Hello. I love feeding trolls!

>But when is it enough?

The self-interested 0-sum answer is that while one is below the median, more equality is preferable, and while one is above the median, it is not. On the population level, this all evens out. But it incentivizes the individuals who feel a threat towards their above-median status to fight increasing equality.

For example, a white person whose categorical superiority to people of color is threatened will attempt to equivocate categorical and meritocratic superiority by adding a layer of justification to their worldview. A hugely popular example is moving from the self-justifying belief "whites are superior" to the argument "whites have statistically higher IQ's according to this data, and higher IQ is equivalent to superiority, ergo whites are superior."

The weakness of this approach is that the latter argument is based on empirical observations of time-sensitive data. It's not categorical; it needs a continuous supply of experimental confirmation, and is therefore labor intensive to maintain. There are three main ways to ease the burden: fabricating information wholecloth, using biased data collection/analysis techniques, and supporting social policies that maintain statistical confounders between whites and non-whites.

Interestingly, a person with firm belief in the meritocratic superiority of whites does not feel threatened, and has no reason to make arguments supporting the superiority of whites over non-whites. It is only those who understand on some level that they are reliant on categorical superiority who feel compelled to make arguments.

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