No One Actually Wants an Equal Society

[The Grand Nudger]

And my point is that even if there really is equality of opportunity, the losers will often complain that there was not equality of opportunity, while the winners will feel that there was equality of opportunity.

Right, so your point is that people bitch and moan and don't always agree..especially where their own achievements and abilities are concerned.  Agreed, and?  

The one metric where large inequality of opportunity does exist is wealth - having rich parents gives one a huge advantage.  But whatever inequalities of opportunity do exist because of race, gender, sexual orientation etc. are much smaller than the differences in talent, intelligence, hard work, and luck between individuals.  I assert that a person's success in our society's competition for money and status is much more dependent on that individual's talent, intelligence, hard work, and luck than on their race or gender.  

You can assert that, if you like.....but people will bitch regardless of it's truth....so, in what way does one inform the other?  

But beyond that, even if we consider talent and intelligence, equality of opportunity is impossible.  Some people, because of genetics, are still going to naturally be more talented and intelligent than others.  And if we created a society that really did have complete equality of opportunity based on race, gender etc., then the people who were less genetically well-off and who were less talented and intelligent because of genetic factors could still legitimately complain that society unfairly favored individuals who had better genes.  

Society -does- favor people with better genes, even if their idea of what constitutes or demonstrates better genes is mistaken, lol.  For some people, the white genes are better..for example..lol.

And yes, status judgments are indeed relative and subjective.  I can't think of a way to measure an individual's status in a way that we can all agree on.  And the symbols of status do change over time. But status is still very real in that people respond to it.

Sure, very real, people respond to it...and entirely variable and subject to change.   Even if we couldn't create a society in which..for example....a man born with no legs could place first in a sprint or a black person could overcome their inferior genetics as seen by a racist interviewer...we could create a society that values a principle of equality not tied to their individual talents or abilities.  A bare minimum ideology of human equality.  OFC..we can..currently, create a society where "inferior genetics" can be overcome....and maybe one day someone will figure out how to grow some legs..and then we'll be able to create both.  

What do you think....should your inferior genetics or lack of some specific ability y that I posess be referred to as the reason that you are not my equal, and thus do not enjoy the status that I enjoy? How about you...do -you- wish that we lived in an equal society? Maybe we don't...but do you want to? Maybe you can't make society equal the way you want to...does that mean you don't want it?