Commentary
Prioritizing the fight for “social justice” or any other version of “justice” is a guarantee of unending warfare. Obsession with “justice” focuses on the past, on allegedly unjust deeds suffered by the party deeming itself a victim. That the past is long, and includes an almost endless number of actions that someone might claim victimized them, doesn’t lead justice advocates to hesitate.
As Bruce Abramson puts it, “Justice cannot prevail until every grievance has been addressed, adjudicated, and repaired. Justice looks backward to fix the past.”
A survey of the Middle East and Mediterranean, and of tribal peoples everywhere, the subjects of my research as a cultural anthropologist, illustrates the ongoing cost of justice fanaticism. Peace is considered secondary to justice; when justice requires violence, it trumps peace….