Equal Opportunity

Not everyone in America has an equal opportunity to be successful. We all don't even have the same definition of "successful," but I'll leave that issue for another time. What I am interested in now is the myth of equal opportunity. Let's take me, Kevin Love, and a boy, who shall remain nameless, that I crossed paths with while working for a non-profit after school program. My dad didn't play in the NBA and my Uncle wasn't a member of the Beach Boys. I think that Kevin Love, of whom those things are true, had more opportunities to succeed than I did. This doesn't mean he hasn't worked hard to become one of the best players in the NBA, because by all accounts he has, but the money, experience, and genetic gifts passed down to him gave him more opportunities than I have had. I have had, however, great opportunities to succeed. My parents payed for college and part of graduate school, and have supported me financially, emotionally, and lots of ways right up to the present day. I also did not watch my father stab my mother, nor did my parents have drug problems, nor did I have to live with family who didn't want me to live with them. It's silly to claim that we all have an equal opportunity to succeed, or to assert that anyone can be successful if they try. Also, pointing to the orphan success story (i.e. Tom Monaghan) is not a convincing argument. Each of these miracle stories involves so many turns of fate, and so much work, that it just isn't convincing to say it can happen to anyone and surely doesn't sound like "equal opportunity." Equal opportunity doesn't even seem like an achievable goal.

What equal opportunity does seem like is a myth that gets in the way of solving real problems. When we believe there is equal opportunity, we are less inclined to try to fix problems that hold people back (like inadequate schools, drug traffic, homelessness, extreme poverty, etc.). When we believe there is equal opportunity, we are also less likely to downplay the importance of government action and of charity. We are also more likely to be content with massive inequality. If it is the fault of lazy individuals and if we all could be Bill Gates if we only tried hard enough, then why should we be concerned if some people have a lot and some people have very little? It is only when we recognize the impossibility of the American Dream for so many, that we put ourselves in the position to fix that and a whole host of other problems.