First of all, and with haste, let’s trash this notion that the Declaration itself is any kind of sacred work. It is the work of men. Intelligent, thoughtful, powerful men. It may be the case, as a teacher of mine says of many historical texts, that it contains more and deeper truths than the writers intended or were even aware of. And yet, even if we overlook the genocide of the Native Americans and the enslavement of black Africans and the oppression of women (which we most certainly should not), is it really true that “All men [humans] are created equal”? This line is one of the most oft-quoted, and revered, of all the many words in the Declaration. And yet the claim suffers from a fundamental and irreconcilable flaw: it is simply not true. We are not all created equal. We are all created different. And that is a good thing.
And yes, I am aware that the interpretation most people use here is equality ‘under the law’, or in the eyes of God, or some such thing. But the wording is unambiguous:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That ‘men’ are endowed ‘by their Creator’ with ‘unalienable rights’ seems to me a separate issue from being ‘created equal’. For why even bother including that phrase? Why wouldn’t it have been enough to say that “all men are equally endowed by their Creator, etc.”? And regardless of the context in which you choose to interpret the word ‘equal’, its presence is significant. The idea of the equality of men (with exceptions, of course) is used as justification for separation from Mother England. The whole document is not much more than eloquent propaganda, especially the further you read on. There is little ‘reality-based’ content in the Declaration, so why should the first few paragraphs be judged any differently?
In fact, I argue that the very idea of ‘equality’ between or amongst people, in whatever form, and its imagined possibility, can be judged not only as a potential (but never realized) source of noble lawmaking and good governance, but also of an actual pathological relationship to self and others.
Let me explain.
In our experience, are there really any two, or three, or forty things that are really equal? While industrial production has refined its methods to the point where, for all intents and purposes, nearly all of its non-defective products seem to us to be ‘equal’, on a microscopic level they would indeed look quite different. Even the billions of grains of sand on a beach, all seemingly the same, are not ‘equal’ to one another. Same for chicken eggs, which are for many humans the epitome of uniformity in nature.
Inherent in the notion of equality is a duality — two entities on either side of the equals sign:
A=B
2+3=1+4
But this sense of what is one side of the ledger must, or even can, equal what is on the other side, has led to a life oriented around inputs and outputs, both in agriculture, industry, health, even personal relationships (psychologists speak of ‘transactional’ relationships ruling our everyday lives). And this way of thinking is, at the very least, un-ecological, and unhealthy. It requires de-contextualizing experience, and isolating variables. Which, without too much of a leap, leads to the ‘nutritionism’ described by Michael Pollan in today’s NYT magazine.
More to come on the idea of equality, and its pathological potential…and I realize that perhaps the problem isn’t with the Declaration, but with the idea of equality itself.
What is the history of the idea of equality? Seems like there’s a book in there somewhere, if it hasn’t already been written.
One additional thought — some might say, “Hey, what about ‘equal protection’ under the law? Don’t we want that?” Well, to some degree. But more than equal protection, we want appropriate protection, and application, of law. (And the idea of ‘law’ itself is a huge issue totally separate from equality.) We want (I would imagine) consideration of context, not the blind application of bureaucratic rules imposed from above, and from outside the situation at hand. Which takes me back to my very first post on this blog, about the UCLA taser torture: because the police were ‘following the rules’, they may not have done anything wrong in the ‘eyes’ of the law. And yet every person that was there, that has watched that video, knows that it was, at the very least, an inappropriate use of force. It doesn’t matter if they would have treated all people in that situation “equally”. Right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, are contextual, not absolute. The idea of equality implies absolute truth. Hence its danger.
….with certain unalienable rights.
Life – Liberty – the pursuit of happiness.
That is the only equality postulated by the Declaration and is in the context of political union by choice.
Don’t phsyco-babble too much about the deeper meaning than they even knew. They were perfectly aware they were commiting treason against the crown, had no intention of extending that freedom to Negros, and mowed down the Native Americans with absolute clarity about protecing….”Americans.”
Of course I do not buy all that nobel savage BS either.
And yet these ideas are nobel. That of equity of politics and liberty. The base relationship of all humans is the family unit. The politics of social order are derived from this basic unit and extrapolated to the larger political stage. If you stay in your yard and mind your own business and don’t hurt my family, then you can do what you please. Climb my fence, and harm my family – and you will get shot.
Dogs pissing on territorial lines.
We are just animals.
Ideas are what move us to evolve beyond the instinct. Careful how you trod them under – and for what purpose.
I don’t mind critical comments, though I would much prefer if you addressed the content of my post rather than simply posting your own tangentially related ideas. My argument is that these so-called ‘noble’ ideas are actually, at their core, problematic, and reflect a deeper divide in the Western mind between self and other. I am not sure what dogs (a domesticated species) pissing on territorial lines has to do with it.
And there is no evidence that the family unit is the ‘base relationship of all humans’. In fact, anthropological evidence suggests that it is larger clan-type structures that are most common across indigenous cultures, and that the idea of the ‘nuclear family’ as we imagine it today is a rather recent invention.
I like it, your post. Look forward to reading more on the subject. I’ve often said there can be no equality when people are so fundamentally different. It makes no sense.
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