Justice as Strategy

by Sourin Bhattacharya

The argument I try to develop here has two components. In one it advocates relativization as a protective shield as also a means of understanding others. The question of protective shield occurs because in the world around us we often find situations of aggression that find sanctification in an ideology of homogeneity. So to defend oneself against such acts of aggression, one may invoke some kind of relativistic thinking. After all we are not all alike. Differences are to be recognized and respected. Human societies are non-homogeneous. This makes commensurability difficult. So is communicability. Social transactions are not smooth, they lack naturalness. So the problem is one of cross cultural negotiation.

The project of understanding may have two motivations. In one we may wish to enrich ourselves through mutual interaction and co-transactions. In the other we may aspire to exercise power and gain control. In the context of personal relations this may show itself in the form of being possessive. When relations between nations, peoples, groups and communities are involved this may turn into colonising endeavours. Then you need to know other peoples’ customs, practices and rituals. This knowledge facilitates processes of colonization. This motivation also involves understanding. But then understanding is used as a means to attend something else. This is instrumental approach to understanding, while it is an end in itself in the case of the enrichment project through cultural interactions. Here you seek to understand something or someone because you feel interested in that thing or that person. You are in affective mood here. You want to know a thing or a person not because you want to get hold of it or wish to lord over him/her as an outsider or an alien being. You want to ‘unite’ in some sense. This will to unite is in the realm of human relations, not strategic or diplomatic relations. To distinguish it from affective mood as a motivating force we might call it calculative mood. The calculative motivation of understanding may be found to be instantiated in classical orientalism as it was mostly practised. This is neither to question the personal motivation of the practitioners of orientalist trope nor to deny the positive impact of the expansion of significant fields of knowledge. It is instructive to note that this could be so, the honest labours of the Sir William Joneses and the Max Mullers and the Winternitzes notwithstanding.

The second component of my argument involves justice. Justice will be seen here as a strategy, an odious word perhaps, to negotiate some of the problems that should arise in a relativized socio-cultural world. In this world there are differences, real or imaginary. The spirit of relativization answers the theoretical call in this situation. In view of differences we need to find ways how to chalk out a proper harmonious living procedure that may reasonably accommodate mutually respectful recognition of the differences.

When we are dealing with differences we must distinguish between these two types: authentic and strategic. Authentic differences emanate, in the personal context, from natural elements and inclinations. As in the cases of aptitudes. In the social context they may be elements grafted in the social structure or may have emerged in particular societies through changes, external influences etc. over a long period of time.  These elements have come to be in respect of those societies naturalized, so to say. Strategic differences are perceived differences, or still better, made-to-be-perceived differences. As in the cases of religious and/or racial differences. Think of religion as a marker for a certain group of people. In terms of this marker there may be other groups in the same society. So that may constitute a potential differentiating element. But whether it will in fact emerge as such an element as to prove unmanageable for the decent conduct of the society itself depends upon many other social, political, cultural and economic factors. So is the case for colour of the skin. Now look these are clearly instances of inauthentic differences. Let us take the case of physical height. Within any given society there are people of different heights. Using this as a marker the society could be arranged in terms of the physical stature of the individuals. Social benefits and opportunities, let us suppose, then could be so organized that they would look related to stature structure. It is not difficult to imagine that this marker could be so worked upon that it would ultimately beat up a regular threatening field of social tension. This would be a case of strategic difference. History plays a crucial role in giving rise to differences that are basically strategic, but they often could be made to look authentic. A theoretical move of sifting the authentic from the strategic at this point could be helpful. This would necessitate a critical analytical approach to social happenings. In its absence functioning of modern healthy democracy is seriously threatened. Especially so in a socio-political ecosystem of blind uncritical allegiance and lending credence to all kinds of official propaganda and slogan mongering.

Authenticity is about being oneself. There is a question, therefore, of understanding, recognizing and discovering selfhood. An authentic self is in a sense unique. This is true both for an individual and a collective. In cultural contexts, a relativized world is also a world of authentic selves. A collective, a group or a community in this world would not aspire to conquer. Nations in this world would not be belligerents. They would not form themselves even into blocs to serve mutual interests. Mutual interests of nations within the bloc are by nature exclusive. They exclude the interests of nations outside the bloc. This idealized conceptualization of authenticity is essentially non-violent. Its utility lies in the fact that it enables us to look starkly at the faces of acts of violence as instances of deviation. Deviation from authenticity of selfhood. Perhaps something like this was in Gandhi’s mind when in Hind Swaraj he was castigating the British for colonizing India as, he thought, it was unBritish and in the end it would harm themselves.

Now we face an authentically relativized world. Relativization in this world is not a course of strategic action and perception. Justice here can be used as a negotiating strategy. This possibility is there because the extent to which we can be our authentic self regulates the extent to which we should be able to respect other authentic selves. Hence there should not be an inner insistence on looking others in the shape of our own images. We may learn to look at them in their own images. Our homogeneous mind set behind our conscious reckoning makes us see things as though we are looking at them through a distorted mirror. Our straight gaze may also have to pass through critical examination. What we see in our plain eyes is often shaped by so many social and cultural unknowns.

To make use of justice as I see here, we need to distinguish between the concept of justice and theories of justice. Concept of justice is focussed upon the sense in which justice may be said to have been secured or denied. Theories are about deriving this sense from postulates yielding it. Theories of justice may also be concerned with formulating principles that will lead to social, cultural, political and economic institutions to secure justice in the accepted sense. Utilitarian justice is one such concept of justice, while Rawlsian fairness is another.

But why is relativization important at all? In a plural society it is important to fight absolutism. Processes of modernization often bring in a kind of homogenization. In our current state of globalization there is a feeling that we are gradually moving towards a sort of flat world. A typical example may be what you see on the ad signs in a cricket ground today. When you take a casual look at the television screen you find the same companies displaying their signs, be it in England or Australia or India or West Indies. The urban architecture also should look almost the same everywhere. True that this flat feeling changes if one looks a little more deeply into other spheres of social life. It changes but the tendency towards homogenization under pressure of modernizing processes is perhaps unmistakable. This may lead to a kind of linear scale of evaluation of social developments. Even in our student days in the 1950s industrialization was the mantra uncritically accepted as the goal to be pursued by the newly independent countries like India. As a matter of fact, these new comers in the industrialization race were also supposed to be a little fortunate in that they started late and, therefore, could be expected to take some benefit from the historical  experiences of the early starters and now mature advanced societies. This is almost a paradigmatic case of absolutist position. There have been radical shifts in this absolutism over the last few decades. An outlook of relativization can be a strong theoretical position to counter absolutism. Doors may now open for a more liberal position of different modernizing processes for different societies.

There is a danger here with this type of ‘total’ relativization. Anything may get sanctified now. From suttee to child sacrifice as part of ‘tantric’ practices may be justified in the name of ‘tradition’, ‘age-old’ practice or simply ‘customary’. The force of traditionalism cannot be ignored. The fact that something has been going on for a long time lends a psychic weight for its continuation. In most cases the issues involved are such that they cannot be argued on any rational plane of discourse. It becomes a straight case of faith versus science or history or archaeology or maybe anything from our vast range of academic disciplines. As was violently evident in times of ‘Babri masjid demolition’. This kind of stress on faith combined with adequate political forces often graduates into the category of sheer physical strength. If backed by state power, it may mean just not physical strength, it then becomes a question of military prowess, not necessarily excluding nuclear options. That is a danger signal for the world at large. A breakdown point of rational discourse. Those who are theoretically inclined towards methodological rationalism feel chary about even small concessions for the relativists.

Both extremes to be avoided.  A reasonable partial relativization may be a solution. ‘Reasonable’ and ‘Partial’, both words are important. The word reasonable sure derives from ‘reason’. But ‘reason’ appears more rigid, perhaps more rigourous, while reasonable allows greater leeway, to that extent a little more flexible. That flexibility, however little, is to serve our purpose better. What we are dealing with here are real concerns of life, social life indeed, not just matters of logic. Hence the dictates of pure reason may have to be moderated for reasons of life itself. That’s the call for reasonable behaviour in society.

Even in this partial world there is a question of identity. Identity may have ethnic, racial, cultural, ideological, gender and possibly many other dimensions. Associated with these senses of identity are different scales of social valuation. Some of these senses carry higher valuation in some societies than others. Societies are heterogeneous in respect of value scales. This makes negotiation between societies difficult. Transmission of meaning requires sense of homogeneity. Without shared experiences there can be no meaningful negotiation. As this is basically a question of communication, some kind of sharing must be presumed for this to be possible. Sharing of experiences translates itself to language sharing. This gives a homogeneous space where social transactions can proceed. In a partially relativized world, you have to keep yourself from absolutist positions. With a reasonable frame of mind and mutually respectful sense of justice we can attain at least a workable order.                         

In a world full of wide range of differences between nations and cultures and violent conflicts at many levels an organization like the United Nations cannot afford to be absolutist and, therefore, needs to adopt a partially relative approach, which it often does in that it usually does not pronounce judgements as to the morality of issues unless it transgresses the limits of current state of acceptability in terms of the present level of development of human culture. The principle of functioning of such supranational organizations is based on the use of some sense of justice that conforms to our basic moral sentiments inherited through  anthropological development of our species. It may very well be true that we are still at the level of rather lower branches of the civilizational tree. The supranational organization’s use of justice is strategic to maintain a position of cultural relativism.       

---

 Special thanks to Amlan Dutta for his co-operation with and support to Frontier Web for this piece.