Several readers dove into my last article, "A Queer Double Standard," expecting to be offended. As confirmation bias dictates, they were. They found insult by reading between the lines or perhaps not reading between them enough. I would like to note that I am not pushing for straight pride in opposition to gay pride. I never once asked people to amass a straight parade. I used the “straight parade” as a satirical example of a lack of equality in freedom of speech. I was merely entertaining the idea of why heterosexuals could not publicly announce their happiness in being heterosexual without potential backlash. The article proved itself a perfect example as I dealt with backlash of my own.
With that ugliness behind us, let us delve into egalitarianism. The definition is quite simple to remember. Everyone is equal… no matter what. This can be misconstrued into everyone is exactly like everyone else. That would be false. Egalitarianism is based on the belief that every human being has the same fundamental value. This does not mean I can compose like Beethoven because we are both human beings… sadly. It is to say that if we brought some sort of soul scale out, each one of us would weigh exactly one soul. Some say that James Brown may have had some extra soul but I argue that it was effectively counter-balanced by his superbadness. Pardon the bad joke.
I must note that I am not speaking toward tossing away individuality. It is a thing of beauty to be admired how intricately different we really are. It is important to remind ourselves, however, that we are equal as people at a fundamental level. If we forget this fact we become spitefully competitive and sourly egoistic.
Throughout history and somewhat prevalent today, groups go against each other. Injustices have been prevalent because one group claims that they are superior to another group. I am going to use an analogy utilizing sugar and salt, follow along. The salts of the world have been mistreating sugars because salts believe themselves superior due to the fact they taste better on fries. The sugars believe themselves undersold due to the fact that they are quite good in cake. Salts and sugars are now systematically coming up with differences (of which there are many) in order to prove the dominance of one over the other. What neither salts nor sugars seem to care about, or even notice, is that one pound of salt is equivalent in weight to one pound of sugar. Weight, in this analogy, serves as the fundamental value.
We must think like egalitarians if we wish to strive for equality. That is to say that focusing on our differences and becoming overly sensitive over the little things is not going to get us there. Had the crusaders been overwhelmed by their similarities with the Muslims of Jerusalem there would have been a great deal less blood in the sand. In order to become pillars of equal rights for our children, we must take a stance that may seem uncomfortable for most. We need to think of each other based on our similarities instead of our differences. To adopt this mindset is to shrug off the indecencies that have been committed toward our groups, families, clans, and nations over history.
The frightening notion is we will have to abandon these categories, that separate us rather than unify us, altogether if we truly want equality. Unfortunately, in our world it is much easier to move along defining ourselves individually or as a group than defining ourselves as a species. Even still, we should reach for equality and unity as often as we reach for the stars.
