Men are by their nature equal in that they are all born with the same base moral worth, irrespective of race, sex, or class. This, however, is not a fact that continues throughout their life. The serial killer is not worth the same, morally speaking, as the innocent child. This is not to say that even the most grievous of sinners is devoid of worth, even the worst man has worth in the sight of God. Only that there is a moral hierarchy and the innocent child stands very high up on it.
Morality at birth is one of the two places where equality applies. The second great equalizer is death which robs us of everything that might make us distinct from other men and sends our souls impoverished towards the throne of God. This is why we can never 'do away with the notion of equality like some curiously optimistic thinkers like Neitzche though. We are all thrown through the two great equalizers. Birth and death.
But the Egalitarians wish to reduce everything to birth and death and that is to forget everything that lies in between. Our biological sex determines near everything that happens in those in-between years. Our ethnicity determines the culture, the mores, and how we are treated. Our class is more malleable. And in between there we are not all equally blessed with a good physique, some people are smarter than others. Some people are born into loving families and some are not. Some people are blessed with good social skills and many friends and others stay friendless and alone. And then luck plays a role. No one has so much good fortune that some piece of bad fortune might not come along and ruin it. No one is so miserable as to make a change in circumstance impossible.
The world is bound up in knots of inequality. Any attempt to make life fair is doomed to failure. A Soviet Commissar's child is not equal in status to the child of a day laborer in Minsk. Nancy Pelosi is not the equal of the peasants who vote for her. Neither the radical nor moderate methods of ending inequality have worked.
To add to this, another, form of inequality is created by merit. We do not all do the same things with our lives. Some make lemonade with lemons. Meritocracy acts as the counterweight to Aristocracy, but in some ways is a far more brutal case of inequality. The people who win because they try are often less sympathetic to those below them.
And so we end up with the curious case of Western Conservatism which acknowledges both. All men are created equal and will die whether they are thrown in a ditch or placed in a mausoleum. But between those two equal points, our world is filled with inequality. Some have better luck. Some try harder. Politics cannot paper over this reality anymore than it can act naively that humanity has no sense of equality.
Our politics must be paradoxical in nature. It must bow both to the gods of equality and hierarchy or risk being overthrown by them.
Comments
Top
New
Community
No posts