Conservative Idiocy and The Truth About Affirmative Action

By Crispin Sartwell

I am not the biggest fan of affirmative action. But I know this: the arguments against it being made by conservatives such as (let's see) George Bush, John Ashcroft, Anne Coulter, Andrew Sullivan, Michelle Malkin, and Pat Buchanan are a barrage of doltish fallacies uttered in an insufferable whine.

It's hard to know where to begin. But let's try this:

(1) The idiocy: There is such a thing as human merit. In fact, there is a hierarchy of human quality, and in principle we could rank Americans from 1 (Coulter) to 275 million (Snoop Dogg) and hence determine their just desserts. #1 deserves all possible privileges, all possible money and prestige: the prettiest spouse, the top-of-the-line BMW, and partnership in the top law firm. #137,541,642 deserves the 137,541,642^th-best version of all that.

The truth: We have no idea what human merit consists in or how we rank. In any case, outcomes are essentially arbitrary. We can't know what people deserve or how to give it to them. Thank God. But if I were trying to figure out the question of human quality and what people deserve, I'd consult Epictetus and Lao Tzu, not John Ashcroft and Pat Buchanan.

(2) The idiocy: human merit can be measured by...SAT scores.

The truth: knowledge or quality has absolutely no relation to standardized tests. The idea that human wisdom consists of isolated little-bitty facts - (d) rather than (b) - or that it can be measured by No. 2 graphite in little bubbles, shows only that the people who are trying for whatever reason to measure our intelligence, abilities, or aptitudes are themselves morons. They've got no idea what knowledge is or what is valuable in human life. By the way, if you have a little money the SATs can be dicked. Get an expert to show you test-taking strategies. Take a review course.

(3) The idiocy: There is a hierarchy of institutions, and where you end up in this hierarchy determines your prospects as well as defining your essential value as a human being. It is appropriate to bow and scrape before Harvard, which bristles with prestige. The overwhelming hubris of Harvard and its products is richly rational given its quality.

The truth: Stop bowing and scraping before institutions - that's unworthy of a decent human being. Stop licking the Italian shoes of Ivy League graduates. It's hard to tell where the best place for you is, where you will grow or learn. But try to find it. In any case, almost certainly someplace will take your money and give you a law degree, and you'll be approximately as good a lawyer as you'll be.

(4) The idiocy: Affirmative action is tantamount to apartheid or Jim Crow, and those who oppose it have assumed the mantle of Martin Luther King, who said that people should be judged by the quality of their characters and not the color of their skin. The advocates of affirmative action are bigots who are asserting race privilege.

The truth: The whining of people who have been oppressed for centuries can get irritating after awhile. But the whining of people who have been oppressors for centuries should be the occasion for summary execution. That black people have been enslaved, lynched, exploited, despised, impoverished, imprisoned is actual injustice. That Suzy Creamcheese has to go to Michigan State instead of Michigan because Michigan admitted a black person with lower SATs is nothing. Really. Nothing. If you make these things equivalent in your arguments, you are either being entirely disingenuous, or you are so deluded in your privilege, your empty rhetoric, and your slavish worship of institutions that you have become deeply evil without noticing it. By the way, just to review, what Martin Luther King meant by "quality of character" might have been just a bit more serious and real, with regard to high school seniors, than SAT score, and with regard to college graduates, than the prestige of the institution that granted the degree.

One thing we can safely conclude: if we're going to have this debate, it had better rise to a higher level, because so far the arguments against affirmative action have been dishonest, vicious, and fallacious. Come up with something better or shut up.