Equal opportunities, explained with an apple tree, four bullets and a meme

The anti-racist protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer have sparked debates and talks about equal opportunities and the social conditions that facilitate or hinder it. Twitter has rescued a series of illustrations, the work of the American Tony Ruth, which show some of the ideas from the debate, also updating a meme that is 8 years old.

Know the difference. pic.twitter.com/einoHMXvHn

Learn the difference.

There are four images:

- In inequality, one of the children drops an apple and the other, nothing.

- In the vignette of equality (between questions), the two children have stairs, but since the tree is crooked, only one of them reaches the apples. According to the text, in this image there are tools and help distributed equally.

- In the image of equity, the boy on the right has a higher ladder to also reach the fruit. Here, the text says, tools identify inequalities and help alleviate them. In other words, equity takes into account the needs and conditions of each person.

- In the vignette of justice there is no need for different stairs, since the tree has been straightened. In this context, the system is “arranged to offer equal access to tools and opportunities”.

Ruth, an illustrator from Chicago, prepared them for a conference on the inequalities caused by technology that took place at the SWSX festival in Austin, Texas, in 2019, and that gave the designer John Maeda. As Ruth explains to Verne via email, Maeda asked her for these illustrations to help better explain the differences between equality and equity in the tech sector. The style of these illustrations is also based on the children's story The generous tree, by Shel Silverstein, very popular in the United States. Ruth remembers that one of the interpretations of the story is that "what a child receives in her childhood helps her for the rest of her life."

What Tony Ruth (@lunchbreath) achieved in depicting Inequality, Equality, Equity, and Justice for the https://t.co/B7XIrdhlR4 def helped me make it to the finish line today @SXSW. It's so well executed. Thank you, Tony. pic.twitter.com/zaLaD5E2O3

Regarding their use in the context of current protests, the illustrator believes that they can help the conversation and become a "practical tool" to "explain these concepts clearly and without pretense." He also believes that simplicity can help them have a greater impact and that everyone forms their opinions about it.

A meme created in 2012

For many of those who saw the tweet, the images reminded them of another explanation, also in vignettes, of the difference between equality and equity. This is this image and its numerous variations, which have been circulating on social networks and WhatsApp for years:

On the left, equality; on the right, equity. The illustration, done in half an hour with Power Point, is by Craig Froehle of the University of Cincinnati

It is the work of by Craig Froehle, professor at the University of Cincinnati: as he tells in a text shared on Medium in 2016, after the 2012 US elections, he made this drawing to explain that “equal opportunities alone was not a satisfactory goal and that we should somehow take into account the equality of the results ”. He shared the image in Google Plus, after doing it in just half an hour with Powerpoint, and from there it became what he calls “an accidental meme”, since it has not only been shared, but has also been modified, expanded and criticized. It is one of the few memes, it must be said, that it originates from the already defunct Google social network.

Ruth explains that she knew these images and that they were the origin of her collaboration with Maeda: “They seemed useful to us, but also incomplete”. For example, he says, showing people of different ages "can be interpreted as a infantilization of the people you help." Ruth wanted to show individuals "essentially identical, with the only difference in access" to goods (apples, go). She also wanted to add one last bullet: "Justice is not that everyone receives the help they need, justice is to fix the system so that equality and equity become the same thing." In other words, in a fair system, equal opportunities could be ensured without the need to more or less favor some people.

Froehle already had four years ago that his illustration had been the subject of many adaptations, some also with an apple tree. In many cases, a vignette was added at the end for "justice" or for "liberation", according to the versions, in which a change in the system was also requested to change the conditions of these inequalities. In an exercise comparable to Ruth, there were those who removed that fence, for example.

In this version, the fence is replaced by a wire fence and everyone can see the game, that is, they are looking for a solution to the cause of inequality

Equality vs. Equity vs. USA Reality
v @IISCBlog @atticascott #inequality #healthequity #InequalityIs pic.twitter.com/D5CprKLwSJ

Equality vs. equity vs. the reality of the United States.

Contrary versions also appeared. For example, criticisms of the concept of equity appeared, adding a bullet in which it was believed that what really happens when trying to equalize results is that everyone's legs are cut off and in the end no one watches the game. That is, it is equalized by below.

Equality, equity (in theory), equity (in practice)

Despite being more recent, Ruth's illustration has also been the subject of versions, for example, adding a bullet point about “sharing”. And also of criticism.

pic.twitter.com/sbXP7ZC05I

pic.twitter.com/kq3vDhGjTZ

People with brains.

And what if the box is mine?

Froehle says that the psychologist Jonathan Haidt asked for permission to use it in one of his conferences, in which he spoke of the different opinions about social justice that conservatives and progressives have (in the United States " liberal " refers to the left and not to the liberals). “The equality for a conservative is that everyone has the same box to climb on. And if you are too short to see over the fence, bad luck, "says Haidt, from minute 25:25, explaining the idea behind the illustration. "But for a progressive equality means taking the box away from the guy who doesn't need it" so that everyone can watch the game.

This difference between equality and equity is one of the classic themes in political philosophy. Much of the conversation comes from the ideas put forth by John Rawls in books like A Theory of Justice and Justice as Equity: A Reformulation. For Rawls, the fairest distribution is that which provides the means to benefit the worst placed members of society. And equal opportunities (one box for each) is not always enough: there are people who have it more difficult due to lack of resources and there are those who are actually born with two or three boxes under their arms.

Of course, not everyone agrees on the need to make this difference between equality and equity. If Rawls is the most important political thinker for contemporary social democracy, on the liberal side we must mention Robert Nozick, whose book Anarchy, State and Utopia is a response to Rawls's ideas. For Nozick, it doesn't matter if the two boys in the picture end up with or without apples, or if the three boys on the fence can watch the game or not. What is really important is knowing how these people acquired their wealth, that is, their boxes or their position in the tree. As long as there has been a free exchange, the result is fair.

Wealth is not something that is there and you just have to distribute it: wealth has to be created, writes Nozick. When people make free decisions about economic matters, some end up with more money and others with less. If the family of the child on the left “bought” the good side of the tree, they do not have to share, through taxes, the results of their success. Even if it was only a matter of luck. But it would be different if, for example, the tall man had stolen his box or tricked someone into taking it.

Following these ideas, Anthony Gill, a political scientist at the University in Washington (Seattle), published an article in 2019 in response to the Froehle meme. In his opinion, the answer to the inequalities of the savings banks is in the market: in the image you see a stadium and whoever pays for their ticket can watch the game. Not everyone can afford the best seats, people with fewer resources can go from time to time, benefiting from discounts or cheaper prices in the highest seats. Or they can just watch it on TV. In addition, for Gill there is another problem: if nobody pays entry, in the end there will be no game because the teams will not be able to meet their expenses.

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