What Do We Understand or What Should We Understand When We Think of Justice?

Dear friends, there are times in our lives. We find ourselves tossing from here to there among the crowds. We begin to question why we live and try to make sense of what we experience. Perhaps the most fundamental problem is the search for meaning in our lives. I liken life to a journey in a one-man canoe on a flowing river. It is impossible to resist the flow of that river in the current conditions. All you can determine, according to your skill in using the canoe, is to create rest periods in places where the river is calm, and to try to avoid hitting a rock with paddle strokes in places where the river is flowing fast so that your journey does not end before reaching the sea. But you know that the river flows into a sea that you have never seen before, that you do not know, but that you are sure exists. As in Beyatlı's poem "The Silent Ship", many people have reached that sea, but it has not been possible to hear from any of them. Maybe that's why we get tired of looking for different meanings. Maybe life consists of knowing that it's the end of the road and enjoying the river. In one of his poems, Zülfü Livaneli seems to intertwine question and answer:  

What should a man give his life to

Your life is wasting away

There's one who walks and one who stays on the road

Your life is wasting away

From time to time, thinkers have pondered on the meaning of life. Indian philosophy, in particular, differs markedly from western philosophy in this area. The influence of religion and mysticism is evident in Indian philosophy. Nevertheless, it cannot be seen as a single stream of thought. It also contains contrasting concepts within itself. On the other hand, the concept of "Wu Wei", which is also widely used in Eastern philosophy and is rooted in Taoism, is used to describe effortless action. According to this philosophy, life is a flow and one should "not go against the natural flow to make something happen". "Wu Wei argues that we can only recognize the situation we are in and its requirements by putting aside our excess effort, and in this way we can release our energy by harmonizing with the flow"(1). Sometimes the unnecessary effort we put into understanding one thing can also prevent us from understanding the whole. In fact, what ideologies and religion do today is no different.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, a twentieth century thinker, described a similar approach as "choiceless awareness". After all, he is trying to explain that the accumulations of one's past life affect choices, that choices cause us to waste our energy, that in this sense our choices are not free, but that instead of making choices, we need to develop a high awareness of what we experience. With this awareness, it will be possible to adapt to the flow of life. 

There is no doubt that adaptation is the key word in the evolution of living things. From this point of view, if humans were a creature that acted with more vital motives like other creatures in nature, they would not have the luxury of thinking about the veined structure of a leaf, passing out under a tree and making intellectual excuses for it. But we can think that the more vital contains a flow within itself. So what the thinkers are trying to express are not prescriptions for us to get away from the world and get lost in a spiritual world, but rather to be aware of the flow of the river. Therefore, no thought should be doctrinized. Yes, we cannot get out of the current, but we can be aware of the beauty around us, we can avoid hitting a rock. 

There are factors that make human life more complex than other living beings. There are many concepts that we are not usually aware of in our lives, but which shape the environment we live in holistically. For example, our survival as biological creatures does not depend on the state, democracy or justice. But these concepts give us such a vital framework that it is very difficult to live without them. These concepts can also be used to describe the obstacles in our river metaphor, the changes in the speed of the flow of water. Even if we are alone in our own canoe, traveling on the same river has rules. Rules also mean that we are not only responsible for our own behavior. Now we can move from the conceptual to the more concrete. When we talk about a legal structure, there must also be a higher authority that can establish these legal rules.

In discussions on the concept of law, the understanding of "natural law", which advocates that laws should be in accordance with what is natural, occupies an important place. At the basis of the concept of natural law is the concept of justice. In other words, this understanding advocates that laws should be in accordance with justice. Law is one of the most important steps in the institutionalization of a society. If the law that reveals the structure of a state is in accordance with justice, people will have full confidence in justice, and therefore in law and the state in general. This trust will ensure the legitimacy of the rulers who undertake the function of governing the state. In other words, if there is no justice, trust will disappear, and thus legitimacy will disappear. Of course, I am aware that I have simplified and connected countless issues, but I felt it necessary to make this simplification in order to explain the key role of justice here.

Justice, like legitimacy, is a concept that is not just about law. In other words, even if you enact laws in accordance with the law, those laws may produce injustice. Or even if the laws give you the right and authority to govern, your legitimacy may become questionable. I am sure that many examples from the daily life of society come to everyone's mind. But since I am trying to keep this article at a more conceptual level, I find it more appropriate not to deal with case studies. 

The concept of justice has a very fundamental position in texts on state administration. However, when it comes to the defense of justice, this task is perceived as if it were only the duty of the state as an institutional structure. However, in the history of philosophy, there are thinkers who argue that it is a right to resist (or even rebel against) a ruler who has lost his legitimacy. Expecting society to remain silent against a ruler who has lost his legitimacy by prohibiting this right through laws is, to put it mildly, a usurpation of the right to sovereignty. Just like in nature, it is unrealistic to expect absolute equality in the state. However, justice should be seen as a natural consequence of the flow of the universe. Naturally, no one who is unjust can take refuge behind the law. 

We can talk about two different forms of reaction to the injustice of those who have the duty to govern the state. The first form of behavior is an unquestionable stand against injustice. People who take this stance have a high level of awareness. The second form of behavior is to ignore or to side with those who govern the state. In societies where those who show the first behavior are effective, rulers are the servants of the society. Laws exist to ensure justice. In societies where the second behavior is predominant, the people are the servants and slaves of the rulers. In the second case, when the government knows that it will not receive any reaction when it acts unjustly, no matter what the laws say, it finds the power to do more injustice. It develops a symbiotic relationship with the parasitic mass that supports it. Laws exist to protect this sick symbiotic relationship. The rulers may think that this is how they maintain their legitimacy. But the river flows. The immense power of the water hides the rocks that can get in the way of the parasites paddling their canoes for their own benefit. And then, in an instant, it is all over. 

(1) https://livetobloom.com/wu-wei-ve-taoizm-ile-hayatimizi-nasil-iyilestirebiliriz/