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"How is this different from laughing at people because their skin is a different color, or they speak a different language?" There's nothing wrong with discrim

"How is this different from laughing at people because their skin is a different color, or they speak a different language?" There's nothing wrong with discrimination in and of itself. It's actually desirable in a lot of cases. For instance, discriminating based upon competency/intelligence is a good thing. Discrimination only becomes a problem when you're discriminating based upon an |irrelevant| characteristic. (Relevancy is determined by your priorities and/or values.) "Is it their fault that they're less intelligent?" Nope, it's not. But that's not the issue. A lot of people think society condemns racial discrimination because race is an attribute outside one's control. That's part of it but not the full story. The real reason it's maligned is because, all other things being equal, race should have nothing to do with an individual's competency or worth as a person. The fact that someone has no influence over their own racial makeup just adds insult to injury when they're judged by it. - I've often wondered the same thing you mentioned about intelligence. Everybody is born with their potential; how can you laugh at a part of somebody that they can't control? But life would be rather joyless if you couldn't occasionally celebrate favorable comparisons between yourself and the rest of the world. :)

dtby 17y ago
Relevancy is determined by your priorities and/or values. Which, unless I am misinterpreting the preceding sentence, means that essentially discrimination is never a problem. I think part of the problem is defining "a problem for whom."
- jellobyte 17y ago
  Fortunately, society (theoretically) compels people to adopt certain values. Which, unless I am misinterpreting the preceding sentence, means that essentially discrimination is never a problem. What I meant is, there are some attributes that would be acceptable to consider in one context but not in another. For instance, if you were hiring a prison guard to strip-search male inmates, it would be reasonable to confine your search to men. You're discriminating based upon sex, which ordinarily is unacceptable, but in the context of this position, is relevant. If you were interviewing for another position, such as a prison administrator, limiting your search to men would be an arbitrary constraint that's irrelevant and puts an entire group of people at a disadvantage. Society tends to classify discrimination as bad if you use an arbitrary characteristic AND one that the individual has no control over.

dtby 17y ago

Relevancy is determined by your priorities and/or values. Which, unless I am misinterpreting the preceding sentence, means that essentially discrimination is never a problem. I think part of the problem is defining "a problem for whom."

jellobyte 17y ago
Fortunately, society (theoretically) compels people to adopt certain values. Which, unless I am misinterpreting the preceding sentence, means that essentially discrimination is never a problem. What I meant is, there are some attributes that would be acceptable to consider in one context but not in another. For instance, if you were hiring a prison guard to strip-search male inmates, it would be reasonable to confine your search to men. You're discriminating based upon sex, which ordinarily is unacceptable, but in the context of this position, is relevant. If you were interviewing for another position, such as a prison administrator, limiting your search to men would be an arbitrary constraint that's irrelevant and puts an entire group of people at a disadvantage. Society tends to classify discrimination as bad if you use an arbitrary characteristic AND one that the individual has no control over.