A “Level Playing Field”

The ultimate logic of Affirmative Action

by Patrick J. Shanahan
08/16/03

One of the core tenets of those who urge the use of racial, sexual, or lifestyle favoritism (aka Affirmative Action) is that all they want to do is create a “level playing field.” The underlying logic of this is that it is unfair that people be penalized for being placed in a position which makes it difficult for them to succeed. Born a poor black child in the inner city? Well then, in order to give you an “equal chance” to succeed, we need to give you a head start in the contest by making sure you get into an elite school regardless of lower grades. This, of course, is not a level playing field at all. It is a tilted playing field. It is deliberately giving one person a chance to “succeed” by holding another person back. On its own terms this is antithetical to the idea of competition, fairness, and equality. We are not helping the “beneficiary” succeed. We are just redefining what success means, and then patting ourselves on the back because we’re so darned compassionate.

A remarkable real life example of this mentality occurred recently in the Twin Cities. The Lifetime Triathlon came to town (sponsored by Lifetime Fitness). Why anyone would feel the urge to swim, bike, and run immense distances in the same race is beyond my understanding. But many people apparently like it. They must, because the contest was nationally televised by NBC, and had a total purse of $500,000. That is big time bucks. It was also unique because they had a wide variety - a diversity if you will - of contestants. There were male and female professionals, “elite amateurs,” ordinary amateurs, and really slow amateurs all the way down to an 87 year old women and a ten year old kid. So far, so good.

Imagine my surprise watching the news that evening and hearing that the winner of the race and the $250,000 first prize was a woman? Wow. What an accomplishment! She beat out all the professional men in the race. Incredible.

Actually, it is incredible in the purest sense of the word. It turns out that the race was deliberately rigged by starting the female professionals 9 minutes and 41 seconds ahead of the men. The clock started for everybody when the women jumped in the water, but the men had to wait on the beach until the allotted time was up. This very precisely calculated head start was specifically designed to provide an end of the race situation in which the best man and best woman would be fairly close, thus adding to the excitement of the whole thing.

There are many situations in which we use “handicaps” to make sports more enjoyable and competitive. Golf is the best example, where both handicap scores and multiple tee boxes are used to even out scores and performance. It is also not uncommon in many sports for the better player to “give points” up front to the weaker player. Doing this gives both players a sense of being able to win, and motivates them appropriately.

So I have no problem with the notion of handicapping on its own terms. But I have a major problem with doing so when $250,000 is going to be awarded for the best athletic performance. Reviewing the times in the newspaper the next day, I found out that - if one adjusted for the 9:41 head start - at least the top ten male finishers completed the race with faster times than the “winner” of the race. Two of the “elite amateur” men also had better times. If one defined “winning” the traditional way (best time) then the $250,000 would have gone to a man, as would the next nine prizes. The best woman in the crowd (the “winner”) would have gotten spare change. But all one needs to do is redefine “winning” as meaning who crossed the line first in a rigged race, and those superior male athletes are cheated out of what they in fact earned. But nary a word in the media reports of the race emphasized that it was rigged. The only allusion to it that I heard was one (male) sportscaster who cooed that “Isn’t it wonderful that they created a level playing field for the women?”

Thus works the logic of Affirmative Action. We’ll just tilt the playing field and pretend that success is something different than it is, and cheer the accomplishments of those who benefit from the tilt.

But the part that bugs me most is why it is necessary to do it this way? Why not just have the traditional Men’s and Women’s divisions in the race, and award equal prizes to the winner of each? Surely being the best triathlete among all the female competitors is a distinct honor. Why is it necessary to pretend that women are “just as good” as men at things like running and swimming and biking? Why is it necessary to rig the race in order to support the pretense?

I believe that it is inherent in the base logic of diversity and Affirmative Action. If one starts from the premise that the only things standing between a given human being and success are the barriers imposed by a white heterosexual male establishment - and you would be astounded at how many people actually believe that - then tilting the playing field to give them an edge is only an effort in fairness - giving them what they should have had anyway, and would have had if it hadn’t been for the Establishment. And, as a corollary benefit, implanting in the minds of the 80% of the people out there who didn’t realize the race was rigged that, see, women can compete with and beat male triathletes!

The fact that this line of thought is idiotic and has no bearing on objective reality is not relevant. Much of new age leftism is almost mystical in nature. Logic, rationality, objectivity, and truth are seen as irrelevant. They are mere concepts that we white heterosexual males use to impose our will on others. What is true is what people think to be true, what they feel. If tilting the playing field is what is required to make is feel that it is level, then we shall tilt it and call it good.

The only satisfaction in all of this is that this line of thinking is so completely at odds with the way the world actually is, and the way that real people actually behave, that it will have no choice but to get more and more absurd until it eventually collapses under its own weight. And then maybe we will once again be able to run races on level playing fields, and let the best man - or woman - win.