Because chewing takes too long

A couple of interesting articles from the American: one against cash incentives for schooling, and another in favour of abolishing the SATs. I agree with the main points of these articles: you can't fix disparity by conditioning behaviour termed "proper", and you can't identify the diamonds among those rough and ornery underprivileged by judging both privileged and underprivileged by the same standard...not without underscoring a sense of entitlement among the rich.

But I also think that something about the tone in each article was off, (though I blame the articles less than the debate they engage in, especially in the case of the first article). They were presenting valid arguments against ineffective programs, programs meant to help the "underprivileged"...but in doing so they did not take the time to define what needed fixing and why. I was left with the sense that both articles masked sentiment that was (perhaps unconsciously) trite, that "we have a duty to help these poor, wayward, limited, (dirty) individuals...but alas no method is working".

It is as the writers (falsely) believe a great burden is weighing upon them, a great struggle that must be engaged in despite knowledge from the start that it was doomed to failure, because (they falsely believe) the children of the privileged are (genetically) better off, and everyone else is catching up. (e.g., from the second article: "The children of the well educated and affluent get most of the top scores because they constitute most of the smartest kids. They are smart because their parents are smart. The parents have passed their smartness along through parenting practices that are largely independent of education and affluence, and through genes that are completely independent of them.")

This is self-absorption masked as charity.

The debate needs to be rephrased, away from an under-defined "moral obligation" toward the poor, and toward a sense of mutual advantage to be gained from the promotion of functional, semi-autonomous sub-systems within a single nation. In other words, don't feel as though the promotion of the underprivileged is necessary because we must return to that innocent (mythical) state of equality to which we were born. Instead, realize that independent communities exist within America, that problems within one community (crime, unemployment, illness) affect everyone, and that it is in everyone's self-interest to resolve them.

My solution? Teleportation.