I always think of the use of the tale of two regimes in China. One was with Mao Zedong and the other was with Deng Xiaoping. You think about how the idea of "You're all equal." is fatal to the development of any country. After looking at how Mao ran China vs. how Deng ran China should at least give a situation to how the dream of equality can't be achieved.
Here's the situation we want to consider as to why equality is not always achievable. Let's take a look at distribution by equality vs. distribution by equity. People who need more should get more support and people who get less support should get less support. In the third scenario, equality is possible because they can all see the game without the fence. But the first idea is how Mao ran China and it really led to terrible consequences.
The flaw of the equality model vs. the equity model
Mao's China lost motivation to work because you get paid the same whether you work or not. Deng's China worked because he did a performance-based reward system. The same can go that society itself is full of inequality. There are people who learn faster vs. people who learn slower. There are people with more disabilities vs. those who have fewer disabilities. People with more disabilities require more special care and understanding from those who have fewer disabilities. You can't ask a person who can't walk to win a marathon just because of the person who can walk won a marathon.
The flaw of equality means you expect everyone to do the same regardless of intelligence or ability rather than sort them out by individual or ability. I guess one of the reasons why families can be so troublesome is because parents tend to think of their children as equals. A good example is that they may expect a child who has Asperger's, autism, or Down's syndrome to do as good as a child who doesn't. This alone causes trouble because nobody is completely equal. On the other hand, if the family starts to work harder on helping the child with the learning disability cope up and help the child without the learning disability understand why it's happening then we manage to help each other with their disabilities.
The equity model seeks to distribute according to their needs. We give more food to the children and the sick because they need it. People shouldn't get more food unless they need it. If people are motivated by even a small reward then people will work. That Deng understood that performance-based pay works. Deng's policy was pretty much if you don't work then you don't get any pay. You work better and I will pay you better. If you get more money because you work harder then the more you'll be motivated to work.
The problem of thinking everyone has the same ability vs. differentiating them according to individual ability
It would be a big cause of trouble when parents think that if they push hard enough that the child will excel in anything. Sure you need to push your children to excel but are you pushing towards a realistic goal? It's a problem in traditional Asian parenting to think that all weaknesses can be overcome. Sure, we can make our children weak in Mathematics better in numbers but we definitely can't force them to become engineers. If a person is not musically inclined he or she can learn the basics of music but he/or she can't become a champion musician.
One of the biggest authors who talked about her experience with push and push is Amy Chua-Rubenfeld who wrote her own experience in the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Her younger daughter Lulu eventually rebelled because she was forcing her daughter to excel in a field in which the latter didn't excel in. Only when Mrs. Rubenfeld pushes her daughter Lulu to excel in where her daughter excelled did the former see better results. She learned that any parenting system needs a change every now and then. While Asian parenting is good like teaching the value of family ties but refusing to make changes or refusing to understand special needs is another issue.
The same could go for the workplace. It's only fair that not everyone gets a promotion because not everyone is qualified to get one. People get assigned to different departments because they have different abilities. People who are good at Math are assigned to do accounting and budgeting. People who are good at marketing are placed in the marketing department. People who are better at thinking than implementing are put behind people who have the charisma to carry out the plans. That's why we have the term the brains behind the person.
The call to respect people who are not normal such as those with physical or mental disabilities
It's a terrible problem in society that people who are not "normal" or "mutants" are often mistreated by society. Worse, there's the tendency to tell people that they deserve to be bullied because of some disability they had. That kind of thinking maybe the reason why the victim card mentality is becoming more and more prevalent in the mindset of anyone. This in turn makes people who either enjoy their victim status or may rise up to become frustrated monsters in society.
We have people who take advantage of the disability of others and end up bullying them all because they aren't normal. It's become a common sight for people to enjoy the anger of others who they don't consider as "normal". While it's indeed survival of the fittest but it's nature's course not man's course. It's true that the weak survive and the strong perish but the strong must teach the weak to be strong. Unfortunately, this is a society where the strong tends to oppress the weak never mind that nobody is always strong. One day the strong will become weak and the weak can become strong. Talk about the bitter cycle that one day the bullied will bully the weakened bully.
You can't expect to have a society where disabilities whether mental or physical are not present. You have to expect society will always be imperfect. You can't expect a lame person to have equal legs but you can definitely help them walk with a crutch. You can't expect a person who has ADD or ADHD to pay attention to you all the time either. A person who can't speak can't join a speech contest and a person who's blind can't join a contest that requires one's eyes. If people started to respect more who are not "normal" and teach them on how to cope up with their abnormality then I don't think the victim card status would be such a desirable position.
There's only one of each person so don't wish can be exactly like them
Bill Gates said that comparing yourself with others is very self-deprecating. I remembered how often we think that our children should be exactly their parents or our other children. Nobody is exactly alike and like it or not we're all unique. Nobody is a perfect replica of each other. Just because the father is a president doesn't mean the son should be a president. Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Long are not each other. Just because the father made tons of money at the age of 20 doesn't mean the son should follow in that footsteps.
What most people don't understand is the difference between the parent and the child. The parent founded the empire but all the child did was grow up with it and inherit it. I think it's a problem that fathers think that their sons are like them just because they share the same genetic material. We can't expect the children to be like their parents because they're not perfect copies of their parents. A good example is how most children born from physical mismatches may not look good as the good-looking parent but not as ugly as the ugly parent but they come in between ugly and attractive. Another is that Bongbong Marcos is not as intelligent as his late father because his mother Imelda Romualdez-Marcos isn't an intelligent person but he's not as dumb as his cousin Alfred Romualdez was thanks to his father's intelligence. It would be wrong to expect Bongbong to be his late father because he's not. Also, Mar Roxas is an educated idiot to think that just because his late paternal grandfather Manuel Roxas Sr. was a president that he too should be president.
It should be something to stop telling the children, "I want you to be exactly like your father." or "I want you to be exactly like Bill Gates." This is really a problem when we want to be equal to this person. There's nothing wrong with looking up to certain people but there's only you. Maybe we need to stop saying stuff like "He's Rizal in the making." and instead say, "We've got another great writer in the making that will join the ranks of Rizal. But remember, Rizal is Rizal and nobody will be as great as Rizal because there's only one Jose Rizal." While nothing wrong is comparing but to think two people can be completely alike is just stupid. It's another reason to feel discouraged when you can't reach that gauge. There's only one of each person and that's what society fails to see.
Here's the situation we want to consider as to why equality is not always achievable. Let's take a look at distribution by equality vs. distribution by equity. People who need more should get more support and people who get less support should get less support. In the third scenario, equality is possible because they can all see the game without the fence. But the first idea is how Mao ran China and it really led to terrible consequences.
The flaw of the equality model vs. the equity model
Mao's China lost motivation to work because you get paid the same whether you work or not. Deng's China worked because he did a performance-based reward system. The same can go that society itself is full of inequality. There are people who learn faster vs. people who learn slower. There are people with more disabilities vs. those who have fewer disabilities. People with more disabilities require more special care and understanding from those who have fewer disabilities. You can't ask a person who can't walk to win a marathon just because of the person who can walk won a marathon.
The flaw of equality means you expect everyone to do the same regardless of intelligence or ability rather than sort them out by individual or ability. I guess one of the reasons why families can be so troublesome is because parents tend to think of their children as equals. A good example is that they may expect a child who has Asperger's, autism, or Down's syndrome to do as good as a child who doesn't. This alone causes trouble because nobody is completely equal. On the other hand, if the family starts to work harder on helping the child with the learning disability cope up and help the child without the learning disability understand why it's happening then we manage to help each other with their disabilities.
The equity model seeks to distribute according to their needs. We give more food to the children and the sick because they need it. People shouldn't get more food unless they need it. If people are motivated by even a small reward then people will work. That Deng understood that performance-based pay works. Deng's policy was pretty much if you don't work then you don't get any pay. You work better and I will pay you better. If you get more money because you work harder then the more you'll be motivated to work.
The problem of thinking everyone has the same ability vs. differentiating them according to individual ability
It would be a big cause of trouble when parents think that if they push hard enough that the child will excel in anything. Sure you need to push your children to excel but are you pushing towards a realistic goal? It's a problem in traditional Asian parenting to think that all weaknesses can be overcome. Sure, we can make our children weak in Mathematics better in numbers but we definitely can't force them to become engineers. If a person is not musically inclined he or she can learn the basics of music but he/or she can't become a champion musician.
One of the biggest authors who talked about her experience with push and push is Amy Chua-Rubenfeld who wrote her own experience in the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Her younger daughter Lulu eventually rebelled because she was forcing her daughter to excel in a field in which the latter didn't excel in. Only when Mrs. Rubenfeld pushes her daughter Lulu to excel in where her daughter excelled did the former see better results. She learned that any parenting system needs a change every now and then. While Asian parenting is good like teaching the value of family ties but refusing to make changes or refusing to understand special needs is another issue.
The same could go for the workplace. It's only fair that not everyone gets a promotion because not everyone is qualified to get one. People get assigned to different departments because they have different abilities. People who are good at Math are assigned to do accounting and budgeting. People who are good at marketing are placed in the marketing department. People who are better at thinking than implementing are put behind people who have the charisma to carry out the plans. That's why we have the term the brains behind the person.
The call to respect people who are not normal such as those with physical or mental disabilities
It's a terrible problem in society that people who are not "normal" or "mutants" are often mistreated by society. Worse, there's the tendency to tell people that they deserve to be bullied because of some disability they had. That kind of thinking maybe the reason why the victim card mentality is becoming more and more prevalent in the mindset of anyone. This in turn makes people who either enjoy their victim status or may rise up to become frustrated monsters in society.
We have people who take advantage of the disability of others and end up bullying them all because they aren't normal. It's become a common sight for people to enjoy the anger of others who they don't consider as "normal". While it's indeed survival of the fittest but it's nature's course not man's course. It's true that the weak survive and the strong perish but the strong must teach the weak to be strong. Unfortunately, this is a society where the strong tends to oppress the weak never mind that nobody is always strong. One day the strong will become weak and the weak can become strong. Talk about the bitter cycle that one day the bullied will bully the weakened bully.
You can't expect to have a society where disabilities whether mental or physical are not present. You have to expect society will always be imperfect. You can't expect a lame person to have equal legs but you can definitely help them walk with a crutch. You can't expect a person who has ADD or ADHD to pay attention to you all the time either. A person who can't speak can't join a speech contest and a person who's blind can't join a contest that requires one's eyes. If people started to respect more who are not "normal" and teach them on how to cope up with their abnormality then I don't think the victim card status would be such a desirable position.
There's only one of each person so don't wish can be exactly like them
Bill Gates said that comparing yourself with others is very self-deprecating. I remembered how often we think that our children should be exactly their parents or our other children. Nobody is exactly alike and like it or not we're all unique. Nobody is a perfect replica of each other. Just because the father is a president doesn't mean the son should be a president. Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Long are not each other. Just because the father made tons of money at the age of 20 doesn't mean the son should follow in that footsteps.
What most people don't understand is the difference between the parent and the child. The parent founded the empire but all the child did was grow up with it and inherit it. I think it's a problem that fathers think that their sons are like them just because they share the same genetic material. We can't expect the children to be like their parents because they're not perfect copies of their parents. A good example is how most children born from physical mismatches may not look good as the good-looking parent but not as ugly as the ugly parent but they come in between ugly and attractive. Another is that Bongbong Marcos is not as intelligent as his late father because his mother Imelda Romualdez-Marcos isn't an intelligent person but he's not as dumb as his cousin Alfred Romualdez was thanks to his father's intelligence. It would be wrong to expect Bongbong to be his late father because he's not. Also, Mar Roxas is an educated idiot to think that just because his late paternal grandfather Manuel Roxas Sr. was a president that he too should be president.
It should be something to stop telling the children, "I want you to be exactly like your father." or "I want you to be exactly like Bill Gates." This is really a problem when we want to be equal to this person. There's nothing wrong with looking up to certain people but there's only you. Maybe we need to stop saying stuff like "He's Rizal in the making." and instead say, "We've got another great writer in the making that will join the ranks of Rizal. But remember, Rizal is Rizal and nobody will be as great as Rizal because there's only one Jose Rizal." While nothing wrong is comparing but to think two people can be completely alike is just stupid. It's another reason to feel discouraged when you can't reach that gauge. There's only one of each person and that's what society fails to see.
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