I want to treat all humankind accepting peace and non-violence equally. One quickly realises this can't work in full. I'm not giving maths lessons to all the kids round here who need them but am teaching my grandson. Most people can't even be trusted to find out simple and easily available facts in making decisions or coming to argument. There's an interesting example at - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely - which shows most in the US think things are more equal than they are and actually want them more equal than they think (already a massive fictional improvement on reality). I don't treat all women as equally as my partner.
This doesn't lead me to dispatch equality as a concept - just recognise it's an ideal with complexity. Teaching has led me to the view that most people don't want to learn much. I suspect schooling inculcates this in most. I've had a glut of the stuff and can feel the bildung was for nothing in the freezing moral climate of banksterism, selfish, plastic society and the eye for the main chance. One teaches people who have to make their way in this world but we seem to teach them very little about it. If I ask students how much agriculture contributes to world GDP, most of the answers are between 30 - 60%. It's 4%. How did they get so dumb? If I show students where to find the information they can get the right answer. Sooner or later as a lecturer you discover students have to be led by the nose - only a few are really interested in thinking for themselves and becoming independent thinkers. If the above is the case in universities, what hope is there for an educated populace capable in democracy? Our politicians have long given up on this as the case and are now vying for votes in emotional ignorance and the fantasy worlds generated by alienation from facts - even antipathy towards them. Over here in the Banana Republic of the Sceptred Isle our PM Herr Cameroon has noticed hardly any kids get adopted any more and it takes over two years on average. This is dire evidence of jobsworth bureaucracy. I'm sure it is. I have noticed that "economics" pours nearly all available a monetary value can be put on into the hands of a few rich. This is evidence the economic system doesn't work. If he rings me up, I'll fix the adoption system - as long as he does his job on what I've noticed. Both these facts are true and admitting they are is important - but facts are not all there is to argument. And argument is the blight of democracy - it isn't about investigation and enquiry. It's about persuasion of the populace - a populace to lazy to do its own work on the facts, tired of its failure in an education system that ensures there is no benefit in finding out for yourself.
