Cosmic Justice and Injustice

This article is part of the Black Voices collection, an ongoing collaboration with Dalhousie Black Law Students’ Association.

What came first: justice or injustice? Matter or antimatter? The leading theory in physics is that matter and antimatter came into existence simultaneously. For every particle, there exists a corresponding, mirrored antiparticle with the opposite quality and charge. Similarly, justice and injustice are binary moral notions: being “morally correct” implies a lack of moral culpability. These terms exist in relation to each other, relying on each other for meaning.

Physicists, however, find in this pair a mystery of asymmetry. Matter and antimatter were created in equal parts simultaneously, but today, there is more matter than antimatter. This is essential to our universe. If matter and antimatter existed in perfect symmetry, these fraternal twins would have annihilated each other, leaving nothing behind for life. The existence of you, me, and the Earth itself is a testament to the way that matter prevails over antimatter. Likewise, the perseverance of society is a testament to the fact that justice prevails over injustice.

If their coexistence explains emergence – the idea that small, microscopic systems equations cannot be maintained at macroscopic levels, which leads to asymmetry at scale – then their continued interaction begs another question: how do justice and injustice interact?

Justice and injustice: the cosmic link

Much like the energy created when matter and antimatter meet, the confrontation between justice and injustice also transforms into energy. In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that, in a closed system, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed into a different form or transferred to a different system. Matter and antimatter annihilates each other, leaving behind pure energy, but high amounts of some photon energy can inversely create matter and antimatter. In society, what we experience as new is a transformation of what already exists.

Whether we intend them to or not, those transformations will contribute to society and endlessly transform into new forms. When justice and injustice interact, the energy sparks into the potential for statutes, common law decisions, and policies – responses that consequently either mobilize social change or further entrench society in its deficiencies.

Nearly all of us matter-composed beings will be fortunate to have unremarkable encounters with antimatter; that does not change the fact of its existence. Generally, as morally governed beings, we will experience and live with the consequences of injustice. We cannot fully remove injustice from our system, and it will continue to be conserved in society one way or another. More importantly, due to our roles within the legal system as future lawyers or potential decision makers, we will be confronted by or confronting injustice regardless of our chosen field.

Understanding through clashing, false binaries

Like matter and antimatter are vital to our understanding of the physical universe, justice and injustice frame our understanding of the social sphere. We cannot reduce justice and injustice to simplistic conceptions of “good” or “bad;” they are forces that animate the moral fabric of society. A lawyer’s role is precarious but powerful – situated at the point of collisions. Their acts, and our acts as law students, have infinitely transformative potential. Therefore, we are obligated to be intentional in what we do.

Unlike the physical universe, the subjective nature of justice and injustice may deprive us of ever knowing the exact, quiet, persistent forces that allow justice to triumph. However, I believe justice continues to prevail through transformations by lawyers, judges, lawmakers, scholars, institutions, activists, and all other roles within law, who confront injustice.