Composing a Life

call it competition, we are asserting that it is the fundamental mechanism of the biological world and the well-spring of economics.
    Nothing in our tradition gives interdependence a value comparable to symmetry. It is difference that makes interdependence possible, but we have difficulty valuing it because of the speed with which we turn it into inequality. This means that all of the relationships in which two people complement each other—complete each other, as their differences move them toward a shared wholeness—man and woman, artist and physician, builder and dreamer—are suspected of unfairness unless they can be reshaped into symmetrical collegiality. But symmetrical relationships and exchanges alone are limiting. I can think of my warm-blooded and furry dog as a companion (although if I overdo it I will miss much that is fascinating about her), but similarity is less helpful in making me understand the bird and the wasp. Similarity is certainly a premise of this book—but the interest comes from the differences in our situations and stories.
    A single dimension of difference is not enough. If two alternatives are contrasted in only one way, they may seem easily ranked, as grade-school children rank their buddies. If the differences multiply, ranking is harder. If the farmer decides whether to plant cotton or corn on the basis of cash value per acre, his decision may seem simple, but he will end up with a single crop, vulnerable to pests and blights and gluts on the market. If he considers many different factors in making his decision, including long-term resilience and soil maintenance, he will probably rotate and diversify. If one attends to multiple dimensions, superiority becomes as elusive as simple equality.
    To different degrees, each of the five of us has been discriminated against because we are women; we have all sometimes been treated as less than equal. But each of us seeks out relationships of difference, a little puzzled by the necessary political thrust toward equality. Unless we treasure our differences, we will never achieve interdependence.
    The American ethical response to discrimination is the passion for equality, for asserting that a given kind of difference is, or should be, irrelevant and that the task of social justice is to construct a society that will make it so. Thus, social justice is achieved by installing the moral equivalent of wheelchair ramps to provide the appearance of equal access. In general, we seem to believe that the way to achieve fairness is to structure social conflicts so they will be as nearly symmetrical as possible; we then encourage competition between rivals on what is meant to be a level playing field. As a society, we do not believe that outcomes can be expected to be equal, but we do like to believe that it could have gone either way. When the big guy beats the little guy, we like to see him do it with one hand tied behind his back.
    This love for symmetry entails a preference for adversarial processes, whose symmetry is often illusory. Take a multimillion-dollar corporation in conflict with a private citizen. Set up a courtroom confrontation,
Megacorp
v.
Doe
, each represented by counsel, with symmetrical rules of play. Sometimes indeed Doe does win, but Doe may grow old and Megacorp grow richer before anything is resolved. The legal fiction that corporations are persons is a way of creating the illusion of symmetry. The doctrine of “one person, one vote” similarly creates the illusion that every citizen has an equal voice in choosing representatives and therefore in determining policy.
    It is often the case, as exemplified in the Buddhist meditation, that ethical systems are built on familial metaphors. The American system is based on the metaphor of an idealized relationship between brothers, potential equals for whom affection is mixed with competition. Although they will probably set out in different directions, brothers still should have a comparable chance in life. But brothers have rarely been truly equal, and sisters even less so, especially in societies based on a patrimony, like land, that cannot be divided as easily as a flock of sheep.
    In fact, the human experience of relationship starts from a profound asymmetry—the asymmetry between the very small child and the adults on whom he or she totally depends. Yet even this relationship is not as unequal as it appears. Although children are small and physically helpless, their capacity