Mindful Monday - Fairness: Illusion vs Reality

“Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.” – Victor Hugo.

Fairness: The quality or state of being fair.

Unfairness: Marked by injustice, partiality, or deception.

Impartiality: A principle of values and justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, or preference.

Subjective: Based on or influenced by personal feelings.

Objective: Not influenced by personal feelings.

The current definition of fairness is itself problematic. The social environment and interpretations, definitions, and understandings of “Fairness Norms” have been and continue to be uprooted. Due to this phenomenon, there is a lack of clarity that permeates many ideologies of today.

Contentment and happiness are a derivative of how one gauges fairness. While fairness seems to denote impartiality, it has become highly subjective leaving one to wonder, regarding fairness, how much is illusion and how much is reality?

How Fragile Fairness Is

Subjectivity:

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” – Plato. Now, so too is fairness. Hence, subjective.

Perception:

Fairness is always vulnerable to perception.

The Duality of Fair and Unfair:

What may be fair to one may be unfair to another. The existing ambiguity has created an environment of conflict driven by situational interpretation and understanding of values placing fair or unfair at great interpretive risk.

It’s Ambiguity of it All

The variables upon which fairness is evaluated now are unclear and most often contradictory.

Some good news…

Tenets of Perceived Fairness

Process - Protocols - Rules

The commitment to processes, protocols, and rules reduces ambiguity and subjectivity.

Absolute fairness is at best difficult. The commitment to fairness and the lack of unfairness manifests as respect, harmony, and contentment.

“It’s Not Fair” creates victims.

To expect life to be fair leads to disappointment.

Not expecting fairness leads to appreciation.

-Tal Gur