The Delusion of Immanent Justice

I refer to my previous blog on optimism and pessimism. We would probably be happier if we could get rid of our natural belief in Immanent Justice. Immanent Justice is the idea that the world is somehow fair. If we do our best, we should be rewarded with a good life. If we don't, we don't even deserve a good life. The idea of Immanent Justice also works in the opposite direction: if someone leads a fantastic life, he must have deserved it. And if someone leads a miserable life, he must have deserved it as well. (This has the advantage we don't need to help him any more, it is his own fault.) As Voltaire and Seneca already knew: Immanent Justice is a nice idea, but it is false.

We may think belief in immanent justice stems from animistic cultures or from a medieval view of the world, but even the most enlightened soul will sometimes ask in his life: "Why does this happen to me?" We all think the world should reward our goodness better; in reality however, the world doesn't care. The idea of Immanent Justice is somehow linked to religion in the sense that the 'Providence' was supposed to promote justice, not only in the hereafter but also in this 'valley of tears'. Immanent Justice was God's small counterweight to the big injustice of this world. Otherwise the faithful would lose all hope before they could acquire eternal happiness.

Jewish and Christian religion have promoted, but also contradicted the idea of Immanent Justice. There is the very old and marvellous book of Job, that deals with, but doesn't really answer the question why good people need to suffer. And Jesus points out to his people that neither the blind nor his parents were sinners. He also redefines justice: the workers in the vineyard are rewarded according to their needs, not to their merits. Jesus was essentially against meritocracy.

Of course, diligence and hard work can still be rewarding in life. And this is also a kind of Immanent Justice; we don't want to plead against that. But arbitrary coincidence will still play a major role in our life, whether we are diligent or not.

Picture taken in Grimbergen Abbey church

On optimism and pessimism

A French author once wrote: "Parce que j'attends le pire, l'inattendu peut être meilleur". As I expect the worst, the unexpected could turn out to be better. Indeed, pessimism, expecting the worst to happen, has one advantage: it saves us from disappointment. If things turn out better than anticipated, we might even be glad about the outcome.

Voltaire already pointed out that real life offers no reason to be optimistic, as there is no "providence" that is ruling the world to make us happy. In his famous story Candide ou l'optimisme, the main character walks through a world full of atrocities and calls it naïvely the best of all possible worlds. More recent news events also tend to make us pessimistic, as we are potentially facing a totally new type of war, right at a point in history we thought we got rid of it. And if Candide had been written in our time, Voltaire would have taken him to the Greek - Macedonian border.

In technical development work and in project management, a pessimistic view is sometimes useful. If you anticipate that something is not going to work, you will take measures to prevent this, and this may save your project. A project manager must know that if he didn't take care of something, probably nobody did. The disadvantage of this pessimism is that it can become completely discouraging, you may identify so many problems that you might even be tempted to give up. You would also need some optimism to believe in a project. Belief creates the actual fact.

Seneca attributed good or bad luck to Lady Fortuna, and as a good Stoic, he didn't see a reason to be sad about the evil that struck him. In traditional Christian faith, the godly Providence has often been the guiding principle in the positive / negative outcome of things. No wonder few Christian philosophers have expressed themselves on optimism or pessimism.

Bertrand Russell wrote: "Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same naïve humanism; the great world, so far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy."

Even if there is indeed no "providence" to protect us against evil, we may find comfort in the fact that some "good" fellow human beings around us do protect us against evil and in this way, these 'angels' can somehow play the role of the "absent" Providence, however not in an almighty way. We will still need "luck".

Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic will also depend on your natural character. On the other hand, it is possible to steer your thoughts somehow and sometimes this is really needed to find your way in life. Pessimism in your short term expectations, combined with optimism on the ultimate feasibility of something, may be a wise attitude at work and in life.

It is really worth watching Alain de Botton's Sunday lecture on pessimism. I also found inspiration in Brainpickings.

The Importance of Being Gentle

There are a number of values that have no other utility than showing our fellow human beings that we care about them and that we can be trusted.  I'm talking about politeness, attentiveness, cordiality, gentleness and kindliness. They have no immediate economic use. You can argue whether they are values or merely social skills. In the good old days, they were simply good manners; they were seen as key to climbing the social ladder.

Nowadays, they don't do well at school and on television. Towards children, the message is rather to be 'cool', 'tough' and 'authentic'. As if being polite or kind could not be authentic. The problem is indeed that these old school values have lost some credibility because they were not always lived in an authentic way. It would take another blog to explain why this happened.

Yet these values still play a very important role in climbing the social ladder. They should return to the schools' attention. They play a role where people meet to influence, to convince and to decide, in all places where trust is needed: in commerce, in politics, in about any aspect of daily life. Where rudeness is encouraged, e.g. by the press in politics, we notice trust becomes impossible  and collective decisions can't be taken decently.

Now that society has become more complex and involvement of "knowledgeable" people is always required, you may still force a decision with rudeness, but you can't convince your people any more to do something they don't believe in themselves. You need buy-in from people and you can't reach that without the mentioned social skills.

The reason is that these social skills are just an expression of something deeper: genuine respect. They are actually the only good way to show respect and without respect, you don't reach anything wholeheartedly from anybody. Most management literature confirms this. You should be very authentic and clear. But you should also stay kind and never lose control over yourself. Gentleness and kindness are the lubricants in society's economic engine.

I refer to my earlier blogs about education.

Picture: Oscar Wilde en Eduard Vilde in Tartu, Estonia: Dmitri Mehh / Shutterstock.com