Liam Kavanagh Equality of Being Talk at Untitled Festival

Liam Kavanagh presented on the "Equality Complex" and "Equality of Being" at the Untitled Festival, on 17th & 18th September 2020.

This talk explored the implications of understanding equality intellectually, and introduced the wider topic of the Equality Complex.

Below you can watch the Equality of Being talk from day 1 of the festival.

For more information on the Untitled Festival and the wider Politics of Being discussions please visit here.

You can learn more about the Equality Complex here.

Watch the talk

Transcript

Speakers: Liam Kavanagh, Sylvie Barbier, Rufus Pollock, Workshop Participants

Liam Okay, so, you know, I'll start this presentation immediately with that title with a, you know, spoiler alert, that the presentation isn't about that equality is wrong by any means. You know, on the contrary, you know, the idea of equality needs a mention, it has done an incredible amount for us. And to sort of build with what Rufus was talking about earlier. Many things that we get stuck in are a source of stuckness, or a response to a traumatic situation, most of our ancestors would have been at some time, stuck in a highly traumatic situation of serfdom, or slavery, or, you know, oppression of various kinds. And the idea of equality, you know, is gotten us where we are, in many ways is serving as a political rallying cry. And so, by no means, am I going to question overall the use of the idea of equality or say that's wrong. But I'll start with just a short story, right, the first time I ever visited a plum village, monastery, actually, it was the sister monastery, in in San Diego called Deer Park was the first time I heard this, but and every, you know, every monastery in the system, they do this, before a meal, we renew our aspiration to be free of the inferiority complex, the superiority complex and the equality complex. And the first time I heard that, I said, Wow, that's really interesting. You know, they're talking about something that I, that I knew about, and I took a sort of trip down memory lane. And particularly the first sentence coming from from my mother, who is a school teacher who would complain bitterly at the dinner table that she had to teach the children that they could all do anything they want. And then she would have this students who would be not particularly good basketball players, who thought they were going to be professionals in you know, in middle school and didn't need to study anything. But sort of as a matter of course, and she had to save or anybody can do anything we want, or times in university when things got very contentious. For example, Professor insinuated that the warrior culture of Japan feudal Japan, put different emphasis on the value of males and females, because basically, they were fighting all the time for land rights, Samurai culture, and so men being more you know, capable or better wielding swords, on average, got a higher value. And then there was huge amount of consternation, which the existence of size and strength differences between males and females generally was disputed, and, you know, the class erupted into into argument. Of course, anybody you know, knows, testosterone is steroids are synthetic, synthetic testosterone, you know, giving taking extra amount of typically male hormone is considered a performance enhancing drug in athletics, that's what they do is they just measure the amount of testosterone in your system and if you have too much of it, then you're disqualified from competition. So there's, there's some difference there. And then, of course, much of the ideology of communism, which I can't go into because of time constraints, but I worked for a while as an economic researcher in Tanzania, which was the only African socialist country sort of working with people who had been there under Julius Nyerere and but okay, tell me all about what happened, the perversities of the developed in that system which were very much in parallel to what happened in Eastern Europe. But going back to, to Plum Village and we understand the inferiority complex, the superiority complex, and I think, but what about equality?

And so, the difference is basically, you can see, okay, you know, I mean, it's really, you know, I'm greater than you is ticked off, I would say, I'm more on, I'm worried that I'm less than you. But if, if, you know, I'm worried about being equal, right, we're still measuring right? I am doing that on purpose. Yeah, I can I can resume sharing at any point. So, you know, and what that builds is an experience of ourselves as separate from each other. Right? And so experiencing ourselves not as a we but as two separate people. Right. So at that point, which just was sort of a dualism, and I think the point that I want to get at by saying questioning equality is that like, we've decided that it's, it's real, right? Okay, I should skip four to this right? To get that sort of, made a little bit more concrete, we could say, you know, X is good, but obsession with x is not so good. So if you put anything in those blanks, you know, then most people agree with good looking, being good looking as good. But being obsessed with good looking is not so good. Being intelligent is good, but being obsessed with intelligence is not so good. However, my experience is that if you put equality in that, that blank, then people can get quite reactive, right? Which is, really, this is sort of a paraphrase of what would end up make being a paraphrase. And if you put equality in that blank of a famous quote, by text, equality is not a source of suffering, but they call the equality complex is because we're separate from one another, which a lot of people wouldn't understand about that. Okay, so, at that point, I think we take a break for just a few questions if people have them. And people understand essentially the point there. Unmute yourself if you have a question or a comment at this point.

Rufus We can take more time.

Liam
I, well, the things we're doing is very beautiful. I think that when we touch, subject like equality, I mean, in this PowerPoint, we can't we, we start from a moral stance, and we arrive also to have psychological stance when we speak about obsession. But all these, let's say, and flow of this problematics come from the enlightenment, period. And we are we are not yet out from the enlightenment. In the Enlightenment period, that is not to say your rights are my right. My freedom is your freedom, but who draw the lines then someone else come and sit in ask who draw the lines that my rights are your rights or my freedom is your freedom. And when we speak about these things, then assistant terms a group of people and start to sing in order to system because we submissively have in our human nature that sometimes we are exhausted, as Alistair said, and we need the gui… and we need guidance. We need someone that takes over our responsibility to make the job. So the thing is that unless we don't change ourselves first then we are like a cat that is after its tail continually. I don't know if I was clear in saying this, you know equality is a good stance, intellectually speaking, but in the concrete in the in tangibly, what is it? Right, what we may call this long winded ideas. And we talked about them, but in to practice. I mean, the game now is to put into practice these things, and it's very difficult. I don't know if, as species, we are evolved at that point, to do the step that is necessary to do it to transform society. Because otherwise we create system over system and it's since centuries that we create system based on structural error case, because it seems that is the only thing that we can meet like that comes out naturally. Like the lions is the head of the herd, and they are all the girls of the lions going hunting? No. So it's, it's a structural system. But it's by nature, of course, we have the gift of the intellect. And of course, to understand emotion, and I think, if I'm allowed Rufus, what you have started with, with the with the lady, is because we don't recognize so often our emotions, so we fail to put into practice, what we really need, not just what we really want, and what the others needs are no, so is to go to see where the quality goes now, because it's something that is crucial to them. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I mean, I totally agree with everything you're saying. I mean, that that's kind of, you know, I would say that that's basically, when you say that something is the truth right but basically, what's happened is we decided equality is the truth. And you can say it's the intellectualization of moral life. It's the way like what the West is used to kind of make morality intellectual, like it does everything else, right, which is just more alienation of life itself. It's like, because people don't love each other, we need to invest in a system of morality that can safeguard us, and we'll build it on equality, but in order to enforce it, then we need a system. So we're back in, you know, we're back in mechanics again. And, you know, how do you and you know, we see what strikes people, it's a mechanical, political dialogue. Of course, it's all around us. No surprise. Any other comments?

Speaker 4 And happy to jump on and then invite the female voices? For me the question here, overall into the group, because I think we're all pretty advanced is like, how meta do we go. So I think it's a very unnecessary to discussion to go beyond equality, those seeing 98% of, you know, the wealth of humanity distributed to very few people, or, to a very large extent, still seeing female rights suppressed on the vast majority of all countries. I'm totally a fan of like natural hierarchies, and the whole, you know, whole logical, let's say, meta, systematic approach, like from integral. And at the same time, I think what we need to build into a society, it's nice to think grant equality, once equality is installed, right, and lower middle class, middle class, avant garde social entrepreneur, Living Berlin, mitad, and it becomes funky, but to the vast majority of very underprivileged, like, let's say, bottom of the pyramid, it only becomes sort of a mental abstraction, right? When you live in a live like bottom of the pyramid, let's say in India, or wherever. Anyhow, I just wanted to make that point, because we need to abstract the level of abstraction that we bring on to a discussion to be able to discern on what level of discourse we're actually operating in was that I leave this whole

Liam just to briefly respond to that. So another way of looking at that question I get it sometimes is that the West is vigorously espoused to put it mildly its belief in equality and utterly failed to do this for a very long time. So bottom of your list thing is that well, we can afford to let go of equality after we achieve it. What evidence is there that this will ever achieve? It would be my response? Right? So So I would look at history and say there is zero chance of it after being being reached by this goal. So saying that it's premature, because we have to wait until it is achieved, the system that is utterly failed to ever really achieve it. Right, by basically pursuing the same line of logic that has been pursued. Right, is is a difficult proposition. Right? And so that's the question is like, is it a luxury to let go of it, or it's an admission that basically what we've been doing so thus far, has not been super effective? Right? Like, we have not stood for third world equality? Right? It's the third world, right? The when the climate change starts to hit, and Bangladesh goes under water, I mean, who really believes the West is morally prepared? Or has been morally preparing to do what's required to achieve equality in those circumstances?

Question to the the, the people here. Right. The the, the fact that we're here is not equal. The the, the this is like selected by by the the organization then the way here. So I'm just curious the other than the fact that we're here, the equality is the right topic, right approach, because if we were really equals and then we wouldn't be here. Like, there was there was some kind of value system at play. And then that's brought us here. And so I'm curious to see if the equality is the right topic, to discuss among this members, of individuals.

Sylvie
Well, I think what we're trying to point is like, what are a lot of our blind spots as a collective that holds us that gets us stuck, because we're obviously stuck. Like you look at the world, we can't sort out climate change, like there is rise of anger, political anger that is happening, and what are those blind spots? And like, we were trying to say, it's like, oh, the equality complex is a massive blind spot that we hold. And where is it then in our life, we see equality, the equality, complex play outside in the world, but also in our life. And, like, equality is a concept, it doesn't exist out there in the world, you can't give me equality.

Liam So we need to kind of wrap it up as well. Like, it's well, I mean, to really get to the point in which I think we get the set like love and compassion, right? Or like, what people actually get to the, like, if you actually look at wisdom traditions, right, who have guided most societies throughout history, right, but the core of morality usually is cultivating love and compassion is like virtually absent from the conversation of the West. And my response to that would be look, look at James Baldwin, James Baldwin, you know, when he, he started the thing, why he didn't talk to white people about racism anymore? Because you said back in the 50s, and 60s, I don't want to be apt to tell you why you are racist, you tell me. Right. And so if you know, who's perpetuating inequality in the world, well, like the people, you know, we're probably we're part probably part of that intellectual culture. And it's a bit like, I would kind of say that I would, Baldwin said, was to look really hard inside, you know, that like people should work really hard inside and tell him why are they so racist? Why can't they get rid of their racism? And so, I mean, the conversation in that, you know, in that discussion kind of falls back on the people who are perpetrating it right and if we are unequal and somehow part of a system which generates inequalities, but we are powerful people, you can say like, well, we feel bad about privilege, but But okay, with privileges comes great responsibilities. And if you aren't looking inside and saying like, why are we stuck? They can't tell us why we're stuck that people aren't here. I mean, they don't they probably never met anybody like us. No one is going to come from Sub Saharan Africa and tell you why you are stuck.

Speaker 3
Just my personal point of view I am

Speaker 4
about very intentionally I have not heard Sana … on and

Rufus
Sana, I saw you're recommending a book, re authoring the world, you like to give us a little information about what this book is.

Speaker 7 I don't know if my internet will break up. It's just that we're, we're blind to the dominant narratives have dominant narratives, such as hyper individualism, commercialism, patriarchy, what? That were allergic to those, we're certified. So these narratives and West and other cultures have other narratives. And it's just like, you just confirm and accept them. And that's like, that's the only way to be able to lean into new narratives. And and really just see like, okay, inequality is a symptom of something else. What is it the symptom of its, it's not the disease. And racism, that's not a simple something. And the only way you're on fire?

Way to be in the swamp in a racist society racist structures. So yes, probably I have a lot of racism within me. I don't want to I'm not responsible, responsible for it. But I can take responsibility to, I can take responsibility for it starts with me. And I see like all of us, the systems we live in as humans, it's living systems. So just change starts with me. Yeah, on the regard of the individual, and the collective individual on the system, yeah. So that's what I'm sitting with right now. And that's what I recommend that that book by Chen is work, because in very simple way, puts words to these narratives on how to change. If you're a facilitator, it's a very interesting approach.

Rufus Pollock Just to check me in, I really want to let more people share. Also, just to create this, this was intentionally a two part session, because it takes time to go into these things. I know that Bjorn may not feel that we have answered his question fully, but I can assure you, I assure you will attempt to, but just to flag this the session to tomorrow, we can continue now. But just to be clear, that like, we're kind of part of the way you will be continuing both the equality complex, but then coming back into how you know how I think like Sana was just alluding to it, which is kind of distinguishing certain things starts to give you a power and like when you see something you have now somehow an act about it or not, you know, you can take responsibility for it. You're no longer just at the effect of it. You know, and I think also Liam was alluding earlier to like, what's really behind equates competence, compassion and love. And so this to say it's gonna be part two tomorrow that will continue this. So it's not like this is it because this is almost like we're in the middle of not yet reached completion. But I also want to allow us time now I know we are at time if people do need to draw

Liam discussions, find co signers point I think Sana was really getting at it. Yeah. Like separation is, is at the root of all of these things, right? And we've kind of, we're really getting back to this realization, that non separation, there's something you know, basic human goodness is is at the root of inequality and racism. And that's a, you know, take Hans point of the, of the, of the quote that said, you know, equality, you i and we have to equal? Well, these are two separate entities. And that's a certain kind of thinking, which is not. It's discriminatory, right? In the Buddhist sense, right? Discriminating view from I, and comparing them, right. That's the mindset of comparison. And yeah, I think that's fair. I'd like to say for it for now. And

Rufus so we go,

Slyvie
yeah, I think what we're trying to get life itself pointed. Like, if we are here at untitled to imagine a radically different future, it is important to really question what are the ground on which we stand? Like, you can't build a future before you kind of made some space for it. So it is very important that we interrogate what are maybe things that we are the pillar in which we build a society that led us to where we are now, both the wonders of it, and the dysfunctionality of it is, like, if we don't do that first is like, putting concrete on top of shit. And the exercise we're doing here is like, okay, like, take out the concrete and look at the shit a bit, clean that up. So we can actually truly create a beautiful, radically better future. And it is something that takes time, and is looking at our shadows a bit. And it's an important exercise to do.