Should We Value Equality? |
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First delivered at Friendship Fellowship on March 15, 2009 Revised for delivery at UUCB on April 5, 2009 Every once in awhile, a preacher gets a subject assignment that seems to point in a very clear direction….but then when writing begins, and without any intention whatsoever, the sermon becomes something else entirely. This is one of those sermons. I enthusiastically received a request from a Unitarian Universalist congregation to write a sermon on the topic of promoting equality and dutifully began its pursuit only to experience a radical departure off the path toward my expected destination. This is a subject fraught with difficulty from the outset because of the necessity for defining terms. What exactly do we mean when we say we value something and what do we consider equality? This is probably just about the broadest term I have run across yet that I have attempted to address from the pulpit. When different people hear the word “equality” they may think of gender differences, race relations, socio-economic status or any number of ways humans tend to separate or rank people. As Unitarian Universalists the closest our principles come to addressing the issue is when we promote and affirm justice, equity and compassion in human relations. There is a valuable clue in that statement as to what direction we may be headed with this sermon. If you will bear with me for awhile, we’re going to explore the arena of the relatively new science of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology endeavors to explain mental and psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations. The functional products of natural selection. Evolutionary biology provides us with adaptationist thinking about physiological mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system. Evolutionary psychology does the same with how we think, and therefore, how we ultimately behave, often on a not entirely conscious level. We may be able to justify our behavior, but truly have no idea why we are behaving the way we are. Evolutionary psychologists argue that much of human behavior is generated by psychological adaptations that evolved to solve recurrent problems in our human ancestral environments. And that is an important point to understand. We are products of mental adaptations that occurred prior to the development of what we consider civilization. In fact, our minds are quite well adapted to the hunter-gatherer societies of our ancestors. Perhaps this explains why so many of us feel decided out of place navigating the churning waters of contemporary society. There is a great danger in presuming to speak for every single Unitarian Universalist, but I hope I can speak for most when I deny an underlying assumption in the prevailing human culture today. Human nature is not inherently sinful, fallen, based or flawed. We are the way we are because of acquired adaptations that allowed us to succeed in our ancestral environment. We are the way we are because it worked. Now that is not to justify or excuse greed, lust, and a host of other so-called sins. As we shall see in a moment, these behavioral motivations are actually not all that evolutionarily stable. There are valid reasons why we find them distasteful and tend to shun or actively punish people who engage in behavior based on these motivations. We Unitarian Universalists love our interdependent webs and evolutionary psychology is a tangled one indeed. Today we are going to tug on just a few strands of an incredibly interdependent web, which may leave some of us feeling a tad unfulfilled. I am not going to get into the areas of sexual selection, parental investment, kin selection, male and female differentials, memory, language, and a range of emotions identified and explained by evolutionary psychology. For our purposes today I am going to address just two mental adaptations, the first being reciprocal altruism. Evolutionary psychology posits that reciprocal altruism is when one organism provides a benefit to another without expecting immediate payment or compensation. For example, hunter A makes a big kill today so he shares with hunter B knowing that hunter B caught nothing. However, reciprocal altruism is not unconditional. Firstly this act of altruism must give rise to a surplus of cooperation, in the sense that the gains to the beneficiary must be perceived to be meaningfully larger than the costs to the benefactor. In our example, Hunter A could part with some of his meat because he didn’t need it all for nourishment and it would simply go bad if not consumed, but hunter B could starve if he didn’t get some of the meat. Therefore, the recipient benefits far more than it costs the donor. Secondly the act of altruism should be reciprocated by the original beneficiary if the situation is later reversed. When hunter B has a successful hunt he is expected to assist hunter A if hunter A comes back empty-handed. Should Hunter B fail to do so, hunter A is likely to withdraw future acts of altruism. If hunter B does not share, hunter A now knows he is an unworthy exchange partner and will not share his bounty with him in the future. If hunter B develops a reputation for being an opportunistic cheat he may find that no one is willing to share with him when he comes back empty handed. One wonders if this is where gossip originated. At any rate, the cheat starves to death and does not pass on his genes. At least not this particular cheat. This may be why we have the axiom, “one good turn deserves another.” Our emotions become involved as well. Our feelings are hurt or we become insecure if we consistently host dinner parties and never receive invitations to dine at our guests homes once in awhile. It is why we feel a sense of pride when we do something nice for someone else just for the heck of it, and shame when we lie, cheat or steal. Though granted, we may feel more shame if we lie, cheat or steal and are subsequently caught. Let’s look at the relative value of two gifts to transition us from reciprocal altruism to our next area of adaption. Two women exchange gifts. When they return home one opens a beautiful Waterford crystal vase and the other a small ceramic picture frame. Knowing nothing else about these women and the circumstances of the gift exchange we might make some assumptions. The charitably-minded among us may assume the woman who gave the vase is wealthier and should be praised for her generosity. The critically-minded among us may assume the woman who gave the picture frame is a cheapskate and should be ashamed of herself. But most of us are probably left with the impression that there is some sort of imbalance in play. What if I tell you the woman who gave the picture frame is by far wealthier. In fact, she is the daughter of a media mogul, hosts charity balls and has her picture in the social pages on a fairly frequent basis. The woman who gave the vase is scraping to get by as she begins her career at the entry level while paying off student loans. We might wonder why these women exchanged gifts in the first place. Could they be friends? Indeed they are, very close friends and both are thrilled with their gifts! The cynical at this point might assume the wealthy woman is exploiting or patronizing her friend or the poorer woman is currying favor. In point of fact, the gifts are of relatively equal value…from an evolutionary psychology perspective. You see, the gift exchange was at the wealthy young woman’s wedding. Her friend received not just the ceramic picture frame as a keepsake wedding favor, but her invitation introduced her to a number of career contacts, gave her a marginal boost in status for being included in this social set and landed her a date with an eligible well off bachelor who might some day make a very good provider for her offspring. Put this way, it seems more than a little calculating, but we have to remember this is not a result of conscious decision making. The debutante probably did not set out to befriend a scholarship student to be seen as kind and therefore bolstering her position, nor did the scholarship student latch on to a debutante for the express purpose of advancing her status. They just both thought Brad Pitt was the hottest thing in Hollywood and hated the same math class. However, this gives us a little bit of insight into the adaptation of status hierarchy. In the twentieth century, some esteemed anthropologists came to the conclusion that hunter-gatherer societies were egalitarian and equality was promoted by human nature. It was our culture and civilization that created disparities of wealth and hierarchies of power and oppression. This is now acknowledged to be an erroneous assumption derived from observational bias. Hunter-gatherer societies may not have the obvious disparities in wealth and possession we have, but they most definitely have status hierarchies and fiercely contested ones. As do our nearest primate relatives come to that. Equality is not in our nature. We are adapted to place some people above and below us as well as attempt to elevate our status as higher status generally results in more and better offspring. This may offend our democratic and egalitarian sensibilities as Unitarian Universalists, but we have to be honest and acknowledge our admiration of mentors, our willingness to grant greater credibility to people with academic degrees and our readiness to stand when the president enters the room, but not when one of his servants do. Let’s look at the seven criteria for determining whether or not we value something and see how equality comes out. A value must be:
I am going to argue that general blanket equality is not something we as either a society or individual people actually value. Thoughtful consideration is probably going to rule out the idea that men and women are equal and I defy anyone to be willing to affirm the choice publicly. Because when you send John to the reproductive endocrinologist for artificial insemination and Jane to the New England Patriots summer training camp you’re going to be viewed very oddly indeed. Now, if John and Jane have similar experience and education, we would not only send them to the same interview we would expect them to have an even chance of the landing the job. So John and Jane aren’t equal in some respects, but they should be treated equally in others. Do we really think everyone has what it takes to become a neurosurgeon, an artist, a mechanic, a teacher, or a soldier? Do we truly believe we’re honoring our children’s potential when we eliminate gifted classes and remedial programs to teach to the median? Let me point out something a little more subtle. Some of you may be aware of the recent exchange of diplomatic gifts between President Obama and Prime Minister Brown. Brown presented Obama with a wooden pen holder made from an anti-slavery sailing vessel and sister ship to the one the desk in the oval office is made from. That’s a pretty awesome gift. President Obama presented Prime Minister Brown with a DVD collection of 25 American movies that don’t even play properly on UK equipment. I personally thought that was a protocol gaff of immense proportion, but let’s see what a British newspaper article had to say about it. “Mr Obama's gift in return, a collection of Hollywood film DVDs that could have been bought from any high street store, looked like the kind of thing the White House might hand out to the visiting head of a minor African state.” In the internet age, I was able to scroll through literally hundreds of responses from Britons and Americans to the article and only one made any reference to this passage. If you find yourself agreeing with the statement or not particularly reacting to it one way or the other you are in the vast majority. If it rubs you a bit and you’re not sure why, that’s probably pretty common. What this statement is really saying is, the United Kingdom is more important than any African country and the White House has a reputation for considering the United States and the UK superior to African states as well. Underlying this affirmation of status hierarchy is also perhaps an insidious racial hierarchy as well. The gift itself wasn’t the issue, it was where nations rank in the status hierarchy and therefore where the citizens rank. A report of President Obama giving an African chieftan a DVD set wouldn’t have raised many an eyebrow. Here’s another thought for your consideration. How many in our society follow missing children stories with great interest? I can’t get through an entire workout at my gym without at least two of the three television stations airing a story about a missing child. How many people are compelled to follow these sagas but never seem to notice or care the kids are all white and blonde? If we do notice, how many are contacting the media to complain about the disparity in coverage? So we say we choose to value equality, but we aren’t really affirming the choice publicly, doing anything with the choice and acting repeatedly to turn it into patterns of behavior. I am going to argue it is because it isn’t really equality we value. Indeed, equality is counter-evolutionary. All living things require competition in order to survive. Imagine an animal that is only able to digest one type of food. One small environmental change affects the availability of its diet and that animal is relegated to the dustbin of extinct species. We can also imagine what Earth might be like if our planet was home to only one mammal, one bird, one reptile, one amphibian and one fish. Diversity and competition are absolutely vital to the proliferation of life at its most elemental level and therefore worthy of celebration—and protection. Let’s look at equality in yet another way. This is, in my opinion, the most obnoxious example of forcing equality and beautifully demonstrates its inappropriateness as a basic value in itself. Zero tolerance policies in our schools are disastrous. In the past year I read a story from here in Florida about a first grader being expelled for stealing a kiss from one of his classmates on the playground. Well, after all, the school has a zero tolerance policy for both public displays of affection and sexual harassment. It doesn’t matter if the assailant is sixteen or six. Everything is equal, yes? What about the girl suspended and sent to the classroom for the district’s juvenile delinquents because they found two Midol pills in her locker? Sorry you’re cramping sweety, but we have a zero tolerance policy for drugs. One of my favorite stories is probably the teenager who was denied the right to graduate with his class when a kitchen knife was spotted sliding out from under the front passenger seat of his car as he pulled out of the senior parking lot on campus. It didn’t matter that it was his mother’s car, the knife was hers and it had been in the car since she had brought a cake to a friend’s house, the school had a zero tolerance policy for weapons on campus. Good heavens, we’re not teaching children about equality or even that rules are rules. We’re teaching them that adults are idiots and cannot or should not exercise a little judgment. I digress a bit, so let’s return to evolutionary psychology to see how this all ties back together. There is another mitigating factor besides reciprocal altruism to keep status hierarchies from becoming obscene and oppressive. I refer to the fact that our mental adaptations are flexible in scope. We are not rigid when it comes to our emotional responses. By that, I mean that one woman might feel guilt if she doesn’t respond to an email within a day, but another won’t feel a twinge if she hasn’t bothered to respond for a month. One man will glow under the praise of his family members, but another requires confirmation of prowess from colleagues before true feelings of pride and accomplishment kick in. Likewise, at a broader level, some cultures assess a high degree of public shame to an individual who shows disrespect for a parent while other cultures tsk tsk or turn a blind eye to what is obviously a private matter. Which by the way, give us a few more examples of how things are not equal and cannot be. Our flexible mental adaptations allow us to discriminate between a sixteen year old copping a feel behind the gymnasium and a six year old playing chase during recess. It allows us to recognize the difference between midol and marijuana, a steak knife and a switchblade. It isn’t equality we value, it’s equity and justice. It’s a desire to keep the status hierarchy from running amok. Using the seven criteria we can examine a particular situation and decide from alternatives what is the equitability and justice of that case. We give thoughtful consideration to the consequences of alternatives and once we have identified what justice is we are happy with the choice. We affirm publicly what equity demands and we do something with that choice. When we do that over and over and over again, justice becomes a value all of our actions express naturally. We write to the journalist and tell him his dismissal of Africans was insensitive, we lobby for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, we boycott advertisers of talk radio shows that spew hate talk, we perform marriage ceremonies for gays and lesbians, we protest that Latasha Norman’s disappearance is not being publicized like Audrey Seiler’s, we eradicate zero tolerance policies, we act as the prophetic voice of our community that says, the scope and kind of these inequalities amount to injustice and that we will not tolerate. As Unitarian Universalists, we affirm and promote not equality, but justice, equity and compassion in human relations. That is what our religion asks of us and what religion asks of all people. Transcend your nature…to the degree possible We cannot achieve total equality, nor should we as diversity and competition are absolutely vital to evolutionary success on both a micro and macro level. But let’s transcend our nature using the mental tools in our adaptation tool kit and value justice so it becomes a pattern of life. Copyright © 2009Ann Fuller, March 2009Further DiscussionEmail: Are you a genetic determinist? AF: Not at all, and neither are any of the evolutionary psychologists I have read. There is an abiding respect for the impact of environment on human behavior. Email: You really don't think "all men are created equal?" AF: No, I don't. All people are created with equal worth and dignity and they do have certain inalienable rights. However, we each have different skills, talents, gifts, opportunities, personalities, phenotypic differences, etc. Acknowledging that people are different and not equal is the first step towards valuing both compassion and justice.
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