Anna Stowell
Professor Cripps
ENG 221
22 March 2020
Midterm Project: An Exploration of Justice and the Other
Justice. A seemingly simple term referring to the determination of what is just or to say what is right and what is wrong. Yet I would like to disagree. The definition of such a word is far from simple, in fact it is so complex and multidimensional that at first glance it might seem impossible to discuss in a mere 1500-word essay. In an attempt to allow us to delve deeper into the subject I would like to examine justice and its implications on society using an anchoring question. Does a “just” society rely on the presence of a minority group or that is to say the existence of “the Other”? Over the coming pages I hope to explore these questions using the texts “Between the World and Me” by Ta Nehisi Coates, “Antigone” by Sophocles and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin, as well as the movie “12 Angry Men” directed by Sidney Lumet.
Let us begin by discussing the first question I posed: Does a “just” society rely on the presence of a minority group or that is to say the existence of the Other? It would seem time and time again throughout the history of human civilizations the presence of “the Other” has always existed. That is to say that every human society has been defined by strict boundaries that define what it means to be a part of society. If you do not fit into this category or that you do not belong, you are the Other. It would seem that this is human nature. We see this reflected in Sophocles’ “Antigone” with the punishment of Polynices. Creon, the Thebes, declares that Polynices, Antigone’s brother “who returned from exile with hopes of burning his native land and ancestral gods from top to bottom… shall be neither buried nor mourned by anyone…”(Sophocles 20.) In other words, he is cast as the Other. Such judgment can be seen again in “Between the World and Me”, through this time we are able to see the mindset of someone who has been cast as the other. Ta-Nehisi Coates sees that society has cast him as the other from a young age and attempts to pass on such a mind set to his son by telling him “Perhaps one person can make a change, but not the kind of change that would raise your body to equality with your countrymen” (Coates 96.) This is another clear example of how it seems that humans use the Other to define themselves, but this time it is from the Other’s perspective in the twenty first century. It would seem that one could say it is human nature to act in such a way if we see such acts happening from the time that Sophocles was writing Antigone in 441 B.C. all the way to today’s modern era to which sever the back drop of “Between the World and Me.”
The concept of the Other seems to be one that can hardly be disputed, however is this presence truly necessary? For the examples given above it would seem that each society is inclined to define the Other, but I wish to explore if such an act is actually necessary to a high functioning society. I would like to begin by continuing the discussion of “12 Angry Men.” At first glance this would seem to be another perfect example of othering in a setting that is meant to represent the foundations of a supposed just American society, the jury system. However, what intrigues me about this is the way the jury seems to evolve over the course of the movie. As I have already stated, the movie begins with what appears to be an almost unified white jury of 12 men. Though, by the end of the movie we see into the backgrounds of each juror which then begin to divide them from the group. For example, when Juror Number Ten goes on a rant displaying his true colors as a loud mouthed bigot each jury member leaves the table to turn their back on him. This symbolic act shows that the men no longer see them as one of them, but rather the Other. However, what I think is most important here is the jury, the group representing American society and its values, is able to remain as one group and eventually come up with a unanimous verdict of not guilty. Though they were separated from one another over the course of the film by their beliefs, backgrounds, and values, they were still able to remain a functioning micro society. This could lead one to believe that perhaps the Other is not a crucial element that holds up just societies.
However, it would seem that Ursula Le Guin would beg to differ given her writing of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” Le Guin spends a large portion of her work describing the citizens of Omelas in great detail, however this does not seem to be enough. To further define the fictional society, she must create the existence of the Other which takes the form of a tortured child. She states that the citizens of Omelas “all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” (Le Guin 3.) Though Omelas is a fictional society invented by Le Guin, it would seem to me that the Omelas is a representation of how Le Guin views many, if not all, societies in the world. I believe it would be sufficient to say that Le Guin thinks the human society is reliant upon not only the presence of the Other, but also suffering of the said Other.
As I have said before it would seem that the Other and society goes hand in hand, so I would like to continue such a thought by questioning then does the Other create or destroy a justice in a society. When attempting to answer such a question I think it is important to attempt to define justice. Based from the discussions we have had within our class I would like to define justice as the what a group of individuals define as right and wrong. However, I recognize that this can be difficult to agree upon. For example, Antigone does not agree with Creon’s version of justice for her brother. She even confronts Creon and explains her reasoning by saying “because it wasn’t Zeus who pronounced these things to me, not did Justice, companion of the gods below, establish such laws for humanity. I would never think your pronouncements had such strength that, being mortal, they could override the unwritten, ever-lasting prescriptions of the gods, for those aren’t something recently made, but live forever, and no one knows when they first appeared” (Sophocles 29.) She chooses to follow what she believes the gods to define as right and wrong.
I would say that I both agree and disagree with Antigone. Justice is defined by the individual, but does not come from anyone else. Ideas and thoughts may be shared but it is the ideas and thoughts that the individual holds on to and acts upon that makes the true sense of justice for the individual. When it comes to a greater society I think that justice is defined by the views of the majority. That is to say which acts become normalized and which do not. Coates touches upon just that when he says “and so enslavement must be casual wrath and random manglings, the gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to escape. It must be rape so regular as to be industrial” (Coates 103.) Coates recognizes that the abuse of blacks within American society has been normalized therefore society has labeled it just. However, he as the individual is still able to hold on to his own sense of justice. There is another example of this again in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. The citizens of Omelas see the injustice done to the child, however they have since normalized it in order to justify its treatment. The citizens believe Omelas to be a just society collectively, however there are still the ones who are unable to settle upon such justification and so they “walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates” (Le Guin 4) never to return.
In summary I do not believe there is a definitive answer to the question I first posed. Based on the readings and class discussion I think that a just society and the pretense of the Other are closely related, though I am not certain that justice relies on the Other. On one hand it would seem that all societies are defined by the Other; the city of Omelas had a small child, Ta-Nehisi Coates described his life of being the Other in American society, and Antigone saw her own brother be cast aside from society as the Other and she would late follow him. On the other hand, all societies also seem to have their own sense of justice that defines what is right and wrong. The presence of justice and the Other seem to be inevitable, but what seems clear to me is that each is solely dependent on the relativity to viewer. That is to say justices and the Other are linked by the commonality of being reliant on being defined by each individual.
Work Cited
Le Guin, Ursula. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973).” Literary Ladies Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2020.
Lumet, Sidney, director. 12 Angry Men.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi, and Klaus Amann. Between the World and Me. Reclam, 2017.
Sophocles, and J. E. Thomas. Antigone. Prestwick House, 2014.
