I was reading some stuff last night that I wrote when I was 17, and dear god I was so pretentious back then. It really did shock me. I hope to Jebus that I wasn't that arrogant in the rest of my life, and that it only came across in my writing, but I think that would be hopelessly optimistic: my records of conversations say otherwise. I seemed to think that by reading maybe one or two books more than was average, or by knowing about some concept that most other people in my year werent aware of, I was the most intelligent person that ever lived. Eugh. I'm very glad that the year after I wrote this crap I met some second year uni students who had read a hell of a lot more than me, and knew a hell of a lot more than me, and so I was, thankfully, taken down a peg or three. I'm probably still a bit pretentious without meaning to be, but at least now I can acknowledge my own ignorance... the fact that every week I'm given a list of a whole bunch of books and articles that I havent read, and dont intend to read, has made me very aware of the things that I
don't know, and glad of the little snippets of information that I have learnt.
Anyway, this week I have been reading about affirmative action in the US, which is pretty interesting. I think the most persuasive argument against affirmative action (that is, giving minorities preferential treatment in employment, universities etc) is the one that claims that by favouring racial minorities we are in fact betraying the very cause that the civil rights movement aimed to promote, in that we are failing to be "colour-blind". I think this one is most interesting because it isnt just white people going "duhhhh those black people are stealin' ma job", but makes the point that affirmative action might actually be going against what black people (Martin Luther King in particular) intended. By taking race into consideration it means that race is still an issue, whereas a truly equal society would surely be one that is colour-blind, and ignores race as a factor altogether, looking instead at the individual's character and credentials.
My view is that although this argument is interesting, it fails to take into account the problems and inequalities that still exist in US society, and instead assumes that we all have an equal starting point. A colour-blind society may indeed be something to aim for, but the fact is that right now there are still gaping inequalities between the races, and to ignore race as an issue
now would be to ignore these inequalities and fail to deal with them. In the current state of society, racial minorities have a disadvantaged starting point, and so before we can live in a colour-blind world we need to address these disadvantages and aim to equal out the starting points. This may mean that it will take many years of affirmative action, but I think that's probably the least we can do after 350 years of slavery and segregation.
The other thing that I found vaguely interesting over the last couple of days happened in my Ethics seminar this morning. We were discussing the theory of virtue ethics, and ended up with what seemed to be a male-female divide (although to be fair there was only one boy in my class, which isnt exactly the greatest sample...) But I think that I'd be fairly well supported in saying that what often seems to happen is that you get the men preferring objective, rule-based ethical theories such as deontology, and the women opting for more subjective theories that take into account emotions and the overall effect of our lives rather than individual acts. This sort of divide happens all the time I think: such as the male preference for science subjects whereas women favour humanities and arts. I might look into this for my extended essay in philosophy next year, as I think it could have damaging implications for the deontological claim to objectivity and universal rational truths. If 50% of the population tend to oppose such theories, can they really be universal? Or are women just not rational enough?
So yeah, that ends my little snippets of "things Tasha found interesting this week". Maybe it'll be a regular occurence. Probably not...
