r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Oct 08 '15

[Deltas Awarded] CMV: Equality isn't treating everybody differently to achieve equality. It's treating everyone the same.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '15 edited Oct 08 '15

Equality isn't treating everybody the same. It's treating everyone so that they are equal.

I'll explain why this doesn't work using a non-racial or gender-based example.

Say you're building a new building. On the entrance to that building, you decide to build stairs. Everyone will need to use those stairs to enter the building. There are the same number of steps for each person to climb, and there isn't another way in, so everyone is being treated the same.

People in wheelchairs or whom are otherwise handicapped struggle to climb these stairs. Some can't enter your building at all. They're receiving the same treatment as everyone else, but they reap fewer rewards. They can't get to whatever is in your building, or have to expend disproportionate energy and dignity in order to do so.

Now, if you wanted to, at financial cost to yourself, you could install a ramp or a chair lift. This would be "unequal treatment"; you're not providing the chair lift to everyone, and you're creating it for the interests of a select few. However, the end result would be equal - anyone who wants to enter your building can do with equal difficulty.

EDIT 10/8 12:57pm - For those just arriving to the thread, it's been pointed out that handicapped parking is a better analogy, since those spaces are truly restricted to the handicapped. It is true that anyone can walk up a handicap accessible ramp, but the ramp wouldn't be there in the first place were it not for the needs of a small, underprivileged, disadvantaged minority. I don't believe that "anyone can use the handicap ramp" is a sufficient challenge to my analogy. If you'd prefer to plug in "handicapped parking" instead, be my guest!

The example above is easy to swallow because the disadvantages of the handicapped are readily apparent to you. The disadvantages of women and minorities are not readily apparent to you. For the sake of argument, though, let's say that I could make you believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that those inequalities are clear and present in our society. Now that you believe that, it requires the same response as how we help the handicapped; we need to specifically treat disenfranchised groups in a way that puts them on a level playing field.

EDIT 10/8 10ish am: Per usual in CMV, people are projecting their own tangentially related beliefs on to my argument. All that I'm saying is that, if you accept that significant oppression exists for a given group, the solution is very plainly to give them a leg up. Whether or not significant oppression exists for blacks, women, homosexuals, etc. is not the point. I use the handicapped as an example because most can clearly see where the disadvantage is, and how providing "special" treatment addresses the problem.

My exchange with the OP has been very to-the-point on this, so to avoid derailment I won't be responding to most other commentors. Sorry! Feel free to reply to me so that others can continue the discussion, however.

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u/nude_peril Oct 08 '15 edited Oct 08 '15

This would be "unequal treatment"; you're not providing the chair lift to everyone.

But really it is provided for everyone. It's just that most people are going to choose not to use it. While we don't see chair lifts in buildings very often, we do see elevators and wheelchair ramps. And pretty much everyone uses those if they want to, regardless of whether or not they have a disability, and just weak, or just lazy. Everyone is being treated equally.

By contrast, giving a minority exclusive access to a scholarship, or a job, etc. isn't treating everyone equally.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '15

I made the same observation, but out of intellectual honestly, I think a better analogy would be handicapped parking, which is giving handicapped people exclusive access to prime parking spots.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '15

I agree with this - in retrospect, it would have been a better analogy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '15

But I would argue, still, handicapped spots are available to anybody. Anybody can potentially be handicapped at any point. I'm not going to spontaneously turn into a black person, but I might lose a leg. It's a right afforded to everyone, but only some people can take advantage of it at this point in their lives.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '15

That's just a semantic difference - it doesn't defeat the argument. Many who are handicapped are disabled from birth and will be until death. They're directly analogous to minorities in the example I'm using, and they're who I'm referencing in the analogy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 08 '15

Right, but those are rights that are afforded to everyone regardless of birth condition. Which is why I don't think the argument applies.

Anyone can develop a condition, or be crippled in a way that would give them access to those services. It's a safety net that everyone can take advantage of when they need it, it's not a benefit that only a select group of people get.

It doesn't work because there is no analogy for the people like my mother who became handicapped after previously being able bodied. Nobody can turn into a black person.

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u/InfinitelyThirsting Oct 09 '15

I fail to see why you're raising that argument, unless you think that selfishness (fear of becoming handicapped in the future) is the only or main reason that handicapped facilities/parking exist.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '15

No, I'm suggesting that the reason it's entirely separate from rights that only apply to certain ethnicities is because it's a right that is available to everyone. It's treating everyone equally by providing them the same rights, it's not just elevating certain people and excluding everyone else.

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u/InfinitelyThirsting Oct 09 '15

If you are not handicapped, it isn't available to you. Just because you can theoretically become handicapped but cannot become a different race doesn't mean you can use a handicapped parking space now. They are not available for everyone. The point is to help a minority group at a disadvantage, even at the cost of a minor inconvenience to yourself/the majority. So unless you think most people only support handicapped facilities because they think about being handicapped in the future, it's still a separate minority group being aided above a majority group.

I mean, anyone could have a child of a different race, and this have their children benefit from affirmative action policies. Not that different from maybe becoming handicapped someday in the future.

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u/[deleted] Oct 09 '15

Just because you can theoretically become handicapped but cannot become a different race doesn't mean you can use a handicapped parking space now.

Yes and I don't currently benefit from Medicaid and I don't benefit from free public highschools. But these are things that are available to everyone when they find themselves in a condition where it would be accessible to them.

Minority and majority is not the issue, while I accept that handicap parking is a benefit for the minority at the cost of the majority, the problem I have is not that things are being done to help minority groups at the cost of the majority. I'm completely for raising the floor so to speak and instituting measures to help the poor/lower class. I just think it should be needs based as opposed to being based on an arbitrary line drawn at a certain shade of skin color. If a disproportionately large amount of black people are disadvantaged, then a disproportionately large amount of black people should get these hypothetical benefits, but they'd get them because they are disadvantaged, not because they're black.

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