"Equality" has become the battle cry of protestors, activists and rioters, but before it was a public idea it was a spiritual ideal. Thomas Jefferson summed up thousands of years of thinking on the matter thus, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.""
Approaching the ultimate power of the universe human differences shrink to sameness. Albert Einstein said, "Before God, we are all equally wise, and equally foolish."
Moving beyond the spiritual world, equality becomes more elusive. St. Thomas Aquinas taught, "By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments."
These differences are sometimes products of our environment and in many cases are with us from birth. Erich Fromm reminds us that, "Men are born equal but they are also born different."
In fact, these differences allow for differentiations that add value to our world. Thomas Hobbes wrote, "If all things were equally in all men, nothing would be prized."
Forced equality paradoxically creates even more inequality. Aristotle reminds us that "The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."
As the nightly news is increasingly full of experts offering opinions about how to advance equality, considering what each of of us contributes to create equality for everyone is important work. George Orwell notes that, "No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer."
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash