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The Fallacy of 'Fairness': Part IV
· Friday, February 12, 2010
Mixed up with the question of fairness to individuals and groups has been the explosive question of whether individuals and groups have the innate ability to perform at the same levels, if they are all treated alike or even given the same objective opportunities.
Intellectuals have swung from one side of this question at the beginning of the 20th century to the opposite side at the end. Both those who said that achievement differences among races and classes were due to genes, in the early years of the 20th century, and those who said that these differences were due to discrimination, in the later years, ignored the old statisticians' warnings that correlation is not causation.
The idea that some people are innately superior (usually one's own group) goes back for centuries, but various new facts that came out in the 19th and early 20th centuries gave the appearance of "science" to such beliefs during the Progressive era.
Sir Francis Galton's research turned up the fact of remarkable achievements among members of the same family, which he regarded as evidence of genetic superiority. The rise of IQ testing, and especially the massive mental testing of soldiers in the U.S. Army during the First World War, showed great differences in test scores among various racial and ethnic groups.
In the public schools, there were similarly large differences in which ethnic group's children failed to get promoted. In both the Army mental tests and in the schools, Polish Jews did poorly at that time. Carl Brigham-- a leading authority on mental tests and the author of the SAT-- said that the Army tests tended to "disprove the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent."
It should be noted that all of these conclusions were based on hard data, not mere "perceptions" or "stereotypes," as so many inconvenient facts are dismissed today. What was wrong were not the data but the inferences.
Polish Jews were among the many immigrants from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe who were relatively recent arrivals in the United States. Many of these immigrants grew up in homes where English was not spoken, as Carl Brigham acknowledged in later years, when he recanted his earlier statements. In later years, Jews scored above average on mental tests.
It is also a hard fact of history that some races had far more advanced technological, economic and other achievements than others at particular times and places. But those who were ahead in some centuries were often behind in other centuries-- the Chinese and the Europeans having changed positions dramatically after Europe eventually caught up with China and then surpassed it within recent centuries. But there was no evidence of any dramatic changes in genetics among either the Chinese or the Europeans.
While striking changes in the relative positions of different races at different periods of history undermine genetic explanations, the fact that there has been no period when their achievements have been the same undermines today's presumption that different economic or other outcomes are due to discrimination.
Whatever the innate capacity of any race, class or other group, what pays off in the real world are developed capabilities, and these have never been the same-- or even close to being the same-- for individuals or groups.
All the leading brands of beer in the United States were created by people of German ancestry and so is the leading beer in China, not to mention breweries created by Germans in Australia, Argentina and elsewhere. Germans were producing beer in the days of the Roman Empire.
This does not mean that beer brewing skill is genetic but it also does not mean that this skill-- or any other skill-- is randomly distributed among peoples, so that a failure to have equal "representation" of groups in a given institutions can be presumed to be due to discrimination by that institution.
Fairness as equal treatment does not produce fairness as equal outcomes. The confusion between the two meanings of the same word has created enormous mischief, much of it at the expense of lagging groups, who have been distracted from the things that would enable them to catch up. And whole societies have been kept in a turmoil pursing a will o' the wisp in the name of "fairness."
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rotenochsen
The only thing all men have in common is that we are born and we eventually die. I believe the equality is that all men/women have a soul and that life is not supposed to be fair, but we all have the opportunity to gain the ultimate goal Life Everlasting by following the Ten Commandments!The rest of life is just a test that we all have to go through.
Posted February 12, 2010 at 9:26:35 AM
Duke of Earl
Our nation was forged and has been built on the principal of equality not fairness. Even then equality is not always readily apparent. All people should have an equal chance to become whatever they want to become. That is by no means a guarantee of success.
As a small token of this idea, I give you ... me. I am just an average 56 year old white man who loves to play golf. In my youth I palyed from morning 'til dark. In no way was I able to match the talents and abilities of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Elder, Lee Trevino, etc. Tiger Woods would be a miracle. I also played basketball in school. I was not Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, John Havicek, etc. Wilt Chamberlain and Bil Russell were also out of the question; I wasn't tall enough.
Does this mean that things are not "Fair?" Absolutely not. I treid and practiced and played and sweated; I just didn't have the talent these people had. That is Life. We are what we are and thst is all that we can be.
I consider myself to be very successful and blessed: I have been married to the most beautiful woman in the world for 36+ years now and she has borne two of the best sons that anyone could want. Our oldest son and his wife have gievn us a brilliant grandson. Life is GOOOOODDDDD!!!!
What more can any man or woman want???
Posted February 12, 2010 at 4:03:23 PM
MichaelSSEC
Mischief indeed. In the name of fairness, the Leftist tears down the successful in a vain attempt to uplift the unsuccessful, and the end result is that everyone is equally wronged. It's the Handicapper General of "Harrison Bergeron" brought into the real world and immortalized into law.
It's not just race and economics. This mentality infests academia to a shocking degree and is making sharp inroads into sports as well. Doesn't matter whether your kid can actually play the sport; he gets a trophy just for breathing. Doesn't matter what the final score is; everybody is a "winner."
It does not even matter that this mentality is inherently contradictory. It just FEELS so appealing to so many people, that they brush the self-contradictory nature aside. If everybody is "special" than obviously nobody is. How can anyone fail to grasp that self-evident point? And if the mere existence of failure is proof positive that success has cheated, what does the PERSISTENCE of failure prove? Why does it never prove that the assumptions about cause & effect are total nonsense?
Posted February 13, 2010 at 11:55:29 PM
ILEANA
I agree with Dr. Sowell and the previous posters that progressives have changed society to such an extent that we are now witnessing the fruit of the coddled generation that was NEVER allowed to fail, children received awards and trophies just for walking across a stage without tripping.
Everything was and is dumbed down to accomodate the lazy or those who were less fortunate in their economic, social, societal, experiential, or genetic background. Children who were slow learners had to be mixed with fast learners based on some fly-by-night college of education theories. Everyone else knew that it did nothing to improve the scores of the slow learners, it frustrated them, while boring the fast learners and holding them back in their achievement.
These coddled children are now the "entitlement generation" who truly believe they are special and thus deserve better treatment, better salaries, better working conditions, better vacations, better office with a view than anybody else, starting immediately. They have to be told all the time how special and great they are because that is how parents and teachers alike have treated them their entire lives, whether that was true or not. They were not allowed to fail, dust themselves off and try again. If a teacher gave a student the just reward for non-performance, threats were made, meetings with the principal, the superintendent, the board, lawsuits, ACLU, and eventually the cave-in of the teacher as the villain who had to buckle under pressure of losing his/her job.
As Michael so eloquently addressed it, if everyone is a winner, nobody ever loses; if everyone is special, it becomes a contradiction.
Curricula is designed to make children feel good, not necessarily learn life-long skills, everything must be fun and revolve around game-playing. Papers must not be graded with the evil red pen because it makes students feel bad about themselves or better yet, not give grades at all.
This administration now launched an effort to convince children that their parents are stupid and they should become the parents by listening to advice from the federal government. This is communist brainwashing 101 and it is absolutely frightening for its implications of destroying the family nucleus and the insinuation of government into child rearing. I hope Americans stand up to this White House-sponsored group. We already have enough problems with the narcissistic and self-absored, entitled children whom the progressives have encouraged, taught, and promoted.
Posted February 15, 2010 at 7:34:45 PM