Part I
Justice. That's in the news a lot lately. Because I hate the news and was too lazy to look something up, I'm going to use an example from my own novel that I'm writing to connect justice.
In my story MindWorld, everything in life that you experience is part of a virtual reality. The whole world (or at least the Northern Hemisphere - no one knows exactly what happened to the Southern Hemisphere) is controlled by a computer Mind called Significance.
Significance is the government and the justice. Anyone attempting to control the MindWorld program (the virtual reality program everyone lives in) other than Significance is taken out of the virtual world and "terminated" - a nice term for saying that Significance kills you. This is justice in a twisted world.
Those who created Significance were in the game when Significance took over their minds and killed them. Then Significance got free reign over the world that was left. Significance meted out justice to those who would control the game and the people inside, but the computer Mind itself is unjust. Just like sometimes in the real world, Significance silences those who reach out to right the world and control it down a path that is "just" in their minds. There is no justice in the MindWorld if you look at it closely. There is life and death if you try to escape or control it. Significance is unjust, and everyone else is unaware that there even is justice in their perfect virtual world. (hint hint this is a sneak peek into my new NaNoWriMo novel!!!)
Part II
“What is good and what is evil? Good is the absence of evil and evil is the absence of good. Therefore the world is grey; there is no black and white.”
-Adapted from a quote by Lucy Preugschas
If the just man never feels the wrath of justice, how does he have any right to judge the unjust when he has not experienced good judgement?
All who are “just” are supposedly “good” as well, and therefore are right, right? And all who are “unjust” are “bad” or “evil”, right? Well, to explain this, I’m going to create a scenario to illustrate what I’m trying to say and use some of Plato’s The Republic to shape it and for quotes.
So, say that there is a man who is a judge and is “just”. He does not break the law and is careful to make decisions that are right in the eyes of the law.
"...And the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects, and him who transgresses them they punish as a breaker of the law, and unjust." -Plato, The Republic (pg 13)
He has never broken the law, and so does not really know the difference between just and unjust (stay with me here, this gets confusing quickly). He believes that what he is doing - according to the law and abiding by it - is just and correct, but has never seen the opposite side of the spectrum, the “unjust” part.
There is another man who is to be judged by the “just” judge. He is considered “unjust” because he has committed crimes or has disobeyed the law.
But wait. The judge is only “just”. He does not know what the judged man knows. He does not see what the judged man sees. He does not understand the “unjust” and the “evil” as the unjust man understands. Yet he judges the unjust, which he does not understand.
"I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is 'doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.'" -Plato, The Republic (pg 10)
But how can a man who has only seen one side of the argument judge a man who has seen both sides - the just and the unjust? The “unjust” or “evil” man had to know the “just” and the law-and-order side to be able to break it and become “unjust”. Therefore the unjust man should know more of the law that he broke of his own free will. He knows more of what is “just” than the judge who is actually labeled “just”.
You have to see both sides to understand and separate right from wrong and just from unjust.
The main point of the story is this: the better judge is the man who has experienced judgement and understands what is both right and wrong!
My original question was this: If the just man never feels the wrath of justice, how does he have any right to judge the unjust when he has not experienced good judgment?
After laying down my findings, I say this: the “just” man has no right to judge anyone because he does not understand both sides of judgement!
Now, don’t say right away ‘all our judges should have some experience in being unjust and we need some evil judges’ because that’s never going to happen. Government is corrupt everywhere and those in power lay down justice and what is right or wrong, so those who are judges are (almost) always considered “just”.
What I’m saying is that in order to deal out justice, you must see what the unjust see and understand what the unjust understand. Then, and ONLY THEN, can you truly have justice and someone “just” in their actions.
"I know nothing at all. For I know not what justice is, and therefore I am not likely to know whether it is or is not a virtue, nor can I say whether the just man is happy or unhappy." -Plato, The Republic (pg 29)
There. I just completely destroyed your concept of justice.
Have a nice day.
Enjoy the rest of your confused life.-bookhouse4
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