Reference reading
Favoritism
A demanding standard becomes suspiciously flexible when the familiar name arrives.
Persistent, unjustified favoritism in the weight given to people's claims, evidence or opportunities.
Imagine this: An editor has cut two manuscript-sized slots in a screening board. The opening for a friend is a welcoming arch; the other has narrowed to a letterbox.
How the pattern works
Favoritism is the familiar name here for canonical Partiality: persistent, unjustified preference in weighting claims, evidence or opportunities. In a cultural circle, friendship can determine which uncertainty counts as brave experimentation and which counts as incompetence. The decision may use the same impressive vocabulary while its practical standard changes with the applicant.
Relevant differences matter. An editor may know that a contributor reliably completes difficult work, and a fellowship can legitimately support a particular need. The question is whether the preference can be justified by reasons appropriate to the decision, rather than by reasons invented to preserve the preferred result.
What it costs the work
Preparation and achievement lose some of their connection to opportunity. Outsiders may spend effort meeting a standard insiders are not asked to meet, while friends receive praise that offers little useful correction. The circle becomes less capable of knowing whether its own work is good.
A distinction worth keeping
Friendship, loyalty and specialist selection are not inherently vicious. Servility surrenders judgment for approval; a favored friend need not exert any pressure. Contempt denies standing; favoritism can operate among people one respects equally in ordinary conversation. The issue is the unjust weighting in the decision, not simply the presence of a preference.
What a useful response can change
Make the purpose and relevant criteria clear enough to compare their application. A criterion that appears only after the preferred name is known deserves another look.
Compare the actual burdens placed on similar submissions: demands for proof, tolerance of uncertainty, access to revision and explanations of rejection. The asymmetry may be easier to see there than in the final verdict.
Where a close tie makes impartial assessment difficult, an appropriate separation of roles can help. That is a practical arrangement for a particular decision, not a claim that friendship must disappear from cultural life.
Questions for reflection
- Which weakness becomes charming when my friend has it?
- What would I need to defend this preference to an equally informed outsider?
Other perspectives
But our judgments now are of little importance, compared to what they were before; and when they are most severely impartial, can commonly produce nothing but vain regret, and unavailing repentance, without securing us from the like errors for the future.
Adam Smith · The Theory of Moral Sentiments · Read the source
Smith warns that impartial judgment after the event can arrive too late to change action. The editor’s unequal openings need examination before the preferred result is made final.
Fear, when your friends say to you what you have done well, and say it through; but when they stand with uncertain timid looks of respect and half-dislike, and must suspend their judgment for years to come, you may begin to hope.
Ralph Waldo Emerson · Essays, Second Series · Read the source
Emerson distrusts completed praise more than the uncertain response of friends. The passage invites a circle to leave room for an unsettled judgment rather than reward the immediately reassuring one.