Justice Vs Control

One of the biggest mistakes that we make as a society is teaching children the concept of justice. I’m not anti-justice. Please don’t get me wrong. There are times I’ve wanted to despense two-fisted justice with a vengeance. It never worked out that way, though. I’m cursed with being able to see many sides to a story, including the ones I don’t want to see.

If you think about it, how many times have you heard a child (usually a brat) whine “that isn’t fair!” or blame their actions on justified retaliation. “Billy hit me, first!” is the cry and you have to live with it. You made the monster, after all. Being fair, teaching children that there are consequences to their actions, and then extending those consequences to every single person on the planet who breaks a rule is a social norm that leads to more heartache and contempt than contentment. We’re taught this while we’re still soft in the head and quickly learn that life isn’t fair. Could you imagine walking up to your boss and demanding his salary because you work just as hard as he does?

When you think about it, does justice really exist? Killing someone, for example, is wrong. (That is, unless it’s fighting for your country, a holy war, self defense, euthanasia, or that jackhole just won’t turn down his goddamn stereo.) What about killing someone inadvertently with your car? What would justice look like? Would you run the person down in an eye-for-an-eye execution? What about a guy who rapes your daughter? Are you going to be the one to plow this lunatic? Or, do we keep “special” sociopaths around for this dirty work? Seriously, what can be done to “fix” it?
Reality is what screws justice up. It has a nasty habit of just being there despite how much we want things to be otherwise. Justice is a myth, perpetrated so that we can make sense of our world. Let me butcher the words of Terry Pratchet: “If you took the entire universe, pulverized it and strained it through the tiniest sieve, you would not find one molecule of mercy, not one atom of justice.” (That’s the gist. It’s not exact. It was in Hogfather, the book about the tooth fairy. Death said it.)

Let’s say someone you love is killed. For the sake of argument, you know who did it and you know it was malicious. What would you call “justice?” We usually seek justice because we want the pain and the hurt to go away. Well, that’s just like pouring tabasco on a chemical burn. In the case of the death penalty, I’m sure that all the way up to the point where the guy dies you’ll be thinking it’s what you want. Then, at the moment of death, you’ll understand that the emptiness and hurt is still there and you’ll have to find a new way to proceed. Killing him will not bring back your loved one. Torturing him will not do anyone any good and in all likelihood will make you feel worse (unless you are one of the aforementioned “special” people). Putting him in jail offers the chance for redemption, or at least an anal-raping, but who knows for sure? Then, imagine that a plea-bargain gets him only a couple of years? Where’s the justice? Welcome to the grey area.
Truthfully, the only real justice would be to jump in a time machine, go back to the moment before the killing and prevent it. But, then, he didn’t commit a crime, did he? Oh, it’s so complicated!

One of the lamest things I’ve ever heard when people talk about victims moving on with their lives is “forgiveness.” Ok, at first I was like “ohnomotherfuckthat.” But, it’s not really forgiveness they are talking about. You can’t forgive someone for killing. Nope. Sorry. Doesn’t work like that. What you can do is accept that life is different, you will never have true justice (because there is none), and you refuse to carry around those two suitcases, one labeled “hate” and the other labeled “what might have been.” They call it forgiveness because it makes you feel like a good person, like you’re going to out-nice the world out of spite. In reality, you’re accepting that there will be nothing that evens the whole thing out. Nothing will bring the scales level. There will not be justice and you have to find a way to either be OK with that or spend the rest of your years with that baggage.

Have you ever noticed no one seeks justice from a hurricane? Nobody ever took a tornado or tsunami to court. Natural disasters are one of those rare instance where we really feel that nobody is at fault. After all, you can’t control a bolt of lightning. You can’t prevent forest fires (heh). Justice only comes into play when we think someone has wronged us. Do you see how dangerous this is? How many atrocities have been perpetrated because the people doing the atrocity-ing thought that their cause was righteous? I would have to say all of them. Show me someone who is seeking justice, and I’ll show you someone delusional.

What about non-catastrophic events? What about simple negligence like being kept waiting at the doctor’s office, being kept waiting in traffic, or being kept waiting for an email? What about those sand-in-your-shorts things that are ALWAYS somebody’s fault? You cannot control other people. You cannot change the past. There are only two ways to control yourself to minimize the impact of an evildoing: Prevention and Damage control. Both are ways in which you control yourself, not other people.

On prevention: As a teacher in Baltimore, one of the biggest arguments I heard from my fellow teachers was, “I shouldn’t have to!” These are people who had a fantasy world living in their brains that they believed the rest of the world should conform to. “I shouldn’t have to stop my class to break up a fight!” Who are you telling? To whom is that directed? The kids who fought could give a shit, but I doubt it. You have all the time leading up to the fight to keep it from ever happening. What you are trying to do is control other people with your mind. This will never work, since they are neither privy to your fantasy world nor would they choose to accept your fantasy over their own, in this case beating the snot out of Jimmy in homeroom. All you can do is get people to volunteer to control themselves. Don’t believe me? What’s stopping you from running a red light?

How do we do this? It’s the age-old “If you _____ then I’ll _____.” In the case of traffic lights: “If you run a red light, I’ll give you a ticket.” Or “If you run the light, I’ll hit you broadside and snap your neck like uncooked spaghetti then sue you because you broke the law.” Therefore, quite voluntarily, you choose to stop at the red light. No one restrains you. No one reaches out and steps on the brake to make you stop. You stop because either you feel it’s the right thing to do or you know things can be bad if you don’t stop. Can you imagine a world where people ran red lights indiscriminately? It’s not that hard. In Baltimore, the red and green lights change at the same time, unlike in York where there’s a second delay between red and green. So, when the light turns green and you’re used to gunning it and thinking “I have the right of way, so the whole rest of the world must conform!” you’re going to regain consciousness in traction to find a lawyer standing there telling you he has a strong feeling we might win the case.

Or you could prevent this by adjusting your behavior, which is another way you voluntarily give up control. Oh, you could say, “I shouldn’t have to!” Well, if wishing made it so, I’d be three inches taller and two inches longer. You can either prevent it or feel justified in your useless outrage.
On Damage Control: This is where punishment, picking up the pieces, and self-examination comes in. What is punishment? Really, it’s just another form of prevention. Think back to your childhood (if it was like mine) Whap! Whap! Whap! “Are you going to light fires in the trash can anymore?” Whap! Whap! Whap! “Are you going to get another D in math?” Whap! But there’s more to damage control than merely very early (or, in most cases very late) prevention. Many times, specifically during catastrophes, it’s a way to deal with what has occurred. This is the most sad of sad times. It’s when you press charges, get stitches, go to physical therapy and call the insurance company. Then, if it’s somone’s fault, you seek justice and you know how that will turn out.

Let’s apply this. You’re going out of town, and you’re leaving your two delinquent teenaged sons alone for the first time ever. They’re good kids, normally, but you’ve got that niggling feeling that something might go down. You don’t want to come home to a charred ruin, so how do you get them to give up control and do things the way you want them done without supervision? Just telling them “don’t” won’t be enough unless you have already established a system of checks and balances within your household. (aka: fear) You would have to figure out a way to control yourself so that they give control over to you. You have to do the “If you _____ then I _____.” (You can fill in your own blanks. Be creative, they’re your imaginary kids after all.) However you decide, it’s prevention. This may be as drastic as taking them with you. It may be as benign as having someone else keeps tabs on them. In any case, YOU do something.

If you spend your time saying, “I shouldn’t have to threaten my children/worry about what’s going to happen/offer a reward . . . Etc.” If so, would you mind explaining how you’re going to make your fantasy come true?

Let’s say you do all of that, and you still come home to a charred ruin. What now?

The third and final lesson: acceptance.

You came home to ashes because you mistakenly put your trust in those you shouldn’t have. It’s damage control time. It’s your mistake as much as theirs. Get help. Get advice. Above all, make sure you prevent it from happening again. Learn from it. It’s what you do from now on that matters. Nothing you do will be a truly just punishment and nothing you do will change what happened. Punishing your kids forever will just ruin what relationship you have (though it may be very tempting). You have rebuilding to do in every sense of the word.

Don’t get me wrong. If I find out I have cancer, there will be a period of time in which I scream WHY! at the sky for several hours. Afterwards, I’m going to knuckle down and fight the good fight. The same goes for being a victim of negligence or a violation. It happened. Blaming someone, holding someone accountable, or wishing things had been done differently is just as effective as screaming at the sky.

This blog was not meant to help you get through a catastrophe, though it may be good advice for that, too. This is about all of those little injustices that follow you. Do you tend to always get into arguments with the waiter? Do you spend most of your time on the road with your fist on the horn? Do you get into disagreements frequently with your customers or co-workers? Do you, in short, attempt to control other people because you have an idea of how they are supposed to act and they are not conforming to it?

I’ve actually wanted to say this to a parent of one of my students: “Your child has been suspended more often than she’s been in school, do you really think that every teacher in this school who has written her up, all twenty of them, were all just out to get her? OR, do you think something about your parenting needs to change? Pointing out the deficiencies in others may make you feel less like a shitty human being, but you and your daughter are the ONLY ones who are suffering because of it.” The woman I’m talking about wanted justice dealt out because she refused to believe her kid was mentally ill. I’ve known other parents who refused to believe their child was learning disabled. They all had something in common, they wanted the teachers and administrators to pay for what they did or said to their child. Justice. When I moved into my current address, I met a lady up the street who said she hated living there because everybody on the street was an asshole. I soon learned who the asshole was. “They’ll call the cops on you for any little thing.” Really? Really. So, they felt “justified” in vandalizing cars.

Justice is as individual a concept as faith. Everybody has their own idea of it. If you really want to live in a better world you have to choose action instead of reaction. The entire universe is between our ears. We decide what gets in and what stays. Some time in the past, when we were very young, justice was accepted as truth. Bullshit. Get your needs met and it’s nobody else’s fault but yours if they are NOT met. It’s as much a responsibility as it a blessing. It may mean accepting that you are wrong. It may mean accepting that you have something to learn. It may mean that you have an unrealistic idea of what the world “should” be like.

If that’s the case, control yourself.

Then, on the weekend, enjoy yourself.