The other day I was attempting to explain the preliminary part of the ontological proof of God to a group of students. It’s a important piece of logic which has tormented philosophers for almost one thousand years but with an absurd and contradictory conclusion – try running it in reverse and you end up with a Devil who is perfectly imperfect! But it did trigger one important idea for me. It requires that we accept that people are not equal, that there are people who are better (or worse) than we are in every way. That there is an ascending ladder of ‘goodness’ or worthiness until we reach the perfect being we call God and that people are ranked on it. Inequality is not the point of the argument but it is implicit in its unbreakable logic.
Frankly I’m getting a bit tired of the ridiculous post-modernist assumption that we’re all absolutely equal. How on earth can we possibly cling so tenaciously to this politically correct concept when we are immersed in a morass of contradictory evidence. We even teach children a notion that there are multiple kinds of intelligence so that everyone can participate in being smart although there is no coherent scientific or logical basis for the claim and new categories have to be invented constantly to incorporate the obvious exceptions. Why? We do not act as if we believe it as we are only too happy to judge each other and usually not kindly.

So I’ll do the hard thing. I’ll proclaim that I am not the equal of many, many people in any way at all – morally, physically, intellectually, spiritually and in any other category you wish to add. Start with your personal heroes of worthiness; King, Mandela; Socrates; Gandhi; whoever. They are better than you are, are they not? Leave out the irrelevant failings such as Socrates being ugly, unwashed, annoying and dead – they’re not significant and we tend to forgive the eccentricities of genius. Then work downwards and assume that there are many others, unknown to you (and still living) who occupy a space on the spectrum of greatness somewhere between those people and yourself. As Aristotle said, “Know yourself.” And so know that you are not the best. Or the worst, I hope. In fact you can take comfort in the idea that there are many who are slightly or even significantly worse than you are in every way. You’ve seen them on TV with a coat over their heads outside a criminal court somewhere, or perhaps hosting a game show.
Oh, and please let us not get into discussions over the definitions of ‘better’ and ‘worse’. For this exercise, it doesn’t matter what criteria you use, they are still out there somewhere. The ontological proof does not require it; it is enough that you can establish this ladder between imperfect and perfect. I’m still worrying about who or what is at the bottom of the ladder though – I suspect that he/it was in my class a couple of years ago.
There are some acceptable claims for a fundamental equality in rights; “..life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” As Jefferson so neatly expressed them. This is an equality of opportunity, not of personal worth or ability. We are not equally capable of taking up every opportunity and therein lies the basic inequality. Further, we are quite happy to deny these rights to others if they offend us by their behaviour, especially if they deny these same rights to others. We lock them up, execute them or make war on them. Neither do we extend these rights to non-human species although some claim that we should. That is not a particularly popular claim so long as we can delegate the raising and killing to others although we do get bothered about the idea of cruelty to pets and threats to endangered species (so long as they are cute and cuddly). But let one Singer claim that a smart chimpanzee has more value than a retarded human child and all bets are off. The demand for a blanket equality seems to have at least one foot in the idea of the sanctity of human life, the questionable claim that we are somehow special and set aside and above all other species, even the worst or least valuable of us. This is debatable but perhaps not here.

Another problem is that especially in the latter half of the twentieth century, we began to confuse equality with equity. In fact, most people I speak to treat these terms as completely interchangeable. Equity makes no claim for the equalness of people, only that we deal with unequal people in a fair manner. The communist doctrine, ‘From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs,’ is a good example, regardless of any socialist claim to equality. People are unequal and to treat them absolutely equally is quite unfair. To treat a wheelchair bound paraplegic as if they are able-bodied is ridiculous and discriminatory. Whatever great abilities they may have, they lack at least one critical ability and provision must be made for that or they are denied opportunity. This is the thinking behind positive discrimination, in which the scales are slightly loaded in favour of those with some social disadvantage.
Those who do not understand the difference between equity and equality may feel robbed in some ill-defined way when they see another getting a greater share. ‘It isn’t fair’ they’ll claim, using a childish version of ‘fair’ which for them means that everyone gets exactly the same. And you can understand their frustration if they have missed out on a job or some other social benefit. But fair it is, in a higher sense.

Another paradigm of equality in the twentieth century was the post-modernist thesis. Everyone’s view had equal weight and everyone was entitled to their own opinion. Frankly, if I were an artist of any kind, I would feel most offended by the idea that any moronic knuckle-dragger had an opinion of my work that was as valid as my own. I would feel that I knew what I set out to achieve and whether I had been successful and to what degree. I would accept that someone with intelligence, education and authority might see something in my work which was incorporated unconsciously, as part of my psyche or culture. But that’s the limit. Now we have swung back to accepting argument from authority; not the authority of an edict or cultural commissar but the advice of someone with authorial status. There are people who know more than us, there are people who always will and we are not their equals, in some areas at least. Not all opinions have equal value and there are opinions that no-one has the right to utter or perhaps even hold. This may be criticised as an inequality in a specific area which does not define the whole person, but it is pervasive. I’m unsure whether the concept of overall equality flowed from this post Second World war paradigm or whether it was born of the new sentiment of the time. But it would seem to be an integral part of the process.

In summary, the proof of inequality goes something like this:
• I know that some people are better than I am, more accomplished in certain things such as music, sport, writing, woodwork, etc.
• I know that some people are more ethical and/or moral than I am.
• Thus it follows that there must be at least one person who is ‘better’ than I am on every possible and meaningful measure.
• And it also follows that there must be someone who is worse than I on every conceivable measure.
• And that there are others, better than the one above me and worse than the one below me on this ladder of worthiness.
• Therefore we are not equal in any way except perhaps in our right to equality of opportunity as that right is seen as inalienable.

Now lets stop prattling on about how everyone has some wonderful ability or unique contribution to make. We aren’t all equal. Get over it or you’ll have a life doomed to disappointment as those who are more equal than you get all the goodies and you don't. Know yourself.