Equality and inequality: activism is "unequal", political friendships are "unfair".

we study history not because of what it
subtracts from the past but because of what it adds to the presence variations on that phrase have been said since time immemorial different people I'm not quoting anyone in particular norm I paraphrase anyone in particular but pretty much every pretentious history textbook says something along those lines and I say it that way because sometimes i wish i could subtract from the past i wish i could diminish the horrors of history by studying but you can and it's very real fact that today discussions about human equality and inequality the future of our society transpire in the shadow of scientific racism in the shadow of eugenics in the shadow of a history of theories of human inequality that murdered millions of people but that made the lives of hundreds of millions miserable you know um you know apart from the most extreme examples of what scientific racism can do to a society the more moderate examples the miseries that continued for a lifetime and for millions of lifetime's those happen on an unbelievably staggering scale even if we're just thinking about the last few centuries and there are many episodes I mean you know look at the history of the French colony in Haiti there are Horrors beyond belief that do not normally get onto the list of the most often examined and lamented examples and there are you know historical figures in the left wing also who were scientific racists you Jen assists etc he heard of a guy named John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes father of kings eNOS and most people think of him as left-wing why don't you go ahead and do a Google search on John Maynard Keynes eugenics or John Maynard Keynes anti-semitism you may be in for a shock for this reason naturally anything other than the most politically correct pablum statement on human equality and inequality is unwelcome that with resistance if not hostility and fear and I understand that but some the idea of equal rights is really a very different thing from the idea that humans are innately equal and the easiest way to obviate the problem of racism in discussing this is to talk about inequalities within the same family where you know people are brothers and sisters and therefore there's no ethnic difference between them I remember I had one girlfriend and she had only one sister never cease to amaze me whenever I saw the two of them together I can remember saying to my girlfriend because we knew other couples this app knew I said to her look you know I know one of the oldest stories in the book is of a man who cheats on his wife with his wife's sister you know there's always this temptation especially you know the younger sister because you know your wife's sister may strongly resemble your wife the same things that attracted you to your wife lead you to have an affair with your wife sister who I said to hurry so it's amazing whenever I look at your sister I can't even believe you're related they weren't half sisters they were full sisters and they were both blonde and they both had pale skin but in every other way I mean the qualities that made one sister attractive to me or totally absent in the other sister the physical qualities were absent the intellectual qualities the the emotional qualities of being a kind of caring person you know if if he were just such dramatically different people in every way and the the inequalities between them in both measurable and immeasurable ways were so striking you guys watch my channel for a while you may know I come from very large family I have a ridiculously large number of brothers and sisters and so from that of course I grew up with an awareness of just how deep inequalities can be between people even when they share the same blood or share most of the same blood or what have you and I passionately wanted to believe in human equality absolute human equality he was as a child it was deeply disturbing to me that anyone was born that anyone was born mentally disabled the idea that anyone was born with you know a cognitive disability that was deeply disturbing to me I wanted to believe that even though physically quality existed that mentally we were all equal and that is a kind of straitjacket ideology that really prevents us from having a pragmatic and positive and loving attitude of let's make the best of who we are let's appreciate the advantages and disadvantages each of us has you know whether you're forming a political group to advocate for veganism and ecology or you're putting together an amateur hockey team or whatever human inequalities physical intellectual inequalities of talent inequalities of ability are a fact of our lives day after day after day and it just does not benefit us in any way to ignore them or to try to embrace an ideologies that insists on treating everyone is equal now in a business context in a charity context in a political context and in your personal life and your friends I think the ultimate expression of inequality is not intellectual it's not your computing power and you have raw sense or something it's not it's not an Intel pardon me it's not an intelligence quotient I think the ultimate inequality is actually of trust of trustworthiness of reliability you can know someone who's a good person in many ways but they have a mental problem that means you would not trust them to drive a car they may be a great person but simply because they can at any time have for instance spasms they can lose control of their hands or something some of it could be a very simple problem doesn't make them a bad person other ways but it is not safe for the public it's not safe for them it's not safe for anyone to allow that person to drive a car and in the same way I've recently been getting you know some disgruntled messages from from one of my viewers hear about the open statements I made in a recent video about the difficulty of trusting someone or treating someone is reliable who may have a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder if you are working with them in a political organization can you trust them can you rely on them are they reliable in the ways that you need them to be reliable now all of us can't say all of us most of us in life have worked with people who had serious mental disabilities or you know diagnosed psychological disorders psychiatric disorders I have one long term frenemy who is considered legally insane in Canada do I treat him as equal to my other friends no i don't but i can appreciate the positive aspects of his character i can appreciate the redeeming qualities he has while I remain acutely aware of and cautious about the aspects of his character that maybe aberrant unreliable that may make him untrustworthy that may make him dangerous how do you evaluate someone when you hire them to be a babysitter how do you evaluate someone if you hire them for the job of being a fireman these things require first and foremost a certain kind of reliability a certain kind of trustworthiness and yes if you know someone is diagnosed with a serious you know mental disorder psychiatric disorder obviously that's going to raise a whole bunch of difficult questions about in what ways can I trust you with what tasks can I trust you what tasks can you be relied upon to do on your own what tasks you'll be realized to do to do with others so look last things first first things last the history of eugenics which has included the extermination of P with mental disorders in Canada it excluded included the extermination of our indigenous people the forced sterilization of our indigenous people especially in the two western most provinces by the way it's just included massacres and what have you obviously that history cast a shadow over this topic and it is very difficult politically for people whether they're left-wing right-wing center to have pragmatic discussions about this today but the concept of equal rights and equal opportunity actually does not entail equal responsibility nor equal trust I said in a recent video friendship is unequal maybe I can be your friend in some ways maybe I can trust you with some things while I'm aware that I can't trust you with others and maybe you live in a society that gives you equal rights and equal opportunity and you find a job and you're good at it but you still have a disability or a disorder that means that it is not safe for you to do something as simple as driving a car because that puts the public at risk and that puts you at risk this is the sort of dynamic inequality we all live with every day and you can live with it if you have many brothers and sisters you've probably seen these inequalities within your own family and that's the situation when there's no question of racism scientific racism etc etc