Throughout the Justice Project we learned about several philosophies of justice, environmental ethics, the tangible example of the complexity of oil and gas (especially regarding sacred Native lands) by watching the films "True Justice" and "Beyond Standing Rock". We then put these findings to work in writing two justice monologues, and by creating a final justice project on the topic of our choice.
The first monologue was written in regards to our personal justice philosophy. I chose to write mine on justice as compassion, because that's what resonated with me most. Our second monologue regards the topic of the complexity of the oil and gas industry versus sacred indigenous lands. I do not believe that I have full understanding of the subject, therefore I came to a rather oversimplified solution to the problem. Then, our final justice project tied both of the central ideas of personal ethic and environmental ethic together. My and my partner's project focused on injustices within the commercial fishing industry, how our impact effects the oceans.
2. Justice Monologue #1
To state the obvious, justice is a very loosely defined, and highly opinionated topic. There are a multitude of factors that contribute to one’s view on justice. For instance, Howard Zinn had experience with the theory of “law as justice” that allowed him to see deeper than that. But at the roots, justice is justice. There are a few theories on it, and to each their own. Your view may be influenced by your socioeconomic standing, or perhaps by the people you surround yourself with, or maybe by your genetics. In my case, my psychology tells me instinctively that justice is best served as compassion, turning the other cheek is usually my path of action when somebody has treated me unjustly. But in the grand scheme, justice has to be more carefully planned to align with the society of the present.
Concerning the truth, we must not always trust the law to provide justice, because as we have all witnessed in the movie True Justice, the law brought many unjust punishments unto completely innocent people, which unfortunately is the consequence of ignorance towards law as a true form of justice. As stated by Howard Zinn, “The test of justification for an act is not its legality but its morality,” (Zinn 419). Although if you value freedom over truth you may be opting for a system of libertarianism, because with almost no government, there are bound to be some cracks in the punishment system when people act unfairly. Equality, I would argue can be found in Rawls’ theory quite obviously, and in the practices of compassion as justice and Zinn’s theory of civil disobedience. In combination, the Dalai Lama’s compassion theory and Zinn’s theory probably work the best to create a more equal future, because we have the opportunity to create change with disobedience, but can find a way to do it non-violently. Unfortunately, non-violence is not always the most successful path because people tend to pay attention to more tragic events, therefore I would have to opt that Rawls’ theory is the most realistic. Furthermore, I recognize that when the Dalai Lama says that, “nonviolence is not a sign of weakness, but rather one of self-confidence and courage,” (Lama 58) he is speaking the ultimate truth.
In conclusion, I believe that The Dalai Lama has the most fundamentally morally, ethically, and emotionally fair view on how justice should be served and most simply, “revenge weakens society, forgiveness gives it strength,” (63).
3. Justice Monologue #2
The answer is clear as day, let the indigenous people speak to what they want on their lands, and the U.S. Government shouldn’t have a say. The way I see it, indigenous land should be treated as private property (owned by thousands of people), but to an even greater extent. If it is their land, it should be treated as such, or purchased for a fair price. The whole issue is overthought. If the indigenous peoples of America are a sovereign nation, why are they not treated just as any other independent country? I understand that the U.S. government is putting more effort than what it has been, but I strongly believe that since the government has pushed these people around for hundreds of years, and therefore more effort should be put into reparations.
Imagine being taken out of your ancestral land and being told that you have to move, only to then be told again that you don’t even have rights to the land that you have been forcefully moved to. Give the people who have connection and love for their land, their land back.
Concerning our economic needs, the answer is simple. Solar and wind energy will always be here, and although it may cost a lot of money to build the infrastructure initially, it will pay off shortly. Gas and oil are a bad investment, because they aren’t sustainable in any form, but these renewable sources will be here for the long run. In the essay The Pall of Our Unrest, Terry Tempest Williams notes that,”We have sacrificed the integrity of fragile and iconic landscapes for the development of oil and gas to fuel ‘the American way of life,’” (Williams 9). This switch will also provide plenty of jobs for oil and gas workers to transfer to. These forms of energy are also a lot safer, because there isn’t a chance of spills, water pollution, and air pollution. They also don’t cause as much irreversible damage to the lands they are put on. I am truly failing to see any downsides to a transfer to solar and wind energy, other than initial cost.
Non-indigenous residents of these lands who have made their livelihoods by using the land, and a lack of understanding that these investments are in everyone’s best interest, stand in the way of implementing these solutions. As stated in the text Environmental Ethics, “no right is more crucial in a wider variety of environmental issues,” in reference to this right of private property through a Western philosophical view (Desjardins 235). A good first step would be for the government to buy out all the sacred indigenous land, and then give it back to the indigenous people. Then groups could reach out to corporations to gain support for the sustainable energy movement (excluding hydro-power because it has been found to be harmful to ecosystems), and directly reach out to oil and gas companies and get them to at least slowly start to switch over. This way, there can be a steady transfer of jobs, so that nobody loses their livelihood.
Indigenous people should have rights to their lands, and sustainable energy is the future for all.
My justice project is focused on the unethical practices within the commercial fishing industry. I did this in collaboration with Jaylin Candelaria. What we ended up doing was taking the first week to do any background research needed and taking notes, the second week to do our action project of picking up trash out of our local river, then using some of that to create an art piece, and during the third week we wrote our artist statement. All of this work was done in conjunction, both of us doing an equal amount of work on each step. We both took notes, did some of our own research, some together. We both picked up the trash and collaborated on what we were going to do for an action in general. We both worked on the art piece, sorting trash, cleaning some of it off, Jaylin cut up the pieces, while I put them together on our canvas. We both put equal effort and wrote equal parts on the artist statement. We also reached out to a few venues to display our art piece, and ultimately got a response from our target venue, which was very exciting.
b. How did your project reflect your personal philosophy of justice?
1) Please go into depth here. Draw on earlier coursework/texts/philosophies/ethics that we studied and provide a comprehensive explanation of what your philosophy is as it relates to your project and how your project reflects that philosophy.
Justice as compassion is how I approached this project. In order for me to feel something regarding justice for the ocean, I include my ethic of compassion. I have so much compassion for the sea creatures and for our ocean as a whole landscape. The water itself is so beautiful and everything contained within it should be protected. This, however, extends into compassion for humans though because of how involved human trafficking is and how locals cannot sustain themselves anymore because of the greed of people who live thousands of miles away from the source.
2) Why was your project a just way to address your issue of injustice? How did it bring about more justice or if you were trying to raise awareness, why were the ideas/arguments/messages you were expressing through your work/writing/art more in line with justice than other ideas?
Our project addressed our issue of injustice by doing something locally to help out the larger issue, by (hopefully) displaying art as a way to attract attention and spread awareness to the issue. We left a QR code with our art to link to a website with loads of information, and most importantly CORRECT information. There has been so much misinformation spread about this, because the industry and corporations can’t profit off of ending this problem. One of the worst lies, which is also very convenient for corporations (and governments) to get behind, is that plastic straws are the worst of our problems and that if we all stopped using plastic straws we would have done our part. But, the whole point of our project is to show that there are many more injustices and issues we should be fighting for, for the oceans. Our art piece depicts a whale made out of trash that we found in our local river, and although regular citizen trash is not the main part of our problem, this is the most accessible way to help out. We figure that through the metaphor Death by Pollution, we can get people’s attention and in the very least are educating ourselves on the issue.
c. Did you do sufficient research and background work to pull off your project, take an informed stance or succeed in your endeavors?
Yes, we did plenty of research. We spent a whole week of our two week time period on finding valid research. We are informed on what the issues are, but given more time we could have dove into knowing everything about a specific injustice within the commercial fishing industry.
6. Project Reflection
a. In what ways were you successful in meeting the goals you established in your project proposal? What contributed to your successes?
We were successful in completing all of our goals. We were able to procure enough resources, materials, and communicate to a community space about displaying our work.
b. What contributed to your failures? What did you do to try to overcome the obstacles? What should you have done differently?
On some days, we failed to realize that we needed certain materials, but we overcame that by asking if we could go get those for ourselves. We could have written out a list beforehand to avoid this problem.
c. To what extent did you SHOW UP for this project? How engaged/committed/involved were you in the work? How much did you strive to create beautiful work worth doing? To what extent were you accountable to yourself and others if relevant?
I showed up everyday and tried to keep us on track. We planned out every day to help us to our final product, and were able to keep on task every single day and ultimately got our project done exactly as planned. However, we really pushed ourselves to get everything done within the scheduled time.
d. What two key lessons did you learn from this project that you can apply to senior project?
I learned that making a schedule ahead of time for each day is incredibly beneficial, and that having somebody else make me accountable for doing work helps a lot. Although I will not be doing my project with a peer, I could keep this in mind in the way that I could have somebody to check in daily with.