Today, I will share some things with you. Something I have not been very vocal about for the past few years. I will not expect any one of you to agree, but I will at least expect some of you to listen to what I have to say, because I will only be doing this once, and will never attempt another explanation.
In theory, justice presupposes love. From the Bible: The Old Testament was about justice (Do not do unto others what you do not want them to do unto you), the New Testament was about love (Love God above all else, love your neighbor as you love yourself). (Thank you 'Dixon Te' for pointing these things out to me.)
Justice says: "WHAT IS YOURS is YOURS, WHAT IS MINE is MINE". Love goes further by saying: "WHAT IS YOURS is YOURS, WHAT IS MINE is STILL YOURS". ( The obvious reason for conflicts between two "lovers" would then be: How would they share an apple, given that they would not agree to cutting it in half? (e.g. Half of MINE <> MINE, love is unconditional, love is not limited) )
But then, inequality is imminent at all levels (whether in the academe, in the State, or even the Church). So does the absolute existence of inequality imply the absolute nonexistence of justice? Relativizing, existence of inequality does imply existence of (some forms of) injustice. But as to my original question, I honestly do not know.
We cannot give what we do not have. How can we give love if we don't "have" love? Retrospectively, how can we give justice if we don't "have" justice?
To love one's self is the greatest, though (sometimes) hardest love of all. Likewise, to be fair to ourselves is something that we typically take for granted.
Subsequently, many things appear to be inconsistent with our human capacity to love:
(1) Do you like yourself? Is it really possible to like one's self, if we will be given the chance to look at (virtually) ALL our individual strengths and weaknesses, then determine their relative weights and bearing to our human personalities? (For those who will be tempted, will you still like yourself if you can't resist but look at your best friend or your worst fiend doing a similar SWOT analysis and then offering you to do a comparison?)
(2) Do you love yourself? Is it really possible to love one's self, given human error as something that's random but essentially "deterministic" (for some suitable N_0 and epsilon)? How many times can you accept something as a (sincerely) honest "mistake"? How many times can you be patient? How many times can you forgive? How many times can you forget? How many times can you live? How many times can you die?
(3) Is liking a prerequisite to loving? Should it be? Can you like everybody without loving anybody? Can you love everybody without liking anybody? Why do we prefer to befriend people from among the set of "previous" acquaintances, rather than from the universal set of "all" acquaintances (past, present, future)?
Any well-said and/or well-defined explanation/set of answers to a particular question from (1) and/or (2) will surely have at least one inconsistency with an answer to a question from (3).
"We should look at the effort, not at the mistakes..." -- Ms. Labay
"Less expectations, greater tolerance..." -- LaSallian precept
God knows how I miss high school life so much... :-( But then again, I still believe in the goodness of human nature.
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