The Justice Project
The theme of the Justice Project is how justice is defined and how it is relevant to society today. As an introduction to the project, the class learned what justice is through the lens of its various philosophies. Furthermore, we looked at the principles of justice (equality, fairness and access) and analyzed several texts from philosophers like John Rawl and the Dalai Lama. What we learned in these first few weeks would prepare us to write Justice Monologues. We presented these monologues to the class as we gave our educated opinion on what defines justice and injustice.
The next section of the project was dedicated to learning environmental ethics as they pertain to (in)justice. The main focus of this was Native American injustice. We would find our own sources in addition to the many texts provided by Sara in order to write a second Justice Monologue specifically answering "What is the most just way to balance our energy and economic needs, human and environmental health and protection of sacred lands?" We answered this in the context of case studies, most which were centered around Native American rights and property.
Our studies would lead to our final Justice Project, where each student or group of students research their own topic of injustice and attempt to create public awareness and/or change regarding it. It was the standard at this point that everyone was able to use their knowledge of justice in order to legitimately impact the community.
The next section of the project was dedicated to learning environmental ethics as they pertain to (in)justice. The main focus of this was Native American injustice. We would find our own sources in addition to the many texts provided by Sara in order to write a second Justice Monologue specifically answering "What is the most just way to balance our energy and economic needs, human and environmental health and protection of sacred lands?" We answered this in the context of case studies, most which were centered around Native American rights and property.
Our studies would lead to our final Justice Project, where each student or group of students research their own topic of injustice and attempt to create public awareness and/or change regarding it. It was the standard at this point that everyone was able to use their knowledge of justice in order to legitimately impact the community.
My Justice Monologue #1
Justice can be defined in many ways. In fact, one of the most interesting things about justice is the controversy around it. What does justice mean? This is what determines not only our political views, but our infrastructural morals. What serves as a culture’s justice system must be strongly related to what that culture’s basic philosophies of what right and wrong are. Basically, justice is one of the most important, yet controversial subjects.
Several philosophies have been proposed for what justice is, and how humans should rightfully act, politically or otherwise. This includes John Rawls, who’s ideals revolve around equality, and Jeremy Bentham, who is a utilitarian who believes in maximizing happiness, even if the consequences of doing so contradict traditional values. The philosophy that most resonates with me, however, is that of the Dalai Lama, who sees justice as a form of compassion.
This idea is already enticing, however, what I believe makes the Dalai Lama’s ideals so special are that they are harder to object to than any other philosophy I’ve found. When you look at the values of a libertarian, it might be easy to think of some reasons not to be a full-blown libertarian. Perhaps you believe people’s health and safety should be valued over their right to do whatever they want… or maybe you think taxes are a reasonable part of society. If you look at the Dalai Lama’s philosophy, however, you might find it more difficult to disagree with the idea that compassion is at the core of determining whether or not something is just.
Several philosophies have been proposed for what justice is, and how humans should rightfully act, politically or otherwise. This includes John Rawls, who’s ideals revolve around equality, and Jeremy Bentham, who is a utilitarian who believes in maximizing happiness, even if the consequences of doing so contradict traditional values. The philosophy that most resonates with me, however, is that of the Dalai Lama, who sees justice as a form of compassion.
This idea is already enticing, however, what I believe makes the Dalai Lama’s ideals so special are that they are harder to object to than any other philosophy I’ve found. When you look at the values of a libertarian, it might be easy to think of some reasons not to be a full-blown libertarian. Perhaps you believe people’s health and safety should be valued over their right to do whatever they want… or maybe you think taxes are a reasonable part of society. If you look at the Dalai Lama’s philosophy, however, you might find it more difficult to disagree with the idea that compassion is at the core of determining whether or not something is just.
My Justice Monologue #2
As justice is determined by the people, to understand what is just is to understand the people. Oil and gas industries’ developments on sacred lands has given rise to a conflict of values. In the Chaco Canyon Region alone are voices of residents and two dozen tribes which hold the land sacred. These voices seem to have gone unheard by those in charge of drilling and fracking in the region which has persisted for decades and continues to persist to this day. However, these people behind the wheel, partly the Bureau of Land Management, who approves oil and gas development, have ensured a great amount of jobs and income for the state of New Mexico.
What remains to be acknowledged are the effects of oil and gas development on the San Juan Basin. The current drilling and fracking has proved to be devastating to the environment. Drilling necessitates the clearing of land and invasive wildlife, and spills prevent soil of providing life for generations. Drilling also causes toxic chemicals to be released in the air. As for fracking, a single frack job requires injecting 5.5 million gallons of water into the ground and mixing it with highly toxic chemicals. The disposal of this water threatens public health, as the entire process threatens the area’s ecosystem.
Residents strongly feel these impacts. Rose is a Navajo Elder who says a lot of people have lost their lives due to the sediments brought up by oil and gas development. She states how she wakes up in the night to the thought of what’s being put into the ground - that her fruits and vegetables have recently been unable to grow.
Clearly, this is not environmental justice, which begs the question, “What can we do?” Environmental ethics are more than a step-by-step process - they are an attitude, and to be able to think about how we can discourage discrimination is necessary to building a just society. Therefore, it is being able to lean away from anthropocentrism and be able to understand the environment, even on a spiritual level, that allows for just change to happen. Thank you.
What remains to be acknowledged are the effects of oil and gas development on the San Juan Basin. The current drilling and fracking has proved to be devastating to the environment. Drilling necessitates the clearing of land and invasive wildlife, and spills prevent soil of providing life for generations. Drilling also causes toxic chemicals to be released in the air. As for fracking, a single frack job requires injecting 5.5 million gallons of water into the ground and mixing it with highly toxic chemicals. The disposal of this water threatens public health, as the entire process threatens the area’s ecosystem.
Residents strongly feel these impacts. Rose is a Navajo Elder who says a lot of people have lost their lives due to the sediments brought up by oil and gas development. She states how she wakes up in the night to the thought of what’s being put into the ground - that her fruits and vegetables have recently been unable to grow.
Clearly, this is not environmental justice, which begs the question, “What can we do?” Environmental ethics are more than a step-by-step process - they are an attitude, and to be able to think about how we can discourage discrimination is necessary to building a just society. Therefore, it is being able to lean away from anthropocentrism and be able to understand the environment, even on a spiritual level, that allows for just change to happen. Thank you.
Defense and Reflection
Defense
What I ended up doing turned out to be different than what I originally planned. While I planned to create a political cartoon or two that would explain the injustice of government lobbying, I ended up changing both my research subject and my project. As I spent much of my time during the two weeks of project work time researching government lobbying, I found not plentiful content nor personal interest surrounding government lobbying's unjust aspects. Rather, during my research, I discovered and redirected my attention to something more interesting to me. The international arbitration industry is not interesting to me per se, but it was easier to understand issues relating to its corruption compared to government lobbying. I also could see how it directly falls under the broad subject of systemic oppression which I have a general curiosity of.
As for my current level of understanding about corrupt arbitration, I would say it's difficult to state whether or not I developed a "solid" understanding of my subject and my reason for calling awareness to it. What I can say is that I demonstrated mostly all of my knowledge of this issue in my letter, and I would have difficulty providing further analysis. I would judge my final understanding as acceptable but needing of improvement.
Reflection
The first goal in my project proposal was to fully annotate and take notes on three legitimate sources on government lobbying. Starting out my project with a productive mindset, I was able to accomplish this goal (even within the time frame I set up for myself) due to the support from my classmate, Bryan, who gave me the idea to research government lobbying, as well as my teacher, Sara, who helped direct me in the right direction for my research.
However, as I got deeper into the research, I was beginning to lose interest in the project, and began procrastinating. I still had the goals of researching at least three more sources and gathering sufficient knowledge to make political cartoons. Due to my procrastination, I wasn't able to complete any of these goals during the two week period we were provided. Something that discouraged me from making progress on my research was the sheer complexity of government lobbying, in addition to it's scarce relevance to injustice. Besides, whereas I found that most my classmates were researching a topic of injustice that they felt passionate about, I didn't have any interest in injustice altogether.
In order to overcome these mental obstacles, I reached out to Sara about my procrastination. She gave me her support, but the fact is that my problem was not going to be solved by someone else. It was up to me to understand what I was mentally going through so that I could work around it. In hindsight, I now believe that a large factor was my lack of confidence in my ability to create beautiful work. It's taken more than long enough to learn this, but this project has left me with the wisdom that I must have confidence in my ability to create beautiful work. I realize that what often what puts me in a procrastinator's mindset is believing that the research I do and things I write are not going to make me proud of myself. I now know that I've been holding myself to too high a standard, and moving forward (especially with senior project) I intend to hold myself to the lower, but much more rational standard of simply getting content on paper. If it doesn't meet the requirements straight away, at least I'll have a rough draft.
I would say that the two key lessons I pulled from this project are to (i) Make sure to plan ahead as much as humanly possible, and most importantly, (ii) Believe in my ability to create beautiful work.
What I ended up doing turned out to be different than what I originally planned. While I planned to create a political cartoon or two that would explain the injustice of government lobbying, I ended up changing both my research subject and my project. As I spent much of my time during the two weeks of project work time researching government lobbying, I found not plentiful content nor personal interest surrounding government lobbying's unjust aspects. Rather, during my research, I discovered and redirected my attention to something more interesting to me. The international arbitration industry is not interesting to me per se, but it was easier to understand issues relating to its corruption compared to government lobbying. I also could see how it directly falls under the broad subject of systemic oppression which I have a general curiosity of.
As for my current level of understanding about corrupt arbitration, I would say it's difficult to state whether or not I developed a "solid" understanding of my subject and my reason for calling awareness to it. What I can say is that I demonstrated mostly all of my knowledge of this issue in my letter, and I would have difficulty providing further analysis. I would judge my final understanding as acceptable but needing of improvement.
Reflection
The first goal in my project proposal was to fully annotate and take notes on three legitimate sources on government lobbying. Starting out my project with a productive mindset, I was able to accomplish this goal (even within the time frame I set up for myself) due to the support from my classmate, Bryan, who gave me the idea to research government lobbying, as well as my teacher, Sara, who helped direct me in the right direction for my research.
However, as I got deeper into the research, I was beginning to lose interest in the project, and began procrastinating. I still had the goals of researching at least three more sources and gathering sufficient knowledge to make political cartoons. Due to my procrastination, I wasn't able to complete any of these goals during the two week period we were provided. Something that discouraged me from making progress on my research was the sheer complexity of government lobbying, in addition to it's scarce relevance to injustice. Besides, whereas I found that most my classmates were researching a topic of injustice that they felt passionate about, I didn't have any interest in injustice altogether.
In order to overcome these mental obstacles, I reached out to Sara about my procrastination. She gave me her support, but the fact is that my problem was not going to be solved by someone else. It was up to me to understand what I was mentally going through so that I could work around it. In hindsight, I now believe that a large factor was my lack of confidence in my ability to create beautiful work. It's taken more than long enough to learn this, but this project has left me with the wisdom that I must have confidence in my ability to create beautiful work. I realize that what often what puts me in a procrastinator's mindset is believing that the research I do and things I write are not going to make me proud of myself. I now know that I've been holding myself to too high a standard, and moving forward (especially with senior project) I intend to hold myself to the lower, but much more rational standard of simply getting content on paper. If it doesn't meet the requirements straight away, at least I'll have a rough draft.
I would say that the two key lessons I pulled from this project are to (i) Make sure to plan ahead as much as humanly possible, and most importantly, (ii) Believe in my ability to create beautiful work.