Egalitarianism Is for Dorks

Blanket egalitarianism is an impossible dream, not to mention a cultural nightmare. The fiction of across-the-board equality must be one of the silliest and most improbable projects launched by the Enlightenment-and that's saying something. Were it not for this notion's embededness in the contemporary West, were it not for its unceasing popularity with the ostensibly underprivileged, it would have died from sheer mockery long ago. But it persists, and its purported ramifications are continually thrust upon us. What content would there be to the current amnesty debates if it were not for this concept?

The utopian dream of moral, material, political, and gender egalitarianism appears to me to be an extraordinary extrapolation and misapplication of the imago dei of the Christian centuries. Back when Christendom was still Christian, all men were considered equal by virtue of creation in the image of God, and so of equal worth as men qua men before God, so there was an accepted ontological egalitarianism. This is the driving force behind works such as Lex Rex and De Jure Regni apud Scotos. Presbyterian theorists battled for the equality of all men before the law, for a legal egalitarianism based upon ontological egalitarianism. It was supposed to stop there, though, because the Creator had not only placed his image on all his human creatures, but had created hierarchies of authority, in institutions such as the family and the state, that were also the common inheritance of all men. There was an economic order in human society, analogical to the economic order of the Trinity, which placed boundaries on human equality, thus securing it and keeping it sane. Not only this, but there was a recognized hierarchy of talent and achievement, usually called "gifts and graces," which differentiated between the excellent and the rest. Fast forward four centuries: now egalitarian thinking has been extended to pretty much anything it could conceivably encompass, and then some.

However, it seems to me that the nature of things militates against the idea that all persons must be equal in everything. God's universe is not an equal opportunity employer, and neither is any other organization, despite frequent claims to the contrary. A hierarchy of worth seems to me to be implicit not only in the Scriptures, but also in the natural order. And you can insert here the best arguments for meritocracy and neo-feudalism that you can find; I won't bother to reiterate. What concerns me is the inability of Americans, Christian or otherwise, to get it through their heads that one person might be more worthy, by reason of gifts or graces, than the next. Particularly we cannot wrap our minds around the concept that person x might be more worthy than moi.

Perhaps it is because I was both home-schooled by my Chilean mother and raised in the Presbyterian church, but I find this failure to accept the greater worthiness of another remarkable. I also find it particularly harmful to the church, which is the last refuge of hierarchy in the Biblical sense. How is the house of God to be ruled if all Christians are created, and remain, equal? How are families to function when respect for hierarchy and worth are such foreign concepts? Conservative Christians pay lip service to these notions, but try telling someone at church that you think Bob Smith is more worthy than you yourself are, by both grace and nature. Your conversation partner is likely to nod smilingly, thinking that you are simply paying Bob a compliment. If you insist that you are attempting to express your opinion that Bob is literally more worthy than you are, because of both his talents and his achievements, your conversation partner will probably do a double-take and start looking for his kids.

Human society cannot function felicitously without hierarchy, whether of authority, achievement, or worth. Blanket egalitarianism will by definition stunt all that is best, in whatever sphere it may be found. The endemic nature of blanket egalitarianism is leeching the vitality not of our civilization, but of our very humanity. So go find someone that's a better man than you are, and tell him so.