What is Fairness and Goodness?

This post is inspired by a movie that I have watched recently – “The Pianist (2002)” – and may contain spoilers for the movie (Polanski, 2002). This post is by no means an educational campaign – as I do not intend to “educate” anyone on anything. I only want to converse on the matter as it has piqued my interest.

Let us begin by summarising the movie. There lived a Polish-Jewish pianist in the midst of World War II. As Germany took over Poland, Jews were hunted down, and he was no exception. The movie unfolded with various scenes in which Jews were tortured, shot, flamed, and even bombed. The pianist met several people who helped him in hiding away from the Germans and fed him. He survived the Holocaust. (Polanski, 2002). But his survival provoked a rippling thought inside my head.

Are there any characters in the movies – or to say, in the actual event – who achieved fairness? I often believe that “you reap what you sow” and try to “treat others as if unto you”. But the movie has shaken my belief to the ground. What did the Jews do that caused them to be the victims of war, of the Holocaust? Even among the Jews, there were seemingly “good” and “bad” people, but their fate all equated to death? I have been advised that I should not be too emotionally involved in fairness, because fairness may be subjectively judged. Even if a patient is experiencing throbbing and murderous pain, they may not think that it is unfair that they have to undergo such pain whilst others do not. But I just cannot help not thinking about it. Perhaps, “the greater the achievement is, the more intense the suffering gets”. But could that idea explain everything? Nurses that were shot, engineers that were killed, musicians that were burned, soldiers that were blasted, weren’t they all talented people? Even the tag of “talented people” may not be fair since anyone can have their own unique abilities and social roles. Then what decided who got to survive and who had to die – a spin of the wheel? You can argue that the German officers were caught (at least in the movie) and they had to pay for what they did? But among them, how many voluntarily enroll in the army? Weren’t they forced to join the army at first? It is possible that they could have shown some mercy for those they tortured – and this raised some points in the later parts of this post. But I would bet that some of them did show some mercy (according to probability theory), and did they get to live among those who were caught? How about the German officers that helped the pianist, were he offered any mercy? How about the family of the pianist, were they still alive or did they have a peaceful death?

The movie also terrified me by how easy it was to become evil. What does it take for a wrong decision to be made? Just a single thoughtless moment can cause various unrelievable sufferings. Isn’t it a little bit too much? Perhaps, it is not that easy to become evil. Perhaps morality is stronger than probability. But I am always curious how people could strip off their morality and submit themselves to such evils. I also wonder how the criminals felt facing their crimes, did their hearts not ache a micro-unit? How about people with mental illnesses, is there a soul existing within them? I believe that the brain and the soul co-exist to regulate human emotions and feelings, and the brain acts as a medium through which the soul acts. But my proposal seems to not hold for this case. For if the soul gets to decide, did the criminals actively choose to eliminate their sense of empathy? But if the brain gets to decide, then they must not be guilty? You can argue that these people do not reflect. And I quite agree that reflection is very critical to maintaining a sane character. Then the question progresses. What allows a person the ability the reflect? Is it encoded in the gene, or is it trained by the environment? If so, could there be a therapy? Or is it a gift bestowed upon them by the divines?

August 2023, Singapore.

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Works Cited:

Polanski, R. (Director). (2002). The Pianist [Film]. Focus Features.