A Dark Take on Inequality

I have been hearing a lot about inequality lately. Everyone, and I mean literally everyone, has termed it greatest evil facing mankind. Really?

I say inequality is about as crucial to life as air to breathe and water to drink, but only when you’re on the right side of it. If you’re on the wrong side, you’re fucked. If everyone’s rich and educated, who’s gonna scrape the commode clean when I’m done taking a shit? If everyone goes to McDonald’s to place the order, who’s gonna deliver it to me? If everyone is Steve Jobs, who’s gonna die of heat and overwork at a Chinese factory while making one of his phones that I can use to retweet the news of that very death?

Human race needs inequality to progress. The poor are nothing but the modern euphemistic equivalent of slaves, whom we all must thank for enabling the super comfy world of today. Nothing has changed. Back then, there were chains to tie them up with, now there is hope. Hope that one day they will, too, be rich.  Hope is the opium of the poor. Hope is the dangerous cocktail and it comes packaged in the form of promise of education and equal opportunity, leading to social mobility and eventual richness down the generations. This isn’t too different from how men have controlled women, previously by force, and now by the lure of good looks, big boobs, tight ass, shaved vagina, waxed legs, perfectly-done eyebrows, earrings, nose-rings, big bags, high heels, tube tops, low necklines.

Let’s leave the women for later and come back to controlling the poor through hope. Hope is often considered a necessary evil. It isn’t. It is either necessary or evil, but never both at the same time – necessary for the rich, and evil for the poor. Hope is necessary for the rich to maintain society’s status quo. Hope is evil for the poor because it is a mirage that the poor die chasing, exactly what the likes of Paul Krugman want them to do as they draw six-figure Dollar salaries for researching and writing op-eds about inequality. Hope is Huxley's dystopia brought alive. Hope is the carrot that those on the right side of inequality dangle just high enough to keep those on the wrong side jumping up perpetually without realising how shitty their lives are. Of course, time and again, the carrot is lowered just enough to let a few grab it. That serves a purpose too – of making hope realistic, and making those unsuccessful jumps permanent and all-captivating.

On the nature of Happiness

Happiness, the indisputable goal of human existence. Happiness, the end goal of every human being’s actions.

But, is happiness really all that important? In a recent gathering of friends, everyone except me seemed to agree, to the point that the idea that happiness could be overrated was not open to debate. Not willing to ruffle the tranquility of the gathering, I turned inward and introspected - had happiness been the end goal of all my actions so far?

The question turned out more intricate than I’d thought. Before I could answer it to myself, perhaps for the first time I had to stop and think about the meaning of “happiness”. Of course, we all know it’s a good feeling. At the surface, all actions that I undertake are either for the sake of survival or for the sake of happiness. If I buy veggies, it’s because I need it to live. If I write and run – two of my favourite activities presently – I do get a good feeling at the end of each. That should settle the debate in favour of happiness, right? Nope. Not that simple. The enquiry about happiness has more layers to peel.

As one of the friends in the gathering pointed out, he derived the most happiness from human relationships – from actions such as taking a long drive in a slightly inebriated state with a bunch of friends. Sure, friends make me happy too. But if that good feeling can be derived from such simplistic actions that require nil effort, why do I write and run? After all, both of these activities require considerable heartburn, frustration, and sheer mental and/or physical exhaustion, before the good feeling can be felt.

Writing and running is easy. Why would one perform the unthinkably painful act of summiting Mount Everest, when the same good feeling can be derived from being a couch potato? Or, why would one build Google and Microsoft, when going on a drive with friends suffices? To me, the answer boils down to just one thing – not all happiness is equal. Such a ‘higher form’ of happiness, often derived from goal-setting, toil and accomplishment, is what Aristotle called “Eudaimonia”. Like all things precious, Eudaimonia is exacting and often downright nonsensical to those who don’t strive for it. On the other hand, the ‘lower form’ of happiness is akin to a stroll in the park – easy and devoid of the need for any enterprise, bang in the centre of one’s comfort zone.

I realise I come off pretty judgemental right now, trying to distinguish between the degree and sources of happiness for individuals. But here’s what convinces me of my argument – the gathering unanimously agreed that rarity was the currency that gave activities such as a booze-laced evening with friends its value. Too much of it, and it would get boring.

Fairness creams are fair game

Only Bill Burr can do complete justice to this topic, but I’ll take a shot.

An article in today’s IE (http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/attack-on-africans-ban-on-fairness-advertisements-unfair-and-unlovely-2831346/) pointedly highlights the vicious anti-dark skin prejudice in India. Indeed, that’s true. Mindless beating up of Africans, bullying of dark-skinned kids, preference for fair people in jobs etc. are all reminders of the dark skin-phobia a lot of Indians so dearly nurture in their heart.

But of course, just like racism itself, no admonishment of it is untouched by the obnoxious PC culture – the kind that compels idiots to use the dark thumbs-up smiley on WhatsApp. Inevitably, such articles veer into conflating personal preferences with institutional racism. How is a preference for fair-skinned love interests or life partners any different from that for tall, able-bodied, wealthy, and educated ones?

As an individual, it is my indisputable right to choose who I want to talk to, my friends, and life/love partners as per my preferences. Racism starts where the boundary between personal and public is overstepped, such as in case of discrimination in jobs, and bullying someone for being dark-skinned, since they’re dastardly ways of inflicting personal preferences on another.

If preference for fair skin is such a social evil, why shouldn’t preference for dark hair be? Or for that matter, bigger boobs? And oh, what about the latest fad in town – abs? How unfortunate are those parts of human anatomy that haven't yet had an -ism started under their name. Do I sniff discrimination, PC warriors? So yeah, let’s have hairism, boobism, absism, and what-have-you-ism. But let’s start with the lowest hanging fruit – the proudly brandished about “TDH”. Let’s rechristen it tallism,racism,lookism.

The article calls for a ban on fairness creams. I say, why? After all, what is entrepreneurship but a knack for knowing what people would pay for? It isn’t the State’s job to determine individual preferences, or to have a confidence-building ministry for those rendered diffident by their dark skin. Those who don’t like such creams are free to ignore them, it’s a matter of personal preference. Getting them banned would be, ironically, inflicting one’s preference on another - the root cause of all social evils. If fairness creams are banned, so should matrimonial advertisements and websites, and liposuction and body-enhancing supplements and surgeries. Best solution: stay clear of bans and let the individual decide.