1 After observing in countless documentaries, television

2 shows, editorial commentaries, obituaries, lyrics, presidential

3 speeches, formal dinners, ceremonies, and tabloids the rabid use

4 of the word �justice,� I decided to clear some common

5 misconceptions on the nature and meaning of �justice.�

6 Justice is not retribution. At best, retribution is vigilantism.

7 The wild urges of our instinct and emotion, however, cannot

8 qualify as justice. We have seen, particularly in the form of

9 lynch mobs, that vigilantism is hardly justice and is in fact

10 many times injustice. Attempts to model justice on the idea of

11 retribution are outdated and outmoded. While the �scales of

12 justice� typically reflect the image of justice, the concept of

13 �equal retribution� is an anachronism that dates from the times

14 of Hammurabi and Moses. Few would argue that a woman who is

15 fatally attacked by an alligator is rendered justice when the

16 alligator is put to sleep. Even fewer would suggest that a

17 rapist receiving his own displeasure is justice. To return an

18 injustice �in kind� is usually impossible; in many cases, the

19 context of the injustice as evil as the deed itself. In fact,

20 one of the traditional arguments against capital punishment has

21 been that the pain inflicted upon the criminal can never equal

22 the suffering that the victim (and his/her family) endured by

23 the sudden and malicious nature of the crime. Thus, if even

24 capital punishment is not a reliably just punishment for a

25 heinous crime, the �scales of justice� could never be balanced,

26 and so retribution could not be the sole component of justice.

27 Justice is not fairness. Justice is always fair but what is fair

28 cannot always be just. Consider the destitute man who suffers

29 from mental illness and poverty. We say that social justice can

30 only occur through helping this poverty-stricken man, a fair

31 action indeed. At the same time, a passer-by who does not even

32 acknowledge the itinerant�s existence acts fairly; after all,

33 Perhaps that passer-by helps no man but himself. However, nobody

34 would call the passer-by a just man on the basis of his �fair�

35 actions. Fairness implies only equality of treatment, but

36 justice tends to encompass what that treatment will be. A line,

37 therefore, must be drawn between what is fair and what is

38 actually just.