It’s Not FAIR!!!

And that, Cupcake, is the good news.

We are born with an innate sense of justice. Even a two-year-old is quick to wail when getting one less cookie than her sister.

“It’s not FAIR!” has to come out of more mouths on this planet than anything other than the word “NO!” (or “I want more”). We think that equity, fairness, and the even playing field are of paramount importance. All of us. You do, too. And what is the universal response to come out of every responding parent?

Nobody ever said life is fair!

You’ve heard it. You’ve said it. The only reason I haven’t is because I had the incredible good sense, and good luck, not to procreate. As to that other universal utterance, “it’s not fair!”, that one had a shelf life for me. I abruptly eliminated it from my vocabulary when I realized that if life was fair I’d be — at the very least — in the penitentiary. Or dead.

It’s a damned good thing that life is not fair and you’re as much a beneficiary of that truth as anyone sleeping indoors or eating only the stuff they like each day.

Deny it if you like, but if you’re honest you can think of at least ten different times in your life when you got over. When fair went by the wayside and you didn’t even pause to wave. We’ve all been on the winning end of the unfairness stick. Do we feel guilty about that? Awkward, maybe, but I tend to consider it my due after having been shafted by that same unfairness stick once too often. Is that wrong? Yes. Is that human? YES!

Let’s pause for a moment to consider this example:

Diego Maradona, “the greatest footballer of all time” died this week and the rending of garments and weeping can be heard from Buenos Aires to Naples. And the most often repeated Maradona legend is that of the Hand of God. This refers to the first goal in Argentina’s 1986 World Cup quarterfinal match with England and it was definitely, well, unfair. If you listen closely, you can still hear truculent English ghosts muttering “not fair!”. And three minutes later that scoundrel Maradona made soccer history again, this time with a truly genius (and totally fair) goal.

Let’s also look at this example:

Was it fair of the English to drop a sledgehammer on Argentinians who had the audacity to try and claim that the Falkland Islands were not properly under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom? And let’s just make things even less fair in that the people who live in that part of the world call their islands The Malvinas, but does anyone ever talk about The Malvinas War? Well, I guess people in Argentina probably do. While they’re grousing about the unfairness of it all. Hey, at least they got even with that Hand of God thing, right?

That’s as much history as I can stomach.

We tend to only want as much fairness as will benefit us in any given situation. Who wants fairness when the coin toss doesn’t go our way? Oh, right, ok there are saints among us I suppose but I tend to avoid those types. I run with flawed, real humans who are usually operating from a shifting standpoint of self-interest. We want others to get a fair shake but not if it infringes on our inalienable right to have things go our way.

This leads, as you can imagine, to all the trouble in the world. From estranged families to warring nations, everyone is determined to have as much fairness as will ensure their well-being.

Maybe we need to let go of our third-grade notion of what is fair and see the world and its human inhabitants for what they are: a very mixed bag. We are not “born equal” and what strikes one group as being eminently fair will not be accepted at all by another group.

Which brings us to the ultimate impediment to “fairness”: the vagueness of the term. What the hedge fund manager who is seeking to liquidate an unprofitable acquisition considers to be fair bears very little resemblance to that sought by the workers who are about to lose their livelihood. Both are determined to have a just outcome but they will never find common ground on what that outcome should be. Both sides will howl for fairness and fight like cocks in a ring to achieve their version of that mythical just outcome. And when they go home, defeated and bitter, and call their best friends to complain, not a one of them will appreciate being told that life isn’t fair.

So, if you’re that friend getting that call, leave that little nugget unsaid.

And while we’re at it, let’s leave the demands for fairness to the little kids with their cookies.

Instead, we can recognize that sometimes things work out our way, and sometimes they don’t. And when they don’t, let’s take a moment to remember all the times when we got the extra cookie that was really meant for the other kid.

I can’t speak for you but I’ve had many cookies that, in all fairness, should have gone to the other kid. I’ve been hired for jobs over people who were possibly better qualified or who simply needed the job more than I did. I just happened to catch the listing for this rent-stabilized apartment possibly half an hour before someone who was in worse shape financially than me. The surgeon I consulted four days before my “good” health care insurance expired was able to squeeze me into the schedule while I still had that 100% coverage. Every day other people don’t get that kind of break.

And let’s be clear, there are a lot of things in this country and in this world that are really not fair. Like horribly unfair. Like so unfair that we need a stronger word.

The lack of comprehensive health care coverage in the U.S. is not only unfair but also stupid, short-sighted, and cruel. After four hundred years plus of being the victims of kidnapping, slavery, lynching, rape, and a whole slate of other crimes, Black people in the U.S. are still discriminated against, beaten, marginalized, imprisoned, and simply shot in the street for no particular reason other than a cop was pissed off or panicked (although to call this unfair is kind of like calling Everest an interesting hill). The lack of decent housing when New York City’s largest landlord — the city itself — can’t be bothered to ensure adequate heat, plumbing, elevators, or security for its tenants in public housing? Yeah, extremely unfair.

And here we’re not talking cookies. We’re talking people’s lives. Which brings us back to there being entirely too much wiggle room when it comes to the concept of fairness.

No, life is not fair. The world does not operate on some basis of generosity and justice. We’re basically apex predators with opposable thumbs and gigantic brains that get us to all kinds of trouble. I guess the best I can hope for is that maybe I can set an example. When the other kid gets my cookie I can shrug and then make sure I share the cookies I do get with that other kid that’s been getting none.

And we can all quit with the whining while we’re at it, k?

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