Merit and Equality
The immediate challenge of society revolves around the construction of a society that is fair and just. The exact principles that allow society to do that is particularly difficult to define and initiate within the context of the existing framework of society. Two concepts that appear to be diametrical opposites are equality and merit. Individuals who invite society to be structured on merit suggest that the inherent inequalities in individual abilities should be the mechanism through which individuals are separated and even stratified. Others suggest that such a position ignores historical antecedents that privilege some groups above others and hence it is important to construct a society that is based on the equality of all the citizens. Equality is a concept that is difficult to define and more difficult to achieve. I agree that merit and equality are incompatible structuring society on one of the concepts negates the use of the other.
According to Kabanoff (1991) equality refers to the different members of a relationship having the same value as individuals. This promotes mutual self-esteem and tends to suggest a sense of solidarity among the individuals of a group. In this sense equality allows persons...
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