The Onion

Ministry of Truth (Social)

AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.

One of my favorite scenes from Discworld. People make the mistake of treating justice and other such concepts as though they are an inherent part of existence and will spontaneously appear even when nobody chooses to uphold them. Justice is an ideal, one that does not exist in nature and cannot happen on its own. It must be upheld by those in power to exist, but what we have now is a pale shadow of the real thing held captive by the unjust and wielded with bad faith. Even those still acting in our defense are being silenced or overridden by malicious actors higher up the chain.

At some point we'll need to act if we want that word to continue meaning anything. To use another Discworld quote, "THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE'S JUST US."