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A Question about Equality

 
 
 
That depends upon what "Equality of Outcomes" means. Does it mean everyone gets the same results, without regard to effort? The only practical way to guarantee Equality of Outcome is to require very little and give very little.

In an ideal world, all children should finish school with acceptable grades. Some will be above average and some will be below average. If "acceptable" is "equality of outcomes", then the mission has been met. It's fair to demand every child receive whatever assistance needed to achieve acceptable. Some may need more help than others. This means there will be inequality of assistance, just as there is inequality of effort.

This leads to another problem. Resources are finite. Do we give good students extra assistance, to help them become really good students, or should these resources be spent on those who are the poorest performers? Is there some kind of accounting where we can measure input and output, and thus calculate some factor of efficiency? This kind of thing happens in schools all across the US. It's called "Gifted and Talented" programs. I was born a little two early to be gifted and talented, but both my younger sisters were G&T. They don't actually have any great gifts or talents. What they had was my mother, who filled out the forms. It's never been a secret that one of the greatest inputs to a child's education is their parent's interest. Every gifted and talented child has an interested parent. It's very likely every very good student also has an interested parent.

If the resources spent on Gifted and Talented programs were aimed at under achieving students, it might be money well spent. It could also be money wasted, although the appearance of waste might just be a bookkeeping trick.

This is a case of the means must justify the ends. How does one achieve equality of outcome, when there is no equality of any other measurable quantity.
 
AthenaAwakened said:
dismal said:
Didn't you read Harrison Bergeron in high school?
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No.

When I was in high school, I had, well, a social life, friends and fun.
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Are you saying you should have been barred from having friends and fun because other people had to read Harrison Bergeron?

Or are you OK with friends and fun in high school outcomes being distributed unequally?
 
AthenaAwakened said:
Why is equality of outcomes wrong?
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Doesn't that depend upon what you are talking about?

If you are talking about say: 4 years of high school. The desired outcome should be (at least in part) that one is prepared for the next stage of his or her life.

But some can complete high school in less than 4 years. Some require more than 4 years.

The next stage of life is workforce for some; university for some; military for some; technical school for some. For some, it is even parenthood. While there is some core which is central to having any of these be a good outcome, there is also a lot of divergence in preparation and needs.

If one is preparing to apprentice as a plumber, one probably does not need that calculus class. If one is preparing to study physics at university, that calculus class will be useful but you may not care at all about the course on caring for infants. AT least not for some years.

On the other hand, at we all achieve the same outcome, eventually. At least until someone invents a way to become truly immortal in the physical sense.
 
AthenaAwakened said:
Why is equality of outcomes wrong?
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Who says it is? Or what arguments do you think presume it is?

Failure to presume that inequality of outcomes is always wrong, does not imply the presumption that equality is ever wrong.

For the record, I do think that many conservatives actually view equality of outcomes as wrong, because they presume inherent inequality in value or worth, thus equal outcomes can only be based upon outcomes divorced from true worth, which they think is wrong.

However, the arguments they make or positions they take rarely presume the wrongness of equal outcomes.
 
dismal said:
AthenaAwakened said:
these are the answers that make me love you :)
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1. You do realize that in practice the whole Communist experiment of trying to make outcomes equal resulted in poverty, oppression and millions of dead people? :)

2. Or were you partying with your friends when that came up in school too?
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1. No, because its not true. A serf country explored the idea without ever getting the idea that liberty or ambition were good things. China is experimenting with those things to some effect don't you think?

2. No, most of us were playing with ourselves when it came up in - oh wait - it didn't come up in school.

#. What's personal about emphatically agreeing with your own expressed sentiment and what's not personal about characterizing one re a position?

Lets gear back a little. First we need to establish equality of opportunity is desirable. My vote there, too, is no.
 
dismal said:
AthenaAwakened said:
these are the answers that make me love you :)
Click to expand...

You do realize that in practice the whole Communist experiment of trying to make outcomes equal resulted in poverty, oppression and millions of dead people? :)

Or were you partying with your friends when that came up in school too?
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I see that humor-ectomy you had was a rousing success.
 
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