Equality Is Good, Actually

Contrary to popular critiques, the liberal value of equality doesn’t make you weak or nihilistic.

(Photo by Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images.)

“Why Liberalism” is a series by Persuasion in collaboration with the Institute for Humane Studies. Last week, Jonathan Rauch argued that the “end of history” thesis still holds up to scrutiny. This week, Jeffery Tyler Syck argues that equality is not the bogeyman right-wing critics of liberalism make it out to be.

To read the other essays in the series, click here. To receive future installments directly into your inbox, subscribe to Persuasion today!

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Once upon a time in a distant land of kings and priests, a collection of materialist philosophers decided to destroy Western civilization. These philosophers ripped apart the customs of the past and replaced them with sad irreligious notions of rights and consent. From the efforts of these dark forces all that is just and good in creation began to fade—bringing us to the modern day, the nadir of human life.

At least, that is the story told by contemporary critics of liberalism. To many of us, this attitude seems baffling. After all, modernity has brought with it more human freedom and material prosperity than at any other time in history. Modern Americans are 90 times richer than the average human being of the past and average net worth has tripled across the globe. Many millions of people have been liberated from tyranny and despotic government since the end of the Second World War.

Yet we liberals should pause before we simply brush off the concerns of those who dislike liberalism—because across the world the anti-liberals are winning the argument, while liberals all too often lose. The reasons for this are complicated. But on the most basic level, liberal setbacks stem from the fact that many liberals seem pathologically incapable of defending their own principles. When reactionaries decry the egalitarian and cosmopolitan world we are living in, liberals cringe and meekly mumble about policy. Instead, liberals must own their strengths in order to allay fears about their weaknesses—they should shout from the rooftop that equality is good, cultural diversity can be important, and self-government is vital to a flourishing society.

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Over the years, scholars have traced the origins of liberalism to a variety of moments in history. Some locate the beginnings of liberal principles in Renaissance Italy and the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli, some in the rise of the market economies of Northern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and still others in the aftermath of the American and French revolutions.

Regardless of its origins, however, the critiques of liberalism have remained remarkably consistent over time. In particular, right-wing and reactionary critics advanced a set of arguments to discredit the liberal commitment to equality. Though Joseph de Maistre, Augustin Barruel, Patrick Deneen, and Yoram Hazony are different in many ways, their attacks on liberalism stem from a united distaste for modernity.

The best right-wing attacks boil down to this: Liberalism levels all of society. It gradually erodes the natural differences that exist between nations, communities, genders, and so on. This leveling produces equality only in the sense that it lowers all people to a common baseline. The previous peaks of human civilization which achieved fine art and heroic deeds no longer exist. In short, liberalism makes us bourgeois, soft, and weak.

The reality—that many liberals try to deny—is that there is some truth to these claims. Human rights, for example, do require that people be treated the same regardless of local custom. Internationalism does erode the distinctions that exist between nations. Liberal political philosophy does de-emphasize the heroic virtues of the medieval and classical world, and promotes a bourgeois ethic of self-dependence and economic freedom.

Some of these trends lead to genuine problems. For instance, the breakdown of local communities exacerbated by the market and the forces of globalization needs to be addressed. As I have previously argued in Persuasion, the economic hollowing out of middle America has done much to undermine both equality and democracy in recent decades. By uprooting people from their homes and localities, the less positive forces of liberalism have contributed to the listless, unhappy, youth of the modern world. These are problems that require further attention from liberals.    

However, the most serious right-wing claim leveled against liberalism—that all its social effects lead to a weaker, unvirtuous humanity—is simply not true. On this front, liberals should spend more time proving their opponents wrong.

Since its very beginning, liberalism has rested its belief in human freedom on the idea that all persons are essentially equal. Abraham Lincoln—with his usual astuteness—argued that the liberal regime of the United States is “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In short, we are a nation whose chief calling is equality through freedom. No serious thinker has ever taken this to mean that all people are equally smart or equally strong. But liberalism does assert that no human being is born superior to another. All humans are born with inherent worth, whatever their differences.

If taken seriously, this concept has a great effect on how society arranges itself. The transformation that liberal egalitarianism has wrought on humanity requires a brief comparison with the pre-modern world.

Until the rise of liberalism, life was viewed through an aristocratic lens—great deeds and men could only be truly great because they stood apart from the insignificant and small masses around them. The Greek writer Aesop captured this in his short fable “The Vixen and the Lioness”:

A lioness and a vixen were talking together about their young, as mothers will, and saying how healthy and well grown they were, and what beautiful coats they had, and how they were the image of their parents. “My litter of cubs is a joy to see,” said the Fox; and then she added, rather malevolently, “But I imagine you never have more than one.” “No” said the lioness grimly, “but that one’s a lion.”

The common interpretation of this fable is that quality is better than quantity. But the witty rejoinder of the lioness goes even further: she implies that some creatures are simply superior to others by nature of their birth or ambition; they rise above the herd and deserve to rule. This pre-modern attitude goes beyond mere elitism. In the eyes of the classical world—and many contemporary critics of liberalism—the greatness that remarkable individuals achieve is the hallmark of flourishing civilizations, the thing that sets them apart from regimes that are decadent and declining.

Liberalism completely rejects the pre-modern attitude. To sustain its rights-oriented, freedom-loving nature, liberalism affirms totally the dignity and greatness of every individual. It argues that there is greatness not just in the deeds of statesmen and generals but also in parents and shopkeepers.

Liberalism does more than just advocate rights, however: It turns previous notions of society on their heads by insisting that all people are worthy of governing because all people—regardless of background—have worth. To this end, liberalism not only does exactly what its opponents accuse it of—leveling human society—but it does so on purpose. What its critics miss is that this commitment to equality does not erase nobility but reconstitutes it. The nobility of a liberal age is not that which our forefathers may have died for—but it is noble nonetheless.

First and foremost, affirming the dignity of all people gives society a just foundation. What could be more ethically good than the belief that people should be treated well by their fellow man, and that they should be permitted a say in their government? Right-wing critics argue that the modern principle of equality is relativistic, but there is nothing morally gray about such a commitment to one’s fellow man—it is in fact deeply moral. It is also, more importantly, morally demanding. Far from advocating that humans give into a selfish and soft love of themselves, when followed to its logical conclusion liberalism asks that we learn to appreciate and admire all people—even those we may not understand or even like.

Far from creating a nation of “last men”—to use a phrase popularized by Francis Fukuyama to describe the soft, appetitive creatures who supposedly emerge at the end of history—this egalitarian outlook asks rather a lot of us. By nature, most humans are given to vanity. We are inclined to believe that we and people like us are born to rule and dominate. We tend—often without realizing it—to wish others were more like us, and that we could use the force of government to make it so. Liberalism challenges all of these selfish impulses. Liberal respect for the dignity of all people mandates that humans should be better than our worst instincts. In short—and to paraphrase Lincoln again—equality appeals to the better angels of our nature.

What’s more, the liberal ethic of equality has inspired great actions throughout history. One obvious example is the American fight for independence—a war sparked as much by the colonist’s desire to be treated as equals in the eyes of their British rulers as by anything else. The list stretches on through fights for civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights. But if social justice movements cannot move the stony heart of right-wing reactionaries, perhaps they can be moved by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill’s stand against the pre-modern, post-liberal, specter of Nazism. In short, the liberal ethic of equality and dignity does not destroy noble deeds—it inspires them. In fact, the freedom-oriented deeds it inspires are far superior (and much more noble) than national conquest or the forging of familial dynasties—the hallmarks of pre-modern politics.

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The problem is that in recent years, committed liberal have lost the stomach to defend their principles on moral grounds. Almost as if they have imbibed the relativist accusations of their opponents, they prefer to shy away from making moral judgments and focus instead on the narrow realm of policy-making. Thus, the big questions of political philosophy are left to the political extremes, with the result that liberals have lost their ability to shape the narrative of the modern age. In short, liberals have forgotten that it is imagination and morality that truly rule the world—and, as a consequence, they expose their worldview to ridicule and defeat.

Against its reactionary critics, liberals would do well to assert that the quest for human dignity and equality is the great hope of mankind. Rather than destroying the greatness of pre-modern society, liberalism ennobles civilization. Rather than eradicating moral worth, liberalism challenges people to live ethical lives. Equality can be done poorly—but when done right it is the greatest hope of humanity and liberals across the political spectrum should be willing to say so.

Liberals should also point out that dignity and equality are not new concepts. Though they have only recently been transformed into a philosophy of government, they have existed as long as human civilization. Whether in Greece or Italy or England, mankind has always searched for a way to end the quest for domination and replace it with a dignified mode of life that benefits everyone. In liberalism, we finally found a crude, imperfect, answer. We may never perfect the cause of equality and dignity—but it is a noble crusade and one we should never give up on. As ever, Alexis de Tocqueville put it best:

When I survey this countless multitude of beings, shaped in each other’s likeness, amidst whom nothing rises and nothing falls, the sight of such universal uniformity saddens and chills me, and I am tempted to regret that state of society which has ceased to be. When the world was full of men of great importance and extreme insignificance … But I admit that this gratification arose from my own weakness … A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty.

Jeffery Tyler Syck is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Pikeville in his native Kentucky.

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The “Why Liberalism” series is a project of Persuasion in partnership with the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS). IHS is a non-profit organization that promotes a freer, more humane, and open society by connecting and supporting talented graduate students, scholars, and other intellectuals who are advancing the principles and practice of freedom. For additional information and details, media, programmatic, and funding opportunities, visit TheIHS.org.

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