A few weeks ago a liberal colleague
of mine at Kennesaw State University e-mailed me a short, short story. This was Kurt Vonnegutt’s 1961 tale “Harrison
Bergeron.” I had never seen it
before—and it was a revelation.
The story begins “The year
was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.
They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way.” Apparently this equality had been mandated by
two amendments to the Constitution and was enforced by a “Handicapper General.”
Much as horses are
handicapped by requiring the most fleet to carry extra pounds on their backs,
so people who were smarter than average wore an earpiece that disrupted their
thoughts, those who were physically stronger had weights dangling from their
muscles, and those who were especially beautiful wore masks to cover their
attractiveness.
The reason for this, of
course, was that just as some horses are born to be faster than others, some
humans are born with superior attributes.
The only way to make them equal in every respect was therefore to reduce
the advantages of the lucky ones.
Furthermore, because it was
impossible to improve the abilities of the less fortunate to such a degree that
they matched their betters, all had to be diminished to the lowest common
denominator. Even mediocrity would be
too exalted if everyone was to be completely equal.
If this sounds absurd,
please understand that many liberals desire not an equality of opportunity, or an
equality before the law, but an equality of results. This is why they would confiscate the
resources of the rich and transfer them to the poor. It is why they institute programs to
“empower” the less affluent.
Were this just a left
liberal penchant, this proclivity might simply be amusing. Unfortunately, these radicals have been able
to convince a sufficient number of voters that this sort of social engineering
is essential to create “social justice.”
They even claim that it is built into the Declaration of Independence.
Needless to say, this is a
canard. Jefferson told us that we were
endowed with equal rights, not that we were, or ever could become, completely
equal. Indeed, in his other writings he
advocated an “aristocracy of merit.”
So what I propose is that in
order to reduce this confusion we start talking about “universality” rather
than equality. Universality means that
all rules are applied equally to everyone irrespective of social status. No one gets an authorized advantage because
of race, ethnicity, gender, social class, or sexual orientation.
Were this standard
respected, no individuals would get admitted to college with lesser credentials
because of skin color, no woman would be hired for a job because there was a
quota for females, and no rich person would have to pay more for the same
services as a poor one.
This may sound like a
peculiar way to do business, but my students at KSU understand it very
well. Were I to award a higher grade to
someone just because she was my cousin, they would be outraged. If her work were not up to snuff, they would
expect me to grade her accordingly.
Moreover, this seems to me
to be the essence of democracy.
Democracy is not just “one person, one vote,” but a parity in social
standards. We do not bow down before
aristocrats; we do not kiss the rings of the rich. Even Alexis de Tocqueville, a century and a
half ago, noted that Americans did not treat anyone as deserving special
advantages because of his/her social position.
This was something to be
proud of then; it is something to be proud of now. The United States has assimilated people from
around the world—and should continue to do so.
But it should do so on the basis of universalism, not an equality of
results. Indeed, it is only by being
honestly universal that we will induct them into being honestly democratic.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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