By: Bimal Shah
The demand for and the right to equality, is a big part of our history and our present public discourse. The marginalised, the colonised, slaves, minorities, women, the LTGBQ communities and others have struggled and fought for equality. It was the rallying cry, the demand for justice. A fair and equal share of what the oppressor has.
This demand for equality was premised on an oppressor who would have to be fought, have to be defeated. The oppressor would never see, without the fight, they were perpetrating an injustice.
But what we really need is not equality, but compassion. The demand for equality happens when compassion is absent. Equality is the poorer (but apparently more achievable) substitute. Perhaps that is just the way it is and it is too much to ask an oppressor to change his nature, become compassionate and stop the injustice. Equality can be defined, can be codified into law. Compassion by definition is from an individual heart, not formulaic and therefore cannot be codified. Furthermore the movements for equality have vastly improved human happiness. All true.
But without compassion we won’t meet the challenge of environmental and climate catastrophe. The idea of equality won’t be enough. The dolphins, the elephants, the mangroves, the rainforests – they won’t demand or fight for equality. They will just die.
And in fact there is no equality that makes sense when we talk of animals or plants or the Earth as a whole. Equality is a meaningless concept. Even a broader concept like ‘rights’ quickly becomes a quagmire of pointless theorising – with humans we have become exercised by questions such as: What are the rights of a child? Of the terminally ill? Of the criminal? So it will not be useful, as well as a waste of time and energy, to discuss or attempt to codify the rights of an otter or a river or the Earth.
We, in the broadest sense of ‘we’, are not equal. We are different and varied. We are whole forests and individual trees, storms and raindrops, children, men and women. No amount of reform of human society will work when all humans are oppressors. The only way out is to fundamentally change who we are by discovering the compassion in ourselves, for all of ‘us’.
Yes, us. All of us.
At Interactive Advisors, we encourage you to express your values as we offer you a vast choice of socially responsible portfolios that encompass diverse global causes. This Human Rights Day1, why not give responsible investing a go? Let’s do this together. Read more on SRI here.
Originally posted on November 8, 2019
PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/SaimonSailent
VIA SHUTTERSTOCK
FOOTNOTES AND SOURCES:
1 https://www.un.org/en/observances/human-rights-day
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