"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -MLK Jr.
It's amazing how many pithy phrases people will repeat, with a warm feeling inside as if we have capitalized on a notion that will benefit everyone.
Yet to conclude that one man's injustice becomes everyone's betrays a visionary attachment to cosmic justice.
Justice is always an afterthought, a follow-up to the wrongdoing that has afflicted another. In many cases, the state power enforces consequences in an attempt to rectify a situation and deter its future promulgation.
At what point do we stop expecting justice from the world, for each other? Prejudice, for example, lies within the heart of every human being, as we are all saddled with mental limitations which initially force everyone we meet into categories. Despite our natural inclinations, we can rise above these assumptions, willing to receive each person as freely as possible from previous preconceived notions.
However, we will never be able to rid ourselves of conflict in this world. As nations are the spice of life, the differences among cultures and expectations will clash and grate from time to time.
Hence, injustice to one may be acceptable, or even commendable to another. Despite the abstract nature of this argument, we cannot ignore the limitations that bear on us to define justice globally and implement it completely.
Injustice is a fact of life, one whose prosecution may cost us more in freedom that we are ultimately willing to sacrifice.
One may argue with conviction that Dr. King's assertion is the grandest of slippery-slope fallacies. An injustice anywhere may be the catalyst to spur change in that same place. It may focus those who take their place, pride, and position for granted as prized and worthy to be defended.
The struggle of blacks in the American South could never compare to the state-sponsored Apartheid of South Africa, and the means for addressing these divergent oppressive circumstances required different tactics, with differing outcomes and invest of time and capital to effect change. Let us not assume, therefore, that the long-term toleration of an unjust circumstance will engender further injustice, not let us arrogantly assume that by our own efforts we must rise up and overturn every established order through crude means to prevent the preponderance of injustice here, there, or everywhere.
Cosmic justice rides on the turbulent waves of fighting injustices, both perceived and real, by those who feel impotent to overcome their own, or self-important enough to impose on others.
No, one injustice does not disturb the right outcomes of every one everywhere, although it may spur those who respect just outcomes to effect them where they are still lacking. At any rate, we must acknowledge that justice is a precious and precarious property, one which cannot be promoted from the outside, nor generally propagated.