Fairness
In Just a Thought, December 29th, 2008
Have you ever thought to yourself, “That’s not fair”?
In today’s culture, we have seemingly adopted fairness as our standard for right and wrong. However, in truth, the demand for fairness ultimately erodes all standards.
In baseball what is considered the strike zone is well established. But, if fairness were to become the standard, if an umpire makes a mistake in applying the standard, then he must make a corresponding mistake in favor of the other team in order to be fair. What results is no standard at all, but a series of ever escalating errors each meant to balance the previous mistake.
The same principle applies whenever any standard is challenged on the basis of “fairness”. We see it in the challenge to standardized testing, in college admissions programs, even in the justice system. The ultimate result is an ad hoc system fully dependent on the wisdom of differing humans and the reduction of standards to the lowest common denominator.
Our standard should be justice, not fairness…and we must not correct injustice by abandoning the standards.
