When a word soothes more than it restores Justice, what a pretty word. Stuck on our institutions like a gold sticker on a banana, it promises flavor and safety. Say it, and suddenly the room breathes easier. Shoulders drop, files close, the coffee machine goes back to being an instrument of social peace. Yet if we listen to what the…
Prologue: where earthly justice wears a word that is too big The city was called Serys. People spoke the word justice as one speaks a vow. The Palace of the Scale towered over the river, vast as a certainty. The inhabitants liked to believe that earthly justice watched over them. There were punishments, compensation, closed files, and the city slept…
We call justice what our institutions deliver when they convict a guilty party, compensate a victim, and declare a case closed. The word comforts us. It gives the feeling that the world is hanging by a moral thread. Yet if we take seriously what justice claims to be, the set cracks. A justice that merely punishes evil without actively rewarding…
Humanity loves to imagine itself as civilized, much like a teenager with a patchy mustache claiming he’s a man now. We tell ourselves bedtime stories with treaties, justice, and moral progress. We believe we’ve replaced the club with the constitution, and the jungle with international law. But if you scratch the glossy paint of modern diplomacy, you’ll find something ancient…
The traveler and the facades At the end of a wind-swept plain, a traveler reached a city that shone like a promise. Its facades were of pale stone, its avenues straight, its squares filled with music and speeches. They called it the City of Crests. From afar, one could swear it showed the maturity of peoples. Up close, the traveler…
A Fundamental Illusion History loves to tell itself as an ascent toward civilization. We repeat that law, morality, and justice have tamed violence and that a global order now protects the weak. This narrative flatters our need for reassurance, but it rests on an original confusion. It projects onto sovereign entities qualities that belong only to individuals bound by a…
Ah, the age-old question that makes people roll their eyes, and not just metaphorically. We’re talking about the kind of topic you bring up at 2 a.m., right after “fixing the world” over too much coffee. It’s easy enough to phrase, but apparently harder to solve than assembling flat-pack furniture with one missing screw. If God exists and is just,…
A World Before the World There was a time, in the eternity before time, when nothing suffered, laughed, or thought. There were no stars or darkness, no above or below, no form and no name. And yet, within that quiet abyss, something was awake. A Fire, still and conscious, held within itself the memory of everything that had not yet…
The question is simple and severe at once: if God exists and is just, why does he create beings exposed to suffering and error? Creation cannot be a whim. It must answer to an intelligible necessity, compatible with justice and goodness, and proportionate in its effects. Three distinct hypotheses present themselves for examination: real justice, purification, and total benevolence. They…
Here they come, the Killers of Light. Not a metal band from Finland, unfortunately, but the subtle assassins of our better judgment. These are the ideas, habits, and beliefs that parade around dressed as wisdom while quietly stabbing ethics in the back with a salad fork. This is the story of how we convince ourselves we’re enlightened while tripping over…