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21 Lessons For 21 Century Chapter 16 (JUSTICE) Analysis: "Our Sense of Justice Might Be Out of Date"

Our concept of justice is outdated for the 21st century. It is difficult to define justice and apply rules uniformly given the complexity of global issues. While humans have ideals of morality, applying them directly without considering context is problematic. In today's interconnected world where actions in one place have far-reaching effects elsewhere, it is nearly impossible to clearly distinguish right from wrong or assess guilt and innocence. Finding solutions will require moving beyond simplistic narratives and acknowledging the complexity of global challenges.

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Shahzad Mazhar
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240 views

21 Lessons For 21 Century Chapter 16 (JUSTICE) Analysis: "Our Sense of Justice Might Be Out of Date"

Our concept of justice is outdated for the 21st century. It is difficult to define justice and apply rules uniformly given the complexity of global issues. While humans have ideals of morality, applying them directly without considering context is problematic. In today's interconnected world where actions in one place have far-reaching effects elsewhere, it is nearly impossible to clearly distinguish right from wrong or assess guilt and innocence. Finding solutions will require moving beyond simplistic narratives and acknowledging the complexity of global challenges.

Uploaded by

Shahzad Mazhar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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21 lessons for 21st century

Chapter 16 (JUSTICE) analysis

"Our sense of justice might be out of date"

 It could be quite difficult to define what justice is


 You cannot apply one rule to all situations
The way we perceive justice and what defines justice is deeply enshrined in our
evolutionary processes. It has affected our decisions in ethical and social situations.
Way back, the ethical issues affected a relatively small number of people and
whatever decisions were made did not usually affect the global space. It is that
same perception of justice we have brought into the 21st century and it definitely
does not accommodate our current realities. It is like using a rubber band to put
foam in place, it will definitely snap.

We have ideals and values as humans that we are supposed to respect, but putting
these things into certain contexts is the problem. It is not just direct application of
these rules and values but knowing when and how to implement it. Concepts in the
global world are so connected and inter-dependent that it is difficult to see where
one stops and the other begins.

Our ignorance sometimes even makes it more difficult to judge or to know what is
right and what is wrong. When we cannot even distinguish what we are doing
exactly because of the jumbled network the global order is, how can we know if
we are innocent or guilty? Nothing on the global scale or in this present century is
ever that simple.

We can try to justify ourselves by upholding the concept of morality of intentions.


Of course, you did not mean to but nevertheless, your actions have led to some
negative outcomes. We cannot wriggle our way out of it because we have not made
an effort to find out. But how do we even attempt to know?

The fact remains that because of the way our current realities are, nothing is ever
that simple. We only see the world through our lens and our filter of bias so it is
difficult to set a yardstick. It will only get worse as the reality of environmental
challenge and tech disruption draws nearer every day.
As humans however, we always find coping strategies and this issue is not an
exception. A way is to downplay the issue and reduce the size to what our
perceptions can handle. Another way is to give the story a human face because it is
an appeal to their emotions as opposed to presenting a research paper full of
statistics.

Also, people find someone or an organization to blame for the misery going around
the world. All these usually do not address the matter realistically. The last strategy
is to come up with an ideal or mantra that will supposedly solve our problems.
Usually, this does not often solve the problems either. 

What is the solution? Is it strong belief in the liberal story that upholds
individualism? Or is it the promotion of collective thinking? It does not look like
we have any answers and all our options are failing. Do we admit that we are
beyond redemption?

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