Concerning "based on the group, class, or category ...": let's list some groups, classes, or categories by which people might be classified. The ones that are usually discussed include these: race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or religion. However, people can also be classified in the following ways: my friends, my family, me, people inside of my house, people with brown hair, people whose names start with 'h', people whose names I chose from out of a hat... etc. You probably get my point by now, which is that there are an indefinite number of ways to classify people.
If that isn't bad enough, "individual merit" is equally non-helpful. When discussing merit, we have to keep in mind the following 2 facts. Firstly, merit is highly subjective. What's important to you about a person may not be important to me. For example, I work in the software industry, and to some, having a college degree in computer science is very important for a developer. However, in my view, the degree is far far less important than having a passion for software. A self taught programmer is (in my opinion) better than a degree'd one. Other people think differently than me on this. Is one of these ways of thinking "correct" and the other "wrong"? Depends on your opinion.
Secondly, the merits required to perform any given job vary wildly depending on the job to perform. For example, the merits of a construction worker might include being strong enough carry heavy loads around the construction site, or being fit enough to work long hard hours (ableism!). The merits of a friend might include getting along with you, or having known you for a long time (it's all about who you know!). The merits of a model might include being the correct sex (sexism!), being good looking, or being the correct weight (lookism!).
So, since any arbitrary group of people can be defined by anybody, and the merits of a job are very changeable both by the job being performed as well as by the person who's measuring them, this essentially means that the only solid thing we have to measure discrimination by is our own personal preference.
Everyone Discriminates by Some Measurement
One could say that a merit to take in to account when deciding who to hang out with would be "how much fun will you have?" or perhaps "how long have you known this person?" or maybe "how well do you get along?" "how many interests do you have in common?". By any (all in fact) of these measures, I should hang out with my friends every time, and never hang out with my children. Yet, I choose to hang out with my children many times anyway. Does this mean that I'm discriminating against my friends? Using the definition above and the merits listed, YES.
My point is, we all discriminate, all the time. If you think you're not discriminating, I just have to define a group of people and a set of merits and WHAM! Discrimination!
There is no "objective and correct" definition of merit that will account for every situation or even any situation. We each have our preferences about what merits are important, and thereby we discriminate incorrectly by the measure some other person's preferences.
Discrimination in Business
I have two points to make here. The first is to reiterate that the merits required for any given job are highly subjective. Take, for example, the job of Rock Star. There is (and can be) no objective measure of the merits of a rock star that make him successful. We might be able to measure the pure, technical singing ability, or the pure, technical guitar skill. But most of what makes the Rock Star successful is the subjective tastes of the audience. A rock star's salary is essentially set by the number of people that buy the music.
Another example is this: many companies advertise to potential employees that they have a great work environment. Having had a fair number of jobs myself, I can say that great work environments are mostly caused by having co-workers that you get along with and that are fun to be around. I don't think that many people would list "the boss / employees get along with him" or "the boss / employees think he is fun" as merits for any given job. Yet when looking for a job, if one gets multiple job offers, the deciding factor may be whether you like the people you'll be working with/for. So hiring somebody slightly less qualified on paper because you think they'll fit in better is not actually unreasonable. Additionally, since "fitting in" is entirely based on the existing employee's preferences and since preferences vary wildly from one person to the next, this means that this particular reasonable merit is completely subjective and will vary from workplace to workplace.
The second point is that in accepted norms, the employees and customers are always allowed to discriminate, whereas the employer / business is not. For instance, if you are racist and don't want to work with a black guy, then you don't have to. You can go in for the job interview, notice the black guy, and then turn down the job. Nobody will ask twice; people are allowed to turn down jobs. However, if you are racist and don't want to work work with a black guy and you own your own business, you're SOL if a black guy interviews.
The customer/business relationship is no less one-sided. If you are racist and don't want to buy something from a black guy, then you don't have to. You can walk in to the store, see the black guy, and then walk right back out. However, if you are just as racist but now you own the store, if a black guy walks in, you are forced to sell to him.
Doesn't this seem unfair? In each case the guy was just as racist, the only difference is whether he owned his own business or not. Are we really okay with discriminating in this way against people who own businesses? Remember, if nobody owned a business, then nobody would have a job.
Conclusion
We all discriminate and we all approve of the ways that we individually discriminate (e.g. you don't disapprove of your own discrimination). Therefore, we should not make laws against discrimination. Other people might find your discriminatory behavior in whatever situation unsatisfactory. Some people might even be offended by the ways that you discriminate! Should those people be able to come with the police and force you to pay them for discriminating in what they view as the wrong way? Additionally, will outlawing certain kinds of discrimination change the opinion of the discriminators?
Justice should not be discriminatory based on anything but deeds, but laws and the people who enforce them are. That's one of the reasons why there should be as few laws as possible.
I put it forth that rather than outlawing the kind of discrimination that you don't like, you should feel free to discriminate against the discriminators. If discrimination is as life destroying a force as is supposed and if most people discriminate like you do, the discriminators will soon have to change their ways. And all this without the need for any action on the part of police or politicians!
No comments:
Post a Comment