Justice

At first glance I thought I knew what this chapter was about and to some degree I did however it was like looking in a mirror. As the chapter points out, as a society we have no problems exposing and denouncing injustice. It's justice we find difficult to identify and to practise. Part of the difficulty is accepting our own responsibility. Society makes it easy to adopt a victim mentality, blaming others, or blaming circumstances.

A quote from the book narrates how we all feel differently about the power of justice. "Justice, as a principal, is an exercise of power that may be shaped, or misshaped, by our laws and agreements about what we consider right." We can all relate to that statement, it is the law in the eye of the beholder.

I found the topic of Justice more in depth than I realized. The chapter refers to the golden rule and Mathew 5:38-9 a radical concept of justice but what does nature tell us about justice? Justice is a human quality; and nature is concerned with equilibrium not equality. Nature also teaches us to see individuals more justly, but we must see them as they are in their own identity.

This was a wake up call to all the things I already knew but was not practising in my everyday life. All the virtues shape the kind of people we are or are yet to be. Justice is a part of that circle, it is our belief system which is a big part of who we are.

This is an excerpt from Measuring the Depth by Henry David Thoreau

What I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics... Draw lines through the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man's particular daily behaviors and waves of life into his coves and inlets, and where they intersect will be the height or depth of his character. Perhaps we need only to know how his shores trend and his adjacent country or circumstances, to infer his depth and concealed bottom.