Worshipping equality as organizational idolatry? A Nietzschean view of the normative foundations of the diversity management paradigm

Köllen, Thomas (2020). Worshipping equality as organizational idolatry? A Nietzschean view of the normative foundations of the diversity management paradigm. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 36(2), pp. 1-9. Elsevier 10.1016/j.scaman.2020.101108

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This article critically discusses the morally legitimizing status of ‘equality’ for diversity management (and equal opportunities) from a Nietzschean perspective, for whom the equality of all humans is the “biggest lie of all” (NF‐1885, 37[14]). By applying Nietzsche’s understanding of human relations in terms of the global concept of the will to power, equality can be framed as a form of moral absolutism, in both the critical and the mainstream discourses on diversity. Performatively (re)producing equality as being socially just and an unquestionable value in and of itself can therefore be understood as a mechanism of strategically influencing power relations in an instrumental way. By adding a Nietzschean perspective this article offers new insights into how we consider diversity management, and, more broadly, into the dynamics of (in)equality in organizations.

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