The first recorded set of laws required them to be applied equally and to all. Which means that justice is symmetrical or it isn’t justice; it is arbitrary. No one can be above the law, for without symmetry there is only tyranny…
in Culture
Justice is symmetrical
by
Alex Ledante
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10 Votes
14 Comments
codehammurabijusticelawmardukmesopotamiastele
14 Comments
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Technically when you read a book you can imagine the protagonist to be Matt Damon any time you want. Hell, you could imagine all the characters are Matt Damon… You know, if you really wanted to and didn’t mind being weird
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It’s interesting that you choose to link Hammurabi to a statement that justice must be symmetrical, since the Code of Hammurabi was only “an eye for an eye” (i.e. symmetrical) if the two parties involved were of equal social standing. People in the higher social classes were meted out less severe punishments for infractions than were those of lower classes.
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Since they had slavery, there was still inequality but my understanding was that the law applied equally to all free men…
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So, forgetting slavery and the fact that women had no standing, things were pretty symmetrical. Um, not!
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Considering that the alternative to slavery was often death and that matriarchal cultures never really caught on, that was the most justice you could hope for
The concept was there, it just needed to be expanded
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In this present age, equality in justice is only a theory but in practice one can twists the law in every angle for as long as he/she can hire the best lawyer his/her money can afford. In olden days, the loyalty of lawyers should belong to justice itself — but that is just history and that is the only history that will not repeat itself.
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Unfortunately so. Still, I am hooked in reading “lawyerly” novels by John Grisham and I watched its movies where Matt Damon is the central character — although I would watch any movie with Matt Damon in it even when he disappointed me much in the third sequel of Jason Bourne — that is the trouble when you read the book and watch the film
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Technically when you read a book you can imagine the protagonist to be Matt Damon any time you want. Hell, you could imagine all the characters are Matt Damon… You know, if you really wanted to and didn’t mind being weird
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I am weird but my brain does not function that way when reading though hahaha 😛 On Matt Damon, he is a good actor and he has many good movies — stories I like — conspiracy, thriller, sci-fi, stuff I like — I never like watching horror films because I cannot understand the psychology of paying to scare myself. And oh, I watched others too — Denzel Washington, Jacky Chan, Morgan Freeman, Jim Carrey, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, and who was that guy in Hangover?
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Great words of wisdom so appropriate for our current era when would be oligarchs think the Justice Department exists to serve them as opposed to the people it is trusted to protect.
To be fair to the oligarchs, they only think that because that is how the justice system currently works. We have the best government that money can buy!
We’ll like Bobby Dylan said so many years ago “Money doesn’t talk, It swears “
it blasphemes against the populace
Very full of wisdom indeed.
and yet are we any closer to that ideal than we were four thousand years ago?