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Articles
Balance
of Justice
by Adrian Rogers
Gawler, South Australia 9/26/2001
Justice is often pictured as a woman holding scales in one
hand and a sword in the other. For justice is a matter of
discerning truth—the scales—and acting without fear
or favor—the sword. The terrorist atrocity perpetrated
against America in particular, and against humanity in general,
reminds us that for most of the twentieth century we failed
to get the balance of justice right. But as America prepares
for a long struggle, and most of the world including my own
country prepares to support her, perhaps it might be appropriate
to ask ourselves in what way we failed to get the balance
right. Could it have resulted from a failure to balance mercy
and judgment, gentleness and punishment, assuming that you
could have one without the other?
 In
the Jewish Qabalistic Mystery Tradition, the "way"
is pictured as the Tree of Life, two of whose sephera (or
"spheres") are "Chesed" or Mercy, and
"Geburah" or Justice (Strength). The spheres are
on opposite sides of the tree, balancing each other. We learn
from this that if we lean towards mercy at the expense of
judgment, that is, failing to mete out to evildoers just punishment
for their deeds, then mercy becomes weakness and evil flourishes.
On the other hand, if we simply replace mercy with the sword,
justice becomes confused with mere force. It is a difficult
balance to strike and will become more so in the months and
years ahead as America and her allies try to strike the guilty
without harming the innocent.
Yet
this we surely must achieve for the sake of humanity. Otherwise,
what has happened in America today will happen elsewhere tomorrow.
However, in order to achieve this balance in relation to other
cultures, perhaps we should begin by asking ourselves if we
managed it correctly in our everyday affairs, for if it is
not right at home how can we expect it to be so on the world
stage? Perhaps part of the problem lies in a tendency in the
Western World to confuse the natures of mercy and justice.
We have caring professions, whose tasks are concerned with
serving society, by caring for its spiritual and material
welfare, supported by church and charitable groups. All of
these I would see as being attached to the branch of mercy
on the tree.
On
the other hand we have police, judicial systems, and others
attached to the branch of justice. If justice is to be true
to its function then this category must include the armed
forces. The warrior has been with us throughout history to
enforce order and protect the weak, and it has been painfully
demonstrated yet again that we cannot do without the warrior
caste. Perhaps we have gone wrong at times in expecting our
highest law courts to cross over to the branch of mercy by
becoming agents of social change, and perhaps we have made
the same mistake with our police, assuming that they could
double as social workers. Certainly one person may perform
two difficult and contradictory tasks, but not necessarily
both at once. So let the judiciary administer the law as it
is, not as they might think it should be, and let the police
enforce it. And let caring professions care for the needs
of society, influencing legislators where necessary to amend
laws in favor of balance. You can be both a policeman and
a social worker, but not both at once.
Perhaps this confusion is at the root of our failure to respond
effectively to terrorism in the twentieth century. Could it
have led us to assume that we could deal with it by merely
defending ourselves against its effects? If so, then that
last illusion has surely now been stripped away.
I
recently read two articles by an expert in Japanese sword
techniques who spent a lifetime studying the martial arts
of the East. He points out that in their pure, original forms
these arts had nothing to do with self-defense. They were
the way of the warrior, and the way of the warrior is one
of attack based on strategy. For them the whole concept of
self-defense is an illusion. "If you think you can defend
yourself this merely proves that you have not yet met an opponent
strong enough, mad enough, or skilled enough to defeat youŸbut
sooner or later you will." This is how they would express
it, seeing the whole idea of self-defense as a dangerous delusion.
If
this conclusion is to any degree valid, then it follows that
victory in the conflict will go to whomever sums up the situation,
i.e., whomever perceives the truth most clearly. And that
is what we must do in the first great task of the twenty first
century: perceive terrorism for what it is then strike it
precisely and with sufficient force, confident of victory
because we have stripped ourselves of illusions. The late
Winston Churchill suggested that we should be magnanimous
in victory, which is fine, but let us first win the victory,
or we'll have nothing to be magnanimous about.
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