The Problem of "Equality"
Joshua Yen, Year 13, Shaftesbury House
Abstract: In the last issue of the Humanities Harrovian, I provided a powerful deductive case that proved that a belief in the equality of opportunity and equal rights requires the existence of a personal, creator God. The goal of this article is different from my usual style of arguing for a certain conclusion, rather, I want to invoke thought and prompt you to question your ideas about equality. As a result, I will not argue against any specific part of equality. Instead, I will attack the most general notion of equality, the idea that everyone should be made equal. By doing so, I hope to demonstrate that we should not jump to the conclusion that equality is always a good thing—we must keep each of these cases at arm’s length and approach each claim for equality in a case by case manner. Forms of Equality: In the past, I have often heard the term “equality” used in a very loose and broad sense. A lot of people argue for equality as something that everyone should strive towards, without even asking themselves what equality actually means. The first part of my dialectic is to demonstrate that there are more forms of equality than one may think. Instead of merely arguing for or against equality, I just want you to think deeply about your starting point. To demonstrate this, let me turn to a very common example—equal pay. In the current discourse, the idea of equal pay is often raised, be it about racial or gender pay gaps. Popular culture likes to look at the average gap between two groups and immediately suggest the existence of inequality. However, I’m afraid that this is an oversimplification of the facts. One must further ask themselves—is this disparity due to innate discrimination within the system, or is it a result of other means? What do I mean by this? Imagine a world where everyone has equal
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opportunity, but in this world, all Asian men get paid less than any other group. Is this world possible? If the answer is yes, then we can see that arguing from a certain aspect of inequality, pay gap in this instance, to inequality is justified—there is a more nuanced structure underlying the nature of equality that must not be overlooked. So what is this structure made of? In the case of the pay gap, I feel that there is an important distinction between the equality of opportunity and the equality of outcome. The former argues that everyone should be given an equal chance to succeed. The latter, on the other hand, argues that everyone should be given an equal conclusion. In each case, there may exist more forms of equality; however, I think that these two are sufficient as a basis for my discussion. Problems of Equality Simpliciter: Upon understanding that there are two important forms of equality, let us discuss the first part a bit more, the idea of equality of outcome. In my opinion, this can be broken down to an even greater degree. To illustrate this differentiation, imagine two worlds, one in which everyone is rewarded equally given they produce the same outcome, and another one in which everyone is rewarded equally for the sake of equality. I will rename the first as equality of reward and the second as equality simpliciter. While I feel the first is an honourable pursuit that is indeed tied to the concepts of equality of opportunity, I feel the second is faced with insuperable problems. What are these problems? According to Nietzsche, there are only two ways to gain this sense of equality, “[by drawing] all others down to one’s level… or by [drawing] oneself up with everyone else.” (Aphorisms on Love and Hate 34-35) I think this is undeniable. To make everyone equal in the broadest sense, there has to be either great destruction (making everyone as ruined as the weak)
