Inequality, unfairness, elitism, and "real life"

Here’s a couple pieces for thought, maybe for more expansion later.

One is by Brian Lufkin on BBC News.  “There’s a problem with the way we define inequality”. 

  

  That is to say, that most of us accept the inevitability of some kind of inequality if there is going to be ego that can drive progress, but in time abuse of unearned “privilege” and particularly “unfairness” will cause life to lose a lot of meaning to some people, and tend to drive the less competitive young adults toward autocratic belief systems (religious or not) and causes they can belong to – or else to nihilism itself.   Preoccupation with "unfairness" has its own downside implication, that people are to be ranked on some kind of scale.  Authoritarians love that.  

  

Then on Vox, Ezra Klein writes, “For elites, politicsis driven by ideology; for voters it is not”.   He adds the byline, “committed conservatives and liberals don’t realize how weird they are.” Real people tend to be driven by social and trial alliances, not to truth they can really find out on their own.