Is Equality an Absolute Good?

by Eva Brann

The Declaration of Independence aimed to turn our continent from a British colony into an American nation. Yet its first, its primary claim, is that we are all individually equal. What’s that got to do with national independence? However, the Declaration’s claim of universal human equality has grown into our primary political passion.

This brief book What concrete, substantial good do we get out of this equality? Well, specific safety of our equality before the law. But beyond that, and the easement of our envy? Equality at work, equalizing, is a mere leveling relation. Whatever is worth having involves distinction, that’s inequality.

66 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 13, 2022

About the author

Eva T. H. Brann was an American scholar, classicist, and the longest-serving tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis. Born in Berlin in 1929 and later immigrating to the U.S., she earned degrees from Brooklyn College and Yale University. Brann devoted over six decades to teaching and writing, becoming a key figure in the Great Books tradition and serving as dean of St. John’s College.
Her wide-ranging works include Paradoxes of Education in a Republic, What, Then, Is Time?, and The Music of the Republic. She also co-translated several Platonic dialogues and received the National Humanities Medal in 2005. Brann passed away in 2024 at the age of 95, leaving behind a lasting legacy of intellectual rigor and philosophical inquiry.

Reviews

[Soscha]

No rating. It’s nearly incomprehensible. It’s a thesaurus on crack.