Somewhere, Somehow, Sometime Americans lost something extremely valuable

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

It was a concept known as "Fairness".

The idea of Fairness acts as a modifying restraint on wretched excess. It gets indoctrinated early, usually in childhood, for instance when a mother tells one child to divide the pie and the other to have first pick. Now we are finding that even animals may have an innate sense of fairness. (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97944783)

But as a society overall, we have lost the sense of fairness. I think it was gradual with the heaviest loss occurring in the late 70's and early 80's and gained rapid momentum with the Reagan years. We see the onset of Gordon Gekkos being seen as role models and not as archetypes of comic book villains who dismantle companies and plunge people into the poor house. Greed is Good becomes a credo with all irony removed. We see bumper stickers proclaiming that "he who dies with the most toys wins." We see executives stripping their companies of all value because they can, and can personally pocket it, while they simultaneously shut down factories and thereby towns and cities. They have no moral hesitation about this destruction and wind up on the cover of Business Week. I Got Mine replaces E Pluribus Unum. Government and the populace allow this to happen. Anyone who complains is a "socialist" or a "bleeding heart liberal" or a "whiner". "Life isn't fair. Get over it. Get yours. Screw everyone else".

We even lose the sense of the purpose of government - to take on the roles that ARE TOO LARGE to be born by the individual or the private sector; those roles that cannot be "privatized" because they innately are too intimately entwined into the life of every citizen, like: defense, justice, education, allocation of natural resources, transportation, health care, food quality, social safety nets, fair wages, etc. Instead, somehow it is decided that these huge national responsibilities are better delegated to the private, for-profit, corporate sector, believing the canard that it is better, more efficient. Better for whom? It is definitely better for the profit makers and takers, but it is not an improvement for the majority.

Fairness is the glue that holds a society together. Once you throw it out as a stabilizing influence for civilization in general you get pretty much what we have right now. A financial system in tatters, plucked and plundered by renegade profiteers and a desolate future to look forward to. The people who sliced the pie got to serve it too and it just ain't FAIR!

[ogneopasno]

1. Yup. Fairness and respect.

[Winterblues]

2. Respect is the biggest loss IMO

People without Respect can't be expected to be fair about anything. Respect used to be an American tradition. It was taught to every child as a basic way of life along with the "Golden Rule". Respect for other people, for the Planet we live on and even for themselves.. I mourn the loss of Respect most of all.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. OTOH, it is easy to disrespect those who are being unfair to you.

There can be no respect without fairness.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Those and empathy.

[screembloodymurder]

4. K & R

E Pluribus Unum

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Fairness is unAmerican.

It smacks of socialism--teach kids to share things and pretty soon ya got politicians talking about "spreading the wealth around." And besides, everyone knows that the rich own the country and deserve to run it to benefit their own interests. If you start running elections fairly, how the hell ya gonna be able to elect people like Bush and Reagan who will do what the rich tell them to? Pretty soon you'd just have chaos, what with everyone running around thinking their opinion ought to count as much as anyone else's.

[Democrats_win]

6. Great article. The word "fairness" does not completely capture it. Soulless perhaps.

Soullessness would include lack of fairness but would also express the idea that our country, our businesses and we the people have lost our way.

Some in the conservative movement think only in terms of dollars and "senselessness" while they forget human suffering caused by what they've "accomplished."

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. Thanks. You're right about "fairness" not being exactly the word I'm grasping for

I think EQUITABLE might be better:

"fair to all parties as dictated by reason and conscience"

But it's kind of a legalese kind of word and I was really was trying to say that we all used to have a collective sense of fair play, justice, scale, duty, etc. that seems to have been flushed down the toilet, culminating in not just financial ruin but moral ruin as well, since now people are capable of justifying a concept like torture in polite society.

[canadianbeaver]

7. Whats that saying I have heard by many all my life.....

oh yeah...

LIFE IS NOT FAIR......and boy oh boy...it sure has been that way of late.

Wish it was not so!

[FiveGoodMen]

16. I look at it this way: Life is only as fair as we make it.

It's certainly not fair right out of the box, and sometimes there's nothing you can do to make it fair (like when a kid gets cancer and there is no cure).

But often, people say "life isn't fair" meaning "so I don't have to be fair, either."

Life is only as fair as we make it.

[canadianbeaver]

25. Yup....I just wish people kept that in their minds as they

go along with their lives......alongside the rest of us...cause I care to be fair!!

We have to make the choice to be fair,truthful and honourable.....each and every day...each and every minute.

However,some desperate people will forgo fair...when there is no food...medicine...shelter....etc...when there is such a disconnect between those with and those without.

[lonestarnot]

8. Looks to me like they ate it all too!

[Romulox]

10. I think "fairness" is a symptom. We Americans have no sense of community

or of common purpose.

In an "everyone for themselves" culture, whatever I can take is my "fair" share.

[NashVegas]

11. We Were Never Really Fair, But The Day We Dropped the Atomic Bomb ...

It would have happened no matter who invented and dropped it, but the atom bomb brought a mind-numbing heap of 'not fair,' when it took out hundreds of thousands of civilians in warfare.

And in unleashing the great "not fair" upon the world, it became imperative to keep that weapon out of the hands of uncivilized people, who wouldn't be as judicious as we were when we dropped it.

That brought on yet another round of "not fair;" it gave us further reason and justification to launch our various little coups, and make sure uncivilized people never came into power in the first place.


There was unfairness before we dropped the bomb; there were the Indian reservations and slaves, for example. But the atomic age coincided with the mass-media age, and so it was always the bomb that occupied space in our minds, unlike slavery and the natives who were put away in quieter times.

[Gregorian]

13. I want to post something that donned on me this morning.

It is very much related to what you are discussing.

What would it take to make Americans revolt? Darfur, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan. These are places where our compassion just won't engage enough to see and act in order to help another human being. But just take our cars away. I was thinking of the 1400 cars that were burned in France over New Years Eve. Just take our cars away, and there would be riots. Old, young, ill alike would be in the streets.

What does that tell you?


And this isn't about cars. This is about our depth of compassion. This is about just how self-centered we have become. Selfish. So selfish that we would let Iraqis die, but wouldn't tolerate the loss of our cars.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

17. I think things are slowly dawning on a lot of people

For instance, it is dawning on me that things are really much much worse than I ever realized. I am recognizing that a concept that has always been relatively metaphorical for me like "evil" is actually possible and could even intrude on your life one day, even if you're just a little person who trys to mind your own business and put food on your family.

A few recent threads about prison labor and the for-profit prison industry have made me feel like I am looking into some God forsaken (literally) abyss. I never really have taken stock of the fact that I am living in a country where the prison population is HUGE and growing daily. And who makes up that population? It took a thread about some quiet 50 year old retired civil servant who made the error of growing his own pot and who now finds himself in a prison workhouse making pennies a day to wake me up. The reason is, because while I have always been sympathetic to the plight of the poor and underprivilleged who have traditionally made up the criminal class, it never truly struck a personal chord. A retired 50ish civil service guy does. Sad, but true. It wakes me up to the fact that the answer to "who is a criminal?" is "anyone they say so." Non-violent drug users. Protestors. Don Seligman. Tomorrow it could be bloggers who say unkind things about the state. Combine that with the fact that we live in a country with "Constitution Free" zones that cover the majority of the population.

Why are we so invested in prisons? Why are they being turned into privatized profit centers? Why don't we try to rehabilitate? Why do we look for ways to make sentences longer? Why are there things like 3 strikes laws? How can a sheriff make money by denying inmates food? Why don't we make even some kind of pathetic effort to address the underlying causes of why people are jailed in the first place?(Mental illness, homelessness, poverty, disintigrated families, lack of employment opportunites that pay a living wage,etc.) Because it is to someone's benefit. Because someone is making money.

[Gregorian]

21. It usually takes personal experience to bring consciousness.

When I was just out of high school I began growing my own cannabis. This was mid 70's. It wasn't long before I, an A student, could be considered a fugitive in my own country. When the drug war began, I assumed the citizens would rise up. This was my first big sense of hopelessness. Years went by as I watched the country grow into a monster. I even remember as far back as just having gotten my driver's license, and being the victim of the brand new radar guns that the police were using illegally. It took many years, and a large number of higher income victims before it was found that they were misusing these stupid things. But by then I was already an angry kid.

So for me it was an awareness at an early age due to my lurking in the shadows of a punitive system.

Things as tangential as sleep apnea can contribute to odd behavior, maladjustment, self medication.

And yes, our corporate society has taken advantage of the disadvantaged. Our lack of compassion combined with our collective societal greed/fear have...I've lost my train of thought. But yes, we're catching on. Some of us. And I would say, too late.

I cannot express the loss I feel. I'm watching this unfold. And I have a depth which most are unwilling to experience. It's even difficult to discuss it here on this forum. But essentially it is numbers of people combined with modern living combined with a selfish irresponsibility. And it's not just something that bad people do. We're all trappped now. We are all dependent upon a system that is destructive. Beautiful and highly intelligent in some ways, but destructive. I even got a degree in mechanical engineering just so I could better understand how it works. Not to get a job, but to be able to see how it all works. Production lines. Energy processes.

Well, it's sunny. There is a forest waiting for me to ride my bicycle through. Redwoods await.

Thanks. We need each other. Let's always remember that.

One other thing- I went into a chainsaw shop with my Obama sweatshirt on the other day. An old man who came here out of poverty from Mexico said something that I find so simple and valuable-

"I would rather have a friend than a hundred dollar bill. "

He is hoping Obama can spread that sentiment.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

23. Many people for the first times in their lives are experiencing trepidation

about:

their job
their housing
their health
their future
their retirement

It was always someone else's issue - we're fine, too bad about those people too stupid to have good paying jobs, nice homes and employer provided healthcare.

I think the personal experience is occurring. Fear is in the suburbs. Our stores are closing. Our little self-satisfied cocoons are being blown away. Life is intruding. More will find that we do need each other, as friends, as family, as neighbors, as citizens. So, maybe some good can actually come out of all this.

Cheers!

[Waiting For Everyman]

24. The common characteristic of prisoners - enough will not to comply.

Nothing is more criminal today than that. But isn't that non-compliance also the soul of independence? Granted, it's warped and dangerous in many prisoners who SHOULD BE prisoners, but it goes beyond that and accounts for our absurdly huge incarceration percentage.

The will to resist is what this society as it is now, is aimed to crush. That's why we have a ridiculous over-abundance of minute and often conflicting laws which are actually impossible to follow or even know about, so that the state can cherry-pick enforcement and single out anybody to bust whevever they want.

Our schools now are nothing but compliance factories. Our job insecurity contributes to that mentality further.

Yes, respect for the law is important. But RWers have made the law unworthy of respect. Intentionally, I think. That really has to change.

[Wednesdays]

14. I remember when I first noticed the trend

It was in the late 70's when "Looking Out For #1" first came out. Remember that book? It was in the self-help section of bookstores, and the gist of the book was that in order to solve life's problems, you just screw others before they screw you. I laughed out loud, because at the time that sort of thinking was considered sheer lunacy.

Now it's become the gospel of the land.

[Hydra]

15. "When you hurt others, you hurt yourself"

Most people don't care about what happens to others as long as it doesn't happen to them, as such, we can't look toward things like universal healthcare, universal housing/food and right to work.

[rrneck]

18. It has a lot to do with

externalization. That's the practice of exporting liabilities to others rather than shouldering them oneself. Corporations have turned it into a fine art. We have reached (I hope) a crescendo of privatized profit and socialized risk.

Capitalism is the last of the "big three" systems designed by people to deal with the sudden and overwhelming wealth derived from the most readily available and easiest to exploit energy resource in history: oil. Fascism was like a virus that feeds so voraciously on its host it kills it and thus collapsed quickly. Communism was next because of inefficiency. We're the last, and the richest among us are the last of the last.

As the oil runs out we will have to reaquaint ourselves with fairness. I hope that reintroduction will be fairly benign.

[Joe Fields]

19. Thank you for this post, because it is so devastatingly true.

A very coherent and well thought out post. Best one I've read in quite awhile. This was a subject I was thinking about just last night, as a matter of fact.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

20. Thank you fellow FDR admirer.

:toast:

No one ever nailed it better than he with the 4 Freedoms:

Freedom from want
Freedom from fear
Freedom of speech
Freedom to worship without government intrusion

All other topics are just indents under those.

[sweetpotato]

22. Empathy is also dead. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. The movie "The Magdalen Sisters" is a great metaphor for American society

While it's a composite of true stories about young women who were imprisoned and forced to work as slave labor in convents in Ireland, mostly for the "sin" of premarital sex or even suspicion of premarital sex, one of the most striking aspects of the movie is the lack of solidarity among the young women.

In the film, there are dozens of them, but only six or eight nuns to enforce the rules. The young women rebel individually in small and large ways and sympathize with one another, but they never take the kind of collective action that could liberate their fellow prisoners.

In one scene, a prisoner is claimed by her brother on Christmas Day. (The convent would release the young women only to the custody of an adult male relative, and the brother has just turned 21.) But once free, she disappears. There is no indication that she has started or participated in any campaign to release the other prisoners.

In another scene, one of the prisoners finds an unlocked gate in the wall. Not only does she fail to take advantage of the opportunity, but she actually turns down an offer of a ride to town from a passerby, and she never tells her fellow prisoners about the gate.

A sad scene involves an older prisoner who has been confined all her life and has become a sort of trustie for the nuns. As she lies dying, she tells the younger woman who is attending her the woeful story of her life, but the younger woman lashes out in anger at her, not at the nuns who corrupted her.

In yet another scene, one nun forces the young women to line up naked so that she can make disparaging remarks about their bodies. It would have been easy to overpower that sadistic nun and give her a taste of her medicine, but they don't do it. Nor do they intervene when one of their fellow prisoners is held down to have her head shaved for disobedience.

At the end, two of the young women overpower the Mother Superior and take her keys so that they can escape. But they do not use that power to free their fellow prisoners. All they do is escape to England, where one of them has a relative. Again, there's no indication that they do anything to help those left behind.

These situations reminded me also of what happened during the Cultural Revolution in China. Gangs of fanatical teenagers would take over factories, schools, even hospitals, humiliate, abuse, sometimes kill the existing staff, and start running the institution according to their own interpretation of Maoist thought. For years, groups of adults, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, meekly submitted to gangs consisting of a couple dozen teenagers.

These rampages stopped only after some factory workers in Beijing chased a gang of Red Guards off with sledgehammers and shovels.

At that point, Mao realized that he couldn't risk losing the support of the factory workers, so he called in the leaders of the Red Guards and told them to cool it. Collective action halted a long period of fear and destruction.

Why didn't the young women in the Irish convents have enough solidarity to rebel? Why did millions of Chinese adults submit to what amounted to sanctioned gang-like behavior?

Why do Americans feel that there's nothing they can do?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

28. I saw that movie and I get your point.

The downtrodden don't recognize injustice or fight it but accept it as their given lot and often don't help one another if they have found an individual path to escape.

Why didn't the Magdalen victims speak out about what happened to them?

Because they were ashamed. They had been led to believe that somehow it was all their individual fault.

The Magdalen Laundries is really a very shocking story of recent times. Basically church approved serf/slave labor. There have been recent court cases in Canada about the same types of abuse. Joanie Mitchell has a very powerful and beautiful song on this topic that is worth looking for if you have the mind.

[trof]

27. Every time I hear someone say "Well, life isn't fair." I say

"Maybe it isn't, but it should be and we should do all we can to make it that way."
After all, what's fair is fair.
;-)

[UpInArms]

29. great writing, Phoebe Loosinhouse

thanks so much for articulating beautiful an issue that affects all of us