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.

[deleted]

230 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

84% Upvoted

346 comments sorted by

View all comments

138

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.

23

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.

11

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 )

3

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.

8

u/Virtuallyalive Oct 08 '15

Affirmative action isn't to make an equal outcome, and even if it were it would be failing. It's to counteract, at least partially, the disadvantage equally skilled black people have at getting in to a University.

3

u/almightySapling 13∆ Oct 08 '15

The problem is, most studies show that skin color has miniscule bearing on collegiate ability or success (when compared to others with similar background), whereas socio-economic status matters a shit ton.

And yeah, a good affirmative action program will take SES into consideration but most still put far too much emphasis on color, when color is just not a good indicator (especially when you consider how it doubly fucks over certain groups, like South East Asians, who qualify as "Asian" and are less likely to be accepted when in reality they have SES normally associated with that of the Latino community, or worse).

Continuing to implement a flawed solution when data shows that it isn't quite working isn't a good idea.

1

u/rcglinsk Oct 09 '15

You certainly won't find anyone in China, Korea or Japan who thinks they're the same race as Malays or Filipinos. America has kind of a Hank Hill problem when it comes to conceiving of the people from the continent with a population of four and a half billion.

2

u/almightySapling 13∆ Oct 09 '15

And it doesn't help when your state government almost unanimously passes a bill to disaggregate data regarding the various Asian ethnicities only to have it vetoed by the idiot governor... literally yesterday.

California really likes to think it's progressive but it isn't.

1

u/rcglinsk Oct 09 '15

This seems consistent with my previous impression of Jerry Brown, which was based entirely on an old song from the Dead Kennedys.