Why 'Equality' Must
Die
Take a look at the following list and tell me if
anything strikes you:
- Prudence
- Justice
- Temperance
- Courage
- Faith
- Hope
- Charity
Viewing these, the Seven Cardinal Virtues,
anything make an impression? Okay, now try the Seven Heavenly Virtues of:
- Chastity
- Temperance
- Charity
- Diligence
- Patience
- Kindness
- Humility
Anything? What strikes me is that equality is
not among them.
Scour great works, such as the Bible, and you
won't find talk of equality. Not one bit -- that is, unless you consider The
Communist Manifesto a great work.
One thing about virtues -- which are defined as
"good moral habits" -- is that their exercise doesn't require the
cooperation, or compulsion, of another person. I can cultivate prudence,
temperance, courage and the other virtues in myself, and I can do it all by
myself. So while a virtuous society is desirable, virtue can also be a purely
personal goal. And this is one time when focusing on the self needn't be
selfish, for we should take the log out of our own eyes before worrying about
the speck in our brother's.
But equality is far different. Just as there can
be no numerical equality without at least two numbers, there can be no human
equality on an island with a population of one. And while you could increase
patience through personal change, increasing equality necessitates societal
change; it involves raising people up as much as they're able -- which requires
their cooperation -- and insofar as they're unable, it involves bringing others
down. This is where compulsion enters the equation. The point is that, unlike
with virtues, increasing equality is always an endeavor of the collective.
Another quality of virtues is that, as Aristotle
noted, their cultivation is necessary for a happy life. And lack of virtue in
the collective can make life harder, such as when the government stifles just
economic freedom (excessive regulation), suppresses truth (hate-speech laws) or
imposes some other aspect of tyranny. We also want our survival needs
fulfilled: enough food and water and a roof over our heads. And we'd like the
opportunity to pursue proper pleasures and dreams and exercise our creative
capacity. But is actual "equality" necessary for happiness?
A long time ago, in a "previous life,"
I was an aspiring tennis player. I wanted to be the best. Alas, though, it just
wasn't in the cards -- I didn't have the talent of a Roger Federer or Rafael
Nadal. Yet the cards also taught me something: being a famous athlete just
isn't that important, and it certainly isn't necessary for happiness. And what
would it say about me if my happiness (or what I fancy such) were dependent
upon those more talented fellows being brought down to my level?
Using a more common example, consider income
inequality. If Bill Gates had never made his billions, it not only wouldn't
have put one more cent in your pocket, society would be poorer because we
wouldn't have the jobs and productivity-enhancing products he created.
Moreover, when the rich invest their money in stocks, companies are provided
working capital. The rich may put it in banks, too, and banks aren't just money
warehouses; they provide loans to businesses. So both these activities
facilitate economic growth and more job creation. Given this, what does it say
about a person when he nonetheless wants the rich cut down to size? Well, it
reminds me of Friedrich Nietzsche's line in Thus Spake Zarathustra:
"If there were Gods, how could I bear not to be a God? Consequently there
are no Gods."
The class-warfare warrior may claim fellowship
with the poor, but often something else lies deep in his heart: "If there
are rich people, how can I bear to not be a rich person? Consequently, there
must be no rich people." Like Nietzsche, he is what he is; that his ire's
targets are greater or have more doesn't make him less. Regardless, he's only
satisfied to be what he is if those who would have or be more don't exist. This
is because of one or both of two deadly sins: pride and envy. The cures for
these, by the way, are the corresponding virtues of humility and kindness --
not "equality." Equality is the voodoo medicine of the vice-ridden
man blind to virtue.
Be thankful equality isn't necessary for
happiness, too, because it is completely contrary to nature. Some species are
more dominant than others; some unsuited to survival become extinct; and within
species some members are bigger, stronger or faster than others. And animals
have their dominance hierarchies; a silverback leads a gorilla troop, a wolf
pack has an alpha male and female and chickens actually do have a pecking
order.
People are no different. There are natural-born
leaders and followers, alpha and beta personalities, and individuals have
different gifts and capacities. The world had always recognized this, too. In
fact, when young Therese of Lisieux was bothered by the idea that people would
have different places even in Heaven, she was instructed to get her thimble and
her father's tumbler and fill them with water. She then was asked, "Which
is more full?" Of course, secular modernists will criticize this as a
Christian justification for prejudice and discrimination, but what does their
world view imply?
The reality is that there's a huge contradiction
between belief in cosmic-accident evolution and belief in human equality.
First, when even just one couple has a child, there are a whopping 3.1 billion
possible combinations. Then there's group variation. Do you really believe
groups could have "evolved" isolated from one another for hundreds of
thousands or even millions of years -- subject to different environments, stresses
and adaptive requirements -- and wound up being the same in every
respect? This is a mathematical impossibility and a brazenly unscientific
notion. As G.K. Chesterton put it, if people "were not created equal, they
were certainly evolved unequal."
Whatever your belief about creation, group
variation in physical being and capacities is apparent. A gynecologist once
told me that black women didn't suffer as frequently from descended uteruses
because they have stronger abdominal walls. And Dr. Walter Williams tells us here and here:
Prostate cancer is
nearly twice as common among black men as white men. Cervical cancer rates are
five times higher among Vietnamese women in the U.S. than among white women.
...Male geniuses outnumber female geniuses 7-to-1. ...[D]uring the 1960s, the
Chinese minority in Malaysia received more university degrees than the Malay
majority -- including 400 engineering degrees compared with four for the
Malays, even though Malays dominate the country politically. ...[Jews are] only
two-tenths of 1 percent of the world's population. Yet between 1901 and 2010, Jews
were...22 percent of the world's [Nobel Laureate winners].
And is the last statistic any surprise?
Ashkenazi Jews have the highest I.Q. of any group.
Because this is an inherently unequal world, the
actions of equality dogmatists such as today's liberals can be understood as
rebellion against nature. This also helps explain why they -- from the French
Revolutionaries to the communists to today's liberals -- practice tyranny. When
your agenda is so contrary to nature and, more to the point, man's nature, people
will quite naturally act contrary to it. In fact, they will quite naturally be
contrary to it. And since people can only be what they are, the agents of
unnatural agendas will often say they are not to be. For no one likes having
his plans spoiled, and these social engineers, enraged, will lash out at those
not "good enough" to conform to the program. This of course is
everyone, and killing fields are the ultimate result.
We're not there yet, but the cultural killing
field is all around us. We have government decrees stating that if groups
perform differently on a test (e.g., a police exam), it is by definition
"discriminatory"; and that students must be punished in racially
proportional ways. We see quotas and affirmative action and lawsuits and destructive
discrimination, as we tear ourselves apart fighting nature. And why? Among
other things, if you believe all groups are equal in all ways, it follows that
you'll attribute different performance outcomes among them to
discrimination.
One might now wonder why liberals don't apply
their diversity tenet "Embrace differences" to what really matters.
After all, if you watch golf on TV, do you want to see "equality,"
where everyone would have to be a duffer, or the best? Do you want "equality"
in an art museum or ethereal beauty? Gifts displayed by others are to be
relished, reveled in and revered. And the only thing preventing this is, again,
those twin demons of envy and pride.
And what of equality dogma? It gave us the drab,
cookie-cutter projects of communist Eastern Europe. It breeds ugliness and
mediocrity.
Equality is not a virtue.
It is not a laudable goal.
It can never be a reality, as some will always
be "more equal than others."
And if anything deserving of the name
civilization is to live, equality, as an aspiration, must die.
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