Sunday Thoughts: Equality

Equality is a term that is thrown around far too liberally in my opinion. At an extremely basic level, we could all be tagged as equal because every healthy human being is born with two arms and two legs. Regardless of skin colour and our personal anomalies, being defined as human suggests that everyone living on Earth is given the same opportunities, the same healthcare, and the same teaching. Unfortunately, we all know that isn’t the case.

If I were to be extreme, I could compare the difference in societies when looking at the western world compared to the Middle East. I could look to Africa, and draw comparisons from the money in government with the astounding level of poverty. If I really wanted to scrutinise the supposed unfairness of living, I’d highlight the fact that some earn £330,000 a week, whilst someone, somewhere, is still not being granted access to clean water.

However, this kind of inequality is relatively well publicised and as a result, is of general knowledge. The majority are aware of the differences in wealth around the world, and yet it gets pushed to the back of the mind to hibernate, even by those who are in a position of power. Human nature dictates that we look after our own, and we have gradually come to accept that the human race has developed into a precariously unbalanced one as the decades have rolled into one.

So this is the reason why I wish to focus on inequality from an alternate angle, an angle which begins in your very street. On the surface, everyone has a home, a car, and a variety of possessions, but by intensifying the magnifying glass, things aren’t necessarily as clear cut as the bricks and mortar on the outside lead you to believe. Wealth and opportunities all vary to some degree, and how fortunate you are in this respect also has an impact on the quality of health that you benefit from. Due to the complexity of effectively catering for millions of people, true equality within reality could be deliberated as completely impossible.

[drop] PlayStation Home takes a fair amount of flak, but if there is anything that the service excels at, it is providing its users with a feeling of equality. Everything about your life within Home can be extensively customised, so that consumers have a degree of influence over the immediate judgement that everyone is burdened with in both reality and the pixelated worlds that populate our screens. Potential social barriers such as age and appearance can be tossed aside, and so can the extent of your wealth; the life that you live is simply reflected in the text that you speak, a couple of clothing choices, and the positioning of a few leather sofas.

Even Call of Duty and similar online videogames promote equality; possibly not so much within the heat of a shootout, but those eight or nine seconds before a game starts? It’s a rare moment of true equality where everyone is simply a replica and is provided with exactly the same situation to combat.

There are obvious dangers to these level playing fields; it’s certainly not unheard of people inhabiting virtual worlds for days to make up for what they feel they lack within reality. The mainstream press grab hold of stories like this and call it videogame addiction, but what they conveniently ignore however, is how millions of people healthily indulge in videogaming to escape a judgemental society, and to enter a fantastical world where you can be exactly who you want to be.