What Is Justice - Tumblr Posts

Because I’ve been in the U.S., I’ve heard a lot of the discourse surrounding abortion rights and gun violence that has dominated the media there, particularly on the Left. This is a very strong example of where I feel that political pessimism has an intervention to make. To people who are mobilized around the issues of Roe v. Wade and gun violence, I would pose the following questions:

Why do you expect your government to behave justly?

Why do you expect your government to serve your interests?

Why do you expect your government to act based on scientific or philosophical consensus?

(Note that “Because that’s what I think that government should do” is not an adequate answer to these questions, and “Because that’s what governments do” is tautological.)

How would you act differently if, instead, you expected the following:

Your government will not act justly or unjustly, but rather according to a calculus in which justice plays absolutely no part;

Your government serves its own interests— the interests of its own self-propagation and the interests of its members;

Your government acts based on how it can secure the greatest power for itself and its members.

Would you act differently if you began with these basic assumptions about what government is and does? What is preventing you from beginning with these assumptions? Why have you internalized the belief that your government is striving for Justice, even when it punishes you?