Presence: Mercy v Justice, 4

When it comes to mercy or justice, we are asking: what’s more important in this particular situation? Is the aspect of this situation that’s likely to recur the most important aspect? If so, then we want the constraints of fair procedure. If there’s already an established procedure, fine, if not, we need to think about establishing one.

Or is the aspect of this situation that’s unique the most important aspect? Your teenager wants an advance on her allowance. She knows to steer attention away from what may be recurrent about this situation:

“But Mom, it’s this special thing! I’ll never have this chance again!”

The wise parent, balancing mercy and justice, will assess the good of consistent procedure and balance that against potential goods unique to the situation. That’s skill number one when it comes to the virtues of mercy and justice. Bring attention to that question: What are the likely recurrable features of this situation? What are the probably-not-going-to-be-repeated features? Which features are the most important here? Is your response going to function as a precedent, either for yourself or for others? Or probably not? If not, there’s no reason not to be as kind, compassionate, giving, and forgiving as you can be. The first skill is being intentional and explicit about looking at that question.

Presence

The second skill is presence. This is a spiritual skill – bringing and offering our whole selves to each situation.

The rules of justice can be a retreat from presence. We cite the rule – an eye for an eye – or whatever procedure it might be – and emotionally check out, withdraw, disengage.

Mercy itself can also be a retreat from presence. It's possible to be "dismissively merciful." I might say, for instance, "Fine, you’re forgiven, never mind the consequence." Or, "Fine, here’s some money – go take care of your need, just go." In those cases, I would be using mercy to avoid thinking more about the situation.

With our fuller presence, an openness to put all needs, all desires, on the table, creative possibilities emerge.

Mercy and justice can appear to be at odds, but with creative engagement there’s often a way to satisfy both. Attend particularly to the needs of understanding. What do you need to better understand? What can you help others better understand?

Remember that monkey screeching and spitefully hurling the cucumber bit back at the human? With a little more training, he might learn, “Oh, we’ve got a new rule here. Whereas previously all the chits were the same, we now have a system where the red chit gets cucumber and the blue chit gets a grape.” When we see how we can make things work for us, those feelings of unfairness ebb away.

What nuances might we explore and understand that would help us make our peace with what seemed to be unfair? How can we creatively make the system work for everyone? Who needs to be understood, and who needs to understand something better?

Zen Master Bankei showed mercy to the student who was stealing food. Bankei understood that, in that particular case mercy taught the lesson better that enforcing the rules would. This didn’t mean the monastery could get along without rules. Bankei gave his full presence to the situation and saw a way forward that otherwise would have been missed.

Presence. Attention. So round, round it takes in everything. So sharp, sharp it penetrates to the essence.

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This is part 4 of 4 of "Mercy v Justice"
Previous: Part 3: The Unique and the Recurrent
Beginning: Part 1: In Which Mr. Entrekin Introduces Me to Portia and I Learn a New Way to Be Obnoxious

Photo (c) by Meredith Garmon

The Unique and the Recurrent: Mercy v. Justice, 3

Suppose you and another person are paired up. I then give twenty one-dollar bills to the other person. It’s entirely up to the other person whether to hand over to you any of it, and if so, how much. You can’t do anything about that. You do, however, have the option to nix the whole thing. You can say “no deal,” and then I’ll take all $20 back, and neither of you will get anything. Your two choices are: (a) take whatever is offered, or (b) get nothing (in which case the other person also gets nothing).

So suppose the other person offers you $1. Would you take it, or would you say, "no deal"? They get 19 and you get 1. Is that fair? On the other hand, it is one more dollar than you had before.

Most people, upon being offered $1 will say “no deal.” They’d rather have nothing – and punish the other person for being so “selfish.”

On the other hand, most people don’t insist on a perfectly equitable 10-10 split. They understand that they have no claim to a fully equal share under these circumstances.

Would you accept one dollar? How about two? Three? Five? Nothing less than eight?

People are variable, but on average, six dollars will do it. For some people, five is enough, and for others it takes at least 7, but on average, a 6-14 split is regarded as fair, and will be accepted. Less than six dollars, and the chances are good you’ll say “no deal,” and both of you will go home empty-handed.

Is this rational? If you know this is a one-shot opportunity, wouldn’t it be more rational to take the $1? That would be better than nothing.

But our brains aren’t built to think that way. It’s really hard to convince our brains that anything is truly a one-shot opportunity. We are built to be social animals, and our strong predisposition is to treat everything as recurrable. Whatever people I’m dealing with today, I’ll probably be dealing with tomorrow. Throughout our evolutionary history, that was true. So the reason most people won't accept a one dollar offer is that their brains are wired to avoid getting a reputation as a patsy. Under early human conditions, it was rational for me to go home with nothing this time so that I can establish I’m a person to be reckoned with. If I show that I'm prepared to spitefully deny you $19 without any gain to myself, then next time you'll probably offer me more.

No matter how much the experimenter tells me that there isn’t going to be a next time, my brain is just not built to believe it. It won’t think that way.

Sometimes, however, my brain might try to make someone else think that way. Or, at least, some people's brains might. A few years ago I happened to catch some reality TV depicting a couple at an all-you-can-eat buffet. They gorged themselves. Three piled-high plates. Then they went back and piled high fourth plates. They made only a small dent in their fourth plates and asked the restaurant staff for to-go boxes. They were, of course, told, "No, you don’t get a to-go box at an all-you-can-eat buffet."

“But you’re just going to have to throw this food away,” the couple argued. “Why not let us have it?”

The manager was called. She came over and stood firm. No to-go box. She knew this is not a one-shot scenario. She was willing to let the food go to waste this time so that a precedent would not be established that would encourage people to take a lot more food without paying any more money.

This photo is unique. At the same time, there are a number
of types of photo it fits into: nature, smiling person, single
person in nature, hiking, Appalachian Trail, springtime,
New York, amateur snapshot, digital, color, etc.

At the same time, life does present us with unique, not-to-be-repeated situations. And that’s where the balance of justice and mercy comes in.

Insofar as a situation presents recurrent features, we can come up with procedures for how we’re going to handle that. And that’s the meaning of justice: that like cases are handled alike. Ideally, everyone knows the procedure, it is universally followed, and expectations are always met. That would be an ideal of justice.

We recognize the reality that types of situations recur – and so we have justice. We also recognize the reality that no two situations are ever exactly alike – and so we have mercy. Types of situations recur; specific situations, in their full multiplicity of detail, do not.

The question we confront, in each situation, is: what’s more important here? Every situation we face simultaneously:
(a) is unique and never to be repeated, and
(b) belongs to a number of various types of situation which may recur.

Sometimes it's the unrepeatable uniqueness that's most important. Sometimes it's the recurrent type that's more important.

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This is part 3 of 4 of "Mercy v Justice"
Next: Part 4: Presence
Previous: Part 2: Cucumbers and Grapes
Beginning: Part 1: In Which Mr. Entrekin Introduces Me to Portia and I Learn a New Way to Be Obnoxious

Photo by Meredith Garmon

Cucumbers and Grapes: Mercy v. Justice, 2

Mercy is something bestowed by someone in a position of power – whether divine or human:

• The criminal court judge pronouncing sentence upon the convicted might be said to exercise mercy.
• A soldier victorious in battle might or might not show mercy to the vanquished.
• A person of wealth who controls resources that can make or break another’s livelihood may choose to be merciful.

Another way of saying uncompelled and unconstrained is to say the option of mercy arises from being in a position of power in relation to someone else.
Each of us finds ourselves in various positions where we can exercise what power we have to "demand our due" -- or, mercifully, let it go.

Mercy belongs to a constellation of related concepts: Mercy, compassion, forgiveness, grace. Mercy:

• is a kind of compassion because it extends a kindness and flows out of a sense of shared pain.
• takes the form of forgiveness when it involves forgiving a wrong rather than demanding painful restitution.
• is a kind of grace because it is unearned and undeserved.

If something nice comes to you when you didn’t deserve it, that’s grace. If something unpleasant is lifted when you did deserve it, that’s mercy.

Mercy and justice are yin and yang, requiring balance. Too much mercy and there’s no enforcement of justice. If contracts are never enforced, no one will enter into contracts – including ultimately, the social contract – and society falls apart. If our children – or we ourselves -- were always spared any unpleasant consequences of their actions, they won’t learn – or we won’t maintain -- the skills and habits of responsibility. “Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy,” said Shakespeare in a different play.

Our impulse for fairness, though, can sometimes get a little strange.

Our ideas of fairness are rooted in being a social animal. Our brains are built to pay careful attention to the social scene. When distribution of desirable things is under social control, it behooves us to pay sharp attention to who gets what and to exert energies to get what we think of as “our share.” This has deep roots in our evolutionary past.

In one study, two monkeys were in adjacent plexiglass containers. They could see each other. They’d been trained in using a supply of little chits to buy food.

They reach through a hole, hand the human a chit, and the human will take it, and hand them back a bit of food. Sometimes they might get a bit of cucumber. Cucumber is OK. The monkeys will take the cucumber and eat it. Sometimes they get a grape. Grapes are great. The monkeys like the grapes a lot better than the cucumber. The cucumber is acceptable, but the grape is mwah!

But remember, the monkeys can see each other. If monkey A sees monkey B get a grape in exchange for a chit, and monkey A hands over a chit and only gets a bit of cucumber, there’s going to be some protest about that. They don't speak English, but it's clear what the content of the protest is: "That’s not fair! He got a grape! Where’s my grape?" The slighted monkey will become agitated and howl. I saw some video of this experiment. The monkey takes that bit of cucumber and throws it back at the human. The cucumber which a minute before had been perfectly acceptable is now despised.

The need to be treated fairly is a deep need. We can calmly accept deprivation if others are, too.

In another study, two chimps are in adjacent cages. One of them – only one -- can reach a table of food and can choose to share that food with the other chimp or not. The other chimp can’t reach the food and can’t compel sharing, but does have access to a rope attached to a table leg, and can collapse the whole table. If the first chimp doesn’t share with the second chimp, the second chimp will jump and scream and about half the time will upset the table so that neither of them get any of the food. (See: "The Bright Side of Spite Revealed")

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This is part 2 of 4 of "Mercy v. Justice"
Next: Part 3: The Unique and the Recurrent
Previous: Part 1: In Which Mr. Entrekin Introduces Me to Portia and I Learn a New Way to Be Obnoxious

Photo credit: Keith Jensen, et al.

In Which Mr. Entrekin Introduces Me to Portia and I Learn a New Way to Be Obnoxious: Mercy v. Justice, 1

"The leaves of the lotus are round, round, rounder than a mirror.
The edge of the water-nut is sharp, sharp, sharper than an awl."

This Zen koan came to mind as I was thinking about my 10th-grade English class. Our teacher, Mr. Entrekin, was the most nearly spherical man I have ever known. He was round, round -- and he was also sharp, sharp.

Mr. Entrekin was a man of presence. When I was genuine, I was seen. When I was putting up a false front, I was seen through.

I think somewhere I still have a theme I wrote in his class. It came back to me with his encouragement that I expand my toolbox of words. He wrote:

"You are possibly approaching an interesting point. The vocabulary, however, resembles that of my friend the retarded rhinoceros."

(Come to think of it, a rhinoceros would also be both round and sharp.)

I'm remembering that English class because Mr. Entrekin had us read Shakespeare's play, "The Merchant of Venice." If you remember the play (or even if you don't), Antonio offers a pound of his flesh closest his heart as guarantee of a loan. When the loan is not repaid, Shylock claims his pound of flesh. Portia then tells Shylock he must be merciful. Shylock retorts,

“On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.”

Portia famously replies,

“The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

“Not strained” means we cannot be constrained to be merciful. Mercy can’t be compelled. If it’s compelled, it isn’t mercy. Shylock asks, “on what compulsion must I be merciful?” The answer is there's no compulsion. It's not about compulsion.

Justice is about compulsion: there are principles of fairness that rightfully do constrain our behavior, but mercy doesn’t work that way. Mercy just happens, the way gentle rain falls on the ground. And when it does, it blesses both giver and receiver.

A few lines later, Portia makes the point:

“in the course of justice none of us should see salvation.”

Mr. Entrekin skillfully guided our exploration of this tension between justice and mercy: the hook on which justice puts us, and mercy, which sometimes lets us off the hook. I’d never seen it that way!

As a tenth-grader, this struck me as a powerful “gotcha” point to use against my theist classmates. Mercy is what we call it when we are spared from what we deserve. That means God is either merciful or just – either spares us from what we deserve or doesn’t. God can’t do both. For the next year or so I was frequently obnoxious with the question: Is this God of yours merciful or just? Can’t be both. Even a little bit of mercy is a deviation from strict justice.

Then I would complete the one-two punch by following-up with,

“And if God is all-powerful can he make a rock so big that he himself can’t lift it?”

Boom, boom!

After a while, even a teenager tires of throwing hard questions at other people and turns to wrestle with his own hard questions. What shall mercy mean to me? How do I cultivate this virtue in my life?

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This is part 1 of 4 of "Mercy v. Justice"

Photo by Diane Wilkes of painting by Cynthia von Buhler

Next: Part 2: Cucumbers and Grapes