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> The other side believe that an artificial environment needs to be created to correct an imbalance. Rooted in this principle there is often a belief that this

by mpyne 14y ago

> The other side believe that an artificial environment needs to be created to correct an imbalance. Rooted in this principle there is often a belief that this situation only exists because of artificially created and perpetuated gender roles. If you're referring to affirmative action, the other side is more akin to the belief that without corrective action of some sort, that there will never be a fair environment in which to have a true meritocracy. This is due to nothing more than competition theory; if you have two evenly matched teams, and one has a substantial lead on the other at the halfway mark of a game, you wouldn't expect the losing team to come from behind except in rare cases. Given that Real Life is very much a Winner-Takes-All type of game that has sharp implications for later generations of each team. Now it may be that there are other reasons for a gender imbalance in this case and so your revised question is probably as simple as it can feasibly get. But affirmative action, while being one of many distasteful choices for a distasteful situation, isn't necessarily just a bunch of do-gooders trying to force things into balance. It's an attempt to ensure a meritocracy is even possible at all.

Camillo 14y ago
When people talk about meritocracy, they are thinking of a competition between individuals. When you assert that it's a competition between races, or between sexes, or between other social groups, the concept of meritocracy doesn't even apply any more.
- mpyne 14y ago
  Not to put too fine a point on it, but in America WASPy types of persons enslaved black and "mixed" types of persons, and even after that was theoretically eliminated post-Civil War, Jim Crow laws ensured that racial equality was not even possible until near the end of the 1960's. So certainly at a socio-political regional and national level it was very much a "competition between races". At an individual level then sure, it's not like you could point a finger as a black man at one particular white oppressor, but that still didn't make it any better for you (statistically speaking) to have been born black. That's the whole point about the discussion about a meritocracy: How can you say that the alpha nerd on this side and the failed athlete struggling with math on the other were ever engaged in a fair competition for that one programming job? Alpha nerd had a two-parent home (probably a two-income home as well), with computers to practice on since he was a teenager (or earlier), didn't have to worry about being stabbed at school or shot at the public park, went to a public school with a stable and well-established tax base, etc. etc. Whereas Super Jock came from the slums, had to step over the passed-out crackheads on his way to walking miles to school in the morning, his dad was floating along from prison cell to prison cell and it would be even odds if his mother was drunk or not when he got home that evening from his hours of practice for the sport that represented his only effective chance at a stable life as an adult. Math homework? He don't have time for that shit! Now obviously both of those are highly contrived, but the issue is that it doesn't even have to be that severe in practice to go from little individual effects to a noticeable high-level socio-economic effect. Is affirmative action the answer to that? Hell man, I don't know. The underlying issues certainly go much deeper than just "we should give more scholarships to poor minority candidates", for all we know that's 10 years too late to even get minorities interested in STEM, let alone struggling to catch up with it. But HELL YES the concept of "competition" applies to meritocracy. I'm not saying race should have something to do with a meritocracy, I'm saying that it shouldn't, and so are people who actually argue for affirmative action for future equality.

by mpyne 14y ago

Camillo 14y ago

When people talk about meritocracy, they are thinking of a competition between individuals. When you assert that it's a competition between races, or between sexes, or between other social groups, the concept of meritocracy doesn't even apply any more.

mpyne 14y ago
Not to put too fine a point on it, but in America WASPy types of persons enslaved black and "mixed" types of persons, and even after that was theoretically eliminated post-Civil War, Jim Crow laws ensured that racial equality was not even possible until near the end of the 1960's. So certainly at a socio-political regional and national level it was very much a "competition between races". At an individual level then sure, it's not like you could point a finger as a black man at one particular white oppressor, but that still didn't make it any better for you (statistically speaking) to have been born black. That's the whole point about the discussion about a meritocracy: How can you say that the alpha nerd on this side and the failed athlete struggling with math on the other were ever engaged in a fair competition for that one programming job? Alpha nerd had a two-parent home (probably a two-income home as well), with computers to practice on since he was a teenager (or earlier), didn't have to worry about being stabbed at school or shot at the public park, went to a public school with a stable and well-established tax base, etc. etc. Whereas Super Jock came from the slums, had to step over the passed-out crackheads on his way to walking miles to school in the morning, his dad was floating along from prison cell to prison cell and it would be even odds if his mother was drunk or not when he got home that evening from his hours of practice for the sport that represented his only effective chance at a stable life as an adult. Math homework? He don't have time for that shit! Now obviously both of those are highly contrived, but the issue is that it doesn't even have to be that severe in practice to go from little individual effects to a noticeable high-level socio-economic effect. Is affirmative action the answer to that? Hell man, I don't know. The underlying issues certainly go much deeper than just "we should give more scholarships to poor minority candidates", for all we know that's 10 years too late to even get minorities interested in STEM, let alone struggling to catch up with it. But HELL YES the concept of "competition" applies to meritocracy. I'm not saying race should have something to do with a meritocracy, I'm saying that it shouldn't, and so are people who actually argue for affirmative action for future equality.