382: The soft bigotry of low expectations

The boys drink and review Pigweed's brown ale, then discuss how low expectations harm the people they're supposed to help. (The beer review ends at 3:53.) George Bush made the phrase "the soft bigotry of low expectations" popular in his 2000 campaign. The evil of this "soft bigotry" is that it comes from people who pretend to be helping. But when you fail to hold people to reasonable standards, you're not helping them at all. If you institutionalize low expectations to increase the participation of some group, everyone will now question the qualifications of the people in that group. How could they not? P&C discuss how this poisonous attitude infects many areas of our culture. It infects the SAT, grades, hiring, recruiting for schools, and even baking contests.