This is why the theory that each person is responsible for his own success should be believed and followed, whether or not it is actually more than half true. When your viewpoint is taught, kids adopt the “Al Sharpton attitude,” guaranteeing their own complete failure, probably for the rest of their lives.

Bring back Radley and some civil liberties, plz.

Why is it “idealistic”? Easy. Because such a project would require being administered by a powerful, highly-educated, unimpeachable, in-office-for-life, **unelected** Priestly caste/bureaucracy. Wise shepherds making the decisions for their simple, befuddled flock. …

That would be the
Handicapper General.

Fine if you’re not making that argument, but surely you can see how Robert might arrive at that conclusion, given that what you seem to advocating for is either a continuation of the status quo or a further lurch toward policies which will inevitably benefit those who are already benefiting from society’s current structure. Endorsing the idea that any attempt to level the playing field or create more opportunity for children will inevitably lead us to communism (and all of the evils that it entails) ignores the good that comes from things like access to education regardless of ability to pay.

Furthermore, insisting that those who are not benefiting from society’s current imbalances should still support those imbalances because some other, more well off person is getting well as a result? Come on. That’s a hugely unrealistic expectation.

Asserting that something is an ideal is not the same as claiming that it’s the role of government to do something about it.

‘Wouldn’t it be great if everyone got along?’ is not the same as saying ‘I want a government agency set up to enforce a ban on people having arguments.’

Likewise ‘I wish we didn’t have to send anyone to prison’ is not the same as saying ‘I don’t believe we should send anyone to prison.’

I’d say that meritocracy is a fairly uncontroversial ideal, but it’s easy to make any mooted ideal sound sinister if you assume that the person expressing it is pushing a particular policy agenda.

Of course, we’re suspicious precisely because when politicians express ideals they ARE pushing narrow policy agendas, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is.

But I don’t see why that means we shouldn’t try to make opportunities for children less unequal than they are today, and access to higher education less unequal than it is today. It’s not as if “do nothing” and “perfect equality of resources” are the only imaginable options.

The principle of charity demands that when two readings of a text exist, we should take the one that puts the author in a more favorable position until we have reason to believe otherwise.

I mean, sure, it’s possible that I’m secretly cheering for white supremacy. I guess. But it’s also possible that I mean exactly what “delurking” wrote at 19:

If individuals are allowed to raise children, there cannot be perfect equality of opportunity for children. Most people care about their children, and use their resources to help them succeed. Since there is not equality of resources among adults, there will not be equality of opportunity for children. We know where trying to enforce equality of resources among adults leads.

I may disagree with others as to how much equality of opportunity should or should not be pursued with public money or laws (how much government intervention I want varies on the issue), or when trying to encourage or enforce equality of opportunity has too many other “costs”, but I certainly do not like how much birth matters so much more than innate talent and hard work (hard work alone while commendable, doesn’t necessarily lead to becoming highly skilled at something!), etc.

For instance, if someone’s parent thinks that females are worthless and shouldn’t be taught to read or write or talk, I want that child educated regardless of the parent’s wishes (and quite possibly termination of parental rights if it’s that extreme) and even though it costs public money (I don’t know the solution/how to reconcile supporting public education with despising how terrible some schools/teaching personnel are…).

Public education systems can mitigate disparities in opportunities among children, but they cannot eliminate them. I have not seen anything that could eliminate them that I would not consider repugnant.

— first definition at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/idealism

Used in the sense clearly intended in the quote, “idealistic” *means* something that appears desirable when viewed in a vacuum, but falls down in the attempt to make it real.

“So why does it seem intuitive to call this an ‘idealistic’ project? Why does it have the appeal, however momentary, that it does?”

Elementary notions of fairness? The thought that in a world that didn’t suck, individuals wouldn’t be disadvantaged due to circumstances for which they bear no responsibility?

Like any ideal, this one cannot be achieved, nor can it be approached too closely without sacrificing greater value elsewhere. It’s still something that makes sense to want, even if we know there will always be limits to how close we can come to having it.

Solidifying early childhood nutrition and education programs, bringing the schools in our poorest neighborhoods up to par with those in our richest neighborhoods and removing cost as a barrier to entry to universities would take us most of the way to reversing that. The only determinant to success should be one’s intelligence and willingness to work.

At any rate, without “sort of vast wealth-confiscation bureau” charged with reallocating wealth into the public domain and mitigating aggressive attempts to hoard wealth so as to calcify existing inequalities for generations, you’re effectively perpetuating those inequalities. If you have no serious problem with those inequalities or the means through which they were achieved — again, white supremacy, class warfare, the seizure of public institutions, legal and extralegal violence when necessary, and so on — then of course it will be “monstrous” to try to mitigate the lingering effects of these inequalities. Even still, you can perpetuate those very institutions — need I say “white supremacy” again? — while engaged in disingenuous concern trolling about “upbringing” and, jeez, I wish we could do something about this… but we can’t! So sad!

Um, three letters: I, R, and S

You are completely wrong. Equity of outcome can be achieved if some of us are willing to sacrifice.

For example, as a 5’8″ male, I don’t think it unreasonable for taller guys to have a few inches of the long bones in their legs sawed off to make me feel accommodated.

A plan that I would find perfectly reasonable until the dwarfs show up and demand the same.

At which point I would abandon it.

It’s also ‘idealistic’ because it runs completely counter to all known observations of human nature, and would devolve into a cesspool of corruption, cronyism, and enormous waste within a very few years. (see: Chicago, city of) In the modern context, “Idealism” is just another way of saying “I wish I could fly! And become invisible! And had a pony!!”

The political philosophy of children – yoked to the incredible destructive power of the State. Yeah, a fine recipe for success there.

However, if you are going to take ‘background’ to mean whatever actions he did or did not take (studying/not studying, doing drugs, stealing, etc.), then I would say that actions and decisions must have consequences and the clearer it is that those actions will have consequences, the better for the child and for everyone around him.

Ironically, the very tools that statists promote to achieve ‘fairness’ (by their definition), tend to handicap rather than help people who want to achieve something.