PEOPLE IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY-HUMAN 031

Social Inequality in Contemporary Society

Social inequality remains one of the problem in our contemporary society that has led to uneven distribution of resources among different social groupings. This form of inequality emerges in various ways such as: limiting people their freedom of speech, voting rights, and even property rights. It is also seen when certain goods and services such as good education, health care, good habitable environment, and transport are limited or even denied to certain groups of people in society.

In most cases, this form of inequality is seen to exist between ethnic groups, religious groups, classes, and even between countries. It is mostly linked with three main types of inequalities which are racial, gender, and wealth inequalities. Fiero’s argument make us believe that contemporary practices of racism and sexism tend to trickle down in affecting wealth creation opportunities for certain individuals in the society.   

 As per Fiero (p.169), according to Rousseau the first step of inequality and vices among humankind was when they started to prize public esteem. Rousseau argued that despite humans being good by nature, they have ultimately ended up being corrupted by society and its institutions. According to Rousseau in his primitive state man was to live peacefully with each other.

Whereas men used to hunt for daily subsistence, women took care of the huts and the children. Communally people would gather together around the huts and celebrate through singing and dancing as one of cultural practice. However, with time those who were considered to be best in singing, dancing, and eloquence began to be highly regarded. As a result, vanity rose among some individuals on one side while envy and shame in others on the other.  

The development of having to value some people and considering others brought the fatality of both happiness and innocence that previously existed among people. This is because everyone now claimed the right to be valued thus giving rise to the first duties of civilization. It has created a way for revenge as people would now punish any form of contempt shown to them by another based on how they accorded themselves, thus made people become so cruel and bloodthirsty.

For this reason, we learned that there is a need to establish civil institutions whose aim was to create people within the society. These civil institutions have however continued to promote inequality among different groups of individuals over the years that is why we continue to witness and experience these practices in our modern society.

In conclusion, social inequality within our modern society is not a new thing as it has existed since the early days. However, dealing with it now might seem to be difficult since most of the institutions meant to fight inequality face challenges.

Works Cited

Fiero, Gloria. The Humanistic Tradition Volume 2: The Early Modern World to the Present. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2015