6.1: Generating Multiplicity- An Introduction

Do you believe it is possible for people that maintain different religious, ethnic, cultural, socio-economic, and political backgrounds to live together harmoniously within the same society and share equally in political processes? What do you make of the hostility and divisiveness that abounds on social media surrounding issues such as Roe v. Wade, Black Lives Matter, policing policies, mask mandates and Covid vaccinations, climate change, gun control, LGBTQ rights, and critical race theory? Does this hostility and divisiveness lead you to believe that it is nearly impossible for people who hold polar opposite viewpoints to coexist? Issues surrounding a myriad of issues such as Roe v. Wade, Black Lives Matter, policing policies, mask mandates and Covid vaccinations, climate change, gun control, LGBTQ rights, and critical race theory - to name just a few? Does this lead you to believe that it is nearly impossible for people that hold polar opposite viewpoints to coexist? If you agree with the latter, then perhaps you’ve not heard of pluralism.

Pluralism is a moral ideology or philosophy that values diversity in society and actively seeks out ways to enable people with varying beliefs to live together--to coexist beyond merely tolerating each other. This coexistence occurs through communication and compromise, as people actively engage in dialogue and respond to the needs of the citizens. The goal is to strive towards negotiating solutions that benefit or contribute to the “common good” of society as a whole. Both the Civil Rights Movement and the Environmental Protection Agency are results of various groups seeing and naming inequities and harmful consequences to people and the environment. Consequently, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts were passed into law and the Environmental Protection Agency was created. These specific examples demonstrate how people with diverse viewpoints can come together and imagine new ways of living together that are more humane and beneficial to all citizens as well as to the planet.

The selections in this section of the guidebook emphasize multiplicity - multiplicity of ideas, poems, and the English language itself. We will begin by looking at how English as a language is both polysemous and morphophonemic. These two foundational concepts not only highlight the rich diversity of the language but they also contribute to multiple ways of knowing and communicating thoughts and ideas through words. Chimamanda Adichie’s TED “The Danger of a Single Story” talk reinforces a main aspect of multiplicity in that all stories are incomplete. No single story can capture all of the unique intricacies and different variability within the cosmos and human life experiences. The power of stories is how they can be signposts pointing out and illustrating the myriad alternate possibilities.