To deny that a particular factor can be assumed a priori to be the cause of inequalities in outcomes is not to deny that the chances of achieving those outcomes have in fact been grossly unequal in societies around the world, and over thousands of years of recorded history. In a sense, life is a relay race, and each of us receives the baton at a time and place over which we have no control. Our parents, our birth order, our country and our surrounding culture have already been predetermined for us. Some of the prerequisites for achievement can be affected later by individual choices or social policies, but by no means 100 percent in most cases, much less in all cases. No human being and no human institution has either sufficient knowledge or sufficient power for that. More important, we have zero control over the past— and, as was said, long ago, “We do not live in the past, but the past in us.”
Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities, Pg.187
No comments:
Post a Comment