From the school yard to the workplace, there's no charge more damning than "You're being unfair!" Born out of democracy and raised in open markets, fairness has become our de facto modern creed. The very symbol of American ethics--Lady Justice--wears a blindfold as she weighs the law on her impartial scale.
In this election season, politicians will be falling over themselves to assert their "fairness cred." And each side of the partisan debate will be using the word differently -conservatives will mean "meritocratic rewards" when they speak of fairness, and liberals will mean "equality."
But of course life isn't fair, no matter what your political lean, and we might be expecting too much from reality. In our zealous pursuit of fairness, we have banished our urges to like one person more than another, one thing over another, hiding them away as dirty secrets of our humanity.
But of course life isn't fair, no matter what your political lean, and we might be expecting too much from reality. In our zealous pursuit of fairness, we have banished our urges to like one person more than another, one thing over another, hiding them away as dirty secrets of our humanity.
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