Learning to accept the world's petty cruelties. |
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By Aaron Richner
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Tuesday, August 4, 2009 |
There lies within me, and, I suspect, within many people, a strong sense of fairness, coupled with a powerful desire for justice. I want the car that goes speeding around me on the highway to be pulled over; I want the thief to be caught; I want the U.S. health care system to treat the rich and the poor equally well; and I want the bad guy to lose. One of the more difficult lessons I learned in my childhood was that sometimes, maybe even often, this doesn't happen. To paraphrase a cliché, all too often, nice people finish last. Some people learn this early, and learn to let such petty injustices slide, and some internalize such unfairness and burn with it from within.
In this month's issue, we look at a few such injustices. In Left behind, Stephen Maughan explores the fate of orphans in Romania. Sarah Seltzer reviews Shanghai Girls, in which two sisters face the injustice of war to escape World War II China and eventually end up in San Francisco.
This month's issue also features a collection of three videos from Belinda Subraman, titled Gardenia petals and ugly art dolls. Finally, Through the Looking Glass editor Naomi Ishiguro shares a few of her experiences in Japan in her piece Haru/Natsu (spring/summer).
Fairness and justice are one of the earliest abstract ideas young children grasp, and were once considered uniquely human concepts. Recent studies have shown that dogs, monkeys, and other animals also understand what is fair and what isn't. It would seem, then, that the universe has a sense of fairness. It is a shame that it is so often violated, but it is also something we must all learn to accept.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, November 16, 2010 )
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