[MD] Unreality of Equality

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Khaled]
The "bone in your nose, that's my line" He stole my line, here is a rerun of a
conversation a while back. Goes to show that some people learn and some don't.

[Arlo]
We agree. And to reiterate, I've never known anyone who would argue that all
people are equal at all things. Sure, a culture that puts a man on the moon has
things to be proud of, but at what expense? Does that one act prove absolute
superiority to a non-technological culture that distrubutes its food and
medicine so that no one goes hungry or without medicine?

The other thing to always keep in mind is that wealth abstracts class, and class
correlates with success. Paris Hilton, for example, in a world where people
rise and fall on the merits of their skill, would be a pauper. Instead, she is
more wealthy than I'll be in six lifetimes. Mark Heyman (who has bene silent
for quite a while) had suggested removing all inheritence. Then, we'd see a
culture where the skill of the individual relates to the person's success. This
will, of course, never happen. But, as you say, the key is those whose success
is dependent on class-derived access, should never forget that there are those
with superior skill who may have been shut out of access, and that society, for
the betterment of all, should strive to open as many doors for the
access-denied as possible. Can it ever open them all? No.

And what happens more often than not in a wealth-oriented culture is that people
start really believing that because they possess "wealth", they possess some
superiority of value over those who do not. It is a common mantra of the
right-wing to taut that those who are poor are so because they are lazy and
stupid. This is a devastating myth, that serves only to stroke the superior
dicks of the right and nothing more.

I've been through that with Platt already. Sure, there are "bums" and
"freeloaders", but I'd say the majority of the poor are decent, hardworking
folks who either (1) happened to be born into a low socio-economic strata where
there was a structured push into continued poverty, or (2) are so because of
shifting economic trends. A culture that is not only blind to this, but values
it rich as somehow ipso facto "more valuable" is doomed.

I like your word, stewardship. It implies what I've long said here, that success
is as much a factor of cultural support than it is invididual ability. It takes
both. Kudos.

Arlo