The equivalent exchange principle

In the past week, England has been assaulted by violent riots which have shocked the world and many theories have been put forward to explain this phenomenon. In the following article, Rebekah Hebbert explains these recent events by a lack of morality and the prevalence of relativism in western societies. And while I don't believe in pure relativism, here is however the rational outlook on the situation.

While Miss Hebbert is coherent, she makes one assumption which is at the basis of her argument with which I don't agree. She mixes relativism with anarchy when she says that doing no harm is an arbitrary moral principle. That is not true. If you are an extreme supporter of relativism, you believe that every person has the right to choose what they want to believe. It also comes with the principle that no belief is more important or has more value than any other. And if you are to take Descartes' principle of "I think therefore I am", you equate a person's existence or being with their cognitive activity and therefore their beliefs (I make here the assumption that all beliefs are the product of a rational process and while that is an entirely different argument, I do think that to be true for every person believes what they do either because of their education, their past, their disposition, etc.). Therefore, if all beliefs are equal, all people are equal. And if you respect all beliefs, you must respect all people and their right to live out their beliefs. And for that, you must not harm them. Relativism represents a person's freedom to think and to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't overlap with that of someone else and the difficulty stands in determining where one freedom ends and another one starts (material and physical damage on the other hand are way across the line so it's not hard to figure out that me hurting you or breaking into your house and stealing is not supported by a relativist philosophy). You can look at relativism as a continuum where everyone is connected and I can only push so far without bumping into the person next to me. Anarchy on the other hand is quite egocentric and does not consider others. It is individual freedom pushed to the extreme without taking into account the others around.

I believe that what happened in England is a mix of all the reasons mentioned in the article. Yes society is relativistic and yes conflicting points of view can stand side by side. However, the "do no harm" imperative has been respected because relativism holds it in high esteem. But when figures of authority such as policemen and business people break it by abusing their position, the equality of people principle comes into place. Therefore, if those in authority believe that hurting those in a lesser position is alright, then that last group of people will come to the conclusion that such a belief is valid for them as well. And here the continuum and connectivity breaks and we slip into anarchy. But this only happened because those in authority chose to break relativist principles in the first place. Kind of like Newton's 3rd law that states that if you exert a force on an object, that object will exert an equal and opposite force on you.

However, I have to say that pure relativism is impossible to attain in any society because stereotypes and prejudice exist, thus putting an imbalance in the perceived value of a person and his or her beliefs. For example, if I were to believe that people who are unemployed are in this situation because they are lazy and I were to consider laziness as a bad thing, then I would come to see these people as a bad thing for society and this would decrease their value as a person and the value of their beliefs in my eyes. But you see, if I were a pure relativist, I would never harm them because I would consider that there is no absolute truth so I cannot be sure that I am right and, in the offset chance that I am wrong, me harming them would become objectionable. So if we think about it, it is not relativism that is in cause here, but, on the contrary, the fact that people think that there is an absolute truth and that they possess it. Therefore, they would excuse harming others by saying that they work in the name of truth and goodness or if they are conscious that what they are doing is bad, then they would see it as just payback for a wrong that they have been done in the past (like the death penalty for criminals).

This situation in England started because a man who was being arrested by the police got killed in the process (we had something similar in Canada when a young black got killed by the police in Montreal North). Therefore, the policemen stereotype and their targets want justice for the wrong that they perceived has been done to them. Which brings us to the conclusion that, like I mentioned earlier, the problem is not relativism, but the belief in an absolute truth which is based not on reason, but on emotion, stereotypes and prejudice.

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost". That is the principle of equivalent exchange. If, for whatever reason, the scale points in favor of a group, all equilibrium is lost and sooner or later revolt will come in order to restore the balance (thesis and antithesis bring about synthesis like good old Marx said). The only damper on this particular revolt is that it was done impulsively and as a means to vent out accumulated frustrations and to get even. Therefore, instead of restoring any balance, it will achieve the exact opposite as the government's response seems to be a turn towards absolute control (actually, it kind of reminds me of the US' attitude towards communists during the Cold War). All that to say that we still have a long way to go until equivalent exchange will be respected (in England as well as everywhere else in the world; look at the Middle East or the civil wars over elections in Africa). But for that, we must recognize our problems for what they are. Not a question of philosophy or morality. But an imbalance of power and wealth that is not always distributed based on individual effort alone. Life's not fair, true! But we must strive to make it as fair as possible.