Fair

The very idea of ‘fair’ is a tricky one. When something is deemed to be fair, someone has decided that there is no unjust advantage to any of the parties involved. Hmmmm? Not many situations can make that standard. Someone is not quite agreeing that the decision is fair. So full on, completely fair is a rare situation. When we both want the bigger piece, one cuts them, the other chooses first, is that fair?

We see declarations of ‘fair trade’ which is supposed to mean that we in the richer part of the world pay a ‘fair’ price to suppliers in the poorer part of the world. An example is coffee growers. So, is it fair to pay them the wages a farmer can earn here in Canada? Is that what we provide to them? Is it fair to pay the few who supply us a better price than the farmer adjacent to them? This fair thing is just not obvious

I know a guy who often says the word ‘fair’ in conversation. He is a very economical sort, even only uses initials for his name. I guess I can say ‘fair’ to that, since it is his name and he is not cheating or anything one could call ‘unfair’. When he says ‘fair’ it is a yes vote from him. It means he agrees and he usually says it when we are debating and I have made a point he has decided to accept. Fair? Fair. I like him

Fair is, in my experience, neither crystal clear nor easy. Is it fair that I am over six feet tall and many other men are shorter? Is it fair that one person have a high IQ and another person a high EQ and yet another neither or both? I am guessing that it all kind of works out, somehow. All have ‘something’ that could be deemed an unfair advantage, in some circumstances. So let me assert, that it is all fair. What we have is fair

Some will wail that life is not fair. Well, no, life is not fair. Who made that up? Are hurricanes fair? Is it not more about how we deal with things that makes them acceptable or not? To be fair it can be really helpful to balance our thinking, well, judgments, about whether something is fair and whether we can let it be. When we do let it be, fair can be about preference, aesthetics and beauty. Would that be fair enough?