Justice no doubt means fairness. Fair in the sense of equality and everyone receiving the same treatment. But how, exactly do we enforce this equality?
I was just done with my finance quiz and the lecturer asking our opinion on how the quiz went. He was pretty new and in fact first time teaching, so the quiz was rather much like a mess. It was overly long and seeing this, he allowed us to work on the quiz even after time's up (3 hours). But no matter, some rushed to finish within the time limit, not knowing he would extend the time (including me)and then handed in on time. Well, for me, i was just starving and didn't wanna skip dinner.
It was the complaint that make thing interesting. It is perfectly justifiable for those who went back in 3 hours or less that he didn't kept the 3 hours time limit and even announced that he would not count one of the 5 subjective questions and take the best 4 out of 5. I myself was shocked when told later by my friend as i tried really hard to finish all 5 in 3 hours! However, i was totally dumbfounded when i heard what they complain. They want the lecturer to penalize those who did not complete or used more than the requires. I was like, what the hell right? Why would you want to pull others down to 'level' the playing field instead of bringing yourself up huh? Can't you tell the lecturer to add bonus marks for those who did? And furthermore, it was their choice to hand in the paper, they could have stayed as well no? Talking about fairness! And this relates what i heard from a stand-up comedian-philosopher that talked about modern-day society's distorted view of justice.
I think people's thought about being fair is just weird. They are like in a situation of 2 people going to a hawker stall for a stick of fish ball. One person had 4 fish ball on a stick and the other had 5. So the one with 4 complained to the hawker and said "Why does he have 5 fish ball when i have 4?" Then the hawker replied: "Fine, i'll give you another fishball" But the person says "Nooo, i don't want another fishball, i want you to take away one of his fish ball then that's fair!" After he took away the fishball, the person then complained again "Why does he have chilli suace on it and mine does not?" To that the annoyed hawker replied "Okay, i'll give you chilli sauce then." Once again the dude answered "No, i want you to wipe away his chilli sauce, yea, then that's fair!" And after the hawker did that, the guy saw the other person, eating only 4 fish ball now, and even without any chilli sauce but yet still so happy. The dude then yelled :"No way,why is he so happy yet i am not! Thats not fair, i want you to make him sad as well while eating the fish ball"!
Geddit? People are so pessimistic on what they thinks is fairness, they are screwed up and in seeking to be fair blamed the whole world. When opportunity presents itself to them, they did not make good use of it and spend time blaming how good and better off people are. Is this the world we are living in?
The again, life was never made fair. Why then seek justice huh?
All credits of this pic goes to bolehland.com =p
