Yesterday
was National Women's Equality Day. On August 26, 1920 the 19th
Amendment to the Constitution went into effect.
That
having been said, however, the reality is that there's no such thing
as equality. (I think I've said this before.) It's purely a
philosophical construct. Just as there are no two identical
snowflakes, there are no two identical people. We differ in many
aspects – sex is certainly one of them, though not always the most
noticed in modern society. (And certainly not “gender.”) The
visible differences between people are often masked by clothing, or
minimized by style.
But
that doesn't mean they don't exist. Nor other differences. We
differ in height, weight, strength, intelligence, abilities and
talents, interests, and a host of other features that are apparent to
ourselves and to those we meet.
There
are hidden differences as well, however. You're probably unaware of
your basophil count or your serum creatinine, unless they were just
drawn and you looked at the laboratory report. You probably don't
know (or care) how many times your heart has beaten in the last
twenty-four hours, unless you're attached to some monitoring device
that does the counting. The chances are good, however, that the
numbers are not equal to those of the people you'll meet today. Or
any other day. Even your identical twin.
For
just as we differ in terms of our natures, we differ in our
experiences. Even before we're born. So “identical twins” –
at least as the term applies to matching DNA – may not be
identical. (See
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/science/06qna.html?_r=0)
Even the DNA itself is subject to mutation, so differences
may occur there as well. But the differences related to those we
meet and befriend, the schools we attend, the programs we watch, and
whatever else we see or hear, or otherwise experience, will also play
a part in who we are and in what we manifest to others.
And
while differences in religion may not be obvious unless we make them
so, they're likely to affect the way we act (ditto our ethnicity) –
even if we reject the philosophy behind them. (The tension, however,
between a secular society and a religious tradition can be a source
of contention for us all. “Blue Laws” and other secular
concessions to religious laws may limit us – especially if our
religion doesn't accept the laws – while secular norms may affect
the religion itself. E.g. must the Catholic Church accept the idea
of women as priests since an egalitarian society would like it that
way?) That's not to say that everyone considers all religions equal,
or that atheists and believers would accept each other – especially
their ideas.
But
none of that really deals with the question of what constitutes
equality. We're certainly not all the same. In fact no two of us
are the same. In terms of our characteristics and our capabilities
we're all different. We're not equal. And there's no concept of
equality in the animal world from which, according to Darwin, we're
all descended. Not between dinosaurs and dogs, and not even between
two lions. There's a hierarchy in every society: a pecking order.
And, whether or not it corresponds to our societal fashions and
political correctness, the pecking order is related to sex and to
strength. Nature doesn't know from equality. It's a purely human
concept.
It's
unlikely that anyone takes the idea of equality seriously. At least
not in the sense that suggests that we all have equal capabilities.
We may not want to admit it, but we're aware of it. We've even
developed language that acknowledges the reality. We speak about
“special” education rather than admit aloud the fact that some
are not as intelligent as others. And we idolize sports figures who
have greater physical abilities than we. We know that different
people have different talents from ours, and that's not a bad thing.
We're all different.
Our
founders were surely aware of those differences. Yet they spoke of
equality anyway, even though they clearly recognized that no two of
us were the same. They certainly disagreed with each other regarding
many things. In all likelihood they understood the concept of
equality, however, in political terms rather than in respect to the
characteristics obvious to those with whom we interact. Their goal
was to provide us all with the opportunity to benefit equally from
society – politically, economically, and socially. And their view
of who might be a recipient of the rights they assigned may not
correspond with our own, but their vision of the concept of equality
does, though over the generations there has been “tweaking” of
the list of those who should benefit from the political equality they
envisioned. Hence the nineteenth amendment and others that have
extended rights to other Americans.
We
fool ourselves, however, when we speak of equality. We long for
sameness rather than diversity, as we simultaneously praise
diversity. But it would be a very boring world if we were all the
same. Political equality is reasonable, however Nature (or G-d for
those who believe) has given us different assignments. It's only
when we superimpose human “norms” on those that we get into
trouble. Perhaps we should all vote (at least those defined as “we”
at any particular time), but it's only because we aren't all equal
that we don't all think and vote the same way.
Inequality
is what makes life interesting.
