This post comes with two warnings:
1. Spoiler Alert – If you are among the very few people who are interested in Marvel movies, but have yet to see Infinity Wars, there are spoilers ahead. Go watch it already. We’re coming off 2020. What better things were you doing?
2. Trigger warning – I am going to expose the evil of egalitarianism. Exposing evil involves considering some hard hypotheticals. If you are the type of person who cannot logically deal with hypotheticals, then I suggest you stop reading now.
Last week, I sat with my family and rewatched Marvel’s Infinity Wars. In Infinity Wars, Thanos, the villain according to most rational people, destroyed half of all humanity. He didn’t discriminate. He merely killed half of all humans. Half of rich people. Half of poor people. Half of white people. Half of people of color. Half of right-handed people. Half of left-handed people. Half of all people: Dead.
It reminded me of something that was trending after the movie came out. Namely, the hashtag, #ThanosWasRight.
Here are a few examples:
Imagine an evil, racist ruler came to power. In his racist zeal, he killed 10% of all Black people. Surely, we would recognize the evil in this. What if he decided to kill 10% of all Black people and Asian people? We would recognize that would be eviler still. What if he would kill 10% of all Black people, Asian people, and Hispanic people? I’m sure we would be even more outraged. The greater the number of individuals killed, the eviler it is.
We would recognize that at each stage, more and more individuals would be affected by this evil, and the more people affected, the worse the evil is. However, egalitarians don’t consider the individual. They consider only collectives. They think the evil is that millions Black people are killed, while others are not, or that millions of Asians are killed, while others are not, or that millions of Hispanics are killed, while others are not. The problem, for the egalitarian, isn’t that people are killed. It’s that others are NOT killed. To them, you could make it more just by killing more people.
Enter Thanos. Thanos is the egalitarian’s dream. He doesn’t discriminate at all. He kills completely at random.
To a normal person, if half of your family and friends were killed, it would be of no consolation whatsoever that billions of other people are going through the same hardship as you. But for the egalitarian, that is a consolation. In fact, they would say, it could make the world a better place. People were treated equally.
Western civilization is placing egalitarianism on the highest moral pinnacle. This is dangerous and will lead to unthinkable moral outcomes. I implore you to reject egalitarianism as a moral ideal.
