RUDIMENTS, pt. 869
(justice ? if you were a cow)
I think it was John Rawls, a
sort of 1960's Great Society
pet philosopher, who, in his
book, 'A Theory of Justice,'
put it starkly that the then
current, over-riding question
of philosophy would need to
be 'Can Society be justified
to ALL its members?' In light
of the inequalities it's always
going to contain, I felt the
answer was a decided NO.
There are always to be losers.
Those losers are, fairly much,
defined by the burdens they
carry - after all, just think:
who empties the bedpans on
the overnight care shift? And
probably at minimum wage.
Who works through the night
to be sure the subways keep
running? Who deals with the
violence meted out in and by
prisons, hospitals, and wars?
If 'Society' is thereby not
equally just to each of us,
can it be broadly just at all?
Is it not, otherwise then,
that some of us are living
in a prison, and others are
the wardens? BUT, if a
justification is possible
would we not, instead,
be able to approach each
other as free and equal
persons? I think that's the
crux of the matter and the
aspiration to which all
Humankind seeks to meet.
To my mind, that's what
Goodness is, and, opposed
to it, is 'Evil,' which has
basically been ruling us
now for more than 2000
years, far more, in fact,
since the last visitation.
Goodness is behind every
creed and every pronounced
'Hope' for whatever Life is.
Always trying : for forty
years I have called this
'Lesson Learning Catching
Up With Itself.'
-
There were some people
who used to say they'd
never go above 14th street.
Others there were, uptown,
who swore they'd never be
caught downtown. It went
back and forth, like some
odd declension I never
knew of. I stayed in some
'same' middle-land; 34th
street being a hub of
transport for me, I'd
de-train, or if a bus, up
at 42nd, and just aimlessly
walk downtown to 8th,
not even thinking about
it. I had none of those
values that others went by.
Certainly those sectional
differences were nothing to
me. I didn't care where nor
how one section ran into
another and what it meant.
To me, the Italian murderers
and petty criminals in the
downtown Italian sections
were no different than the
hoodlums in The Westies,
or the crazy Irish killers in
Hell's Kitchen. And, you
know, the uptown sides were
even worse! For all it came
down to was the long list
of amazing stories : dead
bodies in concrete blocks,
guys thrown off buildings,
taken out to the Meadowlands
and shot, carted off to deep
Long Island somewhere and
never heard from again. Plowed
under, and paved into their
own silly, long, driveways
-
In all of this, the tables still
were cleared and cleaned, the
Puerto Rican busboys, the
bottle washers and kitchen
grinders still did the work.
The orderlies in hospitals and
all the clean-up ladies and
the hotel-room workers, they
all did their third-tier labor,
with not much as a word of
thanks. Grunts were still
endlessly driving cabs, while
laborers worked the drill-presses
and forges. It was, and it
remained, a fairly segmented
society, in which most people
knew their places - an odd
feeling to experience. I can
remember until fairly recently,
and even maybe still, the strange
vision of seeing a doorman -
all done up in his doorman outfit,
prefect as to shine and pressing, and
at his duties (I have never seen a
female doorperson), and being
surprised to think, upon seeing,
that it was actually, probably
some Hispanic person from up
in Washington Heights or some
other lower-level uptown place,
who made that daily trek for work,
so as to be at the service and beck
and call of some wealthy-enough
families, a building's worth of
them, with whom he'd maintain
service and cordial relations, to
hail cabs, open doors, cart luggage
and packages, keep secrets, and
watch the comings and goings,
too, of the children and their
school friends, and then go back
to his dump of a place - all for
the held-out hope of, at the least,
something nice for Christmas -
a cash tithing or whatever
being worked out. Perhaps, in
the end, that is justice after all.
The man has a job, presumably
by choice. He must enjoy the
job and the doing of the tasks
required. There are probably
various levels of satisfaction to
be had - on his part and in the
doing of this for others. So, how
does someone then, like me, or
John Rawls in fact, make the
conclusions which are made? I
don't know. Probably the answer
is that WE don't. For me it was
always instinctual and intuitive,
based on what I saw and what
I felt. It's all enough of a basic
conjecture that the conclusions
are drawn every which-way.
-
The best way to find comfort is
to become dedicated to the doing
of the task and forget all that
conclusion and judgment stuff.
Life just runs on, and the mental
infusions don't really help it along
that much. When I was 8 years
old and back out of my coma,
after the train wreck, I'd wander
around the hallways some, on my
crutches (they liked me getting
around, for practice, and for the
exercise too). Perth Amboy
General Hospital was, at the
time, in those years around 1958,
overcrowded and cramped. There
were beds out in the hallways
too. I remember it well - all sorts
of injured people, on hospital beds
with rolling wheels, along the
hallways. Not serious or close
to death types, just recuperative
people. Friendly enough, pleasant.
Minor car-crash injuries, people
who had fallen off ladders, or
been burned or shocked, etc.
Without much understanding,
and certainly without any mind
of concluding judgmentally, I'd
watch and just sort of catalogue
the things and the people I'd see.
These periods of 'observation'
became important to me, and most
especially since I'd most recently
been thought dead, and was now
back to life, with a new, empty
slate and an entire, somehow,
'new' set of human settings. To
see by. To live. This life was now
suddenly surreal (to use a word
I did not know then, and only
learned later). As much as all
my channels were open, I'd get
puzzled sometimes by things.
People with hoarse voices, in
hospital beds, smoking away
like chimneys. And females too.
Nurses, coming around, to people
with some sorts of head wounds
or something (this one really
baffled me) and slapping (yes,
please believe me; I saw these),
slabs of raw meat, red, steaks or
something, into their foreheads,
wounds, or heads. And I'd see
these people, still two hours
later, there, in bed, with the raw
slabs of meat still on their heads!
That one, I never understood.
I guess a perfect kind of
justice, if you were a cow?
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