Thursday, March 28, 2013
Just World Theory and Confucius
So one thing that interested me in discussion today was the different ideas of "justice" and how best to deal with crime. In the ideal Confucian society, crime would not be something that needs to be dealt with, as everyone would be living life in a way that creates harmony. Which probably makes the ideal Confucian society the only time when Just World Theory (good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people) is actually true. However, in the non-theoretical world, Just World Theory breaks down quickly: in the words of Gandalf the Grey "Many that live deserve death. Some who die deserve life." (Fellowship of the Ring). Because of this, we have many different ideas about how to take care of the problem crime presents, and as a culture we seem to be, for better or worse (I vote worse) away from a Confucian way of dealing with crime, and towards a system that seems on its way to becoming draconian is some ways. I guess my question would be how would we start changing things in order to bring about a more Confucian system of dealing with crime?
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I think a good first step would be to somehow inform the masses that there is a better way of doing things. I would theorize that most people remain complacent with the way things are because they might not realize that there is any other way, and since the public does not seem to care, there is not pressure on the powers that be to change anything. If pressure from the public were to outweigh the pressure from the few who profit from keeping things the same, only then could we make progress.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with this. A lot of our leaders tend to stand by the motto "Don't fix what's not broken". However, I think the hardest part, aside from informing the masses, is convincing them that any solution will be worth the time and money to change and implement a new system. The economy is rough, and people want their hard-earned money to go towards something that will benefit them personally as well as society as a whole.
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