| CollegeHighway.com Login |
| Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As registered user you have some advantages like theme manager, comments configuration and post comments with your name. |
| Trippin? |
 |
| Check Yourself |
 |
| Ephemerids |
One Day like Today...
|
| Welcome |
| You are Anonymous user. You can register for free by clicking here. |
 |
|
| Home / College Guide / “All men are created equal.†|
| Posted on Saturday, January 18 @ 00:00:20 PST |
Our Declaration of Independence asserts that it is self-evident that all men are created equal. It would have been better if it had used the word “ persons â€, but that’s a different topic than I wish to discuss. Yet in 2014, the Pew Research Center asked Americans what are the greatest dangers facing them, and inequality ranked first! Respondents saw this as more threatening than extremist terrorism, nuclear confrontation, ethnic and religious bigotry, or climate change. So, what exactly is the problem? Or I should say problems, for there are several.
For starters, we don’t have a clear and agreed definition of equality, so much of our conversation about this topic is confused and misdirected. One possibility is “ equality of resources†. Anyone can find abundant evidence of inequality of this type. CEOs who earn hundreds of times what their employees make; billionaire donors who control much of our political life; and thriving urban centers compared to stagnant or declining rural America.
A variation of this is “ equality of conditions â€. The poor congregate not from choice but from the lack of any realistic alternative. They endure underfunded schools without even the basics of sufficient textbooks and well-maintained schoolrooms.
They live in a food desert, where affordable food is neither nourishing nor healthful. Often, their communities have few or no hospitals or urgent care centers. How can anyone say that they are equal to better-off Americans? They may be equal under the law, though even that is disputable, but certainly their lives are not equal.
Regardless of which definition you choose, I would say that it is more correct to say that, in modern America, it is self-evident that all persons are not created equal. And moreover, this inequality has been growing and has pernicious impacts on all of us. It robs us of the talents of those who can’t exercise them. It costs untold millions to mitigate poverty and suffering. And it skews our political life to satisfy selfish desires of a minority.
However, there is a crucial caveat. This is an external viewpoint. It seems even more clear that people are not intrinsically equal. Some are smarter than others; some are more beautiful – and don’t dismiss the benefits this provides; some are more industrious; some are more talented. I won’t get into the nature versus nurture argument beyond asserting my belief that both genetic makeup and maternal environment sets children on different paths even when most external conditions are largely equal.
This isn’t definitive, of course. Some overcome their limitations, perhaps with a leavening of simple good luck. Nevertheless, simply seeing inequality in our society does not necessarily imply a failure to meet the aspirations of our Declaration of Independence. It is all a matter of degree. But any impartial observer must acknowledge that something has gone awry and it would be a worthwhile goal to set it right.
Another problem, partly related to lack of clear definitions, is that proposed solutions cause collateral damage, some unanticipated but some intentional too. This reduces their effectiveness, but perhaps more importantly, it limits their political viability. So often we do nothing or sometimes make things worse, even with the best intentions.
Solutions generally fall into two categories: providing equal opportunities or guaranteeing equal results. Sometimes we try a little bit of both, i.e. first try to equalize opportunities and, if that fails to meet expectations, then force equal results. These two approaches use different metrics, different evaluations of the nature and degree of inequality and different measures of success for solutions. Should we focus on attaining equal starting conditions or achieving equal outcomes? And yet another nuance is the lingering effects of historical events.
If the past influences the present, as most suppose, shouldn’t solutions take this into account?
Let’s be more concrete about the questions this issue provokes. If tenured professors at universities are heavily male and white, what should we make of this? If the leading candidates for President are all white and predominantly elderly, is this a problem that we should attempt to solve? If few people of color are nominated for Academy Awards, is this simply reflective of variations in talent and personal choice or is something nefarious at work? If blacks are underrepresented in the corridors of power and over-represented in our criminal justice system, what if anything should be done about it? Such questions are real and are currently discussed by interested parties who feel aggrieved or who simply seek fairness in our society.
For those who choose equal opportunities as their goal, the end results are a metric rather than a goal. They measure the effectiveness of interventions. But they are not definitive. In other words, disparate outcomes are expected due to the natural differences between individuals. Equalizing opportunities is expected to minimize the adverse impact of extrinsic factors.
Unfortunately this isn’t easy to evaluate and the most common approach is simply to view any difference in results as probably malign. This effectively transforms the effort into the unachievable and/or undesirable goal of equal results. If the proportion of female members of Congress is fewer than 50%, even after promoting opportunities at the grass roots level, some argue let’s just make this a requirement! Lest you think that this is impractical and an unlikely goal, right now half of the countries in the world have some kind of electoral quotas.
For those for whom only results matter, toying with why these results are unequal is too slow and ineffective. Thus we see answers that cover the gamut of setting quotas, providing reparations for past conditions, and altering evaluation standards. Each has its own drawbacks. Quotas ignore intrinsic differences among individuals and inflict real harm on those who are objectively better qualified. Hard working, highly motivated Asian American students find themselves excluded from prime college slots that they clearly have earned. Reparations would be extracted from those who had no direct responsibility for historic harms; at most they might have benefited from better opportunities, but that is very difficult to measure.
And in any case, it remains to be proven that reparations would equalize either opportunities or results. Finally, establishing standards that consider factors unrelated to requirements can be blatantly unfair and is an invitation to invidious discrimination. Would you be willing to risk less capable doctors and nurses in the elusive pursuit of equality?
So what are my conclusions about this murky issue? The fairest solution is to fix inequality in starting conditions. This harms no one unless one views the costs that must be borne by everyone as unfair. Good examples are the various childhood improvement initiatives that provide prenatal support, early training and nourishing food. But such efforts take time to implement and yet further time to effect significant change. Those fighting inequality are understandably impatient, but I believe that their resort to enforcing equal results is a sad and counterproductive mistake.
|
|
| |
|
|
