Much of the political quarreling over “equality” today stems from a disagreement over just what exactly that means. Almost everyone claims they support ‘equality’ - but they’re envisioning different things.
The best way to illustrate this is by analogy: Imagine that there are two basketball players playing against each other. One player is 5 feet tall while the other is 7 feet tall.
One school of thought argues, “The basketball hoops at both ends of the court should be placed at equal height, because ‘equality’ means both players should have to shoot at a basket of the same height. Equal treatment.”
The other school of thought argues, “The shorter player should be given a shorter basket to shoot at while the taller player should be given a taller basket to shoot at.”
But at the same time, I’m all for making sure the short one got better nutrition during his developmental years so maybe he wouldn’t have to go through life as a short man in the first place.
(Okay, scientifically, that doesn’t make sense, but hopefully, you get my point.)
The third school argues “if these are professional basketball players we’re talking about, who make lots and lots of money, I bet they’re probably in favor of a flat tax,” but that school is a bunch of class clowns.
There’s equality of opportunity (“I want everyone to have the same chance; let the best rise to the top”) and equality of result (“The team will be half male and half female. The team will be 20% black, 20% Hispanic, 40% Anglo, 10% Native American, and 10% Asian. The team will be…”)
I’m reminded of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. Anyone else?
My aunt was determined to be as good of a mother as she could to her 2 daughters. They were 4-5 years apart in age. She read every parenting paperback book she could find. Dr Spock, “Between Parent And Child”, you name it, she read it. She decided to treat her children equally. Identical haircuts and dresses.
So… on each child’s birthday, both got birthday presents. For contrast, on my brother’s birthday, I got a slice of birthday cake. Maybe a second slice if there was any left over after the party. When the older of the 2 was around 11 and got her first bra, they bought the 7 year old a bra too so she wouldn’t feel left out. This struck me as a classic example of how treating children “Equally” is NOT the same as treating them “Fairly”.
That’s a big part of what makes this such a difficult question to answer. How would we judge whether or not the opportunities were equal other than basing it on the results?
Here’s another analogy. Imagine there are two basketball players who are the same height and are shooting at the same basket. But one has extensive coaching, time to practice, access to a gymnasium, and medical support when he is injured. The other has none of those things.
Agreement. I’ve heard the argument for years: “You don’t want equality of opportunity, you want equality of results.” And my answer is: Yes, exactly so. Without equality of results, how can I believe there ever actually was equality of opportunity?
Can you explain exactly which way you perceive this give-away, and what makes you perceive it? To me, it’s just an analogy addressing nature vs. nurture, without actually taking sides.
The OP’s analogy is one that narrows and misdirects the discussion about inequality. My analogy is far more representative of the social inequalities anybody is actually talking about.
I don’t know anyone who is in favor of the second. Affirmative Action isn’t about evening outcomes, but rather compensating for disparities in opportunity.
People think they are in favor of the equal opportunity, but not really. As soon as people talk about providing equality of opportunity, you hear screams of SOCIALISM!! Even people who are amenable to actual socialism balk. Because we are competitive creatures. Generally speaking, people enjoy knowing they are better than someone else. And generally speaking, people need to feel that their children will always be better than someone else. These desires are completely at odds with “equal opportunity”.
Surely you can see the problem with that line of thinking. In a complex society like ours, there can’t be equality of results. Some people are born mentally retarded. They can’t end up being equal to most others in terms of education or income or a hundred other measures.
On the other end of the spectrum, some people have more talent. To get them to use that talent productively as pilots and engineers and brain surgeons, we need to reward them with higher incomes than what others earn.
So we can fret about the possibility that our brain surgeons entered life with more opportunity than non brain surgeons, but if we try to eliminate inequality of results, then brain surgery won’t be an attractive career for talented people.
Or conversely: *With *equality of results, how can I believe there ever actually was equality of opportunity?
These are both arguments from ignorance, and both are a really cruddy way of examining the real world. In the real world all things are not and never will be equal. Women will be weaker than men. Good looking people will be more successful than ugly people. People with fair skin will get more skin cancers than people with dark skin.
If we ever end up with a situation where women win just as many Olympic medals in weight lifting as men, that isn’t evidence of equality of opportunity. It’s clear evidence of some massive handicap being given to men.
If we ever end up with a situation where ugly prostitutes make them same money as beautiful prostitutes, that isn’t evidence of equality of opportunity. It’s clear evidence of some massive handicap being given to beautiful prostitutes.
If we ever end up with a situation where New Guinea highlanders get skin cancer at the same rate as red-headed albinos, that’s not evidence of equality of opportunity. It’s clear evidence of some massive handicap being given to New Guinea highlanders.
Equality of outcome can sometimes be evidence of equality of opportunity. It can also be evidence of inequality of opportunity. There’s no a priori reason to believe that its appearance in any situation is indicative either way. We need other evidence for that.
Men are incarcerated at much, much higher rates than women. To suggest that more than a tiny fraction of that inequality is due to an inequality of opportunity is ludicrous. Men are incarcerated at higher rates because they commit crimes at higher rates. they commit crimes at higher rates because because of differences in brain structure and the effects of testosterone on impulse control and risk taking.
There is not scintilla of evidence that men are locked up more than women because of a lack of opportunities for men. In fact men have always had more opportunities than women, and still do today. yet men have always been overwhelmingly the ones committing crimes.
If we ever reach a point where women and men are jailed at the same rates, that won’t be evidence that men finally have the same opportunities as women. It will be strong evidence that women ahave massively reduced opportunities.
The whole Harrison Bergeron thing is misdirection. Is anybody really asking for athletes to be handicapped into equality? All of the substantive discussions I’ve seen about equality are about opportunity, not results, and they are not about physical or mental abilities, they are about access and treatment.
If a student is admitted into college with lower grades because they have had lower opportunities, isn’t that about evening outcomes. Or does excluding a student with higher grades from attending college somehow compensate for her having more opportunities?
And how do you measure “opportunity”? Who has had more opportunities:
A short, black, bisexual female child of an atheistic, devoted single mother who earns $45, 000 a years.
A tall, asthmatic, white child of competent married fundamentalist Christian parents who earn $90, 000 a year.
A left-handed, Brown child of average height with myopia raised by neglectful Pakistani Muslim parents who earn $200, 000 a year.
How the heck would you even begin to determine which of those people has had more opportunities?
This is one of the biggest problems with affirmative action. It assumes that every member of whatever group we are striving to target has had less opportunities. As a result we inevitably end up removing opportunities from disadvantaged members of other groups and increasing opportunities for already privileged members of the target group.
Really? You have never seen a statement that suggests that women should make up 50% of an organisation? Or a statement that Blacks make up x% of an area but are only y% of an organisation, and this is evidence of discrimination?
About half of the discussions I’ve seen about equality are about results, and how we need to increase jobs, electoral positions, salaries, college places etc. to certain groups.
I don’t think higher education is an outcome. It’s an opportunity.
I also think there’s such thing as “sufficiently qualified”. A student with a 4.5 GPA and a student with a 3.8 GPA are both “sufficiently qualified” to do college work.
The hell I know.
I just know we don’t have equal opportunity. I can’t imagine we ever will. Some people are fine with this, and while I’m not one of them, I have to admire them for their honesty. I don’t admire the people who insist everything’s equal while simultaneously doing their damndest to ensure this will never be.
You’re talking about white people being targeted, right? Because unqualified white people are (still) advantaged over people who are more qualified than they are.
Whenever I read about this kind of disparity, I find it extremely hard to care about some hypothetical wealthy black kid getting chosen over some poor white kid. Does it happen? Sure. But does it happen enough to refute the fact that black people are still a very unprivileged group in this society? Of course not. The fact that there are exceptions to the rule doesn’t warrant throwing up our hands in defeat. It just means we need to make the rubrics we use more sophisticated.
Such a handicap is a necessary part of equal opportunity.
(Yes, I know. I’ve read Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron.” Anything can be carried too far.)
(Also, I believe that sex-linked physiological differences are among the only inequalities we cannot correct for by social handicaps. That’s why women and men have separate Olympics. But when it comes to college enrollment or success in business and politics, I believe in corrective handicaps…because I believe that inequality in results demonstrates an existing punitive handicap in the first place.)