Equality of Faculties

[Gjallarhorn]

I have seen people who, in response to the statement "all men are created equal", support this claim on the basis of competitive balance: that a strong person must inevitably be dim-witted, that a genius must inevitably be physically weak (oh how they love that Hawking), that a rich person must be unhappy, and that someone with all these benefits must be overcompensating. In the end all available measures of humanity must balance out in every individual.

What's your take on this? Do you buy it? Do you think it's wrong?


Personally, I just see it as a form of jealousy or pity. It's like someone trying to be Bill Gates: they put their all into it and fail and, instead of simply giving up their need to compare to something they can't be, they claim that there must be some sort of demerits on Bill Gates' life that weigh him down to bring themselves up.

On the other hand, there are people who try to say that everybody wins and everybody gets the trophy, and tell children that everyone has special talents that will help them solidify a career and become successful. I know for a fact that there are genuinely mediocre people in this world who have no outstanding skills, and that's perfectly okay because we need them for their mediocrity. Perhaps that is their special skill...


So, rant aside, what's your take on the situation? Do we all have a sort of balance of traits and faculties such that no one is truly above another when it's all broken down? If so, is that desirable? Are there people who are just naturally superior in net talent to others? If so, is that desirable?

 

[Revoltingest]

Some people are just more capable than others.
That must really stick in the craw of weak or dumb folk, eh?

 

[Curious George]

I have seen people who, in response to the statement "all men are created equal", support this claim on the basis of competitive balance: that a strong person must inevitably be dim-witted, that a genius must inevitably be physically weak (oh how they love that Hawking), that a rich person must be unhappy, and that someone with all these benefits must be overcompensating. In the end all available measures of humanity must balance out in every individual.

What's your take on this? Do you buy it? Do you think it's wrong?


Personally, I just see it as a form of jealousy or pity. It's like someone trying to be Bill Gates: they put their all into it and fail and, instead of simply giving up their need to compare to something they can't be, they claim that there must be some sort of demerits on Bill Gates' life that weigh him down to bring themselves up.

On the other hand, there are people who try to say that everybody wins and everybody gets the trophy, and tell children that everyone has special talents that will help them solidify a career and become successful. I know for a fact that there are genuinely mediocre people in this world who have no outstanding skills, and that's perfectly okay because we need them for their mediocrity. Perhaps that is their special skill...


So, rant aside, what's your take on the situation? Do we all have a sort of balance of traits and faculties such that no one is truly above another when it's all broken down? If so, is that desirable? Are there people who are just naturally superior in net talent to others? If so, is that desirable?

I take no issue with participation trophies. I think that genetics tend to favor individuals. So, the smart guy is likely more athletic to boot (on average). But traits are so varied that it is unlikely any person will have everything going for them. But advantages and disadvantages balancing, is a romantic notion that is removed from reality. What is real is the value people have to one another. Your kid might be just average or even below average at everything but you sure as hell won't love those who are better more than your kid. I do think that people have areas in which they are better and areas in which they are worse, these are not balanced, but that lack of balance hardly impairs their worth.

 

[idav]

I think for the most part we really do balance out. For every positive attribute gained evolution likes to slap us with something undesirable. We aren't really created equal which is why we need each other in order to balance out. I see it as team oriented and every team member would be as valuable as the next even though they have unrelated duties, the duties compliment each other in order to accomplish the overall goal. We can't all be Rambo an army of one.

 

[Quintessence]

I think that we need to remember the context of the quote "all [humans] are created equal." It's not a statement intended to convey that aptitudes are all equal or that there's some sort of "cosmic balance" that equalizes a person's strengths with their weaknesses. The statement was made in the context of how to create proper governance of people within a society: that with respect to the governance and law, all humans are granted certain inalienable rights by mere virtue of being human, not by virtue of their aptitudes. Or something like that. My history is a little rusty.

 

[Thana]

I think we are all created equal, But not in the typical sense.

Example:
Girl A - Her boyfriend of 3 days breaks up with her
She gets super depressed and hysterical.
Girl B - Her mother gets in a car accident

Girl A is weaker, And so her pain can be equal to that of Girl B, Because Girl B is stronger but still moderately upset. Even though Girl B's problem seems worse, Does not make it so when you compare how girl A feels.

Along those lines, anyway.
And the people we see, That we envy, We never know what challenges and obstacles they face, But I like to believe that it is equal to the one's I face.

I don't think it's jealousy, I just truly believe everything balances out and that we're all equal.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I think we are all created equal, But not in the typical sense.

Example:
Girl A - Her boyfriend of 3 days breaks up with her
She gets super depressed and hysterical.
Girl B - Her mother gets in a car accident

Girl A is weaker, And so her pain can be equal to that of Girl B, Because Girl B is stronger but still moderately upset. Even though Girl B's problem seems worse, Does not make it so when you compare how girl A feels.

Along those lines, anyway.
And the people we see, That we envy, We never know what challenges and obstacles they face, But I like to believe that it is equal to the one's I face.

I don't think it's jealousy, I just truly believe everything balances out and that we're all equal.

1. Given the existence of super-depressed and hysterical people who have had deaths in the family, what balances their situations to a person who is of hardy mental health and has healthy and safe family?

 

[Penumbra]

I have seen people who, in response to the statement "all men are created equal", support this claim on the basis of competitive balance: that a strong person must inevitably be dim-witted, that a genius must inevitably be physically weak (oh how they love that Hawking), that a rich person must be unhappy, and that someone with all these benefits must be overcompensating. In the end all available measures of humanity must balance out in every individual.

What's your take on this? Do you buy it? Do you think it's wrong?

Personally, I just see it as a form of jealousy or pity. It's like someone trying to be Bill Gates: they put their all into it and fail and, instead of simply giving up their need to compare to something they can't be, they claim that there must be some sort of demerits on Bill Gates' life that weigh him down to bring themselves up.

On the other hand, there are people who try to say that everybody wins and everybody gets the trophy, and tell children that everyone has special talents that will help them solidify a career and become successful. I know for a fact that there are genuinely mediocre people in this world who have no outstanding skills, and that's perfectly okay because we need them for their mediocrity. Perhaps that is their special skill...

So, rant aside, what's your take on the situation? Do we all have a sort of balance of traits and faculties such that no one is truly above another when it's all broken down? If so, is that desirable? Are there people who are just naturally superior in net talent to others? If so, is that desirable?

Abilities differ dramatically. People aren't equal in abilities and I don't think anything "balances out" in the cosmic sense. It doesn't happen with other animals either, where some are dominant over others.

"Created equal" is useful from a governance standpoint because we can pretty much all agree that legal justice should be pretty balanced and we shouldn't have defined social classes due to a person's bloodline. People should have mostly the same legal rights, and the same freedoms.

But realistically, some people are way smarter than other people, some people are way more athletic or healthy than other people, some people are way more attractive than other people, some people are way more social than other people (like perhaps being raised from birth in a loving home vs being raised in an abusive or incomplete environment), so there are a lot of people that are just plain more intelligent, healthier, attractive, and social, than other people.

Some people have terrible lives, some people have wonderful lives, and most people fall somewhere around that spectrum.

 

[Thana]

1. Given the existence of super-depressed and hysterical people who have had deaths in the family, what balances their situations to a person who is of hardy mental health and has healthy and safe family?

I don't know,
Just because a person is in good mental health, and has a healthy and safe family does not mean that they don't have other problems.

Perhaps they have always been betrayed or hurt when they fell in love. Love and loss can sometimes (depending on the circumstances in each case) be equal to love and death, Depending on the person and their personality/emotional capabilites.

My point, I suppose, Is that the problems may not be equal in measure, But the pain, suffering, loss, fear can be equal and mostly is equal to that of others.

 

[McBell]

What's your take on this?

My take is that they are taking a phrase out of context and attempting to apply it where it was never intended to be applied.

 

[LuisDantas]

As usual, both Quintessence and Penumbra are spot on.

It is interesting to study the appeal of the odd belief that people somehow balance out, though.

Part of that appeal is that it is a lot of trouble to accept that there is no inherent "cosmic" justice. That means that we must take responsibility for either the well-being of others or our failure to do so. And being responsible for lots of strangers is neither safe nor appealing, except perhaps for very rare people.

And there there are the dreams of freedom. People hate to think of absolute limits. They want to sincerely believe that we can transcend all know limits somehow, so the idea that we must make concessions due to the limitations of others instead is difficult to accept.

 

[Riverwolf]

The "all men are created equal" thing is generally referring to the Declaration of Independence, which specifically refers to that equality as being equal insofar as we all have equal rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

Far as I can tell, beyond certain inalienable rights (I typically follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), people are anything but equal.

 

[Willamena]

I have seen people who, in response to the statement "all men are created equal", support this claim on the basis of competitive balance: that a strong person must inevitably be dim-witted, that a genius must inevitably be physically weak (oh how they love that Hawking), that a rich person must be unhappy, and that someone with all these benefits must be overcompensating. In the end all available measures of humanity must balance out in every individual.

What's your take on this? Do you buy it? Do you think it's wrong?

That's not what the ideological claim meant--its literalism makes it silly.

That "all men are created equal" refers to humanity. Nothing less.

 

[psychoslice]

Men are all created equal, they can be stupid dumb or whatever equally with the other who are that which they are.