On Bell Curves, Freedom and Progress
We can’t have equality because people aren’t all the same
Who still wants to be free? There are too many people now in our analogue and digital environment. It is becoming increasingly difficult to deny one’s kinship to them, because we seem equal in so many things. But now one also encounters the outliers who seem fundamentally different.
The bigger the crowd, the more weirdos, more abnormalities there are. How do we manage the crowd that contains each extreme? Are we careful with it or do we choose the path of least resistance? A question of bell curves, freedom and progress.
Especially Normal Distribution
When measuring modern humans, no matter which metric you choose, the data points regularly become a bell-shaped curve. This maps the natural, normal distribution of the quality of properties as well as the evolutionary variance. Most people are closer than distant from one another in every way — this is the bell. Outside the margins are the statistical exceptional cases, which are part of the rule because of their irregularity.
The primary reason we can perceive ourselves as one species is the fact that we individually tend towards the center of normal distribution in most metrics. If there are still some collective differences in the distribution, one can form groups based on them. For example, seeing a 6'5 tall man is remarkable, but it’s way less likely to find a 6'5 tall woman. Meanwhile, a 32'8 tall person, regardless of gender, would be outright unthinkable.
The distribution of IQ works similarly. The absolute majority of all people in Germany settle around the average of 100, which puts us in 15th place in a country comparison.¹ Within Europe, most of the nations range between an average of 110 and 90.
However, there is that small fraction of the population that deviates radically from this average in either direction. The smartest and stupidest people, so to speak, who only make up 0.26% of all. For every 1,000 Germans, roughly one would be an absolute genius and one would be a special idiot.
How does the majority deal with these minorities? Should we give them any political relevance? Should we ignore them for the sake of simplicity? Do special qualities go hand in hand with special needs; and should these be a topic of consideration to the state?
Well, would you rather put your life in the hands of the best doctor or the most normal one? Do you still quote John Doe or rather Albert Einstein? In short, isn’t it the extremes we have a burning interest in?
The facts are painful for modern Westerners who have long tried to convince themselves that they are special. Unfortunately, this turns out an idealized notion when you look at the big picture. Individuality shows in the details, but overall, most people are more alike than strange. Who wants to be on average in intelligence? Who below?
They take flight to absolute equality, in which at least no one is superior. But comparing distinct groups of people with one another is tricky. How do you deal with the fact that men and women are distributed according to different patterns on the intelligence scale?
From the age of 14, the average IQ of a man is 5 points higher than that of a woman.² While women are more closely distributed around the average, the bell curve for men is flatter. That said, more men are idiots and geniuses than women. A rogue who wants this to explain the lower life expectancy of men and the lack of representation of women in the Fortune 500 companies…
In the extremes, the differences are extreme, no matter how alike most of us may be. But they can also appear in a broader scheme.
The proclaimed gender pay gap, a discrepancy between the average salary of men and women, has been used as political fuel for years. Because a differentiation of the study clearly defuses it,³ this seems quite irresponsible. We cannot complain about differences in the detail and at the same time argue under the premise that both groups are equal in every other way.
Freedom to progress
Humanity stands on the shoulders of giants. All technological and scientific achievements, all lasting political changes, all heroic deeds and crimes are produced by a fraction of all human beings. Luther translated the Bible and started a movement. Timothy John Berners-Lee founded the Internet. Einstein developed the theory of relativity. And Angela Merkel has long been in charge of the German government.
The exceptional cases are responsible for changes. Without them, the average stagnates. Without their enrichment, the average remains poor. Not paying attention to the outliers wastes potential because they show us what is possible.
Thanks to Steve Jobs’ vision, many average intelligent or creative people now hold a smartphone in their hand that increases their capabilities. Thanks to the developers at Google, even a below-average educated person is able to access practically all knowledge in the world. We are progressive to the extent we listen to the intelligent and creative elite and let them show us the way.
The aristocratic concept of the top 1% of the bell curve… it is certainly not entirely advisable to entrust our fate to these few. It is completely retrogressive though to slow down and punish these outliers in a misguided pursuit of social justice. The goal of gender parity, for example, would be such a mistake.
Meritocracy, the alignment of hierarchies in the capitalist system based on merit, serves to promote the prosperity and progress of a whole nation, a continent, the world. We can only base our appreciation for the best on quality criteria. It is an irrelevant rating category to include the gender and physical characteristics of the staff in the equation. If you do this, you move away from the performance orientation.
However, the only social purpose of work can be to achieve, to work towards something. Even if one pursues work as an end in itself, only the questions of utility and efficiency can legitimately be asked by the public and thus in the political interest. Deliberately doing a job less efficiently in order to force social equality is a capital capitulation. It may bring a certain feel-good factor in the short term — in the long run, however, the loss of performance will also affect the person hired for the quota.
If there is no performance optimization, then performance will drop, or at least stagnate. So one can speak of a theoretically finite sum of performance. This, illustrated on a bell curve, would be to the left of the bell of the performance potential. Not only would the overall and average performance be lower if we employed the second best with the correct gender instead of the very best. The performance peak, the top 1%, would lag even further behind what’d be possible. For the ›beyond the conceivable good‹, there are ultimately no qualification requirements in the job interview that could be used as a counterbalance for gender.
It’s actually simple: if you want performance, you focus on performance with the risk that differences between groups of people will show up in the extremes. Correcting these differences, however, would shift the aim completely. Inevitably, the performance would then decrease. This can only be desirable for those who would rather be average than exhaust their potential. It must certainly be repulsive for those who are prevented from being above average. And meanwhile you somehow have to drag the below-average along with you.
So can we afford the losses? That would be much more of a question than whether there would be any. The latter is not a question from a mathematical or statistical point of view. The attempt to invoke an ominous secret performance of one or the other sex to balance the equation is a pure fantasy without data evidence — although not excluded, but therefore not yet tangible enough for an argument.
This is certainly not the first time anyone comes up with these considerations. Politically, they don’t seem to be very popular, as moral argumentation and the ›blueprint society‹ are booming. In any case, freedom is a suspicious hobby. Whoever asks for it will certainly want to play jokes! As if it had meanwhile degenerated into an evil code word. Freedom as the ›freedom to oppress others‹ is what you hear right away.
No, true freedom goes beyond oppression. Nor does it suppress the excellence of the few for the sake of the will of the average. There is no right to excellence. So there is no right to equality of outcome.
Go as far as no one else has to carry you, then you are free.
Do you want to read this article in German? Click here.
