Every person in his/her life is faced with injustice. This is one of the most violently experienced emotional states, in which very different feelings are intertwined into one tangle – rage, powerlessness, fear, shame and much more. However, people behave in such situations in very different ways: some humble themselves, others demand satisfaction, no matter what area of their lives the injustice touches. And this thirst for the restoration of justice is so powerful that it can cover all other spheres of human life with a dense veil. A person cannot live a normal life until justice prevails.
Existential psychologists may say that the justice of the world is one of the basic illusions that sooner or later have to be given up. Let’s not argue about how correct this view is, but let’s think about why it is injustice that affects a person so powerfully. Of course, you can consider such situations as a loss of control, when something terrible happens, and we ourselves were not able to influence it. Then it is the world that should act as an external arbiter and deal with the situation so that our internal indignation subsides and we feel safe again. It is interesting that this is precisely the basic security, that early layer of our psyche, when the baby perceives the entire external world through the mother’s figure and is completely dependent on her. If the mother responds to baby’s cry on time and correctly, then the world is benevolent and fair, but if not, then the world becomes not just unfair, but mortally dangerous, since the baby is completely dependent creature. If this metaphor is correct, then when faced with the injustice of the world, we need satisfaction not only as a whim. This is a survival need, a need to make sure that the world is still benevolent and sensitive to us, otherwise our very basic sense of security is threatened.
When we demand justice, we are at least vulnerable, and at the most we are dealing with issues of life and death. Of course, this will not make the world more just, but we can significantly help ourselves in our difficult experiences if we understand what drives us in moments of ardent desire to achieve justice by any available means.