The last advantage for minorities in their struggle for equality is actually in the very corner they have been boxed into over the last two centuries. Minorities struggle – always. Minorities suffer – a very fundamental axiom of Buddhism. When struggle is combined with suffering, there is perpetual angst, the angst of never being capable of confronting and overcoming the majority. The reasons are obvious – the majority controls the hierarchy of authority.
Because of that, minorities and others who are outside of any established longstanding hierarchy have no other choice than to create a solution. Compromise only provides for two opposing sides within the existing hierarchy to come to a solution; but, compromise is not available to those who are outside of the hierarchy. They cannot compete for power as they are not considered contenders or shareholders.
On the other hand, by its very nature creating solutions does not require inclusion into the “inside group,” and is much more effective because of that. In the case of minorities who seek social, political and economic/financial equality, as they define the three core values, with majorities, creating a solution(s) using the three universal and timeless values has the capability of becoming actualized – i.e., ultimately a satisfactory solution that both can agree upon. This can only be possible because the solution(s) that is created was created using elements (species values of sustainability) that are common to both the majority and the minority, elements that also cannot be argued out of existence, but in fact are self-evident truths and undeniable. (Ref. Post #2)
Yes, I know that the dynamics of these three powerful values may seem nebulous and strange to most readers. I’ve found in my workshops that these values seem to only come alive when students pragmatically engage the process of redefining social issues that are important to them individually, expanding that to include their family, then their community and eventually our global civilization. Most people are intrigued by these values and are curious to know more, but only a few (that 1% again) are inquisitive enough to try to understand a sustainable reality outside of their own cultural box. Ignorance is comforting, insular, familiar… and deadly. When I write that I am thinking of the great wheat bonanza of the first 30 years of the 1900s when farmers could earn three years income in one on wheat by plowing up the immense grassland of the prairies. The “Dust Bowl” that resulted became one of the most catastrophic environmental calamities of all history. Ignorance is deadly and not sustainable.