Aim: Why Are The Terms, “Equality”, “Rights” And “Alike” Important To Society?
Do Now: Why do you believe that “equality” has been the “hot topic” of discussion in society? Why do you believe that society is so concerned with the equality of people?
To start off the day, this question was posed to us for discussion. The overall response to the first part of the question were basic, well known facts. Groups stated that nobody likes being treated as inferior to others and likes having a fair fight. Of course there are some exceptions to that, but the majority of people feel better being treated as equals. Equality is just what these people wish for in order to even out the playing field. Moving on to the second part of the question, there were a variety of responses for it. One student said that people who don’t get what they want become angry, and society doesn’t wish to deal with angry citizens. Another student mentioned that equality is something many people are passionate about, but there are many different possible interpretations for the meaning of “equality.” And a more relevant, modern problem that still goes on in today’s world, is racism and other prejudices against people with different appearances. Equality for those people is a common issue.
After the Do Now, the class proceeded to turn into their teams. In our teams, we discussed what life would be like in a total equal society by answering questions pertaining to them. We discussed what laws would be in an equal society, the problems that might arise, and whether true equality is possible to achieve. There were a total of six questions in total. They were:
- Agree/Disagree: Life in the USA would be perfect if everyone were totally
equal. Why?
- You are designing a society in which everyone is equal. What are the laws?
- What would you do to help people who were less capable mentally, physically, or socially to “catch up”?
- What problems can you foresee that might arise in a society with enforced “equality for all”?
- How would you handle those problems?
- Do you believe that total equality is possible, or would human nature assure that some people would eventually dominate others?
Following the team discussion, there was a class discussion, where the students told the whole class what they discussed in their groups. Throughout the discussion, students voiced out their opinions on each of these questions. that life would never be perfectly fair for everyone. Perpetual equality would be hard to achieve because not everyone would agree with everything, and in order to have order in society, authority is needed. But that automatically defines the concept of total equality. Furthermore, the interpretation of what “total equality” means also plays a factor in how “perfect” a society can be. Depending on whether equality means total equality in every facet of life or specific organizations, life in a country where everyone were totally equal would differ.
Our class also pitched in their thoughts on what kind of laws a society where everyone is equal would have. Some of these ideas were: no favoritism in races or gender (which also ties in with not judging someone based on their physical attributes), no killing or stealing, treating others with respect, along with other laws along the same line. One particular problem with these laws, however, is that criminals would have to be given free reign. Because if they were arrested for killing and stealing, as mentioned above, they would be seen as “inferior” to the common folk, which goes against a totally equal society. In the same vein, people who are less capable mentally, physically and/or socially than regular people would be seen as “superior” than everybody else if they get better treatment in order for them to catch up with everybody else. In both cases, a true equal environment would prevent special needs people from getting special treatment as well as allow crime to flourish. One way a classmate mentioned in order to solve this particular problem, was to give everyone else better treatment if the less capable were also given better treatment.
In an equal society, everyone would get the exact same thing, but there is no possible way to have a completely equal society if there are laws, and people to make sure that equality is being followed.
Reflection:
After the day’s lesson, I came to realize how exactly nonliteral the societies of today’s world take the word “equality.” With the help of my classmate’s diverse opinions, I learned that having a perfect equal society was impossible. I always knew that humans had some kind of intictual quality of having biases, but in today's class period, I managed to apply that knowledge on a long fight for issue in history. Today, I learned that all humans are going to have a bias in life about anything and anyone, which will influence any decisions they make. As such, everyone preaching about having equality won’t ever get true equality. But it was also due to this lesson that I acknowledged that total equality may not be a positive thing as people are saying it is. Learning all this was necessary for me to understand that not everything is black and white. I now understand that equality, in the eyes of the common people, represents only a fraction of what it actually means. The world outside of school is a vast place, where people have to make constant decisions on what’s best for themselves and others. Take the political parties for example. There might be a situation where you don’t completely agree with any of them. This knowledge will help me to think more thoroughly about the things around me, and to never take things at face value. I know some people can think that they’re already doing so, but more often than not, we let our biases control us without even noticing.
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