A Reminder that Justice is Unattainable

Reading the newspapers, watching the news and hearing friends and colleagues speak of current events both on a large and a small scale, it is inevitable that the thought will occur to you that a lot of things seem wrong with the society we live in. From old ladies being robbed by youth scum to politicians lying and defrauding their way out of judicial enquiries into their affairs, from chairmen of large corporations leaving their companies like rats leave a sinking ship, to children being left deserted in dustbins and cellars, injustice and wrongs seem to prevail no matter how much energy is spent on combating them and no matter how many laws are made and enforced. Every time the middle-aged parents in suburban neighbourhoods look at each other in anger and resentment and loudly demand justice for these attacks on their otherwise peaceful and routinous lives.

Then, inevitably, when the judiciary finally comes to dealing with those cases they read in the newspaper or heard on the radio, months later, the result is always disappointing. The honest and law-abiding citizens demand harsher penalties: the youths should all get twenty, no, thirty years in jail; the politicians should be publicly flogged; the chairmen sentenced to forced labor for life; the irresponsible parents ("we would never do such a thing, we were raised to be responsible") should be forbidden ever to have children again.

But no such penalties are given. Most likely, the case of the youth and the abandoned children are not handled at all, due to case-overload, and the politicians and chairmen have no trouble getting away with no sentence at all or at best an easily payable fine and a public apology. And then the outrage returns: if our advanced judiciary system can not deal adequately with these punks and criminals, the laws must be made tougher! The concerned dads and moms start writing representatives and Ministers, and eventually, the penalties are made harsher. But to their utter surprise, the crime rates do not drop and the criminals are not deterred. And then for the third time, fueled by incomprehension that nothing seems to work, the upright men and women lament that no justice is done.

I'm afraid I will have to break the news to them: no justice will be done, no matter what they do or what demands are met. For no justice can be done. Here, the judiciary is often on the receiving end of endless volleys of complaints by frightful intellectuals and "soccer moms" alike, every time a criminal youth is sentenced to half a year for terrorizing the neighbourhood and stealing mobile phones, or football hooligans set cars on fire and the case has to be shelved due to case overload. The aforementioned people loudly demand justice. But the judge cannot give them that justice, and there are several reasons why.

First of all, "justice" in the form that the people demand always means harsher and crueller penalties. If such demands were to be met, however, crime would still exist, and the people would demand even harsher penalties, and so on. In the end, the judge would be required to act as a new Roland Freissler and torture and humiliate the suspects all day, and eventually have them executed. Strangely enough, the prospect seems abominable to those same intellectuals and concerned parents. And even were it to be instated and widely applauded, the crime it is supposed to deter will still exist.

This is because crime is merely a result of the circumstances, and as such a most natural thing to man. No matter what time, age, society or culture one would live in, one would recognize crime everywhere. The only place without crime would be a place without laws, and because social, unwritten laws exist in any society (even anarchist ones), such cannot be.
The issue here is to recognize that the difference between the "bad people", the criminals, who need to be locked up, punished, kept away, degraded, supervised, etc. at all times to protect the 'normal' citizens, and the "good people", those 'normal', law-abiding citizens, who need to be constantlym backed up by police, guards, the judiciary, a wide array of laws and legislators, and so on at all times to be safe from the "bad people", is very slim. Not only has almost every single one of those 'law-abiding citizens' committed crimes themselves as well, ranging from tax fraud to driving through red lights; but they could very well have been the "bad people" as well, because of the second reason.

As, for example, the Stanford prison experiment, or even the Second World War, have adequately proven, is that almost every single human being is capable under certain circumstances of an almost unparallelled cruelty and malice. No matter the virtuousness or high standing of that person in regular life, he or she could and would have been among the worst dictators ever seen had the circumstances been like that. After all, if fate had not decided otherwise, Hitler himself might very well have spent his life as a mediocre and quickly forgotten painter, while Stalin could easily have been just a seminary student in Tbilisi. And had that happened, who would have seen in them the cruel and horrible, yes, nearly "monstrous" dictators they became? That realization should give any 'law-abiding citizen' food for thought.
Some, when reading this, will think: "Ah, but the circumstances have not been like this, and I am a law-abiding citizen, so do I not deserve the protection from these bad people and do they, in turn, not deserve their punishment?"
It is tempting to cede this point. But I will take my line of reasoning further. If it is so very, almost frighteningly, easy to become a ruthless and horrible criminal when being a "good person", is it not logical to assume that the reverse is also true? If circumstances (including, of course, the free will and character of those involved) alone can dictate that one will become a mass-murderer, can circumstances not also dictate that one will become a benefactor to mankind? It is entirely reasonable to assume so.

And that leads us to the chilling conclusion: that there is essentially no difference between the "good people" and the "bad people", except that some have only felt the cruel storms of fortune rage against them, while others have only experienced a pleasant breeze in their backs to support their course through life. When considering this, do the harsh and cruel punishments one's emotions lead one to advocate not suddenly seem a cold evil, and in fact pity and support seem more humane responses? For it could just as well have been you in that jail in death row, and the prisoner could have had your job and your partner, and, in essence, your life.

For then who is to judge? The biblical adagium "he who is without sin, casteth the first stone" seems marvellously well to apply here. For even the high judges and the lawyers and the District Attorneys with all their legal knowledge and all their training and expertise are just as human as the convict and the condemned. And when every man and woman in judge's robes could well have been the one they are judging, how can real justice be attained? The best possible result can only be that right is done, i.e. the following of the legal rules and the law, and a fair and reasonable ruling according to the judge's best capacities within the borders legislators have set for him. And because those borders are set by human beings as well, do not ask for a continuous change or expansion of those borders: for no matter where they are set, they will remain set by humans, and remain subject to the faults and follies that man is heir to.

So if right is done and it seems in your heart to be a grave injustice, then ask no more: for what your heart desires can only be granted by higher beings, or by none at all.
Posted by Matthijs Krul @ 01:59