LIVING WITH JUSTICE AND
COMPASSION
By Group 2
WHAT IS JUSTICE? (Daduya, Reinniel)
Justice is one of the most important
moral and political concepts according
to western theories of justice. The word
comes from the Latin jus, meaning right
or law. The Oxford English Dictionary
defines the “just” person as one who
typically “does what is morally right” and
is disposed to “giving everyone his or
her due,” offering the word “fair” as a
synonym.
In the first book of The Republic, Plato
shares a conversation between
Socrates and Thrasymachus in which
overall justice for Socrates is balance, a
common ancient Greek concept. It is
also self-awareness, as one must first
acknowledge his strong and weak points
and then be eager to learn from the
others, obey his superiors and trouble
nobody.
DEFINITION OF COMPASSION
(Federis, Yuri Laine)
Compassion motivates people to go out
of their way to help the physical, mental,
or emotional pains of another and
themselves. The etymology of
"compassion" is Latin, meaning "co-
suffering." Compassion involves "feeling
for another" and is a precursor to
empathy, the "feeling as another"
capacity for better person-centered acts
of active compassion; in common
parlance active compassion is the
desire to alleviate another's suffering.
The Dalai Lama defines compassion as
“sensitivity to the suffering of self and
others, with a deep commitment to try to
relieve it.” It takes: (a) focussed
attention and awareness, (b) sensitivity
and openness to pain and (c) the
motivation to act to relieve that pain.
A. STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE
(Enriquez, Matthew Eugene V.)
The term structural violence was coined
by the Johan Gultang, a Norwegian
sociologist. In his 1969 article,
“Violence, Peace and Peace Research,”
Gultang argued that structural violence
explained the negative power of social
institutions and systems of social
organization among marginalized
communities.
It is important to distinguish Gultang’s
concept of violence from the term as it is
traditionally defined (physical violence of
war or crime). Gultang defined structural
violence as the root cause of the
differences between people’s potential
reality and their actual circumstances.
For example, potential life expectancy in
the general population might be
significantly longer than the actual life
expectancy for members of
disadvantaged groups, due to factors
like racism, economic inequality, or
sexism. In this example, the discrepancy
between the potential and the actual life
expectancy results from structural
violence.
This is what makes revealing structural
violence so difficult to prove. While
structural violence identifies the victims,
it also implicates the demographic
responsible for creating those victims,
which creates a resistance to
accusations of structural violence.
B. ELITISM (Dalago, Jadine Kyzle R.)
A view that nearly all political power is
held by relatively small and wealthy
group of people sharing similar values
and interests, and mostly coming from
relatively similar privileged backgrounds.
This theory emphasize the degree to
which interlocking corporate and
foundation directorates, old school ties
and frequent social interaction that
tends to link together and facilitate
coordination between the top leaders in
business sector, government, civic
organizations, educational and cultural
establishments and the mass media.
This “ power elite” can dictate the main
goals for important government policy
making by the virtue of their control over
the huge economic resources of the
major business and financial
organizations in the country. There can
be some cases when these elites can
dominate the activities of most
educational institutions and even the
mass media.
C. ETHNOCENTRISM ( De Jesus,
Patrick E.)
It is the act of judging another culture
based on preconceptions that are found
in values and standards of one's own
culture. Ethnocentric behavior involves
judging other groups relative to the
preconceptions of one's own ethnic
group or culture, especially regarding
language, behavior, customs, and
religion.
William G. Sumner described
ethnocentrism as often leading to pride,
vanity, belief in one's own group's
superiority, and contempt for outsiders.
D. CLASSISM (Morales, Julius
Christian)
It is defined as a prejudice or
discrimination on the basis of social
class which still occurs in societies
around the world today. It includes
individual attitudes, behaviors, systems
of policies and practices that are set up
to benefit the upper class at the
expense of the lower class or vice
versa. Social class refers to the
grouping of individuals in a hierarchy
based on wealth, income, education,
occupation, and social network.
E. RACISM (Federis, Yuri Laine)
Racism is the belief in the superiority of
one race over another, which often
results in discrimination and prejudice
towards people based on their race or
ethnicity. Individuals who experience
racism in their everyday life find
1. They come very limited
2. Fear becomes an everyday
occurrence
3. Low self-esteem
F. SEXISM (Lupig, Jeaf Roseminh D.)
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination
based on a person's sex or gender.
Sexism can affect anyone, but it
primarily affects women and girls. It has
been linked to stereotypes and gender
roles, and may include the belief that
one sex or gender is intrinsically
superior to another.
G. NATIONALISM (Velasco, Karen D.)
“Nationalism is the imposition of a high
culture on society replacing local, low
cultures and most multiculturalism.” –
Gellner
If communities share language and
culture, then assimilation is possible
through standardized education.
However, if there is not a shared
‘ethnicity’, then assimilation will not
occur but rather excluded from society.
In this case, nationalism will emerge as
the excluded ‘ethnicity’ pushes for
political sovereignty. It will strive for one
culture or ethnicity under one roof, the
most important principle of successful
states. The worst case is when the ruler
of a state is not a member of the ethnic
majority within the boundaries of the
state. Nationalism will inevitably occur
because members of the ‘nation’ will
want to strive for advancement by
attempting to gain control of the state.
H. ADULTISM (Puertollano, Kyd Joshua
D.C.)
“Defined as set of attitudes and
behaviours based on the assumption
that adults are better than young people
and entitled to act upon young people
without agreement.”
Though this is may be true in some
sense, there are rational arguments as
to why adults would tend to act better
than young people are entitled to do so.
As adults tend tend to be more rational
than younger people. One example is
when it comes to political participation.
As there are scientific evidences that a
human brain are still developing even in
their 20s. Therefore concluding that
adult people’s brains tend to be more
mature than younger people.
1. Attitudinal Adultism/ internalized
adultism. :Personal feelings,
assumptions, and beliefs that form a
person’s attitudes about young people.
Though this may be good or bad in
some sense. People has the tendency
to outgrow their younger selves in which
they would usually perceive younger
people who are still developing both
physically and mentally.
2. Cultural Adultism/ social adultism:
The shared attitudes, including beliefs
and customs, promoting the assumption
that adults are superior to anyone who
is not identified as an adult, simply
because of their age.
This may be true in some sense but that
doesn’t mean that young people are
being excluded just because of beliefs
and customs that promote that adults
are superior to anyone who is not
identified as an adult. It is natural.
Younger people still needs the guidance
of adults because they aren’t
experienced enough to make informed
choices and therefore are more likely. to
make volatile decisions. Thus studies
also proved that younger people tend to
be more gullible and selfish than older
ones.
3. Structural Adultism/industrial
adultism: The normalization and
legitimization of historical, cultural,
institutional and interpersonal dynamics
that routinely advantage adults while
producing cumulative and chronic
adverse outcomes for young people.
This is not true in some sense that in
our present society there are more
opportunities being given to younger
people than older ones due to the
advancement of modern technology that
the older ones fail to cope. Though there
are some older people who tend to be
irrational with their choices as their grow
older this is due to the fact that the
neurotransmitters in the brain tend to
decay as humans grow older. Apart
from that it has also something to do
with how older people were grew and
raised when they were younger. In
which they pass it on to the younger
generation as they grew older.
I. HETEROSEXISM (Perez, Vera Anne
C.)
It is an ideological system that denies,
denigrates, and stigmatizes any non-
heterosexual form of behavior, identity,
relationship, or community. Using the
term heterosexism highlights the
parallels between anti-gay sentiment
and other forms of prejudice, such as
racism, anti-semitism, and sexism.
Heterosexism and sexism particularly
interact in that people who do not
conform to stereotypical gender roles or
gender expressions of the culture are
often harassed on the assumption that
they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, or queer.
J. AGEISM ( De Jesus, Patrick E)
It is the stereotyping and discrimination
against individuals or groups on the
basis of their age. This may be casual or
systematic.
Robert Neil Butler defined "ageism" as a
combination of three connected
elements. Among them were prejudicial
attitudes towards older people, old age,
and the aging process; discriminatory
practices against older people; and
institutional practices and policies that
perpetuate stereotypes about elderly
people.