Equality, Fairness and the Abuse of Mathematical Notation · 1:39pm Nov 29th, 2015
That was a suitably awesome finale to the season. Great to revisit the sonic rainboom and Starswirl’s time travel spell (this time with multiple epic pony wars), and learn something about Starlight Glimmer’s history.
Altogether it has been a busy season, both on the show, and in the real world.
Back at the start of the year, before the beginning of season 5, I had a long phone chat with twoSteamPonies. We talked ponies and Doctor Who, had a good mutual rant about our respective bosses’ flaws (which took some time) and then proceeded to set the world to rights by discussing the state of British politics, the abuse of power by Her Majesty’s Government and failure of the Official Opposition to do much about it. Somewhere along the way, we pondered why a Guardian column [1] appeared to be avoiding the word equality in favour of fairness. Political buzzwords come and go all the time. They’re all ambiguous. Maybe it was nothing significant. Or was it a sign of the watering down of traditional Labour values? In the run up to the election, the party didn’t want to be seen to be too committed to anything too left-wing. So the fluffy idea of fairness was preferable to the implied precision of equality.
[1] I forget which one. It was probably something along the lines of Will Hutton’s Them and Us.
We enjoyed a similar rant after S5 Episode One—which introduced Starlight Glimmer’s Branded by Equality anti-diversity cult, dumbing everypony down to the lowest common denominator to avoid any perceived unfairness. But that’s not right at all! Equality is the rallying call under which so many battles for social justice have been fought, from the Suffragettes to Stonewall. The idea that we should all be treated no less favourably due to our race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age and disability is a fundamental value.
Was our favourite show attacking that which we hold dear? Was this some right-wing conspiracy? A sinister attempt to use a kids’ show to undermine those campaigning for universal human rights using the age-old tactic of implying guilt by association with communism? [2]
[2] Communism?
The form of communism practised by the Ponies Democratic Republic of Starlight’s Village is not quite what Karl Marx described. The Communist Manifesto only mentions ‘equality’ twice—both times preceded by 'bourgeois'. The Revolution to Marx and Engels, was a more straightforward struggle to let the working class seize what was rightly theirs. It doesn’t seem to match the Soviet model either, as if there is one thing the Soviet education system did well, it was identifying children with a special talent and nurturing them. That's why the USSR produced so many top scientists and sportsmen and women.
Of course there is no shortage of alternative interpretations. I preferred to see it as an Orwellian parody. All ponies are equal but some ponies are more equal than others. I see the show as a rainbow-banner-waving champion of friendship, tolerance and liberal values. So I still liked the episode. But they did pick the wrong word, and abused the mathematical notation.
Personally, I saw Starlight’s village as a parody, not of the Gulag, North Korea or the DDR, but somewhere potentially far scarier: school. This is, after all, a show for young children. Kids do not usually get into in-depth discussions about political theory in the playground. But they will understand what this is about. The message of the show is: Each one of us has something special. That makes us different, that makes us rare. Equality through diversity. Whatever your shortcomings you have just the same intrinsic value as anyone else. There is something which you will excel at, and you just need to find that special talent.
All good advice which children need to hear. But many children won’t buy it. It’s easy for grown-ups to say that sort of thing. But when everyone else in your class gets higher marks, and beats you at everything… it really doesn’t feel that we are equal.
Good schools will make sure that all children are properly supported, and have a wide range of activities – academic, sport, music, and other stuff, so children can always find something they can be good at. But not all schools are good. Not all have the resources they need to properly support children.
So there is an alternative educational philosophy: the uniform school. The students wear regulation uniform, regulation hair styles, study the same syllabus—where the objective is not to do as well as you can, but just to meet the regulation standard—set sufficiently low that everyone can meet it. No student is allowed to do too well at anything in case that discourages the others. Few schools are entirely like this, but no school is perfect, and plenty can veer in this direction.
Interesting to note that Starlight Glimmer’s beliefs were rooted in childhood trauma. Losing a friend who moves to another school is not the sort of injustice which usually drives revolution, but is certainly something which the young audience can relate to. And now that she is redeemed, this raises the possibility that, as Twilight's student, she could turn into a real proponent of harmony and fairness—a sort of element of equality.
Back in the real world, by episode 7, the British Labour party had lost the election. Then went on to rediscover their passion for social justice and doubled their membership under Jeremy Corbyn. While the new Tory-majority government abandoned any pretence of being husky-hugging compassionate conservatives, and instead made it clear that they are basically Slytherin House with an anti-immigration, anti-union, pro-austerity and generally nasty agenda.
And on the other side of the Atlantic, Canada has switched to a Liberal government, and the US Supreme Court upheld equality to make same-sex marriage a right across the nation. Good to know that the court was not deterred by any possible anti-equality message from the show.
It’s a funny old world.
Related blog post: Equestria Outlaws Equals Sign.
To me, Starlight's little village seemed to be about the dangers of cults and totalitarianism (on small scale, at least, which is more or less the same thing). Confusing equality and sameness is something people both well-intentioned and villainous have been doing in the past, so it makes sense for me that Starlight would commit the same error.
I like the River description of time. Even when its diverted, only in extremely exceptional circumstances, will it eventually end up in the same sea.
And I live near a three way watershed, where pouring a glass of water in the middle, means that it will end up at the least on totally opposite sides of the country.
That, and it takes my OC five years to finish building the system that powers up in the state that was origionally caused by the double accident otherwise.
Creations that started in a shed, are often those that change the world.
If you need a continuation of a research grant, having an experiement that works is useful. If you want to find a totally new marketable branch of science, having an experiment that doesnt work is useful. Escpecially if the outcome is Very Intresting.
I also find it creepy that Starlights Village is just down the road from where I live.
Then again, with Alice of Wonderland used to live in the area? How many strange and weird things can you think of where you live. And then discover.
Ugh, I love your blog posts. Total agreement.
Checking google ngrams, the plot for fairness is uninteresting. Equality appears to be the politically-loaded term. It spikes suddenly in 1919, when the US Constitution was amended to give women the vote. It spikes again in England in 1942 and 1943, and in America in 1944, and I don't know why. In America, it goes through an extended high in 1962-1976, then falls. In British English, just the opposite happens: it is used seldom until 1972, after which it rises steadily right up until 2004, then begins a sharp decline. (Data only goes up to 2008.) The plot for its use in fiction has peaks in 1903, 1942, and 1951.
In the US, uniforms are used only in expensive private schools. Is that not the case in the UK?
3631202
School uniform is the norm here for state and independent schools. I always felt it imposed a stifling atmosphere of conformity. But I have been told by some teachers - including some who have worked in state schools in very deprived parts of London, and those opinions I respect - that it is an essential tool to build up school pride and motivate pupils. I suspect it all depends on the local culture - what works for some schools, doesn't for others.
3631261 I'd think it would be more useful in preventing rich students from using clothing to dominate others. But on the other hand, England has a history of deliberately fostering violent dominance hierarchies in their best boys' schools, so I don't even know what they want.