Humans are innate seekers of justice, beginning from childhood laments on an unequal share of candies to street protests demanding equality among the masses. While the pursuit of justice is an worthy act, it has been twisted into a self-serving endeavour that hypocrites are obsessed with. When it is about “us”, people are unwavering in their defense of justice, going so far that it becomes revenge tinged with victimhood as is the case with modern feminism. On the contrary, the decade-long Catholic priest child abuse crisis exemplifies wilful blindness towards injustice, so far as it only concerns “them”.
Despite such hypersensitivity towards anything that threatens justice for “us”, people are surprisingly tolerant of injustices happening elsewhere. “Wilful blindness” is a legal term perfect for explaining this phenomena. It refers to a situation in which a person seeks to avoid liability by keeping him or herself unaware of facts that will render him or her liable. The reasons behind this avoidance of truth are complicated yet all stems from self-preservation. It may be a fear of retaliation towards a whistleblower, refusal to believe something that is conflicting with personal beliefs, or an unwillingness to lose reputation. Such passivity in the face of injustice is often justified as “being realistic” coupled with ridicules thrown at those deemed as too naive. In August 2018, the release of a 1400 page Pennsylvania grand jury report shocked the world. It implicated 300 priests in the sex abuse of over 1000 victims. Such heinous crime committed by supposedly sacred men has been covered by church leaders and other clergy for decades, due to a fear of damaged reputation. Individuals are naturals for requesting justice for themselves, however, it truly screams hypocrisy when they readily discard it out of self-preservation.
In summary, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that societal approach to justice has deviated from what it truly stands for. Ignorance encourages misinterpretation of the term; giving rise to radical conducts fuelled by personal hatred. At the same time, wilful blindness towards injustice happening elsewhere shows an opposite but equally distorted worldview.
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