Yes, I agree that the title of this blog sounds very controversial to the views I've shared with you guys so far. In the most recent blog, I talked a little bit on why we will never fully achieve equality in different aspects like gender and race if people don’t have awareness for why these initiatives and social movements have been started. Without understanding the adversity that people of different races and of the opposite gender face, all these initiatives really just seem unnecessary to the public’s eye. My take on this issue was to spread more awareness and bring light to these problems so that others don’t form these misunderstandings that certain groups of people are "taking advantage" of adversity that their previous generations faced.
I ended off by saying that I want to reach a world of “real equality,” but that’s a really vague statement and I want to go a little more in depth with what I meant by equality because what I said isn’t entirely true. I believe that in today’s world, inequality can actually be a really vital and positive aspect to society.
Let me start off with a really common example. If a student from a first world country and a third world country, with the same qualifications and no additional socioeconomic factors both applied to the same university, then it would make more logical sense to admit the student who faced more adversity to get to that same status because they simply had to have put in more work.
This same concept can be applied to the generic idea of society. Inequality exists. And unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about its existence because fundamentally, we are all different, whether it be biologically or psychologically. And yes, I understand that there are many problems with inequality. For example, if I go more in depth into income inequality, there are lots of cons like the diminishing marginal utility of income, social friction, unemployment, wealth inheritance etc. But in my opinion, it can also have benefits - such as the simple benefits of providing motivation and reason for a person to work harder and achieve more.
People want to be rewarded based on their efforts, and not everyone will have the same work ethic, intelligence, skillset etc. So we actually enjoy some of the benefits that arise from income inequality, and this can apply to other types as well. So zooming back out to the bigger picture, if we don’t have income equality, then different people will have access to different resources and opportunities in their lives because they are richer or poorer than their counterparts. So when it comes to the workforce, if we push for a culture of “not seeing colour” or other differences in an effort for inclusivity, then we suffer from not understanding the personal experiences of the individuals and the adversity they had to face to get to where they are. To make it simple, some factors of inequality are necessary to society, and this makes the ignorance of colour/gender unfair in the workforce. Being a step behind everyone for the majority of your life, and then being held as an equal hardly sounds like equality.
With my experiences living in different countries with different cultures, I’ve understood that nearly everyone, some more than others, faces adversity of some kind throughout their lifetime. Inequality provides a sort of motivation for mankind to keep working for the betterment of themselves and their loved ones, and it results in a sense of achievement and satisfaction. Our differences should be celebrated. Whether someone is poor or rich, female or male, it doesn’t matter - but it also does matter. Confusing, I know.
In conclusion to today’s discussion, I want to say that I truly think that everyone should see each other with their differences and try to understand each others’ experiences. We aren’t robots, we’re people. And so yes, we aren’t equal, and that’s ok. So when I said I wanted a world of real equality... I meant I want a world not where people ignore the characteristics that made each other their own individuals, but a world where people treat each other with an equal amount of value, respect and kindness that a living being deserves.