Mrs. du Toit Weblog - WAP Version

Monday, December 30, 2002

New Essay

I finally finished moving all my essays from the old website format.  In doing this, I realized I hadn’t written a new one in a while. 

I fixed that.

Recent conversations and news articles seem to have a common thread:  the issue of fairness.  Things like:
--We shouldn’t go to war with Iraq, not because they aren’t evil, but it would be so unfair--we’re so much more powerful than they are.
--Some people don’t have as much money (or the same abilities) so it’s only fair that the people who do, should pay for the less-fortunate.
--And last but not least: If someone attacks you with a knife or their fists, it wouldn’t be fair to shoot them. 

When I hear or read these things, I almost do a cartoon double-take.  They can’t really be serious, can they?

Poppycock!  Who ever said life was SUPPOSED to be fair?  Equality doesn’t mean “equal.” It means that opportunity is available to all, but the outcome will be based on ability, fortitude, aptitude, and desire.  Life is not fair and it isn’t supposed to be. 

What is amazing to me, is that some people actually believe that life is supposed to be fair and that it is morally appropriate to MAKE it so--regardless if it requires theft, perpetual victim status, or allowing an evil dictator to threaten the world (lest risk appearing as an unfair “bully"). 

It is time, perhaps, that some people GROW UP!

Fairness

Many people have memories of some incident in childhood when they experienced something being “fair.” Just as many people probably have similar recall of an event that was unfair.  It seems that some of these folks were deeply scared by that experience and have attempted to fix it all through their adult lives.

I’m going to digress for a moment.  All of us have heard stories of people who were abused as children who grow up to mate with partners who also abuse them.  They seem to pick partners that will do this--and they seem to skip from one abusive mate to another.  The repetitive nature of the problem would indicate that it wasn’t random--they seem to seek it out. 

A simplistic psychological explanation (and yes, I know it is infinitely more complicated than this), is that people try to fix or resolve issues from their childhood.  They want to have the power as an adult, to relive an unpleasant experience from childhood, and resolve it.  Unfortunately, life doesn’t work this way.  They fall into the trap of the classic definition of insanity, repeating the exact same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome.

The truth is, you cannot repair an incident in the past by repeating the same scenario as an adult.  Even if the repeat turns out good, it doesn’t make the past experience go away--it doesn’t make it “even.”

Here was one of mine (age 7 or 8):  We collected Blue Chip and Green Stamps when I was a kid (just about everyone did, I think).  But to us, it was important.  Most of my childhood visits to Disneyland were made possible by Green Stamps.  One year, near Christmas, the electric mixer broke.  Since it was near the Holidays it was more important than usual to replace it.  I had been saving my Green Stamps for a child’s tea set that required one book--the smallest collection requirement to redeem anything, as I recall.  The family had 6 books saved up.  The Green Stamp catalog had an electric mixer for 7 books.  A child’s tea set, at least the one I wanted, probably cost about a dollar.  The electric mixer cost about $18.00.  Today, $18.00 might not sound like much, but it was nearly a week’s groceries back then. 

My older siblings and my mother, after having counted up the total available in the family pot, turned their conspirator’s glances on me.  I got that a lot, being 9 and 11 years the youngest, so I was experienced in dealing with all that peer pressure--eight pairs of eyes staring down at me.  I held out for a long time, but eventually succumbed.  The clincher was when they promised to buy me an almost identical tea set for Christmas--they couldn’t promise exactly the same one, but it would be damn close.

They didn’t.  They forgot.  Come Christmas morning, there was no tea set under the tree.  I was devastated.  Life was unfair.  I felt cheated.

As the years went by, it ended up being a family joke--one of those family experiences that ends up being part of a family’s dialog.  When something was perceived as unfair, someone would say, “yeah, and no tea set either.”

Years later, when I was about 19 or 20, I opened a present from one of my sisters.  It was a tea set, just like the one from the Green Stamp catalog.  I think I cried for about an hour.  She cried too.  It was a little piece of redemption, a correction of a past wrong, and a making of amends.  But, the truth is, it didn’t make the original episode go away.  Life wasn’t now “even.” Nothing can undo something that has happened, although that was pretty close.  The funny thing is, is that it started a family tradition in a new way:  I started collecting tea sets--not the child or doll variety, mind you, the ‘spensive China variety. 

It doesn’t matter how many tea sets or teapots I have, I always want more.  I’m finicky about it, but each time I buy a new teapot or fondle one in the store, I realize that I have the power that I didn’t have as a child. 

It’s harmless.  It’s not like I’m buying hundreds of the things instead of paying the rent.  I’ve got about a dozen or so pots and the assorted cream and sugar bowls to match.

I also buy shoes for a very similar reason--the details of that one are about the same as the tea set story.

I’m sure everyone has something similar. 

Rousseau, who many view as the father of moral relativism and progressivism, was seriously abused as a child.  He sought to repair his abuse by attacking the foundations of authority.  What is interesting about this, is that he became almost totalitarian in his views and projected the attitude of unfairness outward.  He saw abuse where none existed.

People who had happy, “normal” childhoods don’t distrust authority--nor authority figures.  They don’t read bad intentions into people with power.  They don’t perceive wealthy, “corporate” types as basically sinister or evil.  They don’t generally become conspiracy theorists.  They trust authority, almost all authority (maybe more than they should). 

I spent some time on a message board that was frequented by Libertarians (small and big L).  I found it interesting that so many of the folks had been abused as children.  I have no idea if this is common across all libertarians, but it certainly was dominant on that board.  I always found it interesting, but in so many respects, it seemed as if they wanted all authority to go away, in a child-like effort to repair their past.  The solution for many of these folks wasn’t to find an abusive mate to repeat and change the outcome, no, these folks took it to the limit:  they didn’t want anyone to have ANY authority over any one.  I found it most remarkable (but it seems obvious when you think about it) that “anarchist-libertarians” were ALWAYS abused kids.  No government.  No authority.  No parental rights over children.  They were going to solve their past by making sure that no one has any authority over anyone.

Yeah, that’ll work.  Lunatics.  Absolute insanity.  Life isn’t always fair--for some people, life is never fair.  That’s the interesting thing about life:  it’s random.  Life doesn’t play favorites.  It’s just the way it is.  Things happen that we cannot fix or undo.  Everyone isn’t abused.  All people in authority aren’t power-hungry mongers attempting to take over the world.  Taking something away from someone else, or from a larger group, isn’t going to fix anything. 

Tea, anyone?

Saturday, December 28, 2002

USS Clueless--Social Contract

Trusting that people know what is best for them is the ultimate trust in our neighbors.  I trust them--so does Steven Den Beste:

This is the basic argument of elitism versus populism: should the masses be directed, or left to make their own decisions? Can the masses be trusted with that responsibility, or will the consequences of letting them make decisions for themselves be too catastrophic? The idea of a “social contract” is usually a smokescreen for the elitist impulse to try to run things directly, with the best of intentions. But elitism as such is profoundly contemptuous of the masses, for that is its foundation. Elitists think the masses are not truly capable of handling that responsibility and will abuse it and do the wrong thing. If one respects the masses, one must necessarily be a populist and in that case one cannot support the idea of “forcing them for their own good” because forcing them is itself inherently not good.

As I see it, the Social Contract means that you may be called upon in an emergency to defend yourself and your neighbors.  Other than that, the only social contract a U.S. Citizen has made is if they break the laws or infringe on another’s rights they go to jail (or risk being shot or starving to death). 

Or to put in more blunlty:  Freedom is the right to seek happiness as you define it or FUBAR.  But a FUBAR of your own making is infinitely better than one someone else makes for you.