To have equality, we must first acknowledge difference.
Most of us have the desire to be treated the same as others. At least when they are doing well. We fine-tune that sense of justice early on. Someone else got something good and we didn’t? That’s not fair! we say.
We also have a moral commitment to a basic sense of justice for all people. In the U.S., we famously articulate that as the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
It is funny, then, that this sense of all rarely is all in our everyday lives.
We rarely feel that sense of equal when someone wins the lottery, for instance. We don’t want everyone who bought a ticket to split the pot.
This makes it hard for us to deal with the idea that equal can expect different things from us.
People in power have a different role to achieve equality than the oppressed. Carnivores have a different role than herbivores.
While I suspect that the one at the top has ample reason to oppose equity and true equality with his neighbors, his neighbors have far less reason. Quite literally when we’re talking money, power, and influence.
We seem to love equity in the abstract and inequality in our practice. Precisely because equality requires different impacts. But if our desire is equality and justice in the end, we’re not going to find it when we all get treated the same.