Inherent in the former is the assertion that all people are equal. Within the latter is the OBSERVATION that people are NOT equal, that in fact diversity with regard to emotional well being, intellectual capacity, motivation, erudition, etc., is the RULE, and that all coherent thinking about people necessarily views them as individuals, and that no greater barrier to clear–which is say PRACTICAL–thinking could be imagined than the necessity of viewing group membership in lieu of personal characteristics.
What led to this pattern of thought was a series of severely politically incorrect thoughts. I was waiting to get beeped into a building and a young black woman comes by and says EXCUSE ME in the impatient way which we have all seen in black women with attitude. You’re not supposed to say this, but most people who have worked a lot with black folks know what I mean.
Then an older black woman comes along, who looked very sweet, but her path was in a collision course with mine, and only at the last minute did it occur to her it was not possible for me to get more out of her way. And I thought: that is the emotionally rigid pattern of someone who doesn’t want to be here, and who likely has some grief in her past.
Then I recalled that I have heard anecdotally from various black folks I’ve talked to over the years that rates of child sexual abuse seem to be much higher in the black community. Rates of rape, in my understanding, certainly are.
Then I wondered–given how difficult life is in much of Africa, I wonder if the sexual instincts in blacks became a bit stronger as compensation evolutionarily. Then of course I self censored: the HORROR, you can’t think that. All people are equal, period.
Then I thought: what SCIENTIFIC basis do we have for assuming this? Is the NBA 80 or 90% black because white people just don’t want to make millions of dollars a year doing easy and fun work?
Egalitarianism has no way forward, truly, except to make all equal in misery. The doctrine of Individual Moral Progress can speak truth, because it offers a way out. EVEN IF disparities of talent and motivation exist today, they can be overcome. No matter who you are or what your experience you can choose s path of personal betterment, which helps not just society but your race.
Is it not much more interesting to make statements about what people are capable of than who they “are”? If you are assigned a slot, you become that slot. But if you are given a possibility, you GROW to fulfill it.
The Egalitarian philosophy is inherently one of confinement and violence, and diminishes inherently all it touches.
I will add as a perhaps needed end note that it amazing, truly amazing, that white kids, raised in white suburbs, and educated at largely white schools, think that they both can and should speak to what black peoples need, and that what they need MOST OF ALL is speech codes on white college campuses.
This is farcical and delusional. It not only does no concrete good, it stands in the way of the open and probing discussions which would make actual solutions to the problems of unemployment, crime, and hopelessness possible.