Jordan Peterson - The Problem With Equity

JP breaks down the problem with the equity doctrine starting from the beginning.

[sultanpoppa]

I did a generalized search to listen to many perspectives pro and con. Just to understand the topic.I find it fascinating that all the “pro” videos have the comments turned off.

[adambrian]

***Equality should always trump equity.***

"Equity" sounds like "Equality", but they are very different. "Equality" is protected by the U.S. constitution, which means everyone is treated and protected equally under the law. "Equity" means equal outcome. It is social justice equity, from critical social justice theory, related to critical theory, critical race theory(for racial equity), and neo Marxism. It is the dichotomy of the oppressor and the oppressed, privileged and disadvantaged. The totem of victimhood, and intersectionality of victimhood.

***Social Justice Equity of critical social justice means redistribute resources from the those who have to those who don't have. It is a discrimination rooted in Marxism***
It means to strip the "unearned" wealth, advantage, and resources from the oppressor, and give it to the "deserved" oppressed. It usually practiced at identity group level. Equity practice treats different identity groups differently. It is problematic to hold one group back, while allow another group to proceed, in order to achieve equal outcome. In that case, equity is a discrimination. Could such discrimination serves a good purpose, like, to address the disparity of oppression?

***Social justice equity is self-conflicting, self-defeating, and creates more injustice***
The critical social justice theory tried to address historical, and current "perceived" oppression, but it is self-conflicting and self-defeating and create more layers of injustice for those who believe in critical social justice. A person simultaneously belongs to many identity groups. race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, country of origin, ethnicity, age, health, education, jobs, income, wealth, able-body, attractiveness, temperament, the list will go on and on. The society then calculate victim score along each identity dimension, add up and assign an aggregate victim score to each person to rank this person on the hierarchy of giant victim of totem in order to decide how much advantage the society should assign to this person, or take away from this person, in the name of social justice. But here is one problem: Even if you believe one identity group is "privileged", another is "unprivileged", how can you compare victimhood along different identity dimensions, like a able-bodied black person vs. handicapped white person? Who is more of a victim? The society may have to fudge the score along different identities. When the society considered all identity together, the errors in assessment along different identity dimension propogate and accumulate, and create a bogus victim score that is far far away from what it was planned to achieve.

There are many other problems:

* Social justice equity is usually practiced at group level. But the life experience of members within a group differ a lot. Many times, the variance within a group is larger than difference across groups. How can society calibrate the amount of redistribution?

* Does each identity dimension carry the same weight in victim score? e.g. race vs. gender? race vs. able-bodied. Do people agree on that?

* Who is qualified, and authorized to assign such victim score to people? Are we talking about creating a huge "equity" department of an authoritarian government? Do people agree on that?

* Corruption. The person in charge of equitable decision is in power, and becomes subjective biased, and even corruptive when trading favor with bribing. And it is not easy to expose the bias and corruption, since "equity" and "differential treatment" is expected under the equity framework. Add another layer of check and balance bureaucracy?

* Can group identity correctly summarized a person's life experience?

* How can society continue to monitor each person's victim score to reflect the changed life experience, e.g. become disabled, or get a high paid job, etc. What is the cost of that?

* Race and gender are usually quoted as a reason to provide equity. Does race and gender alone reflect full life experience of an individual with so many other identity groups the person is in? Why just race and gender?

***Ironically, in pursuit of ultimate "Social Justice Equity", the intersections of many group identities is reduced back to Individual. Equality wins over Equity***
When many group identities are considered, no two individual are alike. Ultimately, each person is reduced from intersection of identity groups to a individual. Even if creating a humongous, authoritarian government bureaucracy, it is still impossible to assign a correct, fair, "equitable" victim score to each individual in the society and keep it correct over time to justify the advantages assigned or taken away from this individual. More "equity" is the goal, but more layers of "injustice" is the results. Equity effort is self-defeating. There is no choice but to throw out equity, and adopt equality. The society should treat each individual equally.

***Social justice equity violates US constitutional law, the equal protection clause of 14th amendment, and the 1964 civil right law***

Equity, in the name of critical social justice, creates more confusions, injustices, divisions, and resentments.

Equality should always trump equity.

[davidpar]

The problem with equity is that it’s compensation that has not been earned

[TwoBiteBrownies]

I am a male that is 5'5, balding, and unattractive imo.

A tall, good looking black woman from a wealthy family is far more advantage than me. Yet on paper she hits all the checkboxes for EDI.

The world we live in is unfair and unjust.

[jpg]

Currently in teachers college writing my teaching philosophy. It's so easy to think equity is the answer, but this is making me think twice.

[goosecouple]

Equity policies in Malaysia causes racial tensions all the time.

[Rogerdattyler]

Had to sit through an equity training at work

[Nordic_Sky]

Goal should be equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome ("equity"). Remember: free people are never equal, and equal people are never free.

[richardtorz]

What we do with our lives is up to us, no one is entitled to be given anything. Some of us are born into working families that require us to work when we get to be an adult, there are others that are born into money and paid college. Life starts us at different levels of and how we accomplish making ourselves better. Not all jobs start at the same pay rate per hour. A nurse starting out from nursing school does not get the same pay as a nurse that has been doing it for twenty years. Restaurant worker positions do not pay the same, a dishwasher starts very low pay, while those servers who work the tables get more in pay and possible tips. Equity states that we start out on an even playing field and we all end up on even playing field, it doesn't work that way, there will be some that will be successful in life even if it is small successes, and some that will get into trouble with police and the law and live there life in prison. That is just how it is. Peope do not owe anything to anyone else in life. If you want to be successful, own a home, have a family, any of that, you have to work towards and for it.

[lindsayhartman]

What about being a single parent vs being in a two parent household? How about the lack of equity for parents who don't have a partner to rely on to also call out of work when a child is sick?

[cyberjunk]

On the one hand, he makes a really valid point that there's an infinite number of ways to slice and dice a population and so it seems somewhat arbitrary to pick just a small set of traits and elevate them above all else. On the other hand, those particular traits are (for the most part) also ones which were used for very specific and organizational/law-based discrimination, so there's a lot of historical and cultural baggage for those. for example, although attractiveness matters a lot in day to day interactions, your legal rights weren't based on it. Same for a lot of other examples he gives. So although I agree with his overall point that the intersectional approach to equity is a disaster, it's understandable why certain classes are indeed elevated in importance.

[usapatriotpeace]

KSA or DIE.

If you’re a government worker or a veteran that has applied for a government job your qualifications are based upon KSA = Knowledge, Skills, Ability.

DIE = Diversity, Inclusion, Equity (Equity is not the same as Equality) does nothing to prove an individual’s Knowledge, Skills and Ability to do the job.

If a company feels compelled to add a DIE hiring manager or change their company logo to rainbow colors to pander to the LGBTQ group or DIE group, it’s perceived as patronizing and thus that company may have had prior discriminatory hiring practices.

Bottom line…any public or private company that discriminates against a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, economic status, veteran status or disability is in violation of State and Federal employment laws. KSA or DIE. Teach your children well.

[sallyjopatriot]

we are fighting this battle here in Rock County Wisconsin..

[fabricegorgeon]

And also it's difficult to defend equity when you have "Goth Status"...but the Queen was able to do that. At the end of that problem there is not a definition, there is a loving heart.

[davidmartin]

My job REQUIRES equity training. Lucky me.

[loganw]

Duchess is now advocating vaccine equity

[doctortimetv]

the problem with equity is the same as it is for diversity and inclusivity they spell die. and die is what that crowd of people wants those who dont agree with them to do. when merits and character are what should matter. and without merits why do something!

[matushka]

Combinatorial explosion is the Death knell for Equity

[jabezmadplume]

Can somebody break this down? So I can better grasp the ideas, you have my gratitude. 😮‍💨🙏🏽

[alexandriawilliams]

Did he just equate attractiveness to race and sexuality?
No one is killed due to their ugliness. No one was denied rights due to them being ugly.
Has height ever been a reason why you can't marry the person you love. It's trivialising the issue.
Equity at It's core is fairness. For example those that earn more money pay more taxes. It's the idea that everyone should have the same opportunities regardless of race, sexuality or parental income.