Equality. Do we really want it?

This weekend, I caugh a bit of Stossel on tv. He was talking about equality.

I've said, many times, that we are born with equal oppourtunity, but not equal outcome.

Stossel though, brought up an interesting point.

We all debate about fiscal equality. The 99% vs the 1%.

But what about other aspects in life?

It's been shown that taller people garner more respect than shorter people. Do we make tall people short, so we can be equal?

Good looking people garner more attention than plainer looking people. Do we scar, damage people who are better looking so we can be equal?

We all admire singers. But do we damage the vocal cords of a vocalist, so we can be equal?

Artists paint brilliant pictures. Do we break a few fingers so the playing field is level?

So many scream and shout about equality, parity. But each of us is probably exceptional in any given area.

Look at school children who are forced to be "average" or fit in with the norm, as to not offend those who may not do as well.

Equality. Is it a myth? Are we doing more damage than good by promoting equality?

This is a new forum for me, so please be polite and constructive with your posts and inputs.
Thanks,
beez

I think you should look at the other side of the coin on some of those ideas- you might have a winning political platform in the making.

You don't scar the beautiful- you give free cosmetics to the ugly.

You don't mess up a nice voice, but if somebody has a bad voice, you scar their vocal cords with brandy so they sound like Tone Loc (rapper who did Funky Cold Medina).

But to be a little more serious, the whole equality of opportunity vs equality of results argument has always felt dishonest to me. The inequality in results in many areas can be statistically linked to inequality in opportunity. It's like Lyndon Johnson said, (god forgive me that I'm quoting him for a purpose other than proving that he's a bad person and probably a conspirator in the JFK assassination), but you can't take a man who has been hobbled in chains all his life to the starting line of a race and tell him he is now free to compete equally.

Likewise you cannot say we have equality of opportunity when one child is ordered by the government to go to a school with no computers, overcrowded classrooms, and outdated texts, and another is sent to a school with computers in every class and private tutors available after hours.

What if our military worked the way our school systems do- not one big pot shared equally but a slew of mismatched localities that are more or less on their own? An invading enemy tries to go into Hollywood and they run into cybernetic supersoldiers with plasma rifles... they go to Compton and they run into a bunch of National Guard washouts with no body armor and Snoop Dogg. Don't sound like equality to me. (pardon my grammar, I moved across a school boundary in 9th grade and like magic I went from a school built in the 90s to a school built in the 50s. Naturally the boundary i crossed was not only a boundary between schools... it is also the point at which my area goes from being majority white to majority hispanic. But I'm sure it's a coincidence... a fluke in the unfolding of local history... and not any kind of favoritism, that created a situation where the color of somebody's skin correlated to the quality of education they were most likley to receieve in that school district.

Originally posted by The Vagabond


Likewise you cannot say we have equality of opportunity when one child is ordered by the government to go to a school with no computers, overcrowded classrooms, and outdated texts, and another is sent to a school with computers in every class and private tutors available after hours.

What people are doing, when prejudging an individual from a lower socio-economic level, is putting inhibitors in place at such an age with such social acceptance, that by the time that critical thinking, determining future goals is reached they already feel put down or have lower expectations of themselves.

In trying to even the playing field, we are lowering people to the lowest common denominator. Artists, scientists, poets, leaders are being told not to excel.

Your above post illustrates the type of thinking where government has the ability to make that determination.

Computers or not, books or not, clean classes or not, makes to difference in the inherent ability(s) that we are all born with.

We have allowed society/government to tell us how smart we are, how good we are, how talented we are. I think government intervention has done more harm to the level of intelligence of America than any lack of school materials.

Thanks for the reply.

reply to post by beezzer


I'm not exactly sure that I understand you correctly, because if I do, your argument is contradicts itself quite seriously.

You seem to be saying the poor don't need more because they have an inherent level of ability, yet you say that if the rich lose the extra share they are receiving that they will not reach their full potential because you degrade them before they develop critical thinking.

The only conclusion I can draw is that you are saying the poor are animals without ego or critical thinking, while the rich are artists who need to be supported.

I am not arguing for the government to tell anyone anything. I am arguing that it is wrong for the government to tell you where, how, and by whom you children will be educated based on nothing more than where they live. You sound like you may have just read some Ayn Rand and yet you seem to be arguing against the responsibility of the individual to do the work of going into the marketplace and choosing what is right for themselves, at least in the area of education.

The fact is that there is not equality of opportunity in our society. We do not have a closed society- there is opportunity for all- but that opportunity is not equal.

Some people will be helped along their path with incredible resources- meetings will be arranged for them with people of great wisdom and experience in their field, the newest tools will give them insights into their field as a beginning student that only a savant could have had in generations past, if their big break is on another continent they will have a first class plane ticket.
For others it won't be good enough just to have talent though- they'll have to handle all the details on the side as well- they'll be driving the race car and changing the tires too. And rich boy will probably still convince himself that he won because he drove faster.

Indeed very insightful.

Vagabond, Your last image of the rich boy in the fastest car is the standard issue teen-movie antagonist. Art imitating life. It is so often that this is the very case.

Choice is important in anything. I do not go out every Friday night to go on a date with some girl that someone mandated me to go out with; just as I don't get an oil change at a place some faceless bureaucracy tells me to.

I choose my partners. If I didn't, wouldn't that be rape? And what kind of tyranny tells me I have to go to the Firestone Shop to get an oil change. Is this Terry Gillium's "Brazil"? I can fix my own HVAC systems...

Choice is what makes equality impossible. Equality exists in mathematics, but it cannot pertain to the complexity of every human interaction because we cannot define values on either side of the equation. People have preferences about things as trivial as their favorite color. As long as people prefer one thing over another (pleasure over pain) choice is inevitable.

The problem with choice is that people can make bad ones. It also allows for some to be born with more and others to have less. I am not saying that all poor people are poor because they make bad choices because in our current system most wealth is accumulated by fraud. But in a system where people are given a choice, people have freedom.

Freedom is something I choose over any state-driven faux-equality.

reply to post by beezzer


Your examples imply you think 'equality' in this context implies all people should think and act the same. That is incorrect. "Equality", in terms of social justice and opportunity, refers to ACCESS, not OUTCOME.

IE, tall people and short people should have the same ACCESS to opportunities.

Originally posted by stanguilles7
reply to post by beezzer

 

Your examples imply you think 'equality' in this context implies all people should think and act the same. That is incorrect. "Equality", in terms of social justice and opportunity, refers to ACCESS, not OUTCOME.

IE, tall people and short people should have the same ACCESS to opportunities.

edit on 2-6-2012 by stanguilles7 because: (no reason given)

Not at all. Many today deem equality in terms of results, not access.

People of all stripes have the equal access already. It's just that outcomes are dfferent.

Originally posted by beezzer

Not at all. Many today deem equality in terms of results, not access.

Well, I'm using a concrete definition, not anecdotal example. In terms of definition, the 'equality' you are asking about is defined in terms of access, not results.

People of all stripes have the equal access already. It's just that outcomes are dfferent.

Do you actually believe that? You think a poor black immigrant single mom in Florida has the same opportunities as a rich kid in California?