Fairness is where our better angels need not fear to tread | Opinion

President Joe Biden’s running again. He cast the forthcoming election as a battle for the soul of America. It’s shaping up as a brutal fight. When it's over, the electoral losers will not likely accept their loss. The whining will then commence.

Jon Meacham on Abraham Lincoln

Biden echoes the theme his sometimes speechwriter, Jon Meacham, set in "The Soul of our Nation: The Battle for our Better Angels.” Abraham Lincoln introduced the term “better angels of our nature” in his inaugural address on the eve of the Civil War.

Meacham certainly knows Lincoln, having recently written a well-regarded biography of the 16th president. Meacham’s Lincoln sought to bring fairness to a nation beset with the fundamental unfairness of slavery. His unheeded better angels urged the South to avoid war. They consulted other, lesser, angels. Millions died.

Thoughts of angels inspire images of clouds, harps or maybe the kindly man who found his wings when Jimmy Stewart realized that his decency and regard for others had created a wonderful life. Images of battling angels are harder to conjure.

There’s the mind-numbing, endless strife of the cultural skirmishes. There are no winners here, where issues are framed more around morality than fairness. Compromise is difficult, often impossible. Emotions are raw. Our better angels would best tread lightly here.

What's fair, and how do we get there?

There's another arena, better to navigate, where society’s economic rewards, status and influence are allocated. It’s about what’s fair and how society strives to get there. That’s the place to begin the healing.

Fairness! We’ll hear it a lot in the upcoming election marathon. Biden has made “The wealthy and corporations should pay their fair share in taxes” a staple of his messaging. Republicans will undoubtedly question the fairness of canceling student loan debt. What’s fair about picking some debts to cancel? What’s fair about a tax rate that leaves significant income inequality?

President Harry Truman's 'Fair Deal'

When Biden was in elementary school he might have heard President Harry Truman’s call for a “Fair Deal.” Truman had in mind a series of bold economic proposals, including fair labor practices forbidding discrimination in war-related industries, national health insurance, support for labor unions and increases in the minimum wage. Cultural agendas would wait for decades.

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These still form the basis of the progressive economic agenda. The whole notion of a “fair deal” is a larger governmental role in the economy and a larger social safety net. A safety net is settled policy. The size of the holes in that net is not.

Later this year the Supreme Court will take on the use of race in college admissions. Does fairness necessitate preferences to account for past racial discrimination? Or does fairness require all applicants to be treated equally, without regard to race? It all depends on what the meaning of “fair" is.

Fairness is a wonderful, uniquely human concept. Its very existence is a counter to the tribal use of pure power to dominate the “other.” Fairness can usually be found in a sliding scale between two extremes.

We’re a species with an urge to seek something more in life than our own advancement. Life’s not fair. Some are more talented, better looking, have supportive parents, were born to economic security. Some start on second or third base. A lot more begin on first. Historically, many never got to the plate.

The liberal/progressive view of fairness turns to the government to get everyone through the bases. These angels fly under the banner of equity. The conservative view urges the government to do the minimum, ensuring equal opportunity and rewarding talent and hard work. Is Biden’s mortgage surcharge for borrowers with good credit fair? Bring on the patient angels and let’s talk.

The better angels of our nature know we have the capacity to resolve differences. We heed them not by going to war, but by restricting the conflict to civil disagreement in the search of compromise.

William Lyons is Director of Policy Partnerships for the Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Tennessee. He also served as Chief Policy Officer for Knoxville Mayors Bill Haslam, Daniel Brown and Madeline Rogero.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy or the University of Tennessee.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Opinion: Fairness is where our better angels need not fear to tread