“In truth it is inequality that is the illusion. The extreme disproportion between men, that we seem to see in life, is a thing of changing lights and lengthening shadows. A twilight full of fancies and distortions....It is the experience of men that always returns to the equality of men; it is the average that ultimately justifies the average man. It is when  men have seen and suffered much and come at the end of their elaborate experiments, that they see men under an equal light of death and daily laughter; and none the less mysterious for being many.”

 

What he means by this quote is that in the natural world, all human beings are created equally and anyone who is able to achieve some type of social or economic superiority does so using some type of game of smoke and mirrors. The only reason some people seem more powerful or more able to achieve a certain position in life is because they have figured out how to manipulate peoples' perceptions of the world around them, and their own capabilities. When he says that it is experience of men returns to the equality of men, he is saying that in the end we all share similar emotions and have the same basic needs. Without politics and economics, all human beings have the same capabilities and potential.

 

I agree with this statement because I have always felt that the drastic inequality between different members of the same society is extremely unnatural and is the root of a lot of problems we have in this country. The illusions of being so distant from each other on a social level makes it emotionally easier to exploit one another. We feel so different from each other because of what we have or where we come from that we feel no sense of loyalty. We don't feel like neighbors. It seems like people are either trying to protect what they have from people who want it, or trying to take something they want from people who have it. 

 

I think this relates to the class because a large part of our political system is based on the motives of the individuals who achieve high  positions within that system. It tends to be the case that most people high up in government got a head start in life which usually means coming from a wealthy family and given certain privileges and opportunities not available to the masses. The reason there is such a difference in where we all get our start in life is because of the illusions and manipulations that take place in our society and spawn such drastic inequality among citizens of the same country.