Why do we have so many conflicts about fairness?
Thoughts on Affirmative Action
I am reposting (and slightly rewriting) this earlier post in light of the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on Affirmative Action.
Fairness is one of the key foundations of our humanity. We all have opinions about what is fair. Don’t we all want what is fair? Then, why do we experience so much conflict? And what can we do about it if it’s a barrier to healing our fractured relationship?
One of the sources of conflict is based on different types of fairness, or what I call “flavors” of fairness. There are two main flavors: equality and merit-based. There’s also a third flavor that fewer people have, equity.
Even though this may seem obvious, I’m going to get really specific about the different flavors just to be crystal clear.
Equality is when everyone gets an equal share, such as an equivalently sized piece of cake, or for a similar job category, the same salary.
Merit-based fairness is when you get more when you “deserve” it. Deserve is the key word here. It’s a loaded word; there can be many ways of deserving more, such as working hard, achieving more or even belonging to a certain group. The salesperson who gets a bonus based on her sales, the student who gets into a selective college because of their SAT scores (like the Harvard and UNC cases the Supreme Court just decided) and runners whose times qualify for a competitive race are all ways we carry out the merit-based flavor of fairness in our society.
(Belonging to the same group is another factor can interact with the merit-based flavor of fairness; for example, we’re more likely to hire people who belong to our group. That’s also probably behind why venture capitalists are more likely to fund companies made up of white and Asian men and not women or people of color. This can be what’s underneath discrimination, without us ever realizing it. And of course, race based admissions to college or rejections from college are based on belonging and out-group rejection.)
Equity-based fairness is an attempt to make it up to people who’ve been subject to discrimination, when they haven’t had an equal chance before or even not had equivalent rewards for hard work. This could be a result of discrimination based on not belonging to the right group. Illustrations of the equity-based flavor of fairness are affirmative action admissions to college and the idea of paying reparations for slavery and discrimination.
Experiments with very young children demonstrate that they have both the equality and merit-based flavors of fairness. (As far as I know, there haven’t been experiments about the equity-based flavor of fairness). Children seem to switch from one to another when the situation is appropriate. When effort is involved, they use the concept of merit-based flavor of fairness. When no effort is involved, they use equality. I interpret this as meaning that both forms are part of us from an early age.
But in adulthood, we tend to default to one form of fairness over another, without realizing that’s what we’re doing. And we dismiss the other forms. Conservatives lean on the merit-based flavor of fairness. Liberals mostly gravitate to the equality-based flavor of fairness, with the most liberal of them going all the way to the more extreme flavor of equity.
I wonder if the tendency of liberals to favor both equality and equity might be an attempt to make up for the merit-based flavor of fairness not working for people who’ve put in the hard work but haven’t gotten a reward because of discrimination. The irony is that minorities (who have been the target of discrimination and would be the beneficiaries of the liberals’ efforts) haven’t abandoned the merit-based flavor of fairness the way the liberals have.
Another wondering: How much of the discussion among conservatives about CRT is because it challenges the underpinnings of merit-flavor of fairness, which conservatives favor? Critical race theory says that the merit-based flavor of fairness actually hasn’t been happening. It disputes their version of truth. And that’s really uncomfortable. No one wants to reexamine their beliefs about reality.
One more key concept: Note that those very young children in the fairness study were flexible in which flavor of fairness they applied. When the situation involved effort, they used the merit-based flavor of fairness, but when there was no effort involved, they used equality. My conclusion: It seems that we humans are innately flexible to begin with. If you can learn to become flexible like the young kids were, you’ll be more successful in your conversations involving fairness. If there’s effort involved and you’re talking to someone who’s conservative, try to use the merit-based flavor of fairness.
So, if you are in a discussion and critical race theory or replacement theory or Black Lives Matter or Affirmative Action or some other fairness-based topic comes up, what can you do? Because Affirmative Action is in the news, it may. How can you deal with this in a conversation where you’re trying to mend a fractured relationship? Or even replacement theory or Black Lives Matter? (Note: I specifically discuss one take on Black Lives Matter in this previous newsletter .)
Let’s start with the basic model I’ve been working with and see how that applies.
Ask, Listen, Affirm, Respond/Reframe
Ask: It’s probably good to start with the same general questions that psychologists and conflict resolution specialists recommend. I summarize those questions in this earlier newsletter. But here are some specific questions to ask if you hear the word “deserve” or think that a flavor of fairness may be at the root of the conflict:
How do you judge what’s fair? Do you think people need to earn rewards?
What happens when people work hard and they still don’t get rewarded? What should happen then?
If you were in their shoes, what would you think would be fair if that happened?
How would you feel if you didn’t get a reward that you earned?
Listen: Again, mostly just do what is generally recommended, as I speak about in this newsletter. Listen specifically for the flavor of fairness the person is using. Keep your ears tuned for two words: fair and deserve.
Affirm: Here are some specific ways you can affirm someone you disagree with if it seems appropriate.
I agree, it is important for people to be rewarded for their efforts.
I agree, we need to talk about what is fair and unfair.
I agree, fairness is an important factor here.
Others potential affirmations can be found here.
Respond: If you have a story that applies, you can use that. Stories are powerful tools, as a I talked about in an earlier newsletter. Unfortunately, much of the information about the damage from racism comes from statistical analyses, which are not as convincing as stories because they’re processed by a different part of the brain than the ones we use when thinking about fairness. If you can find a story, use it.
Here’s an example, a story I just read on Facebook about how racism disrupted a true merit-based system. This story came up now because, for the first time, a Black child has won the national spelling bee. But this story is set back in the mid-1950s, when this didn’t happen. A Black man (then a boy) in Tennessee won the local spelling bee and, because of his race, wasn’t sent to the national spelling bee by the local sponsor, unlike previous and later winners. And the point of the local contest was to send the winners to the nationals! Notice how the story focusses on the fact that the person did achieve something but wasn’t rewarded. That’s the conservative, merit-based flavor fairness focus. If I was trying to convince a liberal, I would talk about the winner’s feelings (the care/harm moral foundation), or about the equality-based flavor of fairness.
But even if you haven’t found a story to use, you can reframe by using the flavor of fairness the person you’re talking to prefers. If you’re talking to a conservative, use the merit-based flavor of fairness. If you’re talking to a liberal, use the equality or equity-based flavor of fairness. But you need to be able to switch back and forth to be able to do that, so you need to practice first!
Learning how to talk in each other’s fairness flavors might be the key to bridging our political divide, as I talk about in this newsletter.
If you want to know more about fairness, check out my book, Persuade, Don’t Preach: Restoring Civility Across the Political Divide, available on Amazon and other places books are sold online. Links to other sources besides Amazon are available on my webpage.
And subscribe to my newsletter for more thought provoking ideas about our political divide.