Trey Gowdy: A moment that made me rethink fairness

what happens when someone notices all of our flaws and faults but recognizes is none of the flaws and faults present in a competitor or the person for whom we're competing for a promotion what happens when two people do exactly the same thing but one is punished and one is not but what happens when two people do something good the one is recognized but one is not i'm trey Gowdy and we'll have more coming up I used to travel a lot in almost every week same airports many of the same gates sometimes even the same airport and airline personnel I have rarely been the victim of unfairness in my life on a hasten to repeat that I have rarely if ever been the victim of real unfairness in my life I have not been an experiencer of unfairness so much as an observer it's happened some but not nearly to the extent of what many of you and many others have experienced but when you do experience unfairness even in a small inconsequential way it has a profound impact on you it impacts how you view yourself it impacts how you view others it impacts how you think others view you I was boarding a plane I was in Group one I had my ticket on my phone like I always do and I scanned it like I had done a hundred times before but this time the airline person checking us in and boarding the plane said step back it's not your turn so I step back without a word and thought well maybe I'm this herder maybe I did something wrong sometimes that is our first reaction when we see disparate treatment or unfairness we tend to blame ourselves and then to my colleagues in Congress presented their boarding passes and went on so I try to get but it was the same response step aside it's not your turn this time I did speak up I said ma'am my boarding pass says group one you're now boarding group two why is it my turn yet step aside I'll let you know when it's your turn and apparently my turn came at the end of group three so I boarded the plane I found my seat no less than a half-dozen other passengers some of whom were colleagues some of whom are not asked what was that all about my response was I no idea I was a group one I have no clue why she did that I tried to put it out of my mind I mean I'm on the plane I have an aisle seat I'll make it in plenty of time for votes it's no big deal but I couldn't get it out of my mind it was a small small slight inconsequential indiscernibly small in fact but I could not get it out of my mind why did she do that so I got to DC I called the airline I said I need you to help me understand what I did wrong it's not that I mind being seated ten minutes late I mean it's not like the plane took off without me what I minded was that others around me thought I was doing something wrong trying to board too soon trying to get away with something seeking some kind of preferential treatment and part of me very much didn't want to know why why did she do that and someone in customer service with the airline called and said they were going to investigate and then they called me back again and they did investigate and the answer was we don't know why she did it but we're gonna discipline her well that's not what I want I don't want her discipline III don't want her discipline that's not why I called you I want to know why she did it I don't want to hurt - god forbid lose her job I don't want her to be sanctioned I don't even want her to be reprimanded I just want to know why did she do it unfairness even on a small inconsequential level has an effect on the person who believes he or she is being treated unfairly maybe what happened to me was nothing what about people are groups who have been treated unfairly in serious significant life-changing or in some instances life-ending ways what effect does it have on someone who is treated unfairly what effect does it have on groups who are treated unfairly what impact does it have when you are routinely stopped for traffic infractions because of the color of your skin what happens when you were asked to show identification when you go to cash a check but others in line or not and what happens when you were passed over and over and over and passed over even sometimes by people who are less capable than you are back to sports something most of us related to as parents participants or observers what happens when the referee fails us what happens when the person who is supposed to treat us all the same fails us I'll tell you what happens it eventually forces the person who is being mistreated to recalibrate fairness and his or her own mind rather than valuing even-handedness and objectivity we begin to openly root for and minimize bad calls against our opponents in other words we reorder we restructure what is fair we change our definition of fairness because we have been treated unfairly we minimize disparate treatment being treated unfairly oftentimes leads to us abandoning fairness altogether as an attribute we become relativists the end justifies the means because the means is no longer even-handed when you experience unfairness you begin to no longer see it as that aspirational virtue that we should all long for we see it as an illusion a reality salt for some but not for us and we start looking for make up calls we start looking for things to go our way even if they're undeserved because the equilibrium needs to be restored long-term systemic unfairness changes the way we view the word it changes our own internal calibration of fairness in essence we become relativists because an unfair in with the proper means is not worth honoring the means one of the reasons I love the sport of golf is that we call penalties on ourselves I play lots of golf and have played lots of golf with an old friend of mine named Ben Grambling he's a real estate developer in Charleston South Carolina but we grew up playing golf and we played throughout our 20s and 30s I wish I had a nickel for every time he was off in the woods somewhere behind the clump of trees he hit his drive somewhere where a pack of bloodhounds and Lewis and Clark couldn't find it but he found it and echoing through those trees would be this Gowdy I think my ball moved at address I'm and a penalty on myself well I couldn't see it I'm not even sure God could see it that deep in the woods but that was Ben he bailed out Gowdy I think my ball moved I'm calling a penalty on myself I played a lot of golf with Mick Mulvaney throughout the years Nick's a fast player sometimes he hits and I'm not even watching at the end of the hole I'll say you know I got you down for a four you don't say nope i chunked the chip it's a five I'll say Nick I'm sorry I did I didn't see it he I didn't see hit the shot sorry and mixed responses whether you saw it or not I did it it's a five it's not a four I play golf with several friends on the other side of the aisle John Yarmuth who has a progressive by any definition from Louisville Kentucky Cedric Richmond from Louisiana Matt Cartwright Joe Courtney Jim Clyburn the experience was the same honor self-policing the process matters more than the result no relativism Golf is different we call penalties on ourselves but our culture has become more like professional wrestling where someone sneaks a pair of brass knuckles into the ring and our reaction is so what if it's someone we pull for we minimize it when someone is treated unfairly and I don't pretend to be a psychologist but I don't think you need to be a psychologist to understand how being treated unfairly impacts people so when someone is treated unfairly they may tend to view themselves as excluded from societal norms they feel isolated they feel abandoned it provokes anger it provokes questions of self-worth and it challenges our other conventions but most importantly unfortunately regrettably it leads to a restructuring of what we consider fair if someone treats me unfairly what keeps me from evening the score in my own mind and how do we even the score we can either treat others more unfairly or we can begin to judge ourselves by a different more relaxed standard both of which are not good for our culture and for our society so fairness is a prerequisite to a functioning society it's a prerequisite to functioning relationships we assign a very high value to it last time we were together we tried to define it this week we've discussed the impact on fairness has on us which is a serious significant impact and that it recalibrates fairness on our own minds and it it forces us wittingly or unwittingly to become relativists that the end really does justified the means and if you practice relativism long enough it leads to nihilism and your culture falls apart so fairness is good unfairness is bad for many reasons individualized and corporate but at least to this question so who are the referees on our culture who are the people who call balls and strikes and do it with neutrality and and a dispassionate way who's the arbiter of what is fair and what is not fair in our country who calls the balls and strikes and who calls the penalties who meets out the punishment for acts of unfairness who do we trust enough to be that referee and they do we even need a referee and our culture I think we do I think we need a referee that that we all kind of agree whether we like them that particular day or not they're gonna call it fairly for the full podcast go to fox news podcast calm

Channel: Fox News

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Keywords: Fox News Channel, Fox News, Trey Gowdy, Congress, fox news podcast, fox news rundown, fox news rundown podcast, fox news trey gowdy, fox news gowdy podcast, trey gowdy podcast, fairness, unfairness, trey gowdy fairness, trey gowdy fox news, republican, conservative, GOP, fox news trey gowdy interview, fox news trey gowdy today, trey gowdy owns, us news, trey gowdy conversation, gowdy, the trey gowdy podcast, fox podcast, fox news radio

Id: NR81FRHISpM

Length: 10min 7sec (607 seconds)

Published: Tue May 12 2020