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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (82016)	6/19/2000 12:27:00 AM
From: Michael M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Re social orders with huge divisions between haves and have-nots.....this may be the natural order. If I may use the United States for an example, it's hip to be hot and hip to be not. It is way uncool to be middle class or middle anything -- God forbid you have a print of some sappy popular painter on the wall v. bold brush strokes of someone a little scrappier. If you got billions you can sleep in the Lincoln BR. If you got soul you represent the most monolithic voting bloc in the land. If you got a mortgage, a mini-van and a relationship with Kaiser, you pay all the bills and get none of the thrills. I exaggerate, of course. Then, again, I am elitist and can exaggerate when ever I please. I would be interested in knowing what societies you think fair. Three of them perhaps. Not an invitation to argue. Just curious. M

To: epicure who wrote (82016)	6/19/2000 12:39:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I have been toying with the idea that "Fairness" is a cultural artifact. By artifact I mean something constructed by man. And I don't think all cultures have a concept of fairness, or expect fairness. But I have never taken the time to see if anyone has done research on this. The thought was triggered long ago, when I read the story by, I think, Sir Walter Scottd, entitled "The Two Drovers." As I recall, it took place along the England/Scotland border. An Englishman and a Scotsman both have herds - I think the Scotsman has sheep and the Englishman has cattle. Everyone is driving their herds to market, and this was before railroads so they are on foot. Each herd must be pastured, and the landowners along the way charge for letting a herd use its pasture, but there is a shortage of pasture. Somehow the Englishman gets a pasture and the Scotsman doesn't, there is bad blood. The Englishman makes light of it because he thinks he acted fairly. The Scotsman challenges the Englishman to a fight. The Englishman naturally assumes that they will fight by fisticuffs, which is the English way. The Scotsman naturally assumes that they will use knives, which is the Scottish way. The Scotsman kills the unarmed Englishman. If this had happened in Scotland, he would go free, because the fight was according to Scottish rules, but they are in England, so he is hanged. The point of the story was that Englishmen think fairness is important, but Scotsmen don't have a concept of fairness. Now I will have to reread the story and see if I remembered right, but anyway, what if fairness is not a universal concept?