We normally think of equality in social and political terms but true equality begins closer to home, at first with ourselves and then extending to a relationship. The balance of power in our relationships then extend to the type of power in our governmental and cultural forms.
Most likely, matriarchal societies prospered much longer than patriarchal ones have. Some version of matriarchy was prevalent during the hunting-and-gathering as well as the nomadic periods of human history until the patriarchal styles that accompanied the agricultural periods became dominant. Now, in this electronic age of advanced technology, neither matriarch or patriarchy seem to fit. Both may only be examples of mistaking the words for the sense, the surface for the substance, and falling to address the realities essential to cultural survival in our modern era. Buddhist texts describe the feminine principle as perception and the masculine as perceiving. This kind of non-surface, not-physical way of understanding gender could show us the way toward evolving a new system of equality that transcends both matriarchy and patriarchy.
In political and institutional terms, Rousseau condensed a deep understanding of inequality into one sentence: "The flaws that make social institutions necessary are the same as make the abuse of them unavoidable." In spite of a deeply romantic view of basic goodness and human nature, he recognized that deeply embedded human instincts drive us toward aggression, conflict, and chaos; that, while our institutions may help prevent some of these most egregious abuses, they also—because the same human failing still exist within the institutions—create inequality, corruptions of power, mental and physical slavery.
Although inequality existed during the Stone Age, it didn't become a major force in civilization until the Agricultural Revolution. This led to a trade-off compromise between sustenance and freedom: humanity gained the ability to sustain a much larger population at the cost of worse conditions and less freedom for the majority—including the beginning and proliferation of slavery. This more rigid hierarchy and subjugation eased somewhat after the Industrial Revolution created a need for millions of healthy laborers and loyal soldiers. As artificial intelligence and biotech rapidly increase now, however, this trend may reverse again creating a vast inequality unknown in previous eras. Already in 2017, the richest 100 people own more than the poorest 4 billion; the richest 1% own half of the world's entire wealth.
“There are no large or small states; all are Heaven's townships. There are no young men or old, no patricians or plebians: all are Heavne's subjects...”
“We sit around in our shops denouncing the present order but we perceive that even badly constituted democracies are responsible for fewer disasters than oligarchies. But Athens ruined itself by carrying to excess the principles of liberty and equality, by training the citizens in such fashion that they looked upon insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and license to do what they pleased as happiness.”
“Political 'equality' has been understood in two senses: as meaning either that all are to share absolutely alike, or that every man is to receive his due. Our ancestors preferred that 'equality' which does not efface the distinction between merit and worthlessness.”
“Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.”
“It is the nature of things to be unequal… If you rank them equally you throw the world into confusion. Suppose shoes, large and small, were the same price—who would make large ones?”
“The master uses his skill to harmonize with both sides which makes all things equal. This is called 'walking on two paths at once.'”
“In ancient times, when sage kings ruled, their government and education were egalitarian, and their charity extended to all. Those above and those below were of like mind.”
“Pale Death knocks with impartial foot at poor men's hovels and kings' palaces.”
“The ten thousand questions are one question. If you cut through the one question, then the ten thousand questions disappear.”
“All living beings by nature are one’s parents… How will you find the Guru to accept you when you look down on others?”
“Though the sun and moon both appear in the azure firmament, the blue sky does not favor one over the other.”
“everything is a naturally occurring realm of bliss—the very context of sublime enlightenment, a state of spontaneous equalness”
“Friends, each one the other must obey [for] love will not be constrained by mastery; both men and women by nature love their liberty and not to be constrained and so both become servant and lord.”
“All men would be equal had they been without wants; it is the misery attached to our species which subordinates one man to another; inequality is not the real misfortune, it's dependence... why should servants be sought for when no service is required.”
“The flaws that make social institutions necessary are the same as make the abuse of them unavoidable. The progress of inequality began with laws and property rights, developed sovereignty and domination which led to the conversion of legitimate into arbitrary power. The conditions of rich and poor, powerful and weak were established and later the institution of master and slave—a sure sign that this sequence has gone too far and either revolution or radical, internal change imminent.”
“The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education... By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a greyhound”
“The perfect equality of men is the point at which the extremes of democracy and despotism are confounded”
“If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."”
“...men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow creatures who find amusement in their society… Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship.”
“The freest government cannot long endure when the tendency of the law is to create a rapid accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and to render the masses poor and dependent.”
“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”
“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom”
“Socialism admits freedom only after equality—in equality and through equality—because freedom outside of equality can only create privilege.”
“The battle for democracy will not be won until the working class raises the proletariat to the position of the ruling class. Otherwise, 'democracy' will permit, condone, or even promote social and economic inequalities.”
“When the gap between the highly educated and the practical, working classes gets too big, the former will have no influence and the latter no benefit.”
“The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.”
“To dream of equal rights, equal training, equal claims and obligations: that is a typical sign of shallow-mindedness.”
“The democratic faith in human equality is belief that every human being, independent of the quantity or range of his personal endowment, has the right to equal opportunity with every other person for development of whatever gifts he has.”
“Class, creed and nationality are words which should find no place in the vocabulary of the Australians, because these words are synonymous with everything that is hostile to peace and happiness in the world.”
“Equality before the Law, is thus a contradiction in terms for Law itself is an incarnation of Inequality. It is true only in the subjective sense, that all who OBEY the Law are equally the servants of those who make it or caused it to be made.”
“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgement Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, when two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”
“Pythagoras, like Saint Francis, preached to animals. In the society that he founded, men and women were admitted on equal terms; property was held in common, and there was a common way of life.”
“The young intellectuals are all chanting, 'Revolution, Revolution', but I say the revolution will have to start in our homes, by achieving equal rights for women.”
“Some men remain irresponsible, self-assertive, uncontrolled, inept to their last day; others from their youth are serious, self-controlled, talented, and friendly... it is this variation of temperament or inheritance which constitutes the natural inequality of men, an inequality that is too often ignored in the theories of Western democracy.”
“The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.”
“Since inequality grows in an expanding economy... internal barbarization by the majority is part of the price that the minority pays for its control”
“People are intrinsically unequal and while enforced equality creates a rebellion of the more skilled and intelligent, too much freedom creates an extreme of inequality that creates a rebellion of the less intelligent and skilled.”
“Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.”
“Every advance in the complexity of the economy puts an added premium upon superior ability, and intensifies the concentration of wealth, responsibility, and political power... Economic freedom, even in the middle classes, become more and more exceptional, making political freedom a consolatory pretense.”
“So now when he looked at the woman he wanted, it was no simple lust that he felt. He wanted her in many ways to fill out his own being in its lacks, and he was pleased to think her learned and different from himself, and because he knew his own worth, he was not afraid to let her be in some ways better than himself, and he felt her like him in his deepest parts.”
“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”
“freedom is more important than equality; the attempt to realize equality endangers freedom; and, if freedom is lost, there will not even be equality among the unfree.”
“We shouldn’t see some as sharp and others as dull. By treating all children without discrimination, we enable them to see all beings as equal.”
“Within the crowd there is equality [and] for the sake of this equality people become a crowd and tend to overlook anything which might detract from it.”
“Equality of condition, though it is certainly a basic requirement for justice, is nevertheless among the greatest and most uncertain ventures of modern mankind. The more equal conditions are, the less explanation there is for the differences that actually exist between people; and thus all the more unequal do individuals and groups become.”
“Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
“Economic growth without social progress lets the great majority of the people remain in poverty while a privileged few reap the benefits of rising abundance.”
“21st century technology makes have and have-not inequities, as well as their rationales, anachronistic.”
“Be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued.”
“The idea that ‘all men are created equal’ is a gift to the world from the American Indian.”
“If we only use our strength to help ourselves, we will automatically make hierarchies to prevent others in a subtle way from being equal. As a result of this style in which those on top try to keep others down, everyone's mind becomes heavy.”
“The further back in time, the more narrow and limited our perceptions of the world. It slowly expanded from family to clan to village to city to country. With the revolution of information technology, it now includes all the world and all the people in it. Unfortunately our conceptions of equality and justice haven’t expanded as quickly as this awareness. People becoming true citizens of the world is evolution’s main challenge for us today.”
“Did slavery in the world end because of people’s sense of injustice or only because it stopped being economically profitable? As technology evolves, unskilled labor becomes both less necessary and less valuable. As physical slavery organically ended in the world, mental slavery, true-believership, and wage slavery are rapidly ending now.”
“The pedestal on which some thought women were standing all too often turned out to be a cage.”
“Give all of mankind an equal share of material goods today, and tomorrow there will exist the old inequities.”
“For those of you in the cheap seats I'd like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelry!”
“Equality
I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now.”
“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned... Everything is war.”
“Not long ago half the world’s countries had laws that discriminated against racial minorities; today more countries have policies that favor their minorities than policies that discriminate against them.”
“At the turn of the 20th century, women could vote in just one country; today they can vote in every country where men can vote save one (Vatican City).”
“People are not clones in a monoculture, What satisfies one will frustrate another. The only way they can end up equal is if they are treated unequally.”
“Social hierarchy can assume many forms, and in every human society it seems to find one… the deeply human hunger for status and the seemingly universal presence of hierarchy… it becomes doubtful that any truly egalitarian human society has ever existed… Is inequality indeed, as Darwin suggested, a prerequisite for economic or political advancement?”
“as political power became more widely disbursed, so did wives… one-man-one-vote and one-man-one-wife… monogamy is a straightforward expression of political [and economic] equality among men”
“The choice [between monogamy and polygyny] isn’t between equality and inequality. It’s between equality among men and equality among women.”
“No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half of its citizens.”
“The veil deliberately marks women as private and restricted property, nonpersons. The veil sets women apart from men and apart from the world; it restrains them, confines them, grooms them for docility. A mind can be cramped just as a body may be, and a Muslim veil blinkers both your vision and your destiny. It is the mark of a kind of apartheid, not the domination of a race but of a sex.”
“As much as we like the idea of being equal the fat is we are not and never will be… and for good reason.”
“the 21st century might create the most unequal societies in history. Though globalization and the internet bridge the gap between countries, they threaten to enlarge the rift between classes.”
“equality is based not in what we have or how we look, but in who we are... our desire to be happy and our shared inner potential to create the conditions that lead to happiness form the foundation of universal human equality... we are all absolutely equal in our wish for happiness and in our longing to be free of pain and suffering...”
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