| curl-6 said: If inequalities like different races having more or less rights are left in the past, then people will equalize through the fact that white people aren't actually smarter or better than say black or brown people, nor are men actually smarter or better than women. Those who inherited more from times when some had less rights will squander it if they're incapable. Life will never be perfectly "fair" because human beings are all different in our strengths and weaknesses as individuals and in the choices we make. The best we can do, in my opinion, is give people equal treatment and let them sink or swim on their own. |
Why do you think they'll automatically equalize without intervention? Here in the U.S -- discrimination on the basis of race has been banned for more than a half-century and many metrics of social-economic status have not fully equalized between people of different races (some have exacerbated), and that is with active positive-discrimination and a cultural shift for society to become more aware of implicit biases. Without these things, progress would be even further behind. In fact, the regions of the U.S where things have equalized the most (ironically many states in the U.S South; excluding the deep south) have done so because they were forced to through active legislation like the Voting Rights Act and forced school integration. The states/cities that didn't have Jim Crow laws actually are less racially equal (in many metrics) today than many Jim Crow states (again excluding the Deep South) because they weren't singled out in the federal legislation and weren't actively monitored and forced to integrate.
For example, income inequality. 
Or segregation in general
You really do need to actively change culture and the structure of institutions for equalization to occur. It doesn't happen automatically. The equal abilities of individuals don't matter much when talking about supra-individual entities like social institutions.
As for the last paragraph, life never being perfectly fair is not an argument against making things fairer. Otherwise no social change (including the aforementioned political ones) could have ever been motivated.
Last edited by sc94597 - on 03 September 2025
