Freedom and Equality: Two conflicting Ideologies

If been busy lately and I've tried to write a couple posts but I just keep shooting blanks. But I feel as if I need to get this off my chest. I have no idea if there is some out on this or not, but while I was taking a shower I just realized how Freedom and Equality in their truest forms can't exist with one another. When I came to this realization, I thought, no way, maybe I'm missing something, because those two words are always used together. But the more I rationalize, Freedom and Equality are two conflicting ideologies.

First lets look at Equality, in its truest form. Equality in its truest form holds that every person should be treated as equals, no one has the right to be better then another, which completely takes away human freedom to compete (when there's competition there's always a winner), which is one of the most basic human freedoms their is. Now lets look at Freedom, in its truest and purest form. Freedom in its purest form is a persons right to free will, which is to say that a person may do as he pleases, which in society can very dangerous as that can lead people to cheat, steal, and kill, which all take away from a persons equality.

The more I think about it though, the more it make sense. Lets take a look at economic ideology now. You have Socialism (in its purest form) which is heavily influenced by Karl Marx and stress equality, and then you have Capitalism (in its purest form) which is heavily influenced by Von Hayek and Friedman and stresses Freedom. It doesn't take a Nobel Prize winning Economist to figure out how both these theories have gone very. When we take Equality to an extreme (or close to it), we get the Soviet Union, and when we take Freedom to an extreme (or close to it), we get our current economic crisis.

Now this is not to say that Freedom and Equality cannot exist together, that is not what I'm saying. They cannot exist in their purest forms together, but they can exist as a form of compromise between one another. Think of it like this: when you click on the settings button on the computer there one side that says slow and another that says fast (think of it as Freedom and Equality on opposite sides) and you have to move the little dial in between them so you can pick which speed is best for you, well its the same thing with Freedom and Equality, you just adjust how much of Freedom you want to sacrifice for Equality or vice-versa. I really hope I'm not ripping off someone Else's theory here.





This reminds me of Baudrillard quote I read from Utopia Achieved, where he describes the difference between American and Europe as, in America everyone starts Equals but make their way to different paths, while in Europe everyone starts on different path and make their way towards equality. Off topic, but it just came to my head.