Meritocracy and Discrimination
I've blogged about my life way too much however, my life doesn't represent me. A majority of my existance represents what society expects of me - school, learn and play. My thoughts make me me, so here is a super long post on what is going on in my brain.
I think that discrimination can't really end. It is part and parcel of life. It aids how we humans function.
Its easier to judge someone based on their appearance and evaluate a person's intelligence and character based on a small aspect of their performance. Stereotyping is easier than actually getting to know a person inside out.
Communication is emperical for survival in this world, hence it is safe to assume that the way we appear or act, communicates something about ourselves. Thus, we try to read people by what we see.
We pass judgements so easily without so much as a blink of an eye, sometimes without even realizing it.
For example, a man seeing a voluptuous woman walking down the street naturally assumes that, that particular woman would be more capable of bearing children better than the less curvaceous woman beside her. We are not even conscious of it. The thought process is "she's hot, I would like to copulate with her".
As for racism, sexism and other types of discriminating "isms" well, what can the government really do about it? Sure it can impose laws that we have to abide by but a racist will still remain a racist. He would just be less likely to act on his views and in turn impact other people less. We can only affect other people by our actions and words and not by our thoughts - unless of course we have some form of psychic ability.
I think that because discrimination can't be helped... we should just go along with it. We shouldn't rely on affirmative action. Affirmative action (women) is basically choosing the woman over the man when they are en par when it comes to merits.
I don't understand how a woman could stand being appointed to a post, despite her being only equally qualified compared to another male contender, simply due to the fact that she has a vagina. My point is that, her appointment to that particular position should be soley based on her capabilities and by no means should her gender play any part in her selection.
I think that she should only get the posting if she is more qualified than the other contenders. She has to be intelligent enough or competent enough to blow away her competitors so that the hiring company has no excuse in not hiring her. The bottom line, people should have to work for what they are to be given, and this leads us to the topic of meritocracy.
Anyways, I was just thinking... meritocracy is a form of discrimination too... isn't it? To answer that question, I have to ask a few more.
What is discrimination really? It isn't acting on your judgements. We've already established that. Is it the judging process itself? I believe that different types of discrimination differ only on the criteria used in judging.
Meritocracy is basically discrimination, where the criteria is based on a person's ability. But really... how is ability judged? It is normally based on our achievements.
Lets look at the facts, Your achievements are not capable of reflecting you in your entirety. Looking at an achievement, lets say...a win, it can not tell you what a person is like when he loses. It tells you what that person can do... but not what he cannot.
Yet meritocracy is a form of discrimination that is widely accepted and highly regarded as the best basis on which to hire an individual... that is, until a better process, a set of criterion which can provide a more holistic evaluation, comes up.
Keep in mind that it has to be convenient enough to be widely used and simple enough to be understood by the general population so that it can be implemented.
Maybe that process IS Meritocracy. Hmmm... this is going nowhere.
I think that discrimination can't really end. It is part and parcel of life. It aids how we humans function.
Its easier to judge someone based on their appearance and evaluate a person's intelligence and character based on a small aspect of their performance. Stereotyping is easier than actually getting to know a person inside out.
Communication is emperical for survival in this world, hence it is safe to assume that the way we appear or act, communicates something about ourselves. Thus, we try to read people by what we see.
We pass judgements so easily without so much as a blink of an eye, sometimes without even realizing it.
For example, a man seeing a voluptuous woman walking down the street naturally assumes that, that particular woman would be more capable of bearing children better than the less curvaceous woman beside her. We are not even conscious of it. The thought process is "she's hot, I would like to copulate with her".
As for racism, sexism and other types of discriminating "isms" well, what can the government really do about it? Sure it can impose laws that we have to abide by but a racist will still remain a racist. He would just be less likely to act on his views and in turn impact other people less. We can only affect other people by our actions and words and not by our thoughts - unless of course we have some form of psychic ability.
I think that because discrimination can't be helped... we should just go along with it. We shouldn't rely on affirmative action. Affirmative action (women) is basically choosing the woman over the man when they are en par when it comes to merits.
I don't understand how a woman could stand being appointed to a post, despite her being only equally qualified compared to another male contender, simply due to the fact that she has a vagina. My point is that, her appointment to that particular position should be soley based on her capabilities and by no means should her gender play any part in her selection.
I think that she should only get the posting if she is more qualified than the other contenders. She has to be intelligent enough or competent enough to blow away her competitors so that the hiring company has no excuse in not hiring her. The bottom line, people should have to work for what they are to be given, and this leads us to the topic of meritocracy.
Anyways, I was just thinking... meritocracy is a form of discrimination too... isn't it? To answer that question, I have to ask a few more.
What is discrimination really? It isn't acting on your judgements. We've already established that. Is it the judging process itself? I believe that different types of discrimination differ only on the criteria used in judging.
Meritocracy is basically discrimination, where the criteria is based on a person's ability. But really... how is ability judged? It is normally based on our achievements.
Lets look at the facts, Your achievements are not capable of reflecting you in your entirety. Looking at an achievement, lets say...a win, it can not tell you what a person is like when he loses. It tells you what that person can do... but not what he cannot.
Yet meritocracy is a form of discrimination that is widely accepted and highly regarded as the best basis on which to hire an individual... that is, until a better process, a set of criterion which can provide a more holistic evaluation, comes up.
Keep in mind that it has to be convenient enough to be widely used and simple enough to be understood by the general population so that it can be implemented.
Maybe that process IS Meritocracy. Hmmm... this is going nowhere.
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