Egalitarian may be the hardest natural virtue for people to accept. Civilization is rife with hierarchies in government, religion and business. Two people meet and sometimes they establish a social hierarchy between them. Yet often two people meet and no hierarchies are established; they continue to interact on equal footing.
Hierarchies are not natural in early nomadic societies. An ethnographic observance of the Kalahari tribes was that the best hunters were made the lead hunters, but were insulted to keep them from getting big heads. Their decisions were to be no more important than anyone else in the tribe, as confirmed when immediately replaced as lead hunter whenever someone else merited the distinction.
We pride ourselves with our civilized gender equality, but in reality the greatest equality between genders occurred with early nomadic societies, not western civilization. As a modern nomad I got a sense of how that worked. Why would not the females in our backpacking expeditions have an equal say in the decisions we made as a group?
Being egalitarian is right and good for humanity. It’s right in the sense that early nomadic tribes could make better survival decisions when everyone’s opinion counted. Wisdom depends on drawing from as much experience as possible. It’s good in that people feel valued and a contributor to their society when their opinions count as much as everyone else. Bigotry and other societal ills are prevented. Being both right and good, being egalitarian is a humanity virtue
