On the History of Equality

“McMahon has set himself an almost impossible task: to analyse humanity’s most powerful and contested idea throughout history and across the globe. Most attempts at total histories of ideas fail. Depth is sacrificed to achieve breadth, the reader is marched along too strict a chronological path or the author gets stuck in an etymological quagmire. But McMahon succeeds. This book is deeply researched, tightly argued and sparklingly written. It ought to be read by anyone interested in equality, and also anyone interested in people, history, God, politics, religion, nationalism, war or love... There is some hard politics ahead of us, for sure. If we are to stand any chance of cultivating a humane reimagining of equality, we will have to do some hard thinking too.”

Richard Reeves, “Why Some Are More Equal Than Others” - https://literaryreview.co.uk/why-some-are-more-equal-than-others. My own work approaches this idea through the paradox of tolerance, i.e. that tolerance is not infinitely extendable. To create spaces of equality we are obligated to oppose the intolerant. It is also worth noting how religion and religious ideas have informed our thinking on these matters. As Habermas has noted, tolerance arises as a 17th-century legal matter in response to religious diversity.