Everybody wishes there was more justice in the world. Nobody wants to go to bed hungry or afraid or uncertain of his or her circumstances in the morning. Nobody likes to see widespread suffering plastered over the evening news or face the overwhelming helplessness that will probably flood in.
But if we don’t like seeing those things, what would we rather witness? Happy families with four solid walls and food on the table, I’m sure. Little kids at playgrounds without parents hovering around, fearing the worst about pedophiles creeping in the shadows. Is “Justice” really so easy to see and define?
More often then we realize, our ideas of “Justice” are little more than culturally constructed ideals which we have fallen into. We cannot fight for justice in the global social structure without first agreeing what is just and what is not just at all. Our ideas of justice are intricately linked with our backgrounds, our religions, our socioeconomic status, and our political orientations. Because all of these things differ so much from one person to the next and from one society to the next, it is nearly impossible to agree on a set of circumstances which can be called “Justice.”
Creating a world without State-sponsored war is one thing. Getting nearly seven billion people to agree on the same basic tenants of human rights is an entirely different battle. Is the fight for structural justice really just another example of the West pushing our ideals onto people we consider to be “wrong” or “backwards?” We have walked down that path before, and it lead to the murder of millions of Native Americans. Is the fight for global justice the next wave of Ideological Imperialism?
All of this is not to say that global, social “justice” is a loosing battle and not worth fighting for. But it is not one that should be attempted without first considering the worldwide social and cultural implications.