Lady Justice
Have you ever heard of Lady Justice?
According to Wikipedia, she is the personification of the moral force in judicial systems and has three key attributes. Firstly, the blindfold is said to represent impartiality. Justice, in theory, does not see status, wealth, or emotion. I didn’t know this, but she had been without a blindfold before the 16th century, and it was added after, satirically, intended to show justice being blind to injustice. That certainly feels familiar. There have been times when I’ve felt like justice wasn’t served. I’m sure you have too. When that happens, there’s often a question that creeps in: Is justice something that is given or something that we take?
My thoughts on it change depending on the day and situation. I am only human, after all, and mostly swayed by circumstances, emotion and perspective. Besides, it somehow feels like two sides of the same coin. Which raises a deeper distinction: what is the difference between justice and revenge?
When I think of revenge, it feels chaotic, personal and emotional. Justice, by contrast, seems measured and principled. But is that really the difference or just a distinction that we have created? After all, justice delivered in an organised courtroom can also feel deeply personal, even vengeful. So where, then, does legitimacy end and transgression begin? Can we fault someone for wanting justice for themselves? For taking it into their own hands? Perhaps what separates them is not morality, but authority. Yet what makes this authority absolute? Are we all just drawing lines we hope we never have to test?
To look at it from an emotional distance, let’s consider a fictional character we all know: Batman. Disregarding his code for a moment, if Batman were to kill his parents’ murderer in the same alley where they died, in the same manner. Would that be deemed justice because it restores balance? Or revenge because it is driven by pain? Does intention matter more than outcome? For this, Lady Justice also carries scales to weigh value and consequence. To measure substance. I suppose she would be looking at the intention versus the outcome, the action against the consequence dealt. Would she find that Batman had delivered justice, or simply tipped the scales once again?
Is justice about becoming better than those who wronged you? Or is that naïve?
Lastly, Lady Justice can be seen carrying a sword, which suggests that justice is not only contemplative, but armed. It embodies authority, the power to act and punish. This is echoed by the Latin phrase ‘si vis pacem para bellum,’ if you want peace, prepare for war. We love the idea of a reckoning, and rightly so. We want justice to be clear and final. Unfortunately, it rarely is. The question then becomes: Is justice even real?
Many place their trust in eventual moral order, the faith that evil is punished eventually, either in divine reckoning, in karma or even through human laws. Personally, I often return to the idea of balance. Yin and yang. Life and death. When someone does something undeserving toward you, it tips the scales. I like to believe something eventually finds its way back, not because the universe keeps score, but because balance is a certain piece to the equation. Not necessarily punishment, just balance. Yet even as I say this, I hesitate. Sitting here, reflecting, I can afford to believe in balance. But if we were to ask someone, say, in the middle of a war, how could I justify the idea of balance then? Does it even exist? Is there truly an equilibrium keeping score, or is it just life contorted by human emotions?
In the end, I have to ask, was Batman right? Is Justice more about us than them? Is it about deciding who we are going to be in the face of harm? Will we mirror it, rise above it or try to measure it up? I mean one of my favourite quotes from Batman, of course, sums this up perfectly: “There is a difference between you and me, we both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us, you blinked.” Justice is rarely certain. It may never come. The scales may never balance. And yet, we are compelled to reckon with it. So many questions and no answers, not really. I suppose everyone has their own version of what justice is and what it should be. And that version may keep changing. After all, we are only human.
