The Lie That Is Discrimination
Posted on 2:06 am, Wednesday, 20 February, 2008 by Scotty StevensYesterday, we were defining 'discrimination'. Or rather, we were discussing the two chief dictionary definitions of this word:
1) The power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgement: "She chose the colours with great discrimination";
2) Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favour of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
After some discussion, we find that definition number one denotes using the power of the mind and five senses - honed with life-long practise - to ultimately discern the correct course of action in a given situation. In this instance, discrimination is a good thing, since your decision is the result of sound judgement and reason.
Definition number two describes 'discrimination' as - to paraphrase - prejudging a person based on his religion, gender, sexual orientation, religion, skin colour, etc. - rather than judging on individual merit. This can either be to the subject's favour, or against him. But this is actually 'indiscrimination', since the person is merely thrown in a pot with the others, in a haphazard fashion. There is no discrimination, here, as the power of discernment is not used. Therefore, this is not actually discrimination.
We can eventually conclude that, in fact, the word 'discrimination' seems to have two very different definitions. One correct and one contradicting of itself and incorrect by definition. So when someone says, "That's discrimination!" - what do they mean?
The other day, a manager friend of mine was lamenting at how he was going to have to convey an order to a Polish-born employee. Not for the first time, he commented on how difficult it was to communicate with the man, whose grasp of English was pretty poor. That's fair enough.
I mentioned how the employing of foreigners who can't speak the language was exactly the same as hiring English people who can't speak full stop, and that it would truly benefit a businessman if, in attempting to fill a role that required the candidate to be able to converse easily, he chose to employ someone with whom he could communicate - whom could speak the language.
"But that's discrimination" was his answer to my comment. But to which definition was he referring? The 'good' (correct) discrimination, or the 'bad' (incorrect) discrimination (indiscrimination)?
Firstly, he IS right. It IS discrimination. If you use definition number one. Using his experience, power of his mind, judgement and reason, the businessman decides that for the job, he needs someone with whom he can communicate easily with. Time is of the essence, and he can't afford to waste it drawing diagrams and gesturing wildly in an attempt to convey a point that would have taken ten seconds with someone that could speak and listen - native or not.
So yes, he is discriminating when he decides not to hire - or keep - the foreigner that he can't communicate with. But he is discriminating on grounds of communication, not nationality. To 'discriminate' against someone because of their nationality is actually not discrimination, because you are not using your powers of discernment in your judgement. In fact, you are not judging at all. Therefore you are being indiscriminate, since you are merely throwing him in a pile with his natives, haphazardly, to paraphrase Dictionary.com's definition - quoted in yesterday's article.
It's time for some more examples of 'discrimination'…
Consider the man who's running a successful law firm. He needs a new lawyer to expand and advance his firm. He interviews two excellent candidates, both equally endowed with the finest credentials needed to be a successful lawyer. One is a man, the other is a woman. After careful thought, he decides to hire the man, on the basis that by his male nature, he's more likely to have the stomach for the position AND there's no chance that he will be leaving the firm temporarily to give birth to a child.
The businessman has used his powers of discernment to weigh up both candidates' potential, and upon concluding that they have the same level of law skill, he has decided to opt for the man since nature has taught him that the man is more befitting the job.
Now, today's climate allows the woman to make a case for discrimination against women, in light of our fictitious employer's choice. But has the businessman discriminated against women? The answer is no. He has used his powers of discernment - discrimination - to determine that out of the two applicants, the man was more suitable. You may say that because the final criterion used in his decision was gender-based, he was 'discriminating' against all women.
But he only had two applicants in front of him. Not three billion. To say he was discriminating against an entire gender would be implying that he had interviewed all three billion of them, used his powers of discernment - discrimination - and concluded that, by individual merit, none of them were suitable for the job.
Of course, he didn't interview all three billion females for the position! So, by definition, he didn't discriminate against women. He discriminated against one woman, using definition number one - which is right.
If the woman is saying the man discriminated against women, what she actually means is that he 'indiscriminated' against women, by means of throwing the woman on a pile with all the other three billion females in an indiscriminate, haphazard fashion. And to be indiscriminate would be to assume that all three billion females are exactly the same. Once again, the man only interviewed one woman.
Had he had more female candidates, he may have found, by careful discernment, a woman vastly superior to the male candidate in law skill - so skilful that her superior ability outweighed her disadvantage of both not having the male stomach for the job and her potential, temporary absence during a possible child-birth. In this instance, in choosing to hire the woman, he would have discriminated for the woman and against the man. Still, only two candidates are involved in this discrimination - not three billion.
Now, using the fictitious law firm example again, imagine that there are ten candidates for the job - all of them male. But nine of them are black, and one of them is white. Suppose, by careful discrimination on grounds of ability, the employer determines that the white man is the best for the job. Suddenly there is a lawsuit on our businessman's desk making a case against racial discrimination.
But what has he done? He has used his life-long-honed skill of discrimination to discern that the white man is better qualified for the job. The fact that the other nine candidates were of a different skin colour is of complete coincidence. The employer did discriminate against the other nine men - but on grounds of ability, not skin colour.
To wail that he had racially discriminated against black people would be to maintain that he had interviewed every black person alive and discerned - by discrimination - that they were all unsuitable for the job, on grounds of ability. The 'anti-racists' cries of discrimination are, therefore, of indiscrimination, since no discernment or discrimination could have occurred in the act of haphazardly throwing a man on a pile just because of his skin colour.
I should point out that I'm not a fan of labelling people into 'races', organised by skin colour. There is only one race and that is the human race. No one is equal, and no one should be treated equally, since we are all different. Everyone should be judged on their individual merit. Yet job application forms nearly always come with the 'Ethnic Monitoring' box at the end, which is supposedly, ultimately, for the good of society. But the very act of taking numbers and figures to form quotas is implying that skin colour, religion, etc. matter. It is irrelevant. All that matters is ability and philosophy.
Imagine a man needs to hire someone to operate a lighthouse. Is it wrong for him to put in the advert that "Only full-sighted applicants should apply"? Is it right that he should be taken to court and morally stripped for allegedly attacking an entire demographic when, in reality, he was merely looking for an applicant with the physical traits NEEDED for the successful undertaking of the position and ultimate expansion of his business via the best bang for his buck?
Suppose a man is looking to build a team of philosophers charged with the task of creating a coaching program teaching within a specific philosophy. He requires the candidates to be atheists, since the philosophy that the program will be built around centres on the rebuttal of religion. Is he morally wrong for excluding religious candidates from interviews?
In most cases of 'discrimination', you can bet that no prejudging (non-judging) has taken place. Decisions have been made by careful discernment and discrimination based on ability or philosophy. This is discrimination of a good kind. To prejudge and 'discriminate' against someone because of their skin colour, disability, religion, etc., is NOT discrimination, since no judgement has actually occurred. The arbitrary decision that occurs on grounds of skin colour and religion is 'indiscrimination', or prejudging. This is what is morally wrong. But, sadly, all too often, indiscrimination (prejudging) is confused with discrimination (judging).
The growth of ridiculous anti-human laws has led to the invention of the nanny state. This has spawned the compensation culture we live in, which invites the innumerable 'No Win No Fee' law firms to entice and compensate those poor victims of life to spend their never-to-be-reclaimed life-hours battling those that apparently made their life a hardship.
The only real winners, here, are the law courts - for upholding these disgusting laws, the 'No Win No Fee' firms - for riding the wave of those disgusting laws, and the successful claimants - when winning the money off those nasty producers. The losers are invariably those that produced and gave opportunity to the humans that made their own decision to partake in the event or situation for which they are claiming compensation.
But in reality, they are all losers. Evil begets evil. Weak begets weak. Brain-dead begets brain-dead. Un-hindered, the evil, weak and brain-dead would eventually end-up eating itself.
So who really wins? As for the good, it can't operate within structures built by the evil. It requires the good to defeat the evil, to ultimately destroy the structure. Only then has the good won.
The power, my friend, is in completely the wrong hands. The time has come to reclaim it. Before it's too late…
To freedom,
Scotty Stevens
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Scotty Stevens
The Humanpreneur
"mecum et incipio et finio"
The God Is You -
"Self Development For The Selfish"
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