"The False Promise of Equality"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“The False Promise of Equality”

February 1, 2020

“By nature, all men are equal in liberty,

but not in other endowments.”

                                                                                                Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-1274)

Since time immemorial, a perfect society has been a dream. In the “Book of Revelations,” a thousand, golden, peaceful years are promised, when Christ returns to reign before the final judgment day. In 1516, Thomas More coined the word “Utopia” that he incorporated into the title of his classic work, in which he described perfect conditions on the island of Utopia. In 1620, Pilgrims came to the “New World,” in search of a “city on a hill,” a society under God’s guiding hand. Brook Farm, in West Roxbury, Massachusetts was founded by the transcendentalist and former Unitarian minister, George Ripley in 1841. It was to be an egalitarian, self-sufficient community with no distinction between intellectual and manual labor. While FDR’s New Deal was a response to the Great Depression, the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson was an attempt to banish poverty and let equality rule. The belief that man could live as brothers in peace has long been a promise of idealists, swindlers, fraudsters, charlatans and politicians – or do I repeat myself?

The word ‘inequality’ evokes emotion. Webster defines equality as the “quality or state of being equal.” When Thomas Jefferson wrote in 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 those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…,” he was not implying that all persons are equal in talents, or that outcomes should be equal. He was saying we are equal in those natural rights granted by God. Under the Constitution, we are equal in our right to assemble and to speak freely; we are equal in our rights under and before the law, and we are equal in our right to vote.

We should strive for equality of opportunity, but we should acknowledge that opportunities differ. Those born of wealthy parents in affluent communities have better educational opportunities than those born to poor parents in impoverished neighborhoods. Parents can try to address such challenges with competition, like voucher programs or charter schools for those who otherwise are stuck with the sole choice of a monopoly public school. Sanctimony abounds, with many leftist politicians in Washington, who rely on teachers’ unions for funding, condemning choice for the poor and middle class, while they take advantage of private schools, an avenue unavailable to those without means. But to pretend that we have the right to equal outcomes sends a false message of hope; it gives rise to the hypocrisy of an egalitarian ideology satirized by George Orwell in his 1950 allegorical novel, Animal Farm.

Despite the histrionics of opposing political parties, conservatives are not against equality. We believe in the wisdom of the people, free markets and competition. Yet, when we admit to preternatural abilities and the inequalities that naturally ensue, we are slandered as unfeeling and prejudicial. Inequality is a fact of life. Is it fair that I am five feet nine, when my brother is six feet? Was it fair that I was born and raised as a white male child of educated parents in the United States, while another child, born the same day, was raised in a primitive, poverty-stricken African village and nation? Of course not, but that is reality. Is it fair that professional basketball teams have proportionally more African American players than their percent of the population would warrant? Is it fair that Jewish and Asian children score better on aptitude tests than their Caucasian, Black and Hispanic neighbors? Would Harvard be a better university if merit was never considered in admissions? Is it not the desire of most of us to be the best we can? We can never have equal outcomes, because we are not equal in intelligence, athleticism, temperament, wealth or artistic ability. We are not equal in aspiration, determination and in the willingness to work hard. Each of us should take advantage of our individual talents and do the best that our abilities allow. We owe that to ourselves, to our families and communities. But outcomes will never be equal.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times by Ary Amerikaner, vice president of the nonprofit Education Trust, spoke to the hidden inequality in schools. Her concern was that resources provided, and dollars spent per pupil, were not equitably distributed. However, in no place in her column did she lament the monopoly position of public schools, nor did she express concern about the political power of the two major teachers’ unions in deterring competitive alternatives for low and middle-income families. In her view, the answer to academic underperformance lies solely in dollars per pupil expended. Competition, families and absenteeism played no role. Dollars spent is important, but so is home environment and school choice.

The battle over the inequality in free speech could be seen in an episode last Fall at Georgetown Law School. Angered and aggrieved students disrupted and prevented from speaking Kevin McAleenan, then acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. His right to speak and the rights of students to hear him were denied. The emotional outbursts of a small cadre of students brought to mind the words of Maine’s Republican Senator Susan Collins when she voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court: “We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy.” The students at Georgetown Law now claim that any discipline imposed for their illicit behavior would have a “chilling effect on free speech and expression.” In other words, free speech is fine when it comports with preconceived ideas, but not okay if the speaker has views contrary to what the disrupters believe. If that behavior prevails, we are headed to a new dark age.

Striving for perfection is something we should all attempt. But expecting perfection is naïve. Utopias are dreams, false promises, seized upon by charlatans to convince the naïve and unwary to accept their ideas of equality. Ironically, the closest to egalitarian status I have experienced was in Army basic training, in the summer of 1962. Our First Sergeant saw no difference between the three in my company who had just graduated from Harvard Law School and those who came from the streets of Harlem and the hills of Arkansas. We were all equal in his eyes. But service to the nation is not on the bucket list of the “Woke.”

Thomas More fully understood that the Greek roots of the word ‘utopia’ mean no place. An ideal living place is a siren call of those who would be dictators, like National Socialist Adolph Hitler and Communist leaders, such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Today we see such threats in Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran. Their leaders seek a government free of dissenting ideas and opinions. And the consequences under all were (and are) enslaved populations and the killing of those who dared (and dare) disagree. In contrast, it should be our responsibility to make the world a better and fairer place. We should treat all people with respect, whether they agree or disagree with us. The biggest impediment to equality is the promise of equality. Aristotle is quoted as writing, “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” We are not equal. We differ in myriad ways. We have different talents, desires, and creative genes. Some of us are good and some of us are evil. Voltaire wrote: “All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they can be equally free.”  The role of government is to protect our naturally granted equal rights, not to make equal those things that can never be equal. As we strive to be more civil, we should celebrate the differences that allowed a Michael Jordan, a Mother Teresa, a Warren Buffet, an Eleanor Roosevelt, a Stephen Hawking and a Margaret Thatcher to succeed in ways most of us could not. The world is a better place because of their individual and superior talents.