FAIRISM
To address the soi-disant Global Problem of imbalance, it is necessary to define the problem. Which imbalances are most glaring? Which are most accessible? Which are most ‘doable’?
The im
October 15, 2006 (Press Release) --
FAIRISM
To address the soi-disant Global Problem of imbalance, it is necessary to define the problem. Which imbalances are most glaring? Which are most accessible? Which are most ‘doable’?
The imbalance of resources is thrust daily into our faces. Headlines In the news feature photos and text decrying the lack of water that hampers farmers in Africa and India. Other equally horrifying reports educate that excess water, in the form of floods, torrential rains, and tidal waves have yet again washed out homes, villages, transportation routes, and hence communications in storm or earthquake stricken regions. The daily struggle of countless villagers to collect and carry home sufficient drinking water keeps many adults from adequate time to tend fields, flocks, families, let alone free up an adult to work outside the home for cash income. Cruel irony, at the same time, has countless thousands striving to dike, or drain flooded areas, or cope with water-borne illnesses. When the floodwaters recede, another problem has been added, that of rebuilding homes, fields, flocks, gardens.
Where can they find enough hands to do all this labour? And so another resource is added to the unequal balance: Who is doing the work?
The answer outrages many in more prosperous nations. For it is children who are doing the extra work, perhaps weaving carpets in quite primitive factories, more hours daily than enlightened labour legislation allows. Or the children may be working alongside adult family members in the home, spinning, weaving wool, straw, cotton, as the family that works together struggles to earn pay together.
Herein is the first of unequal resources globally: a workforce that is mature enough, healthy enough, fed enough, with adequate transportation to reach workplaces, and adequate support within the community to maintain family life.
Can Fairism prevent inequalities of this magnitude? Can Fairism adjust eons of social inequalities, cross the borders of differing social mores, penetrate prideful cultures?
If we can agree that Fairism is to be discussed at all, let us attach some parameters to the term.
Is FAIRISM only an attitude?
It is hard to argue against the premise that among the social responsibilities of adults in any society are requirements to work for both justice and charity, as these concepts are defined within that society. Such attitudinal behaviours are deemed the most difficult to change through education, their inaccessibility a product of their emotional and culturally habitual overuse and reinforcement.
In paternalistic societies, and in cultures where strong messages of ‘Don’t Change’ are proudly enforced, such a statement would be ludicrous. In Top-Down organizations, be they village, family, corporation, family, it is those individuals deemed to be ‘at the top of the heap’ who formulate values and issue edicts for ‘proper behaviours’ to prevent the sorts of change that the cultural group perceives as social upheaval. An
To address the soi-disant Global Problem of imbalance, it is necessary to define the problem. Which imbalances are most glaring? Which are most accessible? Which are most ‘doable’?
The imbalance of resources is thrust daily into our faces. Headlines In the news feature photos and text decrying the lack of water that hampers farmers in Africa and India. Other equally horrifying reports educate that excess water, in the form of floods, torrential rains, and tidal waves have yet again washed out homes, villages, transportation routes, and hence communications in storm or earthquake stricken regions. The daily struggle of countless villagers to collect and carry home sufficient drinking water keeps many adults from adequate time to tend fields, flocks, families, let alone free up an adult to work outside the home for cash income. Cruel irony, at the same time, has countless thousands striving to dike, or drain flooded areas, or cope with water-borne illnesses. When the floodwaters recede, another problem has been added, that of rebuilding homes, fields, flocks, gardens.
Where can they find enough hands to do all this labour? And so another resource is added to the unequal balance: Who is doing the work?
The answer outrages many in more prosperous nations. For it is children who are doing the extra work, perhaps weaving carpets in quite primitive factories, more hours daily than enlightened labour legislation allows. Or the children may be working alongside adult family members in the home, spinning, weaving wool, straw, cotton, as the family that works together struggles to earn pay together.
Herein is the first of unequal resources globally: a workforce that is mature enough, healthy enough, fed enough, with adequate transportation to reach workplaces, and adequate support within the community to maintain family life.
Can Fairism prevent inequalities of this magnitude? Can Fairism adjust eons of social inequalities, cross the borders of differing social mores, penetrate prideful cultures?
If we can agree that Fairism is to be discussed at all, let us attach some parameters to the term.
Is FAIRISM only an attitude?
It is hard to argue against the premise that among the social responsibilities of adults in any society are requirements to work for both justice and charity, as these concepts are defined within that society. Such attitudinal behaviours are deemed the most difficult to change through education, their inaccessibility a product of their emotional and culturally habitual overuse and reinforcement.
In paternalistic societies, and in cultures where strong messages of ‘Don’t Change’ are proudly enforced, such a statement would be ludicrous. In Top-Down organizations, be they village, family, corporation, family, it is those individuals deemed to be ‘at the top of the heap’ who formulate values and issue edicts for ‘proper behaviours’ to prevent the sorts of change that the cultural group perceives as social upheaval. An
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