Inequality is Good

Tonight, I’m thinking about inequality. It’s got a bad rap, but we’d be in a terrible place without it. Reality runs on inequality. I’d even argue that it’s a Good Thing.

The idea of equality, equal before the eyes of the law, equal before God, separate but equal, that is a human construct and a good one. Don’t get me wrong. Equal in the eyes of God, equal in the eyes of the law, equal under the Constitution. Absolutely. But biology is not equal. And the outcomes of biological organisms competing for power, influence, love, friendship, business success, and athletic performance are definitely unequal.

Inequality is the foundation of reality as we know it. At every scale—microscopic, cellular, biological, environmental, social, financial, atmospheric, cosmic—inequality doesn’t just persist, but actively shapes how things function. 

If inequality didn’t exist, life wouldn’t exist. We’d still be an undifferentiated stew of amino acids bubbling away throughout eternity.

The natural world depends on inequalities. Food webs and predator-prey relationships run on inequality. Differences in plant life, altitudes, rainfall, soil quality, humidity define the ecosystems where organisms evolve. 

Evolution itself is inequality playing out. If organisms are all perfectly equal and perform equally well in every environment, natural selection becomes impossible. There’d be no distinguishing traits to select for or against. Evolution stalls. I wouldn’t be here writing this on a computer if organisms were all equal.

Without inequality, our senses don’t make sense. The eyes, nose, ears, and nerve endings in our skin are distinguishing instruments. We use them to detect differences, to distinguish between things. Vision relies on inequality. Your eyes detect contrasts, differences, inequalities in the visual field. Close your eyes if you want to perceive perfect visual equality. 

Weather is inequality playing out in the atmosphere. Sunlight hits different regions of the planet at different intensities, creating “temperature inequality.” Weather patterns are how the atmosphere attempts to “correct” it. But there’s no intention behind weather. There’s no moral dimension to a hurricane or a drought. It’s simply how nature works. 

Modern climate alarmists insert human morality to correct weather inequality, and that’s when things go wrong. They blot out the sun with atmospheric silicon dioxide, enact massive taxes on energy consumption, and erect carbon dioxide sequestration structures to reduce C02. This reduces vitamin D production, creates economic hardships and makes doing business in the US even harder, and creates huge amounts of industrial waste. And the “inequality,” which wasn’t even a guaranteed problem that needed fixing, doesn’t budge. 

Look at what happens when a baby starts developing in the womb. Cells differentiate. They arrange themselves according to hierarchy and function. Inequality emerges. Look at what happens when the brain develops through childhood. Neurons prune themselves. They weed out the less viable structures. Inequality in the brain itself is essential. Disruption of this process, a failure to differentiate and prune out less capable neurons, leads to neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Within a person’s day to day life, inequality is what breathes life into existence. Days that are the same as the days before and the days after blend into each other. Time speeds when the days are “equal” because your brain no longer has to process novelty. You age faster on a subjective level. A man or woman whose days are unequal lives an exciting life. Vacation days are not equal to work days. Vacation days make work bearable. Work days make vacation possible.

A company made up entirely of project managers doesn’t function. A perfectly cooperative business where everyone has an equal say in everything will lose to a hierarchical business with clearly defined but unequal roles.

Inequality is a feature of nature. It is foundational. Anything that rejects inequality as evil and attempts to replace it with enforced equality will fail. Inequality is good.

Of course, actors within an unequal system seek equality. They want to rise up and improve their station. That is the engine that drives change and progress, though: responding to inequality.  High pressure seeks low pressure. That’s what creates weather. Nature abhors a vacuum. Matter rushes in to correct inequality. Inequality is a pre-requisite.

Anyone trying to improve their fitness exists in a state of inequality. Their current fitness level is unequal to their desired fitness level. Newlyweds are unequal to their future selves with children, and it is that inequality that drives them to have kids and keep the population going. 

Inequality is necessary. Without it, nothing happens. We stagnate and die.

Of course, it is perfectly natural to want to correct inequalities for yourself. Just understand that if we could somehow abolish inequality entirely, things wouldn’t improve. They’d fall apart, and reality as we know it would cease to function.

Humans are unique in that we can hold multiple perspectives at once. Our animal instincts recoil at inequality, at being “lesser” or having less than someone else. But our higher cognition understands that inequality is what motivates us, what drives improvement, what gets us moving.

I don’t have a neat answer here. Inequality isn’t pleasant. No one likes to lose. It just is, and it’s all in how you respond to it.

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