Prizing equal rights obviously isn’t in tension with prizing diverse human exercise of those rights. You haven’t cited a contradiction. However, we could use your argument to spin off a real tension:
Similarity (e.g., our common humanity, our common interests and heritage and concerns) is valuable. But dissimilarity (e.g., cultural and individual diversity) is also valuable. So ‘value’ seems to be trivial.
Response: What we really value is not ‘being the same’ or ‘being different’ in a vacuum. What we value is (a) being similar or different in particular respects, and (b) having a certain ratio of similarity to difference. The English language just isn’t sophisticated enough to allow for easy slogans of either of those forms. We can’t easily signal that we value diversity, but in specific areas and not in all areas; likewise for valuing some similarities, but not all. And we can’t easily signal that we value a certain mixture of sameness and differentness, because too much of one or the other would make life less worth living. They seem like platitudes, but they aren’t false, and they’re worth taking seriously if only because they stand in for so many specific attributes that we need to take very seriously. It’s just important to see past the surface structure of some virtues.
Prizing equal rights obviously isn’t in tension with prizing diverse human exercise of those rights. You haven’t cited a contradiction. However, we could use your argument to spin off a real tension:
Similarity (e.g., our common humanity, our common interests and heritage and concerns) is valuable. But dissimilarity (e.g., cultural and individual diversity) is also valuable. So ‘value’ seems to be trivial.
Response: What we really value is not ‘being the same’ or ‘being different’ in a vacuum. What we value is (a) being similar or different in particular respects, and (b) having a certain ratio of similarity to difference. The English language just isn’t sophisticated enough to allow for easy slogans of either of those forms. We can’t easily signal that we value diversity, but in specific areas and not in all areas; likewise for valuing some similarities, but not all. And we can’t easily signal that we value a certain mixture of sameness and differentness, because too much of one or the other would make life less worth living. They seem like platitudes, but they aren’t false, and they’re worth taking seriously if only because they stand in for so many specific attributes that we need to take very seriously. It’s just important to see past the surface structure of some virtues.