The question vexes. How many times do we have to have the same argument? How often must we repeat the same debate, fight the same fight, arrive at the same (tentative, obviously) conclusions before the matter—whatever the matter may be—is regarded as settled? Today, I would no be surprised to see widespread dispute occur over gravity and the sun-centered universe. (Yes, I know there are people who regard all that with a skepticism that boggles the mind, but we have yet to see any of it rise to the level of congressional hearing.)
Behaving as though some people are innately less than others is a demonstrably, historically established, patently absurd Bad Idea.
And yet here we are.
One could say that argument has never been settled, but really one has to be willfully delusional not to understand. But I suppose there are people who regard attributes like manners, erudition, college degrees, and family connections as proof that the universe has seen fit to endow them with natural superiority, as if any of those things were somehow innate by virtue of DNA.
The question I’ve pondered from time to time is, how does any of that matter anyway? All of them can be learned. So if we assume some people are simply born with them, the only way they can claim superiority is if they actively prevent those not born with them from acquiring them by other means, like education. Turn that any way you like, it still comes down to cheating. And if you have to cheat to maintain your advantage, it must not be much of an advantage in the first place.
But none of that is “natural” in the way bigots like to believe. Bigotry is always and only an admission of inferiority. And, following on the above, such inferiority is not innate, it is learned, and clung to willfully.
Let’s try a different way to see the problem, at least for a moment. It seems to me that the argument over equality almost always crashed upon the shoals of a fundamental misunderstanding of terms. Certain people seem to hear the word equality and immediately translate it as “as good as me.” Before you dismiss that as mere semantics, consider the implied meaning in both phrases—equality, as good as. People use binaries all the time, for all sorts of things, so it should surprise no one that a topic as complex as this will end up being reduced to an either/or unless we strive mightily to keep it as complex as it intrinsically is.
As good as me, no different than me, I’m no better than you, we’re the same…on and on, one comparison after another, all based on some kind of binary hierarchical assessment that ignores the far more interesting substance of being human. It might be useful to bear in mind that the usual metrics, the personal ones, deployed in such discussions are not really the same as the justice-based ideas pertaining to social equality.
Inequality as an accepted norm seems hard-wired into human interaction, despite having been challenged often and profoundly. (As an example, from a religious perspective, at least in the West, Yeshua taught that all people are equal before god. It may well have been the radical message that got him executed. Fifteen centuries later, basic inequality became the basis for protestant christianity with Calvin’s idea of predestination. While perhaps not primarily intended to inform social relations, the idea that some people are simply born The Elect and the rest headed for damnation could not have escaped being used to sort people into good and bad categories even in secular relations.) People will have their privileges and if the right to them is somehow innate so much the better. But that means keeping those not to the manor born adamantly out.
At base, it’s a question of hierarchies. Some are “better” than others. Going forward from that, it seems difficult if not impossible for those who feel they are in the “better” classification to treat others as equals, even in terms of justice. As high-minded as reformers may be, until we come to terms with the assumptions at play in this, the entropy of social interaction will always pull us into the simplistic routines of Us versus Them.
Part of the problem is that we really don’t seem to understand the concept. Equality. Equal to what? To whom? And for which values?
Below that, underneath, underpinning the surface of the question, is: why should it matter? Not the question of equality itself, that people should be accorded the courtesy of being treated as equals, but why the issue matters in the first place. Why is it so damn important for people to feel superior to others, so much so that they are willing to enslave others in order to validate their self-assessment of superiority? Why does it matter so much that you be “better” “superior” “above” and/or innately privileged to be “in charge” over others?
Over the years I have lost my adolescent competitiveness, insofar as I feel no need, no desire to be better than anyone else, at least according to the accepted metrics of our current society. In order for you to “be” better than, someone else—many someone else’s—must by definition be “worse” than you. I do not require that to feel good about myself.
But I digress. To the question at hand, what does equality mean, the first difficulty is in defining what we mean by equality and, by extension, why does inequality enjoy such a pride of place in our day to day dealings? Because it does. As noted, the desire to be “better” than someone else is pernicious.
We should be careful to differentiate between what are learned or acquired distinctions and those considered innate. Someone may certainly acquire a skill set that makes them in some sense superior in the performance of a field—music, for instance, art, or even mathematics—but this is not where the social problems entailed by practiced inequality land. It is in those characteristics which are used to define someone in terms of nature. Skin color, body type, IQ (?), and so forth. That because one is This Kind Of Person they are of course inferior or superior, before any meaningful acquisition of skill or even moral character can be demonstrated. The automatic cataloguing based on aspects none of us can either change or are automatically limited by. We have extended that in the last few centuries to economic status, as if the amount of money one has is a meaningful indicator of human value.
This comes down to respect. Leading with it. We live in an ethically lazy culture. We want our moral obligations prepackaged and sortable without the need to genuinely comprehend them. This can lead to terrible consequences, many of which we are currently living through.
Mandating this is next to impossible. So we are left with legislating behaviors, which is fraught with problems. In our own society, the debate pits libertarians against socialists against…take your pick. Those who chafe at government restrictions, those who recognize the need for rules, guidelines, guardrails, because we have ample experience with the apparent inability of people to treat each other—for want of a better word—decently. Societies in which such control has reached a certain level can be rightly described as oppressive. Respect must be voluntary to be meaningful.
Equality is a byproduct of respect, but clearly is insufficient as any kind of guarantee that it is equally distributed. Possibly because equality, as we intend it, is not “natural.” It is a construct, a social system wherein people deal with each other on the basis of mutually accepted standards. Standards must be agreed upon, which means they are artifacts. We speak of institutions and systems, quite rightly, because a society is a made thing. What we are talking about is something like a confraternity. Equality becomes part and parcel of being accepted into such a system. It’s an aspect of initiation. Becoming a citizen, formally and legally, is an example of initiation. This has been the most reliable method of awarding status ever devised, and as we are discussing status of the most fundamental type, it should come as no surprise that when we seek equality, many people want to know by what mechanism.
Democracy has been the best means to date of administering that status. When we defend democracy, we are defending the systemic bestowal of rights, including the status of equality.
Obviously, what is essential in this formulation is the fullest participation in those institutions that can be achieved. Which is why bowing out of the process of voting is one of the surest paths to functional inequality. Most people who do not vote by choice fail to see it this way. Those who seek to limit voting know very well that this is how it works.
The Distal Muse
Equality Versus…
The question vexes. How many times do we have to have the same argument? How often must we repeat the same debate, fight the same fight, arrive at the same (tentative, obviously) conclusions before the matter—whatever the matter may be—is regarded as settled? Today, I would no be surprised to see widespread dispute occur over gravity and the sun-centered universe. (Yes, I know there are people who regard all that with a skepticism that boggles the mind, but we have yet to see any of it rise to the level of congressional hearing.)
Behaving as though some people are innately less than others is a demonstrably, historically established, patently absurd Bad Idea.
And yet here we are.
One could say that argument has never been settled, but really one has to be willfully delusional not to understand. But I suppose there are people who regard attributes like manners, erudition, college degrees, and family connections as proof that the universe has seen fit to endow them with natural superiority, as if any of those things were somehow innate by virtue of DNA.
The question I’ve pondered from time to time is, how does any of that matter anyway? All of them can be learned. So if we assume some people are simply born with them, the only way they can claim superiority is if they actively prevent those not born with them from acquiring them by other means, like education. Turn that any way you like, it still comes down to cheating. And if you have to cheat to maintain your advantage, it must not be much of an advantage in the first place.
But none of that is “natural” in the way bigots like to believe. Bigotry is always and only an admission of inferiority. And, following on the above, such inferiority is not innate, it is learned, and clung to willfully.
Let’s try a different way to see the problem, at least for a moment. It seems to me that the argument over equality almost always crashed upon the shoals of a fundamental misunderstanding of terms. Certain people seem to hear the word equality and immediately translate it as “as good as me.” Before you dismiss that as mere semantics, consider the implied meaning in both phrases—equality, as good as. People use binaries all the time, for all sorts of things, so it should surprise no one that a topic as complex as this will end up being reduced to an either/or unless we strive mightily to keep it as complex as it intrinsically is.
As good as me, no different than me, I’m no better than you, we’re the same…on and on, one comparison after another, all based on some kind of binary hierarchical assessment that ignores the far more interesting substance of being human. It might be useful to bear in mind that the usual metrics, the personal ones, deployed in such discussions are not really the same as the justice-based ideas pertaining to social equality.
Inequality as an accepted norm seems hard-wired into human interaction, despite having been challenged often and profoundly. (As an example, from a religious perspective, at least in the West, Yeshua taught that all people are equal before god. It may well have been the radical message that got him executed. Fifteen centuries later, basic inequality became the basis for protestant christianity with Calvin’s idea of predestination. While perhaps not primarily intended to inform social relations, the idea that some people are simply born The Elect and the rest headed for damnation could not have escaped being used to sort people into good and bad categories even in secular relations.) People will have their privileges and if the right to them is somehow innate so much the better. But that means keeping those not to the manor born adamantly out.
At base, it’s a question of hierarchies. Some are “better” than others. Going forward from that, it seems difficult if not impossible for those who feel they are in the “better” classification to treat others as equals, even in terms of justice. As high-minded as reformers may be, until we come to terms with the assumptions at play in this, the entropy of social interaction will always pull us into the simplistic routines of Us versus Them.
Part of the problem is that we really don’t seem to understand the concept. Equality. Equal to what? To whom? And for which values?
Below that, underneath, underpinning the surface of the question, is: why should it matter? Not the question of equality itself, that people should be accorded the courtesy of being treated as equals, but why the issue matters in the first place. Why is it so damn important for people to feel superior to others, so much so that they are willing to enslave others in order to validate their self-assessment of superiority? Why does it matter so much that you be “better” “superior” “above” and/or innately privileged to be “in charge” over others?
Over the years I have lost my adolescent competitiveness, insofar as I feel no need, no desire to be better than anyone else, at least according to the accepted metrics of our current society. In order for you to “be” better than, someone else—many someone else’s—must by definition be “worse” than you. I do not require that to feel good about myself.
But I digress. To the question at hand, what does equality mean, the first difficulty is in defining what we mean by equality and, by extension, why does inequality enjoy such a pride of place in our day to day dealings? Because it does. As noted, the desire to be “better” than someone else is pernicious.
We should be careful to differentiate between what are learned or acquired distinctions and those considered innate. Someone may certainly acquire a skill set that makes them in some sense superior in the performance of a field—music, for instance, art, or even mathematics—but this is not where the social problems entailed by practiced inequality land. It is in those characteristics which are used to define someone in terms of nature. Skin color, body type, IQ (?), and so forth. That because one is This Kind Of Person they are of course inferior or superior, before any meaningful acquisition of skill or even moral character can be demonstrated. The automatic cataloguing based on aspects none of us can either change or are automatically limited by. We have extended that in the last few centuries to economic status, as if the amount of money one has is a meaningful indicator of human value.
This comes down to respect. Leading with it. We live in an ethically lazy culture. We want our moral obligations prepackaged and sortable without the need to genuinely comprehend them. This can lead to terrible consequences, many of which we are currently living through.
Mandating this is next to impossible. So we are left with legislating behaviors, which is fraught with problems. In our own society, the debate pits libertarians against socialists against…take your pick. Those who chafe at government restrictions, those who recognize the need for rules, guidelines, guardrails, because we have ample experience with the apparent inability of people to treat each other—for want of a better word—decently. Societies in which such control has reached a certain level can be rightly described as oppressive. Respect must be voluntary to be meaningful.
Equality is a byproduct of respect, but clearly is insufficient as any kind of guarantee that it is equally distributed. Possibly because equality, as we intend it, is not “natural.” It is a construct, a social system wherein people deal with each other on the basis of mutually accepted standards. Standards must be agreed upon, which means they are artifacts. We speak of institutions and systems, quite rightly, because a society is a made thing. What we are talking about is something like a confraternity. Equality becomes part and parcel of being accepted into such a system. It’s an aspect of initiation. Becoming a citizen, formally and legally, is an example of initiation. This has been the most reliable method of awarding status ever devised, and as we are discussing status of the most fundamental type, it should come as no surprise that when we seek equality, many people want to know by what mechanism.
Democracy has been the best means to date of administering that status. When we defend democracy, we are defending the systemic bestowal of rights, including the status of equality.
Obviously, what is essential in this formulation is the fullest participation in those institutions that can be achieved. Which is why bowing out of the process of voting is one of the surest paths to functional inequality. Most people who do not vote by choice fail to see it this way. Those who seek to limit voting know very well that this is how it works.
Some thoughts ahead of the world changing again.
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