Unconditional Equality Research Articles

Minoritized Communities in Iran: The Struggle for Unconditional Equality

Following the tragic murder of Jina Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman, in 2022, subsequent protests in 2022–23 presented a significant intersectional challenge to the Islamic Republic of Iran's (IRI) political order, revealing deep-seated issues of ethnic, economic, gender, and political discrimination. Originating in the Kurdish region, these protests quickly spread across Iran and its diaspora, offering a glimpse of potential intersectional solidarity cutting across ethnic, gender, and religious lines. Notably, Kurds and Baluchis played a leading role in the protests, bearing the highest toll in terms of lives lost and injuries sustained. The Iranian regime responded ruthlessly, employing military violence to supress dissent and systematically dehumanizing these communities in an attempt to undermine their vocal opposition to the exclusionary and hierarchical rule rooted in Persian and Shiite dominance. Throughout history, the Kurds have consistently stood at the vanguard of resistance against the political authority in Tehran, as well as challenging the dominance of Persian and Shiite supremacy. This enduring opposition is instrumental to understanding the widespread, well-articulated, and mobilized resistance to the IRI's abuses of power. This resistance finds its epitome in the Women, Life, Freedom social movement.1

The Politics of Presence Revisited

Abstract Almost three decades after its first publication, Anne Phillips reflects on the Politics of Presence in the context of contemporary developments from #MeToo to Black Lives Matter. Granting the importance of a contingent and intersectional understanding of presence, she reemphasizes the necessity of descriptive representation. Phillips reflects on questions of anonymity, essentialism, the multiple self, unconditional equality, and the current role of feminist research in democratic theory. She also opens perspectives toward mending the divide between a politics of recognition and a politics of distribution.

Partneship is a constant of vitality Ivan Prokopenka`s and Grigory Skovorody`s

The study of the professional work of Ivan Prokopenko and Grigory Skovoroda under the conditions of martial law in Ukraine will contribute to the establishment of partnership in the organization of the educational process, and the improvement of the quality of professional training. The purpose of the article is to reveal the essence and ways of implementing partnership on the example of the life and professional activity of Ivan Prokopenko and Grigory Skovoroda. To achieve the goal, comparative historical methods were used – to reveal the key points of understanding of partnership by teachers. The methods of analysis, synthesis and generalization of historical facts are used to substantiate the ideas of partnership pedagogy. The retrospective method was used for creative interpretation of the results of the conducted research.In the article, the author revealed the idea of partnership based on synergistic and systemic approaches. Cultural relevance and the principle of historicism made it possible to characterize partnership as a dynamic phenomenon that is determined by social factors. The article emphasizes that the idea of "equal to equal" democracy is important in partner interaction, unconditional equality in the right to express one's position, respect for another point of view, trust and goodwill in communication and interaction are recognized. The value of tacit knowledge and experience, mutual demand is also recognized.In the article, the author substantiated that Grigory Skovoroda set an example of socially significant partnership and humanity in the Kharkiv Collegium, private teaching. The main positions of Grigory Skovoroda's pedagogical partnership are highlighted: personal dialogue in forms of educational interaction; friendly conversation, correspondence in extracurricular time to encourage self-discovery, self-immersion, self-analysis; simulation of life situations, choice situations with a projection for success.Value orientations of partnership pedagogy according to Ivan Prokopenko: respect, benevolence, trust, dialogue and distributed leadership. He approved the partnership in all forms of educational, educational, professional and research work at G.S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University on the basis of the philosophy of the heart, humane pedagogy. The article states that in his activities, Ivan Prokopenko used the principles of trust and openness in professional communications, respect and recognition of the self-worth of each individual. He successfully applied the practice of distributed leadership, in all horizons of connections and activities of the university.Common aspects of the pedagogical partnership of Ivan Prokopenko and Grigory Skovoroda: careful attitude to the student, understanding of the self-worth of a person, cordocentric living of success and failure.As a promising direction for further research, we offer a comparison of the ideas of partnership in the work of Confucius and modern practices of partnership in educational institutions of Ukraine and China.

Gender Inequality in Marriage and Family Sphere: Forms of Manifestation and Options for Coping with it

Gender inequality in the marriage and family sphere is most pronounced in the different attitudes of men and women to marriage registration, because it is men who, as a rule, prefer common-law marriage, and women are forced to put up with a model of relationships outside of the marriage, which deprives her of the rights provided for legitimate spouses. The analysis of the negative consequences of this problem allowed us to propose the following. It is necessary to legislatively fix the legal consequences of a long-term cohabitation of a man and a woman for those cases when, due to the death of one of the actual spouses, the marriage cannot be registered, which will contribute to the protection of the rights and interests of the other spouse. One more form of gender inequality is the practice when, in the vast majority of cases, a marriage is dissolved and the child remains in the care of the mother. This may adversely affects the psycho-emotional state of fathers deprived of the opportunity to live with their child, and children who wanted to live with the father, and not with the mother. It is necessary to form a stable judicial position based on the unconditional equality of the rights of the child’s parents, which is why decisions on such cases should be made following a comprehensive study of all the circumstances that testify in favor of both the mother and the father. One more form of gender inequality is a violation of women’s rights. Many fathers evade the payment of alimony for the maintenance of children, which is why the mother is entrusted not only with the upbringing of the child, taking care of his health, education, development, but also with the duty of his property maintenance, the burden of which she bears alone.The results of the analysis make it possible to conclude that all these forms of gender inequality in marriage and family sphere should be investigated by not only legal science, but also psychology and sociology. It is vital as they have deep psychological, emotional and cognitive foundations that form differently in the minds of men and women and manifest themselves in different ways in their behavior.

Equality of Narrative Inclusion in Decision-Making Processes: A Deliberative Approach

This paper explores the relationship between narrative inclusion and the notion of equality from the perspective of the theory of deliberative democracy. It is based on the assumption that taking into account the diversity of discursive competences influences the constructed justifications constituting the source of legitimacy of political decisions. Moving beyond a purely argumentative discourse towards emphasising pluralism provides a significant enough modification of the theory to claim that it constitutes a separate model of deliberation. At the starting point, the role and purpose of narrative is presented, as well as the conditions under which it can be incorporated into deliberative processes. Then, consideration is given to the transformation of the category of equality that is brought about by introducing narrative to the framework of subject inclusion. The shift in meaning from unconditional equality to equalisation of opportunities is also addressed, in both procedural and substantive terms. Finally, the paper outlines the possible practical problems and risks that the inclusion of narrative in deliberation may raise.

FISCAL PESSIMISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: TOCQUEVILLE'S CROSS REVISITED

ABSTRACTThis paper explores Alexis de Tocqueville's thought on fiscal political economy as a forerunner of the modern school of preference falsification and rational irrationality in economic decision making. A good part of the literature has misrepresented Tocqueville as an unconditional optimist regarding the future of fiscal moderation under democracy. Yet, although he initially shared the cautious optimism of most classical economists with respect to taxes under extended suffrage, Tocqueville's view turned more pessimistic in the second volume of his Democracy in America. Universal enfranchisement and democratic governments would lead to higher taxes, more intense income redistribution and government control. Under democracy, the continuous search for unconditional equality would eventually jeopardise liberty and economic growth.

ПЕДАГОГІКА ПАРТНЕРСТВА: ЯК УСПІШНО ВЗАЄМОДІЯТИ З СІМ’ЄЮ МОЛОДШОГО ШКОЛЯРА

У статті досліджено концептуальні засади педагогіки партнерства та обґрунтовано важливість взаємодії учителя із сім’єю молодшого школяра. Визначено, що для сучасного суспільства принципово важлива орієнтація партнерської діяльності вчителя, адже процес взаємодії із сім’єю є активним та успішним за умови, якщо батьки відчувають глибоку зацікавленість у вихованні дитини, якщо вони – партнери. З’ясовано, що педагогіка партнерства визначає істинно демократичний спосіб співпраці педагога, дитини та родини, який не відкидає різниці в їхньому життєвому досвіді, знаннях, але передбачає безумовну рівність у праві на повагу, довіру, доброзичливе ставлення і взаємну вимогливість.

Book review: Aishwary Kumar, Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the Risk of Democracy

Aishwary Kumar, Radical Equality: Ambedkar, Gandhi, and the Risk of Democracy, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015, 393 pp.; Ajay Skaria, Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance, Ranikhet: Permanent Black & Ashoka University, 2016, 390 pp.

The molecular biology of the elites is replaced by an environmentally interactive biology of social equality

What is life, and ultimately human nature and its biology? The answer to these questions requires a close examination of the scientific validity of the widespread gene-centred notion of human nature’s blind dependence on ‘selfish genes’. This perception has been imposed on biological science and eventually on the public by the economic elites since the 1920s, with the creation of Molecular Biology in order to scientifically justify their economic-political power as inherently (genetically) predetermined. However, new scientific developments in biology have questioned this perception, and redefine human nature as the result of biochemical interactions, feedback and modulation mechanisms between life’s different levels of organization (cells, organs, organism) with the environment, physical and social. DNA is acting as a passive library of stored genetic information provided on demand by the organisms, and man, in response of their adaptive requirements to their intra-/inter-organisms’ environment, and also to the external (physical, social) environment, which life itself modifies in response. The present study expands the scientific arguments of a previous critique of Marx and Marxism on its acceptance of genetic inequality among humans, for the main reason that this unscientific notion and centrepiece of the ideology of the economic elites pervades and the core of the ideology of the communist, left and anarchist fragmentations of Marxism. The new scientific evidence clearly shows that the biology of man necessitates that for his survival as species he should organize socio-political structures comprised of individuals unconditionally recognized as biologically and intellectually equivalent from birth. The new science of Biology is presented here extensively and in layman’s terms with the wish to be considered by scientific study groups formulated in each and every political fragmentation of the left to help converge into a new unifying ideology of unconditional equality among men. Such ideology should be fully depleted from any elements of the gene-centred ideology of the capitalist elites as to be clearly recognized and contrasted by the masses, in order to help them realize that they are viewed by the elites as genetically inferior and degenerate disposables, with the aim to give them a clearer purpose to react against them.

Thoughts on Ajay Skaria’s Unconditional equality

Comment on Skaria, Ajay. 2016. Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Example and following

Comment on Skaria, Ajay. 2016. Unconditional Equality: Gandhi's Religion of Resistance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Can the sovereign gift? Gandhi's Maryada and the moral law

Comment on Skaria, Ajay. 2016. Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

The mahatma in the machine

Comment on Skaria, Ajay. 2016. Unconditional Equality: Gandhi's Religion of Resistance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

The opening and obscuring of nonwilling freedom

A response from the author to the views expressed by Dwaipayan Banerjee, Prathama Banerjee, Aishwary Kumar, and Uday Singh Mehta in their reviews of Unconditional Equality.

Book Review: Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance, by Ajay Skaria

Book Review: <i>Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance</i>, by Ajay Skaria

Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance. By Ajay Skaria. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016. 408p. $105.00 cloth. $30.00 paper.

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Species-beings, Human Animals and New Neighbours

Contemporary performances experimenting with human – non-human relations inscribe themselves historically in the Western tradition of religious and political emancipation, based on the call for unconditional equality and liberty, or “equaliberty” (Balibar 2004) between species. In extending this call beyond the human sphere, “non-human performances” activate ideas concerning the closer analysis of this tradition as well as of present-day humanitarian catastrophes. 1) The claim of equality can be unconditional only if it extends beyond the human. 2) Equalization is not only a matter of rights and legislation (Hamacher 2014), but also an exercise of acquiescence, a bodily practice.

Unconditional Communist Equality among Individuals: Beyond the Marxist Equality Limited to the Abolition of Classes

The article explores the perceptions of Marx on equality and its interpretation by the classics of Marxism, and highlights limitations in its egalitarian content. It then attempts to define an unconditional communist equality compatible with biological human nature and with the basic principles of Marxism. In doing so, it offers biological scientific arguments, based on the recent developments of biological sciences, to the critical question for the socialist ideology on whether we are the products of genes or culture, or something in between, in order to investigate whether an unconditional equality can exist. It also attempts to show that the limitations of Marxist equality to the abolition of classes are a main causative factor both of the past unsuccessful political implementation of socialism, and of the ideological fragmentation of the Left movement. By redefining in undisputed scientific terms and, thus, converging on a commonly accepted notion of equality, the article aims to contribute to the ideological rejuvenation, internationalist unification, consolidation and establishment of socialism.

Pedagogy of Patriarchy: A Window on American 21st Century Gifted Education

The issue of grouping gifted students by ability has been a point of controversy for a long time. In the fall of 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik into space, igniting intense debate in this county about the quality of American education. Since then, nurturing the talents of our gifted and talented children has been one of the most enchanting, yet controversial, issues educators have faced. On the one hand, people have admired the gifts and the drive of individuals who achieve excellence and have given priority to programs for educating the brightest students, especially in math and science. On the other hand, people have stigmatized gifted education as giving to the haves (Colangelo & Davis, 1997, p. 3). This ambivalent attitude toward giftedness has caused frustration for both educators and parents of students. With close examination, we can see that the ambivalent attitude toward gifted education is the result of simplistic dichotomous thinking that the pursuit of excellence and equality are mutually exclusive and antagonistic. When we shift the framework of analysis on this issue from a zero-sum dichotomy to a more comprehensive philosophy that can include both gifted education and mainstream education simultaneously, the tension between the pursuit of excellence and equality can be alleviated. This tension can be described in terms of two different approaches to education: (equality-oriented) and (excellence-oriented) pedagogy. It is the purpose of this paper to promote patriarchal as more appropriate for, and beneficial to, the development of gifted education in the United States. Fromm (1951) defined a matriarchal society as a culture that is unconditionally equal. In the concept of matriarchy, a mother loves all her children equally and unconditionally since her love is based on the fact that they are her children. It does not matter if they exhibit any particular merit or achievement in a matriarchal order. The value system of the matriarchal society seems deeply imbedded in our educational practices, ignoring individual students' different learning needs and our society's unique cultural traits. Matriarchal pedagogy, a zeal for equality in education, has vehemently asserted the rights of less-able learners, students with psychological and physical disabilities, and students with different needs because of their culture, ethnicity, gender, language, and so forth. The contention of matriarchal pedagogy is incontestable because there really exist many students who have needed help, and the rights of these students ought to be fervently defended in human society. However, it should be acknowledged by the same token that gifted students also deserve treatment. Gifted and talented students' exceptional capabilities are not sufficiently challenged by the mainstream targeted traditional curriculum and instruction within matriarchal pedagogy. Within matriarchal pedagogy, for instance, all gifted and talented children and adolescents should be placed into heterogeneous classrooms in order to actualize unconditional equality, neglecting their special learning needs and their superior abilit y. As a result, some gifted and talented students may find schools intolerable, feigning illness or creating other excuses to avoid the trivialities of activities they mastered years ago. Some may eventually give up entirely and drop out of school as soon as they are legally able (Davis & Rimm, 1998). The detrimental impacts of this mismatch is described as a quiet crisis (U.S. Department of Education, 1993, p. 5) and nothing short of an American tragedy (Renzulli, 1991, p. 75). Gifted education is logically an entity of special education because the target population represents a group of students whose learning styles and thinking dimensions demand different experiences from those of the mainstream population. …

Equations

The statement that two expression denote the same number is called an equality. This name is precise and descriptive; equally so arc identity and equation as names respectively of an unconditional equality and a conditional equality. The beginner in algebra should clearly distinguish between these two kinds of equalities.