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I suspect that 'liberals believe "Everyone is born equally capable"' is a strawman. I hang out with pretty liberal people and no one actually believes anything

I suspect that 'liberals believe "Everyone is born equally capable"' is a strawman. I hang out with pretty liberal people and no one actually believes anything like this. Interestingly, the article actually lists out a more nuanced, realistic version of this idea (with a link to research): > But whatever you think about the morality of this idea, it simply will not work. The reason is that the strong hereditarian hypothesis is wrong; practically all kids are educable, with the proper investment of resources. And we're talking about high school educational attainment here, not world-class achievement. To use a fitness analogy, not everyone has the anatomy to be a world-class deadlifter. But pretty much everybody can get to deadlifting 1x/1.5x their (healthy) bodyweight with some training.

loughnane 3y ago
> I hang out with pretty liberal people and no one actually believes anything like this There is a broad streak of illiberality running through left-leaning Americans who call themselves liberal. At its core liberalism maintains not that everyone is equal in every way, but that virtually everyone is equally capable of flourishing if given the same opportunities. Liberalism must believe that since its unit of measure is the individual, not a faction or state. If someone who calls there’ themselves liberal doesn’t believe that I’d like to know what they think liberalism is.
Workaccount2 3y ago
Usually no liberals actually will echo that line, or even are aware of it. But the very philosophy dictates that it must be true. And ask them the difference between a checkout clerk and an MIT grad, and they'll tell you it was all about opportunity. It's also why liberals have a very strong anti-science approach to fields like behavioral genetics, while falling over themselves to praise the social sciences.

loughnane 3y ago

> I hang out with pretty liberal people and no one actually believes anything like this There is a broad streak of illiberality running through left-leaning Americans who call themselves liberal. At its core liberalism maintains not that everyone is equal in every way, but that virtually everyone is equally capable of flourishing if given the same opportunities. Liberalism must believe that since its unit of measure is the individual, not a faction or state. If someone who calls there’ themselves liberal doesn’t believe that I’d like to know what they think liberalism is.

Workaccount2 3y ago

Usually no liberals actually will echo that line, or even are aware of it. But the very philosophy dictates that it must be true. And ask them the difference between a checkout clerk and an MIT grad, and they'll tell you it was all about opportunity. It's also why liberals have a very strong anti-science approach to fields like behavioral genetics, while falling over themselves to praise the social sciences.