You're simply the best, but are you better than all the rest?

See if the following statement offends you: Some people are just better than others are.

Nick Woomer Back to the Woom

I am not bothered by this proposition. Allow me to elaborate.

There are two conceptions of the word "better." One conception denies the essential human dignity of certain groups of people; it has a lot of terrible implications - "master race" theories, eugenics, etc. This is definitely not what I mean. When I say that some people are better than others, I'm referring to another conception of "better" - "better" in the purely superficial sense. I am saying that if it were possible to take peoples' natural abilities (such as raw intelligence, athleticism, creative ability, comeliness, personal charisma, etc.) and rank everyone in relation to one another on the basis of the relative strengths of their natural abilities, some sort of hierarchy would emerge.

Ranking peoples' personal attributes (especially intelligence) is a politically sensitive topic and certainly extremely complicated - it is probably an impractical endeavor and may even be impossible.

But any honest person will admit that, in terms of our natural abilities, we are certainly not at all equal. Some people are just in better physical shape than others, some people are brighter than others and some people are just more attractive than others. If we are willing to admit this (and how can we not?) then why is it so inappropriate and disconcerting to us to say that one person can rank lower than another in every single category? What is there to be upset about? What are we trying to hide?

The answer is embedded in a typical counter argument to the idea that some people are superficially better than others. People like to retort that everyone (and they do mean everyone) has "some one thing" they're really good at. Every person, contends this argument, has some particular skill that they can perform better than anyone else does. Therefore, no one can be better than anyone else in the superficial sense.

Constructing a conclusive proof against the "some one thing" argument is probably exceedingly difficult. Still, the "some one thing" argument sounds so fishy, so desperate that we ought to be able to dismiss it safely. Are there really six billion different skills out there for each individual to excel in? Yet despite this, so many people remain incredibly committed to the notion of superficial equality - why? Because the myth of superficial equality (combined with the myth of a classless society) makes it easy for people to morally justify capitalism and the gross inequalities it produces.

Without relative equality of opportunity, capitalism becomes harder to justify on moral grounds. Ask any Republican or Libertarian, they'll tell you an individual's ability to be successful under capitalism is limited only by his or her willingness to work hard and/or innovate; this sounds pretty good to most people. But what if an individual's ability to be successful under capitalism is not only limited by his or her willingness to work and/or innovate? What if peoples' socioeconomic class and/or the strength of their natural abilities also affects their chances of success under capitalism? In that case, capitalism is probably going to start sounding like a pretty lousy system.

It is undeniable that the strength of one's personal attributes can make him or her prone to success in a capitalistic society. For example, if a person is highly intelligent, that person can become rich by inventing a new widget that a lot of people will want to buy. If we assume that there are no socioeconomic classes and if everyone is superficially equal, the economic playing field becomes pretty level and hard work/ingenuity becomes the independent variable in the equation for success.

Capitalist conceptions of property rights thrive on the notion that if a person owns something, they deserve to own it - that person either worked for what he or she owns or he or she was given what he or she owns by someone who worked to give it away. Unless he or she holds some ridiculous theological notion that proposes a zero-sum relationship between righteousness and the strength of one's natural abilities, no one is going to claim that smart people deserve to be smart or that pretty people deserve to be pretty. But if one's natural abilities play a significant role in his or her success under capitalism, how can we say that he or she deserves what he or she has "earned"?

We can't. To claim otherwise is to say that those superficial differences in peoples' natural abilities are actually substantive - that because some people are not as smart or creative as others, they are not entitled to live as well as their "betters." Now that ought to offend you.

- Nick Woomer can be reached via e-mail at nwoomer@umich.edu.