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I took a paragraph from the article and said why I thought it was wrong. I don't think it's pedantry to point out that the author's claim is wrong. I'm not sayi

I took a paragraph from the article and said why I thought it was wrong. I don't think it's pedantry to point out that the author's claim is wrong. I'm not saying it's wrong in some technical, hair splitting sense, but just completely wrong. The author observes modern diversity and suggests it helped in a past struggle, but the modern diversity actually didn't exist then. If it's pedantry to point out this is wrong, then that's a greater criticism of the article because the author is including a paragraph that is so unimportant it apparently doesn't matter if it's true or false. You mention that Nazi Germany was big on supremacy and homogeneity and the US isn't, but I think that's the same mistake I originally pointed out. You are conflating modern ideals (don't care about homogeneity or [racial] supremacy) with past ideals. America of the pre-war was actually concerned with those things. I could point to the power of the Klu Klux Klan or the fact that the Nazi eugenics movement was influenced by the American eugenics movement. It's not the case that "We" won the second world war. Our forbears did, and in some ways they were similar to us and in some different. My overarching point is that it doesn't really make sense to use the second world war as an example of the strength of modern diversity because modern diversity wasn't in place at that time.

Apocryphon 6y ago
It might not be equivalent to modern day diversity, but the Allies- at least the liberal democratic nations- clearly represented a certain level of tolerance of diversity whether nationality or ideological, contrasted with the totalitarianism of the Axis states. Consider that the cracking of the Enigma code was somewhat of a pan-European project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18070300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18070300 As I stated, the author is putting the cart before the horse in attributing the Allies’ diversity as part of the reason for why they won. But he isn’t completely far off in suggesting the Allies represented more open societies, the types that would lead to racial diversity later on. Precursors to modern diversity, if you will- at least closer to it than the fascist states were. Looking back at your earlier point about China, it’s interesting to note that despite being 92% Han, that civilization has always been not entirely homogenous- indeed the Republic of China which was the major ally in WWII Asia portrayed itself as a multiethnic state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Races_Under_One_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Races_Under_One_Union Was Nationalist China a liberal democracy with modern conceptions of equality, let alone diversity? Of course not. But they were closer to it than Showa Japan, at least.

Apocryphon 6y ago

It might not be equivalent to modern day diversity, but the Allies- at least the liberal democratic nations- clearly represented a certain level of tolerance of diversity whether nationality or ideological, contrasted with the totalitarianism of the Axis states. Consider that the cracking of the Enigma code was somewhat of a pan-European project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18070300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18070300 As I stated, the author is putting the cart before the horse in attributing the Allies’ diversity as part of the reason for why they won. But he isn’t completely far off in suggesting the Allies represented more open societies, the types that would lead to racial diversity later on. Precursors to modern diversity, if you will- at least closer to it than the fascist states were. Looking back at your earlier point about China, it’s interesting to note that despite being 92% Han, that civilization has always been not entirely homogenous- indeed the Republic of China which was the major ally in WWII Asia portrayed itself as a multiethnic state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Races_Under_One_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Races_Under_One_Union Was Nationalist China a liberal democracy with modern conceptions of equality, let alone diversity? Of course not. But they were closer to it than Showa Japan, at least.