I was raised Catholic. While there's obviously a lot about that upbringing that's caused me a lot of pain, the perspective on the world that it's given me is invaluable. In particular, it's given me access to a range of metaphors and concepts that make it easy to think about society in ways that other people can really struggle with.
Which is why I find myself writing this article.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the modern workplace has become more about a weird version of original sin than anything to do with actually improving the lives of the people whom it's meant to help. This, to put it bluntly, is not what DEI should be doing.
Feeling bad about what you and what your ancestors have done and trying desperately to cleanse yourself of guilt is counterproductive. It leads to you seeing minority groups as saviours rather than other people that need your help. It leads to shame and self-absorption that makes you try and avoid doing bad things rather than trying to do good things, perversely shutting minority groups out further. And if you're in a culturally Christian environment, well... the cleansing in Christianity happens in the blood of the lamb. Who, exactly, is the lamb in this metaphor?
What even is original sin?
In Catholic theology, original sin is the doctrine that we inherit sin at birth, passed down from Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden, and are thus born inherently tainted and in need of forgiveness. The sacrament of baptism cleanses original sin, but the consequences still persist, creating in us an inclination to evil that needs to be constantly fought against and worked through through the sacraments of penance and reconciliation.
Now, I'll not lie: I don't like the consequences of this doctrine. Historically, it's led to various churches exerting a disproportionate amount of control over people, stealing resources that were badly needed elsewhere (the Catholic practice of selling indulgences is a particularly egregious example). More personally, the sin is seen as an offence against God more than one's fellow humans, and you can't ever quite get rid of it or be forgiven. This leads to self-absorbed, compulsive behaviour, where people dwell endlessly on how bad they are and desperately try and get rid of their sins (something, given that almost everything is a sin, that's more or less impossible) at the expense of trying to do good. Finally, it leads to people policing each others' sins as a desperate attempt to escape, leading, in the end, to a whole lot of people suffering more than they might otherwise for not acting out penance well enough or being pious enough (often the same people who have been sinned against or wronged).
Which is why it's galling to see so many DEI proponents essentially recreate the doctrine. Let's edit the summary of original sin a little:
In DEI theory, privilege is the doctrine that we inherit privilege at birth, passed down from our ancestors' and society's oppression of minority groups, and are thus born inherently bigoted and in need of unlearning our bigotry. DEI training teaches us how to divest of our privilege, but the consequences still persist, creating in us an inclination to bias that needs to be constantly fought against and worked through through the practice of allyship and listening and learning.
I'm acutely aware that this isn't quite what academic texts would say privilege is, but that's a classic Motte-and-Bailey construction: in practice, the majority of DEI proponents hew quite close to the statement above. And in that sense, it's disturbingly close to the original sin argument.
Why is this an issue?
Given the similarities in doctrine, it's unsurprising that the consequences are largely the same. We see a lot of people in corporate spaces loudly signal their piety, beating their breasts and calling out to an inchoate blob of "minorities" for forgiveness. We see them pay significant money for unconscious bias trainings and conferences that let them feel bad about themselves, as though this expiates their sins. And we see the self-absorbed compulsion to not commit any sins, which leads to people shying away from interacting with minority groups at all.
Here's the thing. None of this makes any of our lives materially better, and in a lot of cases, it makes them actually worse. Take transphobia as an example: people in the workforce are so scared of offending me or getting my pronouns wrong that I'm convinced this has prevented them from hiring me in a few cases. Moreover, this kind of fear masks actual unexamined bias or disgust at trans people that they might harbour, and while being honest about that, while uncomfortable, might actually lead to change, keeping it repressed just lets it fester and get steadily worse. The end result is that a lot of us wind up getting mythologised: we're loved and deferred to in the abstract, but the moment I bring my actual self to the table, I'm treated with just as much bigotry as I might have had to deal with without the DEI work being done.
Moreover, the mindset becomes such that it isn't actual humans being hurt: accountability to actual, existing minorities isn't something that happens because they haven't actually offended us, but the spirit of DEI. This means that nothing will actually happen to see that we get redress for wrongs which are done to us: a lot of the workplaces where I've suffered and mentioned it have taken steps to do trainings and such to expiate it, but the fact is, I'm still stuck here having to painstakingly bootstrap a consultancy (not that I mind as such: I'm a lot happier, but it'd be nice to have the option of paid employment).
Finally, seeing DEI as an original sin question means that resources don't come into it. It's a spiritual, mystical thing, that is above such tawdry things as time, money or connections. I don't think that many of us see it that way, and in fact, I'd be willing to bet that if all the money spent on these trainings was just given directly to minority groups, a hell of a lot more good would have been done.
The blood of the lamb
One last, more pernicious aspect comes through in culturally Christian settings (like most of the ones we're in, though I do suspect I have a few readers from culturally Muslim societies). If bigotry is original sin, and DEI is expiation, and in Christian theology sin is washed away by the blood of the lamb, minorities get treated implicitly as a blood sacrifice. Our suffering and our blood expiates the sins of the privileged, and they are washed clean and made whiter than snow by our sacrifice.
If you think that way for long enough without examining it, our suffering becomes a good thing. Our death and pain becomes what allows people with privilege to be forgiven of their sins, and stopping that would leave them with sins unabsolved. The DEI industry becomes what keeps us in our place, because our suffering is needed for the whole damned thing to work. Without us, people might need to change their lives and their societies, and as with the church, that is the one thing that can under no circumstances be allowed.
So, have you been washed in the blood of the lamb? Or will you reject this obscene sacrifice and help us, for a change, get eggs and ham instead?
If you've read this article and missed the point completely, deadSimpleTech offers DEI indulgences. For the low, low price of $3000 per year, we will forgive you for all DEI sins that your company has committed during the year (and even send you a nice certificate). Alternatively, if you actually want to make change in your business or organisation, get in touch with us and we'll see what we can do.