When the question is asked 'Can we live in a just world?' In effect it is asking us a variety of things. 'Can there be justice for all?' and 'Can there be equality for all people?'. The answer to this question is no.
Unfortunately we live in a world where justice has never really transpired. The first justice that I would like to speak about is personal justice.
Blessed are those reared in a household innocence of the deadly sin of envy. Their lives will be tormented by a grinding resentment that they are not beautiful, or famous, or favored with gifts of fortune. They will not demand as a natural right or an entitlement of personal equality with everybody under the sun; nor maintain that their opinions are as good as anybody else's. They will not covet a neighbors' goods. And thus they may come to know peace of soul.
Detail of The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio...
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaking to a c...
JusticeThe injustice of equality 10/15/93
The point of this statement is not to say that envy makes equality. When we wish for 'personal equality' with people, we wish to deny what we really are and allow for superficialness. We become so obsessed with our possessions that we forget who we are and the beauty of our differences.
Aristole said that 'it is unjust to treat unequal things equally'. All people are different, that is exactly what makes us human, so when we treat people entirely the same, we deny their identity. For example that does not mean that I should not treat all people with respect, but I feel that even that may differ depending on who you are and how I am related to you. For instance, I will not give a stranger the same amount of respect that I might give my mother or father. I feel...