On Equality: How can we bring about a more equal society?

Decision making

This year poses problem after problem. This year feels like decisions are heavier than they should be. This is what my decision making process currently feels like:

There’s an out of control freight train running down some railway tracks. It is bulky and the engine has caught fire, the speed and weight of the vast metallic machine hurtles forward with frightening speed. If it continues down the tracks it will break through a crossing and flatten a group of pensioners ambling across. There is a switch in the control room and it can be diverted but if this is done there is a chance it will derail on a banking corner and destroy a family home with the young family maybe inside.

Perhaps I’m being melodramatic. Perhaps not. There was never a time when there wasn’t a lot going on in the world but it does seem like 2020 has magnified the intensity with which events unfold around us. The general distortion created by the echo chambers of social media and the dystopian nature of recent world events traps us all in this new nightmarish reality.

One decision hasn’t been hard to make though. It is the decision to address racism and inequality. There’s been a lot of coverage of this in the news recently. The Black Lives Matter movement has brought into focus many kinds of racism, from the everyday casual racism of willfully ignorant members of the public to the outright evil of white supremacists.

Equality and my own circumstances

In some things I feel accomplished. I can write very well. I pick up new software packages easily and create compelling content. I consider myself a reliable and loving father, husband, brother and son. I’m also good at making chicken and leek pie.

However, finding a way of spreading my own good fortune beyond practicing gratitude is perhaps something I’m not so good at. Numerous times on this blog I’ve expressed thanks for my circumstances, yet somehow it feels like awareness is no longer enough.

I live in a bubble of lukewarm comfort. I grew up in a comfortable home, I had two parents stay together all the way through and are still happily married. My current household income while probably around the UK national average for my age is more than 11 times the global median according to this calculator.

Thoughts on equality in general

I believe that every human has inherent value, and all are born with great potential. I believe that we should have equality of both opportunity and the ‘tools’ to make the most of those opportunities. The question is how then might we bring about a more just society which allows such equality?

We need a politics for the common good, we need relatable and trustworthy leaders rather than the current clowns who have ended up in office in the UK and the USA. It is no good having such divisive dolts in the highest positions of authority in the land. As has been proven by the past few years, all that happens is such figures stir up widespread feelings of resentment until they boil over.

Ground level action supported from above

My hunch is that idealistic change is never going to start at the top. Most substantial change is very gradual for a long time until it reaches the tipping point when a visible and dramatic focal point of changes occurs. A way of visualizing this is in the chipping of a block of stone with a hammer. The first 99 blows may appear to do nothing but it is on the 100th strike that the rock splits. In light of this, and on reflection, I would say the majority of people (myself included) are blind to what’s coming down the tracks.

Therefore, most of us can only try to work for the common good each day and act at the grassroots level. This means doing what we can, signing petitions and attending protests; taking action from the ground up, spreading messages and uniting voices to ensure that the negative effects of political self-interest can be mitigated. It’s a struggle for sure and it needs to be made at multiple levels at once.

A complementary and much needed change is that UK education needs to be more balanced to reflect our cosmopolitan society. The national curriculum should not gloss over the darker parts of our history whilst focusing on the triumphs as it tends to do. Deconstructing the established narratives that surround cultural relations and ideas of race should be given more emphasis outside the confines of social science.

Final Thought

Here is a quote from Abraham Lincoln:

‘It is the words that speak boldly of your actions. And the actions which speak louder than words.’

I’m not off to Westminster with a banner but I’ll be thinking of creative ways to get involved with the movement!