Right Thing, Right Now |
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5 August 2024 - Zürich
To me the concept of justice has always sounded like the rulers exerting their will over the ruled. I think of the Uttara Kanda part of the Ramayana where Ram comes back killing lower caste untouchables for getting uppity. That was justice under the caste system. Or in the early US when runaway slaves where returned to the men who had legal rights as their masters. That was justice. Justice is blind. Justice is cruel. Justice is an organizing principle of society, not a virtue of the individual.
In his latest book, Right Thing, Right Now, Ryan Holiday turns this idea on its head. Justice is a personal virtue when the ruler executes punishment. But for most justice is a personal virtue of meekly accepting that punishment. Holiday uses his usual ensemble cast of politicians, athletes, and civil rights leaders to illustrate his points. Unlike other books of his I've read, this one was not uplifting but instead seemed to be asking people to willing put their head in the noose that's been tied for them. He praises a Roman general, Marcus Atilius Regulus, who was release on parole by Carthage during wartime with a sentence of death over his head and willingly returned to be executed. This is Holiday's idea of justice. I'm almost surprise he doesn't include any stories of Japanese samurai committing seppuku after losing a battle. That was justice in their day. However, based on his reading lists, Holiday doesn't read much outside the history of English and Western civilizations.
While some of the stories in this book are edifying, I find the overall connecting principle repugnant. Justice, while an organizing idea of the vast and long lived Roman empire, was symbolized by the fasces - 12 rods bundled around and an axe. They meant that the state had the right to punish and murder it's citizens. This is not an individual virtue.
