Right Thing, Right Now: Justice in an Unjust World
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“Virtue” can seem old-fashioned. In fact, virtue—arete—translates to something very simple and very timeless: Excellence. Moral. Physical. Mental. In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components. Courage. Temperance. Justice. Wisdom.
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Courage, bravery, endurance, fortitude, honor, sacrifice… Temperance, self-control, moderation, composure, balance… Justice, fairness, service, fellowship, goodness, kindness… Wisdom, knowledge, education, truth, self-reflection, peace…
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“Justice means much more than the sort of thing that goes on in law courts,” C. S. Lewis would remind listeners in a famous lecture series. “It is the old name for everything we should now call ‘fairness’; it includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life.”
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Until we stop debating, we can’t start doing. We keep debating so we don’t have to start doing.
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courage as putting our ass on the line, and self-discipline as getting your ass in line. To continue this metaphor, we may define justice as holding the line—or drawing up our “Flat-Ass Rules,” to borrow a phrase from the
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We admire those who keep their word. We hate liars and cheats. We celebrate those who sacrifice for the common good, abhor those who grow rich or famous at the expense of others.
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“Life is not meaningless for the man who considers certain actions wrong simply because they are wrong, whether or not they violate the law,” he once explained. “This kind of moral code gives a person a focus, a basis on which to conduct himself.”
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Because that’s what justice should be—not a noun but a verb. Something we do, not something we get. A form of human excellence.
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four greatest virtues are moderation, wisdom, justice, and fortitude, and if a man is able to cultivate those, that’s all he needs to live a happy and successful life.”
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“If it’s not right, do not do it,” Truman underlined in his well-worn copy of Meditations, “if it is not true, do not say it…. First do nothing thoughtlessly or without a purpose. Secondly, see that your acts are directed to a social end.”
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Justice is not this thing we demand of other people, but something we demand of ourselves. It’s not a thing we talk about, it’s a way of life. Nor must it be always an abstract, cosmic thing.
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Justice can be… …the standards we hold ourselves to …the way we treat people …the promises we keep …the integrity we bring to our words …the loyalty and generosity we give to our friends …the opportunities we accept (and turn down) …the things we care about …the difference we make for people.
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We keep our word to ourselves—that’s discipline.
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keep our word to others because it’s justice.
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“Speak the truth as you see it,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself, “but with kindness. With humility. Without hypocrisy.”
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would do his best to help great talents reach their potential, to make possible the expression of their incredible genius. He would also be responsible for them, the adult in the room while they often acted like children.
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“It’s your turn to be
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the centre,” he said, “to give others what was given to you for so long. You’ve got to give security to young people and peace to your husband, and a sort of charity to the old. You’ve got to let the people who work for you depend on you. You’ve got to cover up a few more troubles than you show, and be a little more patient than the average person, and do a little more instead of a little less than your share. The light and glitter of the world is in your hands….”
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“It is your turn,” he tells her, “to m...
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glory and accomplishment are of far less importance than the creation of character and the individual good life.”
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“Remind yourself that your task is to be a good human being,” he writes, “remind yourself what nature demands of people. Then do it, without hesitation.” Cribbing from Plato, he tells himself to concentrate on one thing and one thing alone: to do what is right and to behave like a good man.
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easier to be a great man than a good one. Certainly there are more of the former than the latter.
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Or as the Bible put it, evil hates the light.
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Thomas Jefferson knew this. In 1785, he wrote in a letter to his friend Peter Carr that “whenever you are to do a thing tho’ it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, & act accordingly.”
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decision “you make in your life purely for money doesn’t usually end up going the right way,” he explained.
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he wasn’t here on this planet for himself, but to be good and do good for others.
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had thought this would be its fate, I would not have written, but now I am glad I did. It was the best I could give and if it is not the best somebody else could give, that is not my concern.”
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Do your best. Become what you can be. You owe the world that much.
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People who realize their potential employ other people, they inspire other people, open doors for other people, discover and make things of use for other people, create markets for other people, have a plat...
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law of comparative advantage. If one of us is better at growing corn and the other at growing grass and a third at the art of politics, then we best serve the world by seeing to that specialty. By doing what other people want us to do, or think we should do—or by lacking the discipline to keep the main thing the main thing—we are costing the world something.
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Oscar Wilde believed that each human being was a prophecy, that we had a destiny. Our job, he said, was to fulfill it. As he would write in The Picture of Dorian Grey, “The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.” Yet too many people, he wrote, like that third servant, were afraid of themselves, of the task they had been given.
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We should try to realize the things that nobody thought were possible, that nobody would have expected of us. More than doing our best, we should strive to become our best, to vie with the best. A man’s reach should exceed his grasp… Certainly that reaching, that stretching is what gets us closer to heaven.
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Loyalty is expensive. It’s inconvenient. It gets in the way. It’s messy, it’s complicated, it’s hard to explain.
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The thing about loyalties is that we never have just one of them—our obligations are layered, and occasionally in conflict with each other. We are loyal to friends, but we also owe loyalty to our family, whom we have to provide for. We are loyal to someone for whom we’ve worked for a long time, but we also owe a loyalty to our work, to our cause, which is at risk of being jeopardized. Acheson’s duty to his friend was real, but did he not also have obligations to his office, which represented his country? To Truman, at whose pleasure he served?
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Seneca when he said that “loyalty provides the disloyal man access to do harm.”
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Loyalty is something we give. It’s not something we expect.
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politician owed the public they served. His north star was the American people and the American Constitution that had been written to secure their rights. His north star was that ancient idea of virtue that he’d learned as a boy, and it rooted and directed him even in the darkest and stormiest of times. He once quoted the poet Horace from memory: “The man who is just and firm of purpose can be shaken from his stern resolve neither by the rage of the people who urge him to crime nor by the countenance of the threatening tyrant.”
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Admiral Rickover had tried to teach Carter that the right time for the right thing was always right now. “It’s impossible for me to delay something that I see needs to be done,” Carter later explained.
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Clarkson reached a life-altering, world-changing conclusion: If the contents of his essay were true, then “it was time some person should see these calamities to their end.” More directly, that person could be him.
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the role that singular individuals—that people just like us—can have in the course of world events. It obscures what a man or woman with courage can do to bend the arc of history toward truth.
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movements—how do the voiceless use their voice to effect change? The poet Audre Lorde would famously say many years later that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Yet with abolition, few quotes more widely miss the mark—and that’s a good thing. Not just because Clarkson quite brilliantly collected the various tools of slavery—thumbscrews and chains and whips—which he then displayed to devastating effect at meetings and speeches.
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Slavery was a product of capitalism, and capitalism would be used to kill it. Clarkson tied slavery to the industries that depended on it, from textiles to coffee and tobacco. Most thoroughly, he went after the sugar manufacturers, a product inseparable from the brutal slave plantations of the Caribbean. “In every pound of sugar used,” one famous abolitionist claimed, “we may be considered as consuming two ounces of human flesh.”
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A small group of committed individuals can in fact change the world, and they don’t have to burn anything or anyone down in the process.
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of them were white, blessed by the class and caste system of their time. They could have distracted themselves with plenty of other pursuits, been contented with their privileged lives. Instead, they were outraged about their rights and other people’s rights too.
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change happens when people get outraged about other people’s rights.
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shouted back, words destined to be repeated in a thousand news articles. “What do you tell your children at night? What do you tell your wives at night?”
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Nader’s Raiders—who would begin the ongoing fight to protect the public against the abuses of corporate interests.
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Justice is not a thing that happens, it’s something that is made, that is continuing to be made, even as you read this. By people who get together, by people who care. Sometimes because it affects them directly. Often and most beautifully when it does not.
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People who want to leave the world better than they found it. People who see something and say something. People who make friends…and good trouble. People who are patient…but at the same time refuse to delay. People with a north star…bigger than themselves, bigger than their own interests. People with big plans…but start small, start with what they can do right now. People who don’t just stand there, who refuse to be neutral, who accept their responsibility. People who get things done. People who not only do their jobs but do them generously, selflessly. Ordinary people…who become ...more
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It’s a chance for us to struggle…to be part of the struggle. If our parents didn’t do enough, so be it. We can make up for that. We can be the example that our children, that the people who come after us look back at.
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