An eye for an eye. Turn the other cheek. There are a lot of biblical expressions in English on justice and forgiveness that I learned without being a Christian.
I was raised Muslim, and in Islam you don't get a free pass because someone died for your sins and you believe in him. Unless God forgives you, you can only enter heaven once you've paid off your debts and balance has been restored. This probably shaped my own values. Of course Islam preaches forgiveness as well, but I struggled to absorb that.
More recently I was introduced to the concept of mettā, through my meditation/mindfulness course, which roughly translates to loving-kindness. In mettā meditation, you direct your attention to wishing someone happiness (among other things).
There's a strong connection to forgiveness, and the idea that forgiving is as much a kindness towards yourself, if not more, as it is towards others. This concept was like oil to water for me.
I've written before about how I can get downright obsessive about what I perceive as injustice. I don't watch world news because it riles me up too much and there's usually not much I can do about it anyway. Recently, at the autism conference Autscape, I went to a talk (and later a discussion) titled "But that's not right! Autistic sense of justice".
I had a vague idea that an amplified sense of justice is an autistic trait, though this talk added a bit more clarity to that. I really liked that the speaker built a taxonomy of types of "not right", what to do about them, and how to do that effectively. The materials are on this page[1].
She also connected it to a theme I grapple with very often: boundary setting. When you become the person who is really good at battling and solving these sorts of problems, others lean on you a lot to do it on their behalf. So she has a rule that she does not help people outside her family with these battles.
The discussion later in the day effectively became a session where people asked the speaker how to appeal to the government for benefits, as she knew a lot about that. I noticed my own sense of justice flare up here, partly because the boundary she'd just described was being violated in real time, and partly because of what felt to me like a sense of entitlement from those asking, both towards her help and towards public money[2].
I digress! This post is about justice and forgiveness. People think that forgiveness is a way to not let an injustice weigh down on you and "live in your head rent-free" as it were. I don't think that's the case. I think letting go and forgiving are two very different things.
The literal dictionary definition is "to waive any negative feeling towards or desire for punishment or retribution against". I think people put a lot more emphasis on the first half, while I focus a lot more on the second half. You can see how it's ambiguous!
People also conflate justice with revenge. Revenge, or any sort of retribution, is just one facet (more on that later). So really what people are saying is "can I let go and not seek revenge?"
Think of someone you forgave in the past. The key question here is if you got the opportunity to get justice right now, would you take it? If the answer is yes, then you haven't actually forgiven them, even though you might have let go. To forgive is to feel like you're square. Justice goes beyond your feelings into what is best for society.
I cannot imagine a scenario where I was wronged where I would ever feel like the matter is settled, unless it was actually settled. This doesn't mean I can't let go -- if there's literally nothing I can do about it, I can cope, but it will always be in the ledger!
I think that people who interpret forgiveness to mean letting go are only semantically half-right. We have different definitions of the word. This is also why I just really don't understand mettā and don't think I ever will. If the later stages of mettā are about sending good vibes to those who have wronged you, why do that? If I've already let go, I have no reason to dwell on it. If I haven't, then for me the best way to let go is not to dwell on it!
Justice is sweet. Justice brings balance. I will pursue justice even if I still lose by winning (e.g. in effort, time, cost, stress). I will pay a lawyer £1,000 to recover £100. But I'm not just vindictive! Justice serves four important purposes. These are sometimes listed as the purposes of punishment or prison.
To take away someone's freedom or otherwise force them to do something they don't want to is indeed an exercise of power. BUT it is one that corrects an existing imbalance.
I believe that everyone has the right to a certain level of freedom, but they do not have the right to take that freedom away from someone else. If they do, they've forfeited their own right. Balance must be restored.
There are certain things that they also don't have a right to by default. For example, nobody is entitled to live within a certain community as a matter of course. The community can exile or shun them and that is merely a removal of privileges rather than an impingement on inalienable rights.
The issue, as always, is that different people have different perceptions of what is fair and what isn't, and we can only do our best to try and be fair, under incomplete information. It's also hard to measure harm, and equate that to something like jail time; it's all so subjective.
I wanted to write something that ties together justice, mettā, autism, and my own values. Your own ledger is subjective and possibly cannot be perfectly squared.
A wrong creates two debts, a bit like double-entry accounting. One is owed to the victim (restitution, retribution), and the other is owed to society (deterrence, incapacitation). Don't forget about society!
It's ok to seek justice at any cost, but pick your battles (your own; see toxic charity). Justice is a virtue, and forgiveness in the forgoing-justice sense of the word is a vice.