YSK The difference between equality, justice and equity.
Why YSK: because what seems like equal situation from surface isn't always equal opportunity for all. And even when equal measure of help is provided, it might not be equally useful.
Every time I see this quaint but misleading image reposted it's necessary to make the same comment: the words attached to each image are do not exclusively represent those images. "Equality" could apply to all but the first; nobody uses "equity" this way; and most people use "justice" to refer to criminal justice and punishment.
Plenty of people use equity this way. Maybe not in your circles, but it’s not a new definition, it’s been around for decades. Millions of people in the US alone do not equate the criminal Justice system with the concept of Justice. Perhaps you should recognize that your perceptions are not able to be applied to the entire population. If you ever find yourself using “nobody” or “everybody” and you have no definitive data backing that up, I would recommend re-examining your biases, because what you appear to be doing is attempting to normalize your beliefs while otherizing the beliefs of others who do not share your view.
How would you label the different concepts?
It's an infographic for children...? I think it's meant to be simple.
I'm sure 18+ people should already have a more nuanced view of what those words mean. And if they don't I'm sure there are other materials they can peruse to help them understand.
I wonder if it was written by a non native speaker or a non American because the literal translation in French sounds right.
I guess that meme I keep seeing that's asks "did we leave all the stupid people on reddit?" Was wrong.
Y'all can't understand a few simple metaphorical images that looks like it was designed for children to understand, and are going all out in contriving obtuse reasons for why it doesn't work or isn't realistic.
Yes, of course if this was real she could walk to the other side, but it's a fucking metaphor.
Arguing about the metaphors and analogies instead of actual topics? Saw plenty of those during college, especially when the guy in question was being a contrarian just to 'stick it to the man' and look cool to their buddies.
I thought working adults would grow out of it - nah, we're all dumb children inside, including me.
I see it all the time. A certain demographic seemingly cannot comprehend metaphors and jf it isnt literally perfect in every way they attack it. I think really they know they wont look good admitting they have issues with the message of equality/equity so they attack the method of delivery instead
It's just such a bad metaphor. Not simple, bad.
I like the boxes and fence one more, this just feels super-contrived
But that one always brings out the smug responses about how they shouldn't be watching the game for free, totally (and purposefully) missing the point
The girl could literally just walk to the other side of the tree, there's no actual barrier. This one is super ham-fisted because it can spark the wrong side of the debate.
it can spark the wrong side of the debate.
any discussion of the topic would though, because those who oppose the basic idea of equality, let alone equity or justice, know only how to derail and/or project, they are not interested in having a sincere discussion, because they whole heartedly believe that some people are worth less than others, and they will justify that in whatever way makes sense to them because in their mind, they're all that matters.
True justice would be them watering the tree or something. That dude has been giving to these little shits the whole time. Let it be The Getting Tree for once.
My favorite is the meme edit where they just chop off everyone's legs so that they end up at the same height below the fence.
Fatality!
I like owning a home because I finally got some equality.
Equality should be in protection of rights. People are not equal, and never will be. They should have equal rights, though.
Steve Vai is a better guitarist than I am. He shouldn't have his fingers broken so that we both have equal ability to play the guitar.
Trying to make people equal in every way is evil. It only brings the best in every field down to the level of the worst, since there's no way to bring everyone up to the level of the best in every field.
That's not the point of equity. The point is to compensate for disadvantages people couldn't prevent and can't fix on their own. Stairs are equal. They work the same way for everyone. But someone in a wheelchair can't climb stairs.
But you can reframe it. People don't have equal mobility but everyone has an equal right to access a place, so you have stairs and ramps. You can't make everything a ramp or stair to create equality.
That's not how equity works in practice. It doesn't examine anyone's actual capabilities or disadvantages. They bucket large groups of people into categories they deem worthy to receive resources, despite their actual need. Every person has their individual story, challenges, and priveleges yet equity assumes otherwise, that you deserve compensation based on the group you were assigned to, not what you actually need.
In practice that's equity programs work by hurtingsomeone. Some California schools cut advanced math classes because they weren't diverse enough, or it was contributing to an educational gap, or some bullshit. Equity requires adding burden to someone, it may be in an attempt at fairness, but that doesn't make it right.
Nobody is advocating for breaking fingers. Following the example set by the image, if someone were to have, for example, issues with their hands, then they should be provided tools to help them play the guitar. Do you think someone with a disability shouldn't be allowed to do things even though tools to let them do those things exist? Keeping up such barriers is how we miss out on amazing talents hampered by obstacles that could be overcome provided adequate access.
I think what he was saying, but slightly missed, was, if both people needed guitar classes, we should not give the guy with the hand issues the only available seat.
Really though, if we just spend a bit more on education, there could be seats for everyone! So maybe the last picture could be fertilizing the tree to make it bigger or something.
There is no taking away. Someone will have access to guitars that wouldn’t otherwise. Someone somewhere let a great player hear a guitar, see how it’s played, maybe even gave them their first guitar. it’s about giving not taking away.
You entirely missed the point of this picture.
This picture isn't about breaking Steve's fingers so you can both play shitty guitar. It's about making sure you can both access a guitar and lessons to learn.
The equality picture would be shoving a guitar in each of your hands and a coupon for lessons, while failing to address that you live 2 hours away from the teacher while he lives next door.
Eta: equity would be providing you with a free buss ride to the teachers house 2 hours away. This gives you all the tools to get guitar lessons, but, you might not be able to take advantage of this because a 5 hour commitment isn't the same as a 1 hour 5 minute commitment and you lose out on opportunity cost. You get free guitar lessons and a ride, but the system is broken. Justice is fixing the system so that there's enough guitar teachers within a reasonable distance. Like say, making sure that no one is more than 20 minutes from a guitar teacher.
This image isn’t about making people equal, it’s about making systems equal…
I think your problem is that you think that something will be taken away. Try to think in terms of the giving. Steve is not going to have anything taken away. Someone will have access to guitars that wouldn’t otherwise. Steve will be fine.
You'll notice the Steve Vai apple picker (left) never has a reduction in apple access.
Your suggestion some harm might come to Steve Vai doesn't make sense, he can access apples as well as ever
While your statement is true, the result is Steve Vai not having a motivation or reason to become the top apple picker. If his extreme efforts to become the best in a given field are nullified by a system that will give extra to someone who isn't as good at it so that they can be as good as Steve, why bother with putting in that effort?
So yes, Steve is harmed by stealing his motivation and (potential) recognition by making the system anti-meritocracy and more about everyone being the same.
The equation changes when we live in a post scarcity society, but we didn't live in one. Therefore we have motivational pressure to find a niche we are good at and exploit it to survive. Taking away that niche you might be talented at while others aren't as talented, harm those people who now don't have that niche to exploit.
Even in a post-scarcity world, where we have unlimited access to energy (and thus can create anything we need), the motivation for social recognition through innate talent and ability is going to drive the human race forward. Taking that away kills the human spirit and possibly the human race.
I bet you are against designer babies/gene editing to give a child a huge advantage over it's peers, right? Because that is the logical conclusion of this metaphor and "justice." Genetically engineering every baby to have equal access to abilities and talent.
I posted this to a comment further down, but thought I should post it up here:
At birth there are situations that give people advantages that have nothing to do with ability. These advantages are systemic, where certain people will have better access to opportunity (apples) than others. The goal should be that the opportunities are equal so no one has a head start. The best apple picker will pick more apples instead of the person born with an orchard and apple picking machinery who very well may be a shit apple picker.
For your example, we'd end up with the best musicians becoming popular, not the ones where their parent could afford to give them private lessons since childhood and had industry connections to make them big where they wouldn't otherwise.
It's not about equality of outcomes, it's about equality of opportunity. No one should start a race with a head start because then you don't know who the best runner is. Everyone should start equally and everyone should have equal access to the same shoes, equipment, and practice opportunity, otherwise we can't see who's actually best without an advantage.
What you mean is something close to "We should not tax the rich to level the playing field" and that is a very bad take.
No one wants to bring everyone up to the level of the best in every field. What people want is for the baseline conditions to be good enough so everyone has the opportunity of having a decent life.
It is such a large difference.
Why are you arguing against something literally no one said? How is this graphic trying to ‘make everyone equal in every way’? How is the person on the left of the graphic disadvantaged in any way? (That last one answers your idiotic ‘breaking fingers’ point)
"Hmmm, he's in a wheelchair so we'll make things equal by chopping off your legs."
You make it seem like correcting the tree in the last panel hurts the advantaged girl on the left. It does not.
Wtf
Thats how one would describe it in an unhelpfully cynical way, lol
Putting supports on trees weakens them. The swaying makes them stronger.
Ha, I didn't even notice those. So many memes straight up are shitty for one reason or other.
Handicapped people might disagree
I get you're coming from a good place, but we're disabled, not handicapped
Equality is letting anyone gather apples on any side of the tree.
I don't see a fence...
Maybe the real point of the comic is that the girl on the right is really stupid, so we should tilt the tree instead of having her lazy ass move the ladder.
Yet sometimes you can't choose where you come from or where you stand. Even if you let people stand where they want, some have larger hands or are taller and stronger so can gather more apples.
OSHA gonna have a word about how they’re using those ladders…
The Justice pic: a man yells at the kids stealing apples from his garden, while the kids are running away, loosing all the apples.
I remember this type of post being 90% of r/coolguides
Doesn't the first panel also have equal tools and assistance?
No. The system leaning in favor of one group is very much a type of assistance.
No since the tree is leaning to one side, so more apples will fall that way.
Only if you consider no tools or assistance to qualify as "having tools or assistance". So no, because while you're correct that 0 == 0, you need values of greater than 0 to have something.
I did consider no tools on both sides to be equal tools.
Can you maybe eli5 why there is a need to have something in this example?
I just don't get any real difference from the first two panels.
The exact same circumstances that punish the one kid in the first panel still punish them in the second. If anything they are worse off in comparison since the additional provided tools don't serve any purpose for them but do help the other kid.
Capitalism: hire an apple picking expert to pick the apples and sell them at exorbitant prices because there is a monopoly on apples.
Communism: send the apple picking expert to work in the steel factory and get a random university professor to pick them instead
Feudalism: A lord owns the land and the trees growing in it. He has a bunch of peasants who will pick the apples for him. The lord gets all the apples and the peasants are allowed to live on his lands another day. Later that night, they go work on their own farms that hopefully give them enough food to keep going. In the long term they’ll probably starve to death or get kicked out of the house they themselves built. I guess living as s hunter-gatherer in the forest isn’t that bad compared to the other alternatives.
Communism: send the apple picking expert to work in the steel factory and get a random university professor to pick them instead
Why? He's an expert in that, if we don't have steel mill experts we can train willing participants. Experts should always flow to their field of expertise
I think he's referring to Soviet Russia specifically, where farmers were sent to factories or turned into impromptu pig iron producers because of misguided heavy handed top down policies.
Experts should always flow to their area of expertise
That state of affairs is called “free market”.
No mate, communism is having state managed Apple pickers that pick apples and give them to manager. Management keeps 40% apples for themselves and then divide rest between the whole town, so that everyone in town gets one tiny piece of apple, whether they like apples or not.
Ew
unfortunately the apple tree is the proletariat
We could also just shoot the kulak on the left and take back the apples she stole from the people's tree
Ah yes, the communist solution.
The revolutionary solution, not necessarily communist. Like Boston tea party and what followed
Ah yes, the communist boston tea party, French Revolution and ... I dunno I don't feel like putting more effort into this comment
I appreciate the image, but "justice" as it's described from the image, isn't what people want progressively.
I used to agree with the picture, everyone should be tested fairly.
Expectations are a bit different though. Execution of what I've seen the public want is the Equality picture, but parties switch ladders.
Modern equality isn't about fairness, it's about your turn to benefit from the unfairness that's always inherent in the system. We don't want to change the system as much as we want our turn.
Life is never fair. The only things that change are perspectives and volume.
Execution of what I’ve seen the public want is the Equality picture, but parties switch ladders.
Nah, that's just how work towards Equity is portrayed by those who are already standing on the ladder that reaches the tree. I.e., a bunch of fear-mongering about how giving someone else a taller ladder will somehow shrink their own ladder.
Saying "life is never fair" is basically just saying we can't build a taller ladder, so the only (implicitly unacceptable) solution is to swap ladders.
This is one of my least favorite Rush songs....
Key takeaway: Always blame the system
Hey, please edit your post to follow rule 1 and rule 2. Thank you (:
This is a helpful explanation. The distinction between these terms is not so obvious and people believe they know the meanings without comprehending them.
Why do we need a different word for equal access to resources? There are different types of equalities, equity in my mind is the difference between what's owned minus what's owed.
Justice is Occupational health and safety inspection telling them they are not allowed to use such leaders and especially not unsupervised.
anarcho primitavism: climb tree oo oo aa aa
How is giving college scholarships or preferential admissions to one and only one specific group anything but inequality?
Its the equity stage. Certain socioeconomic groups have fewer educational opportunities earlier in life. We should really move on to justice and fix that. But first, we need equity to help people now and make up for that.
We have need based programs to address people who need help. Why not bolster to those? Why focus on shifting resources/programs away from the poor to people who objectively don't need it as much? We know how much people need, we can measure income.
How much money/time/reaources are going into programs, grants, scholarships that target single demographics?
That's horseshit. Some poor person living right next door to some other poor person has access to X scholarship but the neighbor doesn't. They went to the same schools growing up. Their parents make comparable money, but magically only one of them could get a free ride scholarship or gets easier access to school.
That's not going to breed resentment. Nooo. Not at all.
lmao
Justice is killing the little boy.
Reddit is that way sir
What if one person is more skilled at apple picking or the other just wants to stand on the ground
YEAH BUT WHAT IF ONE PERSON IS MADE OF APPLES AND IS PSYCHIC? WHAT IF THE TREE WAS ABORTION? WHAT IF BEER WAS VODKA AND GOD WAS A CHICKEN?
FIRST ONE WOULD BE REALLY NICE BECAUSE THEY WOULD HAVE UNLIMITED ACCESS TO APPLES AND KNOW WHEN I WANT AN APPLE SO PROBABLY WOULD GIVE ME FREE APPLES. SECOND ONE DOES NOT MAKE SENSE BECAUSE TREES CANT GET PREGNANT SO THEY CAN NOT BE ABORTED EITHER. IF BEER WAS VODKA WE WOULD JUST WATER IT DOWN IF WE WANT A MILD BUZZ. IF GOD WAS A CHICKEN CHICKEN WOULD BE BETTER OFF.
then they'd still have the same opportunities and one could choose to stay off the ladder instead of picking apples?!
You know that's now how trees work...
Life is and will always be unfair
What a great way to justify never improving things.
It's not so much NEVER improving things so much as not letting the quest for perfection get in the way of steps in the right direction.
If a fictional city went from a mediocre tuition based college to a fantastic one that was free to students that live in the city, previous students might wish their schooling was free when they were there. It isn't fair. But it's also a big improvement for the future and worth doing.
Didn't say that
So what? This is not about creating an absolutely fair world, it's about improving heavily unfair systems.
So let's make it less so?
And so we should never try to address any inequalities ever. Case closed!
Fucking moron.
You said that.
Hahaha the old "they are all wrong give me stuff for free"
I would even call it social justice. Great visual analogy nonetheless.
Equality of outcomes is commie speech
Wow I didn't know communism was so based and perfect. Thanks for letting me know what system to base my belief system around, kind stranger!
