Monsters in an Equal World
	Many governments of the world pride themselves on their offerings of total equality to all. However, complete equality of every characteristic throughout a society is nearly impossible. As cheesy as it sounds, everyone is special, and due to individualized inherent qualities it is impossible to generalize two people as complete equals. However, in fantasy world of Avatar: The Legend of Korra, this is exactly what is attempted. In the setting, gifted individuals are able to manipulate their native elements—Earth, Fire, Air, and Water—through martial art called “bending”. In the world’s largest settlement, “Republic City”, benders and non-benders have learned to live alongside each other in harmony—a view, however, not shared by everyone. The Equalists, led by the villainous Amon, are determined to cleanse the world of all bending and create total equality throughout society ("And the Winner Is..."). Amon promises total equality, but only means to strip away all variation from the world. Amon’s lowering of the amount of diversity, variety, and competition actually hurts the system, and does not provide the promised perfect equality.
	Competition, at first thought, may sound like something that goes against equality. However, this is far from the truth. In reality, competition encourages people to rise up to the level of a competitor in the world. This provides them with motivation to overcome any disadvantages they might have. Granted, when there is an extremely high amount of competition in a society, it will be taken to the extreme and there is a high chance for inequality—but the same is true for when there is too little competition, discouraging motivation and competitive success. In The Legend of Korra, the world at first glance may seem hugely imbalanced due to the special intrinsic skills Benders possess. In fact this is quite the opposite, as one successful Non-Bender expressed. It was in fact a world populated with large number of Benders that inspired him to play to his own strengths and start a business based on his own inventions. This eventually led to him becoming one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Without any competition, he would have never been motivated to rise up and succeed against all those originally more talented than him. When the amount of competition in a system in lowered to too low a level, then the system can eventually break down and cease to function. For this reason, many capitalistic governments and societies encourage competition in economics and social life.
 While it could be claimed that too much competition in economics will lead to those unable to compete being weeded out, a slightly lower level of competition allows progress and prosperity. When the government puts out a contract for anything they need, it is turned into a competition between multiple companies. This way, it ensures that each company will put forth their best efforts and make the best product possible rather than try to cut corporate costs. If a company tries to put their own needs before the project they are presented with, then they run the risk of not being chosen. However, the system is equal because each competitor has equal chances and opportunities to compete. While this is one specific example of large corporate competitions, examples can still be seen in everyday lives. In the free market economy, competition is present in every aspect of life. Small business owners are encouraged by competition at a higher economic level than they are currently at to rise up and meet competition in order to be more successful. Any predetermined advantages held by an opponent can be circumvented through will and motivation. Everyone has the opportunity to compete in such a free market, which is a form of equality that balances individualized talents as well as healthy amounts of competition.
	Competition is also valued in social situations. For example, many fans of Alabama football could not compete in the game themselves, yet still remain loyal to the sport. If people really wanted total equality, they would have gotten rid of organized sporting events and competitions a long time ago. Then why do people enjoy these competitions so much? The Legend of Korra has its own sporting events, similar to boxing, focused on the use of Bending to knock opponents out of rings. This is universally considered by the public to be the most popular events that take place; there is no desire to end these competitions. When Amon eventually threatens terrorist activity unless the matches be shut down and for people to “stop worshipping Bending athletes like they are heroes” (Dos Santos and Ryu), he is met with unrest throughout the city. Why? The public doesn’t want to remove the competition from their lives. The competition of these sporting events really occurs in a vacuum, so the talents of gifted athletes cannot be measured against ordinary citizens. However, when viewed by a spectator, it gives them a sense of competition that they could not have partaken in in the first place. When looking at major sports matches, sometimes fans get as much into the competition as the actual athletes. When fans latch on to a certain team, it’s almost as if they are competing themselves. Taking this organized competition out of people’s lives would be akin to removing any other competition from society. This would also detract from the variety of people’s competitions, giving people fewer opportunities to compete with others.
	Diversity is something almost every civilized society prides itself upon. Henceforth, an absence of diversity has an adverse effect on a society. People always have a weakness, but this can be covered for by others. This is why it’s much better to work with others, as two people with different skillsets can cover more “ground” than just one person. In The Legend of Korra, Benders and Non-Benders teamed up in order to defeat Amon. The Non-Benders could be looked upon with a disadvantage due to their inability to bend, but made up for it with more resources, ingenuity, and fighting skill. Removing either of these people from the group would lower the overall diversity of the team, and hurt the group’s overall effectiveness. When accomplishing a task, variety should be one of the highest priorities needed—a lack of variety can seriously damage a group’s success. For example, companies fill groups focusing on important projects with people of varied skillsets, proficient at multiple trades. This way, there can be more overall coverage done by a team of workers.
It could be said, however, that people working in this society are not equal to each other, as others are more proficient at certain aspects of life than they are. However, there are other ways for equality. In Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory, there are eight different areas of expertise a person can possess, ranging from logic to special acuity to athleticism. This explains how an artist has a higher special intelligence but is less kinesthetically aware of themselves than an athlete (Shearer and Luzzo 4). When compared between their respective areas of intelligence, they are clearly unequal, but broadening the scale allows the intelligences to balance each other out and put people on an equal plane, with the inclusion of diversity. Removing diversity from a society applies the same effect as looking at only one of the intelligences; there is clear inequality when comparing individuals. Taking this away from an entire social system relegates the comparison of every person into few aspects of intelligence, leaving few areas for the society as a whole to excel in; as compared to a society which can excel in multiple areas thanks to high levels of diversity.
	Communism is often looked at as a social system that is built solely around equality. Equality is in fact described as one of the three founding principles, along with liberty and brotherhood. However, achieving total equality of whole countries of people requires some kind of government to preside over the working class. This was seen on a very large scale during the communist period of the Soviet Union and other states. This unfortunately goes against the original classless idea of communism, that the people should self-govern each other and have no need for a “totalitarian” government to keep everything in line (Laibman 159). However, in the Soviet Union in particular, this presiding governmental aspect of communism was abused greatly. In order to keep everyone “equal,” there had to be a source of power that everyone was “lesser” than. The more people kept equal, the more power the government needs, and the more power the government needs, the more people needed to work with the government, which in turn places more people above the working class. This “power gap” between the people and the government fuels inequality, exactly what the majority of the people don’t want.
In attempting to remove diversity and competition from society, Amon placed himself above the entire rest of society. Making himself the sole instigator of total equality, Amon became much more powerful than any dictator, not relying on fear to carry his will out, but his own powers. He also attempted to lower the playing field of society lower than anyone in our history has ever attempted—these two aspects combined create a huge power gap between the government and the masses. While it can be argued that this gap between the government and the people is unavoidable, it can be minimized. Before Amon’s takeover, a sound government system was already in place. It consisted of a police force, the city’s strongest Benders, who were controlled by a small council of Non-Benders. This meant that the Non-Benders had a small amount of control over the most powerful Benders, but the Benders could have rebelled had it not been for a sense of justice. In this situation, neither aspect of the system had a distinct amount of power over each other, but each was able to keep each other in check. There will always be small gaps of power, but these can be minimized to an almost insignificant level, keeping equality at a maximum.
According to Steven Asma, the word “monster” is very flexible. It can be used in the classic sense to describe an inhuman creature, or in a more modern term to define someone with monstrous morals, according to a society (7). Amon wanted to control an entire society through the removal of competition and diversity, using the leveled playing field as a platform to build himself up. However, when he pushed against the society of the world, society pushed back. It was not equality that was the monster in Amon’s case, but rather his use of equality as a tool to bend the system to its knees and rule as an absolute leader.  The world branded him a monster after him scheme went into action. What Amon wanted was not even equality, but to be superior to the entire world. Thus, the super-low levels of variety and competition would not further equality for anyone, but instead hurt the system while giving more power to Amon. While Amon may be fictional, the knowledge that comes from his plan is not. Healthy levels of diversity and competition are healthy for the entirety of society, and when looked at from the right angle provide certain degrees of equality as well. Any society that includes these values is likely equal as well—and anyone who claims that the system is unequal might just be trying to serve themselves; they might just be a monster of their own.

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David Laibman, et al. "Question 1: Why Socialism?." Science & Society 76.2 (2012): 151-171. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.
“And the Winner Is…” The Legend of Korra. Nickelodeon. May 12, 2012. Television
Asma, Steven. On Monsters. New York: Oxford, 2009. Print