Equality is an evil notion because it means the suffering of the just, the suffering of the brilliant, and the suffering of the deserving.

Despite what we are told by those pushing equality, equality does not mean egalitarianism, which is itself a term invented to deflate the negative connotations of equality. Equality is a system in which people are equals, yet we know from experience that no two people are equals in any way. I am not the basketball player that Michael Jordan is, nor is he the intellectual that I am. I would not presume to ask more than curious questions of someone fixing my car, nor would I expect him to presume to ask more than curious questions of my cultural and literary analysis. The great reality of interpersonal relations is that we all have strengths and weaknesses, and these strengths and weaknesses, relative to each another. Even though we share almost all of our genetic material, the differences between humans remain overwhelmingly vast when it comes to any area of talent or expertise. Equality, as a philosophy, seeks to obliterate these differences.

Indeed, it seeks to obliterate the very spice of life. It can only be counted as one of the supreme ironies of our age that those who champion equality are all too often those who champion diversity. That these two basic values are expressly contradictory surpasses the grasp of most who promote them.

We live in an age dedicated not so much to eradicating difference, but to pretending differences do not exist. The same people who observe that someone is only of average intelligence are horrified by the observation that such a person insisting on his or her point of view, despite it having been deconstructed by those of admitted and proven greater intellect, is valid even in its antagonistic persistence. The same people who admit gender differences repel in horror when someone begins, however intelligently, to tease them out and describe them as assets and handicaps, in various areas, for either sex.

Do not believe those who speak of equality as if it meant roughly egalitarian instead of equal. There is nothing egalitarian about my writing ability or an Olympic medalist. Such abilities are to be celebrated as assets to humanity itself, rather than derided on a regular basis through the rhetoric of equality and egalitarianism.

Let there be no mistake: equality does not mean equality of opportunity, implicitly connoting meritocracy. Such is a defense by those seeking, based on how atrocious it seems to condemn equality, to redeem it rather than discard it. Equality and meritocracy are opposed on the most fundamental of ways: equality is horizontal, seeking to level interpersonal relations, while meritocracy is vertical, allowing individuals to rise or fall according to their talents and abilities. The concept of equality is fundamentally opposed to the notion of rising and falling. Meritocracy involves competition. It is a male system in which one’s position is always in flux, always in jeopardy, always in threat, always ready to rise. Equality is opposed to merit because merit entails hierarchy. The greater the extremes in that hierarchy, the greater the meritocracy.

What the founding fathers meant by equality, expressed in the statement "all men are created equal," is a religious equality. It is not equality of position, in which people are treated as the same, as we now use it. It is not equality of opportunity, the meritocracy to which those who seek to redeem the notion of equality have resorted; the early United States was much more an aristocracy of landed gentry than we would like to imagine. It is equality of the soul that they championed, equality not on earth but in heaven, reflected in this world solely by what we now see as a modicum of human dignity.

From one concerned with equality of opportunity, with merit, equality constitutes an offense, a horror to the sensibilities. The idea of Albert Einstein or Billy Shakespeare having to wait in line behind a loudmouthed moron is egregious to any meritocratic sensibilities. The notion that a drooling retard and a brilliant theorist should have the same civil rights is an offense to those concerned with the benefits to humanity. Does it really matter if Oscar Wilde or Orson Welles hit some stupid, inconsequential person? If we tried such a man for such a crime, much less jailed such a man, would not humanity suffer as a result? Imagine the additional masterworks, the theories of relativity and the like, that we might have if we did not burden our most valued resources as a species, our shining beacons of brilliance, with the mundane world equality imposes. If da Vinci cheated on his women, or was viscously controlling, is not such indulgence a smaller crime, if not the warrant, of his intellectual and artistic powers? Is not the freshman condemning Socrates for liking young boys intellectually repellant?

The rich and powerful have always had special privileges. Such is aristocracy, or aristocratic tendencies. Let us not confuse celebrity as we now see it, now power, for merit. Not all hierarchies can be tarred with the brush of the clearly arbitrary element of celebrity today. The problem with O.J. Simpson’s acquittal is not so much the privilege it represented but the fact that that privilege was granted to an idiotic ex-football player. The meritocracy is incompatible with systems of inheritance and lineage as much as is equality, if not more so. Both systems condemn the aristocratic harem. Equality seeks to level it, to raise it along with all of human greatness to the ground. Meritocracy seeks to transfer its ownership directly, bypassing the capitalistic auction block, from the Sultan to Leonardo.

YOUR WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT

Counting this column as two days late, I've pledged to make up the eight columns I missed in 2002. Two series of columns are ongoing: the revolutionary The Matriarchy and my travelogue, The Subjective Recollections of The American Artist in France.

I've modified the introductory movie for this site based on the departure of The Continuity Pages. The old version has been archived as part of Darius Notes.

Your weekly assignment this week is just to tell someone about this column. I wish you all the best in this holiday season.

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