Friday 3 August 2018

Don't You Want To Live in an Equal Society?

This is what someone asked me when they read one of my criticisms of the left in these pages. It's a reasonable question because a common notion is that the left fights for equality and fairness while the right is only interested in perpetuating privilege. This is a very one-sided appraisal, of course, but it is not totally without substance. Nonetheless, even taking it at its own estimation, it has serious problems.

There is the idea that somehow a society in which everyone is equal would be a more 'spiritual' society. But actually, it would only be more spiritual in the sense that materialistic people think of spirituality. That is to say, as something that pertains and relates to human beings primarily as they are in this world. We say that an equal society would be a fair society and that is good. But this is judging the purpose of human life as being fulfilled in a material world, and disregarding the fact that there may be another, higher, purpose behind life as we see and experience it in three dimensional, phenomenal terms. That life should be fair is the plaintive cry of the child, but adults know that it is just not fair. This doesn't mean that we should not try to make it more just, but it is a recognition that God has more important matters in his project for humanity than making things fair and equal here and now. There are deeper issues involved. To make something a priority which God has apparently not made a priority could be a mistake. Of course, a response to this might be that it is not God but man who has introduced inequality into society, but that is an assumption. The degree of inequality has surely been influenced by men but not the basic fact of inequality which exists throughout nature.

Generally speaking, it seems to be the case that the more equal a society is nowadays, the more atheistic it becomes. Why should this be so? I would say it is because when you abolish hierarchy, you also start to abolish the sense of higher and lower or even high and low. You reduce everything to a level playing field but that means there is no feeling of greater or lesser. The very idea becomes offensive. So God, as the archetypal greater, becomes less easy to accept. And this has ramifications beyond the loss of transcendence, ramifications which a society devoted to equality cannot fail to bring about. Virtues that relate to hierarchy are lost, virtues such as nobility and honour, the very ideas of height and depth, all these are lost or, at least, greatly reduced in their meaning and significance. Cultural relativism becomes the norm because hierarchical distinctions are no longer tolerated. Everything's equal, after all. And then the sense of truth as an absolute begins to fade. It must because this again demands a hierarchical understanding of life, and the appreciation that some things really are better than others because they correspond more to reality. Reality is not equal. It is there as a fact and you either accommodate to it to a greater or lesser degree or you don't. Right there, like it or not, is superiority and inferiority.

An equal society becomes one where mediocrity is the order of the day. It is one opposed to excellence of any sort and any condition, and where greatness is discouraged unless it is totally conformist which, of course, almost by definition, it is not. If everyone is fundamentally equal, this is the inevitable consequence. Such a society becomes one where people don't seek to transcend themselves in a vertical sense because the horizontal plane of being is given full priority. In fact, the vertical plane, necessarily hierarchical, is just denied. It doesn't really make much difference if you say that the equality you want is only one of opportunity. Once you introduce the idea of equality as a dominating principle of your society, it extends everywhere, and everywhere it beats all things down to its own level.

Now, clearly none of this means that a society should be ordered with rigid castes in which no one can rise, however exceptional they might be. Balance is required in all things, and hierarchical quality must be balanced with a sense of the essential oneness of humanity. But, and here's the point all egalitarians need to understand, if you make equality the cornerstone of your system, as we increasingly do today when it has become the default assumption of what is good and right, and to oppose it in any way is the sign of an immoral person, then you are condemning your society to flatline mediocrity. You are going to bring the higher down to a level that is manageable by everyone. You are going to damage quality and ratify the medium and the average. Today we have reacted to a perceived excessive hierarchy of the past by rejecting hierarchy altogether as a fundamental principle. This has resulted in the impoverishment of culture and understanding. It goes hand in glove with materialism and the rejection of higher levels of truth and being. It is the reduction of human beings to their most basic elements.

It's worth bearing in mind that those who are most insistent on equality are often those who feel themselves inferior in some way or another. Their motive is an unadmitted resentment and envy. From such impure beginnings no true system can be built.

Everyone wants to live in a just world. That is a true and worthy aspiration, and probably a long way off. But to confuse this with a world of equality is a mistake. Equality is undue focus on the horizontal plane but human beings to be true to their essential humanity must live on both the horizontal and vertical planes with the latter seen as ultimately primary. There is equality of being but not of realised being. Even some of the saints stand closer to the throne of God than others though all have their fullness of the divine.








4 comments:

edwin said...

Vedanta and other eastern systems of thought/belief appear to be the ultimate egalitarian reduction. No thought, feeling or action is ultimately any different from any other: all are phenomena of the one consciousness, equal in their ephemeral nature and ultimate meaninglessness. Perhaps this is why most Western Vedantins come from the Left, where identity politics is rooted in envy and "privilege" is the enemy. Christ showed us that the master comes to serve, not lord it over his inferiors. But that does not mean there is no superior and inferior; only that love can abolish envy and ambition. In Christianity, he who loves most is he becomes the servant of all.

Bruce Charlton said...

@William - I agree. Equality is - in practice - sameness; and - in practice - always ends by trying to make different things the same. Since things *aren't* the same - the aim of equality becomes a state of permanent-revolution.

I think what God wants is almost exactly the opposite of equality; that each person be unique and also aligned (by personal choice) with God's creative purpose.

(It has sometimes been a deadly error in some Christian churches when The Christian was regarded as a standard life lived to a standard pattern; and the Christian community as conforming to just a few stereotypes.)

What God wants is rather like a vast choir singing with one voice to each part, each part co-written by the singer and God, the whole singing counterpoint in perfect harmony!

All this was made much clearer to me by the work of William Arkle - he comments that God want each of us to quarry our our own destiny, by our own efforts as much as possible - and divne help is always available, but only actually provided when absolutely needed, and when our best efforts have failed.

The basic divine 'method; is for each person to do 'it' for himself; which of course means that we make mistakes - and making mistakes, then acknowledging them (repenting), is a necessary way of developing.

I'm sure this is on the right lines - this world is not one conducive to 'perfection' and - since it was created by God who loves us - therefore I assume that the world's nature reflects God's purpose.

So wrt equality, since there is no sameness in the world - every blade of grass is different, every grain of sand, every snowflake; as well as every person - then this differentness is what God wants and needs; and the attempt to impose equality/ sameness on innate difference is therefore intrinsically evil.

William Wildblood said...

Yes, very true. It's only the fallen ego that wants equality. I for one am very grateful there are people wiser than me. It gives one something to aspire to. Just imagine that there was no one better than you. What a horrible thought!

William Wildblood said...

My previous comment was to Edwin.
Bruce, I think your example of blades of grass is very pertinent. God is not interested in sameness. He wants individuals and individuals are not equal. Equality is for machine made things. No surprise the desire for it arises in an age of materialism.