均 Fairness - Commentary

(PD) 均 Fairness on Chinese Song Birds

(Photograph enhancements by Larry Neal Gowdy.)

Larry Neal Gowdy

均 Fairness

One of the several topics that the ancient Chinese texts greatly excel in, is the topic of 'fairness'.

Written within little sentences, the short concepts build upon the other, beginning small, then speaking of things that no other known public writings have approached near. A sample of beginning small: 'Zi say: Junzi bosom inner-virtue, tiny people bosom outer-materialism. Junzi bosom fairness, tiny people bosom favor'. (Draft sample from Li Ren, lightly edited for clarity within use of the current topic.)

The idea of a 'tiny' person, is of an individual who has no inner qualities, of an individual who is vain, and whose only interests in life are of selfishness, of social prestige, and of material things that can be held within one's hands. Surely most everyone knows a 'tiny' person.

The Chinese term 'junzi', is composed of two words: 君 (jun - said to imply gentleman, lord, noble, ruler, etc.), and 子 (zi - said to imply child, egg, first earthly branch, seed, son, etc.). Eastern philosophers still discuss the possible implications of 君子, while western translators often choose the English term 'superior man'. All known English reference materials disagree on what 君 means, but by how 君 was created of individual symbols, and by the way that 'junzi' is used within the ancient texts, all point to an individual who is of harmonious inner qualities that are outwardly expressed with quality, therefore implying that a 'junzi' is an honorable individual whose mind, spirit, and reasoning are of qualities far beyond what common man might possess.

A useful illustration of differences between a junzi and a tiny person is within the game of chess. [1] White moves queen pawn two squares forward (d4). [2] Black moves queen pawn forward two squares (d5). [3] White moves queen bishop three squares diagonally (f4). [4] Black moves king knight forward-right (f6). An adept chess player would be of continuous thought and analyses during and in-between each move, while at the current board position the individual playing white would be conscious of choosing pawn h3, pawn e3, or any number of other combinations dependent on whether the game is intended to be played positional or tactical during the middle-game and end-game. Sans a booboo by a skilled player of white, black has already lost unless black's chess skills are near or above candidate-master level.

The skilled chess player has already analyzed and thought-through the game, up to the final moves, but an unskilled observer expresses no analyses, not of the first moves, nor of potential dangers to pieces, nor of a middle-game, nor of an end-game, nor of defensive, positional, and tactical advances. The skilled chess player's mind is lit bright and full of conscious analyses, while the unskilled observer's mind is quiet and of no light.

And there, the little example of a chess opening is close to the differences between an adept junzi and a tiny person. An adept junzi is always consciously thinking, analyzing, reasoning, studying one's perceptions, and choosing what is correct in each moment of one's own life, while the tiny person expresses no conscious thought of life, instead merely making body moves upon subconsciously-driven urges of subconscious desires.

An adept junzi chooses life relative to what is right in real Nature, whereas a tiny person unthinkingly 'pushes buttons, turns knobs, and moves pieces' as the tiny person was trained to do. The tiny person has no personal control over whether the buttons, knobs, and pieces are good or bad, the tiny person can only obey what the tiny person was told to do by his masters and his subconscious desires, the tiny person does not participate in his own life, and the tiny person is never aware of his own life's middle-game nor end-game.

While reading the above chess example, were the reader's thoughts with analyses, or did the reader merely unconsciously memorize the moves? A junzi would have been with analyses, regardless of whether or not he knew chess rules.

Parallel, many of the ancient Chinese texts praised quality individuals, whereas modern cultures praise selfish individuals of socially-given materialistic wealth, socially-given social prestige, and socially-given social power. A rephrase of the Li Ren quote to reflect today's world: 'Quality individuals exert the self-effort to achieve self-quality, whereas tiny individuals exert no effort while only desiring for what can be held within their hands. Quality individuals exert the self-effort to think, to rationalize, and to judge what is balanced of fairness, whereas tiny individuals exert no effort of reasoning beyond demanding that they be given more things to hold in their hands.'

A very large and impassable chasm exists between the 'mentally tidy junzi' and the 'selfish hoarder tiny person', predominately that of a junzi intellectually choosing the logical path of self-creating a quality inside which can then be the cause-effect of a quality outward behavior, while the tiny people only have subconsciously-driven desires of outside things while expecting the outside things to somehow magically make one's inside good.

Cause and effect, most all tiny people believe in the scientific idea of 'cause and effect', but no tiny person can cross-light their belief with their own behavior... the tiny person truly believes that science's 'cause and effect' is true truth, but with the same breath, the tiny person claims themselves exempt from the 'scientific truth'. The ancient texts' term 'tiny person' is easily understood by everyone who is not a tiny person.

Not distant from the tiny person denying the reality of 'cause and effect' within their own lives, countless English dictionary definitions of 'fairness' exist, and yet none of the definitions relate to what is real in this Reality. As contrasts of what 'fairness' implies to a junzi, below are several highly abbreviated examples of academic, philosophical, and scientific explanations of what the groups believe the word 'fairness' implies.

This is readily understandable when we consider the nature of abstract meanings and the intellectual processes by which we arrive at them. Unlike such words as tree, house, etc., the ideas they contain are not the immediate result of perceptual processes, in which even childish intelligence is adept, but are a refined and secondary product of relationships between other ideas. They require the logical processes of comparison, abstraction, and generalization. One cannot see justice, for example, but one is often confronted with situations in which justice or injustice is an element; and given a certain degree of abstraction and generalization, out of such situations the idea of justice will gradually be evolved.

The formation and use of abstract ideas, of one kind or another, represent, par excellence, the "higher thought processes." It is not without significance that delinquents who test near the border-line of mental deficiency show such inferior ability in arriving at correct generalizations regarding matters of social and moral relationships. We cannot expect a mind of defective generalizing ability to form very definite or correct notions about justice, law, fairness, ownership rights, etc.; and if the ideas themselves are not fairly clear, the rules of conduct based upon them cannot make a very powerful appeal."

...One might suppose that aesthetic judgment would be relatively independent of intelligence. Certainly no one could have known in advance of experience that intellectual retardation would reveal itself in weakness of the aesthetic sense about as unmistakably as in memory, practical judgment, or the comprehension of language. But such is the case. The development of the aesthetic sense parallels general mental growth rather closely. The imbecile of 4-year intelligence, even though he may have lived forty years, has no more chance of passing this test than any other test in year V. It would be profitable to devise and standardize a set of pictures of the same general type which would measure a less primitive stage of aesthetic development.

...The detection of absurdities is one of the most ingenious and serviceable tests of the entire scale. It is little influenced by schooling, and it comes nearer than any other to being a test of that species of mother-wit which we call common sense. Like the "comprehension questions," it may be called a test of judgment, using this term in the colloquial and not in the logical sense. The stupid person, whether depicted in literature, proverb, or the ephemeral joke column, is always (and justly, it would seem) characterized by a huge tolerance for absurd contradictions and by a blunt sensitivity for the fine points of a joke. Intellectual discrimination and judgment are inferior. The ideas do not cross-light each other, but remain relatively isolated. Hence, the most absurd contradictions are swallowed, so to speak, without arousing the protest of the critical faculty. The latter, indeed, is only a name for the tendency of intellectually irreconcilable elements to clash. If there is no clash, if the elements remain apart, it goes without saying that there will be no power of criticism. (The Measurement of Intelligence - An explanation of and a Complete Guide for the Use of the Stanford Revision and Extension of The Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale by Lewis M. Terman - Professor of Education, Stanford Junior University, copyright© 1916, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, New York, Chicago)

Terman's numerous ideas about intelligence are very useful as illustrations of how well the mind was, and still is, understood within academia and science.

The first item of the moment's importance is Terman's comment "formation and use of abstract ideas". The concept word 'fairness' was, and still is, popularly believed to be a mere 'brain function', an "abstract idea", without academia and science first knowing the how and why 'fairness' occurs.

The second item of the moment's importance is Terman's comment "...stupid person... is... characterized by a huge tolerance for absurd contradictions... Intellectual discrimination and judgment are inferior. The ideas do not cross-light each other, but remain relatively isolated. ...the most absurd contradictions are swallowed... without arousing the protest of the critical faculty." The mental inability to cross-light thoughts is not rare, not uncommon at all, the inability is very much common within tiny people (e.g. the mental inability to cross-light scientific 'cause and effect' with one's self).

A third item of importance is the comment "formation and use of abstract ideas". For clarity, it needs to be mentioned that the act of judging 'fairness' is not 'abstract', or, at least, not abstract for self-thinking individuals. An abstract thought is popularly believed to be a conscious frontal lobe activity, but the judging of 'fairness' within the tiny person is almost always a subconscious activity that is not frontal lobe related. There exists no rational scientific theory of what constitutes 'mind' and 'thinking', and so, whatsoever scientific or philosophical terminology that might be given by an author, is irrelevant anyway. But here is one of the core contrasts that, when cross-lighted, illustrates the impassable chasm between the junzi's definition of 'fairness', and the tiny person's definition of 'fairness'.

A fourth item of importance is the comment "The development of the aesthetic sense parallels general mental growth rather closely." Terman raised a very valid and important point. It is observable that individuals with stunted mental capacities almost always choose mates that have similarly stunted mentalities, and any exception to the rule appears to always be a fluke of mistaken appearances. Parallels exist within all senses, including interpretations of music, art, landscapes, and others. Interpretations of what implies 'beauty' are directly and intimately related to each individual's own mental and other capacities.

A fifth item of importance, and related to the fourth item, is the comment "weakness of the aesthetic sense". Aesthetic relates to the sense of beauty, which was, and still is, an unknown to all science, all philosophy, all academia, and all other ideologies. Similar is the fact that no human on earth knows the verb-how and verb-why objects do not float away into outer space, but, the tiny person has memorized the word 'gravity', and now truly believes that reciting the noun 'gravity' somehow explains why objects do not float away. So is the noun 'aesthetics' memorized and recited; the word is merely a philosophical invention that possesses no knowledge of what 'beauty' means. In contrast, a junzi does indeed know what beauty is, and the junzi is able to deeply describe the verb-how and verb-why of beauty. Compared to a junzi, all of science and other ideologies are tiny.

A sixth item of importance is the comment "If there is no clash, if the elements remain apart, it goes without saying that there will be no power of criticism." The mental capacity to accurately critique topics is directly related to an individual's intelligence. Tiny individuals critique almost nothing beyond the most base of objects (i.e. choosing to wear red pants or blue pants, choosing which food tastes better, etc.), and tiny individuals often say that people ought not critique anything, especially not science, philosophy, nor any other ideology that the tiny person believes in. The tiny person's mind rests silently within the imagined belief that all humans are equal, the same, and identical, and that no one should ever critique the tiny person's beliefs. In contrast, the junzi is continuously within critiquing analyses of all things.

The seventh, and most important item, is the comment "Certainly no one could have known in advance of experience that intellectual retardation would reveal itself in weakness of the aesthetic sense about as unmistakably as in memory, practical judgment, or the comprehension of language. But such is the case." Each and every time a tiny person uses the noun 'aesthetic' within a context like Terman's quote, in so doing the individual has permanently proven that the individual is fully ignorant of all things related to the mind, the body, biology, physics, and this Reality itself. The awareness that intellectual levels are directly proportional to 'aesthetics', should have been as obvious as the sun and moon to all conscious humans, but Terman's quote "Certainly no one could have known in advance" proved that science and academia knew nothing whatsoever of the topic. A junzi can explain with great detail what the word 'beauty' implies, but no one else can. To the tiny person, love and beauty are 'supernatural mysterious' things, but to the self-thinking junzi, love and beauty are very simple, and very real.

The word 'aesthetic', all by itself, fully and permanently nullifies all modern cultures' beliefs of all things.

The following are Schopenhauer's comments that illustrate a different angle of Terman's topic, while also presenting a very useful and strong contrast between tiny people and a junzi.

"A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles,--for then he is off his guard. This will often afford a good opportunity of observing the boundless egoism of man's nature, and his total lack of consideration for others; and if these defects show themselves in small things, or merely in his general demeanor, you will find that they also underlie his action in matters of importance, although he may disguise the fact. This is an opportunity which should not be missed. If in the little affairs of every day,--the trifles of life, those matters to which the rule _de minimis non_ applies,--a man is inconsiderate and seeks only what is advantageous or convenient to himself, to the prejudice of others' rights; if he appropriates to himself that which belongs to all alike, you may be sure there is no justice in his heart, and that he would be a scoundrel on a wholesale scale, only that law and compulsion bind his hands. Do not trust him beyond your door. He who is not afraid to break the laws of his own private circle, will break those of the State when he can do so with impunity.

If the average man were so constituted that the good in him outweighed the bad, it would be more advisable to rely upon his sense of justice, fairness, gratitude, fidelity, love or compassion, than to work upon his fears; but as the contrary is the case, and it is the bad that outweighs the good, the opposite course is the more prudent one." (Counsels and Maxims From the Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer, Arthur Schopenhauer, translated by T. Bailey Saunders.)

Schopenhauer's comments are quite good and useful as an illustration between the tiny person's mentality and the junzi person's mentality. The Confucian texts point to the junzi person as being mentally stable regardless of whether alone or amongst the public.

'Zi say: Junzi him compared-to heaven below... even-if fit, even-if not, right-conduct him follow." (Draft version of Li Ren, lightly edited for use within the current topic.)

Schopenhauer's comments point, accurately, to how almost all people would not behave rationally if it were not for the 'binding of their hands' to conform to social approval, socially-approved prestige, and socially-approved ideological beliefs.

The tiny person is, always, attempting to hide their dark hearts, but tiny people do not know that their deceit can be heard in their voice, can be seen in their facial expressions, can be observed in their body language, can be smelled in their aromas, and be deduced within their use of language. The tiny person cannot cross-light nor discern the obvious absurdity of believing themselves to be invisible, perhaps because tiny people truly believe that all people are equally identical and that no one can see nor think of things that the tiny person cannot see and think of.

Schopenhauer's comment: "...man is inconsiderate and seeks only what is advantageous or convenient to himself..." adequately describes all species, including all cultures, all systems of governments, all systems of economies, all systems of belief, and most humans. The inability for tiny people to recognize their own subconsciously-driven desires for self-advantage, is, in fact, a mental inability to cross-light thoughts.

The following is a 2006 copyrighted quote from Logic as the Origin and Creator of Ethics:

"All human minds were also created by the laws of Nature, and in no instance was a mind created that was created without the law of Nature. If a mind is created within a specific set of laws, then the mind is structured to conform to the laws, and the mind will function within the laws of Nature. It is an inherent ability of all minds to function with the laws of Nature, and how the mind functions will reflect the laws that created it.

That which is created, reflects the natures of that which created it.

The healthy human mind inherently knows what is good or bad because the mind can only function within the set laws of Nature. The mind’s function, logic, is what determines right from wrong. Countless variables influence the mind’s ability to accurately reason, but logic is universal and is colored by the individual’s ability for memory, sensory perception, and speed of intellect.

Religion has the simplistic law of god that states it is a sin to steal. The law is written simply, presented simply, and is easily understood by reasonably sane individuals. Agnosticism also holds the view that stealing is improper behavior, but why? What is stealing? Religions say the reason why stealing is wrong is because the act is against the law of God. If pressed for further answers, religion will say that stealing is not fair. What is fairness?

If an individual balances a stick on his finger, he will observe the laws of Nature in effect. The laws of Nature state that if a uniformly shaped stick is placed upon a fixed point where the stick’s length is similarly divided, there will be balance. The individual learns balance through firsthand sensory experience, and the individual can then mentally associate and group the understanding of balance to other things...

If a weight is added to one end of the stick, then the stick will no longer be in balance, and the stick will fall off the fixed point. Again, the individual learns through firsthand experience what causes an imbalance. Some individuals will learn consciously, while other individuals will learn subconsciously, but the learning process remains similar. The laws of Nature are the teacher, and the student learns by firsthand sensory perception.

With sufficient firsthand experience, the individual mentally associates and groups learned understandings with other objects. A brick will only balance upon a fixed point if the brick’s length and weight ratio are similarly divided upon the point, as will a rock, pencil, and the human body itself. Complexities multiply to the point that the individual will in time associate the learned balances to interactions with other people.

If a weight on one side of a stick causes an imbalance, then so will the sight appear imbalanced where one individual has two candies while a second individual has no candies. The logic concludes an unequal quantity, the logic perceives the imbalance, and the mental concept is termed unfair. If the observer later learns that both individuals previously each had two candies but the second individual already ate his, or that the second individual has his two candies in his pockets, then the observer will mentally weigh the changes of information and conclude the first person having two candies is fair.

A singular individual plus a duality of objects mentally sums to a triplicity. A singular individual without a duality of objects mentally sums to a singularity. The mind computes mathematical balances without use of mathematics to evaluate what is balanced, fair, good, bad, and all else. Unless the observer asks further questions, the observer will create conclusions about fairness and ethics upon sight alone and no additional information. The observer’s conclusions are logically correct relative to the limited quantity of information available, but not necessarily logical relative to what might be real.

Sensory perception is required to form a logical conclusion, but without further questioning, all conclusions will be based upon systems of belief.

Logic existed millions of years before the first mathematical symbol was created, and it is an inherent ability among all healthy humans to mathematically add, subtract, divide, multiply, and apply geometric abstracts without knowledge of symbolism. ...Schools can only teach the language of mathematics, schools cannot teach the ability to think mathematically. No religion, philosophy, nor ideology is necessary for a person to intuitively know what is fair, and for this reason do religions, philosophies, and ideologies share parallel values." (Logic as the Origin and Creator of Ethics, Larry Gowdy, copyright© 2006.)

The above quote was phrased within a philosophical tone that was compatible with the intended audience's humanist preferences. The article, for obvious reasons, did not enter into a discussion of the how and why of 'fairness', but the article did raise the point that 'fairness' is a thing learned through firsthand sensory perceptions, and not merely be a memorized school word.

Importance is given to: "Complexities multiply to the point that the individual will in time associate the learned balances to interactions with other people." The statement is accurate, but also purposefully incomplete. Though it is true that learned balances influence social interactions, it is also true that the associations between learned balances and social interactions are always subconsciously driven within tiny people: all of the 'thinking' is accomplished unconsciously. It is rare for an individual to consciously observe how their own firsthand learning is consciously applied with conscious reasoning to the moment's interactions with other people. And there, the difference between conscious reasoning, and subconscious reasoning, is one of the contrasts between the conscious junzi's fairness, and the tiny person's unconscious fairness.

The following quote is from my personal notes of the Plato Meno discussions (original text's translation by Benjamin Jowett):

"Men. Yes, Socrates; I agree there; for justice is virtue." [note: ...Justice is a moral constructed upon the foundation of numerous ethics weighed with temperance, justice therefore is not a singular virtue/ethic, justice is the conceptual creation of numerous ethics combined with logic, experience, and fairness, all of which are conceptual creations of numerous other logics...]

Soc. Would you say "virtue," Meno, or "a virtue"?

Men. What do you mean?

Soc. I mean as I might say about anything; that a round, for example, is "a figure" and not simply "figure," and I should adopt this mode of speaking, because there are other figures.

Men. Quite right; and that is just what I am saying about virtue-that there are other virtues as well as justice.

Soc. What are they? tell me the names of them, as I would tell you the names of the other figures if you asked me.

Men. Courage and temperance and wisdom and magnanimity are virtues; and there are many others. [note: ... Many virtues, each being combinative concepts of structured ethics. But observe that where at first the term "virtue" was used synonymously with "ethics", now it is used synonymously as "morals", with no distinction between them. Meno knows nothing about the topic he speaks of.]

Soc. Yes, Meno; and again we are in the same case: in searching after one virtue we have found many, though not in the same way as before; but we have been unable to find the common virtue which runs through them all. [note: ... Will Socrates know the answer?? I don’t think so, I have never heard my manner of definition ever being expressed. I suspect instead Socrates will provide an endlessly looping logic with much grace of phrasing words, yet still not arrive and land upon the most simple of conscious perception.]"

And so goes western philosophy, a continuous circular reasoning without recognizing the absurdities of debating unknown words through use of other unknown words, the philosophers not cross-lighting their own thoughts to recognize their irrational behavior.

Western philosophy enjoys inventing new words that rely upon old words to give the new words meaning, but without western philosophy first knowing what the old words meant. Epistemology, a noun, defined as 'a philosophical theory of knowledge', epistemology immediately denies firsthand experience, immediately denies the laws of Nature, and immediately nullifies itself.

Within a lengthy modern western philosophical paper, it repeatedly speaks of epistemology while also giving ad hoc excuses for each variation of epistemology. The core idea within the paper is that 'all behaviors are justified relative to an individual's personally evaluated standard, and the epistemic problem is whether the standard is justifiable relative to epistemology itself'. And there, the circular reasoning of western philosophy raises its ugly head and progresses into over 90,000 words without once speaking of firsthand self-thinking.

The philosophical paper also claims to remove all "moral" relativity to people's behaviors, which could be an acceptable opinion, but only if the paper first knew what a "moral" is. The paper does not know, nor does western philosophy know, which again results in endless circular reasoning.

The paper also enters discussions about 'fairness', but only while again relating and evaluating the unknown 'fairness' to the unknown standard of 'epistemology'.

About ten times the paper referenced "laws of nature", but always referenced the laws of Nature to be as an external thing learned in school books, and never referenced as an internal thing that is self-observed, self-learned, and self-regulating. And there, again, the paper illustrates the tiny person only being capable of desiring for outside things to hold in one's hands, while mentally possessing no inner awareness of one's own inner self.

Within the common sophisms of western philosophy, the paper makes claims that all acts are justifiable, that no one can know the 'true' standard, that 'fairness' is itself a means of achieving selfish benefit, that 'fairness' is a mere 'abstract' thought, and on and on and on, all while not once pausing to self-observe one's own thoughts, and not once cross-lighting the paper's own words and recognizing the absurdities.

The paper's ideas unintentionally support Schopenhauer's ideas: the paper presents itself as a written illustration of what Schopenhauer pointed to as the incurable selfishness of common people whose only interests are within 'means of achieving selfish benefit'.

Throughout recorded history, a few individuals have attempted to speak of self-thinking 'fairness', but outsiders never grasp what the few individuals spoke of. The few individuals have spoken of 'fairness' to all common groups of people... philosophical groups, political groups, academic groups, science groups, ideological groups, high intelligence groups, many other groups also... but the same result each time... the outsiders did not understand.

Perhaps, a root reason of most people not understanding, is because outsiders do not possess willed consciousness. Philosophers and sciencians are of an angry voice when demanding that all humans possess the identical same equal consciousness... but, the philosophers and sciencians are wrong... always wrong. Not one philosopher or scientist can describe what consciousness is, nor describe what a thought is, what a memory is, what a dream is, what logic is, what olfaction is, nor can any philosopher or scientist describe anything whatsoever about the mind, but the philosophers and sciencians do loudly claim that they know everything about everything... the claims are merely selfish beliefs made possible by the inability to mentally cross-light thoughts to recognize the individuals' absurdities.

An outsider can stand in a room, silently look at the walls, gather a small mental idea of the room, and, much too closely similar as to merely looking at a flat painting outside of one's self, the outsider then forms a prejudiced opinion of the room. The prejudiced opinion, it is not consciously reasoned, but rather, it is subconsciously 'processed-invented'.

Within mental silence, the outsider has formed his opinions, and fully does believe, and trust, that his observation is of fullness of sensory perceptions as well of mental capacity.

All philosophical and sciencian writings, bar none, patterned of similar absences of conscious observations.

'Zi say: Southward direction it force, take-part-in northward direction, it force take-part-in press-down, as-well-as force take-part-in wide. Pliable because behavior-expressed-to-learn-from not announce, not way southward direction. It force also, junzi live-possess-use-action it. ...So junzi calm and not drift, force straighten-out. Middle stand and not rely-on force straighten-out.' (Draft version of Zhong Yong #10 lightly arranged to fit the topic.)

The ancient Chinese words, very simple, very obvious, a way of 'normal life and normal thinking' for junzies, but impossible to grasp by tiny people.

Mental balance... middle balance... middle use 中庸... personal middle... not merely phrases of something mysterious to attain in an afterlife... but, all known tiny people do claim that self-thinking is 'supernatural mysterious impossible'.

Fairness... the mental ability to consciously weigh left and right, north and south, forwards backwards... consciously find the mental middle... consciously feel the middle mental force... consciously divide one oneself... consciously divide one's self...

If outsiders were indeed able to consciously find a mental middle force, and to then consciously self-think of what 'fairness' implies, then none of the global ideologies would exist... none of the materialistic wealthy people would exist... none of the power-hungry politicians would exist... none of the gross pollution would exist... but, the ideologies, pollution, politicians, and selfish people do exist... Schopenhauer's comments of the tiny man were valid, and still are.

Most everyone knows of the numerous big Internet companies that openly steal and sell people's personal data, as well as knowingly and purposefully steal and sell copyrighted material; estimated junk emails sent each year, 51,300,000,000,000 (51.3 Trillion); estimated emails sent each year that have malicious intent, 2,400,000,000,000 (2.4 Trillion); the largest online retailer of audio and video products has been verified to be selling about 50% pirated/illegal products in some genres; and the long list continues. Terman's words relate well to today's cultures: "We cannot expect a mind of defective generalizing ability to form very definite or correct notions about justice, law, fairness, ownership rights, etc.; and if the ideas themselves are not fairly clear, the rules of conduct based upon them cannot make a very powerful appeal."

It is not 'fairness' for an individual to take for themselves more than what they give within balance of what was taken. To take more than what is balanced 'fair', is named 'selfishness'...

Selfishness is, in all ways, a mental inferior... an unthinking animal... selfishness, exhibits an inability to self-think, an inability to cross-light thoughts, an inability to recognize one's own absurdities.

Infants and toddlers, learn what is logical, by playing. If a child cannot learn what is logical — the child, perhaps, forced to memorize the Three Character Classic — then, the child may become an adult able to believe in and to worship the 'epistemology' and 'selfishness is an evolutionary tool for the survival of the fittest' ideologies.

To accept rewards, unearned, is selfishness... not balanced... not 'straighten-out'... not seesaw level... not seesaw balanced... not logical... not self-thinking.

The individual, of fairness, lives consciously aware, and consciously weighing, all things... the individual, accepts no more than what he feels to be of balance... a 'fair' individual, accepts no nirvana, no rewards, nothing beyond what he himself is worthy... nothing more than beyond what he himself created for himself...

Also, a 'fair' individual may choose to always give more than what was received, so as to ensure that one's own mental balance will never lean towards selfishness... but, also, not give too much. There is no such thing in Nature as a single balance, all balances are stringed together... so, outwardly giving a little more than received, thereby prevents selfishness, while also balancing other scales of similar or greater importance.

Many, most, almost all, perhaps all, popular social beliefs, claim that all people should give of themselves freely to everyone else... but, the claims, they all come from selfish people, whom themselves give nothing, while demanding that everyone else give to them... the popular social beliefs, are absent of conscious reasoning, and absent of 'fairness'.

'Fairness', is, today, an unknown to all cultures... all systems, within cultures, are unfair... all cultures, only support unfairness... all cultures, are fully unfair towards all children... all cultures, deeply and permanently psychologically cripple all children... all while the tiny person can only care about selfish gains.

Only a few individuals throughout history, have spoken of fairness... some of the good ancient Chinese texts, spoke of firsthand fairness... 'Laozi', the only known public writing that worded it beautifully.