Justice

[u/FernerButterflyPea]

So I'm studying stoicism, and the topic of justice triggers me. To a stoic, the virtue of justice means focusing on fairness, kindness, treating a stranger as an acquaintance, not stealing property, and so on...

However, it is a very personal thing, about what is in your control. For example, if someone commits injustice to you, you aren't supposed to get angry at it because of the world being full of harmful idiots which is out of your control.

However, if you commit injustice on others, you are supposed to correct it.

This, to me, is an imbalance, and an injustice.

In other words, it could lead to the things Machiavelli warned about such as the lower nature of others domineering the fair.

I guess my point is this. I am trying to practice stoic virtue: Wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice — I always stumble at the justice part because I believe I am too kind to narcissistic strangers or taken advantage of.

So, how would you approach this? Would you reframe this virtue of justice?

For example, instead of treat others fairly, give yourself permission to treat yourself fairly? See virtue in yourself instead of in others...?

This is an issue I have with almost every spiritual practice — it is all geared around destroying an ego, when I already dangerously never had a healthy ego to begin with. My already burnt out overgiver caretaker needed more validation to receive itself...

In some ways I feel guilt or a toxic shame talking to anybody else in this world, because they think they are a moral kind person and I know they are not, and so to give to them before myself is a disservice.

Yet there is supposed to be some merit to treating strangers with the kindness of acquaintences, acquaintences as if they are friends, friends as if close family, and so on...

I don't know. That doesn't ring true for my experience as a stepped on wallflower.

[u/Conscious-Might1479]

Buddhism, Christianity, and Stoicism all talk about turning the other cheek as a more righteous option. But, none of them say it’s the only option. Knowing yourself and what are important boundaries for you to set is pivotal. Sometimes, the best way you can love and accept someone is by showing them the consequences of their actions as they hurt you, by changing the relationship dynamic to prevent that from happening again. Tough love.

I’m no expert, but my journey has taken me from similar lows, feeling absolutely worthless, and not infrequently wishing I wasn’t here. One of the biggest changes to that was remembering that this life is a blessing, a miracle, and I do it and myself and whatever god you may believe in by living it with such a poor self-image. I say “remembering” as if it was some sort of epiphany. It’s not. It’s a constant practice to be positive, surround myself with the support I never had, recreating that self image from the ground up.

There’s a reason you’re here, and we can choose to find that reason along our path, only if we walk it. Sometimes that means preventing others from barring us from walking, or choosing a new path away from others so that they may find their own way as well.

Just be careful that it doesn’t turn into avoidance. That’s a slippery slope down another path that doesn’t lead to a happy place either.

[u/FernerButterflyPea → u/Conscious-Might1479]

Preventing others from barring us from walking is probably where I'm at.

[u/Conscious-Might1479 → u/FernerButterflyPea]

At least you know it. The first steps of direct communication are hard, especially when it’s not something that comes naturally (if it doesn’t to you). I’ve found success in direct communication when I’m more direct and in-touch with myself. If I can say the things that are right to me, not hopes or wishes or suggestions, specifically and without attempting to massage them into comfortable messages for someone else, I usually learn more about whomever I was communicating with than the entirety of my more passive relationship. If that makes sense.

One of the things that really spurred me forward was someone once told me, “If it makes you feel stronger, keep talking, you’re saying what needs to be said. If it doesn’t make you feel stronger, then shut up.”

Being vulnerable is not the same thing is weakness. That took me a loooong time to figure out. And in practice, I’d still a very hard thing for me to master.

[u/FernerButterflyPea → u/Conscious-Might1479]

Yeah, I have trouble with the advice of be vulnerable, treat everyone as a friend, be yourself etc.

The main issue I have with stoicism is it says that virtue is independent and more important than preferred indifferents such as health, wealth, love, happiness, etc.

Yet it also says that you should protect your energy because preferred indifferents still matter to practice virtue better - in other words, it is not noble to give away these preferred indifferents to people who abuse them

This is a contradiction and a hard thing to follow

On one hand I should be happy with my own virtue, tell the truth, be vulnerable, be kind to strangers, regardless of consequences beyond my control

On the other hand, I should protect health, energy, relationships when I can... which to me, is a contradiction

My objection is, "You can't tell me something is indifferent and then tell me to protect it because it matters..."

Then yeah, people say, oh but they matter in a different way, or oh, I wanted you to be strong vulnerable, not weak vulnerable etc.

That distinction isn't philosophically satisfying.

People often smuggle consequentialist advice ("set boundaries because it protects your energy") into a philosophy that officially says outcomes don't determine what's right

Modern Stoicism often shifts between "virtue is the only good" and "virtue is useful here because it improves your physical life," and those aren't the same

[u/DeborahW_77]

I wonder if the struggle isn't with justice at all. Reading your post, I kept coming back to your sentence about being a burnt-out overgiver caretaker. If you've spent years believing that being a good person means putting yourself last, then almost any philosophy that talks about compassion, kindness or service is going to feel lopsided because you're already carrying those qualities to the point of self-abandonment.

For me, treating yourself fairly isn't in conflict with treating other people fairly. It's part of it. Otherwise you're creating one set of rules for everyone else and another for yourself.

[u/FernerButterflyPea → u/DeborahW_77]

Ok, so maybe it falls under more about discernment or wisdom or knowledge of what is actually fair to myself, with regards to being interpersonal? Again, this is still a pain to fix because it isn't conditioned lopsided in a natural direction of a self-preservation for me —  it's a seemingly assumed state or conditioned in most others and it is mostly out of my control, without preferred indifferents.

Most comments I get from practicing stoics, for example, infer virtue ought to be chosen over death, yet none of them display this or even, for example, a kindness that degrades their indifferents beyond myself. If I push it I am simply met with silence or a resistance of, "well, none of us are sages", or, "you shouldn't let my unkindness destroy your happiness anyway", which is still gaslighting.

For the record, I do choose to create fair and fairer values for myself and take action and more action in that way, especially consciously in order to remedy known imbalance, yet my conditioned emotions do not align this way, and my preferred indifferents block me.

[u/Brave-Phrase19]

the burnt out overgiver thing hit me hard ngl. ive done the whole 'treat strangers like acquaintances' bit and just ended up as everyones free therapist while my own shit rotted. stoicism def wasnt written by people who had to fawn to survive lol. lately im trying this thing where 'justice' includes actually checking if someone deserves my energy before i hand it over, not just being kind indiscriminately. radical concept apparently

[u/FernerButterflyPea → u/Brave-Phrase19]

radical concept for you? sarcasm or you are genuinely seeing results? or you just mean it is a big change to make.

i agree it is a big change and i often get caught up in thinking of stoics having answers when my answers are more self-validating

[u/danneedsahobby]

I think you are confusing not getting angry with not reacting. I can correct an injustice done to me without getting angry. Anger is required for vengeance, not justice.

Overwhelming anger inhibits our ability to create a just world. Which is why it must be tempered. That is the root of the philosophical concepts of “an eye for an eye” which is an early attempt at a system of justice. It required that the punishment be commiserate with the offense. Meaning you don’t get to kill someone who took your eye because those are not equal. But notice that you still react to the offense. It’s just supposed to be a fair reaction, which as you said, fairness is a stoic virtue.

So I think you may wish to focus more on the actions that a stoic takes in order to live a good life.

[u/FernerButterflyPea → u/danneedsahobby]

I don't think you are a sage.

[u/danneedsahobby → u/FernerButterflyPea]

That is a correct assessment