In an episode of the TV medical drama 'House', a patient of African origin is offended when the doctor tells him that a certain drug works better on blacks than on whites. He is offended because he knows that we are all equal; the difference is only skin deep.
The notion of equality is widely perceived as positive - as an antidote to discrimination.'Everyone is equal' is a simple idea anyone can grasp, whether they agree or not. Clearly everyone is not equal in the mathematical sense of equality, since if you can tell two people apart then they cannot be equal. But more importantly, I think that this oversimplified axiom prevents the more correct and more important idea of 'fairness' from finding the visibility that is due.
In a world where everyone is equal, tolerance is trivialized. Tolerance is hard. If we were zebras in the Serengeti, our survival would depend critically on the ability to generalize the behavior of one lion to all lions. A broadminded zebra who thought – “I should treat this lion as an individual, even though the last one chewed up my cousin” – would quickly end up as lunch. The ability to generalize is naturally hardwired into the parts of our brain that we have inherited from our ancestors of millions of years ago.
Unfortunately, humans tend to generalize by force of habit along lines that are not fundamental. Most of us here have had no choice in determining our religion, race, nationality etc. but are nonetheless attached to such identities strongly. When our country is insulted, we feel insulted, even though we are citizens simply because, through no choice or fault of our own, we found ourselves there when we first opened our eyes at birth. Every country, religion, race has people who would feel less insecure if people of other similarly accidentally acquired identities were wiped out. Zebras would feel less insecure if lions and other harmless animals that resemble lions could be exterminated.
Tolerance requires that even though people are not the same, they still deserve respect and fair treatment. This is harder. This is also a self-evident truth. Not another well-meaning lie devised for those whom we perceive as too stupid to think for themselves.
The notion of equality is widely perceived as positive - as an antidote to discrimination.'Everyone is equal' is a simple idea anyone can grasp, whether they agree or not. Clearly everyone is not equal in the mathematical sense of equality, since if you can tell two people apart then they cannot be equal. But more importantly, I think that this oversimplified axiom prevents the more correct and more important idea of 'fairness' from finding the visibility that is due.
In a world where everyone is equal, tolerance is trivialized. Tolerance is hard. If we were zebras in the Serengeti, our survival would depend critically on the ability to generalize the behavior of one lion to all lions. A broadminded zebra who thought – “I should treat this lion as an individual, even though the last one chewed up my cousin” – would quickly end up as lunch. The ability to generalize is naturally hardwired into the parts of our brain that we have inherited from our ancestors of millions of years ago.
Unfortunately, humans tend to generalize by force of habit along lines that are not fundamental. Most of us here have had no choice in determining our religion, race, nationality etc. but are nonetheless attached to such identities strongly. When our country is insulted, we feel insulted, even though we are citizens simply because, through no choice or fault of our own, we found ourselves there when we first opened our eyes at birth. Every country, religion, race has people who would feel less insecure if people of other similarly accidentally acquired identities were wiped out. Zebras would feel less insecure if lions and other harmless animals that resemble lions could be exterminated.
Tolerance requires that even though people are not the same, they still deserve respect and fair treatment. This is harder. This is also a self-evident truth. Not another well-meaning lie devised for those whom we perceive as too stupid to think for themselves.
