Two wrongs don’t make a right.
So then how many does it take?
Justice can be a tricky thing. Balancing the rights and privileges of one person against those of another usually means something has to give and somebody, or both, give up their rights.
A teenager likes to play loud music in his car—freedom—but the neighbors need to sleep when it’s past midnight, so a city ordinance limits the teen’s freedom.
A homeowner wants to put up a satellite dish but the homeowners’ association, established to protect property values by regulating the appearance of the neighborhood, limits where it can be placed. The homeowner can’t get reception on the dish in the place he’s allowed to put it. The homeowner gives up the freedom to have satellite television to live in the neighborhood.
Most political debates have to do with justice. The children of middle class families are covered by their parents’ health insurance. The children of poor families aren’t. Should those children be at greater risk with their health because of their parents’ financial condition? Should the poor parents be obligated to pay something towards their care? Is society obligated to provide what the parents can’t or won’t? What is just?
Government is expensive so it requires a lot of taxes and fees to pay for it. An average income family of four earns a little over forty thousand dollars per year. If they had to pay just ten percent as taxes, that would be four thousand dollars per year, or a little over three hundred per month. Some people think that’s unfair since paying the basic bills takes most of the family’s income, so they have shifted taxes to higher-earning families. Instead of a family paying ten thousand dollars in taxes when they earn one hundred thousand dollars, they pay maybe twenty thousand dollars. The average family pays maybe fifteen hundred dollars. “They earn more so they can afford it,” is one view of justice. “Everyone benefits so everyone should pay his fair share,” is another view.
One of the biggest hot-button issues in politics right now is immigration reform. It is contentious because of the different views of justice. For years people have entered the country without permission or have stayed past their visas. We now have millions living here in violation of the law. Employers wanted cheaper labor and sellers wanted more consumers, so enforcement was lax. The “two wrongs make a right” view said that if immigration rules were too strict, a reasonable fix was ignoring the rules.
The illogic continues. Now people advocate for granting legal status to people here illegally as a solution—kind of an “Alice in Wonderland” worldview. Too many people here illegally? Let’s fix it! Declare them legal. Some even advocate for giving a path to citizenship to those here illegally, while those who are following the rules wait for years. Will all those wrongs make a right? No, they will just make a mess.
But throwing out immigrants here illegally will disrupt lives and tear apart families. The majority living here and working here peacefully are contributing to society, probably at least as much as the resources they are using up. Is it just to evict them? No, but it’s not just to ignore them or give them a pass. A more reasonable and just approach would be to take the time to find them and begin to keep track of them, giving them a way to stay and work for a prolonged period of time. It may even be just to give them the opportunity to get in line waiting for citizenship, as long as it’s at the back of the line.
“They’re here so they get to be citizens” is simplistic and ignores too much information. “They’re here illegally so they should be punished and thrown out” is also simplistic. The answers to political dilemmas aren’t easy because justice is demanding.
They come from countries with less political freedom, so there is little justice.
They come from countries with limited economic opportunity, mostly at the mercy of wealthy and powerful people, so there is little justice.
They come from countries with police and courts that are harsh, corrupt, and biased, so there is little justice.
But the countries of the world do not want us to impose our values and our way of life on them, so we can only offer their citizens justice once they are inside our borders.
So, no, the answer is not easy at all.
Justice is fairness, equality, and a passion for righteousness. Justice demands that rules be reasonable and have a real purpose, and that arbitrary rules be dismissed. It also demands that all reasonable rules be enforced. Justice calls me to defend the vulnerable and the overlooked. It calls me to stand up to the oppressor, the tyrant, or the usurper. It calls me to have courage and confront the lawbreaker when he is causing harm, and to speak up even at the risk of offending other people.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Friday, May 4, 2007
Honesty
When I was pretty young, probably around 4 or 5, we lived in a neighborhood full of young families on the first rung of the middle class ladder. Most of my friends were typical kids, decent most of the time, jerks when stressed out, but able to move back from jerk to decent if a mom showed up. Jerk smoldered a little but decent prevailed, so it was pretty clear that decent was genuine and jerk was reactive.
There were, of course, a couple of exceptions. I think they lived on the next block over, where our babysitter lived. Maybe I just like to think it. She was an older teenager. She taught us that “Strawberry Fields” by the Beatles would tell you, “I buried Paul,” if you played it backwards. It freaked me out hearing that! She also told us Coke would eat up your stomach and tried to demonstrate with a piece of bacon. Nothing happened. She introduced us to stories of séances and ghosts, and I swear she could have written for “The Twilight Zone.”
A couple of kids that had to come from the same block would play on our street once in a while. They were older, almost teens. They taught us to go up to someone and say, “Your epidermis is showing!” It was a great practical joke because the person would look confused, then worried, and then a little freaked out. When you explained it you got a great laugh.
But these older kids were jerks. Not reactive jerks—genuinely jerks. They pulled the trick on a little girl they knew and brought with them across the block border. I think she was a sister or a cousin. They got that cocky look on their faces and said “Watch this.” Then they called her over and told her, “Your epidermis is showing,” and laughed that jerky whole body laugh that said they thought they were the coolest things around.
She started to cry. Deeply fearful cries. I was mortified! I tried to explain to her it was only her skin, but she looked wounded and withdrawn and wouldn’t stop crying. Someone appeared and took her home.
Another time the jerks pulled the “Watch this” routine and told the little girl they were going to call the police on her for something little, like calling somebody a rude name. She argued briefly, but they insisted they would do it, the police would come, and they would take her off to jail. She crumbled that time, too, and the “someone” who showed up to take the girl home demanded the jerks go with her, too.
Looking back I see how cruelty hurts. Cruelty doesn’t care about truth or facts. It uses whichever will cause damage. They hurt her with an outrageous lie, but they also hurt her with the truth.
Truth is a very powerful thing. In counseling and in coaching, it is a tool and a goal. Being forthright, clear, and direct are practices that help clients move forward. The problem is, even people who want to learn about themselves and move forward can be devastated by the truth, so it has to be balanced by empathy and respect and acknowledgements of the client’s strength and abilities.
And the hardest lesson of all about honesty: you can be empathetic, you can acknowledge strengths and abilities, you can speak gently and slowly and give information in little pieces, and it can still devastate someone. People who don’t want to know themselves, who are broken or fearful and need to build a lie and climb inside it to feel safe, can despise honesty. It is poison to them because it will bring down the world they fabricated to feel safe, competent, worthwhile, likeable, etc.
That hostility towards truth can be insurmountable in a professional counseling or coaching relationship. In personal relationships it’s impossible to have anything but a limited and shallow interaction with such a person, and hardly worth the effort.
Honesty is a bold commitment to truth. It does not waiver when challenged because it flows from the heart. Honesty does not hurt for the sake of hurting, but it does not hide to protect others. People can be hurt and disrupted when they see themselves and their behavior in the light of honesty, so it is a powerful tool that must be respected. Honesty means speaking the truth, but doing so in love and with compassion to help another person receive truth. Only through honesty can a person be truly known by others, and only through honesty can people experience genuine relationships with each other.
There were, of course, a couple of exceptions. I think they lived on the next block over, where our babysitter lived. Maybe I just like to think it. She was an older teenager. She taught us that “Strawberry Fields” by the Beatles would tell you, “I buried Paul,” if you played it backwards. It freaked me out hearing that! She also told us Coke would eat up your stomach and tried to demonstrate with a piece of bacon. Nothing happened. She introduced us to stories of séances and ghosts, and I swear she could have written for “The Twilight Zone.”
A couple of kids that had to come from the same block would play on our street once in a while. They were older, almost teens. They taught us to go up to someone and say, “Your epidermis is showing!” It was a great practical joke because the person would look confused, then worried, and then a little freaked out. When you explained it you got a great laugh.
But these older kids were jerks. Not reactive jerks—genuinely jerks. They pulled the trick on a little girl they knew and brought with them across the block border. I think she was a sister or a cousin. They got that cocky look on their faces and said “Watch this.” Then they called her over and told her, “Your epidermis is showing,” and laughed that jerky whole body laugh that said they thought they were the coolest things around.
She started to cry. Deeply fearful cries. I was mortified! I tried to explain to her it was only her skin, but she looked wounded and withdrawn and wouldn’t stop crying. Someone appeared and took her home.
Another time the jerks pulled the “Watch this” routine and told the little girl they were going to call the police on her for something little, like calling somebody a rude name. She argued briefly, but they insisted they would do it, the police would come, and they would take her off to jail. She crumbled that time, too, and the “someone” who showed up to take the girl home demanded the jerks go with her, too.
Looking back I see how cruelty hurts. Cruelty doesn’t care about truth or facts. It uses whichever will cause damage. They hurt her with an outrageous lie, but they also hurt her with the truth.
Truth is a very powerful thing. In counseling and in coaching, it is a tool and a goal. Being forthright, clear, and direct are practices that help clients move forward. The problem is, even people who want to learn about themselves and move forward can be devastated by the truth, so it has to be balanced by empathy and respect and acknowledgements of the client’s strength and abilities.
And the hardest lesson of all about honesty: you can be empathetic, you can acknowledge strengths and abilities, you can speak gently and slowly and give information in little pieces, and it can still devastate someone. People who don’t want to know themselves, who are broken or fearful and need to build a lie and climb inside it to feel safe, can despise honesty. It is poison to them because it will bring down the world they fabricated to feel safe, competent, worthwhile, likeable, etc.
That hostility towards truth can be insurmountable in a professional counseling or coaching relationship. In personal relationships it’s impossible to have anything but a limited and shallow interaction with such a person, and hardly worth the effort.
Honesty is a bold commitment to truth. It does not waiver when challenged because it flows from the heart. Honesty does not hurt for the sake of hurting, but it does not hide to protect others. People can be hurt and disrupted when they see themselves and their behavior in the light of honesty, so it is a powerful tool that must be respected. Honesty means speaking the truth, but doing so in love and with compassion to help another person receive truth. Only through honesty can a person be truly known by others, and only through honesty can people experience genuine relationships with each other.
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