Chapter 10 — What I Still Don't Know

What I Still Don't Know

When I began this project, I thought I was writing a book about diversity. I no longer think that is entirely true.

The people who contributed to this book did not simply show me different opinions. They showed me different realities — different risks, different constraints, different forms of visibility, different forms of invisibility.

Again and again I encountered the same lesson.

Reality is larger than any perspective.

Including my own. Especially my own.

Along the way I became less interested in deciding who was right and more interested in understanding what each person could see. That shift solved some problems. It created others.

Because understanding a perspective is not the same thing as agreeing with it. And disagreement does not automatically mean someone is missing information. People can see the same reality and still reach different conclusions.

The book has not resolved that tension. I am not sure it can.

There are also questions I still struggle to answer. How much disagreement comes from perspective? How much comes from incentives, values, power, fear?

The categories overlap more than I once thought. I no longer trust simple explanations as much as I used to — that includes some explanations I once found comforting.

I am also less certain that understanding inevitably leads to agreement. Many people carry experiences I did not previously understand. Understanding those experiences matters, yet understanding does not eliminate tradeoffs, does not eliminate conflict, does not tell us what to do next.

Sometimes it only reveals that the problem is larger than we assumed.

That realization can feel disappointing. I increasingly think it is necessary.

Throughout this book I have argued that diversity matters because it helps us see what we would otherwise miss. I still believe that.

What I am less certain about is whether we always recognize what we are missing. Some blind spots become visible once someone points them out; others remain hidden. Some perspectives enter the conversation; others never arrive. Some realities become legible; others remain difficult to explain.

The possibility that I am still overlooking important things is not a weakness in this book.

It is one of the reasons the book exists.

If there is a single lesson I have taken from these conversations, it is not that I should become more confident in my conclusions. It is that I should become more curious about their limits.

The people who influenced this book did not give me certainty. They gave me better questions.

That feels like progress.

Even if it remains unfinished.

Perhaps especially because it remains unfinished.