Two Cheers for Justice
The case for letting go of long-standing grievances
The title of today’s post is an opinion-journalism cliché. I used it because it fits what I want to say, and because using it raises an expectation that the author will not belabor the positive but instead emphasize the negative: Just two cheers? Why not three? Well, let me explain….
“Justice” is an idea most people treat as an unalloyed good. How could anyone be against justice? Disagree about what justice calls for? Sure. Of course. Obviously. But thinking justice itself is a problem? That’s something you don’t hear a lot.
Though you will hear it from me:
The human world is unimaginable without a sense of justice. But the human world would be much better off if we tamed our love of justice just enough to permit us to see clearly how much that love can distort our judgment and justify the worst that we do. Most massacres in history have been committed by those who were quite certain its victims deserved it.
I wrote those words in my initial post after Hamas’ murderous invasion of Israel on October 7. Today’s post will be devoted to explaining what I meant by this passing statement about justice—and how the indignant rage of many Palestinians, as well as that of their allies on the “anti-colonial” far left, illustrates the point.
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