Equality of Individuals
In my daily experience there are common references to the familiar adage of 'all men and women are created equal.' But many who believe this also believe that certain individuals, because of factors like superior intellectual or physical capability, are due greater reward than those who exhibit weaker traits. More recently, the idea came to mind about individualism in general, and how one individual can be superior to another in intellect or performance. Should some physical or mental aptitude that is triggered by a mere biological development or social, familial or individual circumstance be considered more rational and others less rational?
For instance, if someone were to exhibit particular mental faculties on par with the greatest genius, do they deserve a happier life than someone whose development were such as to identify them with failure and inadequacy? Or perhaps there needs to be some drawback on a supernatural or spiritual level, some intrinsic deficiency in success that renders this a true act of the will as opposed to a biological striving for perfection. Naturally, on the social level we want to encourage activities that promote good things including success in enterprise and ordinary life, but it seems like there exists some limitation to this that goes unseen that restricts how far we can go in real terms. How seriously do you think we should take the 'rat race' of the natural world?
For instance, if someone were to exhibit particular mental faculties on par with the greatest genius, do they deserve a happier life than someone whose development were such as to identify them with failure and inadequacy? Or perhaps there needs to be some drawback on a supernatural or spiritual level, some intrinsic deficiency in success that renders this a true act of the will as opposed to a biological striving for perfection. Naturally, on the social level we want to encourage activities that promote good things including success in enterprise and ordinary life, but it seems like there exists some limitation to this that goes unseen that restricts how far we can go in real terms. How seriously do you think we should take the 'rat race' of the natural world?
Comments (35)
As for answering your questions directly I cannot do so honestly because I think they’re based on beliefs/views I don’t hold, fully understand and/or agree with.
For instance, I’m not quite sure why you’d equate ‘happiness’ with a ‘genius’. A better intellect, education or artistic disposition doesn’t make someone ‘happier’ even though they may very well be successful. I know this is an obvious point and probably why you didn’t address it, but it ties into the scheme of ‘equal’ and ‘individual’.
Hope there is something there you were probing for.
This is the heart of my question, so to speak, that this equation is in part ideological. In my own personal experience, the gesture has always been that even the unintelligent and incapable deserve their form of happiness. Here I could refer to numerous examples but take the Hollywood film 'Ratatouille' for example. The clumsy dim-witted sous chef gains fame by imitating the genius of a rat. He desires so much for it to be true that he tells others it was his own genius. In the end he reaches the realization of his own equity with the rat's genius; the rat who was ironically born not capable of using its genius. But increasingly, I suppose due to the greater ease with which certain results can be achieved with technology, this concept is breaking down. But is it something we still wish to believe in the West?
So a much better and freer approach would be not to place any artificial boundaries in front of people's pursue of happiness and let them go their own way. Understanding that their achievements would vary wildly due to all sort of reasons.
Please see that the examples are not intended as an expression of my personal belief of what should occur in this situation. Suppose that the reason individuals in their non-intellectually demanding jobs had the idea that to compete with you for your job would be to have an overall 'happier' life, I think this type of broad notion would end up affecting your individual life in a negative way. Or that you were being bred for intellect like a cow so that you could attain this happiness with no real effort at all.
My believe would be that people should be hired based on their ability to perform the job, not some diversity quotas or any other job unrelated merits.
The other question sounds to me like asking if we deserve to be alive. It's not relevant as far as I can see when it comes to intelligence, talent and opportunity.
That's how I see it.
Individuals may be considered "equal" as a political stance, but in practical terms, they are not. Each person lands somewhere on continua of mental, emotional, physical, and social features (like wealth, or location). Different features lead to varying results. Some people will have much better experiences in life than others. Different political and social systems allow for more, or less, flexibility in individuals' pursuit of goals.
Progressive, liberal thinking disapproves of larger differences in outcomes, especially when associated with ethnicity, gender, or race. Thinking that is less progressive or liberal tends to be more tolerant of differing outcomes.
One may want an egalitarian society where there is equality of opportunity and outcomes for everyone, but how the hell do we socially engineer this desired good? I used to think that such an achievement was possible in American society, but I've abandoned that idea.
For one thing, the roots of inequality (across the board) are quite deep and have enduring consequences. To quote Jesus out of context, "I tell you, that to every one who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. — Luke 19:26".
Industrial, capitalist societies are highly productive machines, and one of their products is inequality -- by design. The economic system is designed to concentrate wealth, and when wealth is piled up in one place, poverty (absolute or relative) will be piled up in other places.
Hence, enduring inequality.
Of course this makes perfect sense that there be social structures that favour certain occupations over others. I don't want to confine ourselves to just the topic of employment, this is a broader point that I think reaches through other 'rituals,' as I suppose you could call them to borrow a term from cultural studies. I refer to it as a ritual because it functions to transfer values that are accomplished in purified practise. The success of the intelligent and the benefits are in part due to the role-playing of intelligence and feelings of superiority that come with it. The ritual of a certain cross-section of Western society brings with it certain high-ideas about individual worth that counter-acts this relationship of domination. This discussion could then I suppose be seen as a vying for power between camps even though it reflects attitudes based on what is valuable and worthwhile.
The intelligent, powerful, talented, social, etc. are qualities that can and are endowed to a large extent in-absolutely; one who is intelligent is not intelligent purely against someone unintelligent, but at the most overreaching level they are intelligent for itself. The unintelligent individual through modifications of their circumstances could be made equally or more intelligent without any necessary benefit except the significance of the ritual of intelligence and it's purposes.
Oh ok, I hope this is PG-rated.
I am glad you said this, because it points to exactly what we're discussing. Yes we can observe this to be the case, but should we really believe this? Yes, we can clearly see that in our observation of these phenomena we can serve to alter existence. But I'm not sure if we should really believe it. When we believe so strongly in the better circumstance of the 'less fortunate' we turn it into expectation and eventual reality.
We set out to make the poor person rich, rather than really improve the poor person's existence so that our determination of them as 'poor' no longer has negative value. We might follow this logic to train more doctors and less garbage collectors as opposed to making a garbage collectors life equally the product of a rational will.
Equality means that every single human life values exactly the same.
If I was an alien visiting Earth I wouldn't give a fuck for more or less clever people. I would see them just as we humans see bees or elephants. Just like one common species.
We are all different, not superior than others, not inferior than others.
That means that the right thing would be all human beings to have the same rights and chances in their lives. To start from a common base(even if it might never happen).
For some reason you consider intellectual, clever, successful people as superior. For me it's totally wrong. They are just "superior" in THAT specific field(iq or education or whatever). There are other hundreds of fields that might be "inferior" than others. That says nothing except the obvious. That we are just different and nothing else.
Plus for some reason that I can't follow, you consider them as potential happier persons too. Happiness is another issue and for sure education and iq aren't enough at all for someone to be happy. The factors for it are much more complicating and depend from many other things.
Here's a more complete quote from the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -
This language is clear - All people are created equal. All people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. We're not equal in height, wealth, strength, or any other physical or social measure. We are all equal in moral value. That leaves open the question of how differences in social standing, race, genetics, physical ability, birth and other such factors will be addressed. What is fair? Does society need to be fair?
This is a good point. I really want to stay off the topic of the 'Creator' ideology but I don't see any other option since you have now gone there. Though some may disagree, as far as I'm concerned there is clear Judeo-Christian ideological baggage in this idea of being endowed by a Creator with unalienable rights and liberties. I am here drawing a little from an online document from Maureen Heath, which can be found here:
https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/1053063/Heath_georgetown_0076D_14011.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Running closely with the theme of this thesis, in the modern West I see us as dividing spirituality and civil liberty into distinct categories while at the same time expressing both of these in culture and in our psyche in a language of a uniquely Euro-centric individualism, one that developed hand-in-hand with the proliferation of Christianity in Europe over the past two thousand years. This severance of the notion of civil freedoms at the level of the individual to me is like reading an academic article without the citations; freed from its context while remaining knee deep in it.
This is not to say that the declaration of independence is in some way inferior. I think it's an excellent expression of freedom and a well tuned piece of writing that speaks succinctly for a wide range of interests and beliefs. There is a line right before your quote that reads "We hold these truths to be self-evident," which I personally interpret to mean that what they were striving for they hoped to be more than just technical equality in law alone, but that each individual would make it their mission in their private life because it is something that they all already believe in. The notion of the Creator overarching their secular life being included in this implicit and shared standard of right and wrong.
In the time of the founding fathers, this self-evidence drew from a society where a belief that the love of their Creator was enough to live a respectable and worthwhile life; after all, in the Bible Christ himself dies for the sins of others. This seems to me to contain a further extension of the idea of civil liberty that is truncated in modern life: that even the plight of torture and death can be endured if we have a certain faith in ourselves and each other. I am not especially religious, but I find this idea inspiring and worthwhile.
I guess the part that this notion of liberty misses is the mission for caring about your fellow man or woman as well, and that this is also good for yourself. An equality of caring I guess it would resemble, though it may sound corny, is a missing link with the modern equality of wealth and employment and so forth.
Thomas Jefferson was not a theist; at best he was a deist. And of course there is Judeo-Christian baggage attached to the idea of "creator". Western civilization (and American culture) are loaded with Judeo-Christian baggage--much of it well-worth preserving. (You capitalized 'Creator'; are you carrying Judeo-Christian baggage?)
Jefferson could have referenced 'nature' as the source of our equality; or some philosopher, or something else--executive fiat, maybe. Rhetorically, 'creator' is still the best choice, given past and current contexts.
Just because Jefferson used a term associated with religion is no reason to quibble. The man who talked about god-endowed equality also was a slave owner who, in the end, did not free his slaves. But contradictions don't invalidate the ideas of the man. Nobody is free of hypocrisy or contradictions.
I'm not sure whether you said what you meant to say. Clarify, please.
I think it's more complex. I've met my share of prodigiously talented and wealthy men and women. Most of them were driven, anxious types and sometimes dreadful people - with obnoxious personalities, disliked or feared by their colleagues, children and spouse. I don't think we can say ipso facto that a conspicuously clever and wealthy person is better or even happier. I have also known many ordinary and poor people who are more readily able to experience great joy and connection with others and be free in ways that many wealthy couldn't imagine.
Determining whose life is 'better' is a multifactorial equation and largely subjective.
...just because they used certain words is no reason to believe that they really meant them you mean?
how are you proving that another completely different word could be substituted into the sentence? How do the words nature, philosophers, and Fiat mean the same thing?
I meant to say what I said. In retrospect it would have flowed better to use the reverse but it still makes sense. You could just as well say something like,"When we believe so strongly in the worse circumstance of the 'less fortunate' we turn it into expectation and eventual reality." It seems reasonable that one effective way to ensure continued domination is to convince the dominated that they should expect dominance.
The equality of persons as persons does not refer to their capacity or lack thereof. The idea is that, as a person, you are just like other persons, no matter the circumstances one finds oneself within.
That perspective is not concerned with what is properly allotted to people according to circumstances or merit.
The Declaration of Independence was written almost 250 years ago by people steeped in the western traditions of culture, including Christianity. What language do you expect them to use. Thomas Jefferson may not have been a theist, but he knew the correct way to say what he wanted to say in the language of those who would read what was written. And it wasn't just him. The Declaration was signed by more than 50 delegates. Most of them probably were theists.
I guess Jefferson was not a theist. I'm not either, but I can't think of any better way to say what needed to be said. There are unalienable rights that are built into the structure of the universe. Say that how you want. "Endowed by their Creator," works fine for me. That's a lofty statement of principle, but that's not how it really works. What works is people making a commitment to making sure those rights are manifested. That's what the Declaration is - a declaration of commitment to principles.
You seem to consider it an accident that there are themes and references in the writing that refer explicitly to a Creator. There is still undeniably something implicit in the writing that implies religious ideas and contingencies. For instance, the concept of liberty itself. Why should we have had this idea without carrying along with it a notion that we were each a valued individual with a personal internal relationship with G-d, each deserving as such a right to our own freedom of will? Before this notion much of the West lived in a state that was a great deal less centred around freedom of private individual desires and choice and a little more deterministic, wouldn’t you agree? I think if you didn’t you’d be a little out of step with the commonly held vision of what the lifestyles of antiquity were like.
Please note that this is not an idea original to me that I’m now discussing with you.
Of course there is also a centuries long tradition of philosophers, spiritual searchers and mystics taking on on a life of poverty, often turning their back on fortunes or refusing to earn money.
I don't think you can separate religion and human and civil rights. Did Christianity cause the drive for rights to liberty and self-government? Probably to a certain extent. They certainly are intertwined in the political evolution of the west. I don't think this contradicts anything you have written.
Quoting kudos
I don't agree that there is any accident or that I suggested there was one.
Individualism places the locus of cultivation in the individual himself. So despite the general societal views of what is considered success and happiness, the individual may still consider himself far more successful and happier than others, regardless of his lot in life.
It's not clear where you're going with this. (And given that you have a banana where there should be a sickel, it's even further unclear.)
Quoting kudos
So, to try to make all this more concise:
Do you think that a system like the caste system they have in India, or the classist system in Europe are good, or bad?
Do you find that the upper class should despise the lower classes, and the lower classes should internalize that contempt, considering it righteous?
Quoting kudos
And you think that this is good, or bad?
From my own observation the West seems to be in this sort of transition process moving from cultural institutions and structures of individual life derived from these 'unclean' histories to a sort of ideologically automated version. Another way of putting it would be tying up the histories into a type of self-sustaining loop that negates the full extent of their intended meaning but still allows them to survive in a symbolic form through practice. This is done in such a way that over time they would almost certainly become deteriorated and lost or at least alienated from their original meaning.
Am I alone in observing it this way? I don't want to sound overly cynical here, but there doesn't seem to be any light way of putting it. Perhaps Putin was right when he said 'Liberalism is obsolete' we in the West are doomed to having these customs and practices eventually become arbitrary until someone has an equally arbitrary idea or they are abruptly ended by war.
I'm of the opinion that even though there's no clear dividing line between philosophy, sociology, and politics, it is usually a bad idea to have self-proclaimed philosophers abusing their ideas and intellectual authority by telling people what to do to too great an extent. There are some difficulties, but also some necessities, that arise when extending our seemingly objective system of judgement onto others. The same goes for other fields too such as mathematics, science, physics, and biology; if you had specialists in these fields determining how we lived our lives we'd all be living a pretty crummy existence.
Why absurd and dysfunctional?
Two thoughts. First, if you ask a non-religious person about religious principles it's no surprise if you find negative attitudes. Second, just because people are not aware of the connection between religion and personal liberty doesn't mean it isn't important. Religion has been politicized to the point that it is hard to get perspective. It hasn't been long since the two were inextricably entwined, the civil rights movement being one example.
Quoting kudos
As I said, I think it's primarily political.
Quoting kudos
I don't understand.
They do??? This has not been my experience.
You'll need to express yourself in more direct terms, as it's still not clear what you're getting at.
For the extreme libertarian, for instance, the concept of liberty is extended so far as to become the complete opposite; the repression and subjugation of individual life. A billionaire heir who has been educated by the top minds and trained in physical strength by the finest teachers and who is expected in their civil life to remain in power, if given the same opportunity as someone from a family without money who is expected to fail, is it true liberty to simply leave these two the same freedoms of choice and wipe one's hands? What about the biological effects of individual genetics with the qualities of attaining these circumstances?
But this is problematic because it presents the need for a determination of worth that moves past fixed universals to one that is to a certain extent spiritual and objective. This becomes increasingly challenging with the draining of spiritual life from modern life that comes with secularized education and social life and the challenges that face our objective way of thinking from globalization. I guess you could say that Western history, and especially religion, in a certain sense represents beliefs that are undesirable to modern thought, but at the same time contains certain ideas that allow individuals to be complacent in certain differences. Subjugation of those ideas for its own sake may have effects that could be called negative from within that limitation of being.
This could be one reason why many first-world countries grant the right to freedom religion and security against persecution.
@Valentinus said:
I think that captures a good chunk of the sentiment found on page 1 of this thread. The problem is that it's practically useless, I think: If the equality of bananas does not refer to their color or shape, or even size or ripeness, then what are we comparing, exactly? "A banana is always a banana". But you wouldn't eat a rotten one, surely?
In other words, I read the OP as "on what grounds can we measure an individual to be equal to other individuals, especially in cases where they exhibit traits and behaviours which we personally find offensive or deplorable?".
Your last post goes into the nature vs nurture thing, and you mention inheritance. I think there is a lot to be discussed here.
I think I understand the first part: we can no longer treat individuals simply according to their individual, isolated lives. "The rich kid" inherits some privelege and gains a head start, so his family becomes part of his identity in some sense, I guess this is what you mean by "spiritual and subjective"?