marjaerwin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marjaerwin) wrote2012-03-16 02:17 pm
marjaerwin) wrote2012-03-16 02:17 pm
A recipe for injustice
Some would define justice as procedure.
Some would define justice as punishment.
If that is justice, then let us oppose justice! But it is not justice. It is injustice condemning its critics.
Some believe that justice is inherent in the world. At best this idea leads to quietism. Sometimes this idea reinforces the just-world fallacy and leads to victim-blaming. At worst people combine victim-blaming and vindictiveness: being a victim means being guilty, being guilty means deserving punishment, therefore a victim must be further punished, and further, and further...
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What is justice? I would define it as righting wrongs.
Helping the victims. Helping people heal. Helping people avoid having to face the same wrongs again. And one of the wrongs is that our institutions are based on domination, our culture is based on silencing, and many people's instinct for justice and compassion has been turned into another tool for domination, and with it, for injustice and brutality.
"Piso mounted the tribunal in a rage, and ordered the three soldiers to be executed. He ordered the death of the man who was to have been executed, because the sentence had already been passed; he also ordered the death of the centurion who was in charge of the original execution, for failing to perform his duty; and finally, he ordered the death of the man who had been supposed to have been murdered, because he had been the cause of death of two innocent men." [Of course, it was the judge and the executioner who were the cause of the deaths of three innocent men.]
(from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_justitia_ruat_caelum )
Some would define justice as punishment.
"The whole basis of Justice is that the person gets punishments. It isn't the rehabilitation system, or the prevent crime systems. It's a system to hand out a punishment to somebody for their action.
People who don't believe in punishment, don't believe in justice."
(from the Guardian, in a flamewar thread, http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/15191574 )
If that is justice, then let us oppose justice! But it is not justice. It is injustice condemning its critics.
Some believe that justice is inherent in the world. At best this idea leads to quietism. Sometimes this idea reinforces the just-world fallacy and leads to victim-blaming. At worst people combine victim-blaming and vindictiveness: being a victim means being guilty, being guilty means deserving punishment, therefore a victim must be further punished, and further, and further...
****
What is justice? I would define it as righting wrongs.
Helping the victims. Helping people heal. Helping people avoid having to face the same wrongs again. And one of the wrongs is that our institutions are based on domination, our culture is based on silencing, and many people's instinct for justice and compassion has been turned into another tool for domination, and with it, for injustice and brutality.
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In my mind, justice = fairness, only with an implication of power imbalance... but so few people see it that way that it's easier to just let them have the word. They can go ahead and talk about the criminal justice system as though it makes sense to call it that... I can't stop them. :(
no subject