20120622 (J)
Journal: June 22, 2012
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Human Rights (Equality)                              Idea of "Other"                              Souls

Equality: “All men are created equal”, a noble if boneheaded thought. Obviously we are not equal physically, and some, even most now would say that means “mentally” as well. Each brain is unique, different, unequal, no doubt. So the “mental” that comes at least in large part from the physical is different in all individuals. Unique chemistry impinging on these different substrates, electrical potentials, hormones, and such is also not equal.

Then what is equal about humans? It must be something beyond the physical, so some would say, “beyond Nature”; something “super” natural, like God or math or beauty. And in that realm, all things imaginable or possible, even to the absurd proposition that “all men are created equal” to which we have added obviously different women now, as, faceciousley, the “original intent”. In that realm, the proposition that some men are “born to rule over others” is just as imaginable, in fact more in tune with most of human history.

I sense today, as some have probably sensed always, that certain images, imaginings, “ideas” attract most people’s attention, almost as a herd instinct, while others, equally plausible (meaning “imaginable”) do not. Attention is focused on “good” and “bad” ideas among everything else. That “attached” attention is “morality”. The “equal” idea is now considered good, but commonly in history it was considered bad. It is often accompanied by a “belief” that our “common” imaginings are true. Each age “casts off” morality in favor of “truth”, at least mine has, which then becomes the new “morality” to be cast off once again by the next generation pursuing truth.

We “cast off” the hierarchies of birth, whether they be nobility, race, gender (and now even, supposedly, for some at least, sexual desire; i.e. sexual “preferences”, the “gay” or GLT … or some such acronym for “gay, lesbian, transvestite, etc. and other previous widely-considered “perverts” but still excluding so far bestiality, children and maybe autosexuals for the obviously true “liberté, égalité, fraternité” for all those “equally created” humans, at least those who agree with the rules, right? Robespierre? Jefferson? Reagan? Obama?

So just what is this imagined “equality” that comes from our minds and not our bodies. The soul? Atman? Essence? Community duty? Categorical imperative? And yes even Lao Tzu way seem to be wrapped up in some package. And now I weary of thinking to write right now.


Back later. “We cast off hierarchies of birth, which, in turn ‘cast off’ hierarchies of “because I can” for new hierarchies of “because I can” (i.e. hierarchies of legally “earned” money, rather than “inherited” money); hierarchies of “merit” and “competition” (among unequal’s of course), so we “need” to “level the playing field” by tilting against the constant winners. Some want to measure differences (i.e. measure “equality” or deviation from it, with worship of the “tendency to the mean”?). Outcomes of competition are reflections of the God-given “equal opportunity” “Because we are all equal in Atman, any differences in life must be due to human caused things”. I can go along with that, but not the kicker, “so we must push outcomes closer together to better emulate the oneness of the Brahma-Atman”. Brahma-Atman is diversity as well as oneness. The roots of this imaginative idea (not my original by any means) are deep.

Such things are “beyond appearances”, beyond the senses. Through my senses is the only way I can receive information from the “outside”, from “reality”, from “the universe”, even by words originating in sound or sight by reading. What I do with that incoming information, whether from photons from words or other images on a page or screen, or the pressure of a guiding mother’s hand on my shoulder as I cross my first street is a complex process with continual feedback of changed sensations. My sensations are caused by activities in response to my perceptions of my universe.

All sensations are guided by deep genetic instructions; requirements expressed electronically, including billions of electron transfers every second between phosphate radicals. So anything “beyond appearances” must be dealt with by me, in my own thoughts. Are those thoughts affected by something more than my chemistry and its handmaiden, sensation? By something more that sensation and genes?

If so, where does "it" come from? How do I receive "it"? Can I send information back to it? If I can and do, does the receiver care? Stories abound in this realm, often called “myth”, equality and God among them. Or is equality just the one true myth, even truer than God? On the face of it, it seems quite absurd to me. However application of this idea to political and now I believe even economic realms is quite new.

Is the “end of moral evolution” equality and its fellow travelers, democracy and human rights? as these triummverants are sometimes referred to? Have we finally achieved “truth beyond morality”? If this idea of equality is truth, do we have a responsibility to spread the idea around the world?

I hope so, because that’s sure what we’re doing. I very much doubt that Tom Jefferson based on Thomas Paine discovered a truth that:

"All men are created equal"