# Abandoning Equality

*Friday, August 5<sup>th</sup>, 2022, at 8:42 PM Alaska Time*



## <a name="contents">Contents</a>

- [Preface](#preface)
- [Introduction](#introduction)

<a name="preface"></a>

## Preface

This paper was originally planned for publication in 2016, but misgivings in the method of expression of various points which plainly contradict the common social worldview lead to my repeatedly wanting to verify my own perspective and think of alternative ways to make my same arguments more persuasively, or less provacatively. In my initial drafts however, I was also aware that people have very ambivalent views concerning their received views on equality, one moment thinking in a style that denies equality, while in another mode of thinking, taking it to be undeniable, and unequestionable. Very few people seemed to have a subtle perspective akin to my own, and I had the feeling that my audience was somewhat uniformly going to be against me. My desire to wait in order to write my opinions on the matter is unusual too. My website is much against self-restraint on sharing ideas, because my view is that quick sharing without much concern for editing and manner of expression tells more about how one really thinks. It also permits a thinker to share more in a lifetime and not less. My website plainly exemplifies this point of view as many of my postings do not have spell check, and have ideas that are very far from being completely worked out. However, for this article I wanted it to be much more carefully considered, to have a better chance that my audience would recieve the message more favorably.

If there is anything I wish to convey to the reader it is this: The thesis of this paper is very well tested. A concern of mine while writing was that ordinary experience would reveal examples that could not be thought of on demand while sitting and writing. I did have many moments when sudden ideas came to mind that caused me some stress at thinking my thesis needed revision. However, careful reflection revealed that this was due to indoctrination, and initial inability to see how my thesis might relate more than superficially. Again and again, I thought about it carefully, and recovered my more careful and rational method of thought which did prove to show that the thesis really is solid, and apparently does not have exceptions.

Knowing that yet more potential objections in imagined counterexamples will arise in readers, I do welcome additional tests of the view. What I am wanting to convey to the reader, is that many tests have been conducted, and it will not be an easy task, to instantly contradict this position. It is much stronger position than might immediately be recognized. Particularly whe one is in the tranditional mindset that is accepting somewhat unreflectively of equality, and not those other mindsets where you would deny them. I'm not sure there are many people in the United States or in Western Democracies who do not have incompatible strongly held convictions about equality that go for and against received traditions.

This paper intends to clarify it by denying that the form of equality that is desired can exist, and that our mindset that shifts away from equality is the one that is closer to the truth of the matter.

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One thing I have found that blocks careful thinking about the topic we are going to develop is the way we talk about it as a social ideal with meanings that are somehow separate from the words we are using. I will resist, from this point on, saying things such as, "Human equality" or just Equality, capitalized to indicate it is a kind of social institution, or collective assumption. Whereas, the phrase, and the capitalized form of equality, really does use the word "equal" and really does within it have some commitment to something that is more approximately related to the mathematical meaning of the word, or a roughly mathematical meaning, which includes sameness, and justness, equivalence, and even alternative usages which are quickly taken to be synonymous, like egalitarian, equitable, fair, and similar words, which really are not synonymous. These terms are employed when one seems overused in the same conversation, or when one does not appear completely fitting. For example, if "equal" seems too strong, one may rely on equitable, as an admission that "in this usage it is known it cannot be precisely equal, but something closer to fair seems possible." Balanced, proportional, congruous, and other terms may be employed to a similar effect. 

Notice that all of these terms, except "just", or "fair" really do have a usage which is from mathematics or the sciences. The employment of these terms from mathematics is not accidental. There is an idea that fairness would have a balance of sorts and that a balance would have a mathematical computation which would reveal something close to equality. The "balance of justice" is a symbol which shows equal distribution of moneys which on a balance or scale would show parity (another word which roughly means equality. I will add them as more come to mind throughout the remainder of this article). Justness symbolically to us is illustrated in fair allocation of money, which does seem to have an expectation of mathematical equality. A fair two sided balancing scale will not be level if one side does not equal the other in measure of weight, if calculations are made at a level that is not too precise for the scale. If we wanted to go further than the precision of a scale, we would start to say that sufficient parity exists or sufficient equitability exists, if parties who are seeking a justness in financial allocation are not concerned about any additional level of precision, or they are willing to overlook more precision for being reaonsable with each other as to the methods used.

There are many interactions in which this type of equitability or equality really is considered and felt to be just and fair. If one engages in a sales transaction with a business and purchases what is really wanted and desired at a price that feels fair given knowledge of the market, and methods employed at negotation or arriving at a price, which may be fixed or predetermined, then both parties may really feel that a fair and even happy result was arrived at. There can be great pleasantness at arriving at an equitable deal.

However, in our social customs in conversation and discourse in the media and with one another on very many other topics which are much more ambiguous, we still employ those same concepts that are better used in areas where some precision is possible. In these areas, we become much more inexact in our language, and somewhat ambiguous, and sometimes unfortunately, even largely meaningless, as I will later show. This more poor usage relats to our use to the capitalized Equality, or phrase "human equality", with specific things missing which would otherwise give clarity to the conversation, which exist in other experiences which really do make such words more accurately usable.

When we say Equality, and I was guilty of this error for a long time, because I was conforming to popular usage, we do not really state what it is that is under consideration. If I say this to someone in public, I would anticipate though, a quick response: "Well, you are supposed to already know what that means and what is under consideration." I know that though, and that is why here I have taken the step to captilize it. Conversation cannot go futher to show what is really erroneous in this way of thinking, if I cannot take steps though, to show that certain omissions need to be revealed to provide a more clear unerstanding that this is not a way of speaking that provides the same confidence and clarity as the symbol of the balance and finding of equality in transactions which really do allow for accuracy. If this Equality is challenged, what people will begin to want to react with are assumptions about your worldview which are false. They will want to say that you don't belive in fairness, or justness. That you don't believe that an improved equitability of sorts in human comparisons is not beneficial. But they would say this while missing that you really do, and you are thinking about this, perahps like me, because you want to fix something that would block us from going further in that direction. The conversation has to go further than these obstacles in order to clearly communicate what must be improved and what errors might exist, and these initial objections are really hard to get past, because people really do begin to think that you might be agains them, while fascinatingly, knowing what is wrong with Equality really might mean that you are more for them than they would realize, thinking the way they are thinking. It is really unfortunate that conversations might end on this type of objection. 

I wish to get into this topic faster to get to the details, but one more obstacle to a more complete analysis must be shared. And that's that early thinkers, and originators of political documents, and now debunked political philosophies, have been sloppy with their usage of their marketing slogans on social fairness and justness, and that is one reason why we are in a predicament around capitalized Equality. We have treated certain documents as authorities on this, and have been raised on equality being axiomatic and self-evident, and the like. In the Declaration of Independence of the United States we hear things like "we take these truths to be self-evident" which again relates social justice to mathematics. The non-mathematician may not be aware that using the word "self-evident" is really another way to borrow precision from mathematics. Some statements in mathematical proofs are taken to be intuitively axiomatic or self-evident, in that they are logically irrefutable or simple in their veracity. It's another way of saying "No mathematician would seriously challenge these logical transitions, or these simple statements." However, social theorists like Thomas Jefferson have utilized these same words and constructions in settings where they are not admissable. The purpose of this usage is to give the reader the impression that such statemetns cannot be contradicted. And in a statement to an adversary saying "we hold these truths to be self-evident" is like saying "there really is no conversation to be had any longer on this topic." For the present conversation, some have really been raised to believe vague and ambiguous ideas about Equality outside any context which permits of high accuracy are still, nevertheless, to be accepted as self-evident or axiomatic, forgetting that with decreased clarity of situation and applicability of terms, the meaningfulness of the statements and the concepts begin to erode. This is very opposite to the intention of self-evidence and axiomaticity in mathematics, and in these situations, the mathematical certainty cannot be borrowed. There really is a point in which Equality is something that should be separatd in one's mind, from precision and math, and trust. Equality really can be used in a way that is not trustworthy. 

Here we come to an uncomfortable conclusion though:

>> "But we have the word equal within Equality."

Which is *very* uncomfortable. It implies that as we use the word Equality outside of an area where there is precision, we are still using a word that is very closely connected with mathematics, and trust, and we are at risk of being deceived.

I would like to be able to convey to the reader that our predicament on this is not yet worse.

>> *Equality in math is taken as an axiom in math, which really does mean that of anything that can be tainted in math, this is what ought not be blemished.*

We will in this paper explore the mathematical concept of equality, and we will arise at the conclusion, that people have not striven to define it. It is precisely one of those areas where self-evidence is employed. It may even be one of the few areas where we can understand what an axiom and self-evidence really is.

In this paper I will strive to clarify what is happening here, and how we can move forward. I will uncover some points which I think will reveal that we will be in social discomforts for a long time, to recover from an erroneous way of thinking, an to eventually stumble and arrive at a more clear way of thinking and talking on this topic. But more importantly I will provide what is also a satisfying and contenting answer, which should allow us to more precisely create fairness and social justness, on a way of thinking that gets past some obstacles like thse which I pointed out earlier.
