Against Fairness

I have addressed the matter of "fairness" in a number of prior posts.  It is an important moral sense, but one that has more than one facet, as I explained previously.  It is also a cultural watchword that can distort as much as illuminate our activities.

The following excerpt from today's Wall Street Journal finds closest affinity with a short piece on gratitude as outlined by Roger Scruton.

The Wall Street Journal
Notable & Quotable
Stephen T. Asma on the social threat of 'fairness.'

Prof. Stephen T. Asma in his new book Against Fairness (University of Chicago Press):

Our contemporary hunger for equality can border on the comical. When my six-year-old son came home from first grade with a fancy winner's ribbon, I was filled with pride to discover that he had won a footrace. While I was heaping praise on him, he interrupted to correct me. "No, it wasn't just me," he explained. "We all won the race!" He impatiently educated me. He wasn't first or second or third—he couldn't even remember what place he took. Everyone who ran the race was told that they had won, and they were all given the same ribbon. "Well, you can't all win a race," I explained to him, ever-supportive father that I am. That doesn't even make sense. He simply held up his purple ribbon and raised his eyebrows at me, as if to say, "You are thus refuted." . . .

More troubling than the institutional enforcement of this strange fairness is the fact that such protective "lessons" ill-equip kids for the realities of later life. As our children grow up, they will have to negotiate a world of partiality. Does it really help children when our schools legislate reality into a "fairer" but utterly fictional form? The focus on equality of outcome may produce a generation that is burdened with an indignant sense of entitlement.

A version of this article appeared November 18, 2012, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Notable & Quotable.