a fantasy, this means that if we are to understand diversity as an organizational goal, we must identify and inter- pret the fantasy. To do so, I would like to begin with what the rhetoric on diversity does not tell us, which is what precisely is meant by difference, and, specifically, what differences should be taken into account in determining whether an organiza- tion is or is not diverse.

To the extent that this question is addressed at all, it is in the not very helpful way in which targeted differences are identified: “gender, race, age, culture, ethnicity, class, religion, disabilities, life experience, education, and others” (City of Denver, 2001, n.p.). Apparently, no differences are excluded so that the organization can encompass the “full range of human experience.” Yet we are also told that valuing diversity means limit setting. Thus, for example, the University of Colorado (2002) tells us: “The campus is a place where bias-related behaviors and violence do not occur” (para. 5). Clearly, those perspectives, ideas, and values that lead to ways of doing things deemed bias-related behaviors are not to be tolerated, although we do not know how we are meant to judge when behavior is bias related. This becomes a problem when we insist on respecting differences associated with groups of origin (originary groups) such as racial or ethnic (possibly even gender) groups.4 If diver- sity means openness to underrepresented groups (University of Colorado, 2002), and if it means excluding bias-related behaviors, it must be assumed that under- represented groups do not have values that would foster bias-related behaviors. Dif- ficulty arises, in part, because, to the extent that underrepresented groups are originary groups, they cannot have open membership and, in this sense, must be exclusionary. To the extent that the implied exclusion of others in such groups makes them a source of bias-related behavior, valuing diversity cannot be consid- ered inconsistent with sponsoring bias-related behavior.

We need, then, to consider whether, or under what circumstances, the exclusion of others from the group constitutes bias-related behavior. Can we value member- ship in an originary group without denigrating those who are not and cannot be members of that group? I think that the answer to this question involves us in some

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complex considerations having to do with the nature of originary group identifica- tion, with the implications of the fact that originary groups are not open or chosen, and with the further implication that we relate to these aspects of our identity in a special way. I return to this matter when I consider the role of theunthought known in the shaping of group identity. At this point, I want mainly to emphasize how the rhetoric of diversity often defines its object—diversity—in such a way as to leave open the question of what differences are or are not relevant, and what sort of behavior is or is not bias related.

INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP IDENTITY

The failure of the rhetoric to be explicit about the meaning of its main goal, expresses, in part, the fact that to do so would be to deal explicitly with the distinc- tion between valuing diverse cultures (and therefore cultural or group identities) and treating individuals without consideration for those cultures and identities. Does the workplace celebrate cultural difference and seek to incorporate differ- ences? Or, does it limit the employee’s ability to be a member of an originary group, and to express a cultural identity linked to that group? The goal of limiting group identification is implied by diversity rhetoric when it emphasizes tolerance of dif- ference, as becomes clear, for example, in the city of Denver’s (2001) “Diversity Self-Assessment” offered for use in “Diversity Training,” which includes rating yourself on such items as:

I recognize how bonding with my own group may exclude or be perceived as excluding others.

I get to know people as individuals who are different from me. I avoid generalizing the behaviors or attitudes of one individual to another group

(e.g., “All men are . . . ,” or “All women are . . .”). (n.p.)

These questions point us in a direction different from that suggested by the ideal of a workplace in which membership in originary groups is taken explicitly into account and explicitly valued by the organization.

The U.S. Coast Guard (2001) expresses the same ideal for its workforce when it insists that valuing diversity means seeing people outside their group identities. When a “stereotype blinds us to individual differences within a class of people, it is maladaptive and potentially dangerous. We need to be careful about the assump- tions we make about others” (n.p.). One way to be careful about the assumptions we make about others is not to make assumptions about them. However, this means we cannot know about others simply by knowing their ascribed groups identities.

Following this line of thinking, R. Roosevelt Thomas (1991-92) questions the utility of the approach to diversity that assumes awareness of ascribed group char- acteristics “will enhance the ability of the manager to relate to members of the

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respective groups,” arguing instead that “we are managing individuals and not groups” (p. 21) The need to manage individuals rather than group members fol- lows, he goes on to suggest, from the “enormous diversity” that exists within any category of employees (p. 21). This is, in its way, an odd use of the term diversity, because it might as easily be considered an alternative to the ideal of diversity as a variant on the theme. It does, nonetheless, highlight a tension in the rhetoric of diversity, because the call for inclusion—if it means recognition of the individual as a member of a group—can conflict with the call for members of groups to treat oth- ers as individuals, which is to say outside of any ascribed group identity.

Whether the two interpretations of diversity conflict depends on the way in which group identity functions for the individual—and especially on whether it is a genuinely group identity in the sense to be developed later—or is simply treated as one aspect of an individual identity. To treat the group identity as simply an aspect of individual identity frees the individual from dominance by the group. It is this dominance by the group that causes the problem, and what we need to consider is when and to what extent diversity rhetoric and policy tend to reinforce rather than weaken the group’s hold over the individual. When they tend to reinforce subordi- nation of the individual to a group identity, the interpretation of diversity as individ- ual difference conflicts with the interpretation that emphasizes the treatment of individuals according to their group affiliations.

The rhetoric of diversity involves us in a struggle over how we know others. Do we know them in their ascribed group identities? Do we know individuals without having to discover anything distinctively individual about them? Or, in coming to know individuals, do we suspend any prior knowledge based on ascribed group connection? If we formulate the ideal of diversity around the first way of knowing, it calls on us to know others in their ascribed group identities without thereby sub- jecting them to the kinds of bias-related behavior that has been traditionally linked to knowing them in that way. Attempting to do so can lead in the direction of an organizational fantasy. This is the fantasy of the organization as peaceable king- dom. In this fantasy, cultural differences and the group identities through which they exist do not foster bias-related behavior. The organization becomes the com- munity of the diverse, the place where they live together peacefully. In the peace- able kingdom, ethnic, racial, gender, religious, and class differences do not promote bias-related behaviors, as of course they have through much of human history.

The peaceable kingdom fantasy expresses an important aspect of the underlying meaning of the rhetoric on diversity, which is the way it invokes the idea of commu- nity. Thus, according to the chancellor of the University of Colorado at Boulder, the work to be done begins with “creating an institutional vision for diversity.” To real- ize this vision, the institution must commit itself “to building a community. . . in which diversity is a fundamental value” (Byyny, 2001, n.p.). In this construction, the diverse organization is a moral community, and the organization becomes an ethical organization by becoming a diverse community.5

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CULTURAL ENDOWMENT

The fantasy of the peaceable kingdom overcomes in imagination the difficulty that diversity policy (so far as it insists that we know only individual differences and avoid prejudging individuals according to their ascribed group identities) tends to undermine originary group identification. There is also, however, a second element of the fantasy embedded in the rhetoric of diversity. This element has to do with the special value ascribed to the unique ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds brought into the organizational community by its diverse workforce. The implication is that people have knowledge relevant to doing a job well because of who they are or who they are assumed to be. The fantasy of diversity, then, includes the claim that expe- rience creates knowledge. This claim underlies the insistence that diversity pro- motes efficiency and creativity.

This valuing of experience underlies the valuing of cultures, which can play such an important role in the ideal of diversity. Being a part of a culture has the sig- nificance of having a culturally determined identity and way of life appropriate to it. This makes cultural experience a form of what Christopher Bollas (1987) refers to as the unthought known.6 Referring to his clinical experience, Bollas suggests that the patient “knows the object setting through which he developed, and it is part of him, but it has yet to be thought” (p. 230).7 The experience of cultures operating in this way takes shape within the mental life of the individual as a mode of relatedness and a system of implicit meaning connected to it. We know how to relate to others in ways appropriate to the group and its culture, but this knowing and relating are not subject to thinking and reflection. Such knowing is embedded in conduct rather than explicitly thought. The embedding of an experience of relatedness is achieved by primitive processes of internalization—in particular identification with impor- tant figures in early childhood development. This means that racial and gender identity are learned by experience if by that we mean embedded as an inescapable fact of life through identification. Such aspects of our identity have been referred to as “primary dimensions of diversity” or “inherent characteristics that stay with us throughout our lives” (Sannwald, 1999, p. 18).

Because the primary dimensions of diversity are embedded in the mind as emo- tionally laden experiences, they are neither thought nor articulated but enacted as expressions of character, especially in relationships. The learning and knowing linked to them is of a special kind because not only is it linked to, and dependent on, experience, it is also equated with experience. This means that those with the expe- rience must have the implied knowledge, and that those who do not have the experi- ence cannot have or acquire this knowledge. They can neither know nor learn what it means to be who they are not. If an organization is to take advantage of the special knowing derived directly from having an experience, then it must have representa- tion from among those who have had the experience. When the experience is also tied to putatively natural endowments—men cannot have the experience of being women or Whites of being Black—the valued knowledge can only be acquired if what is assumed to be natural endowment is taken into account in shaping the

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workforce. In this sense, the valued knowing differs essentially from the knowing we associate with a skill, which is a learned expertise available to anyone with the requisite talent and access to training whatever his or her race, ethnicity, or gender.

The essential element in this construction is the equation of understanding an experience with having it. This equation can be considered a denial of—and indeed an attack on—the capacity for empathy, which is experienced as a threat. The empathic connection makes understanding of our emotional experience by another, who has not had it, possible. So, to prevent that understanding from happening means to call into question the capacity for empathy and the use of that capacity to shape interpersonal connection.

KNOWING SELF AND OTHER

To explore the attack on empathy and special construction of knowing some- times implied in diversity rhetoric, I consider the psychological meaning of know- ing self and other. Doing so focuses attention not on the group level of analysis, but on that of the individual. The connection between the two lies in the individual’s use of the group to solve a problem that arises in early emotional development, and that bears on the matter of how we know self and other. The emotional problem with which I am concerned here is the residue of the failure of early emotional develop- ment to secure for the individual a strong sense of self and adequate level of self- esteem. Put another way, it is the problem of having a denigrated self. The pursuit of group connection may or may not be part of an effort to cope with this problem, so we need not assume that those who make group connection an aspect of identity do so to compensate for problems of self-esteem. Nonetheless, group connection can be used in this way, and when it is, the group connection takes on the special meaning considered here.

I treat the problem of the denigrated self as one that arises for the individual out of relations that develop within the family early in life. Doing so tends to obscure the larger societal forces that shape the family system. When we take these forces into account, the family no longer appears as the determinant of the individual’s relationship with the group but appears instead as a transmission device for those larger forces—especially group forces—operating at the societal level. The inter- generational transmission of self-experience within the family is also the transmis- sion to the individual of a psychology appropriate to group life of a particular kind. I do not here consider this aspect of the relation between individual and group but take it for granted that such processes are operative and that individual psychology exists and is shaped within a larger social system.8 For our purposes, of special importance is the transmission of a special construction of what it means to know self and other.

Psychologically, what is known or is not known about the other is an emotional state, or self-experience. Communication attempts to convey that state to another, who may accept it, reject it, or ignore it. Being understood or being known, then,

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refers to another’s acceptance, acknowledgement, and even sharing of our emo- tional state. Because being known engages the emotional experience of self and other, it can as easily pose a threat as offer an opportunity for connection. Whether we experience the connection in which we are known by others as a threat or oppor- tunity shapes our way of thinking about the process of conveying our experience to others in ways that might enable them to understand it.

The equation of knowing with having an experience sometimes embedded in diversity rhetoric suggests the presence of a special attitude toward being known by, and therefore also knowing, others. Here, I consider briefly the psychological foun- dations for this attitude toward knowing. It is not my intent to suggest that use of the term diversity inevitably implies that the psychological processes described later are dominant, but only that this will sometimes be the case, and, when it is, we need to be aware of the psychological work diversity rhetoric is doing if we are to under- stand the opportunities and risks it presents.

In early emotional development, our feeling about our selves, or self-state, depends essentially on the quality of the connection we can sustain with our pri- mary caretakers. At this stage in development, the self-state and the relation with the caretaker cannot be considered separate realities.9 Our wish to be known and understood means that we wish for our caretakers to take in our emotional commu- nication, which is equivalent to having our selves accepted. We can also say then that to be known is to be loved—and to remain unknown is to be unloved—which is also to be unworthy of love.

There is, however, more to it than this because we also need unacceptable self- states (including those states in which we are consumed by destructive feelings) to be communicated to others and taken in by them (Bion, 1962/1994).10 In this way, we can use our caretakers to help us manage intolerable self-states and the bad feel- ings that go with them. However, we can only do this if we can communicate those states to them and if this communication is received in such a way as to make those states more, rather than less, manageable for us. The goal of emotional develop- ment is to moderate, if not eliminate, dependence on others for this work of manag- ing our emotions for us, the work of enabling us to contain our feelings inside rather than imposing them on others. We learn to manage our feelings in this way by shap- ing our internal experience with our feelings on the model of the experience we have with our caretakers. We come to relate to our selves and our feelings about our selves in the same way those feelings and self-experiences were related to by our caretakers. In brief, we internalize the relationship through which we manage our emotional lives.

By internalizing this relationship, we limit the contingency of our psychic exis- tence on external relationships. To be sure, this dependence cannot be altogether eliminated, nor should it be. Yet the sort of dependence on others typical of early childhood development must be replaced with more mature forms appropriate for adult life, forms in which we do for ourselves much of the emotional work earlier done for us.

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If our effort to convey our bad feelings to others fails—if others refuse to know them for us by holding them and helping us to modulate them—those feelings return to us in their original, if not in an intensified, form. If, for example, others find our rage, hate, or shame intolerable, we will also find them so. What we learn through our effort to be known is that how we feel (which is who we are) is not toler- able to others and endangers our connection with those on whom we depend. We internalize not a relationship through which we can modulate and therefore know (hold inside) our feelings (one in which our selves are acceptable to others and wor- thy of connection with them) but one that (by intensifying our bad feelings) vali- dates our sense that they (therefore our selves who have them) cannot be tolerated. To survive, we must somehow separate our selves from those feelings, denying that we are their source.

To cope with this situation, the individual may seek to replace his or her unac- ceptable, and therefore unworthy, self with a surrogate more consistent with the goal of denying the link between the self and its unacceptable feelings. This surro- gate self can be an external self on which the individual can depend for the direction in life and the sense of inner value needed to go on living. This external good self can be a shared group self, and taking on the cultural identity appropriate to the group can be part of a strategy to identify with the good self. This is, of course, a group of a particular kind, formulated in a particular way and for a particular pur- pose. The link of such groups with the good self links the level of the individual with that of the group, the psychology of the former becoming inseparable from the psy- chology of the latter. When individuals depend on a shared group identity of this kind for their connection with a good self, individuals become psychologically dependent on, even merged into, the kind of group that offers the needed service. The more this dependence develops, the less meaningful the distinction between individual and group levels of experience (Stein, 1994).

What we have, then, are members rather than individuals, and the problem of the two levels disappears. This outcome is, of course, a matter of degree. However, when we consider the individual primarily as a bearer of an ascribed group identity, we consider him or her as a member rather than an individual. This happens when, for example, we assume that members of originary groups bring to the organization relevant experiences and knowledge because they are, or are assumed to be, mem- bers of those groups.

The group and the group identity that operate in this way offer a refuge for hope that sustains psychic life when the internalized relationship cannot. The need to have our group identity known—and the associated fear of not being known in that identity—fuels the need to find recognition for group identity. This need can be understood, then, as a response to the situation formed out of failed early relation- ships. The result is that what we want is for others to know not our unworthy self, but our surrogate selves—selves that can be linked to our attachment to a group identity. Then, the fear of not being known expresses the deeper fear that we (that is our unworthy selves) will become known. We have given up the hope that we will

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be understood and turn our energies instead to the task of preventing understanding from taking place.

Our relation with an external (group) self shaped around the psychological needs just summarized provides us with a surrogate self-experience, which means that our relationship with it simultaneously counters and reinforces the unworthy self. It counters the unworthy self by providing a substitute for it; however, it rein- forces the unworthy self by confirming that it is, indeed, unacceptable, and that we can only become acceptable or worthy by denying who we are and how we feel.

Because the surrogate self is a group self, it is sustained externally to the individ- ual. It exists only so far as the group and our membership in it are recognized. This means that situations where the surrogate self cannot be recognized or known put its existence at risk. The result where attachment to groups of the type here consid- ered dominates is a situation in which the group member needs his or her group self recognized in the workplace, which means that the group member must be known there in his or her group identity. This knowing of the group self prevents attach- ment to the unworthy self, and in this way participates in a strategy for coping with the shared loss of positive self-feeling that constitutes the group and its identity.

COPING WITH LOSS

The strategy for dealing with a denigrated or unworthy self just considered requires that the group become the locus of the good self. Yet, in many cases, the group is the group of those who have been the victims of oppression and thus made to bear the burden of the unworthy self. What group members share is victimization and the loss of positive self-feeling that goes with it. Because the group is organized around shared loss, the good self it holds for its members carries a substantial bur- den. If the group self is to be valued, it must be for its experience of loss. Valuing the experience of loss transforms what was denigrated into a source of pride. The trans- formation of loss into its opposite defends against acknowledging the implications of loss and has much to do with the fantasy that the cultures of previously excluded groups do not foster bias-related behaviors.

Oppression means imposed loss, which is the shared experience that consti- tutes groups of the type considered here. The psychic reality of the group depends on its ability to keep the experience of imposed loss secure from the transforma- tive process of being thought about and thereby understood by self and others. This is because the group exists only so far as the shared experience is held as the unthought known: something we can refer to, recall, memorialize, even celebrate, but not understand by a thought process. To offer the experience in a form suitable for thinking is to make it available to others (those outside the group) who have not had it.

Making the group-constituting experience available to others threatens the exis- tence of groups shaped by the psychological need to cope with oppression and deprivation. In threatening the existence of the group, it threatens the investment of

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value in loss that is an important part of the psychological work the group does for its members (see Stein, 1994, chapter 5). When the members of a group that derives its meaning from shared loss can treat their experience of loss as an instance of a general class of human experience, the understanding of their experience by those not in the group becomes possible, and the group loses its special hold over the member and its special place in the member’s psychic landscape. This can only happen when communication feels safe, or when repetition of trauma is not assumed to be the inevitable concomitant of any effort to communicate it to others.

The power of a group that relates to its members in the way just considered is the power of its shared constituting experience. Experience has power over us when it is known but not thought. Kept out of awareness means kept out of the realm of will, judgment, and agency. Only so long as it can bypass awareness can the experience control thought and conduct. Once brought into awareness, a new source of power can exert itself. Thinking about the experience drains it of its power, which also drains power from the group, shifting that power over to the individual. This does not mean that to overcome the power of the unthought known and the group created around it we have only to think about it. However, it does mean that our ability to think about experience is a measure of our freedom from it.

As we have seen, so far as the strategy of cultural diversity seeks to reinforce the individual’s derivation of his or her identity from the originary group, it is a strategy for taking advantage of the unthought known. Rather than challenging us to think about the unthought known, it reinforces our commitment to shield experience from the transformative power of thinking. The problem with subjecting experi- ence to this power is the psychological conviction that to think what is known but not thought is to experience again the loss and the damaged self it left behind as its legacy. To have others think about the experience is psychically equated with repeating the experience, so others must not be allowed to do so. Judging those who have not had the experience incapable of understanding it is part of a strategy to control them to ensure that they will not think about the experience. We can also say, then, that so far as the group insists that those outside cannot understand its consti- tuting experience, it operates according to the psychological imperatives summa- rized here. Alternatively, so far as the group seeks understanding from those out- side, it offers a mode of escape from those imperatives.

So far as the strategy of diversity confirms the impossibility of communicating an experience to others, it reinforces the knowledge that the experience cannot be tolerated. This ensures that the experience will maintain its power over the indi- vidual. Only a strategy that insists that communication is possible, that others can also know the experience, can offer the individual the prospect that the power of the experience might be lessened, and that the individual might be able to escape from it.

The effort to control others so that the processing of the communication (think- ing about it) will not happen seeks to prevent the experience from recurring, and to establish that the residue of the experience constitutes a valued endowment to be kept secure from those outside the group. This means valuing the experience of loss

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and sets the stage for the celebration of oppression and identification with the oppressed that we sometimes observe in those settings where diversity is linked to protecting the unthought known.

Although those not in the group shaped around the unthought known cannot have the group’s experience, they can identify with it, and in this way connect them- selves to it. Adopting the meaning of the experience conveyed by the group and its leaders expresses this identification. This means that others who cannot know the experience can nonetheless use it in a specific way. I refer to this use of the experi- ence without knowing or thinking about it as identification with the oppressed. Identification with the oppressed plays a role in those organizations whose commit- ment to diversity is part of a commitment to supporting the process that invests value in loss and thus transforms loss into gain, or at least seeks to do so.

Those who identify with the oppressed participate in the denial of the loss that is the meaning and consequence of oppression. In place of acknowledging loss and its consequences, they insist that the suffering imposed has not damaged its object but made it stronger, that, as Jesse Jackson (1989) insists, “suffering breeds character.” Identification with the oppressed means collusion in the denial of damage, and the mobilization of aggression to protect self and object from awareness of their dam- aged state.

The fantasy of the peaceable kingdom is a fantasy about originary group iden- tity. In this fantasy, the embedded knowing organized around a history of exclusion and oppression becomes a valued endowment that can be separated from emotional damage and the aggression fostered by it. To protect this endowment means to pre- vent those who do not have it from understanding it, which means to protect the embedded knowing of group identity from the “Eros called understanding.” How- ever, this effort to protect and value embedded knowing also preserves the damage done to group members by exclusion and oppression. In so doing, it fosters the hate the fantasy would banish from the organization imagined as a peaceable kingdom.

ERASING THE HATE

An essential element in the fantasy of the peaceable kingdom is the absence of aggression. Notable about the peaceable kingdom is that in it past deprivation and the strategies used for coping with it do not mobilize aggression that turns into hatred of others. If we accept this proposition, however, we are left with a conun- drum because we can no longer account for hatred as a response to deprivation and loss. The fantasy of the peaceable kingdom expresses the wish for a world in which hate disappears. The wish is that we could erase the hate rather than coming to terms with the damage hate does to its object, just as we erase that damage by declaring it the source of what is good. If, indeed, suffering breeds character, those who have suffered do not emerge damaged, but whole. Although they were the objects of hate, they do not hate. If they do hate, they are not judged the source of their hate,

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which is to be found in hate’s object (those who have presumably benefited from hate and the oppression that goes with it).

The wish to erase the hate may express not so much a desire for hatred in others to disappear as if by magic, but the wish that our own hatred could be erased in this way. This is important because only by erasing our own hate can we gain admission to the peaceable kingdom. Joining an organization that banishes hate enables us to cleanse ourselves of hate, which can then be considered an important part of the commitment to a policy of diversity in those cases where doing so is meant to help the organization achieve a sense of its own virtue.

The more aggressive assertions of organizational virtue tied to a commitment to diversity suggest that the ideal of diversity is being used in this way. Thus Hewlett- Packard describes diversity as the key to fulfilling its vision, which is to be “a win- ning e-company with a shining soul” (Hewlett-Packard, 2003). Although we can only speculate on the meaning of this statement, it is clearly consistent with the idea that organizational commitment to diversity has a cleansing effect on the organiza- tion’s soul, as it does on the souls of those working within the organization. This makes diversity much more than a policy that fosters productivity or creativity, or ensures that the workplace is a setting in which people from different backgrounds can do their jobs without fear of discrimination or abuse. Beyond these more lim- ited goals, the ideal of diversity is here tied to the need to purge the organizational soul of those darker elements that might prevent it—and those associated with it— from entering the peaceable kingdom. These darker elements are, presumably, the darker feelings and impulses, especially those associated with hate.

If hate is the darkness of the soul that impedes admission to the peaceable king- dom, then the commitment to diversity cleanses the organization of darkness by erasing the hate. The organization that has a shining soul is also the organization that rids itself of hate by embracing those who have been hate’s object.12 This implies that failure to make a commitment to diversity would leave the organiza- tion’s soul blemished. Another possible implication of the image of a shining soul is that in it we will find reflected not only the organization’s goodness but also the darkness of those organizations that do not embrace the virtuous organization’s commitment to diversity.

CONCLUSION

The interpretation of diversity as individual difference does not lead us into the difficulties associated with the interpretation linked to the fantasy of the peace- able kingdom. Interpreting diversity as individual difference may seem, how- ever, to take us no further than the already well-established ideal of individual right embodied in law and policy, including in particular the policy of equal treat- ment. This interpretation would be consistent with Thomas’s (1991-92) insistence that “managing diversity simply calls for the manager to ensure that cultural and

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political realities do not advantage or disadvantage anyone because of irrelevant considerations” (p. 22). It follows from this that the interpretation of diversity as individual difference mainly serves to make the ideal of diversity consistent with the ideal of individual right by separating the former from what is arguably its essential distinguishing element: the valuing of originary group identity. It may be that the ideal of the individual embodied in law needs to be reinforced through a specific commitment to a diversity policy understood in this way because of the prevalence of employee attachments to group identities that can provoke conflict and exclusionary conduct detrimental to the work of the organization. If this is so, then the ideal of diversity as individual difference offers a substitute for the ideal of diversity associated with valuing group identity more in line with the ideals embed- ded in the principle of individual right and equal treatment.

Even though the two interpretations of diversity stand opposed in important respects, there is also a latent connection between them. This becomes clear when we consider how the fantasy of the peaceable kingdom, although organized around the idea that members will retain and make use of their group identities while at work within the organization, also requires that they form attachments to those identities consistent with respect for others regardless of the groups to which they belong. To do this, they must see self and other outside of the group, which means that group identity must be constructed for the individual in a new way.

If this is correct, then we can understand the ideal of diversity not simply as an effort to value pre-existing identities but also as an effort to reconstruct those identi- ties. This reconstruction of group identity turns it into an attribute of individual identity by requiring that it be made consistent with tolerance and respect for those who do not have it, which requires that the group give up the exclusionary qualities and special claims previously implied in the attachment of the member to it. When originary group identity becomes an element of individual identity, the group loses its hold over the individual. The result is that we realize the fantasy of the peaceable kingdom when we understand it as a means for advancing individual rather than group identity through the transformation of group identity into an aspect of indi- vidual identity, thereby contributing to the process that releases the individual from his or her originary group.

NOTES

1. Following the practice in the organizations considered here, I consider diversity a goal sepa- rate from the goals pursued under the heading of equal opportunity. The interpretation of the ideal of diversity offered later is not meant, then, to apply to the pursuit of equality of opportunity.

2. Thus all references in the following to diversity in organizations refer only to the specific use of the term outlined here and should be understood in this restricted sense.

3. On organizational fantasies, see Kets de Vries and Miller (1984), Chapter 2. 4. On originary group identification see Kristeva (1993, pp. 2-3). 5. On the implications of the transformation of the work organization into a moral community,

see Schwartz (1990) chapter 3.

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6. The alternative to culture as the unthought known is culture as a medium within which indi- viduals shape their unique ways of life and invest a personal meaning in them. Cultural differences would then operate somewhat in the way languages do by offering different mediums for the expres- sion of a personal meaning that can develop whatever the specific culture.

7. The termobject settingrefers here to the relationships with primary caregivers, who are the objects of an emotional connection and emotional investment. For a fuller discussion, see Greenberg and Mitchell (1983).

8. On the relation between individual, group, and societal levels of analysis, see Levine (1999, 2000).

9. For a fuller discussion, see Winnicott (1960/1965). 10. For a fuller discussion, see Waddell (1998) chapter 3. 11. Psychically, the intent is to embrace our own hated self by embracing its surrogate in the

selves of the others who have been the objects of hate.

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David Levine is professor of economics in the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. His most recent books areSubjectivity in Political Economy: Essays on Wanting and Choosing(Routledge, 1998), andNormative Political Economy: Subjective Free- dom, the Market, and the State(Routledge, 2001). He has also published papers applying psy- choanalytic ideas to ethics, justice, organizational dynamics, and the public sphere.

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