The Illusions of Egalitarianism

Extract

The Illusions of Egalitarianism. By John Kekes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. 228p. $29.95.

According to John Kekes, contemporary Anglo-American political theory is dominated by egalitarian writers to the extent that all other voices are either drowned out or systematically excluded. Egalitarians “write books about each other's books, and mostly articles about each other's articles” (p. 188), and when confronted by those who disagree, they merely resort to “abuse” (p. 66). This egalitarian hegemony is both surprising and, where it does not render political theory irrelevant, politically dangerous because it is built on illusions rather than rational, defensible, arguments. The point of this book is to reveal those illusions and the absurdities that follow from them.