Brainism and Egalitarianism
After having written entry 351 I got aware, that I may superficially appear as inconsistent and even contradictory with my emphasis on being egalitarian. This requires some further explanations:
- Egalitarian in a relationship means to carefully choose a partner, who can be fully respected and appreciated as equal. The subjective evaluation of a partner's equality is of vital importance. Egalitarian means to avoid getting infatuated with the body of a haphazard person and then coping with insurmountable differences.
- Egalitarian means equal rights and equal chances for all, without any advantages due to some limited difference being used as a pretence to dominate or create a hierarchy of power and of access to resources.
- Egalitarian does not deny differences of measurable and definable superiority and inferiority in specific areas of life. More learning, training and developing of skills and talents it superior to less.
- Egalitarian does not disallow the choice, whom to associate with as equal and whom to avoid as a result of the perceived lack of equality.
Individuals have the right to allow perceived measurable inequality guide their personal behavior in a reactive and passive way, but they have no right to force disadvantages due to inequalities upon others.
I as an individual can consider all irrational believes as inferior to rationality and consequencity and I have the right to avoid all gullible believers, because of their believe. But just as I have no right to interfere with their lives, they have no right to interfere with mine.
In my example in entry 351 of the German law forbidding the opening of shops on sundays, the gullible force an irrational law upon the rational non-believers, and that cannot be justified. But it would it is equally wrong, if rational employers would coerce religious people to work on sundays, if their delusion leads to pain due to the paranoia of being punished by their deity.
If one of a person's trait, skill or talent is of high significance to his identity, then this can be a valid reason to reject a person with partial inferiority in this attribute as a partner for an egalitarian relationship.
While I as a very rational and logical person consider myself superior to gullible people believing in any absurdity, be it a deity, an obscure power like chi, reincarnation or whatever, there are also areas of life, where a man has the same valid reason to consider me as inferior. When it comes to talents, my worst deficit is musicality. I can't sing, I can't play an instrument and I am unable to learn both. Though loving all folklore music, complex classical concerts are to me as unpleasant as the sound of an electrical drill. For a professional musician, to whom music is an important part of his identity, I am inferior in this area and certainly not suitable.
The important point is here, that superior or inferior are a real difference of a limited aspect, that can be important enough to justify behavior, but it does not justify to devalue the entire person.
The gullible believer, whom I cannot respect as a thinker, can be a caring and kind partner to another gullible person sharing the same delusion.
A person has the right to judge others according to the own value system and identity, but this does not imply any entitlement or justificatioin to harm anybody as a consequence of personal attitudes.
