You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small. A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Equality is a virtue, except for when it isn't. It, like avocados, can go bad pretty quickly. Equality left on the counter spoils. Entitled Egalitarianism, as Doug Wilson calls it, is simply *Screwtape's "democracy" re-purposed for a post-Christian society.
Egalitarianism desires more than mere equality of access, it requires equality of outcome. It wants everything to end up equal -- not just guaranteeing a fair fight, but a draw.
By doing so, however, it is itself an unfair measure. It weighs a matter based entirely on its outcome. And because it is easier to cut a few inches off the tall than it is to produce a few inches in the short, those at the privileged end of any stick are the objects of their fair-mindedness. The tall throw the level off. The rich make the bell curve move. The handsome remind the ugly of their ugliness by the disparity. So, they all simply need to be taken down a few notches. It's easier and more efficient to cut some people down than to lift everything else up.
As Margaret Thatcher once observed, "(they) would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich."
As long as everything ends up equal. Even if that means equally bad. Egalitarianism prefers equally bad to unequally good. Equal is the goal. That is what becomes of pursuing equality as a virtue without considering it in the world that God has made. This is what comes of failing to measure equality by any other standard. When equality is the only standard you have, you have nothing to judge your equality. It makes equality untouchable and subject to nothing else. But equality is only good when in submission to God. Outside of His rule, it is merely a fashionable tyrant.
As Margaret Thatcher once observed, "(they) would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich."
As long as everything ends up equal. Even if that means equally bad. Egalitarianism prefers equally bad to unequally good. Equal is the goal. That is what becomes of pursuing equality as a virtue without considering it in the world that God has made. This is what comes of failing to measure equality by any other standard. When equality is the only standard you have, you have nothing to judge your equality. It makes equality untouchable and subject to nothing else. But equality is only good when in submission to God. Outside of His rule, it is merely a fashionable tyrant.
Egalitarianism isn't concerned with everyone being at the starting line at the same time. It isn't mainly concerned with a fair start. That is the fair and square kind of equality God gets behind. Egalitarianism is concerned with engineering and ensuring that everyone crosses the finish line at the exact same time. In order to accomplish this, the race must be rigged. In other words, egalitarianism embraces unfairness as a means of achieving what it calls "fair." Fair and square for them is not measured at the starting line, but at the finish.
God commands equality of standard, not of outcome. An ounce should be the same regardless of whose ounce it is. An inch should be the same regardless of what part of town its measuring. But the scale should not read 12 oz. regardless of what is placed upon it. A scale should not say ten pounds regardless of what is placed upon it. That is simply unfairness in another direction. It is equal, but it is wicked. Equality not always a virtue because lying never is. Equality is like the little girl that Longfellow knew who had the little curl right in the middle of her forehead... when it is good, it is very good indeed, but when it is bad, it is horrid.
*C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Proposes a Toast, postlude to The Screwtape Letters
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