Is Discrimination Always Bad?

The answer depends on what we mean

A woman carefully thinking through a choice — image via MidJourney

Is it wrong to discriminate? Most people would say yes. At least most people who are socially conscious and who support equality.

I’m here to say…

Discrimination is NOT always wrong. It’s not always bad.

Of course, it depends on what we mean by “discrimination.”

Merriam-Webster provides multiple definitions for discrimination:

1 a: prejudiced or prejudicial outlook, action, or treatment

1 b: the act, practice, or an instance of discriminating categorically rather than individually

2 : the quality or power of finely distinguishing

3 a: the act of making or perceiving a difference : the act of discriminating

3 b: (psychology) the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently

Working with these definitions, let’s examine which are bad and which are acceptable.

“prejudiced or prejudical outlook, action, or treatment”

The example that Merriam-Webster provides for this definition is racial discrimination. I would hope that everyone reading this agrees that such…