Is human equality a myth?

paky

Do you think human equality is a myth? I dont think the idea of equality works on humans because nature doesnt permit it. What do you guys think?

Torakx

I think all men and women are equal as a species.
Outside that equality is a state of mind maybe.
Every person seems to have more or less the same thinking faculties so we are more or less equal in our make up.
I say more or less because there are things that some cultures have automatically that other cultures dont like darker skin which leaves them at an advantage imo regarding the sun compaired to light skin cultures for a small example.Or a person born with a health issue because of a genetic problem in the human sense they can still be equal if they satisfy fully what it is to be human

Gary L

Consciousness is where we base equality I think. The same physiological framework(the human) adapts itself to any situation through consciousness. Like if you had been born 1000 years ago your mind would be complete and in tact yet you'd be a different person entirely. To compare the actions or the situation of both people they would appear distinct but if you remove environment as a factor there is unassailable equality.

Victor

I think you need to look at the definition of equality.

Of course not everyone is perfectly equal. My brother (age 40, engineer, manager) thought that a guy he worked (younger, trades? based) with was really cool, because no matter what (practical?) task my brother gave him, he was able to get it sorted. It was a revelation a few years later to my brother when the other guy said he thought my brother was the coolest guy around because he always took the calm rational approach to solving problems, where as he himself might loose the rag at some particular parts of the particular task. What my brother admitted to me, but not to him was that while he kept a calm exterior, his mind would be racing to find the solutions before the questions were asked. The lessons? We are good at our own thing, not so good at things we don't normally deal with. That doesn't make us good/bad people, it just means we are good/bad at that thing.

So, displacing a country bumpkin* to the big city and a city slicker* to deepest Ruritania and of course you will see dysfunction, but that doesn't mean that one or other can't succeed outside their own environment. Indeed, it is often those that are outside their own environments are the ones that succeed the best (although in small numbers).


* Replace with whatever characterisation you want.

Prof.Badass

I don't think all people are equal. Some of this is genetic, and some of this is to do with some people developing their talents more than others.

What i do believe is that everyone is deserving of an equal shot at life and equal treatment in the eyes of the law. This is the only way to run a fair society. Any differences between people will come through in their personal lives.

sparkfire

If you are an atheist then equality is just a social construct, if however you believe in God then humans are all equal.

Cannibal Ox

paky wrote: »

Do you think human equality is a myth? I dont think the idea of equality works on humans because nature doesnt permit it. What do you guys think?

I think a good example of egalitarian theory is Amartya Sen's capabilities approach. It assumes that people are equal in having capabilities, though there is no absolute or definite list, and it is constructed as being culturally specific/dependant. The arguement is that people have certain capabilities and a capacity for choice. The role of policy should be to create an enabling environment for those capabilities that contains choice. It doesn't mean that someone who is capable of, say, singing, should be forced into that by government. It means that a person who is capable of singing lives in a society that enables that capability and gives the person the possibility of choice to pursue that.

There's some good evidence that, after a countries wealth reaches a certain point, more equal societies are happier, healthier, less violent, better educated, and, generally, better places to live then less equal, but as wealthy, countries.

sponsoredwalk

sparkfire wrote: »

If you are an atheist then equality is just a social construct, if however you believe in God then humans are all equal.

I think it should go;

If you are an atheist then equality is a social construct, if however you just believe in God then humans are all equal.




( I still don't agree with it though :rolleyes:).

Take a look at some of the research done on twins, I'll refer you to Steven Pinker's work or the yale psychology course http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/introduction-to-psychology/ for more in-depth information, but it's just basic knowledge that not everybody is the same, as twins can prove.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be equals.

vinylmesh wrote: »

What i do believe is that everyone is deserving of an equal shot at life and equal treatment in the eyes of the law.

Well said.

Also, what defines human nature? How does human nature dictate that we cannot get along? I think you only need to look at the past to convince yourself otherwise.

We are still on a journey from our past, we have gotten less violent as a species & murder each other less, trust each other way more & interact with such a huge variety of cultures that there's no reason to think we aren't capable of x, y or z. Again I'll refer you to Steven Pinkers lecture on Violence on youtube if you doubt anything I've claimed.

You should watch some of his stuff, I'm no Steven Pinker nut or anything lol but he is pretty involved in the topic.

Also, there is very real fact that we view the world through capitalistic eyes which has inherent in it's perception the idea of competition. Granted this perception is pretty much the source of life but it's the struggle against these primal desires that allows us to advance as a species.

I read up on Amartya Sen, he reminds me of Saul Alinsky a little bit.

recedite

paky wrote: »

Do you think human equality is a myth? I dont think the idea of equality works on humans because nature doesnt permit it. What do you guys think?

That's a dangerous question, especially for someone with your name

sparkfire wrote: »

if however you believe in God then humans are all equal.

Unless its one of those gods that strikes down the unclean, the atheists, pagans, heretics, infidels ......

Gary L

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

Chuchoter

I think you're missing the point. All people are not equal, but all people deserve to be treated equally humanely

Gary L

Doesn't equality mean that we all have the same inherent human experience? As Bill Hicks beautifully put it, " We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively". Acting from our basic state of not understanding everything, we have to acknowledge I think that were all in the same boat here.

Obviously we all act and think differently but that's almost entirely down to experience filling us with different concepts.
It makes me laugh but it is like booting up 6 billion copies of windows and then comparing them throughout the years. The 'my documents' folder might look different but we're sure enough running the same BIOS

Is this a fair statement; Every human does at any time what seems best to them at that time?

sponsoredwalk

Gary L wrote: »

It makes me laugh but it is like booting up 6 billion copies of windows and then comparing them throughout the years. The 'my documents' folder might look different but we're sure enough running the same BIOS

Is this a fair statement; Every human does at any time what seems best to them at that time?

What about all the people who run unix, i.e. linux and it's variants? And what about all those macs??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDgEdcFTquM&feature=related

:p:p:p

Comrade C

I think that when you look at processes like natural selection, u obviously see that the ones that are better adapted to the environment live and the ones who arnt as adapted, have less offspring. So in a way, nature doesnt support equality. But in a sense of law, all citizens should be equal, because they all own property of some sort in that country. Not sure if idealogies will acheive equality, maybe technological advances though.