Fairness - The Commentary

Today we hear it used to shout down and bully school boards during their public meetings. Nurses, school teachers, flight attendants, and people just walking down the street have heard it used by people while the shouter assaults them.   It seems to be an excuse for all sorts of uncivil, rude, and even violent behavior. It was shouted again and again on January 6 th by people assaulting the nation’s Capitol to violently interfere with an otherwise regular process of American democracy that has peacefully taken place every four years. It’s used as if it’s an explanation for denying equal rights to people of color and LGBTQ people. It’s brandished about as a basis for forcing one’s sectarian religious beliefs and actions on anyone who disagrees with them. It’s the word “freedom.” And it’s attained a status so undefined, so empty of a definition by those who constantly hide behind their invocation of the term, so lacking in thought about what it could mean, that it seems to be an excuse

One of the perks of aging, I would hope, is realizing what’s important and how much of what we had thought was important really matters little in the larger scheme of our brief lives. The current pandemic has begun to help some question how important their work is in comparison to their relationships. Yet we live in a society that continues to tell us that our top priority – sometimes our very being – is the work we do, the success we have in our careers, and the fame and fortune we accumulate. In our consumerist society, we’d expect that this would not only keep us consuming to look successful, but do what it actually does – make relationships less important than what increases our capital. Of course, we can’t live here without an income and income is now based on how much we’re willing to sacrifice for the company. Americans have the least vacation time of anyone in the developed world and aren’t even taking the time-off they’ve earned. Americans don’t have the mandatory vacation or