Equality Between Unequals Cannot Be Just

Forgive me, I'm still struck by my re-discovery of this 2004 treasure by Lawrence Auster. Here's another, rather long excerpt -- beautifully illustrated by BtB's photo editor (if I do say so myself).

 

Leftism ... defines justice as the guaranteed equality of outcome between individuals of unequal abilities and accomplishments. But equality between unequals cannot be just (because it involves the expropriation of the justly earned fruits of more talented labor) and is incompatible with liberty (because it requires force to achieve). To give the same to everyone requires that undeserved disadvantages be imposed on the more productive and therefore "better off" individuals and that undeserved benefits be provided to the less productive and therefore "worse off" individuals. In a vast inchoate society of many millions of people, equality of outcome can only be pursued by the systematic dragging down of entire classes of persons for the sake of undeserving strangers.

Furthermore, in order to justify this unjust system, the society must lie to its members about how the differences between the respective groups came about. It must claim that the more abundant goods possessed by the better-off group were all attained unfairly, by the oppression or exploitation of the worse-off group. It must devalue individual initiative and creativity and all the other virtues that make for the building up of civilization, while excusing (and ultimately rewarding) failure, misbehavior, and crime.

This double standard, once again, applies as much to the cultural and moral sphere as to the economic. For example, the belief in equality requires leftists to delegitimize anyone who upholds the traditional moral code, and to excuse anyone who violates it, because traditional morality says that some behaviors are objectively better than others, which is (to leftists) discriminatory. The belief in equality requires leftists to demand the virtual dismantling of Christianity, because, as James Carroll claims in his anti-Christian opus, Constantine's Sword, Christianity, by its very existence and its claim to being the true religion, denigrates Judaism and the Jews; Carroll isn't bothered that every sentence of his book denigrates Christianity and Christians.

In the same way, the belief in equality requires leftists to be indifferent or hostile to Western culture, regardless of its virtues, and to excuse and celebrate non-Western cultures, regardless of their vices, because Western culture is currently the successful and "dominant" culture. Indeed, under the inverted moral order of leftism, the more backward or even savage a non-Western culture happens to be, the more we must puff it up, cover its sins, and blame its catastrophes on ourselves. Thus the glowing, celebratory documentaries on the history of Islam, such as "Empire of Faith" and "Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet" (described by National Review Online as a "whitewashed commercial for Islam"), that have become a staple on Public Television over the last three years, during the very period when the totalitarian and murderous nature of a significant section of the Islamic community has become horribly apparent. Thus 9/11 Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton's statement that Moslems blame us (justly, he implies) for their poverty and backwardness, and that to win their trust (!) in the war on terror we must create a giant welfare state for the whole Islamic world—providing new kinds of schools for them, ending their poverty, giving them democracy, and so on. It follows from Hamilton's thoroughly "liberal" premise that if the Moslems continue to distrust and hate us despite our massive assistance, that would only show that we have not yet done "enough" for them and must do more.

As the cultural leftists and "liberals" see it, to excuse and celebrate our enemies and blame ourselves for their problems is not to practice a vicious and suicidal double standard; it is merely to seek equality, which is a universal good that enriches the humanity of all of us.

 

This claim is demonstrably false. To establish homosexuality as a social norm while banning the disapproval of homosexuality, as today's "liberals" are now doing, is not a universal agenda benefiting all mankind but a very particular agenda, aimed at empowering one concrete interest—radical sexual liberation—and at disempowering another concrete interest—the traditional social and moral order.

By convincing everyone that their agendas represent the advance of a general "fairness" and "humanity" to which no decent person could object, modern "liberals" assure that no one can criticize these agendas on any principled ground. The result is that public discourse about the public good—politics itself—comes to an end. As an example of this abolition of politics, consider the fact that anyone who seriously opposes the unconstitutional imposition of homosexual marriage, one of the most radical social innovations in the history of the world, is automatically dismissed and shunned by many people today as a bigot or a cynical political manipulator.

 

Hm, hm, hm... food for thought for all you "bigots" out there :)

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

On the subject of equality, Orwell had the last word: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Interestingly -- despite their loud-mouth laments about inequality -- it's frequently the progressives who prove the most unequal of all. That's why, in the Rose Garden the other day, it was an anonymous Marine holding the umbrella -- and it was Obama sheltering under the umbrella. The Left's told a lot of lies in its odious march toward Utopia, but none bigger than the lie about "equalizing" inequality.