Busting the "Open-Mindedness" Bubble

[hkellick]

OK, I'm in a particularly foul mood today, and something stupid just raised my hackles, so I'm going to spot gibberish in my journal for a little bit.

Society teaches us we're supposed to be open-minded, to respect everyone regardless of race, religion, sex, personal beliefs, personal handicaps, age and any number of other options.
And then turns around and paints everything in broad strokes of Men and Women, Black and White, Catholic and Protestant.
We teach our kids in equality. I swear to god (and I'll fight you tooth and nail on this one, Kristen), I WILL NOT. I will teach my children to see in black and white (possible pun not intended) because that's how the world works.

Deep inside, we know that there's no equality. We know men aren't EQUAL to women. We know that gay people aren't equal to straight people. We know handicapped people are not equal to those of us who aren't.
The argument, the since-man-became-conscious argument that's been going on is: Who is Better.

You hear it all the time:
The bible tells you homosexuality is immoral. So straight people are BETTER than gay people.
You hear off-color jokes about how once you go black, you don't go back. Blacks are BETTER lovers than whites.
And, hell, even the dean of Princeton is trying to tell us (I'm NOT saying he's right) that boys are BETTER than girls at Science and Math.

We can try to see past the common divisions: past religion, politics, race, sex etc. etc... I'm saying try, because most of us can't.. because most people clothe themselves in ONE of these divisions.. as a good liberal or a good christian or as a black worthy of black pride.
We can TRY to see past these people.. and try to see everyone as individuals.. and then discover, for yourself, that there are STILL worse people and better people.

My point.. if there's much of a point here at all is... let's get off the equality talk. There is no equality. Try to accept people as individuals, try not to lump and accept that some of us suck and some of us rock and that there will ALWAYS be divisions between those who suck and those who rock.

Comments

[soreth.livejournal.com]

Just because you can't have equality, there's no reason to go and dump on equitability. I don't give a damn who's better than someone else at math, or at being a good writer, or at making armpit noises; they all have the same basic human rights. In that sense they are exactly equal.

Isn't that what counts?

[lite.livejournal.com]

I don't hold much with "rights"

But I do believe we should all have the same chances to find happiness with our lives, so long as to do this, we don't hurt others. "Rights" such as the right to get married or the right to not have some government agency going through all our stuff stems from that.

We should all have an equal chance, legally, to be happy.
How you achieve that is up to you.

[lite.livejournal.com]

Let me explain the "Rights" things.

"Rights", to me has a connotation of something you can get without earning. It's being entitled to something, whether or not you deserve it.

People say that, in America, we have the RIGHT to arm ourselves and carry guns. Most people who own guns have never taken much training on how to use it properly, how to take care of it or how to lock it away. This IS the problem. If people were forced to be trained before actually having the gun, I believe society as a whole, would be better.

Then there's the RIGHT to be married and to procreate.
I have seen more damage done to people because of bad marriages, or people having children who never should have.
And yet we all accept that we have the RIGHT to do it.
I'm not sure if there's any way to solve this issue.. of stopping people from getting into bad or abusive marriages or to stop mothers from kicking out babies just to get more out of the system, but because we have the RIGHT to do these things, the system gets abused.

Perhaps the better way to see this is that, legally, you should have the ability to do these things, but it is first your RESPONSIBILITY to learn what to do with it first.
Admittedly, I'm not sure how to train people properly for things like marriage or child-rearing, but that's how I see it.

[soreth.livejournal.com]

You have a legal right to own a firearm, yes. You also have a moral duty towards your fellow citizens to be a responsible firearm owner, because they have a right not to get shot by you. Rights entail duties.

I'm think it's probably safe to say that you have a moral right to get married, and to procreate. But you have a moral duty to your partner to be a good spouse, and a duty to any progeny you raise to be a good parent.

The problems seem to come when people flaunt their duties and just exercise what they see as their rights. When this happens they're infringing on the rights of others. In this, aside from terminology, I think we agree.

[soreth.livejournal.com]

I don't hold much with "rights"

Really? So I can go and steal all your stuff and there's nothing wrong with that because you don't have a right to own property? I think we should all hold with certain rights because the consequences seem to be rather horrendous if we don't.

I don't hold much with legal rights, admittedly. I think they're mostly poor substitutes and weakly implemented versions of moral rights. Legal rights also have the dubious characteristic of being able to be modified or revoked. Basic moral rights don't have that. They can be overpowered by more stringent moral demands, but they can't just be revoked. I can waive one of my rights, but I still have that right - I'm just not exercising it.

I'm not sure at all that we have any kind of legal right to have an equal chance to be happy - which law is that? I know it's in the declaration of independence, but I don't think that carries much weight legally. I do think we've got a moral right to the pursuit of happiness, though.

[zorkian]

I'm curious, can you define equality versus equitability for me? I have not heard the second term before and am not sure what it means.

[lite.livejournal.com]

equity: justice according to natural law or right; specifically : freedom from bias or favoritism

equality: the quality or state of being equal

equal: the quality or state of being equalof the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another

[soreth.livejournal.com]

Pretty much what LITE said there. I'm not as good at programming a computer as you, so it would be ridiculous to say we're on an equal basis there. However, your being better than I am at programming doesn't make me a worse person when compared to you, or grant you any additional rights as a person. Except in cases where that skill difference is relevant (like, hiring for a programming position), it shouldn't be considered at all (Not: "xb95 gets the bigger slice of this cherry pie, because he's better at programming!").

[phoenixsong]

*blink*

I'm not getting into this with you over LJ, and especially not without a context.

[lite.livejournal.com]

Eh.
I'm exhausted and bitchy and I don't like my job and the day has just dragged and I'm tired and I want to nap and I want to go home.
I think I just ranted because I needed to let some of that out :p

[phoenixsong]

*snuggle*

Reading some of the other comments and your responses has given me a better idea.

Basically, what I think is fair to teach kids is, do your best to treat everyone with equal respect, but be aware not everyone is going to do the same.

[lite.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes. Do Unto Others As Ye Would Have Done To You.
Classic material, that.

Too bad that it seems that the majority of the human populace can't be bothered to do that :p

[phoenixsong]

Still, I don't want our kids raised to contribute to the problem. A little kindness to another person is just as likely to be passed on as being an asshole. I have to believe that, especially in a job like mine, or I'd curl up sobbing in a hole somewhere and never come out.

[janinedog]

there will ALWAYS be divisions between those who suck and those who rock

Do you think that on an individual or group basis?

I agree that there are individuals who are better at some things than others. But I don't think you can say all people belonging to <this group> are better than all people belonging to <that group>. Of course everyone's different, and, on average, groups of people are different too. But that doesn't mean that there can't be a member of a group that is better than a member of another group, even if the group average is not.

Hopefully that made some sense. :P

[lite.livejournal.com]

I did mean, individually, some people suck and some people rock.

Many of us believe that everyone of a certain group suck or rock. These people suck.

An example, the person who believes that all geeks rock.. sucks.. and has obviously never been around the entierty of geekdom.

I suppose it depends on your group size. When you paint in broad strokes (all men suck, all women rock. All italians suck. All greeks rock.), then I'm not sure it's fair to see that the average of one group is actually better than the average of another group.
And, again, if you do that, you suck.

Hopefully that made sense as well.

[janinedog]

I definitely agree with that. Well, I wouldn't use the terms "rock" and "suck" because those have very subjective meanings, but I'd definitely say that there can be a Person A who is better at something than Person B.

[lite.livejournal.com]

That's part of it.
I use terms like "Rock" and "Suck" in terms of... I have judged you, your personality, your quirks, your successes and failures... and I believe that you are.. acceptable or unacceptable.
People constantly judge others, whether fairly or not.
My point was that some people are acceptable, as a whole, and some are not and try not to lump everyone of any category together and say that they are all acceptable.
Unless it is a very small and very personalized category such as "All the people from ChaoticMUX whom I've met"

[blackfelicula.livejournal.com]

I challenge everyone to be many-colored flowers in a forest of right and wrong.

[peachtess.livejournal.com]

I agree that we shouldn't teach children equality. Here's my reasons from not so much a parenting point of view but as an educator. Equality usually ends up teaching "white" based culteral curriculum. The vast majority of students are caucasian middle class so you pretend everyone is caucasian middle class and thats how you teach them. Studies of child development and education have proven this just doesn't work. The melting pot theory doesn't work in pratice because there is no equality and your neglacting a large part of your classroom and destorying the childs respect of their home culture.
So as an educator and even as a parent you need to teach diversity vs. equality. Diversity says yes everyone is different and thats okay..in fact thats great..and we need to respect those differences in others and in ourselves.