Searching for Justice in a Potential Politician
Seeking justice in human interactions has been a mostly unrequited yearning for all of humanity since way before our ancestors moved out of the caves. Injustice pervades every aspect of our society at various levels and even seems to be becoming more acute and pervasive today. We can’t fix that.
But there is a lot we can do as citizens and voters to bring a bit more justice into our current day world. One of them is to learn to look carefully at the character of our top political leaders before we elect them. Justice is one of the most basic and oldest components of the character of top leaders.
Philosophers, theologians, judges, ethicists, and others have divided justice into several categories—distributive, subsidiary, retributive, restorative, and so forth. But here we are dedicated to focusing on justice as a virtue, a personal characteristic that exists in a given person, or not. Justice is a sense of fairness about what is due to each person in a conflict. It can only rarely be identified perfectly or certainly in that person. But as a personal characteristic, it is partially visible and so can be recognized usefully, convincingly, and tentatively. It can thus be discussed by observers as to its vibrancy in a given person preparing to be allowed to contribute to political decisions for leading millions of people.
Societies work best when their government system is managed by people who possess compassion, tolerance, fortitude, and a deep sense of fairness inside them. The latter is the virtue of justice, a sensation of discomfort, anger, sadness, or nagging hurt when experiencing someone being mistreated. It is an emotional experience that must often be muted because examples of injustice are so ubiquitous that one cannot respond to all of them. We citizens get used to injustice as familiar and only respond or react interactionally or physically at the most gross events of bare injustice in our presence and our society.
How can we identify a solid virtue of justice in a political candidate, so that we can say, “As near as I can tell, this is a just person!?”
It is crucial that we do this, even though it will be unpopular. Unless a candidate functions with a basic sense of fairness, they will eventually do more harm to society than good. And likely cause disaster as well, like many dictators of countries in the past few decades have done. We voters carry a momentous decisional power to look closely at the character of every person we choose to lead in a top government position.
As we proceed through these various faces of character it will become quite clear which virtues are essential for top leaders and why.
For the characteristic of justice, a solid sense of fairness, we can use three perspectives to sort out this virtue: First, what are some observable signs of a lack of basic fairness? Then, what are some clear indicators of justice that tend to confirm that this is a fundamentally just person? And finally, what are some ways to interpersonally engage and even confront candidates about their sense of justice, in open forums and especially in small group vetting situations that have yet to be developed?
It takes a stance of careful observation, objective perception, perhaps some discussion with what others see in that candidate, and sometimes some crisp confrontation of a candidate when possible.
Below are some observable indicators of injustice in a would-be politician, a personality with a serious inability to feel bad when observing sharp and painful injustice being done to someone, or oneself.
– Disparagement – We’re all imperfect, in big ways that don’t necessarily show all the time. Starkly overemphasizing another person’s limitations, awfulizing and defects is not fair. It is a matter of shedding light on another’s dark side to appear better oneself. It probably betrays an adolescent feature not yet outgrown.
– Self-serving exploitation – When you see or hear excessive self-reference in conversation, bloviation in self-estimation, profiting financially with misrepresented business practices, and using others like unfeeling objects, justice is being ignored.
– Implied superiority – Finding it difficult or even impossible to validate other people, except in intentional flattering manipulation. A realization of the approximate equal value of people as valiantly trying to be kind and fair remains a basic component of justice, and humility.
– Impulsive judgment – Dismissive voice tones and patterned put-downs of perceived inferiors. Unjust habits often take some personal reflection to recognize in oneself if they have become habitual. They convey a lack of patience with others that leaves little or no room for conveyed understanding and appreciation of them.
– Patterned excuses and blame of others – Repetitive phrases that rationalize one’s behavior and reflexive blame of others to keep from looking bad, betray lack of the clear thinking, calm tolerance, and humility it takes to collaborate.
You may say that some of these behaviors pervade the very nature of political campaigns. That seems to be the level of interaction to which our political atmosphere has descended. But such ingrained behaviors can be confronted with courage, sensitivity, pointed questions, direct feedback, and eventually vetting in small group encounters and prescriptive confrontation. This will be abundantly exemplified in subsequent posts.
For a more positive approach to evaluating a sense of fairness, here are some indicators of justice as a personal characteristic. We can recognize these positive sensations inside us as we converse with or observe candidates when talking about themselves.:
– Inclusive attitudes – You feel a palpable inviting into with-ness from a person, not necessarily friendship which requires time and effort. But there is an inclusiveness in how they talk about people that feels authentic and matters, especially in top level collaboration.
– Respectful description – You notice that when they describe people there are positive words used, and a softness of tone, even when there is need for incisive critique.
– Extensive knowledge and language of more than one ethnic and national culture. Without a broadening and deepening experience of at least one culture different from one’s own, bias is too easy to implement, consciously or unconsciously, in efforts to significantly collaborate.
– A track record of fair judgments – If this is a public figure you see a history of treating people to give all involved what they deserve, even in conflict.
– Ability to sound authentic when one describes fair judgments they have made previously. This person can talk about their justice efforts and accomplishments without excessive self-centeredness and suspicious, subtle image management.
These are indicators. But when citizens need a bit more substance to their assessment of character, an intricate kind of confrontation may be in order. Directly confronting a candidate’s lack of basic fairness can be perilous to that candidate’s career, and yours. But at times it may be necessary to free us citizens from patently unjust leaders. The confrontation can begin in public forums by media persons and citizens who are savvy about the elements of character and courageous enough to confront.
Eventually, the character of candidates will best be sorted out in small process groups of citizens and their savvy group leaders to vet candidates for entry onto state ballots for national political positions.
Until then, however, as a start, confronting a candidate about the virtue of justice could be started by a bold question in what we now call a debate venue. Any of the following questions would do for a beginning.
“Mr. Cando, “How would you describe the legitimate positions of both sides of the problem with abortion in our society?”
“Ms. Conda, do you see a justice issue in the worsening situation of unsheltered wanderers in many of our major cities?”
“What do you see as your responsibility to increasing justice by improving wage fairness between women and men, confronting the well-documented systemic unfairness in the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer in the past thirty years?”
“Will you give an example of how you have vigorously pursued justice for any group of citizens, in your previous public roles?”
Beginning a public conversation with this twist of a candidate talking about their character would be a sea change and begin teaching us voters how to unearth defects of character that prevent politicians’ dedication to the people they represent. It would unearth hidden holes in the character of some candidates as not ready to lead at top levels. How revealing that would be, and how instructive on how to continue such conversations once started.
