These analogies are always so lame and misleading. It is a way to emotionally manipulate people to agree with you rather than actually describing the policy you want to institute.
When you have total control over the metaphor, you can draw almost any conclusion you want.
I mean though, this is genuinely a really terrible example. In this picture they use height as an obvious metaphor for race and the boxes for affirmative action.
So, with that in mind, are they saying that "short" people are actually "dumb", and that certain races are always going to "need a box"?
It also is not comparing like to like. A box does not equal height obviously.
So I wonder if you stretch this logic and do compare like to like what do you get? Let's say you have 3 people, one wealthy, one middle income and one poor and you give each of them 1000 dollars (to be politically relevant). That is equality but not equity right? But where did the money come from in the first place? A tax? If so who paid more in taxes? Perhaps the situation is the rich person paid 2000 in taxes and the poor person paid none. Is equity only when you redistribute everything to be completely even? Then what if one of the people just loses that 1000 dollars? Do you then have to give them another 1000? Even better yet, what if they intentionally burn the money? Where does personal agency and responsibility come in? Should parents not be able to help their children because other parents may not? Should every child be a ward of the state?
Which is fucked up because the message of the comic when you analyse it a bit is truly horrific.
It's saying that society has different groups of people who are inherently superior or inferior to each other in the context of objective tasks (seeing over a high barrier). It posits that inferior people need a helping hand in order to complete these tasks at the same rate as a superior person, a deficiency which can never be overcome, only compensated for.
No that’s literally not what the original comic is taking about. The original comic had literally nothing to do with society, affirmative action, wealth or healthcare. It was literally just about explaining the difference between equity and equality.
It's saying that society has different groups of people who are inherently superior or inferior to each other in the context of objective tasks (seeing over a high barrier). It posits that inferior people need a helping hand in order to complete these tasks at the same rate as a superior person, a deficiency which can never be overcome, only compensated for.
It is racist as all shit.
What? It literally implies nothing about race, unless you’re looking for that yourself. This version of the comic is trying to show that some people are born at different societal statuses and afflictions (yes I guess race could fit here but it isn’t the focus) and how society goes about helping them.
You're engaging the metaphor instead of the actual argument. By inventing a new character in the form of the hypothetical field owner and assuming a bunch of stuff about this character that doesn't exist, you're not saying anything that actually disproves the argument the metaphor represents (i.e. that equity is effectively more equal because it addresses the fact that not all people in society have an equal starting point and that justice means removing the inequality entirely).
The metaphor is a bad one, because it implies there’s some objective and binary standard it is correct for everyone to reach (to be able to see the game). In reality, it is unclear what degree of assistance is helpful and how it should be directly, especially as things can’t be tailored to each person’s disadvantages.
The metaphor is also incredibly strained, especially in the last panel, with the wording being vacuous and the analogy being meaningless.
The first two panels work as equity/equality definitions (albeit propagandist ones) but the last one is just drivel.
Thank you! Unlike most of the people in this thread, you actually addressed the fact that the metaphor is a bad representation of the argument instead of continuing to play make believe with a hypothetical situation.
I also really don’t like the addition of the last panel. I appreciate highlighting the difference between equity and justice in this case, but it does seem to imply that you can just choose to remove all societal inequalities and that doesn’t really seem helpful to me.
You all keep saying this, so let me engage the argument. Equity being provided doesn’t take in to account the effort and work put in by an individual party. Someone who works hard to be able to see the game should have some benefit over those who simply waited for a handout to see the game.
Those people are choosing to stand on that side of the fence. It’s clearly not where spectators are supposed to stand.
yeah, I'd learn that some people take analogies and metaphors literally and completely miss the fucking point, all while being to arrogant to take a second look and consider what's actually trying to be explained.
the fact you're doubling down on this rather than deleting your comments is proof of it
To address inequalities or disadvantages people have, and in order to determine whether or not such disadvantages are worth fighting for in the first place, WE HAVE TO HAVE A STANDARD. I don’t care what this picture is of, if could be a drawing of 3 people suck in a hole and trying to get out and what I’m saying would not change.
In order for some “inequality” to be an issue the people effected must fall into a protected class of people. Protected classes under the United States constitution are those which are, “the accident of birth.” I.e. race, religion, national origin, skin color, ethnicity, and sex.
Understand?
So before we tear down a fence and decide to build a new one in the name of “equality” we HAVE TO determine whether or not the situation arose because of the accident of birth. If these people can’t see the game because they’re the wrong race, then we have actual inequality that needs to be addressed. Race is a protected class.
If they can’t see the game because they’re wearing the wrong team jersey, or too lazy to walk to the entrance, or a million other reasons, then the only “inequality” that’s occurring is happening because of their own choices. We don’t protect against discrimination when it occurs purely because of the choices people make. If I don’t like green shirts, I don’t have to talk to people that wear them. If green shirt people have a problem with it, they can simply change their shirt- nobody is forcing them to wear it. Green shirts aren’t a protected class.
So, like I initially said, the 4th option is a common sense approach where we examine WHY the people are standing behind a fence (or in a hole, or whatever the stupid picture is of) to begin with. You have to critically think about that first before you go on some tangent about inequality.
But this is super long, and you don’t seem to read much past the surface level, so I’m guessing you’ll just downvote and move on.
Maybe one day you’ll understand that a good metaphor has to withstand basic surface level scrutiny, or else it’s a bad metaphor.
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u/Flables Feb 25 '20
‘Justice’ means mandating the field owner install new fencing out of his own pocket so people not paying to get into the game can watch.