I have had more thoughts since writing about discrimination recently. I think I have reached the conclusion that some anti-discrimination ideals are a farce.
Please don't misunderstand me. I think that treating people as inferior or deliberately putting people down is bad behaviour. Especially if it is on the grounds that the other people are of a different gender or a different race. By this definition of discrimination, I would think that discrimination is wrong.
The other people are as human as we are. They are sinners, just like us. In this sense, we are no better than the others and should not act as if we are.
However, as I thought about it, I also thought that the opposite extreme is also not true. To regard everybody as the same is not being true to reality. We are of different genders. We are made up of many races. We can discriminate to the extent of realising these differences, even if we do not put others down. We can acknowledge who the bride and who the groom is, for example; or choose to use the right toilet.
To think that everybody gets the same marks in exams, to think that everybody is as athletically capable as each other - these are examples of just not being real. To think that an untrained guy is as capable of performing surgery as a trained surgeon ... I would not do this, would you?
I think we are swallowing a lie if we take this meaning of discrimination too far. We could end up saying that there should be no headship in the home, or even in the country. We could say that worshipping God, idols or the Devil is exactly the same thing.
I think that we should not regard ourselves more highly than what we ought to, we should not put other people down. But to think that children have the same right to correct their parents, to think that everybody is exactly the same in every way ... that is not right either.
What do you think? Are all created equal, but some are more equal than others the way "Animal Farm" says? Are we all alike in every way? Are we believing a lie if we champion the anti-discrimination concept to its extreme?
Showing posts with label deceive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deceive. Show all posts
26 February 2013
21 January 2013
Cheating
"Cheating is typical", said Dan Ariely in an interview with New Scientist. He reckons that "we are all prone to dishonesty" when the circumstances are right. How prone we are depends on our morality, and our culture, to some extent, but if the circumstances favour cheating and if we think we are doing the right thing by cheating, then we will cheat.
In an experiment, he found that when people are told that they can shred their answers and then tell how many they were able to attempt in five minutes, most people would claim that they have done six when they actually only did four. Not many would exaggerate to say ten or twenty, as people to have some sense of self esteem.
Ariely reckons that many cheat in the world of banking, where the stakes are high and the rules are not clear. They rationalise that this is what they are paid to do; it is not really cheating when their colleagues and counterparts and competitors are doing it; it is not cheating when they are doing what is expected of them. Ariely seems to advocate the view that we have the tendency to do what we think to be rationally appropriate, even when it may not be morally correct.
What do you think? Do you cheat? Does everyone cheat? Is cheating rational?
Something else in my recent reading was about the "Piltdown man", who turned out to be a hoax.
It had long been anticipated that there would be a "missing link", a hybrid species between ape and man, if man had truly evolved from apes. A discovery in the early 20th century suggested that perhaps archaeologists had found this link. The Piltdown man was derived from a finding of skull and jawbone fragments - the skull was that of a man, the jaw was that of an ape, and there was a tooth of an elephant in the puzzle as well.
It was later discovered that the age of these bones were not consistent with each other. The finding was a fraud.
Who conscripted this fraud? Why? Was it to deceive the world? Was any money involved? Scientific credibility or prestige? The world did not gain from being duped, although the devil may have led some astray because of this lie.
Is the Piltdown man part of the cheating psychology that Ariely talks about? Why do we deceive others, and ourselves? What do you think?
In an experiment, he found that when people are told that they can shred their answers and then tell how many they were able to attempt in five minutes, most people would claim that they have done six when they actually only did four. Not many would exaggerate to say ten or twenty, as people to have some sense of self esteem.
Ariely reckons that many cheat in the world of banking, where the stakes are high and the rules are not clear. They rationalise that this is what they are paid to do; it is not really cheating when their colleagues and counterparts and competitors are doing it; it is not cheating when they are doing what is expected of them. Ariely seems to advocate the view that we have the tendency to do what we think to be rationally appropriate, even when it may not be morally correct.
What do you think? Do you cheat? Does everyone cheat? Is cheating rational?
Something else in my recent reading was about the "Piltdown man", who turned out to be a hoax.
It had long been anticipated that there would be a "missing link", a hybrid species between ape and man, if man had truly evolved from apes. A discovery in the early 20th century suggested that perhaps archaeologists had found this link. The Piltdown man was derived from a finding of skull and jawbone fragments - the skull was that of a man, the jaw was that of an ape, and there was a tooth of an elephant in the puzzle as well.
It was later discovered that the age of these bones were not consistent with each other. The finding was a fraud.
Who conscripted this fraud? Why? Was it to deceive the world? Was any money involved? Scientific credibility or prestige? The world did not gain from being duped, although the devil may have led some astray because of this lie.
Is the Piltdown man part of the cheating psychology that Ariely talks about? Why do we deceive others, and ourselves? What do you think?
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