On Equality

With Martin Luther King Jr. Day coming, it seems appropriate to share some thoughts prompted by a discussion I've been having on the subject of equality. Defining equality, its source, whether it is desirable or achievable is a little harder at first blush than it might seem.

There is, of course, the possibility that the expenditure of effort attempting to achieve equality is wasted.

Equality, after all, cannot be a state in which there are no differences between human beings. Such a state is not possible, at least at the observable level from the perspective of human beings.

Seen from the more distant perspective of the grand scheme of things -- the "God's-eye view," if you will -- the differences we see among ourselves are not operationally significant to the cosmos. Yet from our perspective, which is the only one we can possibly hold with some degree of plausibility, there are differences and they are significant to our existence.

We are different in the principal dimensions, height, length, volume, space and time -- let alone skin color, sex or nationality. No single human being is equal to any other in an algebraic, a-equals-a sense -- except conceptually.

It's the abstract concept of a human being, of which we are individual instances, that gives rise to the idea of equality before the law and material equality.

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges evoked some of the problems that such abstract conceptions entail in his 1942 short story Funes, the Memorious. Long one of my favorites, the story is about a ranch hand who hits is head and acquires a memory so prodigious that "he was disturbed by the fact that a dog at three-fourteen (seen in profile) should have the same name as the dog at three-fifteen (seen from the front)."

We are different, indeed, from ourselves. Which "me" has a right to equality: the "me" in pre-school, the "me" in university or the "me" nearing death? Am I less or more equal as a child, an active adult or a senescent man?

In any case, is theoretical legal and material equality of all human beings -- assuming that it is possible -- desirable?

Legal equality means that the same principles should apply to all. Yet in legal systems that attempt a rough kind of equality, such as the case of most Western systems, the principles often have to be twisted in knots to establish "equality" between vastly disparate individuals. Is it really equality if we have to redefine the terms so that they can apply?

Something similar might be asked of material equality. There might be no contest that all human beings should be able to satisfy basic survival needs (although we might argue about what those are), but if one man has a mansion, should everyone have a mansion?

Finally, we come to the cause of inequality, which is twofold: nature and nurture. Some of us are born female, some rich. One is a natural happenstance, the other an entirely human construct.

Dr. King was fully cognizant of the philosophical problems. He merely asked that we use a logic of the heart in our behavior toward one another.

Zionism and the Diaspora

The Israeli lobby has learned to play the Jewish diaspora in the West with a virtuosity rivaling Isaac Stern on the violin. The phenomenon is reminiscent of the way the Republican Party successfully snowed Catholics and the evangelical right on the issue of abortion.

An instance of unthinking, knee-jerk support for Israel was on display in comments posted on my blog this week by individuals I know to be Jewish. It reminds me of the pro-lifers who chose to vote for right-wing politicians who show contempt for life outside the womb..

The issue is not whether Israel should exist or whether abortion should be legal.

The question is whether it makes sense to support a politician or a country unconditionally -- no matter what they do -- simply because they claim to represent a single position or identity about which one feels strongly.

There's a slippery slope once one goes down that route. For reasons of common identity Italian-Americans would be duty bound to support the Mafia and non-smoker Adolf Hitler would be a suitable poster boy for anti-cigarette campaigns.


One need not be anti-Israel or anti-Semitic to conclude that the present government of Israel is engaging in a transparent ploy to look tough to its electorate just as the hard-line Likud Party is making gains in the polls.

Israel is plainly in the wrong in its military adventure in Gaza on any number of counts and stands to lose -- once again in a very short time -- in the court of world public opinion. That's not just me speaking: you can read a similar assessment from Shmuel Rosner in the Jerusalem Post.

Yet the diaspora -- meaning the Jewish communities outside the traditional Jewish homeland -- embraces unquestioning, unstinting, uncritical support for Israel no matter what. Go to the Anti-Defamation League's website and you'll find one link after another pointing to the wrongdoing of others and to the support that Israel supposedly deserves.

That kind of blind support, especially when it involves killing by the hundreds, is unconscionable and reprehensible.

There's a difference between the Israeli cabinet and any random spiritual descendant of Abraham. Folly -- or worse -- on the part of the former should not command blind, goosestepping loyalty from the other.

Consequences

"What is a sin in your decalogue?" asks a regular reader of this blog, "Something that makes me unhappy?"

In outlining the ethics of survival I have never mentioned "sin," a religious term for deeds, words or even thoughts that violate a moral code. My purpose was to concentrate on what one ought to do, rather than on what one ought not to do, assuming in that Kantian, categorical imperative way that good is worth doing for its own self.

It is true, however, that most historical moral codes have been linked to what I'd call the Santa-Claus threat: he's checking his list to see who's been naughty or nice. Heaven, Nirvana, 70 Virgins, toys or whatever for the nice; hell, samsara, coal in stockings or whatever for the naughty.

That never did much for me.

Even when I was a believer, doing good for the reward seemed cheap. In Catholic morality there was always the distinction between imperfect contrition (being sorry you sinned because you deserved punishment) and perfect contrition (sorrow for sin out of regret for having offended one's loving and dear God). I always thought the reverse would hold as well: you could be good, literally for goodness' sake.

In the grand philosophical edifice of the ethics of survival, a distinctly godless set of propositions, there's an additional issue. The whole raison d'être of these ethics is the universal esteem in which survival is held, coupled with the logic that since ethics are about human behavior an essential requisite of any ethical system would have to be that there be humans alive to behave.

In this light, there are only wrongdoings, not "sin," and the punishment comes in the form of inexorable consequences. Violating these ethics is wrong because it imperils one's survival.

Of course, this is where the survival system diverges from religious systems of ethical compulsion: there is no no possible "pardon" nor "remission of sins." You live or you die.

You pollute, you cause conflict, you bomb, you start wars, you steal from the poor and you get the present mess humanity finds itself in. Will we survive? Individually, as John Maynard Keynes quipped, "we're all dead in the long term."

How about collectively? The jury is out on that one, but at the outset of 2009 I am not uproariously optimistic.

Reality "pardons" to the extent that we are, mercifully, quite resilient and, in cosmic terms, insignificant. Smoking cigarettes is not an automatic ticket to the oncology ward and despite our depredations the planet continues to sustain us.

The law of the jungle is never as absolute and fierce as we think. Jungle species have ample resources to survive.

Sure, these ethics assume that we are, at best, intelligent animals with material needs. Our first concern is our own survival. We are a bit wild, still.

We have the capacity to destroy ourselves and our kin. We ought to avoid that.