Levelling the Living

The other day i was thinking what the world would look like if we all realized that all of humanity is and was created as equal. That we all have the same entitlement to basic human needs like food, shelter, health care, etc. and despite the fact that even basic resources like this are so unevenly distributed there is an aura about every living person that forces you to know that you are no different than they are. You may speak a different language or practice a different culture but at the core of every person, our desires, our needs, are the same. We all have different talents and different gifts and we all have different personalities but that uniqueness is all meant to manifest itself in a way that works towards the same purposes.

I can't remember how i got thinking about this, it was probably through a conversation i was having, but one thing that forced my attention was the thought at what our lives would look like if we realized the inherent egalitarianism of our lives, specifically those of us living in areas of the world where we enjoy more material prosperity. Although we are in North America and Western Europe, really all of the "developed" or "developing" world, incredibly spiritually bankrupt we have no right to deprive those less fortunate, both in our own countries and in the rest of the world, of basic living necessities. This is particularly thought provoking when we look at the fact that we are depriving others when we have more than we need and many of us do. I'm guilty.

The only possible way a reasonably intelligent person can justify to themselves having more than they need when there is so much needing and deprivation staring them in the face is by telling themselves that they are more valuable than the individuals who are suffering. These people, say, those who are hoarding out of no necessity, that poor or materially deprived people, "are too lazy, they are stupid, they are racially inferior, they need only work harder and they will no longer be deprived, and that they have failed to survive in the survival of the fittest mentality (however stupid and primitive this mindset is) that our culture promotes and as such need to be weeded out so that the stronger can prevail"

This might sound extreme but I've heard this more than once coming from people who enjoy many of life's material fantasies. This way of thinking, although it is only spoken by a minority is thought, at least sub-consciously by the majority. There is no other way of explaining our ineptitude at sacrificing bits of our well-being for the help of those (who are our equals) who have not been as materially blessed. A good question to ask is would you let your brother or sister or good friend go hungry when you have food to spare? Any reasonable person will answer that of course they would feed a loved one who has fallen on hard times. If we are all equal, and we are, we need to apply this logic not to just our blood-relatives but to all of our brothers and sisters.

I'm sure if this type of thinking were to be introduced and to be thought of as feasible in mainstream life many people would question: How do we know we are all equal? Where is there the law that calls all humanity to be treated equally? Our society, our popular philosophy does not have an answer for this because we have been trained to think in terms of relative truth (which is an oxymoron, if truth is relative the word truth should not exist) we have no morally binding laws that we are willing to acknowledge. And as such have molded a world that is bursting with infection and disease, where the oppressed are murdered by the oppressors and the oppressed dream of murdering their oppressors. Where we have no right to claim what is right or wrong because we refuse to acknowledge a law that distinguishes the two. And no, individuals cannot decide for themselves what is right or wrong, we tried that, Stalin, Hitler... remember?

The truth is one of the most basic principles of a rational and practical human life, "love your neighbor as yourself", points towards universal equality. It cannot be realized without an all-encompassing equality that sees material necessities for what they are (the means that empirically sustain human life) and is willing to sacrifice little, some, or most of all of ones material comfort in order to see ones neighbor nourished, sheltered, and healthy. The answer that responds to how a person goes about with the convictions to make these sacrifices comes from the same place that life's most basic philosophical principles do, the bible, primarily the teachings of Jesus. At this point this discussion could get into a much greater depth but i'll leave that for later. Now the challenge is living out what you are trying to believe, it has to become reality, it is reality and when it reaches that point in the consciences of people interested in discovering life's true meaning this world can't help but change.