The egalitarian principle

In Australia we have fertile ground for developing and extending the egalitarian principle. Ever since the beginning of Western occupation, our treatment of indigenous people notwithstanding, this has been a strong unifying thread amongst new arrivals. As émigrés and refugees often from harsher countries, most of us or our forebears have had to pull together and develop a national identity that is, at its heart, egalitarian. A ‘fair go’, Jack’s as good as his master, toleration of minorities, accepting new attitudes, etc. In Australia we are in a prime position to show the rest of the world how this can be done. But it’s not as much a multicultural toleration of cultural differences as it is an example of a general humanitarianism. It starts out as a respect for each other – our having very little class system or intellectual stratification in our society – and from there it can extend to animals . . . for why would we arbitrarily exclude other sentient species from an equality that we advocate for ourselves? It is after all based on a principle of showing goodwill towards those with less advantage, a standing up for the oppressed