Positive discrimination, like socialism, is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals and of their political and bureaucratic allies
Dalrymple observes that
the number of categories into which humanity can be divided is infinite: only some categories can be favoured, leaving others resentful and liable to seek political redress.
Quotas
not only politicise life but embitter political life. They formalise favouritism, reinforcing the problem they are meant to solve.
Quotas inflate the role of government,
for someone has to enforce them. The demand for equality (of a kind) undermines freedom because private associations are no longer able to make the rules they wish, a necessary condition for a liberal society in which government is not overweening. The imposition of quotas is founded on the belief that everyone is a bigot unless forced by fiat to be otherwise. This is a dismal view of human potentiality.
Quotas are condescending towards those favoured but unjust towards those not favoured.
You cannot have positive discrimination without negative discrimination, often towards minorities (actually everyone is a member of many minorities). You will end up with a virtual numerus clausus such as operated in élite universities in America against Jews.
Those who favour quotas use
a form of argument similar in form, and not dissimilar in content, to that used by anti-Semites. How come so small proportion of the population should achieve such prominence in academia, publishing, journalism, the media, retailing, industry, banking, finance? The only conceivable answer is that this sector, through some subtle and conspiratorial informal organisation, manipulates itself into prominence. On this view, the Swedish academy that awards the Nobel prizes for science is some kind of front organisation for a shadowy conspiracy.
The only solution to the injustice
is countervailing political action. This kind of argument, of course, featured prominently in Nazi propaganda and, alas, was highly effective. It appeals to Man’s reptile brain.
