Walter Block has an article at Mises.org that illustrates the absurdity of attempting to distinguish between commercial and personal discrimination. Commerce, in the aggregate sense, is merely the sum of infinite personal decisions, many of which involve discrimination. What Block fails to address is the intersection of anti-discrimination and culture.
It is a fallacy to claim that "tolerance," "acceptance," "individuality," etc., are not pushed on the population by those in a position of power. This (among other things) has led to a precipitous decline of American cultural standards over the past half-century. Disintegration of the nuclear family? Check. Normalization of fringe culture? Yup. Destruction of previously-accepted social norms? Oh yes.
In a truly free society, the population would naturally choose which ideas worked best, free of the coercion of government. Peer pressure is a powerful agent, and social standards follow. Activities that a society of free agents determine to be detrimental to the society as a whole are discouraged in a spontaneous, decentralized manner. The threat of being shunned by one's peers is a powerful agent for the normalization of the population's behaviors.
Enter government. "Authority" now dictates that certain previously-taboo behaviors must now be accepted socially. When the population continues its market-based discrimination, anti-discrimination laws are passed. Persons engaging in these taboo behaviors now turn to government for protection against discrimination, because, after all, the behavior is officially A-OK. Government anti-discrimination laws now override the private "peer pressure" system.
The change in authority brought about by this government thought-coercion brings about subtle shifts in attitude. People begin to discriminate against each other, not because their community has agreed that the behavior in question is socially harmful, but because the government has arbitrarily decreed that certain behaviors are sacrosanct. Over time, this causes the population to lose sight of the very reasons behind its original discrimination. "We discriminate against activity x because activity x harms the society at large" is replaced with "We discriminate against all those who contravene the wisdom of the government." The necessary act of discrimination has been transformed; previously, discrimination served to better the society in the eyes of its participants. People knew why they discriminated against certain behaviors and for others. Now, the motivation behind discrimination is a desire to follow government orders, and the end result is necessarily the weakening of the previously-accepted social customs.
Enter government. "Authority" now dictates that certain previously-taboo behaviors must now be accepted socially. When the population continues its market-based discrimination, anti-discrimination laws are passed. Persons engaging in these taboo behaviors now turn to government for protection against discrimination, because, after all, the behavior is officially A-OK. Government anti-discrimination laws now override the private "peer pressure" system.
The change in authority brought about by this government thought-coercion brings about subtle shifts in attitude. People begin to discriminate against each other, not because their community has agreed that the behavior in question is socially harmful, but because the government has arbitrarily decreed that certain behaviors are sacrosanct. Over time, this causes the population to lose sight of the very reasons behind its original discrimination. "We discriminate against activity x because activity x harms the society at large" is replaced with "We discriminate against all those who contravene the wisdom of the government." The necessary act of discrimination has been transformed; previously, discrimination served to better the society in the eyes of its participants. People knew why they discriminated against certain behaviors and for others. Now, the motivation behind discrimination is a desire to follow government orders, and the end result is necessarily the weakening of the previously-accepted social customs.
2 comments:
I have to confess that I once was in the habit of arguing from libertarianism against anti-discrimination, but I've abandoned the stance because I don't think it works or speaks to the basic issues. It still highlights some major problems with anti-discrimination, anti-racism, multiculturalism, and the whole programmatic package, though.
By the time you get people talking of discrimination, they are usually far past the point of recognizing it as you do--as an exaggerated mistake in logic. Instead they've been utterly consumed in anti-White, anti-Western grievance, and to them there is nothing optional or up for discussion--the oppressors of abusers of yesterday must make way for tolerance, period, the end. Any hesitation, avoidance, or opposition is to them invalid on its face, regardless of its character logical or otherwise. And since anti-discrimination did not originate from a desire to end oppression in the first place--the whole impetus was shot through with hypocrisy, aggression, and jealousy from the begin--no one will listen when you say, "Look! Diminishing the state-authoritarian quality of anti-discrimination efforts will reduce coercion AND open the way for less prejudiced arrangements!" The whole idea just sails past people.
Agreed. Though I couch the problem in Libertarian terms, I do not propose a solution through the same.
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