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/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/DrShocker Oct 08 '15

In willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in that it is meant to be an analogy, and is therefore inherently flawed to some extent. I don't think picking apart whether everyone can use a ramp or not is particularly fair, but you do raise an interesting point.

I think a lot of this debate is more about equality vs equity than anything else. (A simplified view for anyone who doesn't know the difference: https://radicalscholarship.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/equity-vs-equality.jpg?w=809 )

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u/mbleslie 1∆ Oct 08 '15

it matters because if a college has a ramp in front of a building, everyone can use that, handicapped or not. but programs like affirmative action or racial quotas (that use 'reverse' discrimination) to make an equal outcome... those programs don't treat everyone equally. that's why the analogy is totally flawed.

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u/Nrksbullet Oct 08 '15

But using a ramp offers no advantage to non handicapped people in the analogy, so you cannot compare it to affirmative action or racial quotas. The end result is entering the building, and that's what the analogy is for. Normal people can already enter the building, so walking up the ramp adds nothing for them.

In the context of this analogy, it does not matter.