Thomas Jefferson was a LIAR
Okay, that title is a bit clickbait-y. I like Thomas Jefferson. He was a redhead, like me. I even read once that his nickname was the “Red-Haired Wonder”. I don’t know if that’s true, but I’d like it to be. He had some other nice qualities, too, beyond the red hair. But those are less important.
However, there is one accomplishment of his I’d like to discuss. The Declaration of Independence. I’ll admit, I love the Declaration. I once got to see an early draft of the Declaration handwritten by Jefferson himself at the New York Public Library. It brought tears to my eyes. Apparently I find the handwriting of some old guy who’s been dead for two-and-a-half centuries particularly moving.
In any case, there is one line in the Declaration that stands out among the rest, one line we all know well.
“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.”
It is a powerful statement. Even typing it now gave me goosebumps. But, if we are being honest with ourselves, we know the statement is a lie. No one—NO ONE—is created equal. Not completely.
Let me clarify what I mean. There are different kinds of equality. The libertarian thinker von Hayeck discusses these in his book The Constitution of Liberty. There is the legal equality we are all familiar with, the notion that "Lady Justice is blind” and we will all be treated equally before the law. There is the material equality socialists yearn for—the idea we’ll all make $50,000, have cookie-cutter homes, and own televisions, or something like that.
And then there is factual equality. The number (2) and the number (1 + 1) are factually equal. One millennium and 525,600,000 minutes are factually equal. Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift are factually equal. (That’s a joke. Team Taylor all the way.) But you and me? We are not factually equal. I’m six feet tall, dotted with freckles, not particularly good at basketball, and completely incapable of tanning. Doubtful all of those traits also apply to you.
This is an inevitability of life. From the very moment of conception, that nefarious force of biology sets out to make us unequal. It’s the driving force of natural selection, of Evolution. Mutation, variation, anomaly—“Let’s throw a bunch of shit at the fan and see what works!” Says Evolution.
Of course, there is the ongoing debate of Nature vs. Nurture. How much of ourselves is attributed to our environment? How much can we blame our parents for? Whatever the ratio is, the basic fact remains: our biology dictates our capability to some degree.
This uniqueness helps us each thrive in different ways. It’s what helped Michael Jordan become a tremendous basketball player and Steven Hawking a brilliant scientist. It’s also what made Stevie Wonder a bad driver and Hellen Keller a not-so-great listener. Just like these folks, we are all born with varying levels of intelligence, athleticism, and aesthetic appeal. We are not created equal.
“We get it, Gray. Thomas Jefferson told a little fib. So what?” Well, I’ll tell you. There is a consequence to the inherent inequality of individuals. If people are born factually unequal, it stands to reason that they will also die factually unequal. Furthermore, that factual inequality is bound to produce other kinds of inequality. And the only way to “balance the scales" is to treat people unequally.
Do you see the paradox?
The only way to eliminate inequality is to treat people unequally.
This is where something like Affirmative Action comes into play. Initiatives that fall into this category are boldly discriminatory. They purposefully treat people differently based on immutable characteristics in an effort to create greater equality. Treat people unequally now in the hopes of greater equality later, that’s the idea.
Back to those three strains of equality I mentioned before—Legal, Material, and Factual. What’s important about these kinds of equality? What's important is that they are at odds with each other. They don’t like each other very much. Putting them in the same room together is a BAD idea. In fact, it’s basically impossible. And it’s all Factual Equality’s fault.
See, Factual Equality says that we’re all inherently unequal from the beginning. We just are. Material Equality doesn’t like this very much. It wants nothing more than to make us totally equal, by any means necessary. Material Equality is ready and willing to sacrifice both Legal Equality and Liberty in order to get what it wants. It is more than happy to wield the law to tax and treat people unequally, all in an effort for greater material equality.
The point I’m driving at here is that Legal Equality (along with Liberty) is fundamentally opposed to Material Equality. A progressive tax structure, for example, does not treat people equally before the law, but it does help create greater material equality. Whether this is good or bad is a matter of perspective.
Equality is the drum beat of our time. Equal, equal, equal. But what no one stops to consider is that some kinds of equality are at odds with each other. If we want everyone to have a great job, great house, and great retirement plan, we’ll need to sacrifice some legal equality. And if we want everyone to have greater liberty and equality before the law, we must be willing to sacrifice some material equality. We cannot have our cake and eat it too.
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Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! (Or over on Twitter...)
Cheers,
Gray
60 Days of Steemit: Day 11 of 60
His idea behind "equality" is plain, it means never look at someone as different because of the color of their skin, in his time racism and slavery where still norms, He wasn't asking that everyone be financially equal, that is an impossibility, in Bob Marleys words "until the color of a mans skin is of no more significance than the color of his eye's-war". What we need to different is the basis of which equality is applicable from which it is a necessity. Height, means nothing if Bill Gates is richer than every sports man on earth, those characteristics don't mean much per say. So did He lie or is His CONTEXT being misinterpreted? I'd go for the latter. I like your post, extremely captivating. Thumbs up.
Hmm, I don't know. He was drawing heavily on Locke, so I don't think he was speaking about racial equality so much as legal equality, and specifically attacking the idea of arbitrary rule over another (as a king does). Still, I think you're right that he wasn't addressing the factual equality I bring up in this piece. Anyway, glad you enjoyed the piece.
I think a Milton Friedman quote is appropriate here:
“A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
― Milton Friedman
Equality before the law does not change the reality that none of us are the same. I'm better at some things than some people, I'm worse at others. What freedom before the law allows us to do is to find those things that work for us, to find our own way. The only way governments can change that is by force, in effect, pitting one group against another (however you want to define the group. There are an infinite number of ways to do it). This is tribalism and societies that follow it tear themselves apart.
The only way to eliminate inequality is to see people as unequal you say... I think it's a cycle that does not break. Trying to eliminate inequality by accepting and acting like we are unequal would inspire actions that'll highlight further inequalities that would need to be eliminated by treating ourselves as unequal... You see where I'm going with this?
It’s important to note that Jefferson’s words (by way of George Mason, by way of Locke, etc.) are a statement of ought more than anything. The concept(s) of natural rights/natural law in Locke’s conception are not about our individual characteristics so much as moral truths, generally applicable, and how a government should execute upon these moral truths.
It is also important to note that there is a difference between inequality and differences. In a society it is how we - or more to the point, how a government - treats people that establishes their equality. The aim of Jefferson’s formulation is to assert natural, god-given rights. The existence of these rights is not dependent upon biological variation, and can exist in light of these variations. However, in practice, biological variations have obviously had implications for the rights ascribed to people.
After all, though, I’m having trouble understanding what you mean by "the only way to eliminate inequality is to treat people unequally." That is, all in all, what is the basis upon which equality and inequality are being evaluated?
I think that the main issue I have is with these three types of equality you’ve mentioned (I have not read Hayeck’s work, mind you). They appear to be quite gross in scope, and the way they interact appears to be quite restrictive.
Factual equality does not necessarily guarantee that we are unequal per se. That (2) is equal to (1 + 1) is necessary to the mathematical utility of those terms, the basis of evaluating their truthiness being mathematics as they exist in our reality, and the laws therein. Without context/a sufficient basis, a human cannot be evaluated in the same way. If you were to say that one man is born faster than another, and in this given context the ultimate aim of biology is survival, and speed ensures a greater survival rate, then yes, one man is unequal as compared to the other. But in the context of a society in general, and a government, utility is relative, and secondary to equality in terms of natural rights. In other words, biological differences, in theory, do not guarantee effective inequality.
Legal equality is easily understood if it’s meant to mean that we are all treated as equal before the law. But here, at least if you wish to invoke the ways in which this might extend to economics (or labor, or ownership, or taxes) you have to define equality further. Moreover, you must mind that laws are formed by people, in a process of consensus and consent. It is conceivable that legal equality, if law were formulated accordingly, could exist such that it does not clash with material equality. But I think this is an issue greater than legality, that is, one which thrusts us into questions of desert, how we ought to live in relation to others, how value and meaning are assigned to aspects of life, etc. - if we are in fact conceptualizing, reasoning, and not reacting to things just as they are. What’s more, if a progressive tax structure in and of itself signals a breach of legal equality, then again, this conception of equality is I think overly simplistic, too static, and - if not described in Heyeck’s book sufficiently - favors a labor theory which requires explanation.
If an example of material equality would be redistribution of wealth, and if the supposed, corresponding inequality would be that a tax law used to facilitate such a redistribution might include unequal tax rates (thereby, I presume, indicating some kind of legal inequality), then material equality as is is too simplistic. And to say that this form of equality is all socialists yearn for is I think a careless reading of socialism, or at best, sounds like a reaction to socialism akin to those found in social media more so than a rebuttal to the actual, relevant literature.
When all is said and done, what it seems like you're saying here is that if some form of equality is to the exclusion of some people's desires, it therefore makes it such that those people - if this aforementioned equality is pursued - must be treated as unequal. If this is what you're saying, then I think the conversation to have is, again, about how we ought to live, about what we perhaps should want, or expect, or how inclusive or perfect laws/society/a government can/should be, etc., etc., etc. But then I might have this all wrong and not know what you're saying at all, haha.
Anyway, upvotin’ ya. I like the fresh take, and I like the philosophically-geared posts :)
o relly this is amazing ..
this was superb! keep it up
You seem to be conflating Equal with Identical; the two are not the same. All Men are CREATED Equal, unless you believe some people are only 11% created by God, other people 33% created, still others 88%, and some ultimately 100%. Certainly plenty of people do believe this kind of nonsense, trying to back it up either with atheistic Darwinian materialism scientism or Libertarian economic ‘philosophy’; not surprising as those two world views are Very similar. Nonetheless the reality is that all men are created Equal, whivh is why we hold this truth to be Self Evident; as in it’s obvious, and proven by its opposite being impossible.
Well, I'm not conflating. I separated equality into three categories and defined each. Can you clarify what the percentages you listed are meant to indicate?