Posted on 11/16/2004 12:12:11 PM PST by Republicanprofessor
Battling liberal analogies on Communism and Affirmative Action.
I've just had my first class discussion on Communism (as related to Humanities, but I got off the subject to discuss politics with my liberal class.) We had a good discussion and many realized the dangers of Communism.
But I got a few comments from students with which I could not argue very well. (As I said, this is not my subject of expertise.) So if any of you can come up with some good responses, let me know.
One student noted that she had been taught that Communism is fine in theory but that it hasn't found the ideal environment yet in which it could succeed. All the countries which tried it (Russia, China, etc.) were backward countries. She thought it might work in more working class countries. (To the credit of other students, they disagreed. And I countered this too, by saying that Communism depends on force to exist and that human nature resists being limited to being equal to others instead of striving to do better. But I'm interested in what you all have to say.)
And we drifted into Affirmative Action a bit, because I wanted to demonstrate the abuse of repeating lies over and over until they become the truth. (And I expect we may get some pubic hairs on the coke can lies again soon....) So I said that many believe Republicans are racist because it is repeated so often in the press. I noted that it may be because Republicans are against Affirmative Action and quotas.
So one student gave me this analogy from another teacher as an argument for Affirmative Action. Two boys are running. One is doing his very best at 8 sec. per 200 yards. The other needs to learn proper form but is doing his best at 8 1/2 secs. Which one gets the chance to be coached by the best? The one who has already reached his peak or the other who could improve much more after learning proper technique?
Now, I don't think that any of us ever peaks at total capacity, but beyond this, let me know what arguments you might come up with. It seems to be a narrow and silly analogy, but I need a definitive argument with which to knock it down.
Thanks.
In its purest form, AA was intended to get organizations to take affirmative steps to seek out the most qualified individual from among the ranks of the underrepresented group(s). It's not supposed to be a mandate to hire/train/promote the lesser qualified. And to suggest such decisions should be based on one's "potential" in the future turns everything on its head. A hiring authority must look retrospectively at experience. Past experience is the best indicator of future performance, and to attempt to look into the future based on anything else is purely subjective and/or wishful thinking. The result is placing or promoting a lesser candidate in hopes that it might work out down the line. Bad policy.....bad for biz....bad for schools and universities who want to get and keep the best.
By way of example, let's suppose that you and I are competing for a job in a field that is male-dominated. We are equally qualified and educated on paper, however, I have had an absenteeism and tardiness problem in previous jobs. Should the hiring authority determine to hire me (part of the underrepresented group) based on some silly-headed notion that (with a little talking to and a good alarm clock) I have greater potential down the road?
Under the twisted and warped version that E.O. 11246 has become, your answer to the aforementioned example would be, yes. But therein lies the problem with AA, as it has become. In this scenario, I am hired because of AA only (having been the lesser qualified) - and not because of my merits. Even if I work out well as an employee, the risk to the employer was a stupid one. It's tantamount to forcing the purchasing department to select a lesser quality tool, for no other reason other than you don't normally buy from that vendor, and because it just might work out fine.
It should really be accepted that Communism isn't likely to ever take root in a developed nation. Historically, it's been something of a last-resort for people in overwhelmingly poor countries (Russia, Cuba, China, Congo). Further, the oft-stated goal of Communism was to create a classless state, which is same as creating a one class state. In every communist regime that ever existed, that ‘one class’ has always been impoverished.
It might bring things into focus for your students if you look at current states with Socialist governments. I know a professor from Sweden who recently moved to the US to take up a teaching post. One reason for the move, aside from the job, was that his income in Sweden was taxed at a rate of about 80%. Verify that - it really boggles the mind.
As for Affirmative Action - that's not really comparable with Communism, since it's a government program rather than a system of government itself. And as for the silly analogy – most analogies are silly; we use them instead of thoughtful explanations. I think Affirmative Action warrants its own examination. What was the genesis of Affirmative Action? How is it fair or unfair? Would its abolition result in a "fair field" of play, or just change the slope?
Good luck.
"Socialism" is pretty chunky too - but then that would be descending to the argumentative style of liberals ;)
Note to student: They were backward because they were Communist.
That is the most common misquote of Goebels I hear. He did not say a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth, he said it becomes bigger than the truth, IOW the truth gets ignored.
And all those countries got even more backward. East German and Czechoslovakia were not considered backward until they went commie, btw.
The one who has already reached his peak or the other who could improve much more after learning proper technique?
But that's not how "affirmative action" works. It doesn't just say let's give extra coaching to the one kid. It says let's take the coaching away from the other -- who it should be noted has not done anything wrong. Is that fair?
Anyway, most conservatives don't have a real big problem -- especially given the context of the time -- with LBJ's Executive Order 11246 of Sept. 24, 1965 which required government contractors to "take affirmative action" toward prospective minority employees in all aspects of hiring and employment and meant that the contractors take specific measures to ensure equality in hiring and to document these efforts.
What conservatives have a problem with is the "affirmative action" instituted by Richard Nixon in 1969 which included definite "goals and timetables" which ultimately meant bald discrimination against whites and the hiring of unqualified persons.
Now, ask your students if they are claimng Nixon to be virtuous?
Also, ask your students since it has been 35 years since Nixon's plan, why is it that they claim the slow kid is still not getting coached? Could it be that "goals and timetables" are a miserable, counterproductive failure?
"So one student gave me this analogy from another teacher as an argument for Affirmative Action. Two boys are running. One is doing his very best at 8 sec. per 200 yards. The other needs to learn proper form but is doing his best at 8 1/2 secs. Which one gets the chance to be coached by the best? The one who has already reached his peak or the other who could improve much more after learning proper technique?"
Your student is giving an analogy that applies to many real-life situations. High-school players are often drafted by the National Basketball Association ahead of college players with more experience. In many cases, the college player could beat the high-schooler in a game of one-on-one. But that's not the issue. The issue is "upside potential."
We saw the same phenomenon in the late nineties when start-up internet companies had market valuations that were as big as Fortune 500 companies. Again, people factored in upside potential.
But the analogy runs into a few problems:
1. Everybody has upside potential. In the above example, a fast runner is likely to get still faster when coached. Runners who set world records still have coaches to get even faster or at least maintain their speed.
2. In the above example, the person who runs in eight seconds will probably need different coaching methods than the person who runs in 8.5 seconds. It may well be a waste of resources to give them the same coach. Either he caters to the faster runner, thereby leaving the slower runner behind, or he caters to the slower runner, thereby not challenging the faster runner.
The solution is simple: give different coaches to the boy running in 8 seconds and the boy running in 8.5 seconds. The different coaches will have different methods, thereby allowing for the maximum gain in potential.
In the educational world, this would mean that the A students go to Harvard and the B students go to Boston College. The liberals will answer "but the Boston College student will never have the advantages that the Harvard student will have!" That's ridiculous. The top ranks of companies are filled with people from second-tier schools. If I'm considering entry-level people for a promotion, I'll look at who has done the better job. If you went to Harvard and then slacked off at your job, I'm not going to be too impressed.
200 yards in 8 seconds? 100 yards in 4 seconds? A FOOTBALL FIELD IN 4 SECONDS?
The "great" coach should be fired if all he can manage is
to coach one kid at a time.
As for Communism, it's never worked, and it's been tried
by all the "best" people.
As for Muslim extremists, (you didn't ask but anyway), as
for Muslim extremists, they like to come to an advanced
country, enjoy the benefits for a little while, bomb the
place into a rockpile (like their home country) and make
the women scurry around over the rockpile like crows in
long black burkas and everyone go "worship Allah" five
times a day whether they feel like it or not. Hmmmm -
sounds a little like Communism in its most perfected form.
Sorry to ruin your wetdream but I actually did
teach at the univ level. It was, of course, a
chemistry course where the facts are non-negotiable.
I do like your idea re the b&%$# slap, however.
Thanks!
MV
"For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion." -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
I would suggest turning the example around. Ask the student then to assume a white runner and a black runner. Is it correct then to assume that if the white runner is winning it simply must be because of superior coaching, since we must assume that black people are faster runners?
Then pose the following. What if the black runner was the son of two olympians, and the white runner was the son of poor widow. Is it fair in that case to presume the white runner has maxed out his potential, but the black runner could benefit by better coaching?
The problem with the example your student posed is that an individualized determination has already been made regarding ability and potential of the runners. To use inductive reasoning to extend that to all other persons of the same race, as in the case of affirmative action, and to forego the need for individualized determinations is flawed logic that presumes the crux of the conclusion that the application of AA is justified.
A system of government that encourages "individual" good and accepts the fact that "individual" greed can be converted to some form of good or put to a good purpose makes the most sense and produces the greatest good for all. Essentially, capitalism allows individuals to prosper in a highly personal sense and the result of that personal prospering is an acceptance of a broader and more charitable world view. Essentially, a prosperous person ultimately produces a prosperous society. Conversely, a governmentally controlled individual ultimately produces a suboptimal society because of arbitrary societal limitations imposed on individual thought and action. Ergo, communism and its handmaiden socialism has never succeeded in the real world and never can succeed.
Affirmative action is an example of the socialist philosophy. Unfortunately, because of the nature of political power and the reality of human imperfection, the very effort of empowering some "governmentally prescribed" disadvantaged person will have to come at the expense of someone else regardless of their merit. Affirmative action, therefore, will eventually debilitate the very society it is intended to benefit because no society can survive indefinitely by raising someone up while dragging someone else down - and, unfortunately, that is what affirmative does in practice. Said affirmative action based society ultimately creates artificial, unintended, unfair individual limits and unsustainable, unearned individual benefits. Unfortunately, affirmative action will probably never cease because those who benefit from it will want to keep it going regardless of the damage it does to all of society. (This is probably the main reason that the African-American vote goes almost 9 to1 for Democrats.)
Which runner is black? That's your affirmative action answer. Times don't matter. Even if one of the runners were 12 seconds, if he's the only black kid on the team, he's the affirmative action pick.
If you really want to piss off your liberal students, search the web for "affirmative action bake sale" and present the story to them, and ask them to argue why the bake sale is bad, but affirmative action for admissions or otherwise, is good. (The deal in short is, a bake sale with one kind of cookie, but the price is 25 cents for blacks, 50 cents for Hispanics, 75 cents for women, and $1.00 for white and Asian males. Same cookie, remember.) They won't be able to do it, because it's the same thing, and this fact will really tick them off - because the bake sale is "so obviously wrong." It's why I like the bake sales so much.
There is also a related simple way to also dismiss this: This person is extrapolating the anecdotal case of one person and extending it to a group of people. On what basis? Skin color/race alone.
Why does she assume that all people of a certain color are folks who had handicapped trainers/coaches/mentors/teachers? What? Their lot of high school coaches were dumbed down in training all people of a certain color in "proper technique?" Such an assertion can only be grounded on the premise that all high school instructors are guilty of holding students back; that would be tantamount to rampant racism by educators. Does the NEA know about this?
The bottom line here is to ask your student on what grounds--what criteria--does she automatically, knee-jerk wise, assign those victimized by "poor training techniques" to the color of skin that walks through the classroom door?
I thought most high school educators in the 21st century are color blind. Make her take on the entire teaching lot across America to defend her idea.
Then ask her if she's consistent with her premise? Has she, has the special interest groups representing minority groups, raised a rucus w/the NEA & govt. educrats, etc. over the rampant classroom racism that exists for their failure to properly equip their graduating classes?
>>He's played you all like a fiddle. We need a big Zot on this one.
>>Yep, I was about to post the ubiquitous "Welcome to FR" message.
Regardless of the intent of the original poster, I've enjoyed this thread very much. Lots of good examples of why we are who we are!
bump for later read
For that matter, Russia had the world's 2nd highest growth rate in GDP prior to the 1917 Revolution and WW I. (The US was #1.) It was "backward", but so was the rest of the world.
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