The ideal of diversity in organizations
By: LEVINE, David P
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ArticlePublisher: Thousand Oaks : Sage Publications, September 2003Subject(s): Diversity; Organizations; Hate; Groups: ExperienceThe American Review of Public Administration 33, 3, p. 278-294Abstract: This article offers a psychodynamic exploration of the organizational commitment to diversity. Based on a brief review of organizational rethoric, two themes are identified. The first is the denial of hatred, wich is argued to express the operation of a fantasy of the organization as the peaceble kingdom. This fantasy imagines the organizations as a home for those with strong originary group identifications, while refusing to consider how attachment to group identify can foster hate and exclusion. The second theme is the equation of knowledge useful to the organization with life experience connected to group identify. The emphasis in the rhetoric of diversity on the value of experience is linked to as strategy for coping with loss that seeks to make the experience of loss a source of strnght. The importance of acknowledging the reality of hate and of coping with, rather than denying, the consequences of loss is emphasized.
This article offers a psychodynamic exploration of the organizational commitment to diversity. Based on a brief review of organizational rethoric, two themes are identified. The first is the denial of hatred, wich is argued to express the operation of a fantasy of the organization as the peaceble kingdom. This fantasy imagines the organizations as a home for those with strong originary group identifications, while refusing to consider how attachment to group identify can foster hate and exclusion. The second theme is the equation of knowledge useful to the organization with life experience connected to group identify. The emphasis in the rhetoric of diversity on the value of experience is linked to as strategy for coping with loss that seeks to make the experience of loss a source of strnght. The importance of acknowledging the reality of hate and of coping with, rather than denying, the consequences of loss is emphasized.
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