fairness is not a myth

Socrates believed that in order to know the world, or understand the world, we must first know ourselves. The path to knowing yourself began, thought Socrates, with rational thought.
Socrates thought that our emotions and our desires dwell in the irrational part of our being. He believed our physical senses ruled the irrational part while the rational part was governed by our true selves(our rational thought), which consisted of both the irrational and rational.

Decartes on the other hand believed that reason alone determined knowledge and this could be done apart from the senses. Many other philosophers spent long hours writing about rationalism, empiricism and naturalism in terms of man's identity, which was also wrapped up in the concept of God and the soul. Today philosopher's still struggle with man's identity and its relation to humanity in general.

Having only a rudimentary self taught take on past philosopher's views, i tend towards believing that we are a puzzle of perceptions, emotions, desires, physical senses, and rational thought that blend together to make us distinct but part of a set of circumstances that make it imperative that we learn how to navigate and exist amongst affiliated human beings. i believe we are all distinct but we still have shared elements of the above making us part of what we call humanity and that melting pot of commonalities we all share.

A simple commonality is our sense of fairness.

The idea of fairness may be instinctual in all of us. Notice i said "may" because this is a great area for disagreement. Some might cry that my statement is an irrelevant abstraction of the "real world." That instinct plays no role, but i would beg to differ. We do recognize when one is being treated unfairly by another. The fact that we don't always choose to act against the unfairness does not mean we haven't recognized it. We do recognize the injustice or unfairness but our options, or our "perceived" options, sometimes outweigh our actions.

i think we can all agree that life isn't fair.

Some of us wind up far more advanced in the game of life for the simple reason that we were born privileged.

We are advantaged from birth and that doesn't make life fair at the get go.

Recognizing the advantage we have can lead some to give back to those whose circumstances are less than perfect. Recognizing the advantage we can fight to create environments where the less powerful are given a voice. Recognizing the advantage we can actualize scenarios where we choose not to take actions based upon our superior position.

We can choose to let the disadvantaged "win".

Every day there are stories of horror and hope.

One man's tragedy becomes another man's reason for carrying the torch of peace.

A man who came of age in an occupied territory(Gaza), a man who spent time in jail, a man who used violence thinking it would achieve his goal, a man who has lost his daughter to violence, has revised his course through life and taken on the mantel of dialog instead of violence.

He has turned the other cheek.

He has asked all on the other side to look first at those they kill. Look first at them and understand their humanity. Understand how alike we all are. Understand that killing is not the answer.

Our enemy image in order to have a society is based upon myth. It is an ugly, mammoth myth, perpetrated by those seeking power. It has poisoned society for millenniums. We will fight, scratch and go mad, just to survive, is the myth.

The real story, that of fairness, continues to be buried. We can resurrect the story, we can detail its continued success throughout history. We can encourage all to speak about all the instances of fairness that occur on a daily basis.

Because Fairness is not a myth.

Check out this YouTube on Fairness
The Evolution of Fairness