Equality: The History of an Elusive Idea

Historian McMahon (Divine Fury) tracks the concept of equality across time in this meticulous account. Surveying the concept from early hunter-gatherer societies through today, McMahon contends that the idea of equality is often utilized to buttress “hierarchy and exclusion,” since the notion of equality is often formed through the identification of an out-group. In ancient Greece, the out-groups were the lower classes and foreign enemies of the city-states; during the rise of Christianity, sinners or nonbelievers; and in colonial America, enslaved Africans and women. McMahon notes the paradox that in these societies, one’s “independence” was partially measured by “the ability to exercise authority” over others. In the 20th century, Marxism “generated and thrived on exclusions,” according to McMahon, while fascist regimes used “new languages of equality to bind their peoples together on the basis of shared history, identity, and blood.” After WWII, the notion of equality was extended to encompass relationships between nations through the U.N. Charter’s call for “sovereign equality.” McMahon concludes with a consideration of questions of equality generated by today’s identity politics, noting the emergence of “an extraordinary, even utopian, departure from previous understandings” that embraces acknowledgment of difference as the foundation of equality. While this thoughtful account provides no easy answers about where society is headed, it ably shows how opposing viewpoints can draw on the same ideal while advocating for starkly different futures. (Nov.)