Justice, Vengeance, and Balance

Justice is the perfection of vengeance. Vengeance, in its most raw form, is never fair, nor is it balanced. When a human takes revenge, that human will never strike the best and equal retaliation for the wrong done to them. Human vengeance always leads to an escalation. The "you punch me, I stab you, you shoot me" escalation of hostilities that only further propagates the cycle of hate and bitterness.

       Humans have a hard time determining the fairness and balance of the tit-for-tat of revenge. A major social problem of revenge is the social web of retribution. The social web of retribution occurs when one person is violated by another and the victim brings in third parties (friends or family members) to exact revenge, and then the initial violator brings in their third parties (their friends and family members) and what was initially a single violation turns into an open conflict between the belligerents which in essence becomes a war. 

     This is the "social web of retribution" I am talking about. It is the direct consequence of an imbalanced vengeance escalation. Many wars are started this way. Many wars die hard and continue on a lot longer than they need to because of this.

      In our justice systems, we never really have an ability to deduce what the best and most fitting punishment for crimes and transgressions are in many circumstance. Attempting to find the balance, after all, is what the concept of justice is all about. 

      Human have flawed reasoning skills, often faulty memory, self-serving interests, diverging levels of intelligence, and different priorities. As a result, fairness and balance in the application of justice becomes quite skewed and very ambiguous. Perfect justice, it seems, is just as elusive as perfect vengeance. 

 

     Consensus on justice is the only way we can actually apply justice to crime and punishment and actually coming close to fairness and balance in the process of doing so.

    You need multiple vantage points, multiple angles to tackle applying justice, and as a result you need the consensus of multiple people in the process. This is the only way we can come even remotely close to achieving a fair and balanced justice. A blind, unbiased justice. 

      There is a reason God said "vengeance is mine." He is the only being perfect enough to exact perfect vengeance. Perfect vengeance, by its nature, has always been what justice is supposed to be.