So Much Happier Blog
Fairness and Justice: Moving Targets
“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.”
Another logical pairing of Maslowe’s preconditions to the pursuit of our human needs is that of fairness and justice. As with the other preconditions, if these are lacking in your world, it’s hard to focus on being your best self, so we’ll think through them a bit this week. They're similar concepts that I think are often differentiated by the question of degree; many people think of fairness as a nice idea that is rarely realized; you’ve probably heard someone tell a child at some point, “Life isn’t fair, so stop whining and walk it off,” or something similar. This imperative acknowledges the difficulties of achieving fairness, as well as, arguably, an insensitivity on the part of the speaker to the child’s feelings and an unwillingness to explain the matter further!
In the ideal, fairness would be an expression of equality in which two human beings are treated identically no matter what their various qualities and differences might be. In reality, it’s easy to see how it would be nearly impossible to treat every person in exactly the same manner, and not even appropriate to do so. For instance, should we allow a five-year-old to drive a car because older people are allowed to? Well, no—that’s an obviously terrible idea, but then the question becomes, which qualities create equality between human beings such that they should be treated identically, and that’s a complex question. The response to this difficulty is met with a variety of approaches across cultures, as the determination of who can be considered similar to whom will be based on local values. Fairness is a word that we often use around subjects that are not fraught with the kind of danger and importance to which we apply the word justice. The word brings to mind two people attempting to decide on what kind of fence to build between their properties, or the way a middle school teacher grades papers, rather than decisions that affect the course of history. We seem to apply it to situations that are not gross violations, but debatable conundrums. It’s a concept that any given group probably decides and polices in a less structured way because of its lower stakes, and the more a group shares similar values, the easier it will be for its members to negotiate solutions that seem fair across the board in any given instance.
Justice, on the other hand, is a term generally used for the formal rule system communicated through a region’s laws and judicial system. Those rules apply across all people who live within the borders of that region, no matter what their cultural influences. Laws are common agreements that sum up the group’s best thinking about how its members should behave. There will always be rules that individual members disagree with, but they govern anyway so that there can be certainty about expectations. There are many wonderful novels that explore visions of utopian living, and the more interesting ones show us the impossibility of creating conditions that will be perfect for everyone. The most we can expect is that our region’s rules will leave us mostly free to act as we prefer. Justice can also refer to the perceived “rightness” of an action or outcome. A region’s laws will take ideals of rightness into account, but they are, again, subjective. Today’s justice is tomorrow’s injustice. In today’s world, where so much information is easily shared, the best practices of many regions of the world are out there to be utilized and to inform local choices. A wider range of options can be considered for the best fit in a local system. New ideas spur more rapid change and more detailed refinements.
The justice meted out by a region’s judicial system, guided by clear written rules of law, lets us know that the culture will not stand for lack of equity on a grander scale, and makes it worthwhile for all to pay attention. Unlike fairness, this should make justice, at least in theory, harder than fairness to ignore or interpret. Of course, enormous amounts of time and money are still spent each year in the arguing of cases and how the written laws apply to each one! The proliferation of legal dramas on television attests to the spellbinding variety of ways in which many laws can be understood and argued. While a societal group holds sway over the rules of justice in that in can contribute to the process of changing laws over time, there are times when it does not seem that justice (as in the right result from a moral perspective) has been served in the moment because an antiquated law is still on the books, or a situation arises with new factors that haven’t been considered before. Not to mention a loophole having been exploited or a judge or jury proving to have an obvious bias. And yet, despite inevitable ambiguities, developed nations still make strong efforts to define legal rules so that clear lines of consequence can be obvious to citizens. When everyone knows what’s allowable and what isn’t, each can make his own choice about his actions, and understand the likely outcomes. Each can also understand her agreement or disharmony with the larger group, which can help her to understand her place in this region and whether she is willing to stay there. The alternative to having set rules would be chaos, which is not conducive to the health and happiness of most people; if chaos reigns, safety concerns draw us away from anything more rewarding that could be achieved in an environment of general stability.
Having a well-defined and well-communicated set of rules also accomplishes a few other things, including helping to map out ways to address what has happened in a given incident (and its aftermath), and how best to move forward following that incident for the safety of all:
· It helps people to decide whether those rules are effectively creating what they think of as justice from a moral perspective. It’s normal for values to shift over time. As they do, those people governed by a particular set of laws can decide separately or as a group that the rules should change to reflect new values, and band together in order to create the change they see as necessary
· Those who run afoul of the rules are punished in some way, which may deter others from risking taking the same kinds of actions. Without consequences, more individuals might dare to flout the rules and cause havoc in a previously orderly system
· The feelings of outrage of victims or other observers at the lawbreaker’s behavior may be satisfied by recompense of some sort being required. This may restore a sense of fairness being upheld in the group; this is an emotional and moral consideration regarding balancing out the scales regarding a former incident
· The public may be kept safer from those who are imprisoned or lose privileges because of unlawful behavior. This is a functional, purely mechanical consideration about doing the best thing going forward from a problematic incident
As for the interplay between the two concepts, if fairness is not a common concept or value in a particular region, it’s also less likely that this region’s judicial system will treat all citizens equitably. For instance, if racial or religious biases are rampant, there may be an unwritten agreement by the majority that all people deserve equal treatment except those in one of the groups that is out of favor, which implies that fairness is not a strong principle here; if women are considered to be less valuable than men, say, there may be entirely different laws in place covering their actions and rights. Even in the United States right now, which likes to pride itself on being a free and modern nation, we still see vestiges of old ideas about women’s place in society played out in the fact that on average, women still earn about 21% less than men who do the same exact job. There’s currently a lot of work being done in the corporate world on changing this stubborn fact, but old ways of thinking and behaving die hard, and for centuries it was completely in vogue to think of women as separate and unequal to men—a completely different commodity with much different value in dollars and cents. “Fairness” that applied among men didn’t apply to women, and that was considered to be obvious and only right. The idea of fairness that many cultures are striving toward now includes similar rules applying to both men and women, though some may vary based on obvious differences. But, of course, there will always be room for confusion as our understanding of differences changes; for example, women are now allowed to serve in the U.S. military, but their progress in having opportunities for career advancement has been slow, and in the event of a draft, women are not included because they are still considered to be fundamentally less suited to combat, and positions that support it, than men. I imagine that, to some modern men in the military, that might be seen as unfair! So even if fairness is a common value, the complexities of life and the progress of ideas mean that it still may not be applied equitably.
Both fairness and justice are imprecise, complicated concepts that will always be imperfectly expressed, but an attempt at them supports societal agreement, conflict resolution, and safety. They help to create a framework in which we can expect to operate as we go about our pursuit of happiness, hopefully with something of a sense of clarity. They support order in the group, another precondition that we looked at last week, and lay out a code of conduct to which we must adhere if we want to remain at liberty. They also give us recourse if someone else is violating our stated rights, which can also contribute to our feelings of safety and stability. Anyone who has been on the wrong side of unfairness knows that it’s not an enjoyable experience. It’s confusing and frustrating, and it can be hard to understand how to avoid it in the future, which can be a real blow to confidence. Anyone who has experienced injustice knows that it can be heartbreaking and incredibly disruptive to one’s life. Structures and customs that help us to avoid these results help to create an environment in which people can thrive. Feeling that you have choices regarding how you relate to issues of fairness and justice is empowering. Consider, then:
· Do you make an effort to treat others fairly?
· Do you include what you know to be local understandings of fairness or moral justice in your consideration of possible actions, or only your own preferences?
· Do you respond thoughtfully to feedback you receive from others about their perceptions of your fairness?
· Do you explain why you make choices to others who will be affected by those decisions, or better yet, involve them in the decision-making process?
· If there are laws where you live that you don’t agree with, do you comply with them? Do you make an effort to change them?
· How do you regard those in a position of trying to uphold your region’s laws?
· Do you ever advocate for fewer or no rules? If so, have you thought through how it would feel to have no recourse against others in those areas?
Are there issues in how you relate to these concepts that you could benefit from thinking through further? Feel free to comment below about anything you realized as you read this post.
The Safe, Happy Place
“The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.”
Two more of Maslowe’s noted preconditions for the effective satisfaction of all our basic needs, which seem to be the most clearly associated with safety, are “the freedom to defend oneself” and “orderliness in the group.” Both of these particular preconditions are of such immediate importance to our ability to meet our safety needs that they are very difficult to ignore. If they are not in a favorable state in a culture, we will likely find it difficult to attend to anything else but our concerns about safety. And a life lived around safety concerns will not be a satisfying one for the vast majority of people. Hopefully you don’t live in a place where you lack the ability to defend yourself and experience basic societal orderliness, but even so it’s worth understanding the ways in which people will react when these preconditions are not in place.
Many countries have laws that allow the use of force for purposes of self-defense. Since the drive for self-preservation is so basic, we aren’t expected to override it even though violence in other situations is generally not condoned; we often automatically consider that the aggressor was likely at fault, as he most likely had other options for addressing the situation, but chose to attack. If for some reason the use of force in self-defense is not considered allowable by a culture, citizens will tend to live in fear and either disempowerment (which denies both the person himself and the culture access to the best he can be and produce) or rebellion (which turns all the power the individual can muster against the culture itself). Neither is very conducive to the happiness of the individual or of the whole in the long run. As an acknowledgment of the individual’s right to defend themselves, in the United States, for instance, there is a constitutional right to bear arms. The founding fathers of this nation were adamant that citizens must be able to protect themselves from both each other and any other threatening force, including their own government’s forces, and the forces of other nations. In today’s far more populous world, and with advances in technology, we now have problems with violence that they could not have foreseen, but the fact remains that the freedom to defend ourselves is very important to both our physical and psychological well-being.
Because our needs for safety are intense, some of the most impassioned debates in any culture will center on the methodologies that are used, allowed, and disallowed in creating and maintaining safety. Even when it’s not immediately clear how, the loudest arguments usually point back to participants’ fears about safety issues. It can be helpful to remember this when you run across strangers acting out. It can help you in taking others’ actions less personally and remaining centered in the face of others’ drama, which allows you full access to all of your resources to keep yourself safe. Similarly, when you notice someone in your life arguing adamantly or disproportionately about something that seems less important to you, chances are that he is connecting the discussion to an immediate or future loss of safety. If you’re interested in aiding in resolutions, and you care about this person, it can be helpful to focus on finding out what he’s really afraid of and addressing it more directly. This may not be an easy task, which is often part of why we don’t take the time to do it. In today’s world, where many of us are almost constantly dealing with an overactive fight-or-flight response for a variety of reasons, finding the root causes of fears and stress can be a complicated process. This is where professional help may be in order, as well as the use of tools that can help dial down stress, such as Emotional Freedom Techniques. Another reason we may not be willing to invest the time and energy necessary to this kind of process is that it may be uncomfortable to be in the presence of this person’s heightened emotions, and those that may be triggered in us as a result.
Unfortunately, most cultures are profoundly uncomfortable with emotional expression and inquiry. So often, we are given the message from the time we’re children that it’s unacceptable to display or even feel emotions. We learn to ignore and repress our feelings, and as a result, we learn little to no facility with handling our own and others’ emotions. We fear anything that looks like emotions or emotional expression as potentially overwhelming. And we remain stunted and confused about a huge, and totally valid and useful, component of human life. This is not serving us.
Moving on to orderliness in a group: This precondition is created through agreement on the ground rules that members of a society will follow, whether formal or unwritten. These rules may be created all at once, or evolve over time, but they must be upheld through stable structures like judicial systems in order to govern. They also need to be able to be updated in response to cultural changes, which are inevitable. If there is no mechanism for changing them, they are doomed, as humans naturally evolve over time. When a sufficient number of members does not agree and follow those rules, and they cannot be changed effectively, chaos in some degree is in store. And when chaos rules, again, the highest potential of members and of the whole group will go out the window. All will feel unsafe. Some members of the group will most likely react to the lack of order by hiding and others by resorting to violence. Smaller groups will band together and may fight each other. Safety will need to be an individual focus until some semblance of order is re-established. No matter how creative and adaptable someone is, when a no-rules culture is in play, that person will likely long for some societal structure and agreement, particularly if he has experienced it before. Humans are inherently social, and most of us desire some semblance of peaceful, constuctive interaction.
Since all of the preconditions are created or challenged in the culture in which an individual finds herself, she cannot likely single-handedly change them; she must therefore find ways to work with them as they are, become part of a movement to shift the current conditions, or physically move to another place with different conditions. If you find yourself in conditions where these preconditions are not stable, you have a difficult choice to make. Will you do your best to pursue happiness from within these challenges? Will you commit yourself to the difficulties of trying to change them from within the system? Or will you make an effort to transplant yourself into entirely new place? If you’re lucky, and you live in a place where the governing rules are clear, universally applied, and mostly reasonable, you may find that you take this for granted, as well as the right to defend yourself physically from threats. It’s easy to forget just how much such conditions support us in moving up the hierarchy of needs into areas more satisfying than safety needs. You may also forget that even when these preconditions around you are mostly favorable, it’s still possible to run up against a circumstance, whether real or imagined, that will snap you back to fear—and that experience can pack a wallop when you’ve become accustomed to safety.
The next time you do find yourself reacting fearfully, try asking yourself what you’re really afraid of, and do your best to address what you find. After all, the quality of your life depends on your ability to handle your safety needs and move on to more fulfilling subjects. Your emotions often have important messages for you about changes you need to consider making. Keep an eye out for the ways in which you may overreact when you feel (not always consciously or correctly) that your safety is on the line, look for root issues, and look for ways to change your tendency in the direction of calmer responses. Be open to noticing the ways in which those close to you may overreact similarly, and consider how you can help them to feel more safe and attended to, as well as to understand their own fears. Get help with all of this if and when you need it. Of course there are times when you’ll need to take real action on real safety issues, but much of the time you may find that focusing on getting specific about what’s bothering you and working on being a better communicator can help to calm your fears. Becoming more comfortable with admitting that you have emotions, and owning up to what they are, is also well worth the effort, as it can release a lot of internal pressure and conflict.
It’s natural for us all to crave physical safety and feel that there’s order to our world. Becoming aware of what’s lacking in these areas and addressing those things can make a huge difference in our enjoyment of life and our ability to spend time in fulfilling ways.