The Problem of Equality

In the introduction to a collection of his essays, political theorist George Kateb makes this jarring and insightful point about the notion of equality and how it really functions in societies (including the much vaunted American democracy):

The general point is that though equality may suit the imagination of an autocrat or an elite when the many are equal in subjection or slavery, the many themselves strive to become unequal. There is something unlovable about equality; so much so that it often feels like a condition accepted for want of a better one, and a consolation for those who cannot break out of it. If people cannot be better than those around them, they will lend themselves to the efforts of those who run their society to dominate other societies. And those who run society will always dream of plans to achieve a finer, more coherent or organic pattern of political relations elsewhere. One ingredient of imperialism is the desire of leaders to shake off the restraints imposed by democratic politics at home and treat other societies, especially non-democratic ones, as fit for the dictatorial imposition of democracy or some other rule. Imperialism provides the aesthetic intoxication of destroying and remaking customs and relations, rules and institutions. The leaders could not get started unless the many craved some of these same aesthetic gratifications and were willing to settle for vicarious triumph over others. Athens was democratic and imperialistic; America is the same.

I did not read the whole book, Patriotism and Other Mistakes, or even, with any vigor, the whole introduction, so I cannot really make a recommendation for the work as a whole. This point, however, seems to me to strike on two vital and related truths which are often ignored. First, the lower classes of society idolize and pursue equality only because inequality (i.e. dominance), while more desirable, is even farther outside their grasp. Second, even in societies where equality is enshrined as a theoretical ideal, the whole society, rather than merely the easily demonized master class, engages in imperialism as a way of grasping at the desired inequality which is inaccessible in an ostensibly democratic nation. Both combine to play with common notions of who the villains are in our narrative of injustice and whether or not even those who espouse the right ideology are fully aware of their motives.

There is, of course, substantial room for argument, but the approach and the conclusions in Kateb's quote demand engagement.

Anarchy in May: Eller on the Just Society (Pt. 3)

The following is part of the Anarchy in May series which examines Christian anarchism and quotes prominent Christian anarchist thinkers. For a more detailed introduction and a table of contents, please see Anarchy in May: Brief Introduction and Contents.
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In the final analysis, Eller believes that all human attempts for a truly classless, and therefore truly equitable, society necessarily fail. As is so often the case when humans set their own goals to be acheived by their own ends, the very attempt to make the classless society exacerbates class tensions within society. The same is true when the question of a peaceful society is raise: every human attempt to construct a peaceful society is undertaken by resistance, coercion, or outright warfare. The end is undermined by the means. Marxism and feminism are by no means the only examples that Eller could have mustered. Another obvious example would have been the global attempts by racial minorities for liberation through racial solidarity. The list could of course go on.

For Eller, there is an alternative way in Jesus, a way that doesn't embrace contradictory means toward the final end:

We have seen that the liberationist methodology (here called “Marxism) is essentially a manipulation of those archai we know as “ideologically constituted classes,” aimed at insuring that the innocent classes of the oppressed prevail over the wicked classes of the oppressors. However, rather than through anything resembling “archae theory,” Christianity comes at the class problem through a radically anarchistic approach. It will simply deny that these “archai of class” (women against men, poor against rich, slaves against owners, Jews against Gentiles) have any actual power, significance, or reality. It will achieve its classless community—not by trying forcibly to overcome the class distinctions—but by ignoring them and living above them, by the grace of God simply proceeding to live classlessly. This Christianity manages to do by the expedient of insisting that human beings are always individuals and never ever constituent units of en bloc collectives called “classes.” It follows, of course, that these human beings are treated as individuals rather than being glommed into “solidarities” and manipulated in the interest of any class struggle.

…A person under involuntary servitude—but that does not make him, involuntarily, a member of the “slave class”—does not dictate that he must share the slave mentality, be in ideological solidarity with all other slaves, see his master as an oppressing enemy, or let himself be used as a pawn in any class struggle. Even if 99 percent of all salves display a particular character, that does not dictate that he must. His individuality always takes precedence over his so-called class status.

…The apostle Paul, on the other hand, tells about the one society that has succeeded in true classlessness…“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

And as he might continue: “Of course, I am not denying that in our classless society, if we chose to, we could find out whether you are of Jewish extraction or Greek; whether your legal status is that of slave or freeman; whether you are of the oppressed sex, or the oppressing. The point is that we don’t care. You are a member of the body of Christ; that’s all we want or need to know. Pretending that these other classifications have significance will only confuse the truth of who you really are. So please quit telling us that you’re a “woman.” We don’t care…You were bough with a price precisely that you might be given to the one ‘classification’ that makes any difference, ‘member of the classless body of Christ.’ Your one goal in life should be to remain there with God. Yet the surest way of losing that classification is to let the world sucker you into thinking its classifications are important. It, of course, insists on categorizing people, defining some categories as ‘privileged’ and others as ‘under privileged,’ then turning people loose to fight themselves into a higher class or else get an entire class privileged above the opposition.”

Anarchy in May: Eller on the Just Society (Pt. 2)

The following is part of the Anarchy in May series which examines Christian anarchism and quotes prominent Christian anarchist thinkers. For a more detailed introduction and a table of contents, please see Anarchy in May: Brief Introduction and Contents.
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Marxism is the easiest and most obvious choice for demonstrating the folly of human attempts to construct a classless society, but Eller is quick to recognize that the projects of social equity are not limited to efforts by workers to control the means of production or even by groups attempting to overthrow nation-states to acheive liberation. There are oppressed classes (real or imagined) constantly struggling to level the social playing field that have nothing to do, overtly, with political communism. According to Eller, these movements in favor of "classlessness" suffer from the same methodological flaws that Marxism does.

As an example, Eller offers an analysis of feminism:

The clear and laudable goal of the feminist movement is to create a society in which the social distinctions between male and female are reduced to adiaphora, matters of no consequence. Not only any hint of inequality but even the distinguishing marks of the two are to be minimized. A true classlessness is to transpire. Yet that classlessness cannot happen by the direct approach of playing down the distinctions; the power of the oppressing class must first be broken. No, the immediate steps must point directly away from the ultimate goal they would serve.

Thus: “Yes, the two genders should be treated without distinction.” So, from time immemorial we have had us an English language that enables us to speak by the house without dropping so much as a hint that two different genders of human beings are involved, that there even exists a distinction known as “gender.” Yet, that way hardly serves the raising of feminine class consciousness. Therefore, the rule now is to speak (with doubled pronouns and the like) so that the gender distinction is always prominent, to use gendered terminology in preference to the ungendered, to take care in specifying women at least as often as men. The feminist grammar is designed to serve gender awareness, not the classlessness of gender ignorance.

Thus: “Yes, the goal is that gender distinctions disappear.” However, on the way to that goal, feminine class distinction is necessary—to the point that one theology cannot be taken as serving human beings indiscriminately. There must now be a feminist theology in which women can have their special concept of God, their definition of salvation, their preferred reading of the gospel. Yes, just that far must the commonality of women and men be denied—for the sake of ultimate classlessness!

Thus: “Yes, we look for the day when the distinction between women and men will be seen as insignificant if not nonexistent.” Nevertheless, for the sake of the ideological solidarity necessary to get us there, we find it right to posit an absolute moral distinction between the sexes—namely, that it is men who cause wars and that, if given the chance, women would create peace.

…In undoubted sincerity, the feminists claim that their interest is not simply in liberating themselves but in liberating men as well. Yet what must be recognized is that this has been the standard revolutionary line of every class war ever mounted. However, the question is whether true classlessness ever can be achieved through one class’s gaining the power to dictate the terms of that classlessness. Even more, can it be called “liberation” for other people to take it upon themselves to liberate you according to their idea of what your liberation should be? It strikes me that “liberation” is one term the person will have to define for himself.

But if “class distinction” and “class struggle” be our chosen means, is it possible that the contradiction ever can be overcome?—that “classlessness” can ever mean anything other than “we are now all of one class, because ours is it”’ or “liberation” mean anything other than “you are no liberated, because we are in a position to tell you that you are”?

Anarchy in May: Eller on the Just Society (Pt. 1)

The following is part of the Anarchy in May series which examines Christian anarchism and quotes prominent Christian anarchist thinkers. For a more detailed introduction and a table of contents, please see Anarchy in May: Brief Introduction and Contents.
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For the next three days, I will be sharing a lengthier portion of Eller's Christian Anarchy, much too long to be placed in a single post. His point, however, is critical enough that I think it warrants extended presentation. During this portion of his work, Eller is attempting to contrast the way humanity attempts to establish a truly just society and the way Jesus endeavored toward that same end. He presents his argument by an examination of the human struggle for "classlessness" on every level of society. Lest this term provide a stumbling block, Eller clarifies, "In our context, remember that “classlessness” is a synonym for 'justice.'" If the ultimately just society is the one where every person is treated equitably, than the perennial quest for a classless social system, made notorious through the contemporary efforts of Maxists, is certainly one of the most visible attempts to acheive that end.

Because Marxism represents the most infamous attempt to construct the classless, and therfore just, society, Eller begins his examination there:

(In the following, this is as much as I mean by “Marxism.” It is shorthand for “any philosophy that defines social progress in terms of a class struggle toward classlessness.” My use of the word intends no other overtones, is entirely descriptive and in no way pejorative.)

Yet all such “Marxisms”—even while being sincerely dedicated to classlessness—see no other possibility of getting there except by taking off 180 degrees in the other direction. Classlessness can be achieved only by first locating the class distinction that is at the root of the difficulty. The “oppressed class” and the “oppressing class” must be spotted and publicly identified. Once identified, the consciousness of the oppressed class must be raised—which, of course, inevitably leads to the raising of the class consciousness of the opposite number as well. A deliberate polarizing is taking place in order that the oppressed class might consolidate its power (“solidarity” is the very word, “ideological solidarity”)—this in preparation for the struggle, the warfare, which is intended to eventuate in classlessness.

Obviously, the action serves to exacerbate the very class distinction it is out to eliminate—but there is no other way. The “oppressed but righteous class” must gain power over the “wicked and oppressing class” in order then to replace it, destroy it, dominate it, absorb it, or convert it and so leave itself as the one, total, and thus “classless” class. The ideological solidifying and polarizing of the class distinction, which the accompanying intensification of the class struggle, is the only way to classlessness.

Granted, this Marxist theory presents some problems: Are we to “continue in sin that grace may abound”?—play up class antagonism in the interests of classlessness? But I don’t know who has come up with any better solution (actually, I do; but I am holding that for a bit). In common practice, of course, the business proceeds according to program through the spotting of the class distinction, the raising of consciousness, the building of ideological solidarity, and the hue and cry of the class struggle—only to hang up on the final step of creating classlessness. For some reason, at that point everything that can go wrong invariably does.

Thus, with the Soviet Union of proto-Marxism, the comrades of the oppressed working classes achieved their solidarity, won their revolution, and even established the bureaucracy which was to be the instrument for creating their classless society. Yet instead of the workers’ classless society becoming the total order of the day, lo and behold, the bureaucracy itself introduced a new class distinction—doing this by itself becoming totalitarian over everyone else. So it went; and so it goes.