Think Better
I'm getting slightly bored with finding people whining about 'positive discrimination'/affirmative action/anti-discrimination rules. Especially when it's supposedly egalitarian people who should know better than to pull out bum-sourced arguments about how it is 'not fair on [privileged group]' or that it means someone is getting a job 'just because of' the trait in question.
The first time I encountered this wankery was during the 2001 general elections, when discussing with someone the lack of female candidates in Respect (then Socialist Alliance). He said that actually it was fine for them not to have equal (or even approaching equal) gender ratios, as 'it's better to have someone who is a Proper Socialist than someone not as good'. That's effectively the same argument that everyone else has ever given since. Can you spot the huge, glaring fallacy? Really, you should be able to...
OK, here you go: the assumption that equal/proportionate representation requires having 'lower quality' employees/candidates is saying that the women available are on average, pretty crap. There is no way around that. If you are seriously saying you can't find women/POC/disabled people/etc who are just as capable as men/white/normie people, then you are prejudiced. There is no way around that, either. You are saying that the reason for inequality is that the discriminated against group is just not as good as the privileged one.
Similarly the idea that this unfairly affects individuals of the privileged group is pathetic. It shows a complete lack of awareness of how selection processes work, as well as the above prejudice. Amazingly, people, when you go for a job interview or any similar selection process, it is mostly not about you as an individual. Sure, it is sad for you if you do not succeed on any particular occasion, but in fact that can happen through, say, the employer being in a bad mood on the day you are interviewed, through you perhaps having a bad day, through your application being on the wrong colour paper, or any number of similarly trivial factors that employers regularly admit to discriminating over. More seriously, you can be discriminated against because of some trait beyond your control. That is what anti-discrimination legislation tries (very weakly in the UK) to address. It's not a matter of you not getting a job you are qualified for (which realistically happens to people all the time- I lose count of the number of jobs I'd have been able to do well that I have been rejected for)- it's about someone else who is equally well qualified (yeah, I know that's hard to believe, you special snowflake) not being rejected on the basis of an unchosen trait.
The whole idea that employers try to pick 'the best person for the job' is blatantly nonsensical when you look at how different interviews are to the job the person will actually be expected to do. All employers/selection committees do is pick one person out of a group of people who are equally able to do the job in slightly different styles. I know the capitalist meritocracy myth tries to convince people otherwise, but the facts easily show that such matters are decided on superficial and often arbitrary criteria (consider that employers admit to picking women who wear make-up above those who don't at interview, for example).
Of course there is a trend, currently, to hold people of 'minority' (in quotations because neither women nor POC are minorities on a global scale, and women aren't on a national scale either) up to intense scrutiny to try and confirm prejudices. I have seen people who claim, again, an egalitarian perspective, buying into this wholeheartedly. These people need to challenge themselves more. Why is it that even left-wing papers discuss the clothing of female MPs? Why is it that the single stupid mistake that the female lawyer makes is given front page coverage, whilst the fraudulent old white guy is a tiny column on page 57? Why is it that the black president is subject to people blaming him for economic problems that happened within weeks of his election, indicating that they were already in process long before he took power? Don't you fucking well realise that there is not a problem with the 'quality' of the people in question, but a problem of confirmation bias?
What it seems to come down to, in the end, is the flawed idea that some particular people are 'special' and affect history in a unique way. Sorry, but even if there are tiny numbers of such people (which I doubt), neither you nor I are amongst them. Nor are your MPs, nor your doctors, nor anyone else you know. Every one of the jobs/roles affected by anti-discrimination procedures (again, in the UK this is virtually none anyway) can be done equally well by several people. There has never been, and will never be, a case when you are the unique genius capable of working in some place. The world is too random and chaotic to believe in such primitive 'destiny' ideals. You are replaceable. I realise that this is harder to accept for people who've been brought up since toddlerhood in the idea that they are magnificent for taking a crap in the right place, but the rest of us have been told it is true of us for just as long- we've been told that it doesn't matter that we didn't get that job/study place/nomination because someone else was just as good, and you can bloody well learn to accept that the same is true of you. And sometimes (maybe *gasp* even the same proportion of times as people of that group occur in society), the person who is just as good will happen to be female, or black, or disabled, or gay, and having a problem with that does make you a bigot. And supporting people who have a problem with that- well, that makes you a pathetic idiot.
Still, maybe you're special enough that you can learn to think better, eh?
The first time I encountered this wankery was during the 2001 general elections, when discussing with someone the lack of female candidates in Respect (then Socialist Alliance). He said that actually it was fine for them not to have equal (or even approaching equal) gender ratios, as 'it's better to have someone who is a Proper Socialist than someone not as good'. That's effectively the same argument that everyone else has ever given since. Can you spot the huge, glaring fallacy? Really, you should be able to...
OK, here you go: the assumption that equal/proportionate representation requires having 'lower quality' employees/candidates is saying that the women available are on average, pretty crap. There is no way around that. If you are seriously saying you can't find women/POC/disabled people/etc who are just as capable as men/white/normie people, then you are prejudiced. There is no way around that, either. You are saying that the reason for inequality is that the discriminated against group is just not as good as the privileged one.
Similarly the idea that this unfairly affects individuals of the privileged group is pathetic. It shows a complete lack of awareness of how selection processes work, as well as the above prejudice. Amazingly, people, when you go for a job interview or any similar selection process, it is mostly not about you as an individual. Sure, it is sad for you if you do not succeed on any particular occasion, but in fact that can happen through, say, the employer being in a bad mood on the day you are interviewed, through you perhaps having a bad day, through your application being on the wrong colour paper, or any number of similarly trivial factors that employers regularly admit to discriminating over. More seriously, you can be discriminated against because of some trait beyond your control. That is what anti-discrimination legislation tries (very weakly in the UK) to address. It's not a matter of you not getting a job you are qualified for (which realistically happens to people all the time- I lose count of the number of jobs I'd have been able to do well that I have been rejected for)- it's about someone else who is equally well qualified (yeah, I know that's hard to believe, you special snowflake) not being rejected on the basis of an unchosen trait.
The whole idea that employers try to pick 'the best person for the job' is blatantly nonsensical when you look at how different interviews are to the job the person will actually be expected to do. All employers/selection committees do is pick one person out of a group of people who are equally able to do the job in slightly different styles. I know the capitalist meritocracy myth tries to convince people otherwise, but the facts easily show that such matters are decided on superficial and often arbitrary criteria (consider that employers admit to picking women who wear make-up above those who don't at interview, for example).
Of course there is a trend, currently, to hold people of 'minority' (in quotations because neither women nor POC are minorities on a global scale, and women aren't on a national scale either) up to intense scrutiny to try and confirm prejudices. I have seen people who claim, again, an egalitarian perspective, buying into this wholeheartedly. These people need to challenge themselves more. Why is it that even left-wing papers discuss the clothing of female MPs? Why is it that the single stupid mistake that the female lawyer makes is given front page coverage, whilst the fraudulent old white guy is a tiny column on page 57? Why is it that the black president is subject to people blaming him for economic problems that happened within weeks of his election, indicating that they were already in process long before he took power? Don't you fucking well realise that there is not a problem with the 'quality' of the people in question, but a problem of confirmation bias?
What it seems to come down to, in the end, is the flawed idea that some particular people are 'special' and affect history in a unique way. Sorry, but even if there are tiny numbers of such people (which I doubt), neither you nor I are amongst them. Nor are your MPs, nor your doctors, nor anyone else you know. Every one of the jobs/roles affected by anti-discrimination procedures (again, in the UK this is virtually none anyway) can be done equally well by several people. There has never been, and will never be, a case when you are the unique genius capable of working in some place. The world is too random and chaotic to believe in such primitive 'destiny' ideals. You are replaceable. I realise that this is harder to accept for people who've been brought up since toddlerhood in the idea that they are magnificent for taking a crap in the right place, but the rest of us have been told it is true of us for just as long- we've been told that it doesn't matter that we didn't get that job/study place/nomination because someone else was just as good, and you can bloody well learn to accept that the same is true of you. And sometimes (maybe *gasp* even the same proportion of times as people of that group occur in society), the person who is just as good will happen to be female, or black, or disabled, or gay, and having a problem with that does make you a bigot. And supporting people who have a problem with that- well, that makes you a pathetic idiot.
Still, maybe you're special enough that you can learn to think better, eh?