The flawed concept of equality

For example, the single most important determinant of our social standing in this society is the social class of our parents because, even though we give much lip service to the belief that anybody in America can achieve their dreams if their desire is strong enough, the facts simply don't support this mantra. A vast majority of people live and die in the same social class they're born into. There are certainly exceptions to the rule but they are just that; exceptions to the rule. But people who want to sell us a pig in a poke convince us to part with our cold, hard, cash by insisting that each of us can be the exception, rather than the rule, which, of course, is statistically impossible, because it would quit being the exception and become the rule.

Whites and Blacks are not born equal. Men and women are not born equal. Rich people and poor people are not born equal. People with special abilities and skills and people who have no special abilities and skills are not born equal. People with high IQ's and people with low IQ's are not born equal. Healthy people and handicapped people are not born equal. Attractive people and ugly people are not born equal. People with good genes and people with bad genes are not born equal. And the list goes go on and on. Our chances to succeed are not equal.

Let's say that I'm a young man who has my heart set on setting the world record for the one hundred meter dash and so I go out for track in high school and the first time I run the race, my time is three whole seconds off the world record. In track, hundredths of a second often separated the winner from the loser so is it possible through hard work, sacrifice and discipline that I might one day set the world record? No, it's not. I will most likely be able to cut time off my first attempt, maybe even tenths of seconds, but three whole seconds? No, not three whole seconds. It's un-doable.

Or maybe I want to play basketball and set the record for the number of slam dunks in a season but I only have a 6-inch vertical leap. The basket is 10 feet high. If I stretch the ball as far over my head as possible while standing on my tip-toes, the ball will be seven feet from the ground. With my 6-inch vertical leap, I'm still two and a half feet short of the rim. Can I, through hard work, discipline, and sacrifice, learn and develop the ability to jump two and a half feet higher than I can jump now? No, not two and a half feet. Maybe several inches. Maybe even a foot at the outside. But not two and a half feet. It's un-doable.

Some of you remember when John F. Kennedy Jr. the son of the former President, graduated from law school, took the bar exam two or three times before he passed it, and then ended up as an assistant prosecutor in New York City, mostly unnoticed and allegedly not very skillful or insightful in the practice of law so he decided to pursue another course. He decided to start a new magazine, specializing in politics that he decided to call "George‚" for George Washington. Deciding to publish a magazine is a huge enterprise requiring a lot of up-front capital (which he had) and a ton of advertising (which he got). He got it because when he placed a call to Karl Langerfeld, or Calvin Klein, or Ralph Lauren or any other person running top-of-the-line companies that advertised in his first issue, he got to speak to the principals directly, rather than going through channels, and they were all happy and excited to advertise in his maiden issue. It wouldn't be quite so easy for the rest of us. It fact it would be darn near impossible. JFK Jr. had capital and name recognition and, in fact, more of both than 99 percent of the people in the country.

I'm sure some of you saw the news story last week of the 100 year old man who ran a marathon, stopping half way to drink a beer and smoke a cigarette before finishing the race, saying when he finished that smoking and drinking hadn't killed him yet. The man has good genes.

On the other hand, the man who gets most of the credit for starting the running craze a couple of decades ago was Jim Fixx. Jim was out on one of his regular runs one day when he had a massive heart attack and dropped dead at the age of 52. Jim had bad genes.

We've always heard that life isn't fair, but life isn't equal either.