Balance: Equality vs. Freedom

For those of us who felt the previous balancing acts were too lightweight, here's one which is too heavy: The balance between equality and social justice on one hand, and freedom of choice and action on the other. Universal issues that are also tied into the subject of education.

Justice is located deep in the eye of the beholder. Just talk to members of warring parties in any war zone. If you don't happen to live in a war zone, just look at any decision of the supreme court of justice (of any country), divided roughly along the center line. Often along party lines, too. Justice is not very clear even for those few who have the job of dishing it out for us all. No pure truth.

Social justice is more specific than just justice, but not any closer to consensus. Is it socially just to let the poor wallow in their poverty? Is it socially just to let the willfully dysfunctional be insulated from the consequences of their actions - by giving them money for free? Is it socially just to rob the rich and give to the poor? Is it socially just to allow the rich to take advantage of the poor? All these questions are actually one and the same question. Just different points of view looking at the same reality. If see myself as being poor, I have a very clear view of social justice. If I see myself as rich, I also have a clear - and different - view. No pure truth.

Equality is even more specific. Equality of opportunities is more specific yet. But still no pure truth in sight. Or in insight. Equal opportunity overcoming economic background, social/ethnic background, family background, inborn talent, disabilities - inborn or acquired, etc. How much should society invest in the most disadvantaged individuals to make sure they get an equal opportunity? Twice as much as for the averagely advantaged? Twenty times? Two hundred times? This looks like an exaggeration, but it isn't necessarily: Imagine how much effort and resources are needed to straighten the playing field for someone with a low IQ, born to a poor, alcoholic single mom and raised in the streets by no one in particular. And for how long does society need to keep flattening the playing field - providing equal opportunities? Until the age of six? Twelve? Eighteen? Eighty? At what point is a person considered to have received the fair opportunity, and if they failed they should live through the consequences? Ever? There is much room for discussing these questions, and the many books and philosophical works written on it haven't filled that room. No pure truth.

Freedom is nice. We like freedom. We like our own freedom - not so sure how we feel about other people's freedom. We say one person's freedom ends where another person's nose begins, but there are so many noses around. Some noses are so large that there is not much room for freedom around them. I am referring to those who claim the right to be offended at any utterance other than praise.

Honing in on the aspects of freedom that need to be balanced with aspects of equality: Consider affirmative action, designed to improve equality of opportunity in situations where there is a historically privileged part of society (read: white males) and a historically underprivileged part. Affirmative action sounds good: It tries to level the playing field for the underprivileged. But what happened to the freedom of the privileged to pursue happiness as best as they can? To remind us of the different justices, affirmative action has another name - reverse discrimination - which doesn't sound quite as good. We don't like discrimination... Or maybe we do. Depends on whose justice we are looking after.

Equality and freedom have an uncomfortable relation when it comes to education. It is close to the consensus (there are some dissenting views though) that a wide gap in education is not socially just. It is not very good even from a utilitarian point of view of the relatively privileged - wide gaps can cause social unrest, and the privileged like their peace and quiet. So we would want to close the gap. One aspect of that is giving the underprivileged a boost: Directing more resources towards them, encouraging participation in schools, etc. But here is a problem: How much "encouragement"? What do we do with parts of the society that are not as excited about modern education as the secular modern state would like? Do we infringe on the rights of the creationist Christians, the devout Muslims or the ultra-orthodox Jews to educate their kids the way they see fit, even if the secular modern establishment sees it as unfit? Where is their freedom?

Also, choice is a type of freedom. What if the rich want to send their kids to an educational institute that demands high payments from the parents? They should have the freedom to do that, but certainly that would work against equality. A similar and even more distressing issue is that of schools that use admittance testing. To make a the case more acute, let's say it's a primary school, testing for admittance, so to a large extent even a purely cognitive test really tests for the family background of a child. Clearly such a barrier defies equality, but banning it goes against pretty basic freedoms of those who would pass the tests. Disallowing testing can even be seen as denying the talented the equal opportunity to make the most of themselves - to be all they can be. And if it's a high-school, is it OK to test? What about University? No pure truth.

Here's an even worse dilemma: Do we allow schools to dismiss under-performing pupils? If we do, we may be denying an opportunity from someone who may come around, and who may be having trouble temporarily due to their background, which is not their fault. If we don't allow dismissal of such pupils, we must decide how much of the school's limited resources are to be invests in those who would otherwise be dismissed, at the expense of those who are doing OK. If we put more effort into the under-performers, we are hurting the normal pupils. If we don't invest much in the weak pupils, they will not be able to catch up on their own, and they are likely to disrupt the classes they are in. This way we would be hurting both the weak and the strong (at least we are fine on the equality front.) And while we are at it, do we dismiss a pupil who is disruptive in class?

So, it's tricky to "encourage" the underprivileged - it infringes on their freedom and on the equal opportunity for those who would otherwise be privileged. It's tricky to limit the privileged - it infringes on their freedoms. It's tricky to leave education to market forces - it kills equal opportunity. Every compromise idea I heard so far in this context is a package of infringements on freedoms and equality.

This entry is so far quite depressing. I will try to make it more positive by ending with a proposal:

• For the sake of equality of opportunity, the state should finance public schools.
• For the sake of freedom, the state should make it easy for entrepreneurs to create a state-funded school.
  
• For the sake of equality in the face of unequal background, the state may fund schools differentially, to give extra support to schools that cater for the underprivileged.
• For the sake of freedom, the state should keep to a bare minimum its requirements of what and how to teach.
• For the sake of equality, public schools will not test pupils before admittance. If more pupils register to a school than the school can handle - pupils will be admitted by a lottery . An intended side effect would be that this random assignment would facilitate much needed research.
• For the sake of freedom, the state will allow private schools - without state funding - to perform admittance testing, and to dismiss pupils.
• For the sake of equality, state funded schools will be able to dismiss a pupil only after making a convincing effort (time, money, attention) to enable the pupil to continue.

As every other set of rules in this context, it is also a package of infringements on equality and on freedom. Still, it looks like an adequate option.