About 2 decades ago, the DEI conversation and debate was instead labelled as Affirmative Action. The best argument against affirmative action that I can recall was psychological, and went something like this:
Assigning lesser requirements to a specific portion of the population has two longer term impacts that are hard to understand or counter. 1. It creates the impression for those outside of the selected group that those inside are INCAPABLE of reaching the same achievement or production as those outside the group, reinforcing a divide between groups. This is partially because individuals en masse have a difficult time assessing structural barriers that prevent groups from reaching goals, and have a much easier time assigning personal performance relative to conditions they've experienced. 2. It also potentially demotivates higher achieving individuals within the selected group long term as they also see less required exertion to meet similar goals, reinforcing their own feeling of otherness.
I was not really fond of those arguments (I prescribe to a more nichomachean ethical view) and believe that on balance, affirmative action was likely to create more good results than the possible creation of negative via the described potential mechanism.
Now that I reflect on it further, it could be part of what plays into the current polarization and re rise of anger against "DEI" policies and other.
|