This blog post is a continuation to:
Day 220: Justice and Human Rights - Part 2
Substantive Justice as part of Legal Justice has to do with the rules as laws are just or not. Here, what is specifically understood as 'just' is: are 'dues' specified in a just way. In other words - does the law specify who gets rewards and who gets punishment in a just way?
Obviously - this is again very concerning, because that would indicate that we have already as a society and as a humanity accepted that justice is maintained through handing out punishments and rewards. And where does this acceptance and allowance come from? From the time when we were children, where we were treated with this warped concept of 'Justice' by our parents. But why do parents punish and reward their children to, apparently, 'educate' them into becoming 'good people'? Do parents really try to assist the children in being the best and most honorable version of themselves - or are they actually just molding them in order to fit in in society and be able to survive in the current system? The current system where, if one has any actual consideration for another, it will stand in your way of being successful - because to be successful requires of a person to not care of the consequences of one's actions in the current economic system.
Ultimately - why parents punish and reward is to encourage certain kinds of behavior and discourage other kinds of behavior. When a child throws a tantrum - the parent punishes to make the behavior stop. But does that assist the child? Does the child gain any understanding of the experience that they just went through? Obviously not and the reason why this is not happening is because parents themselves don't understand where they own anger comes from, where there own thoughts come from and how they accumulate energy within themselves until the culmination point reaches the point of no longer being able to suppress it and then it all just comes out. Parents cannot educate their children, because they have not done this research for themselves and have not assisted themselves to work through these experiences. And they never have because no-one ever assisted or educated them to be able to do this. And so the cycle has always continued - where children, generation after generation, are being controlled through manipulation as punishment and reward - learning to suppress what the parents have labelled as 'bad' and trying to present what the parents have labelled as 'good'. But no actual change takes place -the child is the same child, but has just learned how to blend in in order to avoid punishment and attract reward. So - the child is not a more honorable child because it has now been conditioned to act a certain way. Being an honorable person, a person with integrity, is not a consequence of conditioning, it is a consequence of consideration and understanding. So long as those points are not present, then we cannot speak of honor or integrity.
And the same principle is being applied in the Justice system - showing that the justice system still hasn't grasped the concept of Justice. A just society - is that a society in which human beings have been conditioned to tolerate each other to the highest degree possible - or is it a society in which each human has actual and real consideration for each other human? Those are two entirely different societies - so why are we settling for the one where Justice is but a mirage, an illusion, a projection and a farce?
For real justice to take place, any behavior that causes harm in a society should be addressed in the form of having the abuser go through a process of education and self-introspection, assisted by professional psychologists, to trace back the origin of their behaviors and being shown how this behavior can be corrected. I mean - how else are we expecting to change our society if we do not address the origin of the behavior that we see as problematic. Trying to 'keep a lid' on things is part of why outbursts take place - and so, our educational paradigm that forms the basis of our justice system is a very big part of the problem we face today, where crime is soaring, where people can barely tolerate each other, where hate speech runs rampant, where bickering is a daily sport, where wars of all kinds are so common that we've numbed ourselves to the news coverage images.
The very fact that the word 'Substantive' as in 'Substantive Justice' is used to denote the practice of punishing and rewarding as a means of managing and controlling human behavior already shows a contradictio in terminis. Because nothing substantial is going on within it - in fact, it's all about upholding a make-belief idea of justice - a justice that does not actually care about creating the just society, a society of integrity and honor in each living being towards themselves and every other being - but a justice that protects the interests of the few - those who can afford them being protected.
To substantially change the fabric of society, we require to first pay attention to the substance of ourselves. To continue utilizing 'human nature' for the existence of system of control is unacceptable. We can change our nature, we can change our substance, and so - change our society to one that doesn't require us to use the carrot and the stick approach. We claim to be so great, to have created 'civilization', to push for scientific progress, to place a man on the moon - but when it comes to our own nature -the one thing that we are truly responsible for - we're suddenly incapable of changing it, too limited to put our own affairs in order? How can that be rationalized?
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