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“Is There Justice? No — Just Us!”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2016

Heinz Steinert
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Extract

I found the slogan used as the title of this paper one sunny and cold Sunday morning in winter, 1985, on a vertical steel bar in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, above the East River, written with that ugly black ink that has replaced the bright colours of earlier years of graffiti in New York. Still, in contrast to the meaningless scribblings or markings of warrior names usually found in Manhattan these days, the message is nearly a joyful one: there is no point in expecting or demanding a “just society” from a state or other authorities — we will have to look after that ourselves and we can do it. By implication the writer also tells us what popular demands for “justice” really mean: an end to injustice. They are not “positive” demands, but in fact criticisms of some state of affairs or measures taken (or not taken) by the authorities: we know very well what is not just, even though we may not know what a “just” society should look like, and may even be sceptical whether we would like to live in one.

Type
Alternatives to Punishment
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 25 , Issue 3-4 , Summer–Autumn 1991 , pp. 710 - 728
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1991

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References

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2 For a more elaborate history of abolitionism cf. Scheerer, S., “Towards Abolitionism” (1986) 10 Contemporary Crises 5–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 This is very obvious in the amazingly helpless attempts to stop speeding on the road, which could very efficiently be done by technical means. And there are many similar examples, some more of which I have treated in “Beyond Crime and Punishment” (1986) 10 Contemporary Crises 21–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 This refers to examples like those Nazi judges who were so devoted to the Führer and his “law” — and some even after his suicide — that they felt justified to pass their barbarous judgments in order to save the “purity of the race” or keep up the military spirit against “Wehrkraflzersetzung”. And it refers to other examples like those measures and laws that have been discussed as “anticipatory state security” (“vorverlagerter Staatsschutz”) in the FRG, mainly in connection with “terrorism”.

5 One recent example of the difficulties of thinking about society in terms of “justice” is the study Toward a Just Social Order by Phillips, Derek (Princeton U.P., 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. After constructing the rules for a “just social order” he derives a taken-for-granted “moral obligation to accept and obey the criminal law” (p. 325). Equally taken for granted is the assumption that the criminal law “defends” and “secures” people's rights to freedom and well-being. Once we “rationally” construct a “just” or otherwise “perfect” state of affairs those (few) who disturb it must be “irrational”. It is therefore morally legitimate to punish and exclude them.

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13 Jacoby, S., in her book, Wild Justice. The Evolution of Revenge (New York, Harper, 1983)Google Scholar has shown convincingly that there are two popular assumptions about “revenge” that go together: revenge and the wish for it are a sign of psychic imbalance — the “heroic avenger” is an emotionless machine. Together these two assumptions hinder the sober confrontation with such wishes and generally with the humiliation, grief and hatred people feel when they (and perhaps even more when those dear to them) have been “victimized”. The criminal law and its punishment of the offender does not function as the social ritual needed in order to cope with such humiliation, grief and hatred. See Christie, Nils, Limits to Pain (Oslo, University Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

14 Mandelstam, Nadezhda, Hope Abandoned (New York, Atheneum, 1972) 572Google Scholar.