The focus of chapter three is that there are individual sensitivities to inequality and those sensitivites offer an explanation for why living in unequal societies can have such profound effects. They assert that “Individual psychology and societal inequality relate to each other like lock and key” (33). They make this argument by citing the effects of inequality and the relationship between them. The effects of inequality can be found in our psychological state.
1. There is a rise in the anxiety levels of populations such as college students and children in the United States according to studies out of San Diego State University.
2. There is, simultaneously, a rise in self esteem. “So that despite increasing anxiety, people were taking an increasingly positive view of themselves” (36). The key here is in the distinguishing of healthy and unhealthy self esteem. “The healthier kind seemed to centre on a fairly well-founded sense of confidence and a resonably accurate view of one’s strengths in different situations and an ability to recognize one’s weaknesses. The other seemed to be primarily defensive and involved a denial of weaknesses… People will insecure high self-esteem tend to be insensitive to others and to show an excessive preoccupation with themselves, with success, and with their image and appearance in the eyes of others.”(37). Thus, there is really a rise in narcissism.
3. Both narcissism and anxiety find their source in social evaluative threat or those threats that created the possiblity for a loss of self esteem (38).
4. How other people see us matters ultimately. How others see us determine if we experience shame or pride. Other people’s view of us determines our social status and if our social status is high we can become anxiety ridden in an effort to preserve the high status. consumerism plays on this social status reality and consumption is part of the way that we set ourselves apart from others. “Surveys have found that when choosing prospective marriage partners, people in more unequal countries put less emphasis on romantic considerations and more on criteria such as financial prospects, status and ambition, than do people in less unequal societies.”(44)
Some say that the church is struggling to be purposeful in our culture and society. Relevance to our tradition and God’s people in society is at a premium in the life of the church. In the previous blog, I offered my opinion that churches can get caught up in striving to be “better than” another church or congregation. If we take what the authors say at face value, it seems that the church has a continued opportunity for relevance. Some say that the nature of all cultures is inequality. The church’s attempt to provide an environment in which communities can practice equality is a crucial response to the biblical and gospel message.
But what do we mean when we say equality? The authors remind us that concerns about equality are at least as old as the French Revolution. They cite the slogan of that revolution “liberty, equality, and fraternity” and note that ” ‘Liberty’ meant not being subservient or beholden to the feudal nobility and landed aristocracy. ….Similarly, ‘fraternity’ reflects a desire for greater mutuality and reiprocity in social relations. …’Equality’ comes into the picture as a precondition for getting ‘liberty’ and ‘fraternity’ right.”(45). Said another way and using the language of persuasion and relationship from process theology, liberty requires persuasion and cannot survive coercion. Fraternity emerges within a society that values mature relationality. Equality as the prerequiste of both has yet to be defined by the author. But process theology might invite us to understand equality more fully in an experience of wholeness and unity with the environments and creatures in whose midst we live.
Leslie's Theology 
