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{"id":17231,"date":"2015-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=2056"},"modified":"2015-05-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T00:00:00","slug":"nature-and-equality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2015\/05\/nature-and-equality\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature and Equality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Norberto Bobbio (Left and Right<\/a>) claims that left and right are different because of their different evaluations of equality. He starts from the uncontroversial fact that people are equal in certain respects, unequal in others, and claims that \u201cWe can then correctly define as\u00a0egalitarians those who , while not ignoring the fact that\u00a0people are both equal and unequal, believe that what they\u00a0have in common has greater value in the formation of a good\u00a0community . Conversely , those who are not egalitarian,\u00a0while starting from the same premiss, believe that their\u00a0diversity has greater value in the formation of a good\u00a0community\u201d (66-7).<\/p>\n

And this conflict of fundamental choices \u201ccharacterizes so\u00a0well the opposing camps which for a long time we have been\u00a0in the habit of calling left and right : on the one hand, people\u00a0who believe that human beings are more equal than unequal, and on the other, people who believe that we are\u00a0more unequal than equal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overlaying this opposition is a different evaluation of the relative roles of social and natural equality and inequality. Bobbio cites Rousseau and Nietzsche as exemplars of this difference: \u201cIn his Discourse on the Origin of\u00a0<\/em>the Inequality among Men<\/em>, Rousseau argues from the premiss\u00a0that men are born equal but are made unequal by civil\u00a0society, that it is the society which slowly imposes itself on\u00a0the state of nature through the development of the division\u00a0of labour. Conversely, Nietzsche works on the premiss that\u00a0men are by nature born unequal (and this is a good thing\u00a0because, among other things, a society founded on slavery\u00a0as in ancient Greece was a highly developed society precisely\u00a0because it had slaves), and that only a society with a herd\u00a0morality and a religion based on compassion and submissiveness\u00a0could make them equal.\u00a0Just as Rousseau saw inequality as artificial, and\u00a0therefore to be condemned and abolished for contradicting\u00a0the fundamental equality of nature, so Nietzsche saw\u00a0equality as artificial, and therefore to be abhorred for\u00a0contradicting the beneficent inequality which nature\u00a0desired for humanity\u201d (67-8).<\/p>\n

As Bobbio says, \u201cthe difference could not be starker,\u201d yet at the same time, the similarity is pretty stark too: Both take nature as normative; they simply have different conclusions about the nature of nature. And insofar as they are taking nature as normative, they are conversely treating social artifice as un-normative. And in that, they are both assuming that the realm of the made is arbitrary; both assume that the socially constructed is merely<\/em> socially constructed. That\u2019s where the debate over equality should focus: Not, or not only<\/em>, about the nature of nature, but about the normativity of artifice, of poiesis<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"