Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently stated in an interview something to the effect that the US Constitution does not protect women from discrimination. That's not a direct quote, but that's the jist of what was said. If you don't believe me, look it up.
This sent an uproar through the media, the government, and many of my friends. I am fortunate to be surrounded by mostly well-educated and/or highly intelligent women. And having been raised by a working mother, female equality as a concept is ingrained in my belief system, so much so that it bleeds through my automated behaviors and thoughts. I've never known it any other way.
So imagine my shock when I realized that this guy is...right. Wait...really? Yes, as a matter of fact, he is. He may be crazy, irrational, and a little scary, but I can't add the above quote-summary to my already too-long-list of reasons to believe such.
Exploring the "why" behind this realization began the internal debate on the great contradiction that is equality.
Let's start (and end) at the Preamble to what is possibly the most eloquent summation of the human condition, and the very nature of freedom, that has ever existed. A document that forever changed the world and the course of human events: The Declaration of Independence. I'm not a lawyer, so I'll keep this short(ish). I only want to discuss one line. The second sentence, to be exact. This one, right here, yeah...that one...the one in quotation marks: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
That's heavy. Jefferson was good at heavy. He was also good to his slaves.
Now calm down. Wait just a darn-tooting minute and let me explain. I'm not going to attack Jefferson. I see no call for that. Difficult times, difficult culture, difficult situation, and on and on and on. And on. We've heard it all before. Just for the record, I'm damn glad he existed. Now let's go back to exploring that sentence.
All I want to point out is that sentence - #2 in the D of I - the one up there in quotes...see it? Yeah, that one. It's not true. Yes. I'm serious. It is. Is too. Is too. Is too times 10. Not only do I believe it's a lie, I can prove my heretical claim. With one word. One word is all I need. Ready? Here it comes...
Glasses.
What? Really? Glasses? That's your big proof, Mr. Thoughts on Thoughts?
Yes. Yes it is. I wear glasses. Have since the age of 9. I was not created equal to a person my same age, race, and gender who has 20/20 vision. Now that little voice in your head, the one that's trying to codify this...tell it to shut up for just one second. I may be smarter than that perfect-eyed bastard. Maybe I grew up in a more loving home. Maybe I'm faster, or thinner, or funnier. That's what that little voice in your head said, right? Those traits where I may be superior, they make me equal, right?
Wrong. Think it over. That concept is flawed. Why? Because at the core of the word, what smarter people would call the 'denotation', equal means 'the same'. Feel free to fact check me: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/equal .
Mr. I-can-read-that-street-sign-over-there and I are not, by definition, equal. And I get to carry around a visible handicap everywhere I go, just to prove it. What handicap is that, you may ask? Glasses. Remember? Where have you been this whole time? You see, reader, everyone that meets me, everyone that passes me in the street, everyone that sees me knows that I am not equal. Without these crutches, I mean...glasses, I couldn't get a job, operate a motor vehicle, I couldn't have been successful in school as a child!
Therefore, I am not equal. Therefore a vagina and a penis are not equal. They are not equal because they are not the same. They may be equal on some philosophical level, but out here, in the real world, they are not. One is no better than the other (though preference does depend on sexual orientation), but that doesn't make them equal. It makes them similar, symbiotic, even complementary, but equal they are not.
Then why do we fight so hard for equality when we are not equal, Mr. ToTs? Why do we have to fight for equality if we are equal? Ahh...there it is...we fight for equality because we are not equal. And we know it. So to make up for this, we ask people to discriminate on our behalf. See, herein lies that contradiction that disqualifies equality as an actionable possibility. Ready for it? I think you are. Wheelchair ramps are an open admittance that those robbed of the gift to walk are not equal. They are not equally able to walk up stairs, so we discriminate on their behalf by forcing contractors to build every space in our society so that it is accessible to the ambulatorilly-challenged. Don't spell check that word, I made it up. But do you get where I'm going? Picking up what I'm putting down? Good.
We force companies to interview candidates for employment based on race and gender, rather than ability and qualifications. Even NFL teams have to interview at least one African-American candidate before they can fill a head coaching job. Someone just wasted a few thousand dollars flying first-class to Dallas so that Jerry Jones could give the job to the coach he already had. That's what I call progress.
Now you can go about your internal monologuing regarding EEOE, Affirmative Action, etc, later. Just let me say a few more things, then we'll close this up.
I have met perhaps a dozen people in my life that have equal skin color to mine. I have an olivey-brownish-pale perma-tan thing going on. The result of 16 different ethnicities running through my DNA strands. The typical American mutt. Those 16 ethnicities are almost all simple variances on white. I am fortunate to be white. I admit that. I also admit that its ridiculous that this statement is true, and socially acceptable. One thing we've never come to terms with, as a human race, is that the three non-equalities that really don't matter - the ones that don't actually impact shit about how we can interact with one another, perform our duties to our communities, and further the cause of our humanity - gender, sexual preference, and skin color - are the three things that we have historically focused on the most. Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it? Well that's because it is. Ask residents of Hiroshima if they think it was smart for Hitler to expel Jewish scientists to America in the late 1930's...
The Constitution does not provide protection against discrimination for women. He's right. But when that document was written, women were property. I hope we've moved far enough beyond that, philosophically, culturally, and emotionally, for it not to matter. If we don't discriminate for or against the things that don't actually matter, we'll all be happier. Regardless of what any document says. We'll all be a little closer to that elusive adjective.
But let's continue to discriminate when it matters. Handicap-accessible is a damn good discrimination. So is forcing me to wear glasses to drive. Why? The fact that Joe Wheelchair can't walk affects his abilities for real, and will do so every day of his life. If I drive without glasses, people die. So let's be good neighbors and discriminate in a way that forces us all to help each other out. It still won't be equal, but it will be a much nicer world. But telling someone they can't do a job because they have a vagina is just as dumb as assuming someone can do a job just because they have a penis.
Not equal, not separate, and not pretending that we are. We're stuck on this rock here on the edge of this galaxy that's on the edge of the known universe. Can we at least do our best to make it fun for everyone, regardless of how equal they are?
Thanks for reading. Agree or disagree, I hope it made you think.
Turning philosophy, politics, and ethics inside out, picking them apart, then reassembing them as ideas for a new way to look at life. Agree or disagree, you'll find it's worth reading. © 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Food for Thought...
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/06/132683668/china-battles-rising-prices-consumer-discontent
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/06/132684170/food-price-surge-puts-strain-on-indias-poor
I don't know how many of my posts will start with links to news stories, or other websites, but I'll try it on for size at least this once and we'll see how it goes.
You can't open a paper, flip to a news channel, or search your aggregated headlines lately (read: the last 2 years) without hearing/watching/seeing a story about food. It seems a global crisis is looming, and in many ways is already happening, for our food supply. As populations increase, along with labor and fuel costs, it seems that we are getting further from the goal of eliminating global hunger. Add a global economic recession to the mix and you have what less sophisticated writers might refer to as "a perfect storm". But I avoid cliches like the plague, so the luck o' the Irish is with you today, readers.
The above 2 stories caught my ear this morning on the way to work. It seems China and India are having serious troubles feeding their peoples. My first thought was: "how is this news? When have these two countries ever NOT had problems with food distribution and access?" But then a Chinese citizen was quoted as saying "...regular people can't afford green vegetables anymore..." My first thought after that: 'welcome to America...'
That's right. My pasty white American ass was jealous, if only for a brief second, of a commie. That's the only thing that could cause a thought that pessimistic and irrational. Or perhaps I was too harsh on myself in that moment following that petty thought...
See, we've been facing this crisis for years in the good ole' US of A. It rolled over our country slowly, and we took it like we were getting paid for it. And in a way, we were. The dollar menu provides cheap, fast, and filling food for a single adult, leaving enough money in the wallet for cover at the club. A family trying to survive on one minimum wage income has no other option. This begs the question: Which came first? The overpriced chicken or the overpriced egg?
Those who know me well know I love food. L-O-V-E love. In a way that would make a person with a less fortunate hand of cards from the genetic pool obese and diabetic. So this is hard to say, but I have to be honest. It's not McDonald's fault. Walmart isn't to blame. ConAgra, Monsanto, they aren't either. I am. Me and all the other foodies that love our out-of-season blueberries from Chile, and blood red, ripe strawberries in December shipped in direct from Ecuador. All manner of fancy groceries from countries we can't afford to visit because we spend so much damn money on food. For the same reason Walmart deserves their fair share of blame for driving down wages, we deserve our fair share of blame for lowering food quality, and driving up prices.
See, the answer to that question above, it's obvious. Neither came first. The free range chicken from the barnyard came first. The affordable eggs from the local farmer came first. Expensive food, we made that. Nature didn't.
By selling organic milk for $6 a gallon, Horizon Dairy Farms gave tacit approval for rich humans to overlook the wrongs being done to not-rich humans. "As long as my kid drinks good, hormone-free milk, they'll be fine and I won't feel guilty." But what about the other kids? Instead of forcing the existing manufacturers, farmers, and suppliers to give us better food at fair prices, we chose to delegate that responsibility to Whole Foods Markup, and we paid them for it. Dearly. The thought shared by seller and buyer: Let those who can have what they what, and damn the rest.
We could have stopped rBgh. We could have avoided the reality that 80% of all antibiotics sold in the US go into our meat supply. We could have stopped pesticides, genetically altered seeds that only sprout plants that don't have seeds, and factory cattle farms. Ethanol is driving up the price of corn - not because there's not enough corn, but because it's all already been delegated to go into our food supply. Nutrient and flavor-free corn, the perfect medium for laboratory flavors.
But us white and wealthy Americans took the easy way out. We started companies to grow real food, instead of stopping companies from growing fake food. We took it, like we were getting paid to take it (read: like hookers).
Tomatoes used to be good. Now they all look the same and taste the same. It's not that great of a taste, but it's consistent, which is good for McWendy King. But it's not good for the people, it's not good for the grocer, it's not good for the farmer, and it's not good for the soil. When Monsanto gets picked apart by a congressional food bill in 10 years, we'll have crops that don't grow anymore. We'll have tasteless fruits and vegetables that no one can afford. And we'll have only ourselves to blame. Blaming the poor for eating off the dollar menu is like blaming slaves for slavery. The people that could have stopped it...us...we...we could have done something about it. We could have said no. No to rBgh and no to $6 milk, all at the same time. No to factory farming and no to $5 bell peppers. No to trade deficits and no to produce that is out of season.
Is it too late to say no? Maybe. Without collective action, definitely. No child will die from a week without milk. And if 300 million people went one week without buying milk, shit would change. Fast. See, corporations, no matter how evil or disembodied, must listen to their customers. So be like Lennon, and start a revolution from your bed. A revolution of inaction. Buy seasonal, buy local, and make a demand every now and then.
Thanks for reading. Agree or disagree, I hope you like it.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/06/132684170/food-price-surge-puts-strain-on-indias-poor
I don't know how many of my posts will start with links to news stories, or other websites, but I'll try it on for size at least this once and we'll see how it goes.
You can't open a paper, flip to a news channel, or search your aggregated headlines lately (read: the last 2 years) without hearing/watching/seeing a story about food. It seems a global crisis is looming, and in many ways is already happening, for our food supply. As populations increase, along with labor and fuel costs, it seems that we are getting further from the goal of eliminating global hunger. Add a global economic recession to the mix and you have what less sophisticated writers might refer to as "a perfect storm". But I avoid cliches like the plague, so the luck o' the Irish is with you today, readers.
The above 2 stories caught my ear this morning on the way to work. It seems China and India are having serious troubles feeding their peoples. My first thought was: "how is this news? When have these two countries ever NOT had problems with food distribution and access?" But then a Chinese citizen was quoted as saying "...regular people can't afford green vegetables anymore..." My first thought after that: 'welcome to America...'
That's right. My pasty white American ass was jealous, if only for a brief second, of a commie. That's the only thing that could cause a thought that pessimistic and irrational. Or perhaps I was too harsh on myself in that moment following that petty thought...
See, we've been facing this crisis for years in the good ole' US of A. It rolled over our country slowly, and we took it like we were getting paid for it. And in a way, we were. The dollar menu provides cheap, fast, and filling food for a single adult, leaving enough money in the wallet for cover at the club. A family trying to survive on one minimum wage income has no other option. This begs the question: Which came first? The overpriced chicken or the overpriced egg?
Those who know me well know I love food. L-O-V-E love. In a way that would make a person with a less fortunate hand of cards from the genetic pool obese and diabetic. So this is hard to say, but I have to be honest. It's not McDonald's fault. Walmart isn't to blame. ConAgra, Monsanto, they aren't either. I am. Me and all the other foodies that love our out-of-season blueberries from Chile, and blood red, ripe strawberries in December shipped in direct from Ecuador. All manner of fancy groceries from countries we can't afford to visit because we spend so much damn money on food. For the same reason Walmart deserves their fair share of blame for driving down wages, we deserve our fair share of blame for lowering food quality, and driving up prices.
See, the answer to that question above, it's obvious. Neither came first. The free range chicken from the barnyard came first. The affordable eggs from the local farmer came first. Expensive food, we made that. Nature didn't.
By selling organic milk for $6 a gallon, Horizon Dairy Farms gave tacit approval for rich humans to overlook the wrongs being done to not-rich humans. "As long as my kid drinks good, hormone-free milk, they'll be fine and I won't feel guilty." But what about the other kids? Instead of forcing the existing manufacturers, farmers, and suppliers to give us better food at fair prices, we chose to delegate that responsibility to Whole Foods Markup, and we paid them for it. Dearly. The thought shared by seller and buyer: Let those who can have what they what, and damn the rest.
We could have stopped rBgh. We could have avoided the reality that 80% of all antibiotics sold in the US go into our meat supply. We could have stopped pesticides, genetically altered seeds that only sprout plants that don't have seeds, and factory cattle farms. Ethanol is driving up the price of corn - not because there's not enough corn, but because it's all already been delegated to go into our food supply. Nutrient and flavor-free corn, the perfect medium for laboratory flavors.
But us white and wealthy Americans took the easy way out. We started companies to grow real food, instead of stopping companies from growing fake food. We took it, like we were getting paid to take it (read: like hookers).
Tomatoes used to be good. Now they all look the same and taste the same. It's not that great of a taste, but it's consistent, which is good for McWendy King. But it's not good for the people, it's not good for the grocer, it's not good for the farmer, and it's not good for the soil. When Monsanto gets picked apart by a congressional food bill in 10 years, we'll have crops that don't grow anymore. We'll have tasteless fruits and vegetables that no one can afford. And we'll have only ourselves to blame. Blaming the poor for eating off the dollar menu is like blaming slaves for slavery. The people that could have stopped it...us...we...we could have done something about it. We could have said no. No to rBgh and no to $6 milk, all at the same time. No to factory farming and no to $5 bell peppers. No to trade deficits and no to produce that is out of season.
Is it too late to say no? Maybe. Without collective action, definitely. No child will die from a week without milk. And if 300 million people went one week without buying milk, shit would change. Fast. See, corporations, no matter how evil or disembodied, must listen to their customers. So be like Lennon, and start a revolution from your bed. A revolution of inaction. Buy seasonal, buy local, and make a demand every now and then.
Thanks for reading. Agree or disagree, I hope you like it.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Thought for the day 1/5/11
Do we, as a species, worry too much about the next generation? It seems ingrained into our DNA. At least within the past century. Our grandparents' general opinion of our parents generation seemed negative. They didn't face enough hardship, had it too easy, 10 miles in the snow both ways, and on and on and on. Babyboomers seem to have the same perception of Generation X, and we all know that pretty much everyone snubs their noses at Gen Y. The derogatory pun is even built into the name.
I hear a lot of bitching from my peers, and those in the preceding generations. "No one knows how to count change anymore at the store." "Google gives them all the answers." "What would they do without computers?" "No one ever plays outside." Listening to most of these comments, the general conclusion is that we're all screwed. No hope for the future at all.
But this logic may be flawed at its core. So much so that I question whether we can even call it logic. Let's explore this, shall we?
First, I feel compelled to point out that we're all still here. So at least 3 generations have been wrong. The best that anyone predicting our demise (based on generational incompetence) can possibly hope for at this point is a 25% success rate. That's not very good. So statistically speaking, the best possibility for this theory is dismal failure.
Let us now move on to another common 'fear-ception'. We'll call it "The boy who couldn't count change". It does seem that a startlingly large portion of fast food and grocery store clerks have no concept of how to calculate change in their heads. Alarming? Hell yes. Until you think about it. How often do you use cash anymore? If you're average, the answer to that question is : "almost never". Cash has become the minority method of currency exchange. By a lot. So part of the issue is that these kids simply don't get the practice. Another thing to consider is what $7.25, the current minimum wage, will get you. It may get you a lot of things, but two things it's guaranteed not to get you is 1) motivated people and 2) qualified help. The smartest people alive today are way smarter than anyone ever has been. And the dumbest people...they're about the same as they've always been. There were tons of teenagers that couldn't count change in 1955 either, no matter what grandpa says. Know how I know? I worked for them in fast food restaurants when I was a teenager.
But even then, Thoughts on Thoughts guy, could we do it without Google???? Could we survive without our smart phones? First, probably. Second, will we ever actually have to? For all of the systems that keep our technophilia afloat to crash simultaneously is unlikely at best. And for them to crash permanently, or even for an extended period of time: highly improbable even on Nero's best day. Consider the Wikileaks backlash. The best hackers in the world, united with the best technology in the world, took down MasterCard.com for...about an hour. Visa was down for about 15 minutes in a handful of countries. Amazon and Pay pal never fell. For every kid that can't count change there is another kid that can write a line of code that will make the first kid obsolete, but still employable. For that $7.25 an hour. Why? Software people love fast food. It's called balance.
So it seems that underneath all of this 'holier-than-though' paranoia and doomsdaying there lies a serious flaw: We assume that because kids can't master the tedious bullshit that was our lives as children, that they have no hope to be better than we are in the future. I say that the opposite is true. Past is prologue, and human history is a story of better, faster, stronger, and smarter, with very few exceptions. I'm proud that my 5 year old can work an iPhone. That's the skill set she will need for life. She will never need to roll a tire with a stick for fun, or count change after selling your fat ass a burger.
I hear a lot of bitching from my peers, and those in the preceding generations. "No one knows how to count change anymore at the store." "Google gives them all the answers." "What would they do without computers?" "No one ever plays outside." Listening to most of these comments, the general conclusion is that we're all screwed. No hope for the future at all.
But this logic may be flawed at its core. So much so that I question whether we can even call it logic. Let's explore this, shall we?
First, I feel compelled to point out that we're all still here. So at least 3 generations have been wrong. The best that anyone predicting our demise (based on generational incompetence) can possibly hope for at this point is a 25% success rate. That's not very good. So statistically speaking, the best possibility for this theory is dismal failure.
Let us now move on to another common 'fear-ception'. We'll call it "The boy who couldn't count change". It does seem that a startlingly large portion of fast food and grocery store clerks have no concept of how to calculate change in their heads. Alarming? Hell yes. Until you think about it. How often do you use cash anymore? If you're average, the answer to that question is : "almost never". Cash has become the minority method of currency exchange. By a lot. So part of the issue is that these kids simply don't get the practice. Another thing to consider is what $7.25, the current minimum wage, will get you. It may get you a lot of things, but two things it's guaranteed not to get you is 1) motivated people and 2) qualified help. The smartest people alive today are way smarter than anyone ever has been. And the dumbest people...they're about the same as they've always been. There were tons of teenagers that couldn't count change in 1955 either, no matter what grandpa says. Know how I know? I worked for them in fast food restaurants when I was a teenager.
But even then, Thoughts on Thoughts guy, could we do it without Google???? Could we survive without our smart phones? First, probably. Second, will we ever actually have to? For all of the systems that keep our technophilia afloat to crash simultaneously is unlikely at best. And for them to crash permanently, or even for an extended period of time: highly improbable even on Nero's best day. Consider the Wikileaks backlash. The best hackers in the world, united with the best technology in the world, took down MasterCard.com for...about an hour. Visa was down for about 15 minutes in a handful of countries. Amazon and Pay pal never fell. For every kid that can't count change there is another kid that can write a line of code that will make the first kid obsolete, but still employable. For that $7.25 an hour. Why? Software people love fast food. It's called balance.
So it seems that underneath all of this 'holier-than-though' paranoia and doomsdaying there lies a serious flaw: We assume that because kids can't master the tedious bullshit that was our lives as children, that they have no hope to be better than we are in the future. I say that the opposite is true. Past is prologue, and human history is a story of better, faster, stronger, and smarter, with very few exceptions. I'm proud that my 5 year old can work an iPhone. That's the skill set she will need for life. She will never need to roll a tire with a stick for fun, or count change after selling your fat ass a burger.
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