The Purity of the Turf

There’s an old P.G. Wodehouse story titled “The Purity of the Turf,” which features respectable British gentlemen fooling around by placing substantial bets on the (pseudo-)athletic events at a local “school treat.”  A good part of the hilarity arises from the gravity with which protagonist Bertie Wooster and antagonist Steggles treat the situation: with all the seriousness of habitual horse race gamblers.  At one point, outraged by Steggles’ dishonesty, Bertie (also the narrator) uses the racetrack expression which gives the story its name: “‘And they talk about the Purity of the Turf!’ I said. And I meant it to sting, by Jove!”

Of course, when Bertie’s valet Jeeves snatches victory by similarly “impure” means (falsely confessing to having bribed participants of the egg-and-spoon race, thereby ensuring their disqualification) all is right and just.  Steggles, after all, cheated first; and anyway, the raison d’être of a Jeeves and Wooster story is that when J&W win all is right with the world.

It is also a natural human reaction, no doubt traceable to some scientific mechanism like the survival of the fittest, to feel that My tribe must win, no matter what the cost.  Interestingly, few My Tribe Firsters are willing to say aloud “The Purity of the Turf be hanged!”  They’re far more likely to pretend it’s still pure—or, when they no longer can bear ignoring its impurities, to leave for (hopefully) greener and purer pastures.

Of course, when the turf defiled is merely the grounds for a schoolsgirls’ egg-and-spoon race,  My Tribe First does little harm.  Problems arise in weighter affairs, when not only the manner but the matter of the contest is grave.  Whether your tribe is a particular family, a workplace, a school, a political party, or a segment within the Church, the temptation to overlook the sins and failings of the tribe, personal and institutional, can be nearly overpowering.  Sometimes, if the sins involve paperclips, it is well to overlook them.  Sometimes, when the sins involve poor men’s pensions, it becomes morally compulsory to speak out.

Unfortunately, there’s a large space between paperclips and pensions, and discerning when it’s time to “betray” one’s tribe or even abandon it is not easy.  And because deciding to speak out against a group for which one has or had some sympathy requires so much personal torment, it is particularly hard for this kind of whistle-blower to take accusations from those who remain staunchly My Tribe First that they are “virtue signaling” or “were never really one of us” or “don’t care about the goals of the movement,” etc., etc.  Hence the bitterness of many internecine quarrels: for My Tribe Firsters, it is hard to perceive the good will of the Purgers involved in preserving the movement(s) from itself, while for the Purgers who have left, it is hard not to feel that the My Tribe Firsters are willfully blind to the impurities of their turf.

Two late examples of this phenomenon are (1) the ongoing ire in a few quarters against those in the pro-life movement who have allied themselves with Trump and (2) the recent debates regarding Christendom College’s handling of some harassment cases.  Watching both cases unfold, one of the sadder elements has been the inability of both some Purgers and some My Tribe Firsters to recognize that their former compatriots may, despite differing opinions in a grave case, retain some faint degree of moral fiber.  That is a great pity, especially as problems like these are hard to judge because institutions designed to do good but made up of human beings are intrinsically complex.  Prudence is key; but even wise men make prudential mistakes on occasion.  When does your Tribe turn too piratical?  When and how do you jump ship?  When is the turf hopelessly defiled?  When is it time for a purge?  And what sort of purge is desirable?  Obviously, sometimes it is right to be silent about the sins of one’s Tribe.  Equally obviously, sometimes it is right to expose them, as much for the good of the Tribe as for the good of those who have been injured.  And it’s hard to conceive of a hard-and-fast rule that would cover a variety of complex moral situations and tell you how to act rightly in each and every one of them.  In other words: again: prudence.

But when prudence fails to emolliate such cases, as it seems to have failed in the two cases mentioned above, there is always the greater virtue of charity.  No matter how imprudent one my consider one’s opposing My Tribe Firsters or Purgers to be, it is foolish and wrong to behave as if they are lost.

Let us say (for the sake of argument) that some prolife leaders sinned grievously in supporting Donald Trump.  Let us say (for the sake of argument) that some Christendom faculty sinned grievously in their handling of harassment cases.  While concern for the victims (those injured by Trump or prolife leaders or Christendom faculty or students) should be paramount, that does not, that cannot exclude a simultaneously concern for the very people who are committing the sin.

Christ threw the moneychangers out of the Temple.  He was righteously indignant concerning their predatory and impious behavior.  But I don’t recall Him saying anything about how they had committed unforgiveable sins.  Indeed, he took action but as usual his words were remarkably short and pithy—certainly nothing that would amount to a “rant”.  He was merely and straightforwardly descriptive: “You have made [this house] a den of thieves.”

Contrast that to some of the opprobrium spewed in internet debates over the previous two issues over the last few weeks.

Now.  So what?

Nothing really, except a personal resolution on my part about what actions to take the next time one of my Tribes sins.  When it comes to leaving the Tribe, accusing the Tribe, or what have you—when it is my turn to make that move, be it through a well-researched article in some respectable and remunerative venue, or a passive-aggressive blog post here, or merely through a single comment on Facebook—whenever the time comes to take a stand against the Tribe, there’s a simple check to perform first.   Do I really want the good for the villains in this case?  Do I really desire their eternal happiness?  Or am I so involved in the plight of the victims that I see the villains as hopelessly irredeemable?

I’m not suggesting that this check ought to change anyone’s mind about what to do.  I’m not saying that more people need to ignore tribal victims for the sake of Tribes, to preserve some spurious illusion of the Purity of the Turf.  Much better to actually work to make it pure, which sometimes involves opening a vein—yours, or the Tribe’s.

But it is important that the surgeon, the Purger, not enjoy opening the vein.

There is more than one way to idolize the Purity of the Turf.  The common way, certainly, is put on the green glasses and loudly announce its greenness to all and sundry.  That is one kind of idolatry, the idolatry of My Tribe Firsters.  The other kind is when a Purger becomes so bent on seeing that the Turf Stays Pure that he constantly seeks infractions in order to boycott the race.  That too can be idolatry, of another kind.

Secondhand Temptation

In an examination of Guardians of the Galaxy II, one of the Marvel franchise’s more recent movies, I spent some time discussing the movie’s failure to portray a convincing villain, a failure which damaged the story as a whole.  If the villain in Guardians had been able to more effectively sell his masterplan to the hero (instead having to resort to hypnosis), it could have been a much better film.  A hero who has to make good intellectual and moral choices using his full capacities is a more interesting and on some level a nobler character than one who acts merely instinctively.  A villain who can almost convince a sound man to follow him is more interesting and on some level more useful character than one who is easily refuted.

Since the screenwriters had time in this case to make the villain more effective (they had only to change a rhetorically weak speech for a strong one), I assumed that the screenwriters were simply unable to write convincingly villainous rhetoric.  Upon further consideration, however, I wonder if that was the only thing, or even the main thing, holding them back.  It is at least conceivable that some of them had ethical scruples about portraying a villain whose tempting is nearly effective.

The problem with a good, solid temptation scene is that it operates differently upon different viewers or readers.  Even the story of the Fall in Genesis has this imperfection: I’ve known non-Christians to genuinely feel that God’s test is tremendously unfair to Adam and Eve.  In the Gospels, Christ refers to that sort of spiritual blindness using Old Testament references to those who lack “eyes to see, and ears to hear.”  Nor is the blindness always spiritual: during the latency period of childhood, which lasts from about age five to twelve, there is generally a diminished ability to comprehend and process certain adult knowledge (a diminished ability which, incidentally, ought to be respected).  And of course, there is always the question of intelligence pure and simple: the annals of history are full of evil men who rose to prominence in part because people were simple enough to believe them.

When it comes to literature, there are plenty of examples in which right and wrong portrayed subtly have led to confusion.  Evelyn Waugh’s masterful and very Catholic novel, Brideshead Revisited, is adored by numerous secular critics only because they fail to see its Catholicity.  Waugh, writing from the point of view of a narrator who is (for most of the story) not Catholic, is too subtle for his advocacy of the Faith to be grasped by many readers.  A still more grave example of this phenomenon is Milton’s Paradise Lost.  Milton asserts rather grandly near the beginning of his biblical epic that he intends “to justify the ways of God to man,” an intention which even a minute scholarly knowledge of Milton’s life and opinions supports.  But over the centuries since Milton wrote, scores if not hundreds of readers have felt (in the words of William Blake) that Milton was “of the Devil's party without knowing it.”  Milton has been rolling in his grave ever since.

This gives the writer a conundrum that is not faced by other creative artists.  If he is called, as some writers are, to write simple stories, stories that deal with good and evil on a level that a child can understand, then there is little or no danger that he will tempt readers beyond their strength.  But if he is called to produce anything more complex—if it is part of his secondary vocation to reproduce moral conundrums with anything like the complexity they sometimes have in real life—then there is always a danger, almost the inevitable danger, that some of his readers may (to paraphrase Blake) take the devil’s side without his intending it.

Read the rest at the Register.

Seven Quick Takes, 1-19-2018

"Seven Quick Takes" is hosted at "This Ain't the Lyceum."

1.     If you are one of the three people who has been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed that recent posts include a “Source” link under the picture captions.  This is because, after a conversation with a family member who happens to be a lawyer, I began to question my hitherto somewhat laissez-faire attitude towards pictures, and towards classical (by which I mean “painted probably in Europe between 1000 and 1900 A.D.”) artwork in particular.  Apparently (contrary to Wikipedia’s blithe assurances) just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s legally showing up in your web searches.  Fortunately for me, the Met recently decided to declare much of its collection public domain.  To view, go here, scroll down for the options on the left, under “Show Only” make sure to select “Public Domain Artworks,” and proceed to enjoy legal use of images of everything from Greek pottery to Dutch masters to random bits of armor—just make sure that you source the images back to the Met.

2.     I have discovered the (a?) secret to not going over budget: Don’t buy anything until after you’ve run out.  No, seriously.  You don’t need plastic wrap.  Or cooking spray.  Or a new rug for the bottom of the stairs down which your toddler is threatening to tumble.  Cavemen didn’t have plastic wrap, and they survived just fine.  OK, but seriously, there probably are alternatives in your house to almost anything that you might happen to run out of.  And if you run out of it first, you might discover that some of these alternatives are actually cheaper than you thought, and work just as well … Even if you decide to go back to your precious canisters of Pam, however, the trick of not buying until you run out should enable you to make it to the end of the month without crossing the red line when you’ve already maxed out your “household goods” column.

3.     I am sure this does not apply to all children and all ages, but if you are a new mom of a non-walker, let me promise you: some things do get a easier when they learn how to walk.  Yes, they’ll get into everything.  Yes, they’ll want to climb your couches, chairs, bookshelves, piano, and any other platforms more than .5 square feet broad and three inches high (“platform” being defined loosely, of course, to include such objects as Christmas trees and bags of fruit).  Yes, they’ll whine for those just-out-of-reach items until you drill it into them that they can’t have everything they see (and drill it into yourself that sometimes substitution or removal of the desired object is prudent).  But don’t children whine for and destroy things before they walk too?  And once they can walk, they can play sooooo much more easily—and hence happily.  On the whole, a worthwhile tradeoff, n’est pas?

4.     In world news, Hawaii’s random false nuclear warning last week was not the first such incident.  (In fact, there are several stories of nuclear near-misses, as you’ll find if you google for more information about the 1960 Thule event.)

5.     Meanwhile, the other kind of nuclear power—the power plant kind—is losing in California, winning in Minnesota, and providing interesting environmental benefits, even if you ask sincerely concerned environmentalists.

6.     Alright, alright, since we walked down this road, we’ll go all the way: Yes Prime Minister - Bernard Woolley on defence capabilities.

7.     And for a lighter sort of button game, which might perhaps be useful at your January Christmas parties … Remember that line in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, “Button, button, who’s got the button?”

8.     Finally, a bonus take, in the form of a reminder that if cavemen don’t need buttons, neither do you.  Unless, of course, you’re still under budget for the month.

In Which Good Screenwriting Just Makes Sense

It is a truth universally acknowledged by all who have the misfortune to know them that writers view movies with a jaundiced eye.  It’s not so much that we’re deliberately looking for what the screenwriters have done wrong, as that we’re on the lookout, even unconsciously so, for mistakes that we might make ourselves.

It will thus come as no surprise that I thought Guardians of the Galaxy II was less than stellar.  To be sure, this isn’t just a writer’s critique: friends also thought that Guardians I was generally better and specifically funnier.  Despite my hesitance to level that criticism from a distance of months, I’ll confess to having noticed more tastelessness this time around.  Possibly the tastelessness was there during the first round too, but I don’t remember it so vividly.

Likewise, the violence.  About halfway through I turned to my husband and said, “Does this even have the same rating as the last one?”  As with the humor, this installment of the series just felt rougher.  Once again, though, I’m not confident that the body count was higher, or the killing portrayed more lightly.

A third element of the film that made a definite difference in viewer comfort was the character of Groot.  Groot, an ancient tree in Guardians I, has been splintered into a baby shoot in Guardians II.  He’s undeniably cute.  Too cute.  Especially if you happen to be a female possessed of a baby or so, seeing anything bad happen to Baby Groot (even if he does look more like a pint-sized Ent than a human being) is incredibly painful.  The “mascot” scene was almost unwatchable.

None of these, of course, are critiques of the competence of the film’s writers, or not directly so.  But …

You knew this was coming.

Spoilers ahead.

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One of the good things about Guardians I, people said, was that it didn’t take itself too seriously; by comparison, some friends felt Guardians II took itself too seriously (ironically—see above point re humor).  The real problem for any movie, of course, is rarely its seriousness, but rather its failure to do serious well.  And on this count, I think Guardians II may indeed be guilty.

I said spoilers ahead, right?

You all read these captions, right?

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In its favor, the film is attempting to do something that its predecessor did not, in treating the theme of family ties and especially of fatherhood.  If the Yondu plot is the center of the fatherhood thread, then that is actually interesting.  But if the Ego plot is the center—and the amount of screen time rather seems to indicate that it is, even though the film ends with Yondu—then the film fails.

For those who haven’t seen the movie, here’s the basic setup.  Peter Quill, a.k.a “Starlord,” is the son of a human being from earth and a hitherto unidentified extraterrestrial.  Early in Guardians II his life is saved by a mysterious being who soon identifies himself as Peter’s father, and who turns out to be a “celestial” (think minor Greek god) going under the moniker Ego (hmmm …).  Ego warmly invites Peter to his home planet and, with varying degrees of suspicion, Peter and two companions go.

Once on his home planet, Ego reveals his masterplan to his new-found son Peter.  For—centuries? millenia?—he has deposited bits of his planetary magical stuff …

It’s blue and glows; what more do you need to know?

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… onto other planets, along with fathering lots of children on said planets.

I told you he was basically a minor Greek god.

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Ego’s masterplan is to grow himself over all these planets and turn the universe into—you guessed it—Ego!!!

But there’s a catch.  Ego isn’t powerful enough to do this on his own; he needs a second celestial to help him.  All of his children so far haven’t had enough god genes to be of any assistance, and so they’ve been painlessly euthanized.  (Nice guy, right?)  But Peter Quill, well … Peter has the god genes, as his handling of the Infinity Stones in Guardians I proved.

Of course, it would take a monster to listen to this recital unprotesting.  Since Our Hero Peter is instead a Very Nice Guy, the screenwriters evidently figured he needed some excuse for being tempted.  Thus, prior to the recital of the aforementioned Fiendish Scheme, Ego essentially hypnotizes Peter.

… whose eyes, of course, turn totally blue.  Paging Frank Herbert!

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Thus, Peter is able to listen to the recital, be genuinely tempted by the prospect of joining with Dear Old Dad, and only snaps out of it when he learns that Ego, as a minor element of the Fiendish Scheme, had to off Peter’s mother.  This breaks the spell numbing Peter, and enables the commencement of the Final Battle (which according to custom takes perhaps a quarter of the movie, with brief respites for character development and comic relief).

It’s not a terrible solution—it’s better than some alternatives, e.g., changing Peter’s character such that he petulantly considers Ego’s Fiendish Scheme because, say, he’s mad at his friends for some trivial or not so trivial reason.  Still, this would have been a much better movie all around if Peter had been genuinely tempted.  But would have required a better Ego.

Recall C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra.  If you read the speeches of Lewis’s tempter Weston, it’s actually very hard to detect surface ethical issues.  As a reader, you can almost approve some of his arguments for disobedience.  You can admit to yourself while reading, “Wow, maybe that’s wrong in this situation … but I dunno … Would it always be wrong?”  Of course, Lewis gives us enough external information to know that the Bad Dude is in fact a Bad Dude and ought not to be agreed with.  But it’s a strength of the novel that the Bad Dude is almost persuasive.  Lewis pulls a similar thing off with his narrator in Till We Have Faces, who is credible until near the end of her story.  Dostoyevsky’s Ivan is another excellent example of the character whose false arguments are powerful and all but irrefutable.  Similar things have been done in literature from Chaucer’s Wife of Bath to Milton’s Satan to (some say) Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert.  Unreliable narration, whether for a speech or for an entire book, is a basic tool in the writer’s kit.

Ethically speaking, I think unreliable narration is oftentimes to the good.  In a story where the readers or viewers are eventually disabused of their error, the awareness that they were tricked or tempted has a cautionary effect—“I shouldn’t judge people so harshly,” “I didn’t realize I could find power so attractive,” etc., etc.  And regardless of the ethical implications, it just plain makes for a better blasted story.

That is why Ego’s narrative in Guardians II is so terribly dissatisfying.  We the viewers don’t agree with him for a moment.  He isn’t interesting anymore.  And we can sit smugly in our couches and shake our heads in righteous scorn at Ego and roll our eyes at the stupid, drugged Peter, in a lively exercise of Better-Than-Thouism.  It is stultifying for the intellect and not much better for the soul.

What’s more, this story thread is paired with two other family-themed threads: the reconciliation of sisters Gamora and Nebula, and the emergence of Yondu as Peter’s true father-figure.  They’re worthy stories, but they suffer by being juxtaposed with Ego’s.  Yondu is a clear alternative to Ego—a flawed but ultimately loving character, who at one point tells Peter, in re Ego, “He may have been your father, but he wasn’t your Daddy.”  But Ego is so bad that, attractive exterior aside, he hardly works as a foil for Yondu: there really isn’t a choice between them.  It would be more interesting for the audience, and require more discernment on Peter’s part, to recognize Yondu’s virtues if Ego were less appalling.  As for the Gamora-Nebula story, the root of their quarrel is a father who played them off against each other (literally—as gladiators) from childhood.  Although their father, Thanos, is not obviously juxtaposed against Ego (he’s offscreen for this entire film), once again a subtler portrayal of Ego could potentially have led to more interesting considerations about Thanos.  (For example, how is Ego’s plan to use Peter for his Fiendish Scheme like and unlike Thanos’s desire to train his daughters for his own empire?)

With so much to be gained by strengthening Ego’s character, why didn’t the screenwriters make him more interesting?  The usual answer, that character development takes too much time, won’t work here.  True, the film is, like all of its genre, devoted to providing an entertaining spectacle.  But it still takes time to outline at length Ego’s activities, past and future.  All the screenwriters needed to do was to substitute some plausible rhetoric for the dull pennyworth of  Nietzsche they used instead.  (E.g., Ego could have began by appealing to the corruption of fallen beings—wouldn’t it be better to wipe out certain planets, etc., etc.?)

I think the only possible reasons for failing to ante up Ego’s rhetorical skill are either (1) it didn’t even occur to the screenwriters that his rhetoric could be better, or (2) they realized it could be better, but didn’t know how to convincingly write such a speech.  Either possibility is a sad commentary on the state of their art, and the unfortunate result of their apparent incapacity an object lesson to the rest of us.

To Live Is to Follow the Light

Christians throughout the world recently celebrated the feast of the Epiphany, some on the traditional date of Jan. 6 (the “Twelfth Night” of the twelve days of Christmas) and others on the nearest Sunday (this year, Jan. 7).  In many cultures, Epiphany is a little Christmas.  Just as Dec. 25 commemorates Jesus Christ’s manifestation to his own people, the Jews, so Epiphany commemorates his manifestation to the gentiles, in the person of the wise men whose arrival is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.

The wise men or magi, sometimes called “kings” in reference to Old Testament prophecies of kings of the East visiting the Messiah, followed a star which led them to Bethlehem, to the house where Jesus lay.  They had some knowledge of astronomy, enough to know that the star was unusual; and the astrology to which the ancients gave credit led them to believe that this astronomical phenomenon heralded the birth of a new king of the Jews.

Still, they must have felt there was something more to the strange light than that.  After all, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar (as tradition names them) were not Jews themselves, and the Jewish people were not prominent in world affairs.  Why did the magi care about the birth of a new king in a minor foreign nation?  The star boded something more, suggested some ramifications personal to them, or larger than what they admitted to Herod.

Perhaps one indication of what they expected, or at least what they found, lies in the gospel for the earlier epiphany.

The Gospel for Christmas Mass during the Day does not come from the infancy narratives, but from John: “In the beginning was the Word …”  As John continues, clarifying the relation between the Messiah and God as one of identity, he adds the following:

“All things came to be through [the Word], and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race.” —from the USCCB readings for the Mass for Christmas Day.

John explains the Word’s creative role in terms of two fundamental things: life, and light.  Unfortunately, this is one of the many places where translation confuses.  The USCCB translation says that “What came to be through him was life,” but the Douay-Rheims has the more familiar “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”  This is a straightforward translation of the Vulgate, which reads “In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum.”

Read the rest at the Register.

On Being Fair

A recent foray into the world of parenting books led me to the painfully familiar concept of being “fair.”  While this is not (yet) a personal concern, I can well remember times growing up when things seemed “unfair” amongst my siblings.  Without doubting that our parents intended the best for all of us, it was easy to feel that they had on this or that occasion made a mistake.  More mature years sometimes corrected that impression by validating the parental point of view; at other times, not.  In either case, the fact stands: however good the parents are as parents, their children will oftentimes think them unfair.

The parenting expert whose work I was reading encouraged parents not to worry about this—in fact, he made it a life lesson for the children.  Parents, he wrote, should tell their children from an early age that they (the parents) will not always be fair—indeed, when children complained, he suggested that the parents flaunt their “unfairness” rather than back down.  After all, the expert observed, parents are better judges of situations than children; and anyway, quite frankly, life itself is not fair, so the kids should get used to it!

Interestingly enough, in the concrete examples the expert gave, he did not actually suggest unfairness.  In counseling a couple with two boys, he proposed that one week they buy shoes for one and next week a shirt for the other; another time they might choose to take one boy out bowling, and a few days later take the other out to the movies.  Depending upon which boy coveted which item or experience more, this behavior still might be perceived as unfair by the boys.  But it was quite evident that the expert was concerned that there should be no real inequality between the children in terms parental treatment.  He was advocating tough rhetoric, but not meanness in action (which is, whatever else one may say about it, a better balance than the reverse).

The curious thing about this subterranean fairness is that the expert ignored the possibility (which he elsewhere acknowledges) that sometimes children really shouldn’t get comparable things from their parents (much less the same things at the same time).  And this apparent unfairness may actually be fair.  If, for example, one child shows a real talent for music and a willingness to work hard at it, must you ensure that his sibling has an equivalent hobby, even if that sibling has shown less interest, aptitude, and enthusiasm?  This goes still more for academic expertise: some kids are smarter than others, and it’s not unreasonable for parents to invest more in the schooling of those who take to schooling.  Similarly in sports, it is not necessarily the case, though one child is on a team K through twelve, that every other child must also be, in Fairness’ Name.  To be sure, the parents may decide that two or three years of a sport or instrument are necessary enrichment, and that all their children must finish high school.  But it hardly follows that that every child needs to get the same amount of “enrichment points” (assuming that those could be accurately calculated, which I rather doubt).

This may not feel fair when you seem to have gotten the short end of a particular stick.  But maybe a short stick was all you were equipped for—maybe you really didn’t have the talent for a longer one.  And if so, the unfairness is God’s fault (pardon the expression), not your parents’.

This is all sounding rather harsh; let me put it another way.  Consider the etymology of the word “fair.”  Recall how Tolkien uses it.  “Fair” in older literature (or literature which adopts an older style) does not mean “just.”  Indeed, the first sense of “fair” given by the Oxford English Dictionary is “Beautiful, agreeable” (AI); secondarily, fair means “Beautiful to the eye; of attractive appearance; good-looking” (AI1).  It is only after a long series of applications of this sense of fair to various objects, from women to animals to words, that we arrive at AII, where “fair” is defined as “Favourable; benign; unobstructed,” e.g., “fair weather” or “fair circumstances.”  All the way down at AII14 we get the modern sense of “fair”: “Of conduct, actions, methods, arguments, etc.: free from bias, fraud, or injustice; equitable; legitimate, valid, sound” (AII14.a.(a)); “Of a person: characterized by equitable or lawful conduct; honest, just; reasonable” (AII14.a.(b)); “Of conditions, circumstances, etc.: providing an equal chance of success to all; not unduly favourable or adverse to anyone” (AII14.b.).

This exercise is not designed to delegitimize the concept of fairness.  The point is rather its connection to the beautiful and the agreeable.  To understand what “fair” means in the modern sense, it is important to understand the older sense of the word, and thus also to understand what is meant by beauty.  Traditionally, beauty was defined in terms of proportionality, integrity, and clarity; the element of proportionality is most relevant here.  To be fair (old sense) was to have a proportionality, integrity, and clarity to one’s appearance or actions.  To be fair (new sense) is to act in a proportional way.  One does not give a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old the same size meal—that would not be proportional; it would not, in fact, be fair!  Admittedly, the five-year-old might complain that things are unfair when he sees big brother is getting two hamburgers and he only has one.  But the fact is (as his parents know) that if he starts with two hamburgers on his plate he’ll end up with a bellyache.

It’s easy to see this with respect to things like food, because the proportionality in terms of size is visible, tangible to even the most prosaic adult mind.  It’s harder, perhaps to see in other areas; but the fact of the need for proportionality is no less real.  The Communist dictum, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is as necessary in personal family dealings as it is damaging when applied to political life; for parents, unlike the government, are in a position to judge the abilities and needs of those whom they govern.  Perhaps they do not always do so perfectly, but they have both the right and the duty to make the attempt.  And if, at the end of the day, something truly disproportionate and unfair transpires … Well, kids, in the words of the expert, life isn’t fair.

Also, more importantly, your parents probably love you anyway.  And love from parents to children, beginning at birth and extending sometimes for far too long afterwards, is perhaps the ultimate case of unfairness, because it is frequently all out of proportion with the object’s just deserts.

I don't know about you, but I wanted to sit on the dog!

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