All men are (not) created equal

My mind was seriously disturbed for the past 2 days. I have been thinking of quite a number of things. Luckily, I thought of those things during my holiday period. If it was during my exam period, then my exam would have been a gone case because my mind was seriously pre-occupied by all these issues (apart from those happy moments I have with my gf though! =p muahaha).

I started to watch <Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion> few days ago, but get hooked by it and I finished both the 1^st and 2^nd season 50 episodes! =x lol. In one of the episode, The King of an empire said something like this: "All men are not created equal. Some are born with greater beauty, some are born into poverty and others are born sicken, both in birth and upbringing. Every human is inherently different. Yes, that is why people discriminate one another, which is why there is struggle, competition, and a march of progress. Inequality is not wrong, equality is! We fight, we compete, evolution is continuous! We will fight on. We shall struggle, compete, plunder and dominate. And in the end, the future shall be ours.".

Hm.., fundamentally, I do agree that inequality by itself is not wrong, because precisely because we are born unequal, that is why we all try to improve ourselves – if I am poor, I will work hard to be rich, if I am weak, I will train myself to be strong, if my grade is not good, then I will study hard to improve my grade. It spurs the competition up, which is good. Only when there is a competition then it will speed up the innovation. My competition does not narrow to competitions between humans, but also competitions between non-humans. For example, scientists are trying to analyse the recent swine flu virus and rush to develop the vaccine. Isn't it another form of competition?

I was trying to think this: What if from the start, all things are equal? Are will still going to improve? Will all fighting stop? My answer is probably not. The reason is very simple. We as humans have desires. We want to be better than others. If all people are equally rich, surely there are some of us who want to be richer. If all of us are equally smart, surely there are some of us who want to be smarter. This list goes on.

Hence, does it matter whether equality or inequality is right or wrong? Inequality will always be there and there is no way we can achieve equality. Hence, what is the use of equality when there is no way we can achieve it! And if we think it from the start, are we really pursuing for equality? Are we working hard just to be as rich as others? Or are we working hard to be RICHER than others? Are we trying just to be as smart as others? Or are we trying to be SMARTER than others?

Hm.. If all men not born equal, are they entitled with the same rights? The right for freedom, the right to live, the right to receive education. The right to receive education for example, in order to fund education for all, there is a need to channel resources through the government from the rich, which is often said to be income distribution – tax the wealthy heavily and channel these resources to the poor. Thus, this group of wealthy people, which may not use this service (perhaps they send their children overseas or anything else) but nonetheless will have to subsidized this system to support the so-called 'equal education' when they themselves do not enjoy the benefit! How equal it is from their perspective then? Are we trying to build an equal world that is based on inequality of a certain group of people in society?

However, how about those humanitarian works then? Aren't they the same as the example above? If you ask me, I would say that there is a fundamental difference between the group of people that contributes those funds and resources. In the example above, I assume that people are forced to pay more taxes because of the law that requires them to do so. Hence, it is a compulsory contribution back to society. In the latter case, however, I assume that people are willingly giving out more than what they are required to give. Hence, it is a voluntary contribution back to society. If we are forced to do something for the sake of equality, is that equality really equal? However, if we are willingly contributing more than we are required, does that really matter whether for it to be equal or not? I owe everything that I have now from society, thus it is equal and fair for me to give back more to society since I am able to do so.

Hence, if we are on the strong side, we can see that the definition of equality is based on how we can see interpret it. We can do so because we are on the strong side – we command all those wealth and resources. The notion of 'all men are created equal' no longer sounds as divinely as it is. Rather, it is simply a matter of choice based on our interpretation.

Oh, but don't get me wrong. I am not trying to say that 'you poor people, whether or not I help you is my choice.'. It is never my intention to say that the weak is so pity that they are subjected to the mercy of the strong. Of course, it is undeniable that it is purely based on the strong's self interpretation and choice on whether he wants to help the weak. Some may argue that as long as the strong keep the weak weak, the strong will remain as strong. Okay that is reasonable.

However, while my view is that we are not created equal, but that doesn't mean that the strong can bully the weak. The strong can continue to remain strong, but not at the expense of the weak. It is not a zero sum game where I have to extort the weak in order to stay strong. Rather, by helping the weak to become strong, the strong can become stronger.

But again, we need to know that not many strong people are willing to help the weak. If that is the case, then we have no choice but to force the strong to help the poor? Oh dear, while I never believe that we should sacrifice one small group of people for the benefit of all, in the end I reached the same conclusion that I never agree on! =x

It this world is so contradicting, or it is just me myself who is contradicting? Hm..