"It's Just Not Fair"

"It's Just Not Fair" by Steve Andreas a leader in the hypnosis /NLP world:


"People invariably say this when they are narrowly focused on a situation in which someone else has more of something valuable (dessert, money, good looks, etc.) than they do.

"It's just not fair that she is pretty and I'm not" " that he is rich and I'm not," etc. It is then a very short trip to feeling victimized and sorry for yourself, and complaining that someone else should do something about it (an "ill-formed outcome" that I have little or no control over).

... Since "It's just not fair" depends on examples in which someone else has more of something good, a counterexample will be any way that the other person has less of something good (or more of something bad). "It's just not fair that he is in a wheelchair and I'm not," "that she is poor, and I'm not," etc.

Whenever I fall into thinking that life is not fair, I use this as an internal mantra, filling in whatever convenient content I see around me.

...For those who might be curious to know more about how we get lost in generalizations like "It's just not fair," let's take a closer look. There are only four words or five, really, since the full statement is "It is just not fair."

"It's" or "it is" is the familiar "lost performative." The person making the statement is lost, and the object of the statement is also missing. Expanding "It's" into its full meaning, we get "I'm saying it's not fair to me." Of course the "it" is not specified, but that is usually clear by the context, or specified by statements that precede or follow the "It's not fair." The "is" also specifies that a belief, in the form of a complex equivalence, is present. (It = not fair.) "It" is some event or condition, while "not fair" is the meaning attributed to it, joined by "is," which is equivalent to "equals." "Is" is also the word we use to describe being or fact (in contrast to appearance or opinion). When we say "That is a cat," it carries the implication of incontrovertible fact, not to be questioned.

When a single word has many meanings like this, it is said to be "semantically packed," because so many meanings are packed into it. Usually most of the many meanings are processed unconsciously, and the person responds to most of them largely unconsciously.

"Fair" is also a semantically-packed word. My dictionary lists the following meanings: "light, pleasing, beautiful, free from stain or blemish, open, frank, honest, equal, just, reasonable, equitable, good, unobstructed, smooth, even, according to the rules, frank, candid, characterized by favorable conditions, clear and sunny."

These meanings can be grouped into three basic categories:
1. light-colored (fair hair)
2. good (fair weather)
3. equal, just, equitable.

Although the last meaning is the one that is most applicable, the other meanings are also being elicited in our minds when we hear the word "fair." What may not be obvious is that "fair" in the sense of "equitable and honest" can only be applied to human agreements, exchanges and transactions, not to the natural physical world, which just is.

If I say, "It's not fair that I'm short and he is tall," that is actually a "selectional restriction" violation, equivalent to saying "the pregnant rock," or "the angry storm." Rocks can't be pregnant, and storms can't be angry. (A storm may seem angry to us, but that is only because we project our emotion into it.) Being short or tall has nothing to do with being fair.

While occasionally someone may use "It's just not fair," to describe a human agreement or transaction, more often it is used to describe things or events in the natural world that we simply don't like.

While it's fine to say "I don't like something," (and better yet to do something about it when I can), it's inappropriate to say "It's not fair," just because I don't like it.

We might as well scold a rock for not getting pregnant! To say "It's not fair" just makes us into whimpering victims, and diverts us from finding and taking useful actions to make things better.

... "Just" is a fascinating word, even more semantically packed than "It's" or "fair." The main meaning here can be best characterized as "only." "Just" is a "tunnel vision" word that says "Don't pay attention to anything else; this is the only thing that matters." "Just" can be used either as an adverb to modify the verb (in this case "is") or as an adjective to modify an object, in this case, "not fair." I don't know how a grammarian would decide "just" is used in this case. I'd say it is ambiguous, which means that our unconscious language processing will process it in both ways (no matter how the grammarian decides).

When "just" is used as an adverb it can mean "barely" as in "I just missed the train," or it can mean "a short time ago," as in "He just left." Although both these meanings are inappropriate here, all the other meanings do apply: "only," "quite," "exactly." When used as an adjective, "just" has even more meanings.
My dictionary lists eight:
1. upright, honest, righteous
2. equitable, impartial, fair
3. exact, accurate, precise
4. correct, true
5. deserved, merited
6. legally right, lawful, rightful
7. right, proper
8. well-founded
"Synonyms: exact, honest, impartial, precise, proper, upright."

In short, "just" means all that is valued as right and good.

"Not" has the simple meaning of negation, and although it really negates "fair," "just not" also can be easily read as "not just" which has the same meaning as "not fair."

If you negate all the meanings of "just" listed above, we find that "It's just not fair" means that all that is right and good has been negated.

Putting all these pieces together we can see how "It's just not fair" can transform a situation in which I don't like something into a situation in which all that is good and fair has been violated, even if fairness doesn't actually apply. Life is not fair.

Recognizing this, we can seek out ways to make it more fair for all of us. "

©2002 Anchor Point, Vol. 12, No.3, March, pp. 43-46