Part III – Equity
Section (d): Equity Unraveled
{We have, in these pages, previously discussed the first two persons Diversity and Inclusivity, and have also seen the first two parts on the third person Equity}
Incongruity
Two men look at a tree and one sees a branch and the other sees a kite stuck in another branch. Three women look at the same tree and one of them sees a bird’s nest before the other two. One of them likes the fruits. Five dogs look at the tree and four of them run towards it. The other prefers to smell the flowers nearby. One of those who run, reaches the tree first. Another reaches it fourth, he is last. Should it be society’s obligation to provide him wings - or is it sufficient to raise him when and if he falls? The small dark bitch catches a red squirrel clinging to the trunk of the tree. Hierarchies of intent, ability, ambition and perceived value exist, are caused and are sustained - because a diversity of subjects exist, and such ordering is not criminal. The man who sees the kite and the ape who climbs the tree to retrieve it are not necessarily the enemy, nor are we obliged to give the bitch a flower.
It is fitting that a diversity of needs, knowledge, talent and purpose constitutes a functional association which necessarily is organic - with different roles played by different members, in order to achieve the raison d’etre of its association, and it will be a good kingdom when the king is good at kinging and the pawns are not recruited according to the policies of the US military. All girls in the netball team cannot play wing defence and yet win matches, and every employee cannot be in top management and sustain a functional company. Although double arm amputees are unlikely to become skillful surgeons, and a head cannot reside within the ribcage, these are the logical demands of equity.
If diversity is real - diversity inherently being constitutive of differences, equity would be impossible since differences naturally lead to in-equity. This contradiction is ignored, particularly since high level equities – in positions of power and dominance, are mandated for specified types of diversity. Likewise ignored is the reality that equitising such inequity requires tyranny. Equity, apart from the absurdity of the very idea of it, fails in practice because it demands equal outcomes which is unrealistic for people with diverse motivations, aptitudes, proclivities and circumstances, with diverse histories, relationships and priorities, situated in diverse places and having diverse dreams – and employing diverse degrees of effort inclusive of none, to achieve a goal.
If the poor pink swimmer who sacrificed fast food and nocturnal entertainment to train in the pool every morning beats the rich brown swimmer who did not, that is not racism, bigotry, Nazism or injustice. Unfairness of systems are not culpable when the smarter, harder-working, creative and charismatic plebeian is more successful in the corporation than the blue-blooded, lazy and apathetic one – and an organisation constrained - whether by supranational bodies, the government or even by its own shareholders, to promote them both, is doomed. Eliminating the under-representation of hippopotami will not increase sales.
Versatility
The problem lies in what social justice warriors believe social justice to be, and it is a far cry from the iustitia of Justinian and even further from, and perhaps antithetical to, equitas.
State or systemic provision of equal social outcomes - is believed to be justice while Plato squirms, and dikaisyne is spurned. Moreover, equity is achieved when there is equality of only certain outcomes, and not others. Further, such justice is dispensed by privileging the members of specific groups taken to be oppressed such as women, non- “whites” of every shade of pink, LGBs, Ts and Qs, irrespective of whether their members are – or were, actually individually oppressed or not. The problem that group membership is difficult to define, and groups themselves lack definition, and that members can be fluid regarding identifying themselves within such a group, and subjective self-identification carries more weight than objective belonging, are separate questions.
A further intriguing manifestation of this “justice” is that it seeks and fights for equal outcomes at the high end of hierarchies. This type of justice operates irrespective also of whether it is wanted or merited by or beneficial to the beneficiaries - or salutary to the provider or to society at large. It turns out that sub-optimal leaders delivering failure is better than violating equity in their assembly and pampering. When hungry orange persian cats are shooed off and the fat pink hippos are fed, that would be justice because of the crocodiles – perhaps in a river elsewhere, yesterday. And so the Canadian Assembly of Elephant Wardens financed by the Pachyderm Trust will need to sponsor the Rumination Project of the Ottawa Antelopes, or else have their bank account frozen.
Justice does call for uplifting the downtrodden and genuinely persecuted, but sharing, improving and helping is not equivalent to neutralising all difference. Equity abuses sympathetic sentiments related to the authentic suffering of those at the lower extremes and capitalises on the duty to help - to forcibly advance a civilization devastating equalisation.
Cruelty
Selective provision of unfair advantage, employing limited resources, to the detriment of the thus unfairly deprived - with fairness here considered according to factors relevant to the reward in question, can only create a social whirlpool into which everyone plunges. In corporate circles gullible boards are convinced by their consultants and by NGOs running sensitisation programs, to implement policies on equity in order to eliminate unfair discrimination based on irrelevant factors du jour - telling them deceptively that the only injustice implied by the lack of such policies would be the failure to provide equality of opportunity. They may learn later that it was unjust to unfairly discriminate based on relevant factors such as competence.
Considering situations where rewards are finite, the provision of benefits to those who do not qualify and may not desire, inevitably result in reduction or loss in what those who strived for them would receive. The quotas for bonobos on the medical degree course lead to loss of opportunity for a gorilla, even if she happened to be more competent for the place. Indeed, if competency was the criteria, there would be no need for quotas - for women, LGB practitioners or trout that identify as goldfish. When quotas are filled and parity pursued, competency is compromised and the efficacy of organisations is diminished if not imperiled1. It is evident that appeasement of equitatores – and penalising gorillas, is inherently self-destructive2. Likewise with the hungry cats, who were persian.
Subversion
Equity, even though at times used synonymously with equality particularly in association with the construct of gender, demands not equal treatment - either in terms of enabling equal opportunity or even provision of equal resources, but privileged treatment. This privilege is to enable those who either did not or could not qualify - whether in terms of poverty or skills, according to criteria relevant to the benefit, to receive benefits on par with those or instead of those, who did work, did merit or even did need – as long as they belong or identify with groups picked out for privilege by Diversity3.
The basis for selection into privilege or persecution is the assumption that members exist unidimensionally within defined categories and are oppressed by the oppressors - who might themselves be diverse but now are no longer includable. This alleged oppression may be present and be sustained by the alleged oppressors via systemic discrimination, or it may be a presumed oppression of predecessors who may have been found in the group that the contemporary members identify with. The demand for systemic privilege for these groups, characterised by criteria irrelevant to the privilege, serves to oppress the competent and worthy, without it appearing to be intentional.
An benefit awarded could be either a reward, or a gift. They are available to be won or granted from within a limited pool, either in the custody of the government, private association or an individual. Rewards are earned via competition, with striving and through accomplishment, expertise and talent. Typical examples might be recruitment to a job, membership of a professional institute, a role in a movie, captaincy of a team, a cup, a bonus or pay cheque, or a complimentary valet service. Gifts may be received on account of privation or need. Typical examples might be discounts on healthcare, enrollment in a state school, fertiliser subsidies, lower taxation and other aspects of public social administration.
In the pursuit of excellence whether a sporting competition, a business, or an organisation with a purpose and vision, those who will help to win need to be on the team.
Being on the team will be their reward for the value they bring in. If the objective of an educational faculty is to produce the best trained alumni, then those capable of being best educated within, and those who will motivate and challenge the teachers to maintain or raise their own standards, those who will enhance the institute’s reputation and thereby future flourishing, should be taken in and that will be their reward. Attempts to bridge diversity gaps using members of a group categorised according to criteria irrelevant to scholarship such as the aperture employed for carnal gratification, will not help achieve the objective of the educational faculty as outlined herein. It might do, if the faculty’s purpose ceases to be educational excellence.
In the pursuit of charity, it would the hungry that would need to be fed – cat or hippo, pink or ginger.
Ravelment
Giving of what we have to others, particularly if they are in need, is good. That we are bound by piety to favour those who we are responsible for and affiliated with, prior to exercising globalist fraternity, is another matter. As possessors of resources we may or may not choose to give or share, and these choices will be personal moral decisions. Individuals and associations may perhaps have the liberty to, and certainly have preferences as to how to, dispense with their wealth - if they would dispense at all. The disposal of what is our own may be done ethically, or not; efficaciously, or not; or even equitably or not.
The state may strategise and prioritise on its spending, ideally in the best interests of its citizens. As a state or a society, it is good to raise up the lowly and provide to the dispossessed, and when capital is collected from members and the funds are communal, ethical allocation for disposal goes beyond personal choices to a social responsibility.
Elevating the downtrodden is good but is distinct from equating them with kings or making everyone equally a pauper. Once resources or opportunities are allocated, employing or distributing them effectively at maximal efficacy and productivity is good – but this is resource management, not equity.
Whether the recipient received charity or reward, the giver is responsible for granting it to the most worthy of it – whether in terms of the desperation of needed succour, competency for the opportunity or merit for the prize.
Reality
Hierarchies are multiple, and an individual may be at different levels in as many hierarchies, at a given time. He might even choose the hierarchy he wants to move up on, or on which he can move up on. He may find a hierarchy in which he already is high up on, or even be sufficiently ingenius to create his own blue ocean. The very fact that individuals may strive to move within hierarchies or across them and even create them, indicate the dynamism of hierarchies – which context provides a stage for the drama of human endeavour.
While kings are daily deposed the underdog could one day be top dog – and she will be worthy of it when she works up to it rather than has it handed to her by means of an imposed international neomarxist policy. Indeed, society will weaken and degenerate when members have nothing to strive manfully towards, although they may be all conferred degrees cantabrigiensis which never required a tripos4.
Hierarchies while inevitable since social bodies are organic, are susceptible to corruption by agency of the individuals that constitute them, but the solution is to defeat the corruption – not to apply the modern manifestation of the once noble idea of equity.
Drive
Equity is versatile then, although cruel, incongruous, subversive and unrealistic – and the sponsors of the ideological equitadores - the kings of the world, may not believe in its virtue either. And yet it is a sufficiently confounding and effective vehicle to usher in, institutionalise and energise the emasculation and effetisation of society, and with it the disappearance of marriage, the disruption of the natural family, the depression of commerce and industry, the confusion of children and the deconstruction of women – in a nutshell to suppress human flourishing.
Nevertheless, pandemic preparers, climate alarmists, gender benders, radical feminists, panamorists, population controllers, net zeroers, sex educators, stakeholder capitalists, abortionists and ESGers passionately pursuing their agendas and sacrificing truth and goodness in the names of the Triadic persons, are malleable tools in the armouries of the lords in their quest to change the world, transform its souls, and wage the battle of the ages.
Author: Dr Eshan Dias