Equality: The god That Failed

“I’m sorry, Lisa, but giving everyone an equal part when they’re clearly not equal, is called what, class?” – The Simpsons

The kids said they wanted a cat for Christmas.  Normally we have ham, but I’m willing to give it a try.

In the early 2000’s I first came across the word, “meme” – and at that point, it didn’t mean just a funny picture of chubby cats lusting after cheeseburgers.  The original definition that I saw talked about a meme being an “idea fragment” that would travel virally through the consciousness of a group.  Essentially memes have a life based on transmitting themselves from mind to mind.

Examples of these simple mind viruses are all around us – we’ve been soaking in them since we were little.  We don’t notice them so much because they are a part of our culture.  What are some example memes out of the tens of thousands we’ve been exposed to?

  • Majority Rules
  • One Man, One Vote
  • One Nation, Indivisible
  • All Men Are Created Equal
  • Wilder Is The Funniest Living Human Political Writer

Each of those (except the last one, of course) is demonstrably false.

The majority only rules when the vote is counted fairly, and there have been plenty of minority rule situations because the majority didn’t have guns.  I’d say that the history of the world is the history of the majority not ruling.

One man, one vote?  Obviously, the creator of this idea had never been to Chicago, Milwaukie, Detroit, or Atlanta.  Most of those cities make the old Soviet Union look like Utah.

One nation, indivisible?  1860 proved that wasn’t the case.  Did it get undivisibled?  Well, yeah, but I’ve met plenty of people who are still sore about the War of Northern Aggression.  Sadly, all of them think that iced tea should have sugar in it.

OSHA inspectors only drink safe tea.

All Men Are Created Equal, though, is the meme that I wanted to write about in this post.  I know that what Jefferson and the committee were going for was that all people should have equal Natural Rights, and it probably tested well in focus groups.

And, I agree with the idea that all people should have the same rights, but even that is trivially shown to be false:  ask the people from three of the nations that have never visited this blog (North Korea, Cuba, and Iran) if that’s the case.  It’s also folly for Americans to fight to give those rights to other people around the world:  you don’t value anything that you don’t fight for yourself.

“All Men Are Created Equal” is a nice phrase, but believing it has caused more difficulty than any other meme for the people of the United States.  Why?

A conclusion this meme leads to is this:  if all people are equal, all groups are equal.  Again, all individuals should have the same rights, but why on Earth would we anticipate that all groups have equal abilities?  For example, the aboriginal peoples of Australia had been separated from the rest of humanity for 50,000 years.  Why would we expect them to have the same abilities as the Japanese?  Why would we expect that Native Americans would have the same abilities as Conquistadors from Spain since there were at least 30,000 years where they had nothing to do with each other?

Keep in mind, folks, it took less than a third of that time to make miniature poodles out of wolves.

How do you call a wolf with Stockholm Syndrome?  “Here, puppy dog!”

To be utterly clear:  I am not making the case that any particular group is better than another group.  There are people from every group on the planet that are nicer and better people than I am.  But why wouldn’t we expect them to be very different peoples?  I am personally so maladapted to life in the Outback that I would probably burst into flame and turn into a pile of dehydrated ash on day one.

But when I got off the airplane in Fairbanks at -30°F (-7m3), I have never felt more at home.  There was, for me, something inherently right about the taiga and the long dark nights that sang to my soul.  It resonated with me.  I wonder if having ancestors that were adapted to long, dark, cold winters had anything to do with that?

What did Vikings call English villages?  Chopping centers.

A second conclusion this meme leads to is:  if all people are equal, women are equal to men.

Well, they’re not.  In college, one of my friends was on the swim team.  He told me that pretty much every member of the men’s swim team could beat every world record held by women.  Every one.

But wade just a minute – our swim team was not good.  But yet, every one of them was better than the best woman swimmer that ever lived.  Yet, not a single member of the dude swim team could have a baby.

That is not equal, at all.

Men and women are different, have different skills, and have different abilities.  They are not, and never can be equal.  The difficulty that this leads to is that standards have been lowered so women can do physical things like “firefighter” or “soldier” without the concept that they simply cannot perform as well as a male.  But when it comes to “making babies” and “getting me a sammich” they knock it out of the park.

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do they all have to drown?

The most common refrain is that “Well, the standards were too high to begin with.”  If the first defense is that we should have weaker and slower firefighters and soldiers to prove a political point, I’d assume that whoever made that argument wasn’t interested in saving lives or defending our nation.

“All men are created equal” also leads to a third conclusion:  if all people are equal, then all cultures must be equal.  Well, no, they aren’t.  At all.  Many cultures have produced wonderful things, yet in 2021 have utterly failed to produce first-world living standards for their people.

Hollywood® has done a wonderful job of marketing the ideas that:

  • The United States doesn’t have a culture.
  • Other cultures are heckin’ cute and valid.
  • Cultures in close contact and overlap don’t create any conflict.
  • Colonialism created conflict by drawing borders that put overlapping cultures in close contact.

Careful readers will note that points three and four just might contradict each other.

To dissect that the United States doesn’t (or didn’t) have a culture, well, fish really don’t know that they’re swimming in water.  When I look at the leader of China wearing a suit and tie that could have been tailored in New York or London, well, I realize that European culture is so very ubiquitous that cultures all over the planet have appropriated it.

That’s what Xi said.

That’s okay.  But it’s not okay to say that the United States doesn’t have a culture.

Are other cultures heckin’ cute and valid?  Sure.  But don’t assume that every culture produces the same results.  Does South American culture produce the same level of material prosperity?  No.

Can it produce happiness?  Sure.  I was in Santiago, Chile a while back.  The people there were happy, and were making out on a warm afternoon in the broad plaza that led to some large government building.  When I went out that night with some locals, the beer was cold, the dinner was wonderful, and everyone I saw was happy and safe.

Different.  Not equal.

I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to think of examples where overlapping cultures cause conflicts.  No fair in picking Canada where the English and French overlap, and after one huge argument in the comment section a while back, you can bet I’m not going to mention Ireland.

Oops, too late.

Again, I’m not saying that “not equal” means inferior.  It means not equal.  It means different.

But to have the idea that all men are created equal?  That’s the insanity.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

40 thoughts on “Equality: The god That Failed”

  1. All men are not created equal. But they are all equal before God. That’s how I solve that problem.

    1. And in the eyes of the Law. That’s as far as “Equality” should go, though obviously in the Law part, more money makes you more equal in the US today.

      1. Should children be the same in the eyes of the law as adults? What about a group of people that is similar to children with an IQ of 85 due to evolving as equatorial hunter-gatherers?

    2. Well said – I couldn’t have put it better myself. That’s why I point out that there are many people who are far better than me out there.

  2. I love your work, John, but I disagree on one little point. I grew up in the South, and it was understood that “tea” was tea mixed with (a sometimes sickening amount of) sugar. It’s only the “Damn Yankees” that have perverted this delicious Southern drink with their idea of “sweet” and “unsweet” tea. LOL

    (Darn! I posted before I put my name on the post. It’s “BubblePuppy7”)

    1. Hehehe, yup, Ma Wilder was an unreconstructed Southerner and made tea just that way. Unfortunately I’m a heritic.

  3. I don’t remember where I found this.

    In the matter of racial comparisons.
    The media shouts to heaven and back.
    About all the historic achievements,
    of the Redskin, brown and the black.

    Yet strangely when strolling museums,
    the white man’s creations stand thick.
    But all we can find of those others,
    is a blanket, a bowl, and a stick.

    No telephones, time clocks or engines.
    No lights that go on with a flick.
    No airplanes, rockets, or radios
    Just a blanket, a bowl, and a stick.

    Not one Sioux Indian submarine.
    No African ice cream to lick.
    Not a single Mexican x ray machine,
    it’s a blanket, a bowl, and a stick.

    So, remember when history’s the subject,
    and revisionists are up to their tricks,
    the evidence tells quite another tale
    of a blanket, a bowl, and a stick.

    Author unknown.

    1. Indian had it made. Hunt and fish all day. Plenty at night. Kill enemy for ponies on occasion. White man screwed it up, look what they do now.

    2. Hadn’t heard that one. Charles Murray in his book Human Achievement provides a fascinating insight onto that idea.

  4. Culture can be deliberately changed on a people. Generally, not for good.
    The Left has made an art form of this. It STARTS with the culture. They persuade the Elite that their Leftist Culture is so fashionable (which appeals to women, and womenish ‘men’).
    They never try to take over a country/region, without FIRST having softened them up with cultural destruction.

    1. Very true. And why do you subvert the culture that has created the most prosperity in the history of the world?

      Power.

  5. Those agitating loudest for ‘equality’ really mean, “Give me the good stuff that you’ve earned, but without making me earn it, too.” They also mean, “Pretend you don’t notice my natural shortcomings, inexperience and ineptness while praising and rewarding me as if I were as accomplished as anyone else.”

    What I find astounding is how so many people demanding a share of the spoils without earning it manage to live with themselves and their glaring falseness. I can’t imagine taking pride in having ‘won’ by cheating, even if it was someone else who cheated on my behalf. Not that anyone is proposing to give reparations to White northerners whose ancestors fought and died in the Civil War, but even if that were the case, I would not queue up with my hand out, demanding my “rights”. The past, no matter how terrible and unfair, does not owe the future anything.

    1. “The past, no matter how terrible and unfair, does not owe the future anything.”

      The idiotic Covid restrictions of the past year prove this terribly, terribly true. We are sacrificing the young for the sake of the old, the future for the past.

      1. Instead of ‘covid restrictions”, I prefer ‘this phase of this Economic Lock-Down’.

        It probably has something to do with my preference for accuracy instead of reading off the teleprompter…

    2. The idea that the Leftists sell is that everyone who achieved cheated. That, in their eyes, is the only way to win.

    1. “All men are CREATED equal. And then they are born”. Verry welll said McChuck.

      Some of us consider the CREATION of human life to be a miracle. From that instant on there is NO FRICKIN EQUALITY.

      NONE.

      From that instant of creation, fortune smiles on those teentsie humans that have a good mother and a good father that provides well for the good mother. “Good” being strictly defined as adhering to the Ten Commandments. And who was ever really satisfied with being “equal” anyway?

    1. Your Walhalla would not be the Golden Corner in Oconee County would it?

      If it is, Howdy neighbor.
      Remember, you will never get a steak, at the Steakhouse.
      Just some really good yard bird. 🤓

      1. Yeah, ate there one time and that was enough. We usually eat at or order from Mountain View steak house, in the old Dairy Queen building.

        1. thatmrgguy,

          I’m glad that Mountain View was finally able to get in there.
          I looked around your blog and got to check it out. (no updates lately)
          Agree with “Limp wristed Lindsey” I try each time to get him out in the primary.
          There are to many republican sheeple in our area.

          Matt Durham is my county councilman. I’ve only talked with him one time during the primary and he got my support. The Journal and Willie Tell, all try to knock him.

          The Journal has definitely taken a left turn this past couple of years.
          It’s just good to know that you and others are around here.

          Thanks.

          1. Thank you for checking out my blog. I was traveling on the road the last few years and didn’t have time to keep it up to date.

            Maybe some time, we can get together for breakfast or lunch.

  6. I love that meme of the strawman being used as fire kindling while the rest of the Oz crew says, we all voted fair and square.
    A comrade should be added to that meme caption as equality of results for all was made up by the original burn it all down by any means necessary Bolsheviks in the CCCP.
    Only a dumbed down doped up drooling dullard default double digit IQ fading Chiquitastan stain would go bat guano over some faculty lounge choom bong equality road apple unicorn flatulence rainbow stew bubble up.
    Comrade Trotsky came up with racism to burn it all down but some say it goes back to the Jacobins in the let the Germans march in the shade cheese eating surrender monkey stinky armpit known as France.
    Ice pick czar Trotsky found the achilles heel of the not so Great Society and LBJ will have those err comrades voting CPUSA for the next 200 years.

  7. As a former female firefighter who specialized in extrication, I feel the need to say something. I received the same training as my male peers and held myself to the same standards. I expected, and received, no lessening of standards. I took great pride in my accomplishments and in the areas in which I exceeded my peers. I always saw it as the work itself requiring certain standards, and I worked to meet or exceed those standards. Extrication tools are heavy, the work is emotionally and physically taxing, but made easier by the comeraderie of my brothers (and few sisters) in the fire service. I am appalled by the new wave of … well…. sissies…. that are overtaking all areas of work, including firefighting and rescue. Most of my age peers are no longer in the FF service due to disgust with the new age people involved, most of whom seem uninterested in actual FF service, in doing good for others; they just want recognition for the uniform and hold themselves to no standard at all.
    Zorost, don’t insinuate blanket statements.

    1. That is honorable. I’m sorry what the rest have done to minimize your accomplishments, and even more sorry we let them.

    2. It’s not all about you. And when a statement applies to 80%+ of a population, it can and should be generalized.
      “Not all X…”

      1. McChuck, I didn’t say it was all about me. Read my comment again. I am disheartened by just about all people these days, and I agree with the (minimum) 80% figure thrown out. I was speaking to Zorost. In any event, at the rate things are going with the lowering of standards and the loss of personal dedication and dignity to their work, we’re pretty much screwed.
        Equality isn’t given, it’s earned.

  8. As a former female firefighter who specialized in extrication, I feel the need to say something. I received the same training as my male peers and held myself to the same standards. I expected, and received, no lessening of standards. I took great pride in my accomplishments and in the areas in which I exceeded my peers. I always saw it as the work itself requiring certain standards, and I worked to meet or exceed those standards. Extrication tools are heavy, the work is emotionally and physically taxing, but made easier by the comeraderie of my brothers (and few sisters) in the fire service. I am appalled by the new wave of … well…. sissies…. that are overtaking all areas of work, including firefighting and rescue. Most of my age peers are no longer in the FF service due to disgust with the new age people involved, most of whom seem uninterested in actual FF service, in doing good for others; they just want recognition for the uniform and hold themselves to no standard at all.
    Zorost, don’t insinuate blanket statements.

  9. The great philosopher Pratchett once spoke about the Tyrant running the city – he believes in one man, one vote. He is the man and he has the vote.

  10. “Where do Southern Vikings go after death?”

    Valh’all-y’all.

    You’re welcome.

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