Inclusion, Justice and Scapegoating: Balancing out Verdicts
Table of Contents
I will begin this writing with an expression: ‘A cockroach
cannot be innocent in the gatherings of fowls.’ Is this a ‘matter of fact’ or a
‘matter of statement?’ From experience, cockroaches are insects while fowls are
birds and as such, the latter appear as predators of the former. Fowls can have
cockroaches as food. The cockroaches before fowls are convicted, condemned, and
eaten as food. That’s the way nature has planned it. If the fowls can talk,
they will argue that it is justifiable to feed on cockroaches. But for
cockroaches, it is not fair that they are condemned as food for fowls. No
matter what they do, their innocence always turns out with a guilty verdict.
For cockroaches, there is no justice.
The expression above can also be a ‘matter of statement’
since it is an empirical declaration. You can either agree or disagree with it.
Your disagreement does not make the expression disappear or meaningless. Hence,
the meaning of the expression is a posteriori deducible.
Fowls and Cockroaches Analogy
When I consider the terms ‘inclusion, justice, and
scapegoating,’ I tend to liken them to how the cockroaches have been inured to
the cruelty of fowls. A cockroach amid fowls is never innocent; the verdict is
always guilty as charged. The question I ask is: Is there a way to balance out
the domination of the fowls and the subservience of cockroaches?
The term ‘cockroach’ has been used to represent anything
considered as low, below, unimportant, expendable, and unpleasant, and the term
‘fowl’ to represent anything high, above, important, indispensable, and
pleasant.
Somewhere, I argued that inclusion is
“socially an adaptation or adjustment that relies heavily on acceptability.”
With some definitions of inclusion based on the Merriam-Webster dictionary, I
reiterate that inclusion is:
‘The act of including or the state of being included.’ And we
understand ‘to include’ as ‘to take in as a part of a whole or group’, an
emphasis that the whole is not complete without the parts. It considers ‘to
include’ as ‘to contain between or within.’ It could be viewed as ‘to embrace’
(to bring together different things within a whole), ‘to involve’ (suggests
including something by the nature of the whole, which could arise from its
natural or inevitable consequence).
Arguably, cockroaches are never accepted by the fowls,
perhaps, it could be because they have not adapted or adjusted to the
lifestyles of fowls or done away with their obnoxious and nocturnal habits. As
a result, they are not always contained within or between the fowls. To make
cockroaches drop their habits and way of living is like making them cease to
exist. Obnoxiousness and nocturnality are the essences of being a cockroach.
For them to drop their essence is the same as remaining as food for the fowls.
There are some elements of justice here. The fowls consider cockroaches
as substantially nutritious. They feed on them because nature provides them.
They depend on them for nourishment. Deep down, the fowls are not doing
anything wrong. That is the way it has been and will continue to be.
Thrasymachus on Justice
At this point, I will reference Thrasymachus’ definitions of
justice to illustrate the analogy of cockroaches and fowls. In the First Book
of Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus was in an intense dialogue with Socrates on
the meaning of justice. Socrates argued that justice is essentially a useful
and fruitful feature of an ideal society. To answer Socrates and to buttress
his arguments, Thrasymachus opined three distinctive meanings of justice:
Justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.
It is just to obey the rulers.
Justice is the good of another … and harmful to the one who
obeys and serves.
Many social theorists and philosophers have argued that
Thrasymachus's definitions of justice lack some moral probity. The definitions
have not ceased to ring through many miscarriages of justice, delayed and
denied justice.
Scapegoating of Justice
In a simple explanation, scapegoating of justice is when
someone or some people take the blame for a crime they did not commit. This is common
when someone wants to make their authority felt by others. Many times, someone
or some people have been singled out for unmerited blame and unlawful
imprisonment just because it was an election year and the mayor/governor wanted
to make a statement about their re-election. Scapegoating of justice can be
viewed as the advantage of the stronger.
We can see elements of Thrasymachus's justices in the analogy
of the cockroaches and fowls.
The cockroaches can never call themselves fowls because they
are not that. The cockroaches are happy as they are even though the fowls feed
on them. As it is, natural law has made it that way. The fowls are stronger,
and the law is on their side. Whether it harms their well-being, the
cockroaches are condemned to obey.
But there is a need to balance out unlawful guilty verdicts.
How can the cockroaches remain innocent in the company of the fowls?
Fairness and Impartiality
In simple terms, justice is about fairness and impartiality.
These two terms should be used to balance any verdicts, whether civil, criminal,
or public opinion. In the analogy of cockroaches and fowls, it may seem
impossible to imagine the practicability of fairness and impartiality. The
fowls' actions are fair and impartial while dealing with cockroaches. They eat
every one of them. They do not favor or discriminate against any cockroach;
hence every cockroach is not innocent. In medio virtus. In the
social world, fairness is imagined, but in the natural order, fairness is
implied. What then is imagined and implied justice?
Imagined Justice
The idea of 'imagined justice' can be based on the repeated
occurrences of a particular type of verdict identified as
'justifiable.' For example, in our world, it is not fair that an innocent
person should spend 25 years in prison before it is realized that they were
wrongly imprisoned. Imagine justice can come from assumptions of a particular
group towards another group or a particular stereotype as held by another
out-group. In such situations, justice is a supposition without any
proof.
On another occasion, justice is rendered based on presumptive
evidence, and the verdict is based on probability. The Murder of Mary
Phagan – Part 1 & 2 (1988) is a classical dramatization of the
trial by the probability of Leo Frank, a factory manager who was convicted of
the murder of a 13-year-old girl, a factory worker named Mary Phagan, in
Atlanta in 1913.
Implied Justice
This type of justice is common in the natural order, the
fowls feed on cockroaches, and humans feed on vegetables and animals. This type
of verdict is based on a logical consequence. The stronger animals rely on
and live on weaker animals, birds, insects, and so on. It has been determined
that the birds in the air, beasts in the woods, or insects in the fields should
feed themselves. We can see justice divided: fairness as imagined in the
social world and fairness as implied in nature.
Conclusion
When we talk about balancing out verdicts about justice, we
must always bear in mind that fairness and impartiality are two terms that can
help. Then, when it comes to fairness, we must remember that there is fairness
as imagined and fairness as implied.
