Real Issues No. 276 Maxim Institute - real issues - No. 276 25 October 2007 www.maxim.org.nz

Dignity, Decency, Equality And Freedom

One of the good things about living in New Zealand is that we have a broadly shared view of the kind of society we want to live in. We all want to live in a decent place, where the weak and the small are not forgotten. One which is fair, equal, cohesive and open-a place in which we help each other. It is a profound human truth that we all need each other, on occasion desperately. At times I have been profoundly grateful for the support, compassion, practical help and kindness of my neighbours, friends, family and community. I think we can all agree that a strong society is one we all want to live in.

That said, though, the ideas of 'fairness' and 'equality,' 'diversity' and 'inclusion,' are often thrown around in media releases, speeches and public discourse without any exploration of the deeper philosophical issues behind them. Tax rates are about 'fairness.' Multiculturalism is about 'diversity.' Schools are about what some call 'democratic egalitarianism.' We need a Human Rights Commission and a Children's Commissioner and the whole machinery of government to promote 'inclusion.' We accept these things, and they sound good, or maybe not?

Together, these things have almost become buzzwords which can be put together in seemingly any order to a thunderous applause: 'We should work for equality, to close the gaps between rich and poor, for a fairer deal.' 'The celebration of New Zealand's unique diversity is the ongoing challenge of the 21st century.' 'The current plight of the Patagonian tooth fish is an urgent issue of inclusion for us all....' 'We need to promote tolerance between cats and mice, work together for a society which includes all species.' These sound-bites might be made up, but swap them around a little, and they could roll off the tongue of any politician. They express, at some level, a degree of truth, and this is what makes them attractive. But what we often don't think about is the degree of political baggage which comes with words like 'equality' and 'inclusion,' and the way these words and concepts are used; to justify a new, government-sponsored orthodoxy which ends up by decreasing freedom, and diminishing dignity, harming the very people it means to help.

Take 'equality' for example. It is true that 'all men are created equal' in dignity; rich and poor, people of all races and creeds and social positions have an intrinsic and common human dignity they possess by virtue of being human. We want people to be 'treated the same' before the law, to have a society where the poor are not shut out, and where we all have a sense that we share in a wider whole. Indeed, the concept we often label 'equality' is closely related to the older concept of 'equity'-the idea that we have a stake, and that we have a right to that stake, or as Edmund Burke said that we have 'equal rights, but not to equal things.' The poor man and the rich man might have unequal wealth, but they have an equal right to justice, a right to equality before the law, a right to equal treatment by virtue of their humanity.

But the idea of 'equality' when it is used in a political context often doesn't mean that, especially when paired with words like 'democracy' or 'fairness.' It often leads to the forced gerrymandering of outcomes, trying in the name of egalitarianism to 'level the playing field' or 'close the gaps,' something which is a fraught enterprise indeed. If 'closing the gaps' means removing obstacles to opportunity, or ensuring that we all get a fair chance to equal treatment, and a square deal, then most of us would be in favour of it; egalitarianism of that kind is a kiwi virtue. But the danger of 'equality' is that it can turn into an excuse for pulling down that which is excellent.

Nowhere is this more poisonous than in education; the ideology which tries to shoe-horn equality into schools, to make them more 'democratic' or 'egalitarian.' This ideology subordinates the excellence and rigour parents expect of schooling to mere politics; it is suspicious of competition, suspicious of formal exams, suspicious of academic standards, seeing them as some kind of attempt at 'elitism.' It turns teachers into 'learning facilitators,' focuses on children 'finding their own pathways,' and pedals politics in the curriculum in order to make sure that we end up a 'fair,' 'democratic' and 'more equal' society. The end result is a massive loss of confidence in our history, our institutions and our future.

Signing up to equality without thought, critique, criticism and debate means signing up to a whole heap of unintended consequences too. People are not equal in talent, or in ability. Some people will earn more money than others, some will be academically minded, some practical, some people wise with their cash and others foolish. This is a fact of life, and we should not allow, as so often happens, the generous and good ideas of 'fairness' and 'equality' to be warped so as to obscure and attempt to hide this fundamental human truth. Competition and unfairness are a fact of life.

Consider too, that this 'unfairness' is not confined to New Zealand. Throughout the Western world bureaucracies have arisen 'fighting' to 'protect' people's human rights, under the rubric of eliminating 'discrimination,' 'intolerance' and 'inequality,' or promoting 'inclusion.' I am a fierce supporter of a decent society, a fierce proponent of the recognition of human dignity. We should all be welcome here; and there should be room for all of us. But I wonder if thundering about 'human rights' and 'inclusion' really is the best way of promoting dignity. Does it encourage us to view those around us as equal in worth or do we simply assume that setting up a government structure ends the matter?

Every positive social change I can think of, from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage, has come about because a group of people has appealed to that universal notion of human dignity; saying, 'Hey, we are people too' and 'If we're really people, just like you, then you shouldn't treat us this way.' The government has of course caught up with change in many cases by passing legislation. But the hard work of changing attitudes, discarding prejudice, and building a decent society is, at the end of the day, primarily ours. Hiring a bureaucracy to handle respect for human rights and dignity only means that our society gets clunkier, more government driven, and less decent, in a fundamental way.

TALKING POINT

'I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.'

Terry Pratchett

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