In this episode, I explore the concept of unfairness and its impact on individuals. I share a story about a woman who felt sidelined at work, highlighting how perceptions of unfairness are often rooted in feelings of helplessness. I discuss how seeking external validation and control through labeling situations as unfair can lead to a cycle of resentment and entitlement. I caution against prioritizing equality of outcome over opportunity, as it can undermine meritocracy. Instead, I advocate for taking ownership of circumstances, focusing on personal growth, and cultivating resilience to navigate challenges successfully and break free from a victim mentality fixated on fairness.
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Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
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LearningTranscript
00:00Alright, so the concept of fairness has been floating around a little bit here and there
00:03on the forums and in my inbox.
00:06So I need to tell you about fairness because fairness is a huge problem.
00:14So let me tell you about a conversation I had many years ago with a friend of mine's
00:18daughter.
00:19Now this woman was working in an office and she had trained a younger employee and she
00:26herself had a tough childhood, she had a temper and so on and the younger worker kept
00:33getting the lion's share of the work.
00:36And so she went to her bosses and she was like, hey, this younger worker, the person
00:41I trained, she's 10 years younger than me, I trained her and she's getting the work.
00:46You got to fix that, it's unfair.
00:49I'm better at what I do, I'm the one who trained her and she keeps getting the jobs that are
00:52meant for me.
00:54That's unfair.
00:55And she got really angry and I had a tough time understanding that and I was very open
01:02at having a tough time understanding that.
01:05And she said, well, I'm better at the work.
01:09And I said, okay, so let's say you're technically better at the work, so what?
01:14Well then people should give me the work.
01:16And I said, but you're not as much fun to work with, right, you're not as much fun to
01:21work with.
01:23So by going to your bosses and complaining about unfairness, you're saying, I can't compete
01:30with someone 10 years younger who I trained.
01:34Like you're saying to your bosses, I'm incredibly insecure about the value that I provide.
01:39I cannot compete with a woman 10 years younger that I trained.
01:45And you have to fix this because people are being unfair to me because I'm better at my
01:51job.
01:53And therefore, what are they supposed to do?
01:54Are they supposed to go to people handing out work and say, you are not allowed to give
02:00the work to this younger woman who's more pleasant to work with, but you have to give
02:05the work to the older woman who's unpleasant to work with because she's kind of volatile
02:10and blames other people for her own inadequacies because she had a problem with anger.
02:16Now, the concept of unfairness and the concept of rage or the experience of rage go hand
02:22in hand.
02:23Now, I mean, we see this all over the place on the left, all inequities are due to bigotry
02:26and there's rage and you got to fix things, right?
02:30So you have to look at your life and you've got to find this petty, petulant demon called
02:38unfairness and rip it out by the roots.
02:42It will choke and destroy your life like weeds on a rosebush.
02:46It's unfair.
02:48It's unfair.
02:50Well, unfair, the word unfair, the concept unfair comes from helpless childhood.
02:59It's a younger sibling word in general, right?
03:02Oh, no fair, right?
03:04He got more cake than I.
03:05That's not fair.
03:07Unfair.
03:08Because you can't get your own piece of cake.
03:10You can't buy your own piece of cake.
03:11So you have to rely on an authority figure.
03:15The phrase unfair is a demand for a powerful, coercive authority figure who can make things
03:24fair.
03:26So if you say things are unfair, you are saying, I'm helpless, I can't compete, I can't survive
03:33on the merits of my own abilities and I need someone with power to step in and use aggression
03:42or force to transfer resources to me.
03:46Nobody wants to give me those resources of their own accord.
03:49I can't compete.
03:50I can't get what I want.
03:52I'm helpless.
03:54And helplessness summons a kind of totalitarianism, right?
04:00It's unfair is a demand for totalitarianism.
04:05The phrase unfair is the phrase of someone who wants someone else to bully on their behalf.
04:14It is a bully phrase.
04:16It is a call to bullying.
04:17And of course there are lots of bullies in the world who'd love to step in and push people
04:20around and force people to do this, that and the other.
04:23It's unfair.
04:24Like the women in the 60s, it's unfair I get paid less.
04:28Well, do you work as many hours?
04:29Do you produce as much output?
04:31Do you quit to get pregnant?
04:32Do you quit when you're married, right?
04:33Is there a reason why you're paid less?
04:37No, it's just unfair.
04:39Okay, well then what happens is the government forces employees to all be paid the same regardless
04:45of productivity and the decay of the economy is set in motion.
04:51It's unfair.
04:53If you take the word, like what is your life like if you take the word unfair out of your
04:57vocabulary?
04:58You refuse to believe in it.
05:00Listen, if there's anyone who can have an excuse for the word unfair, it could be somebody
05:06like me.
05:07It was unfair I was surrounded by cruel people.
05:09It was unfair that I was raised by a violent single mother.
05:12It's unfair what happened to me in the business world.
05:14It's unfair what happened to me in the academic world.
05:16I was really good at academics and business.
05:18It was unfair I got deplatformed.
05:20It was unfair.
05:21It was unfair I got kicked off various platforms.
05:24It was unfair.
05:25I didn't do anything wrong.
05:27Okay, you understand?
05:30Have you ever heard me say it's unfair?
05:32I mean, I'm not speaking theoretically here.
05:35I have every reason and excuse in the known universe to complain about unfairness.
05:40Do I do it?
05:41I do not.
05:42I do not.
05:44I don't want an authority to use aggression of force to fix my life.
05:51I don't want to whine and complain and beg and plead and threaten and bully because things
05:58are unfair.
05:59Aw, no fair.
06:00Why is the cheerleader that I want to go out with going out with the handsome jock?
06:11It's unfair.
06:13Everybody wants to win the race.
06:14It's unfair that one person wins the race.
06:16Okay, so what are people supposed to do about the fact that other people win the race?
06:22If other people win the race, there's only two possibilities.
06:26You suck or you didn't train hard enough.
06:29That's it.
06:30That's it.
06:31Maybe you're not suited to that sport.
06:34You know, maybe you're a 200-pound guy who wants to be a jockey, right?
06:38Maybe you're a 5'2 guy who wants to be a basketball player.
06:42Well, sorry, you're unsuited to the sport.
06:45You suck at that sport.
06:46Through no fault of your own, okay, then choose a different sport.
06:50Be a wrestling lot of jockey.
06:52So unfair, unfair.
06:56So if you're 5'2 and you say it's unfair and you want to be in the basketball team, it
07:01just means that you can't be good at basketball and other people who are good at basketball
07:06have to lose because you suck, right?
07:11You know, it's unfair that this guy has a great singing voice.
07:15It's like, well, either you have a good singing voice, you just need to train it better, or
07:19you don't have a good singing voice, in which case what?
07:22You're supposed to sing and the band's going to go out of business because nobody wants
07:25to come and hear you squawk away?
07:27No!
07:28Unfair, man.
07:29It's unfair that he's really good-looking.
07:30It's like, okay, then work to improve your looks.
07:33And if you can't improve your looks that much, then work to improve the quality of a character.
07:38Work to improve your virtue.
07:39Work to be a great guy to date.
07:42It's unfair that I started losing my hair in my early 20s, on top of everything else,
07:48right?
07:49Unfair.
07:51It's unfair that I got cancer when I'm a healthy, healthy guy.
07:55It's unfair.
07:56So?
07:57What do I do?
07:58Well, I work to get better, and then what I do is I work to make sure I stay as healthy
08:02as possible.
08:03So having cancer can make me a healthier person than if I'd never had cancer.
08:07It's unfair.
08:08Okay, so what?
08:10So what?
08:12It's unfair that I had a tooth that was fused to my jawbone, and no matter how much oral
08:17hygiene I did, and I'm pretty good at that sort of stuff, I couldn't save the tooth.
08:20It's unfair.
08:21Yeah?
08:22Okay, so what?
08:23I work to take better care of the other teeth.
08:25I mean, the unfair stuff is, you know, and I don't mean to be all kinds of sex-based
08:32here, but come on, guys, man-to-man, right?
08:35To the ladies, okay, I apologize in advance, but man-to-man, unfair, it's kind of girly.
08:42It's kind of girly.
08:44What does it mean for a man that things are unfair?
08:48I mean, compared to what?
08:51We get what we earn.
08:52We get what we negotiate for.
08:53We get what we're willing to settle for, right?
08:56You understand that the whole basis of socialism and Marxism is it's unfair.
09:02Things are unfair.
09:03The capitalist is taking too much money.
09:05He's exploiting the workers.
09:06It's unfair.
09:07It's like, well, if you feel like you're being underpaid, ask for more or start your own
09:11company.
09:13Unfair is like an environmental toxin.
09:17It's immaterial.
09:18It's a plea and a beg for bullying, coercion, violence, and really the destruction of your
09:25capacity to compete.
09:27You know what?
09:28There's a near infinity of people in the world who are better than you and I at just about
09:34anything.
09:35Hopefully, you can find that one thing where you can be world-class or top of your field
09:38or whatever it is, but even that's unlikely, right?
09:42How many people out there are better athletes than I am?
09:45Pretty much an infinity.
09:46How many people out there are better singers or better drawers or better, I mean, you could
09:52go certainly better at fixing things around the house.
09:55It's a virtual infinity.
09:58You're better than other people at some things and how many people are better at video games
10:03than I am?
10:04Well, a near infinity.
10:07Of course, I aim to be a great philosopher.
10:09I aim to be a good writer.
10:10I aim to be a great parent and a good husband.
10:13You know, obviously, I'm aiming to be as good as I can be at these things, which obviously
10:18is pretty good.
10:19It's pretty good.
10:21But when you say things are unfair, you're saying I have no capacity to compete or get
10:29what I want and I need an external authority to force resources my way.
10:36Unfair!
10:37So this concept of fairness or equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity.
10:45Equality of opportunity is freedom.
10:46Equality of outcome is tyranny and fairness is saying that we must have an equality of
10:51outcome and any deviation from equality of outcome is unfair and must be remedied with
10:57force.
10:58Right?
10:59I mean, this is the mentality of people who force others into sexual activity, right?
11:06While there's a certain amount of sexual activity in the world, I'm not getting mine.
11:10It's unfair and therefore I can force redistribute resources called sex.
11:15That's brutal and evil.
11:17It's unfair that I lost my money on the stock market.
11:19It's like, well, you bought things that are risky.
11:24Unfair is the abrogation of self-ownership.
11:28The word unfair is the abrogation of self-ownership.
11:32If you can't compete with someone 10 years younger that you trained, that's on you and
11:38it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because you see in the concept or the fantasy of unfairness,
11:45which is the plea for totalitarian coercion to redistribute resources.
11:51Because you see in the concept of unfairness, you're hypersensitive and raw to differences
11:59in outcome.
12:01But differences in outcome are the exact definition of quality.
12:07And this is what's so hypocritical, is that everybody wants quality in what they consume
12:14and everybody wants egalitarianism in what they receive.
12:19Everybody wants egalitarianism.
12:20The people who are bad, right?
12:21The people who are bad at work want extra pay because of unfair without the extra responsibility.
12:27The workers want to be paid like the entrepreneur without assuming the risk and stress of the
12:31entrepreneur.
12:32It's a form of theft, right?
12:34So you want a meritocracy when it comes to, hey, who's building your cell phone?
12:40Do you want the best engineers to design and build your cell phone or do you want things
12:45to be fair and for crappy engineers to build half your cell phone?
12:50You don't want that.
12:51In fact, you'd be really angry and frustrated and outraged if your cell phone keeps breaking
12:57because your demand for fairness had shitty engineers working on your cell phone or your
13:03heart valve in surgery, right?
13:07So you're angry no matter what.
13:10You're angry if things are unfair because you want things to be fair and you want to
13:14get free stuff.
13:16But then if other people take your standard called fairness and use it to have shitty
13:23engineers work on your cell phone, then you're also angry because your cell phone doesn't
13:28work.
13:29And this is what I mean when I say it's foundational.
13:32It's a foundational building block for constant rage.
13:37Fair.
13:38Things got to be fair.
13:39If things are unfair, I'm unhappy.
13:41But then I'm also really unhappy if things are fair because then my cell phone doesn't
13:45work and my electricity doesn't get delivered and my paycheck doesn't get sent.
13:55Do you want fairness in payroll management so that even people who are really bad at
14:01getting your pay to you also get their shot, man?
14:04No, because then 20% of the time you don't even get paid.
14:07Oh no, I'm enraged that I'm not paid.
14:10But no, that's the result of you being enraged that things are unfair.
14:15There's simply no way out of this maze.
14:17You want the quality based on inequality and you also want fairness based on equality.
14:24So you want the quality that only inequality can provide, right?
14:27Having the best people for the job.
14:29You want all of that.
14:31And you also want equality of outcome.
14:33So you want inequality of outcome for quality and you want equality of outcome for fairness.
14:37And the more you dial up the equality of outcome, the more you get crappy goods and services
14:42which enrages you.
14:43The more you get better goods and services, the less equal the outcome for the workers
14:51and all, right?
14:53So it is a recipe for permanent chronic rage, which is the left, right?
14:58I mean, so we don't want to partake in that kind of stuff, right?
15:01So yeah, honestly, you got to take this concept of unfairness, which comes from a thwarted
15:06often a younger sibling kind of immaturity.
15:10It's not immaturity when you're a kid, a little kid, but you know, you got to grow
15:13out of that stuff real quick, right?
15:16Real quick.
15:17So yeah, don't get stuck in the permanent childhood of demanding equality and fairness
15:23because you're setting yourself up for a recipe of chronic rage, probably chronic health problems
15:29that come with the chronic rage, chronic dissatisfaction, and you'll never be loved.
15:34Like it's a high price to pay because you're irritable and stressed and tense.
15:37And so you can't be loved.
15:38You can't relax.
15:39You can't enjoy life.
15:40And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
15:42It's unfair that no one wants to work with me.
15:44People are assholes because they don't give me the work.
15:46It's like, okay, then people don't want to work with you because you're calling them
15:49assholes.
15:50So, you know, the most resentful employees are the ones who don't get hired and don't
15:55get paid much because nobody wants to deal with their resentment.
15:58So it actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that what you fear comes to pass because you
16:02fear it.
16:03All right.
16:04Hope this helps.
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16:07Talk to you soon.
16:08Bye.