Far from striving for equality, history's revolutions consisted of one section of society rising up against an individual (e.g. King) or a group (e.g. the church) that was usurping their assets and food, restricting their activities or options, oppressing them with gruelling work, or generally just being brutal to maintain control and wealth.
As I said in Part 1, the 'newly equal' continued to believe in a hierarchical arrangement of humanity, they just moved up the ranking. They drew the line of people who were 'unequal' below them. This reality was captured succinctly by playwright Henry-François Becque: the defect of equality is that we desire it only with our superiors.
Revolutionary leaders might have lauded the value of equality, but that was not their real driver. The revolutions were actually about securing the material needs of human beings and a sense of dignity by ending these various abuses of power.
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The driver for history's famous egalitarian revolutions was more like the school yard retort: 'You're not the boss of me' or Monty Python's 'Don't you oppress me'.
That's a long way from a belief in equality with everyone else. Where you sit on this matter hinges on what you think equal means and what you think natural means.
Those who led the revolutions may have used the rhetoric of egalitarianism but, while they fought for their own 'equality', they continued to believe that white men were naturally superior to others, for example, indigenous people, poor men, slaves or women. The men who wrote and signed those famous documents were satisfied that things were finally hunky-dory: at last 'All men are equal'… except for those that are not.
Is inequality 'natural'?
Those who led the revolutions may have used the rhetoric of egalitarianism but, while they fought for their own 'equality', they continued to believe that white men were naturally superior to others, for example, indigenous people, poor men, slaves or women. The men who wrote and signed those famous documents were satisfied that things were finally hunky-dory: at last 'All men are equal'… except for those that are not.
The issue of equality is one of those fundamental conflicts in ideas about humanity.
On one hand is the view that a rigid and unequal social hierarchy is 'natural', 'the way it has always been' and essential for society and humanity. On the other hand, the view is that equal human status is 'natural', with those in leadership roles being greedy and selfish, purloining excessive controls, and tending to abuse their power to create a social hierarchy that requires oppression to maintain it.
Neither position defines what natural means, but this appeal to a vague concept of natural by both 'sides' of the argument highlights this is a moral argument, not an argument of fact.
Neither position defines what natural means, but this appeal to a vague concept of natural by both 'sides' of the argument highlights this is a moral argument, not an argument of fact.
Each position represents a belief, an assumption about humanity.
What factual evidence helps understand this conflict of assumptions?
We can look to our more distant past to critique how closely each position aligns with what we know about the development of society.
Anthropological evidence shows that humans in our pre-historical past lived in egalitarian groups. As with contemporary egalitarian societies, leadership would have been assumed by older or stronger people with greater knowledge or capacity, rather than leadership that ordained control over others. Leadership might even move between people over time - leadership was about meeting the needs at hand.
Inequality first developed with the move to agrarian societies about 10,000 years ago, which required increased cooperation for planting and harvesting groups, building irrigation systems and tending animals. This level of organisation would have created more lasting leadership roles - leaders who determined and controlled what and when members of the group did various things. The efficiency of agriculture created surpluses that represented wealth.
Recent modelling comparing egalitarian and hierarchical groups shows the latter would have produced more food. All of those in the hierarchical groups in the modelling received more resources than those in the egalitarian groups, even when 'leaders' took a larger portion of the group's resulting surplus. The hierarchical groups thus grew faster, became more complex and even more hierarchical over time, and came to be the dominant form of human society.
So, hierarchical society and its resulting inequality was a trade-off for efficient food production. Inequality is thus an artefact of large group social organisation rather than an innate attribute of human nature. Control of the surplus food for trade provided a further source of potential power for the leaders.
Anthropological evidence shows that humans in our pre-historical past lived in egalitarian groups. As with contemporary egalitarian societies, leadership would have been assumed by older or stronger people with greater knowledge or capacity, rather than leadership that ordained control over others. Leadership might even move between people over time - leadership was about meeting the needs at hand.
Inequality first developed with the move to agrarian societies about 10,000 years ago, which required increased cooperation for planting and harvesting groups, building irrigation systems and tending animals. This level of organisation would have created more lasting leadership roles - leaders who determined and controlled what and when members of the group did various things. The efficiency of agriculture created surpluses that represented wealth.
Recent modelling comparing egalitarian and hierarchical groups shows the latter would have produced more food. All of those in the hierarchical groups in the modelling received more resources than those in the egalitarian groups, even when 'leaders' took a larger portion of the group's resulting surplus. The hierarchical groups thus grew faster, became more complex and even more hierarchical over time, and came to be the dominant form of human society.
So, hierarchical society and its resulting inequality was a trade-off for efficient food production. Inequality is thus an artefact of large group social organisation rather than an innate attribute of human nature. Control of the surplus food for trade provided a further source of potential power for the leaders.
However, an hierarchical organisation does not necessarily mean gross inequality or abuse of power. Something else changed too.
The few remaining contemporary egalitarian cultures have been observed to use a range of social mechanisms, like direct disapproval or ostracism, to limit individuals with ambitions for power over others, and also those unsuitable to be leaders, such as the cruel or psychopathic. These mechanisms of social control suppress both dominating individuals and undue competitiveness. It is reasonable to assume our prehistoric ancestors also managed their groups in this way.
Abuse of power is natural.
The few remaining contemporary egalitarian cultures have been observed to use a range of social mechanisms, like direct disapproval or ostracism, to limit individuals with ambitions for power over others, and also those unsuitable to be leaders, such as the cruel or psychopathic. These mechanisms of social control suppress both dominating individuals and undue competitiveness. It is reasonable to assume our prehistoric ancestors also managed their groups in this way.
Such controls were necessary because of natural human attributes of greed and acquisitiveness, which is not saying that greed and acquisitiveness define humanity, just they are there in the mix of attributes.
However, the social controls of egalitarian societies would also have been undermined in the new agrarian cultures.
However, the social controls of egalitarian societies would also have been undermined in the new agrarian cultures.
With the growing size and complexity of human groupings, members lost direct personal contact with each other member of the group. They also lost the social power they had to control and reduce inappropriate behaviour in others through interpersonal sanctions.
This meant that broad social control over what the emerging leaders could do was also lost - leaders could oppress, control or abuse - except when those oppressed became desperate for food and revolted. The effective social controls on domination, greed, undue competitiveness, etc did not transfer into the new social structures of hierarchical and complex societies.
'Civilised' human society would go on to produce the despot, the megalomaniac, the cruel monarch and, more recently, the narcissist who lacks any attributes of leadership, or indeed humanity.
Our society regularly produces 'leaders' who are good at getting and holding power, not necessarily at leading a complex society.
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| The Leviathan, Source |
Over time, and certainly with industrialisation since the 1600s, complex society became increasingly rigidly hierarchical and increasingly unequal. The 'god given' right to power justified this happy situation for the few men at the top of the pile. I imagine the majority of people in these societies accepted the religious dictates too as 'the way it is', even if they sometimes wondered at god's cruel arrangements.
The social control function of religion thus provided little constraint on the human tendency to abuse power.
Throughout more recent history, the total and often brutal control over other people, particularly women, continued to be justified on religious grounds. Rampant expansion and colonisation was based on the West's concept of itself has having a natural place 'above' all other people, its promised dominion over all by its own religious creeds.
As religion's authority waned, misinterpretations of Darwin's theory of evolution were enlisted to bolster this existing belief that some people should have dominion over others, just to give it a veneer of 'nature'.
The belief that people are 'naturally' unequal and that some are 'naturally' better than others persists today; for some it is religious, for others it is now 'the natural order'.
Large and complex societies need to be organised. They need structure to function and meet the material needs of their members. Hierarchies have proved an efficient structure for this. Efficient, but not the only way to organise a society (which could be a jump off for a discussion of efficient, but another day!).
'Nature' does not explain inequality. Abuse of power does.
Large and complex societies need to be organised. They need structure to function and meet the material needs of their members. Hierarchies have proved an efficient structure for this. Efficient, but not the only way to organise a society (which could be a jump off for a discussion of efficient, but another day!).
As well, human psychological well-being depends on predictability about other people as well as a sense of fit within our society - both of which are achieved with social roles and social structure. This need exists for humans in all types of social organisations, not just hierarchical ones. It makes sense that the larger society became with more complexity and unpredictability, then the more rigid social structure and roles also became. Predictable, but not the only way to organise a society.
So, hierarchies are efficient and provide predictability. But they say nothing about 'nature' and about human equality.
There is no evidence that people are inherently unequal, that hierarchies must inevitably involve oppression and tyranny, or that the way society is currently organised has any origins in a 'natural order' that certain people are superior to others. Appeals to 'nature' do not in any way support an argument for denying people equal rights before the law.
There is no evidence that people are inherently unequal, that hierarchies must inevitably involve oppression and tyranny, or that the way society is currently organised has any origins in a 'natural order' that certain people are superior to others. Appeals to 'nature' do not in any way support an argument for denying people equal rights before the law.
Resistance to the abuse of power is natural.
From early childhood, we grow up with a view of the human social world that is hierarchical - it's all we know in contemporary Western society*.
It's not easy even to look at the social structure that we live in with any objectivity: a social hierarchy and our status within it is an essential part of our identity. I think that we all (including me) hold a view of humanity as ranked because of how long and how completely we have been saturated in that world view. Maybe some of us have flatter systems. Perhaps each of us draws our 'line of people not equal to me' at different points in our own idiosyncratic ranking system: people who are 'too dumb' to vote, people with disabilities, people on welfare - you get the idea.
It is hard for us to imagine it any other way.
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| Source: AZ Quotes |
But we sure don't like being pushed around. We don't abide people we perceive as abusing power, but we know that it is very likely, as summed up by Lord Acton so long ago.
We're not so different from the American men who fought off the British oppressors in the 1700s to create a new country with their inspiring slogan: 'all men are created equal' (and by 'all men', I mean 'me and a few men like me').
I think that we all tend to resist what we perceive as oppression and power abuse against us. But, somewhat perversely, we also tend to continue to hold, consciously or subconsciously, a ranked view of humanity.
This all makes sense of what I learned from my closer read of history in Part 1.
This all makes sense of what I learned from my closer read of history in Part 1.
History is less progress toward the expression of a genuine egalitarian spirit and more a struggle created by our society's failure to replace earlier social controls against the abuse of power.
Over recent history, Western societies* have become more equal through a range of protests, unrest and resistance. In contrast with the early 19th century, many more people have equal voting, economic and legal standing.
However, the spread of Conservatism since the 1940s is testament to the fact that many people see this as a problem. A growing Conservative political force claims the decadence and decay of society and the increasing number of poor people is due to 'too much' equality.
Is the empire about to strike back?
Over recent history, Western societies* have become more equal through a range of protests, unrest and resistance. In contrast with the early 19th century, many more people have equal voting, economic and legal standing.
However, the spread of Conservatism since the 1940s is testament to the fact that many people see this as a problem. A growing Conservative political force claims the decadence and decay of society and the increasing number of poor people is due to 'too much' equality.
Conservatives believe that a rigid social hierarchy is the only way, the 'natural way', the way 'god intended' to organise society. By some happy accident (or according to them because they are naturally superior people), they find themselves on or near the top of the hierarchy. It's nothing to do with holding on to their existing social power. No...
Assuming you are superior to other people is a deeply held belief about the way the world is and about who they are - not something you can challenge with logic.
The gradual access to equal legal and social status for more of humanity over the last few hundred years is seen by them not as improvement, but as causing the downfall of society. And they are organising to 'fix it'.
Conflict about whether humans are equal or not looks set to continue.
In the third and final part of this series, I explore what we can learn from an updated view of history.
*I apologise again for knowing so little about non-Western countries to comment further.
Images used under Creative Commons
The gradual access to equal legal and social status for more of humanity over the last few hundred years is seen by them not as improvement, but as causing the downfall of society. And they are organising to 'fix it'.
Conflict about whether humans are equal or not looks set to continue.
In the third and final part of this series, I explore what we can learn from an updated view of history.
*I apologise again for knowing so little about non-Western countries to comment further.
Images used under Creative Commons
- Grumpy cat: Meme Generator
- Monty Python: Meme Generator
- Leviathan book cover: Chris Tolworthy (CC BY)
- Lord Acton corruption quote: AZ quotes
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