No two human beings are equal in any way whatsoever. Two people might be extremely similar to one another in certain measurable aspects, but if you can measure with sufficient precision, you will inevitably discover that these people are not equal in whatever quality you choose to measure. This proposition can be proven mathematically.
Now, certain qualities such as self control give their possessor an advantage over others. The advantage of self control is one that adds up over time. If a child has the self control to practice the piano for a half an hour a day, he will become a better pianist than one who only has the self control to practice for ten minutes a day (especially if he uses the methods of deliberate practice). And this advantage will compound over time, making the first child a much, much better musician than the second.
So, why would you expect any two people, any two populations or any two anything to have equal attainments?
Well, if you do, you’re just not being very realistic. Like many unrealistic and sentimental belief, the belief in equality has many disadvantages for society. Here Powerline blog quotes four fantastic articles by Thomas Sowell on the issue of disparity.
Gross inequalities in skills and achievements have been the rule, not the exception, on every inhabited continent and for centuries on end. Yet our laws and government policies act as if any significant statistical difference between racial or ethnic groups in employment or income can only be a result of their being treated differently by others.
An ignored “disparity,” part 2:
Statistics are often thrown around in the media, showing that people with college degrees earn higher average salaries than people without them. But such statistics lump together apples and oranges — and lemons.
An ignored “disparity,” part 3:
Historical happenstances — the fact that the Romans invaded Western Europe but not Eastern Europe, for example — left a legacy of written languages in Western Europe that people in Eastern Europe did not have until centuries later.
But the innumerable factors affecting human achievements are not only complex and hard to untangle, they offer neither politicians nor intellectuals the opportunity to simply be on the side of the angels against the forces of evil. Factors which present no opportunity to star in a moral melodrama have often been ignored in favor of factors that do.
An ignored “disparity,” part 4:
[M]undane explanations of gross disparities are seldom emotionally satisfying — least of all to those on the short end of these disparities. With the rise over time of an indigenous intelligentsia in Eastern Europe and the growing influence of mass politics, more emotionally satisfying explanations emerged, such as oppression, exploitation and the like.
Since human beings have seldom been saints, whether in Eastern Europe or elsewhere, there were no doubt many individual flaws and shortcomings among the non-indigenous elites to complain of.
The complete articles are well worth your time.
