February 16, 1997
Joseph,
Shelley asked me to email the following interview to you for the In Brief of an upcoming Octopus, I'm not sure which date she said.
As I think she mentioned, I would very much like to speak with you in person some time soon to discuss the future of my writing for The Octopus.
Thank you,
Sigfried
At 10:30 AM, Wednesday, February 5 at the Cinema Café in Urbana, I was the only customer and the young man working there seemed a little bored. I asked him if he would like to be interviewed for an article for The Octopus. He agreed without hesitation. He asked what the topic would be, and I said he could choose the topic, anything he would like to talk about in a public forum.
He offered the topic: “Equality, and fairness to all people.” I then offered four questions:
How do you define equality?
How is equality threatened in this society?
How should equality be achieved by society?
How should equality be imposed upon society?
His name is Pat Bryant; he appeared to be in his early twenties; he wore a pony tail and a trimmed beard and jeans and a t-shirt. He is white and thin. I am 33, white, and somewhat fat. I was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and short, uncombed hair.
I told Pat that I'd like his answers to be concise. Throughout the interview we condensed our statements before committing them to paper. The interview was not taped.
Q1: How do you define equality?
Pat: A system where everyone is given a fair and equal chance; everyone is given the same opportunity to strive for happiness.
Me: Given by whom?
Pat: By society. Not only job searches, but, for instance, if I were to treat one customer who wanted coffee different from another - everyone should have the same chance to get a cup of coffee.
Me: So, when you say that everyone should be given equal chances by society, do you mean that every individual should be given equal chances by every other individual?
Pat: (laughs) In utopia. Ideally, yes. That's not very realistic.
Q2: How is equality threatened in this society?
Pat: Equality is threatened by simple prejudice, preconceived ideas.
Q3: How should equality be achieved by society?
Pat: Prejudice is generationally ingrained in some parts of our country. There's a big move towards the removal of prejudice. It's just going to take time. With the world growing and people seeing how other people act, we will get there eventually.
Me: If every individual should be given equal chances by every other individual, then if someone asks me out on a date while picking their nose, should I be just as willing to go out with them as with someone who asks while not picking their nose?
(Minutes of going back and forth.)
Pat: Yes, you should be just as willing, but there's a difference between logic and aesthetics. Logically, picking the nose doesn't reflect on someone's personality or character or morals. But aesthetically, you're going to have a picture in your mind of this person picking their nose, so your gut feeling may be to go with the non-picker. But, really, you shouldn't treat people according to preconceived notions.
Me: Would you say that equality is the opposite of prejudice, the absence of preconceived notions?
Pat: Yeah, that's good. If you have no preconceived notions, then there's no reason to treat someone differently than someone else.
Me: So, you desire a world in which people have no preconceived notions? That is, a world where people do not have preferences?
Pat: In retrospect, preconceived notions are inevitable: our personality is formed by our experiences. But people have to make a conscious effort not to treat an individual in a general manner. If a lawyer comes in here, I have certain ideas about how lawyers act, how they tip, etc. But I still think I should try to treat them as individuals. We have preconceived notions, you can't change that. What we can change is how we act in response to these notions. So, the way society achieves equality is by people not acting on their first impulse.
In conclusion, I share Pat's desire for greater social equality and his apparent confusion about exactly what equality is. I'd like to suggest that society will more quickly achieve equality if people interrogate their fellow citizens, especially complete strangers, regarding their political and philosophical desires.
Published in The Octopus: Champaign-Urbana's Alternative Weekly, February 16, 1997.