Building Commonality in Diverse Societies

This chapter explores omniculturalism, a new approach to managing diversity. The first goal of omniculturalism is to manage human relationships within a generally accepted understanding derived from science that all human beings share foundational and important similarities. We humans are very similar to one another, and the contention is that our similarities are – and should be given – far more importance than our differences. The second goal is to acknowledge that in some respects all humans belong to groups that to some degree differ from one another, such as in terms of the languages they speak, the religions they practice, and the colors of their skins. However, these intergroup differences are of minor importance, compared to the foundational similarities all humans share. Omniculturalism involves the active celebration of human similarities (rather than differences). However, attention is given to group distinctiveness at a secondary level.