Equality

This story from NPR reveals the scale of global inequality and the impact of overpopulation on the problem. When I am surrounded by all the infrastructure and wealth of my world, I am tempted to forget that I am privileged beyond the conceptualization of many people on the planet. Each and every one of them is as deserving of happiness as I am. The lottery of birth has granted me my easy life.

I see an important part of daily humanist practice the development of a constant mindfulness of my privilege and good fortune in relation to the billions who suffer daily from ignorance and poverty. As I hear stories about women, who are more privileged than I am, resenting being cautioned by physicians about having menopausal babies, I think of the countless women in the world who do not live to menopause and bring multiple unsustainable human lives into the world. Why would a wealthy woman focus considerable monetary and emotional resources on reproducing herself at menopause when there are billions of deserving human children in the world already? This is intentional propagation of inequality in my opinion.

There is no "later" for creating equality. Each of us lives one life. It can be a life of comfort and luxury. It can be an entire life of misery, hunger and pain. No humanist can live effectively without carrying a constant mindfulness of this reality. How I as a humanist strive to promote equality, peace and happiness for all human beings differs from the way others do the same work. The most important thing any humanist can do is to keep the consciousness of the gross inequality in our species alive among those who have great privilege.