Equal vs. Equitable

The tenets of many human -isms begin with a simple feel-good statement: all humans are created equal.  But, as George Orwell has infamously pointed out, this degenerates into "some animals are more equal than others."

Folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news.  We were not created equal.  There is a reason why Michael Jordan plays basketball well and I don't.  Some people are smarter than others.  Some have more musical talent.  And so on.  There is not even an implied parity in nature.  Just because somebody is good at math, it doesn't mean they suck at sports.  Some people are superior in every way (physically, mentally, etc.) than other people.  Some people, for example, are born severely physically and mentally challenged.

Now before we start to go down the slippery slope of Darwin to Nietzsche down into the Third Reich, this inequality is no basis for an unfair treatment based on an existing condition.  In the eyes of an objective judge, we would all like to be given a fair shake.  Civil rights, for instance, is rooted in equal treatment regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender, or religion (to name a few categories).  We would like to see this courtesy extended to most other aspects of appearance (well, maybe not to personal hygiene--I'd hate to see a National Association for the Advancement of the Smelly).

I bring up this point not because I am a language nerd, but because the distinction is important when dealing with some limitations in Immanuel Kant's first formulation.  If I am comfortable in a world that tolerates stealing but punishes lies severely, while you come from a world where lies are acceptable but stealing is intolerable, it does not mean that we have "incorrect" or "inconsistent" moral systems.  It means that we have different cultural values.  What is troubling to one person is not going to be the same thing to someone else.  If we call the culture that tolerates stealing "Culture A" and the culture that tolerates lying "Culture 1," let's examine some of the possibilities of what happens when they interact:

1. Within the domain of Culture 1 (tolerates lying, not stealing), someone from Culture 1 lies. 
2. Within the domain of Culture 1, someone from Culture 1 steals.
3. Within the domain of Culture A (tolerates stealing, not lying), someone from Culture 1 steals.
4. Within the domain of Culture A, someone from Culture 1 lies.

Ignoring the reciprocal scenarios as mirror images of these four cases, let's take a look at them in more detail.

In the first case, you have someone operating consistently within their own culture.  In the second case, we have a person rebelling against their own culture.  In the third case, we have someone assimilating themselves into a foreign culture.  Finally, in the last case, we have someone upholding their own culture against the prevailing attitude of the foreign culture.  I call these scenarios "the Conformist", "the Rebel", "the Chameleon", and "the Ugly American."  Each case has its own set of issues, which I will delve into further.  In the search for Universal Human Rights, these scenarios emerge not only from geographically isolated peoples, but in the melting pot of the United States with its emphasis on individuality, between individuals.

As mentioned in previous posts, Pope Benedict XVI's condemnation of Western individuality as a "Dictatorship of Relativism" shows a lack of respect and understanding.   It also shows a lack of appreciation of the benefits it has long brought the world--benefits he claims were sprung from Christianity.  Although this demonstrates a clash of two different systems of values, he also has a valid point that I will also delve into further: fear and moral nihilism.  Hyper-individual cultures could ostensibly lead to complete anarchy, where every individual is allowed to set the moral and ethical standards for him or herself.  I have already demonstrated, through the Little Old Lady Experiment, just how the slippery slope argument fails to produce actual fruit.  Still, I believe I have much more ground to cover in nature's patterns, what human societies are capable of, and what leads cultures to anti-human behavior, violence, and terror.