My book By No Means Equal was published a few months ago and the advent of a new government in the UK brings its message to the fore because this government is motivated, theoretically, at least, by the principle of equality. To a degree, this principle drives all Western liberal democracies but the book argues that equality is what you have left when you strip life of its spiritual component and try to preserve some kind of moral foundation. There are also those now whose spiritual understanding is secondary to the leftist ideology with which most modern people are indoctrinated who think that because God is one and love the cornerstone of truth, all souls are necessarily equal. They don't see that in a created world souls may all derive from God and be equal in potential but they are at very different levels of manifesting the fullness of spiritual being. Souls are all expressions of the divine but they range enormously in how much of the divine they can express, and this is both a matter of will and of actual development. This understanding takes into account both oneness and difference and realises that neither can be followed as a principle without the other to balance it.
If everything were equal then nothing could be because everything would be the same. It is inequality that allows for anything to be something. Equality is actually a property of matter undisturbed by spirit or the Logos aspect of spirit. Hence, equality as a philosophical principle is associated with materialism while inequality forms part of the spiritual conception of life, something we can better appreciate when we realise that inequality indicates the presence of the vertical axis of being, in other words transcendence, while equality is restricted to life conceived solely along the horizontal, life without transcendence. For the full view, the fact of inequality must be considered in association with that of oneness which in turn must always be combined with the truth of difference, and that means hierarchy.
The enforcement of equality is an attempt to banish a proper spiritual worldview or create a false one. Those organisations and ideologies that seek to do this are anti-spiritual in nature though many may present themselves as spiritually motivated. But for the forces that work against God both materialism and false spirituality work equally well. In fact, false spirituality is better because the spiritual impulse cannot be suppressed indefinitely so it becomes more useful to divert it into wrong paths than to deny it altogether, even if an initial period of denial helps in the latter corruption of it. The equality doctrine is part of the corruption of spirituality.
If you are interested in this subject of equality, the moral justification for the contemporary deviation from truth, the book goes into it in more detail and from various aspects. Love and justice are divine attributes but equality is a distorted parody of these things and to find out where it comes from you can go right back to the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
It's interesting - I've known that you are correct regarding equality and share your views. But something continuously niggles at the back of my mind, insisting that despite our shared perspective, somehow, "equality" as a judgement value, is in some way, mmmm valid...?
ReplyDeleteI mean, I think there's a reason that even people who absolutely 'get' what you're saying, still find themselves hung up on "Equality" (or maybe it's just me)
Please bear with me, as this is only an initial attempt to put a 'thought concept' into mere words (forgive all the ellipses, I can only write the way my mind composes speech)...
...I think it may be a matter of perspective...Something like, 'Equal' is not something that people 'are' nor that they should 'be'...it is something required of the 'perceiver' in order that the 'perceived' be equally adjudicated...?
For example: A blue man and a red man are not in need of being made purple in order that they be 'equal' - rather the 'meter' by which they are judged, must be set to equal parameters in order that that they be measured/judged 'justly'...with equality of justice?
It needs a better illustrated example, but I think the gist of the idea is conveyed there...maybe.
Yes, but there's no such thing as a blue man or a red man! There are the various races but they are clearly different. God loves all his children but equality is a (probably originally well-meaning) attempt to translate the ideas of love and brotherhood which are spiritual things into humanistic terms. It's the old road to hell being paved with good intentions scenario.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that modernity sees the measure of a man's value in his ability to accomplish physical things - control the world, gather wealth and power, etc.
ReplyDeleteSo to admit that some groups are better at this than others, is to deny that group "value" - and value is what mankind craves most, so it is to condemn members of that group to suffering - hell. And that is cruel.
In a properly spiritual society, value would have nothing to do with ones ability to extend humanity's control over the physical world or become powerful - those would be incidental activities that would be pursued only a bare bones degree.
Value would be gained by how closely one adheres to the Divine - and that is open to all. Moreover, in a properly religious society everyone feels themselves bound together in a larger Whole, and a mystical participant of the Whole, rather than an atomised individuals - so another man's superiority is no threat to you, but you partly participate in him as part of the common religious body.
Who ever was jealous of a Saint? On the contrary - one readily admits the superiority of the Saint to oneself, but one feels uplifted by this, not diminished. Because one mystically participates to some degree in his perfection.
That is to say, as long as we take ourselves for atomized individuals, or discrete groups, envy and resentment must needs rule our minds.
ReplyDeleteBut if, as traditional religious would have it, we all mystically participate in the larger While, then envy and jealousy dissolve, and no one is any kind of threat to anyone else.
Each man can take his rightful place in the hierarchy without rancor, but even gratitude towards his superiors, from whom he may expect to receive something of the Light. And advancement, being entirely spiritual, is open to all, although not all can take that path.
Historically this was achieved to some degree within religious communities - all mystically participated in the Body of Christ, for instance.
But it was never historically achieved ilon a wide and true scale.
Excellent comments. Equality and inequality are really only important concepts in a world ruled by materialism in which egos jostle for power and status. In a spiritually ordered culture they would be meaningless terms because every part of that culture would have its proper place in the scheme of things. Is a rose superior to a daisy? in one sense, yes but in another wider sense they are both fully valid parts of God's creation.
ReplyDelete"Who ever was jealous of a Saint? On the contrary - one readily admits the superiority of the Saint to oneself, but one feels uplifted by this, not diminished. Because one mystically participates to some degree in his perfection." That is a very important point.
ReplyDeleteAs i argued before, philosophically the (theoretical) positions of complete chaos versus complete inertia are indefensible. These states contradict every logical assumption to be made about reality itself. However if the universe is (part of) the source exploring itself into (recursive) infinity, between multiverse bubbles perhaps exceptions may exist. In the end, and at the beginning, it all has to boil down to an Anselm-like approximation. Neverending story, because it has to.
ReplyDelete