We like to imagine that some formula can be applied to rebalance an equation. But this is a limited and, to my mind, unhelpful way to think about the issue.

I learned a lot from Justice Yazzie, Chief Justice of the Navajo Nation, who wrote a very interesting article on the Navajo idea of justice which focuses more on putting things into harmony – rebuilding the community and putting people back into harmony with their own lives.

The Navajo think of justice in terms of healing – and they think of health as a way of life that allows one to experience the beauty of the world, which they call hozho. I think we Americans should think of justice as a way of making the world of the future – the world of our children – better and fairer, so that its people will not have to undergo the suffering that we or our ancestors have.

Advertisement

If we thought in those terms, we could all work together and attack the real enemies of justice:violence, poverty, ignorance, racism.

There is one further question touched on by your article:What can we do for the victims of the past, be they those of various holocausts or the victims of other forms of suffering, victims of war, religious persecution or whatever?

I think we have a moral obligation to hear them and keep their voices alive, for they can teach us compassion and self-knowledge. I do not think we honor the victims of the past by getting angry over things that we cannot affect, for we will simply generate more anger, fear, and injustice. We honor them by trying to know and remember the truth of their suffering, the causes that led to it, and the world that let them perish.

Thomas Alexander, Professor Philosophy