Although he was once a participant in the hippie counterculture movement that rejected strict social standards of the 1950s, my dad maintained profound reverence for justice. Although hippies touted various laws, my dad instilled in me similar deference for justice.
Justice is defined as the maintenance or administration of what is just, especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments. This isn’t necessarily the same concept as law.
Law is defined as a binding custom or practice of a community: a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority. It’s understandable how the difference between law and justice may be confused.
Describing the distinction between law and justice, one source states that “while laws provide the structure and rules for social conduct, justice is concerned with the ethical and moral implications of those rules and their application.” Perhaps an example of this distinction is needed.
Suppose that a federal law prohibits individuals within the United States (U.S.) from committing the act of murder. The law states that any person within this nation shall remain subject to the tenets of this structural rule. In specific, 18 U.S. Code § 1111 states:
Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, escape, murder, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse, child abuse, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated as part of a pattern or practice of assault or torture against a child or children; or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed, is murder in the first degree. Any other murder is murder in the second degree.
Law expresses what shall and shall not be done. On the other hand, justice relates to matters concerning the moral (of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior) and ethical (conforming to accepted standards of conduct based in morality) matters of law.
The law states that people within the U.S. shall not commit murder. This law is presumably based on standards of conduct regarding principles of right and wrong. As such, the distinction between law and justice is that the former is a rule and the latter is the proper application of that rule.
Not unlike my dad, I participated in counterculture activities when befriending gangbangers in adolescence and various laws may or may not have been touted. All the same, my friends maintained deference for what was referred to as “street justice,” as some people may’ve been prosecuted accordingly.
Leaving behind that lifestyle after graduating high school, I joined the U.S. Marine Corps with a guaranteed contract for military police (MP). After various assignments as an MP and in regard to designation as a Marine Security Guard (MSG), I became disillusioned with military law.
Not only was the Uniform Code of Military Justice something that didn’t seem to actually serve the interest of justice, I learned of how U.S. politicians, diplomats, intelligence and law enforcement officials, and other authority figures abused the concept of justice on a global scale.
Apparently, my perspective wasn’t appreciated. Thus, after being kicked out of the Corps, I began attending college and earned a Bachelor of Science in Occupational Education with a focus on justice administration. Briefly, I contemplated continuing in the field of law enforcement.
However, enforcing laws which were subjectively and arguably applied oppressively wasn’t something in which I desired to participate any longer. Therefore, I made the decision to switch careers by ultimately becoming a psychotherapist. I don’t regret this move.
I’ve worked with the legal system in my capacity as a counselor, serving a justice diversion program. As well, I’ve utilized my rights as a U.S. citizen to pursue legal remedies from a court at a federal level. Likewise, I’ve had infrequent contact with local and state law enforcers.
Personally, the U.S. justice system is in a state of decay. For those who’ve paid close attention to the escalation of lawfare practices over the past four years, you’re also likely aware of the rot.
In any case, today, I listened to an episode of the Joe Rogan podcast that featured former Texas Governor Rick Perry and W. Bryan Hubbard, and focused on advocacy for ibogaine therapy. The episode served as an awareness campaign regarding justice for a perceivably unjust law concerning the substance.
Aside from the manifest content of the episode, I found a latent declaration from Hubbard to be particularly salient for my subjective worldview. Describing his educational and vocational path, Hubbard stated:
I wasn’t much good by way of math or science, but I could write and talk a little bit. And I was also taught that law was the way in which you could defend truth, justice, and the American way. So with dewy-eyed optimism, I went to undergrad and had a wonderful time.
And then I went to law school. And by the end of that first semester, with the acquisition of significant student loan debt, all those dewy-eyed notions had been crushed and destroyed before my very eyes.
At the end of the three-year legal education process, I came to know and to understand that law has nothing to do with any of those things that I was raised to believe. That law is often nothing other, often times, than the tyrant’s will – and always so when it is used to produce predetermined, manipulated outcomes in the hands of judges who drive results based on their own individual biases, predilections, and preferences.
As expressed with Hubbard’s buttery-smooth southern voice, I hope others within the audience didn’t miss his crucial point. In my opinion, the U.S. legal system he described isn’t concerned with justice as much as it relates to law and human fallibility.
Not only is the legal system imperfect, it’s arguably decomposed to the point whereby ancestral architects of laws-based order likely wouldn’t recognize its current decayed existence. I’m not mincing my words herein.
Perhaps you disagree with my assessment. Maybe you believe that although the U.S. legal and sociopolitical systems could use some work, there are far worse systems of law, justice, and governance to be found across the globe.
I’m glad you raise this point, imaginary reader. While on the topic of global justice, the distinction between law and justice is no clearer than what may be demonstrated with a cursory glance at Gaza. According to one source:
Since 7 October 2023, more than 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and over 1,700 Israeli and foreign nationals have been killed in attacks in or originated from Gaza, according to Israeli sources.
The U.S. funds Israel’s actions. We also fund Ukraine, as one source reports, “One million are now dead or injured in the Russia-Ukraine War.” Where is justice to be found as the blood-soaked hands of U.S. politicians rummage through the pockets of our nation’s citizens?
Go back and re-read the U.S. law regarding murder. How is it that revenue (money from taxation) is legally allowed to fund death on a worldwide scale, though members of the U.S. government aren’t justly held complicit on conspiratorial charges for such killing?
(Is it starting to make more sense to you about how I began this blogpost acknowledging that I’m the son of a hippie?) I suspect that when reading this post you may wonder why it is that a psychotherapist would be focused on matters of law and justice. Allow me to briefly explain.
The psychotherapeutic modality I practice is Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). Incorporated into this model of rational living are the virtues of Stoicism, of which justice is one.
Although I’m not self-disturbed by irrational beliefs about anything I’ve addressed herein, I maintain that it’s my personal responsibility to call out tyranny and oppression. Unlike the occupational positions of my past, as an MP and MSG, I no longer actively participate in an unjust system.
Therefore, from time to time, I post blog content such as this so that I may fulfill the Stoic virtue of justice while calling attention to the hypocritical and decomposing system of law currently infecting citizens of the U.S. and across the globe. This, I do without emotional dysregulation.
Perhaps you, too, observe laws being unjustly applied. If you disturb yourself with unproductive beliefs about such instances of injustice and would like to learn of more constructive measures you may take in the interest of Stoic virtues, REBT may be of some use to you.
If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
References:
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