The Trouble With "Competency Testing"

One idea often floated by some libertarians, paleoconservatives, and youth rights activists alike is the idea that most if not all age restrictions can and should be replaced with a competency test of some sort.  Dr. Robert Epstein (not to be confused with that other Epstein!) famously advocates this in his book Teen 2.0.  The arguments for this may seem appealing at first glance, but upon closer examination they largely fall apart as quixotic at best, and perhaps even worse than the current abominable status quo.

First of all, like most other glib and specious technocratic and ivory tower solutions in search of a problem (see Epstein's other idea from 2020 about instantly ending the Covid pandemic with mass testing of the entire population and isolating the positives, then ask Slovakia how well that idea worked out), it is unrealistic and impractical.  For example, Epstein literally uses the DMV (!) of all things as a model, without seeing the irony of it all.  Who exactly decides what the tests consist of, who administers and evaluates each one, and what adult rights, responsibilities, and privileges even need any tests or age restrictions at all?  Who validates whether these new tests even have any predictive value at all, as opposed to merely being gatekeeping of privilege?  And who watches the watchers?  Epstein leaves the hopeful but bewildered readers with far more questions than answers.  Strike one.

Secondly, there is the problem of scalability.  Traditionally, any formal coming-of-age ritual "tests", to the extent that they even existed at all, were done at the local or tribal level, and administered by familiar elders, not by large faceless bureaucracies governing millions of people.  Strike two.

Finally, and more importantly, all competency tests of any kind are, by their very definition and nature, inherently ableist. True, one can argue that Mother Nature is also ableist, but while that is technically true, that does NOT justify being any MORE ableist than Mother Nature already is, only that anti-ableism is unfortunately an imperfect duty rather than a perfect one.  And ableism, just like ageism/adultism, is both bad enough on its own as well as a major "gateway" and "underpin" to the rest of the kyriarchy (patriarchy, sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, and all the other intersectional -isms out there).

For example, can you imagine if everyone had to take a test to be allowed to vote regardless of age?   There was a precedent for that in the Southern states prior to the civil rights movement, and it wasn't a good thing at all.  Having a test only for people under 18 (or under 16) to vote could be defensible perhaps, but if applied to the entire population regardless of age it opens the door to not only ableism, but also racism, classism, elitism, and perhaps other -isms as well.  It is far too easy to rig such tests, as history has shown.

Strike three, you're OUT!

Thus, after giving it much thought, Twenty-One Debunked keeps coming back to the same answer.  And that answer is, competency tests have their place as an alternative to age limits for some but not all things, and regardless, there needs to be a default age of majority above which one is automatically given the benefit of the doubt and presumed to be an adult (unless an individual is formally declared incompetent by the state), and thus exempt from such tests for all general adult rights, responsibilities, and privileges.  And after that, once you are an adult, you are an adult, period.  That would take most of the ableism out of the equation, albeit with an unavoidable tradeoff between ableism and ageism/adultism for people below that age.  And for that reason, some current age limits for specific things simply should be lowered or abolished rather than replaced with all-new competency testing.

And Twenty-One Debunked believes that default age should be no higher than 18.  Before that age, there is plenty of room for nuance, of course.  But NOT after.

(Mic drop)