Field Note 4.2—An Ontology of Equality

Why Authority Needs Care; and Care, Authority

In a real sense, nature has an order—a syntax of things—made not so much of atoms as of words. 

For what is an atom, after all, but a word? 

And when we rework the words by which our worlds are ordered, we reorder that syntax, make the world anew—tested against our own senses, experience, and reason. 

Thus we preserve our independence of mind and freedom.

Orwell warned us that authoritarian governments flatten description and constrict vocabulary in order to maintain control. They repeat words, phrases, and slogans so incessantly that at last these become as familiar as our own voice, and we mistake their rhetoric for truth, and measure all things against it.

What does not fit the familiar description is cast aside, apocryphal. 

And when their language grows loud enough, we lose the capacity to hear the subtle whisper—our own voice—that might tell us what they would prefer remain unnoticed.

So, we slow down—to notice, listen, think, and describe the world ourselves—in order to avoid epistemic capture. 

Now, to take it from how we know to how we live, let’s look to the terrain we’ve just crossed in Waypoints 4.1 and 4.2. There, we find a foundation—a natural ground—for an egalitarian ethics.

As we passed through, we looked to the rhizome to suggest a deeper, non-centralized, non-hierarchical ground, into which hierarchical “trees” could still reach their roots.

Though the work is anti-authoritarian, it’s not naïve. It assumes the necessity of hierarchies; values presuppose as much. Some things are worth more than others. Not all things have equal value. 

Else what is the point of art? What is worthy of admiration, of elevation, of love, devotion, and care?

The kind of equality the work seeks to describe is ontological. All beings are equally real. This equality precedes ethics. And this fundamental equality must inform any ethics, if it is to win our consent.

Take, for example, certain hierarchical relationships which—if not informed by ontological equality—can become perverse: parenting, or teaching. A parent participates in Being no more than their child; their position of authority, if grounded in this fact, is transformed into custodianship. 

Likewise with the student-teacher relationship. When a student enters my classroom, it becomes my responsibility to provide them with the guidance that my best understanding informs me will help them—and the real society they inhabit—to thrive. 

A child and a student are both in dependent and vulnerable positions, but neither “belongs” to the person in the superior position, as a thing that may be owned. 

I might be convinced that a person has the right to paint their car any color they wish. But I’m less likely to be convinced that a parent or a teacher can deny—without violating their custodial responsibilities—a child lessons on the best hard-won science, history, and literature our society has produced. 

Not all lessons are equal. 

At present, there is a pernicious bit of rhetoric circulating—I’ll not say here what power and money interests motivate it—that mocks public educators as taking on the role of the “nanny state,” suggesting that teachers need to stay in their lane, and not take over the role of parenting. 

In a sense, they are right. Being a teacher and being a parent are different. Each role is sacred. Yet each is custodial.

And yet, I have seen so many kids whose fortunes have left them without a proper parent figure. And I know that, whether I invite it or not, kids will project their worlds onto authority figures—what is there, and what is missing. 

Each day, I take on more roles than I can count. And I cannot count how many times a student has told me that I remind them of their dad.

So much happens each day that I simply can’t see, no matter how I strain my aging eyes. I can only do my best. So each day, when I meet parents doing right by their kids, I count the partnership as priceless. 

In my own role as a parent, and as a teacher, I remind myself that I am not the child’s friend. 

My relationship in each case is different—and, in important ways, deeper. 

As a teacher, it is not my role to be “cool.” When I see a student push back against a difficult assignment, I try to imagine the thirty-five-year-old version of that student standing behind them. I then ask that grown student what they would have me do for the child they once were.

The same exercise, I think, serves parents well: imagine what your grown child would ask you to do for them now, so that they may be empowered—and suddenly, a great deal of parenting becomes clear.

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