Animal Farm and Positive Discrimination

Your asking that question puts me in mind of a clip I'd seen from Russian T.V., in a report, retrospective, or documentary about Perestroika, when the
Soviets, under Gorbachev, tried more, "openness." The scene that stuck with me, showed young people, questioning someone with a degree of status, in the Party. The young person pointed out how his own apartment was tiny, but how the elevated Party Members, in the government, lived in nice, large homes. The government official defended his preferential treatment, by saying, basically, that he did more important work, that was more valuable to the country, so didn't he, then, deserve more perks. I had found it so amusing, at the time, because this dedicated, Communist Party official was enunciating, apparently without realizing it, the principle behind Free Market Capitalism.

In Animal Farm, as well, the animals were meant to represent different segments of the Proletariat, that is, different types of workers, so that I would interpret your thread as asking, essentially, are garbage men as valuable to our society as are lawyers, and do doctors deserve more societal benefits than those in either of the other two professions?

What is interesting, though, is that I feel sure that most people are going to read your question (and I got the sense that you, perhaps, meant it this way, too) as asking, are all Races or ethnic groups, equal; and/or are smart people entitled to more than du-- I mean-- less-smart, people? Is that interpretation/prediction off-base?

 

I do like the satire in your TV clip. Self awareness is one of th e more "useful" things in life if you want to be as true as you can.

I meant any element that society deems "less whole than the average person" ...intelligence, physical capability, faith, race or even dietary preferences (ie vegetgarian/vegan)

With of course the proviso that you can't, for example, apply for a job as a quantum physicist if you can't cope with calculus...let's be sensible here.
This gets tricky because when so many think of discrimination, they automatically think of race. Which BTW is something far easier to overcome than many other minority issues by the simple will to self educate.
There are quite a few assumptions why some are denied a chance to compete on a level playing field...I h heard of one where a Muslim applied for a job and was denied because the employer was worried he would be losing too much time praying. Of course whether he would lose more time than other employees who play games on their phone when they are supposed to be working or going to the coffee machine is not known.
This IMO is a sort of unconscious bias which affects many who are not 100% "normal". And this creates an unequal landscape.
It of course used to be much worse. There is a far greater awareness of the needs of the disabled for example...ramps, handrails, lower counter surfaces. But there are other things we can do...like not assume they can't do a job because they aren't "all there".
My question then arises when those who are 100% all there, complain that someone not 100% all there has "taken his job".

Take this now into the greater environment and you arrive at my original question. Is helping someone to level "up" necessarily causing the 100% all there to level down. Because that is what I hear ... their inability to compete is THEIR fault and they should try harder.
"Because we are all born equal" which is the central fallacy.

 

Great response. Clearly you are afraid of thinking about it.

 

But literally everyone is privileged in some way in relation to everyone else.

For instance yes I’m privileged over the handicapped guy because I was born able to walk. But maybe the handicapped guy is privileged over me because he’s a great artist and I’m terrible at art.

So how do we fix that? Give him a sweet comfortable chair I don’t get and subsidize my crappy art with government funding while he gets none?

You can’t legislate out unfairness. Life isn’t fair.

 

I can't give your thoughts all the time they deserve, at the moment, but I'm still a little bit unsure of what you are specifically asking, though it does seem that you have a clear idea, for the argument to be examined in your thread-- some are happy to suggest general thread ideas, and let people take them in any direction, they so choose.

Let me just try to clarify for you, on what points, I am unclear. Naturally, we are not going to all be equal, in all things. We will have different abilities, strengths , & weaknesses. So that may be one layer of your question, in the totalling up of all these aspects of a person, to arrive at a, "total." But a potentially problematic 2nd layer, with which the first will need to interface is, how does society value each of these qualities? Here, an interesting side-trail will have to be the fact that, if we are to trust the valuation of the overall society, then we must accept that none of these qualities has a fixed value, that remains consistent, through time. That is, general qualities may remain desirable, but if you are going to want to transform that, at some point, into, say, a listing of what special privileges, or more-than-equal plusses, a person should get, then one needs to be much more specific: being smart in math, or in some other way, or different field, will vary, in society's relative valuations; but also, at different stages of humans' cultural evolution, different skills, different realms of facility, understanding, competence, skill, etc., will be at a premium, or be devalued. So, my belabored point was just that, in the translating of skills, talents, abilities, and the like, into an idea of affluence, we can only speak of temporal, not universal, scales.

But, frankly, I think there is a mistake in the general conception, here, that, to be, "equal," should mean that all must have equivalent lifestyles, or equal incomes. That could only, even superficially, be justified, if all were expected to live the same type of lives. Yet, just because two people have the same things asked of them, does not mean that the experience will be anything near equal, for the two, precisely because we are so different.

For just one example: some people are naturally early-risers, while others are late sleepers. I fall into that latter category, & I've found that some in the former category, will consider me lazy, based solely on that one trait. It doesn't mean that I spend any more time sleeping than they do-- though there are variances between us, in our sleep needs-- or that I don't out--produce them in my work output, or effectiveness, by 40%, or 100%, or more. But they will make that judgement, based on an inordinate emphasis on what time a person gets up, or starts work. Of course, for some things, it is advantageous to start early. But if I were forced to show up for work, early every morning, because "that's what we're all doing," for the sake of equality, it would not be an equal ask of me, to be at work, at a time when my body would like me to be sleeping, as it would be of the person who is normally wide-awake, at that hour. I hope I didn't personalize my example to such a degree, that my point got lost. If so, I'm sorry, but I'm tired & should be getting ready for bed-- it's after 8AM.

 

And for the record ACTUAL disabilities are different than “privilege”. They shouldn’t be included in this conversation. Someone who is actually disabled and needs assistance should receive it.

 

To return to your interest, does that include skin colour?
I ask because I have been involved in many discussions in which the relative "worth" of one skin colour is counted by the number of famous people there have been in history with the same colour.
Disabilities usually include race when humans give merit to one or another and I include all races from Chinese to uygars (sp...I am on my phone) to Jews to gypsies to Japanese. They all have been "disabled" by other majorities...and therefore are not "equals."
That being so wrong on so many levels, it deserves a thread all of its own.

 

@Pixie

I think I went off in the wrong direction, here, as I basically just read your brief OP, and I took "positive discrimination," to mean, being given advantages, akin to the system in Plato's Republic, which I consider his worst work (I'm thinking that was one of Socrates' ideas, not Plato's). But I just went back to page 1, and I saw that you are actually talking about evening everyone to the same level. I still would take the "con" position, on that as an over-arching principle, based simply on the fact: what are the levels that get evened? In other words, there cannot help but be a subjectivity to it, but EVERYONE DOES NOT WANT THE SAME THINGS. For example, some people place a high premium on material wealth; they may be happy to work very long hours, provided they are being well-compensated. Other people, put more value upon having "free" time, for their families, for themselves. So how do you even those things out? Do you pay the guy who only wants to work 25 or 30 hours a week, the same as the one who wants to work 60 or 70? Do you make one work more hours than they want? Do you limit how many hours the other can work, even if that job is a big part of the person's identity? And how about for the person, for whom fulfillment, content, happiness, are centered around the idea of having a mate-- do we provide one, for them?

To my mind, equality means having certain basic rights, and equal access to opportunities, to create the kind of life one wants. What any person does with those opportunities, and what goals they pursue, is up to them.

 

DEfinning thanks so much for your thoughtful and thorough discussion of the issue...when I started it I had in mind those who, in another thread, casually assume that anyone can achieve their potential, and if they don't, it must be because they are lazy or distracted or any number of other things. That the great democratic West and the USA in particular is a wellspring from which everyone can drink.
And of course we are all born differently, as individuals with different assets and liabilities.
But knitted forever into that is the truth that we are not born EQUAL.
And those inequalities are given more or less importance by what WE as a society decide...so the inequalities are under OUR control. Nor some divine intervention or (forever reality).
For instance it is common to assume that someone who speaks with an accent clearly from somewhere else is socially inferior. This extends then to all migrants. But in truth that is a choice we can make about people we don't even know.
If then one of these discovers how to supply infinitely available energy for the cost of a bus ride, our collective appreciation for all those who speak with this accent goes up.
This is bonkers! Those who speak differently should never have been "assumed" to be anything less than anyone else with an accjent we know to be from our own country.
So "disabilities" cover everything including physical, mental, emotional AND cosmetic minorities.
And the moral issue I ask is why, when an effort is made to include them in mainstream life, do those who have no impediments at all, feel anxious that at least they are "losing out" and on a bigger level, they are being overtaken by minorities in a Great Replacement project.
ISTM that this general unwillingness to accept others and share progress is another huge source of unnecessary stress which further splits any national strength and unity.
Just quickly, I am not discussing NUMBERS of people. That also is another thread. I am discussing how we value "equality" and attempting to find some honesty in how we do or don't practise it.
Sleep well!!

 

There is no positive discrimination being applied to the elite. All the positive discrimination is being applied to the plebes (you and me). With the elite, it will remain backstabbing, cut throat and vicious and the most intelligent and talented sociopaths will continue to win.

For ordinary people, you will be passed up for promotion if you are the wrong gender or race, even if your work product is 10 times higher than the person who passes you up. If you work in a corporation, you know who the producers are by the quality and quantity of their work product....... no amount of CRT/feminist insanity will change that. Replace enough producers and your company will fail. Big corporations can afford lots of non-producers..... their upstart competitors cannot. CRT type laws are made not to benefit minorities but to solidify power for massive corporations and make it much more difficult for new companies with innovative ideas to gain traction and usurp them. These concepts are not that difficult to understand and are blatantly obvious to anybody paying even a marginal amount of attention. Regulations have always been and will always be a method of capitalist elites to retain their power against potential competitors. Keep that in mind at all times.

 

Re your last paragraph. I agree but far too often and for reasons WE as a society can correct, it doesn't happen.
We are NOT allowed the same opportunities from the beginning and unfortunatelythere are far too many of us who like that just the way it is. It cuts the competitionand gives them some recognised reason to feel smug.
.

 

That is a summary of your view of corporate functioning. I was concentrating on how one on one encounters are judged and valued by others who almost always operate according to General Principles of the Hive Mind which satisfies their view of their right to be successful (in a general sense) and effectively reduces the competition.
I do agree about the mechanistic, impersonal and sometimes cruel character of corporate capitalism.

 

I think you’re not correctly understanding of “born equal,” as it’s intended in the American Declaration of Independence. In this context equality has nothing to do with individual physical and intellectual capabilities, it has to do with the inherent worth of individuals, as individuals, in the eyes of God and government. Individual worth and freedom underlies our American philosophy of government. Any expectation that government is responsible for guaranteeing equality of outcome is a perversion of the role of government.

 

I understand it very well and have just explained why it is a lie.
Taking opportunities demands traits which society collectively lists as from desirable to not desirable.
These define your individual worth and to a very large degree, your freedom.
I am suggesting that it is up to us to make that equality easier to achieve.

 

I explained this in another thread. I am in the top 10% of earners and my brother is in the bottom 20%. I am set for life and he is a paycheck away from not making his rent payment. Same parents, same experiences.... diametrically opposite results. Oddly enough, he is a far far happier person than me and I would willingly trade lives with him.

If we can't make siblings equal, it is laughable to attempt to make everybody else equal. Your assumption that more income and more wealth makes life better expresses your priorities. Your priorities are not the same as other people's priorities. For example, my brother prioritized happiness over money. People say that the person who dies with the most money wins. That is subjective. It could be that the person who dies with the most meaningful relationships and contentment with their life wins.

My perspective is that those who are able to generate the most and highest quality work product should be compensated the most. Any other metric is a theft from those upon whom the system is reliant. It is highly demoralizing for a highly productive person to see others compensated for doing far less. It is for this reason that communist countries have always and will always fail to be anything other than dystopian. The most capable will cease trying because there is no incentive to try.

 

Excuse me but I have never mentioned the conflict between wealth and happiness. That is not part of my central proposition.
And you are deviating from that proposition which states that the hive mind of general society labels various people as different (from the majority) ans therefore of lesser worth.
When in fact they could present with higher standards.
I wonder if this adds to the fear of minorities.

 

No no no. See this is where you’re argument falls apart. There is NOONE who is privileged in EVERY facet to everyone else. Meaning every person has an innate advantage to every other person regardless of who they are or where they come from.

Your statement of:

“And the moral issue I ask is why, when an effort is made to include them in mainstream life, do those who have no impediments at all, feel anxious that at least they are "losing out" and on a bigger level, they are being overtaken by minorities in a Great Replacement project.”

There is literally NOONE ON THE PLANET who has “no impediments at all”.

None. Not one. What you’re failing to realize is that those people you think don’t have those impediments actually DO have impediments that they could consider the other people to have privilege over them.

So they look at those people you’re hemming and hawing about and say “They have privilege over me. Why should my privilege over them matter?”

Why does my privilege because I’m able to walk and he can’t, trump his privilege that he’s able to draw beautifully and I can’t?

 

Yes that guy was born into riches and has that privilege over a poor person. But the rich guy was born into a family where his parents spent zero time with him because they were too busy with work. So the poor kid who had parents who spent time with him has that privilege over the rich guy.

Why is the rich guys privilege the only one that matters?

And we can do this with ANYBODY because anybody you point out will have SOME level of privilege over any other person you point out. And if you switch those people around the other guy will be privileged over the first person in some way.

Every single person on this planet is privileged in SOME WAY over every other person on this planet.

So why should one person get ANY benefit because he’s disadvantaged in comparison to someone else? Because that guy is advantaged over the other when it comes to some other characteristic.

 

I have never said some of us have no difficulties.
However I have said (elsewhere) that some difficulties are far more important, ubiquitous and difficult to overcome than others.
There are those who have very positive gifts but who never get to pursue them because the hive counts them as less important when owned by those whose more negative attributes count as more important.

 

Then you can do that as an individual, it’s not the role of government.

 

Agree completely; I was only stating an ideal, which is what I thought you were looking for, in this thread. But people are not "ideal." So making any ideal into a reality, is quite a bigger challenge than merely postulating it.

 

What would be common example of 'rejecting those who may need a leg up'?

 

What in heck does any of that have to do with the OP's question?

 

Success is determined by the system.

If a system results in disparate rates of success for different demographic groups, that is evidence of inequality in the design of the system.

It should be pretty clear how this relates to the topic of the thread because it is the very foundation of the problem. The system needs to be tweaked.

 

It isn't mean, because it's the only thing which actually allows for genuine equality.

When we're born equal, and subsequently provided with equal access to opportunities .. where we end up is entirely OUR choice, not someone else's. That's the key.