It has been a cruel world

There's one thing that always bothers me, (Actually, there are a few, this is just one of them), and that's what is the meaning of being equal and being fair, and where and when did those concepts had arisen.

I'm quite sure that its history has stretched far beyond the Roman empire as the Greek philosopher Socrates had once asked his student how the student learnt the idea of being fair, while laws have been passed even further back that called on people to be equal, such as the code of Hammurabi.

The meaning of equal is quite easy to grasp, it is to treat someone the same way as you would treat anyone else, the word "equal" just says it all. But what about fair? It seems that what it means to be fair is not that simple. Some dictionaries does a splendid job at explaining it: Fair - being just, Just - treating each person in a fair way, while others relate it to being reasonably equal. I'm quite curious as to why no dictionary mention that one definition that is most obvious to everyone: "No Cheating". Maybe its because cheating is to break a law, and a law is suppose to be fair, which just repeats the loop again.

Whatever fair means, it's almost as if that our brains sort of know that being fair is something that should be strived for, making it quite humiliating to show someone that he/she is being unfair (and perhaps making the phrase "No Fair!" such a popular sign in a demostration). The strange thing is that there seems to be almost no middle ground between being fair and not being fair. An animal activist can tell you that it's unfair to kill animals for food, while everyone else can say that is fair, but there wouldn't be anyone who will say it's both fair and unfair. It's almost as if should one situation of the whole is unfair, then the whole is unfair too. There doesn't seem to be a case where we can say this judge is more fair than the other judge, if someone is less fair, it's is the analogous to being unfair, giving the other the title of just "fair". All this seems to make "fair" a standard that we can't improve on.

So just some interesting questions to ask:
Does being fair means being equal? Or is being equal being unfair?
Is nature equal, fair, both or neither?
Does it takes a human to be equal or fair?
If fair isn't equal, which should we choose?
Should a good society be fair or equal? Should a good law be fair or equal?


I've got to sleep so think about these questions for a while, be back tomorrow.

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4 Sep
Hmm, apparently tomorrow didn't mean the next day from the time of the post above.
Ok, now to answer the question I had written.

Being fair doesn't mean being equal nor vice versa. However, to give a more in-depth explanation, let's have a look at the standard view of these two concepts. First of all, to the layman, equal has a sense of being more objective than fair. After all, everyone knows what the meaning of the same is, and perceive human equality to be treating everyone the same. However this is quite wrong, both equal and fair are about the same in terms of objectivity, which is quite little. Equal can mean equal with respect to different conditions, equal living standards, equal salary, equal vote, equal treatment, equal benefits, ... Now the problem with creating and equal society is that the people inside the society aren't equal to begin with, to treat them all like equals is to do a huge injustice.

So what about fair? Like equal, it is also subjective, being fair in an argument is the idea that we must look at both sides of the story before coming to a conclusion (it's not merely enough to give each side equal time, and that's the worse way this is shown is in a debate). Being fair as an employer is to recognise the achievements of more productive workers. We don't say that these actions are equal for the reason that such actions are not equal at all. However, all hope of using the concept of fairness in society is not lost, there still happens to be some objective way of being fair. For example we can be fair according to ability, in which those who contribute/have the potential to contribute the most to the society will have a higher say in what decisions the society makes. But we can also be fair by letting the more well-informed people have a higher say in making decisions. In fact the number of possible ways of being fair is so vast that I couldn't possibly list them all out here. However, is there a right way of being fair? I believe there is, and it must take a lot of factors into account, and not turn up into a system where the scientists and teachers get less say in what to include in Science education than the parents (unless they're the same person).

The problem with democracy is that it is communism practised in voting. It treats everyone as equals, and not treat everyone fairly. Different issues concern different people, and different people have a different degree of awareness in different issues. I'm okay with putting issues to a vote, not an equal vote, but a fair vote. If such a political situation can be made possible, then all others would become obsolete for they have truly made the world a cruel place to be in. It is only in a fair system of government that there will truly be the fair say of the people.

Urgh, it's tiring to think, I'm going to leave the fairness of nature for another post.