Billionaire and leader of multiple companies, Elon Musk, recently slammed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and its undeniable presence throughout Western institutions. Musk sat down with conservative icon Ben Shapiro at the European Jewish Association (EJA) conference in Krakow, Poland, where the two criticized the ideology.
Shapiro initially compared DEI to the ideology embraced by the Nazis in the 20th Century, where individuals are judged by their broader group identity. “If you read Nazi literature, the Nazis literally promoted the idea that the Jews were, of course, this small caste of people who were running all major industries, who were standing behind all world power,” Shapiro said. “That theory of power and group identity is really ugly, and we see echoes of it today.”
The Daily Wire Editor Emeritus then asserted that DEI “suggests that all of society is a vast pyramid of group identity, and at the very top are the people who are successful, and that those people are exploiting everybody else. And we can tell who is successful by their group identity; not by their level of success, their group identity. It matches up incredibly, almost a Venn diagram with the circle of anti-Semitism.”
Elon Musk then chimed in, implying that DEI sounds Orwellian in nature. “You should always be wary of any name that sounds like it could come out of a George Orwell book,” Musk said. “What it really means is discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and sexual orientation. And it’s against merit, and, thus, I think is fundamentally anti-Semitic,” the billionaire continued.
Musk then criticized the supposed logic of DEI, where the concept of equity can be grossly distorted. “We really need to stop this principle that the nominally weaker party is always right. This is simply not true,” Musk said. “If some of those weaker groups want to annihilate you, that does not make them good.”
“I’m a big believer in moral absolutism, not moral relativism. There is good and bad in the absolute, and you judge any group or individual against absolute moral standards, not whether they’re the so-called oppressed or oppressor,” Musk added. Many have criticized the binary “oppressed and oppressor” categories as being a derivative of the Marxist categorization of the bourgeoisie and proletariat.
“You would think,” Shapiro responded to Musk, “but the pseudo-sophisticates on college campuses seem to think differently.” Shapiro then questioned Musk on what he thinks about the future of colleges that appear to be corrupted by “moral relativism.”
Musk answered, emphasizing the need to create a meritocratic society where the most competent individuals are rewarded for their contribution to society. He added that, overall, it should not matter what someone’s immutable characteristics or broader group identity are, but rather how much can they contribute.
“We need to return to what things mostly were, which is a focus on merit. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a man, woman, what race you are, what beliefs you have. What matters is how good are you at your job, or what are your skills,” Musk said. “You could be a three-legged green Martian, wears a kimono, drinks yak’s milk. Who cares? It doesn’t matter. What matters is, how good is your work? That’s it,” he continued. Watch footage of the conversation below.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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