I think you’re right about the natural basis of equality. It’s big, complicated and hard to change like you say, and inherent in any society that progresses past agriculture and into what we’d think of as civil society. I’m really glad you said that doesn’t make it a good thing though. As a society it’s something we need to work on and change: Personally, I don’t accept that just because something is natural it should stay, and I’m glad that your side went down this line in the debate.

My biggest issue is simply that any argument made for or against inequality in that debate could be flipped on its head to support the other side: for example, if prisons more Maori are imprisoned than is proportionate then that could enforce a standard of inequality, or the disproportionate representation could just as easily be termed a long-term natural result of New Zealand’s history, and if you run down a Fatal Impact theory line an inevitable result of two entirely different cultures clashing. Refugee inequality can be a natural response to their backgrounds and skills, or an unnatural result of people approaching the issue as if refugees are somehow less than them (Australia for example). That, I think, is part of why this is such a hard issue to debate: anything and everything can be twisted to support both sides. You did a much better job of working with and justifying the evidence than we did, and completely deserved to win as a result 🙂

Whenever someone tells me something is obvious, or it is trivial, I assume they are trying to hide the fact they believe something but haven’t got a fully articulated argument for it 😉

Agree, its hard to tell what we mean by equality, because it often means making interventions/policies that are ‘unequal’, for example more spending on education in poor areas.

It seems to me that there is often a very strong appeal to emotion when discussing inequality. Phrases like “everyone knows” “its obvious that” are ubiquitous…which make discussion about inequality especially difficult.

Also, can I plug myself on the comment of your post – or will I get in trouble for spamming 😛

http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2013/07/23/article-on-rates-blog-on-inequality/

http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2013/09/05/quote-of-the-day-amartya-sen-on-inequality/

http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2013/09/12/quote-of-the-day-sen-on-inequality-and-rhetoric/

😉

Those who want to act as if “inequality” is a set bad and “equality” a set good are being naive and lazy – and basing policy on that would be dangerous. I am assuming no-one went to that extreme though, so this comment is not targeted at anyone 🙂