Peter Thiel says diversity is a distraction at a black-tie NYC event

There has been an increase in debates over diversity and identity politics as a result of Donald Trump's election, according to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, who was a one-time advisor to the President. Thiel has renewed his argument that there are more serious issues facing society than these issues.

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It is expected that a version of the address, titled “The Diversity Myth,” which will appear in the June issue of conservative arts and ideas magazine, will be published by the conservative arts and ideas magazine on Thursday. The polarizing Republican megadonor, who has backed hard-right candidates who have leaned into the culture wars, will deliver a lecture on the topic at a New Criterion event on Thursday.

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It would be wrong to say that Larry Arnn is a face of Hillsdale College. He described diversity debates as both entertainment and as "a giant machine to redirect our attention" to an audience of about 250 people including Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Ravenel Curry, co-founder of Eagle Capital Management, as well as Brian Winklevoss, Tyler's older brother. 

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His comparison was to a magic show during which the audience focuses on the magician rather than on the gorilla jumping up and down at the back of the stage. Standing on a podium flanked by huge blooms in a Gilded Age ballroom with marble and frescos and surrounded by huge sprays of flowers, Thiel spoke standing at the podium while dressed in a tuxedo.

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According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Thiel's net worth is $8.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and he is one of the most prominent investors in Facebook. This doesn't mean the debates don't matter, but when they become the only thing, it somehow loses its meaning," said Thiel, 55, a PayPal co-founder and early investor in Facebook who is worth $8.2 billion. 

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His main point is to see a greater focus on inequality, he said, citing the examples of rising rents in cities as well as soaring university tuition as examples of topics he would like to see more attention paid to. 

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A decade ago, Thiel delivered an address nearly three decades after he, at the time working at Credit Suisse, had published with David Sacks a book based on the experience he had at Stanford University in the 1980s and 1990s called "The Diversity Myth," a work based on their time at Stanford. 

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Having looked back on the book, in which he argued that Stanford was changing so it would be more reflective of the experiences of people who were not white and that were not male, Thiel commented that he was convinced it holds up today. There was no mention of his apology in 2016 for describing rape as "seductions that are later regretted," which he had made in his description of rape in 2015.

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I still think most of the arguments that I made were correct," he said, which he found both "validating" and "depressing," as he felt that "it was not important to make a dent in the argument. It made no difference."

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Rather than learning to embrace diversity in the manner that he described in his book, he has actually seen it become more entrenched since then. 

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Unlike Christianity, where people can imagine other things as righteous and holy, there are no such things; and they are made up of humans who believe in something other than what is right and true. Thiel said, “It is like worshipping an idol or a false god. The most important aspect is that we adorn diversity and venerate it and make it our highest value. 

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As part of the event that took place at the Metropolitan Club, $500,000 was raised for the magazine. New Criterion's editor and publisher Roger Kimball, presented Thiel with the Edmund Burke Award, citing the stipends Thiel offers college students to allow them to leave school for a career after graduation as an example of his great contributions to society.

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