i've been asking questions off and on the last few weeks about justice. nothing particularly incisive, just trying to get away from tired framings that left me wanting... justice has felt a fraught concept for me for some time and i want to elaborate why, and see what is salvageable in it.

who or what is the subject that can enact justice?
who or what is the object of justice?
what is the method of justice?
what is transformed by justice?

in our society, the Subject that enacts recognized and "legitimate" justice is The State. so what is the object of The State's justice? prison facilities are often called "correctional" facilities. what is being corrected? the actions of the individuals deemed guilty.

what is guilt? how is guilt determined? is the method of justice the determination of guilt? or does justice come when the guilty are punished, corrected, fixed?

here, i think is the first great mistaken thesis of justice in the modern world; the attribution of guilt to individuals, as if their soul is blighted by their actions. as if it's their soul that needs to be cleansed by the unmoving gears of the State's Justice System.

what is the object of justice? well, at minimum, the object of the State's justice is the soul of the individual found guilty.

so far, in looking at our own world as it is, we see Justice as The State mediating a transformation of guilty individuals' souls.

so what is the method of transformation? the correctional facility. the separation from outer-society, and the monitoring and regulation of individuals activities at all times. here, the hope of getting out is determined by those in charge. the violent and armed enforcers who are in coordination with one another to keep prisoners acting the way they want even when an enforcer isn't around.

the method of transformation: forced submission. violence til compliance.

the justice of our world aspires, at its best, to be transformative domination.

how can we ever hope to be free from the consequences of domination if our own justice starts from premises resembling these?

@exiliaex justice is just a word that's invoked when the story hasnt been made "right" it's literally just a product of expectations in social contexts and media. things arent how they ought to be and how they ought to be is based on prior expectations and those prior expectations were set by a deeply reactionary society so the call for justice is always reactionary or invites reactionaries in

@ZiaNitori i'm curious zia, do you think there is wrong in the world? and do you think wrong can be righted? (and to be clear, i don't mean any sort of objective and pure wrong)

@exiliaex no, i think things are the way they are. coming to know myself and what i want has just put me in conflict with society so i try to use evocative language to express that. seeing where things are likely going and seeing that it leads to the extermination of me or my future kids certainly doesnt feel good but "wrong" doesnt capture that because i just dont think like that. frameworks of wrong and right seem to be predicated on assumptions of agency and i genuinely feel like making choices is illusory. all i can do is hope the predictions i make drive me into a happier life. if when i was in a cage i thought about how wrong it was for me to be in a cage, i might still be in that cage, instead the only thought running through my head was how to escape it. people only think about justice when they feel someone else might hear them and sympathize (consciously or otherwise) and i'm not looking for that

@ZiaNitori in all honesty zia, i dont think i believe you believe any of that.