Egocentric Egalitarianism

Could this particular form of egalitarian mindset be harmful?

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Egocentric egalitarianism: the mindset that embraces, advocates and expects equal treatment only in instances, situations, and domains where the self is competitively disadvantaged.

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Source: equaleducation.org

The question

After what was yet again another experience of an instance of what I term ‘reflexive egalitarian reaction’ by a specific subset of a population of people (which I would mention down the line), I began to ponder a question very seriously: what is it that makes we humans believe (or want to believe) so resolutely that:

1. all children are equal in academic ability

2. all children are equal in intellectual interest

3. success/performance should be equal?

Exceptions to the above beliefs are encountered or activated only when:

1. our children are the best in something - in which case we wouldn't want other children to be as good or better.

2. our children are the worst at something - in which case we would want other children to be the same or even more worse, and

3. our children are neither the best not the worst - in which case we couldn't care less about other kids.

The three iterated exceptions above apply seamlessly to any human categories, be it adults or individuals or groups. Yet, if you openly and directly ask anyone who holds the above beliefs whether they hold such belief, they would valiantly deny it. It's not because they're right; it's because they are unaware.

It must, however, be clearly stated that this sort of fundamental egalitarian mindset is certainly not universally manifested, but highly ubiquitous enough to warrant serious interrogation. To be clear, I do not object to the interventionist principle anchored on the humanitarian need to subsidize natural disadvantages for the most affected populations. My critical interest is directed at those variety of sociopolitical policies that stipulate subsidized treatment while rejecting the fundamental value judgement that makes such policy reliably implementable. This kind of ‘self-categorization by convenience' is precisely characteristic of egocentric egalitarians.

To further illustrate this point: to be considered eligible for subsidy, either of the moral or material type, is to be deficient or inadequate or weak or lacking or disadvantaged in some nontrivial way relative to a comparable group, person, or place. Thus, if subsidy (or the idea of it) is not to be applied indiscriminately or bastardized, some arbitrary or specific line of distinction must necessarily be drawn in order to answer the very important question: who qualifies and who doesn't?

It's, however, not uncommon to find people who desire to be morally or economically subsidized, but vehemently reject the necessary categorical placement that comes with it. Hence, nobody wants to be referred to by terms that blatantly connotes weakness, deficiency, or disadvantage, but are content with being included in these categories for the benefit of subsidy. For instance, an individual may protest being regarded as “disabled” or “poor” or “fragile" or “sickly”, but nonetheless feels entitled to the special considerations that are rightly bestowed as a moral attempt to equalize opportunity and experience across broad spectrum of humanity. Although this is psychologically inconsistent and dishonest, it is, by the same token, very understandable (and perhaps even justifiable). Hence, we can appreciate (but only to some extent) the current push to reengineer language to accommodate the sensitivities of egocentric egalitarians.

Egocentric egalitarianism is not opposed to subsidification of natural disadvantage, it merely rejects its underlying assumption. It rejects the premises, but embraces the conclusions and its provisions. Hence, in egocentric egalitarianism, the claim to equality of treatment is openly made only in those situations, time, and domains that one is at a clear disadvantage relative to others; when the balance of natural or artificial advantage is reversed, the egocentric egalitarian, with equal fervor, opposes equality of treatment. In such instances, he wants distinction and preferential benefits. His philosophy is, therefore, never global and permanent: rather, it is always contextual and shifting.

It is mostly manifested in people and places where competition, for whatever reason, is perceived as dangerous or unfair or harmful. Hence, one often encounters it, more frequently than anywhere else, in spiritual/religious centres, educational centres, advocacy groups, and family settings; and among parents, women, advocates, educators, clerics, motivational speakers, and the elderly. Of course, there are people and places belonging to these categories who don't espouse or reflect this mindset. My primary point is that when we do find an instance of such mindset in overt operation, it is more likely to come from one of such groupings.

What is the root of this radical and, paradoxically, highly conditional egalitarianism? Why do some persons and places feel an overwhelming need to equalize ability, competence, and performance?

The case of parents

One of the most nearly impossible idea to sell to people in general, but to parents especially, is the idea that their children may have limitations in certain intellectual or learning domains. I have seen parents ferociously fought the suggestion that their children may be a somewhat slow learner or that they may be outrightly lacking in aptitude for a particular subject, say mathematics. They're prepared to accept the most preposterous explanation for why their child isn't doing well in mathematics or Chemistry. Many of them would be happy to hear that "so and so isn't performing well in this subject because they're not putting their mind to it enough. If they can just put their mind to it, they would excell tremendously." This kind of statement profoundly reassures parents that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with their child and deepens their hope that improvement is on the horizon...if only they can get the child to put her mind to it by either bombarding her with more lesson teachers or summer schools or deliverance sessions. As an aside, one of the inevitable consequences of this radical intellectual egalitarianism (the belief that children are equal in learning potential across academic domains) is the voluntary waste of huge amount of resources in pursuit of social desirables.

The only problem, however, with this sort of explanations is that they say absolutely nothing about the real reason the child is struggling globally or in specific areas. If a very astute and less agitated parent were to ask the overly and necessarily diplomatic teacher WHY their child isn't putting his mind to the subject, then they might at least have a tiny bit of confirmation of the fact that the teacher probably does not know what she's saying or that she's only saying what she's saying as a psychological palliative.

What is a child; a mindless lump of clay?

Why would a child not apply his mind to a subject or to all subjects? Can we predict or enforce what a child would show interest in? Is their a mechanism for getting a child's mind fixated on something it is actively trying to avoid while dis-affixing it from something it is more easily and consistently attracted to? Would this even be ethical if possible? Do children show any degree of selectiveness in what they show interest in? Why is this: why is the child's mind interested in one thing and not in another? That children are creatures of extreme selectivity and active preferences, there's no doubt. Yet, some would ignore, deny, or trample upon this salient fact. They see children as preferentially innocent and infinitely malleable, and this, ultimately, isn't dignifying the child but reducing them to mindless and instinctless objects in the hands of highly egocentric, unreflective, projective, and control-obsessed adults. These adults even co-opt value-free neuroscientific facts such as neuroplasticity (while ignoring other inconvenient scientific facts such as natural variation and heritability) to drive home their radical interventionist hijacking of a child's natural tendencies. And this is often more exhibited when the natural inclinations shown by the child strongly clash with our values as parents or society.

An embarrassing contradiction

Interestingly enough, this egocentric egalitarian impulse is completely annihilated at the psychological level of personal choice. Every time that every human has to make a choice that directly impacts their lives to a degree that is not insignificant, they almost always presupposes the radical opposite of egalitarianism: people and things are not equal, should not be, and can never be. This is easily observed in many areas: mate selection, child adoption, choice of sperm for artificial insemination, choice of where to live, choice of friends, choice of schools, migration destination, personal recognition, etc. Lori Gottlieb's account (in her book Maybe You Should Talk To Someone) of the painstaking and highly intricate thinking and selection processes she adopted while trying to buy frozen sperm for her insemination procedure illustrated, most candidly and tragically, why the idea of equality is nothing but a comforting charade. And more often than not, we find that it is individuals who feel the most inadequate (and whose personal interest are no longer at stake) that are more likely to desire and support the eradication of markers of individual distinctions.

The case of teachers

Teachers have a very tough and, sometimes, impossible job. Teachers are no longer merely expected to facilitate and consolidate on a child's natural aptitudes, they're now expected to also change them (if those natural aptitudes are judged ‘not good enough'). They're, however, often willingly complicit in the game of avoidance, denial, and deception that are instantiated when dealing with the education question. There's no doubt that for some teachers, it's simply a matter of ignorance, and for some, a matter of transference and projection. But even for those among teachers who are aware of the natural variations that exist in learning potential and interest, they're still often compelled by the nature and demands of their profession to never communicate certain opinions to parents. Thus, any opinion that suggests the impossibility or a limitation in learning capacity is anathema. It's their solemn duty to make of every child a future Einstein, irregardless of the material they're working with.

A case in point

I was privileged to accompany the uneducated wife of one of my half uncles to their son's open day program. He is in year 7 (JSS 1) and 11 years old. This boy is generally well-behaved, but academically disinterested and slow. He is easily bored by anything book-related, and would rather spend his time doing anything except school work. He struggles with almost all his subjects and the teachers reported that he is easily distracted in class. In addition to distractibility, his maths teacher reported he dozes off in class or shows high level of disinterest. He likes to play, alone and with others, with older and younger children. Yet, this boy would never cease to proclaim, often with absurd rhapsody: "oh, I love maths" or “ah, maths is my favorite subject". But this constant profession of love for maths never translates into an equal passion for studying it or even wanting to learn it. In fact, he had one of the lowest percentage points in mathematics, and it's the one subject that has the potency to lull his hyperactive brain to sleep.

I was largely a participant observer at the open day event. I was intrigued by the unspoken psychosocial dynamics that were illustrated in the interaction between parents and teachers. Both parties seem to be animated by the same goal: to convince the parents or guardian that the child is doing well. And for those not doing so well, to convince their carers that they're making good progress. The teachers are determined to not come off as incompetent, the parents are desperate for a reason to justify their financial outlay. Of course, this is, for good reasons, largely a private-school phenomenon (at least in Nigeria where I live). And not just any private schools, but those of above-average financial standard (relative to what the average school fees is in a particular locality). In this particular school where my cousin attends, the fee is 300k per term, and they learn using projectors in an airtight AC-fitted classrooms.

As we sat down with the teacher in charge of the boy's class, we were presented with his result in a brown envelope. As we went through it, we saw a snapshot of his grades in each subject. They were awful. And the teacher was defence-ready to make them seem less so, or at least to account for why they're so as well as proffer the way forward to securing better results next term.

But I was hardly surprised by the result. It wasn't less or more than what I would expect judging by my estimation of the boy's intellectual capacity and attitude towards intellectual activities. Interestingly, however, he had perfect scores in two subjects, agricultural science and music, and a very decent score in English. In addition, he had 70% in diction (covering English, Yoruba, and French), and her diction teacher, curiously and gratuitously, informed us that "even the best student in his class didn't score up to that." Of course, I perfectly understood her need to buoyed the spirit of the boy's unhappy mother with that flattering anecdote. But I was certainly not wholly buying it. Perhaps the best student truly didn't outscore our boy in diction, he definitely didn't have the highest score nonetheless (the teacher didn't say this, but that was the impression she intended to leave the boy's unlearned mother with). In fact, when this teacher first cast a cursory look at the boy's result, she dramatically reacted with the claim that “he has improved tremendously” as though things were way more awful in the past. Whether there was a real improvement isn't clear. And even if there was genuine improvement, it's not clear if it was real or contrived.

My scepticism wasn't only aroused by the token commendations from the boy's diction teacher, it was also ignited in reference to his perfect scores in agricultural science and music. How could a brain incapable of achieving average scores in almost every other subject area achieve perfect scores in two unrelated subject domains? This is not conceptually defensible. In fact his average performance, out of about 15 subjects, turned out at 55%, and this owed a lot to those two perfect scores and the exceptionally decent scores in english and diction. If these outliers were removed, his mean score would be somewhere in the region of the low 30's.

These inconsistencies are not surprising in the light of the social game being played in an economically costly context. The school has to justify the fee they're charging by ensuring exceptional academic performance and learning progression or risk losing their students to other schools who wouldn't blink twice to manipulate result in order to please insecure and overzealous parents. The teachers also have to prove their instructional competence by showing that even the worst student is improving under their tutelage or face a real threat of being fired.

A professional's view

I have my own theory about what may be wrong with my cousin:

1. An intellectual quotient that is at best low average and at worst borderline.

2. A set of behavioural and cognitive traits that are highly suggestive of moderate ADHD (mixed type). He has a very low attention span, highly distractible, jumps from one subject to another, easily bored, intrusive, and impulsive.

3. These two conditions are not necessarily mutually inclusive. But with an already disadvantaged intellectual endowment, an underlying ADHD would make further difficult any attempt to maximize his areas of greatest strength.

My experience and observations have also taught me that it is very difficult to get parents to consider the possibility that their child may be suffering from some congenital neurological or mental deficit that may require coming to terms with or, if indicated, treatment. And ADHD, if diagnosed, is one neuropsychiatric condition with one of the best statistical and clinical evidence for positive treatment outcomes following the use of prescribed medication. Unfortunately, most parents continue to argue against such pharmacological intervention using motivated false recall: "he wasn't like that before", “she was doing better at her former school.” Of course, she was, perhaps because you weren't paying attention or perhaps because the requirements at each developmental stages continues to place increasingly challenging demands on the child's limited capacities in the cognitive and self-regulation domains.