In Miller’s article, I was able to see the two types of inequality, once they were clearly drawn out, in examples in my life. I see temporary inequality in how a parent deals with an unruly child and in how a teacher prides himself in their degree and how he deals with his students. However, I don’t really ever see temporary inequality really ever playing out to attain the supposed goal of ending the relationship of inequality. I feel like the dominant group in this type doesn’t want to give up their power or keep the lesser group down. I can see the second type, permanent inequality, more in history and the nation’s history of racism. The way that birth and skin color didn’t allow for blacks to gain citizenship, how blacks weren’t allowed to partake in free labor, and how white people were destructive of their political, social, and cultural freedom clearly demonstrates the ideas of permanent inequality.
While reading about permanent inequality, I noticed that it uses the idea of sociologist Howard Becker’s labeling theory, which states that if someone is labeled as one thing, they will begin to act according to that label. Permanent inequality contains the idea of the dominant group assigning roles and labels to the subordinates, to keep them down and maintain power. I feel like that concept of labeling and then the labeled beginning to act according to their new label has a more powerful effect than the dominant group straight up destroying the subordinates. Once inside the subordinate’s head, they have complete control; the lesser group won’t have full and honest control over their actions because they will believe they have to act in a certain, inferior way.
I see that temporary inequality plays out in a teacher to student relationship because not only does the teacher teach for the student to learn, but that learning is assumed to be beneficial to the point of the student possibly passing on the information learned to others (perhaps as a teacher, too, or simply as a vocal educator). The dominant group would want to keep power due to pride, tradition, lack of confidence or discomfort.
Your mention of Howard Becker’s labeling theory reminds me of the importance of choosing the “right” name for a child and what words one would use to describe that child.
I thought the theory of labeling was also interesting, but concerning. If the label attached to the respective groups works to psychologically enforce the existing structure, it seems like there is a double negative against change. The dominant group likes the status quo, and the subordinate one is conformed to it. Because the unequal system reinforces itself, what is the best way to break it?