One saying that kids are fond of saying is “That’s not fair.” The thing is, we don’t grow out of saying it,
if not out loud, then quietly within our minds – sometimes our subconscious
minds. Fairness, according to George
Lakoff,[1] is
something we become cognitive of at an early age. No one teaches us the notion. Yes, experience helps us define it better and
also teaches us: “No one likes a crybaby.” So, we learn to be more stoic in life; we
grow an awareness that it is not always fair and that quietly coping with
slights and other forms of unfairness is best treated without fuss. But if the stakes are at all meaningful to us
or if we’re just having a bad day to begin with, we will be more disposed to
react so that others can see our displeasure.
And sometimes it is good to express anger or disappointment or a “What;
are you kidding?” sort of reaction.
Others should know when you consider that a line has been crossed if for
no other purpose than to establish and protect your integrity.
At such times, out in public, I have opted with trying to
control my emotions and begin with, “I am going to say this as nicely as I can;
I hope what I am going to say doesn’t offend you.” Then I express, in as calm a voice as I can,
what my concern is. If I’m cheated and
the consequence is a meaningful loss, what happens next depends on whether
restitution can be gained. If the
offending party is known and approachable, of course, a discussion commences
and a satisfactory result is sought. But
if the other party is unknown, refuses to acknowledge the offense, doesn’t care
and therefore refuses to own up to his/her culpability, then a third party
needs to brought into play, most likely entailing a lawyer and the courts. Of course, all of this adds costs to the
process, even if contingency arrangements are made with legal
representation. So, in such cases, the
aim would be retribution, not revenge.
Revenge helps no one, even if the emotional side tells us it would feel
so good.
Then there is the case when laws have been broken and another
branch of the legal system is called upon:
the police and a prosecutor. You
file charges and let the legal system do its thing. This entails other costs such as being
deposed, possibly becoming a witness in court and, perhaps, having to hire a
lawyer. Again, it is very rare that an
average citizen goes through this process and says, “Boy, that was fun.”
In all of this, a very
practical strategy is to avoid as much as possible being the offending party;
that is, decide early on that it is the safest, with the least long term costs,
and the friendliest (acquiring and keeping worthwhile friends) strategy is to
act fairly in all your dealings, even if it either incurs short-term costs or
gives up on some short-term advantage.
But we should remember that in all of this, we work under an allusion of
sorts.
The allusion is the spell of a metaphor that is so entrenched
we have codified it into law. That is,
as Lakoff points out, the allusion of money or financial calculations with
fairness. Fairness is a qualitative, not
a quantitative thing. But in dealing
with it, we have constructed a quantitative way to measure it. We are not taught to be concerned with
fairness as in when we first said, “He got more cookies than I did and that’s
not fair,” but we are taught the notion of a ledger. This notion takes the following form: I have so many “points” for being fair or I,
in being unfair, owe someone something to make up for my unfairness. We find it practical and helpful to see this
business of fairness as a sort of business, a quantifiable commodity that one
can measure. I say that law codifies it
in that if, for example, a dear family member, a father or mother, let’s say,
is killed or maimed, the courts will take into account the earning potentials
of the injured party so as to figure what monetary amount might satisfy the
“justly” defined loss. We need to
balance the ledger. This way of thinking
is so ingrained that we lose sight of the fact, at least as the process is
progressing, that this does not begin to address the loss; it can only provide
some metaphorical relief.
I bring all this up because I believe that trying to quantify
fairness fits the natural rights view of governance and politics. If governance, in part, is about keeping
these collective ledgers somewhat in balance, the government is addressing a
maintenance function and trying to satisfy it.
If not, the levels of disagreement and resulting disruptions would render
the whole system – governmental and societal – as dysfunctional; if there is
enough of that sort of thing, the very existence of the system comes into
question or the citizenry, in one form or another, opts for some radical,
perceived solution. Radicalism has a
poor record in meeting the problems which we are considering.
Could our current presidential cycle be explained under this
light? If there is a prevailing sense
that the system is unfair – and this does not need to be accurate, it just has
to be perceived – modern societies tend to look for one of two options. These are a nationalist option or a
“revolutionary” option. This condition
is intensified if actual conditions can be cited as proof that the system is
unfair. If almost all the new increased income
of a nation’s economy is going to the top 1%, this can be cited as a
factual. Hence, we have Trump, the
nationalist, and Sanders, the revolutionary.
My suggestion to the 1% is to consider your actions, consider their
fairness, and consider what you consider fairness to be. No level of persuasion can eliminate people’s
concern over fairness; we’re just wired that way. And policing our way of accepting general
unfairness is very expensive. I write
this with no sense of a threat, but more of a warning. The telltale signs seem to be popping
up. By all accounts, this campaign
season seems to be something very new; it’s telling us something.
[1] Lakoff, G. (2002).
Moral politics: How liberals
and conservatives think. Chicago,
IL: The University of Chicago Press.
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