34. Why Egalitarianism Dissolves Hierarchy and Inheritance

"And if all were one member, where would the body be?" - 1 Corinthians 12:19

Egalitarianism does not simply claim that all men share the same dignity before God. That Catholic truth is not in dispute. Egalitarianism goes further. It treats hierarchy, inherited office, ordered inequality, and differentiated authority as though they were inherently suspect or unjust. In doing so, it dissolves the structure of Christian society.

This is why it must be judged carefully. It often borrows Christian language while undermining Christian order.

Catholic thought has always distinguished between equal dignity of nature and unequal offices within a rightly ordered body. Father and son, priest and layman, ruler and subject, teacher and pupil, elder and younger, king and peasant all share one human nature and one ultimate end under God. But they do not therefore occupy interchangeable places.

When this distinction is lost, authority begins to seem oppressive simply for being authority.

Egalitarianism also attacks inheritance, both social and familial. It is suspicious of what is received, handed down, and publicly distinguished. It prefers perpetual leveling. But inheritance is one of the ways a civilization remembers itself. Offices, customs, honors, lands, and responsibilities transmitted across generations help preserve continuity and duty.

Where inheritance is despised, society becomes more fluid, but also more forgetful.

Modern society is deeply egalitarian in instinct. It resents hierarchy, distrusts fatherhood, trivializes monarchy, levels sex distinctions, weakens offices, and treats all visible superiority as morally embarrassing. Even Catholics often absorb this spirit without noticing it.

That is why Christendom cannot be rebuilt unless this habit is exposed. The City of God is ordered hierarchically because creation, grace, family, Church, and society are all ordered hierarchically.

Why egalitarianism dissolves hierarchy and inheritance is ultimately a question of whether society will accept creaturely order. A Christian civilization must honor equal dignity while also honoring unequal offices, received duties, and forms of inheritance under God.

Without that, the social body flattens, memory weakens, and authority is increasingly replaced either by chaos or by impersonal control.