Sense of Justice
A strong sense of justice sounds like something noble by definition, like something that's justified, don't you think? That's how I see it too, and my child and I both have exactly that. An enormously strong sense of justice. But lately I've been wondering more and more: what does that sense of justice actually mean? When do you have it and when is it truly justified to invoke it? And to what degree, above all.
Because once I think I'm in the right, on the good side of the story, I dig in like a pit bull to get to the bottom of things. Every detail, every observation, every nuance must be addressed and every word is personally weighed and measured by me. In that process, I ask a lot of the other person. Trying to follow me at such a moment is virtually impossible for anyone, because I move through the argument like a forensic detective. Interrupting me has entirely different consequences, because I'm nowhere near having the full, complex situation on the table yet, so just bear with me a little longer. Yes, and then the question arises whether going through everything with a fine-tooth comb will actually get you to that justice, before the other person collapses from exhaustion and their nervous system is completely frazzled. 'Agree to disagree' seems like a far more grown-up approach to these kinds of disagreements.
‘Protecting’ - mixed media | 21 x 30 cm | 2023
That my child feels unheard in conflict situations is understandable — he's only nine. He's allowed to persist, be unreasonable, not give up, keep talking until everything that's crooked is straightened out. But am I, as an adult, allowed to feel just as wronged as my child in a comparable moment (and I don't necessarily mean in a battle with my little boy)? You'd say the answer is clear. No. I should be able to shrug my shoulders. I should be able to take my loss. But as a detailed thinker, one thing always stands in relation to another for me, and when I take the loss, I feel like I'm sweeping an important puzzle piece off the table. One that truly disappears under the carpet and never comes out again. Should it ever resurface, no one remembers which puzzle it belongs to. In that sense, it's sometimes worthwhile to keep digging, so that a structural flaw in the foundation is exposed and can be repaired.
We all know the Oldehove (a crooked tower in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands). It's a precarious balance, always. When is it worthwhile and when are you simply chasing the need to be right? How bad is it, really, that the Oldehove doesn't stand straight? I love looking at what those ancient philosophers have to say about it, and there are a few old familiars I'd like to give the floor on this matter.
An easy one is the fact that there's allowed to be a middle ground. I'm rather prone to extremes, unfortunately, and am desperately searching for that middle way. If anyone has spotted a signpost, please point me in the right direction. Is it a kind of golden path, like Dorothy's in the Wizard of Oz, who only had to click her red shoes together to get home? Then it shouldn't be that difficult, surely? Anyway, Aristotle is clear on this: justice is a fine virtue, as long as the middle can be found. So in my case that means: carry on, but watch your dosage. It appears I'm rather generous and the bucket regularly overflows.
Marcus Aurelius has come up before as a representative of the Stoics, and he rightly poses the question of whether you have control over the outcome or not. If you don't, you might as well drop the discussion — unless you want to make a sport of frustrated dialogues. Letting go seems like wisdom then; the prize is harmony. Socrates, whom we've also mentioned before, would keep asking questions, assuming he knows nothing, that there is no absolute truth. He'd want to know whether I'm right about the details but wrong about the bigger picture.
Nietzsche touches a sore spot when he wonders whether it's really about justice at all, and not rather about control. 'What truly drives you — be honest?', he might ask me. I might reluctantly admit to him that perhaps I simply want to be heard, in full, with all the complex loose ends attached. Well, that's an underlying theme many of us struggle with, he'd probably say. I quite like Nietzsche, though I do think he could have sugar-coated it a bit, don't you? Goodness, what resilience you must have as a philosophising human being.
Confucius, in Chinese philosophy, naturally maintains that the wellbeing of the collective is more important than that of the individual. The relationship with the other is ALWAYS chosen over your own standpoint. What if the puzzle piece that falls off the table is your relationship with that other person… Ouch! Yes, definitely a good point.
Look, my child is still in the fair-is-fair phase. You throw a punch, you can expect one back, ad infinitum. According to Kohlberg, a developmental psychologist, this stage is called concrete reciprocity. I can confirm that this is the case with my child and it's exactly what you'd expect from a nine-year-old. Something different, however, is expected of me. What exactly? Other than putting my behaviour under a magnifying glass, having an honest word with myself and looking up a philosopher or two to then share it all with you…, because I naturally hope I'm not the only one. Well, what I can admit is that it's quite hard to act like a grown-up, that I sometimes behave like a nine-year-old and that I'm owning up to it freely. Sometimes being an adult isn't easy at all.