INDIANA PARLEY

Non-Stop Fun! Play the Diversity Game at IPFW on Wednesday

Organizers are looking for contestants to play the "Diversity Game" on Wednesday from Noon to 1:30 PM at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. According to the News-Sentinel in Friday's edition:

Participants will be grouped into teams for a competition to create an ideal community.

It's not limited to IPFW students. "The community is encouraged to join IPFW students" to play. Somehow, we think AWB at Fort Wayne Indiana etc. might have a ball showing up to play.

The brief noted that "Mary Lehto, an IPFW faculty advisor who will facilitate the activity, promises the game will be fun, thought-provoking and evoke strong emotions."

The "game" will be held in Room 222 of the Walb Student Union.

We're curious as to the stated goal of creating "an ideal community." Who defines what constitutes an "ideal community?" Somehow the notion that one can engineer an ideal community is the flip side of the eugenics movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century which resulted in disastrous consequences in the 1930's and 1940's. The idea that "ideal" or "utopian" communities can be engineered presupposes an authority strong enough to impose the idealism.

Better to accept that communities arise organically from people who share a myriad of personal connections to each other and that the nature and vitality of those connections are constantly changing.

We encourage and support efforts that promote those connections and encourage respect for people who may have differences. It's the teaching of the arrogant idea that there can be defined something called an "ideal community" that strikes a wrong note.

The better way is represented by the efforts exemplified by Wil Clark of Fort Wayne. Mr. Clark gave a lecture on Race Relations in Fort Wayne on February 5th at The History Center. Mr. Clark has been a constant builder of bridges.