Really whenever you hear the words "personal responsibility" put in that order, there is a high likelihood that someone just pulled a Just World Fallacy. So I listen for that as a marker.
Reasons why I think a lot of people want to believe in a just world: 1. It gives them reassurance that they will be OK as long as they don't do anything wrong. 2. It provides a convenient excuse for authority figures like teachers and police who don't want to concede that they just can't do as much to combat injustice as they claim. 3. It enables people to feel better about themselves when they commit wrongs against others.
4:00 The income inequality debate in a nutshell. I wouldn't have guessed that the "bootstraps" argument could be underpinned by a cognitive bias in this way. It also makes it clearer why someone would want to, say, vote for someone rich who clearly doesn't have their best interests at heart, because the rich person may be perceived as being more hardworking or deserving.
+daksin Just World Fallacy was a revelation to me. There are sooo many aspects of world politics and history which make way more sense when you assume that people are in great quantities affected by this Fallacy. When did you hear 'Well that can't be' for the last time? Do you guys know this thought that suggests 'If it were that bad, then someone would already have done something about it, or we would be talking about it in the news every week at least.' It's a reallly big cognitive effort to fight this bias. But it's kinda rewarding.... Congratulations, you understand politics and history better now. Now deal with your Weltschmerz!
As someone who has gone through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I can say that being exposed to that information was eye opening. Learning the cognitive distortions and how you can avoid or mitigate them has made my life much easier. When I see other people engaging in these fallacies, it makes me wish more people would be aware of them.
An example of the Just World Fallacy I experienced: a classmate of mine is in his second year at our university. I'm in my last. I mentioned in telling a story that I once failed a hard class and only passed with a C when I retook it. He told me I'm a bad student and that's the grade I deserved. I said this class was taught by the professor with the lowest pass rate and highest drop/fail rate in our program, so maybe he's just a hard or bad teacher. He said no, it must mean he's the best since he makes you work so hard. I replied that maybe when he fails an upper division class with this teacher, he'll feel differently. So I think we both started operating on that fallacy. He thinks I must have deserved a low grade. I think he must be getting his comeuppance for being so naive and accusing.
maybe he doesn't like making excuses for anything and could be overly pessimistic. I don't know if there is a golden standard for how a teacher grades. On websites where you can rate professors, the ones with the lowest scores usually are tough graders. What makes a teacher a "good" or "bad" one is a different topic, but I'd say this fallacy is applied correctly because you would have gotten a higher grade with an easier teacher.
I guess it means "You get what you deserve". It makes sense that rich people think they deserve riches. Imagine how stressful it would be if you were rich but suffered with depression because you knew deep down no one deserves to be rich.
@Desperadow A wealthy person who feels they don't deserve it can use philanthropy to remedy the situation. A poor person has a much harder time changing their circumstances, because hard work can only get you so far. Without opportunity, hard work can't get you to a better place.
Is it natural though, it could just as easily be cultural conditioning. Everyone has grown up in a world of watching TV shows where the good guys win and the baddies get what's coming to them. Which perhaps explains the Game of Thrones phenomena.
+jaocheu Maybe it you could be a cognitive bias creating this sentiment along the society, who passes that thorugh other generations, and it becomes a part of our culture.
+jaocheu We also might instead call this the Happy End Bible Bias. The Good-Bad-Distinction was made popular in 'western' 'culture' through christianity. (source: /r/AskHistorians) So IMHO it's not too crazy to assume it's partly a cultural thing. Seriously, at times where about 95% of all humans around you are deeply religious and really into the 'If I live like the priest tells me to, God will reward me with a good life (or afterlife)', It's a really obvious conclusion that everything around you will in at least one way make sense and bring justice to the world. Jokes on them, there's no god.
On a smaller scale than war or natural disaster I experienced this. Had a brutal breakup where I was hated by someone that I'd only ever tried to make happy and shortly after that my sister was in a very dangerous situation where we couldn't speak to her or get any idea of her safety for about 6 months. I fell into a deep depression because although I like to believe I know the world is unjust I'd never been confronted with such clear evidence. Took me nearly two years to get back to a place where I could imagine a positive future because I no longer had any idea how to achieve that.
The Just World Fallacy is a strong influence on conservative political thinking. "I won't help those people because they got themselves into their bad situation." "I deserve a good life because I'm a better person than the people who are poor." This is also why higher education usually results in progressive thinking. When someone is educated on the societal causes of income, class, and race inequality, there is empathy for the underdogs and a desire to correct that injustice. This is not "elitism", as conservatives like to claim. This is recognition of the reality of the world, and the acceptance of the truth that anyone could fall into a terrible situation through circumstance, and no fault of their own.
As a cancer patient, I have often been blamed for my illness. It must be because I'm fat, or ate the wrong things, or carried my cell phone in my bra, or whatever. In reality, I have a gene mutation called RAD51D. I happen to be the one in my immediate family who got breast cancer. We are all fat, non-smokers, non-drinkers, relatively active. My mom had MS and bipolar disorder. My dad had Crohns disease which led to lymphoma. My sister has Crohns disease and infertility. This is all the result of random genetic mutations, not the result of any moral failings on our part. Yet people continue to deny the randomness of our health challenges by saying we caused them ourselves.
In a just world, this channel would receive two orders of magnitude greater subscription and views! I really love your videos, and even your bad opening jokes. Please keep up the great work!
Your example about domestic abuse had me thinking about when people claim rape victims "asked for it". Aside from all the social aspects of the matter, could that be a case of this fallacy leading more and more people to have that belief, so much that it becomes very present in our society and our culture?
I do not think anyone but rapist say the asking for it line but many times it is their fault they are in the situation. Rapist are real so women need to judge men before being alone with them they also should not walk around in seedy neighborhoods alone in the middle of the night.
+misterbunga It's related to one reason I left religion, but there's a little more thought/nuance to it. After all, C.S. Lewis wrote _The Problem of Pain_ and countless other theologians have tried to reconcile the concept. The larger problem, which I feel they all failed to adequately do, is reconcile human suffering with a _just_ deity. Because everything they claim (sin, the existence of soul, etc.) has no real basis in fact, it became hard to accept that a god would help me find my keys or make all the traffic lights green on my commute or help my team win a sporting event while ignoring SIDS. It's the dichotomy of who _doesn't_ suffer, and the fact that human suffering can be explained so simply by socioeconomic status that discredited the supernatural in my eyes.
My girlfriend is going to be sent back to her home country, I have no money to try and prevent this. I know that there have been certain parts in my head that say "Well maybe she doesn't deserve to be here" but the obvious question to that is "well who does deserve to be here?" This is a terrible way of rationalising it but I have little choice in the matter when I am trying make sense of her leaving.
This suddenly explains a lot of why I don’t understand people... I’ve always seen the world for the shit show it is... and that’s why I’m depressed. Because it’s a depressing world...
It's an *unjust* world, but it's only depressing if you could only be happy in a world that was fair. I find myself humbled & grateful that, even in an unjust world, I can enjoy the things I do.
Depression doesn't really work that way. The depressed person sees nothing, feels nothing to be happy about. The same world seems gray and lifeless even if they know it to be green and full of life.
@@bthomson depression feels different for different people. Edit: I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just saying that people can both feel empty and feel no joy, while at the same time seeing the world for the shitshow and façade it really is.
hmmm. Firefly actually seems like a good counter-example to the just world hypothesis. Surely no one, after learning fox was canceling Firefly, felt like the show deserved to be canceled?
So... I'm depressed because I don't believe in karma? Maybe. :-P But really, though, this explains a lot of awful human behavior (like victim blaming).
hmm, I don't think I can recall a time when I thought that human society is just. But then again, different people could have very different understanding of the concept called " a just world".
Hey Thunk, it's me again. Do you have any information on that Monopoly thing at around 4:00? I thought you were taking it from an actual experiment but cannot find it anywhere.
It's not that I don't trust them (though I guess I shouldn't, it's science we're talking about), but I was thinking about referencing it in an article. But if it wasn't peer-reviewed and published I think I'll refrain from doing that at the moment.
This fallacy seems to be outlandish to me. I see and saw others do this, almost always resulting in me starting a debate. It seems that it consistently comes down to getting a clear picture of what happened, causality and moral principles. For instance, when someone gets physically abused, that is not in self-defense, it is really, really rare that I could comprehend the aggressor. It happens, but it's extremely rare. Same goes with mental abuse of course, but this concept is much more complex than simply not hitting another human being. Similar things goes with the example of people driving while using their phone. It's not the damage done that is the issue. It's the mistake itself, the cause of the accident, or not even the accident if nothing happens. If an accident doesn't happen even if the phone was used simultaneously, or the damage was minor or just isolated to the person using the phone, it's almost always attributed to luck. The person gets scolded anyway, morally within a group rather than say the police for example. And it's really rare that I come across a person that exercises this fallacy. To be honest, aside from very few oddballs, I only know about this whole concept from the internet. Maybe I live in a bubble, but I doubt that.
“Just world theory” as it was developed by Melvin Lerner is a materialistic (atheistic) concept. It doesn’t take into consideration many factors. Psychology and philosophy are linked, one actually came from the other. Philosophy comes along with religion because otherwise it would be all sentiments with no logic or reasons behind. If we use the law of Karma - the metaphysical law of universal justice, then we’ll see why a certain soul embodied in this world gets bad results even though being good. Because the fruits of action (karma) can come from the previous lives. Moreover, according to the Vedic Holy scriptures it’s said that we have both the free will and God who sanctions all the actions to happen. What happens, whatever it may be, is a result of our past deeds derived from the overall karma accumulated. There it is also said the intricacies of karma are hard to understand, that’s why we sometimes can’t know why a certain thing happened. However, there is always a reason behind it with no coincidence.
@@byrongsmith Yes and No simultaneously. Yes means these actions are still sanctioned by God because the accumulated karma has to be released in a certain way. A person commits crimes, tortures and murders in this life and will get a result from it in the form of similar suffering. This can either happen in this life or in the next one when we could say he didn’t do anything bad, he’s innocent but still suffers so much. There is a reason in one of the previous lives and the deeds we are not always aware of. No means that knowing this, we shouldn’t overuse our free will because it would disturb others and would accumulate a bad karma for the doer which would definitely be released in a certain way in one of the next lives or maybe even in this one. If we take out God with His mercy and power and a concept of a soul which transmigrates from one body to another with its deeds accumulated, then the video above is justified. But not when we include these important elements. The extent to which we are able to see a certain concept logical depends on what we believe in.
@@vedas4life584 You are literally justifying the abuse of children. This is the moment when it might be time to stop and ask yourself, really ask, "am I the baddie?"
@@vedas4life584 what a copout. The Ancient Asian pederasts invented the "karma" hoax. The Ancient Greek pederasts invented the "just world" hoax. The conman Melvin Lerner just plagiarized them both. The State uses them to pacify stupid sheeples such as yourself. Your doubletalk won't work here.
Dude, I like what you're trying to do, but really, it's like you type catch phrases into Wikipedia and then decide on what other people already said. You should really look at taking a few courses in the subject matter as there is a reason that many of these ideas a full blown professions that require years of study to be able to really grasp it and given your repeated references to your religion of Spock within the series, I just don't see you fully grasping it without help.
@@byrongsmith if we consider ourselves as bodies, then yes, destiny would suck. However, a metaphysical concept of Destiny also includes God’s will as well as understanding that we are not the bodies but immortal souls who transmigrate from one body to another. The sufferings of the body do not touch the soul which remains always the same. Those who perform those violent acts are the ones to be punished for it by God. Sometimes they are born in the conditions when suffer as kids or babies. This is how their bad karma comes to action. However, those who make them suffer, also get their bad karma accumulated which will also be released one day in their suffering. This is how this cycle works.
@@vedas4life584 Thanks for giving an outstanding example of the kind of thinking that blames children for their own abuse and says nothing should ever be done to reduce suffering. Apparently, every millisecond of pain, trauma and anguish is fully deserved, and indeed we cannot try to break the cycle of abuse lest the perpetrator fail to get their due weight of suffering the next time they respawn.
@@byrongsmith You are welcome! However, I didn’t talk about the ways to respond to these things yet. What you are saying is a classical response in the form of victim blaming which doesn’t help at all. This response is usually associated with the materialistic Just world theory which doesn’t include God, soul transmigration and accumulated activities with results. First, we had to build the basement in order to understand how things work. Only after that we can talk about what has to be done. Victim blaming is definitely not the way out, it’s an additional violence towards the one who is already suffering. There is a classical example in Yoga Sutra 1.33 on how to react: 1) to be friendly towards the happy ones 2) to be compassionate towards the unhappy ones 3) to be joyful towards others’ success 4) to be neutral in reaction towards evil. We should also ask ourselves if in any of these 4 scenarios we are able to help and if yes, then we should help. If not, then definitely not to blame and at least to try to support in any form. Yes, we still have the free will which we should use in making right choices to break this vicious circle. All the world religions talk about this same idea on doing right things and by this to come closer to God🙏
@@vedas4life584 "Victim blaming is definitely not the way out, it’s an additional violence towards the one who is already suffering." The one who is already suffering *justly*, according to you. The blaming may only happen inside your head, but you are still blaming the abused child for their abuse, affirming internally the rightness of the situation in which the transmigrated soul of that child is receiving the deserved outcome of the crimes allegedly committed in a previous life. In your head, with your metaphysical post hoc rationalisations in place, this all makes sense. But the fact remains that you are looking at an abused child and (even if only internally) saying they asked for it, and saying that the traumatic experiences inflicted against that child's body don't really count because they cannot touch their soul. This is not classic Just World Fallacy, a piece of sophistry that functions to enervate the morally necessary revolt against an unjust world. It is also a cruelty disconnected from the reality of those who actually suffer severe injustice.
Really whenever you hear the words "personal responsibility" put in that order, there is a high likelihood that someone just pulled a Just World Fallacy. So I listen for that as a marker.
Reasons why I think a lot of people want to believe in a just world:
1. It gives them reassurance that they will be OK as long as they don't do anything wrong.
2. It provides a convenient excuse for authority figures like teachers and police who don't want to concede that they just can't do as much to combat injustice as they claim.
3. It enables people to feel better about themselves when they commit wrongs against others.
Perfect. Number 2 is super relevant right now as well but Number 1 is the most common I think.
4:00 The income inequality debate in a nutshell. I wouldn't have guessed that the "bootstraps" argument could be underpinned by a cognitive bias in this way. It also makes it clearer why someone would want to, say, vote for someone rich who clearly doesn't have their best interests at heart, because the rich person may be perceived as being more hardworking or deserving.
+daksin Just World Fallacy was a revelation to me. There are sooo many aspects of world politics and history which make way more sense when you assume that people are in great quantities affected by this Fallacy.
When did you hear 'Well that can't be' for the last time? Do you guys know this thought that suggests 'If it were that bad, then someone would already have done something about it, or we would be talking about it in the news every week at least.'
It's a reallly big cognitive effort to fight this bias. But it's kinda rewarding.... Congratulations, you understand politics and history better now. Now deal with your Weltschmerz!
Daskin - thinking of any politician in particular? DT
As someone who has gone through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I can say that being exposed to that information was eye opening. Learning the cognitive distortions and how you can avoid or mitigate them has made my life much easier. When I see other people engaging in these fallacies, it makes me wish more people would be aware of them.
An example of the Just World Fallacy I experienced: a classmate of mine is in his second year at our university. I'm in my last. I mentioned in telling a story that I once failed a hard class and only passed with a C when I retook it. He told me I'm a bad student and that's the grade I deserved. I said this class was taught by the professor with the lowest pass rate and highest drop/fail rate in our program, so maybe he's just a hard or bad teacher. He said no, it must mean he's the best since he makes you work so hard. I replied that maybe when he fails an upper division class with this teacher, he'll feel differently.
So I think we both started operating on that fallacy. He thinks I must have deserved a low grade. I think he must be getting his comeuppance for being so naive and accusing.
maybe he doesn't like making excuses for anything and could be overly pessimistic. I don't know if there is a golden standard for how a teacher grades. On websites where you can rate professors, the ones with the lowest scores usually are tough graders. What makes a teacher a "good" or "bad" one is a different topic, but I'd say this fallacy is applied correctly because you would have gotten a higher grade with an easier teacher.
This seems to have a lot to do with victim blaming. Is "Asking for it" the epitome of this fallacy?
+Stefan S Mostly, as shown in this video.
I guess it means "You get what you deserve". It makes sense that rich people think they deserve riches. Imagine how stressful it would be if you were rich but suffered with depression because you knew deep down no one deserves to be rich.
The epitome of this fallacy? I would rather say world poverty or climate denial are two very strong candidates for that position.
@Desperadow A wealthy person who feels they don't deserve it can use philanthropy to remedy the situation. A poor person has a much harder time changing their circumstances, because hard work can only get you so far. Without opportunity, hard work can't get you to a better place.
@@grungepants ''no one deserves to be rich." OK, commie.
Is it natural though, it could just as easily be cultural conditioning. Everyone has grown up in a world of watching TV shows where the good guys win and the baddies get what's coming to them. Which perhaps explains the Game of Thrones phenomena.
+jaocheu Maybe it you could be a cognitive bias creating this sentiment along the society, who passes that thorugh other generations, and it becomes a part of our culture.
+jaocheu We also might instead call this the Happy End Bible Bias. The Good-Bad-Distinction was made popular in 'western' 'culture' through christianity. (source: /r/AskHistorians) So IMHO it's not too crazy to assume it's partly a cultural thing. Seriously, at times where about 95% of all humans around you are deeply religious and really into the 'If I live like the priest tells me to, God will reward me with a good life (or afterlife)', It's a really obvious conclusion that everything around you will in at least one way make sense and bring justice to the world.
Jokes on them, there's no god.
@@cornholiooooooo Instead of citing a subreddit , cite the mod who told you all this. Who told you all of this?...
On a smaller scale than war or natural disaster I experienced this. Had a brutal breakup where I was hated by someone that I'd only ever tried to make happy and shortly after that my sister was in a very dangerous situation where we couldn't speak to her or get any idea of her safety for about 6 months. I fell into a deep depression because although I like to believe I know the world is unjust I'd never been confronted with such clear evidence. Took me nearly two years to get back to a place where I could imagine a positive future because I no longer had any idea how to achieve that.
Whenever I hear the phrase "poetic justice" I start looking for pragmatic injustice.
How 'bout Prosperity Gospel?
Surprised you didn't mention one of the biggest and most hurtful instances of JWF in blaming victims of sexual assault for their assault.
The Just World Fallacy is a strong influence on conservative political thinking. "I won't help those people because they got themselves into their bad situation." "I deserve a good life because I'm a better person than the people who are poor."
This is also why higher education usually results in progressive thinking. When someone is educated on the societal causes of income, class, and race inequality, there is empathy for the underdogs and a desire to correct that injustice.
This is not "elitism", as conservatives like to claim. This is recognition of the reality of the world, and the acceptance of the truth that anyone could fall into a terrible situation through circumstance, and no fault of their own.
As a cancer patient, I have often been blamed for my illness. It must be because I'm fat, or ate the wrong things, or carried my cell phone in my bra, or whatever. In reality, I have a gene mutation called RAD51D. I happen to be the one in my immediate family who got breast cancer. We are all fat, non-smokers, non-drinkers, relatively active. My mom had MS and bipolar disorder. My dad had Crohns disease which led to lymphoma. My sister has Crohns disease and infertility. This is all the result of random genetic mutations, not the result of any moral failings on our part. Yet people continue to deny the randomness of our health challenges by saying we caused them ourselves.
In a just world, this channel would receive two orders of magnitude greater subscription and views! I really love your videos, and even your bad opening jokes. Please keep up the great work!
I've told five friends. They will tell five friends. Etc. Really quality work may take time to catch on but never fear...👩🎓🕵
Your example about domestic abuse had me thinking about when people claim rape victims "asked for it". Aside from all the social aspects of the matter, could that be a case of this fallacy leading more and more people to have that belief, so much that it becomes very present in our society and our culture?
I do not think anyone but rapist say the asking for it line but many times it is their fault they are in the situation. Rapist are real so women need to judge men before being alone with them they also should not walk around in seedy neighborhoods alone in the middle of the night.
You're doing the fallacy thing RIGHT NOW
Your mom.
@@benjaminr8961I love how you are being a good example of the just world hypothesis lol
I think this is why a lot of people leave their religion. 'How can there be a God who is so cruel and allows all this suffering to take place?'
+misterbunga It's related to one reason I left religion, but there's a little more thought/nuance to it. After all, C.S. Lewis wrote _The Problem of Pain_ and countless other theologians have tried to reconcile the concept. The larger problem, which I feel they all failed to adequately do, is reconcile human suffering with a _just_ deity. Because everything they claim (sin, the existence of soul, etc.) has no real basis in fact, it became hard to accept that a god would help me find my keys or make all the traffic lights green on my commute or help my team win a sporting event while ignoring SIDS. It's the dichotomy of who _doesn't_ suffer, and the fact that human suffering can be explained so simply by socioeconomic status that discredited the supernatural in my eyes.
My girlfriend is going to be sent back to her home country, I have no money to try and prevent this. I know that there have been certain parts in my head that say "Well maybe she doesn't deserve to be here" but the obvious question to that is "well who does deserve to be here?"
This is a terrible way of rationalising it but I have little choice in the matter when I am trying make sense of her leaving.
Excellent explanation!
Thanks! :D
This suddenly explains a lot of why I don’t understand people... I’ve always seen the world for the shit show it is... and that’s why I’m depressed. Because it’s a depressing world...
It's an *unjust* world, but it's only depressing if you could only be happy in a world that was fair. I find myself humbled & grateful that, even in an unjust world, I can enjoy the things I do.
Depression doesn't really work that way. The depressed person sees nothing, feels nothing to be happy about. The same world seems gray and lifeless even if they know it to be green and full of life.
@@bthomson depression feels different for different people.
Edit: I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just saying that people can both feel empty and feel no joy, while at the same time seeing the world for the shitshow and façade it really is.
hmmm. Firefly actually seems like a good counter-example to the just world hypothesis. Surely no one, after learning fox was canceling Firefly, felt like the show deserved to be canceled?
+T. B. Lane moviepilot.com/posts/3278060
Thunk - this http (?) does not come up?
''Deserve's got nuthin' to do with it." - William Muny.
So... I'm depressed because I don't believe in karma? Maybe. :-P But really, though, this explains a lot of awful human behavior (like victim blaming).
I just laugh when people spout their just world fallacy trash in an argument
i don't :/
They just have the unjust world fallacy.
It's so common. Often religious people too ironically. At least in the USA
hmm, I don't think I can recall a time when I thought that human society is just. But then again, different people could have very different understanding of the concept called " a just world".
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
Hey Thunk, it's me again. Do you have any information on that Monopoly thing at around 4:00? I thought you were taking it from an actual experiment but cannot find it anywhere.
It's from Keltner & Piff; check out Piff's TEDx talk on the subject - www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean/transcript
Yeahhhh but they didn't publish it, did they? That's worrying because it's been 6 years or so. Where's the paper?
It's not that I don't trust them (though I guess I shouldn't, it's science we're talking about), but I was thinking about referencing it in an article. But if it wasn't peer-reviewed and published I think I'll refrain from doing that at the moment.
I do not believe in a just world for myself. How do I change my thinking to improve my mental health?
Change your behaviour instead. Work towards a less unjust world is one of the best things you can do for your mental health in an unjust world.
@@byrongsmith that was a Deep cut. I feel much better now.
This fallacy seems to be outlandish to me. I see and saw others do this, almost always resulting in me starting a debate. It seems that it consistently comes down to getting a clear picture of what happened, causality and moral principles.
For instance, when someone gets physically abused, that is not in self-defense, it is really, really rare that I could comprehend the aggressor. It happens, but it's extremely rare. Same goes with mental abuse of course, but this concept is much more complex than simply not hitting another human being.
Similar things goes with the example of people driving while using their phone. It's not the damage done that is the issue. It's the mistake itself, the cause of the accident, or not even the accident if nothing happens. If an accident doesn't happen even if the phone was used simultaneously, or the damage was minor or just isolated to the person using the phone, it's almost always attributed to luck. The person gets scolded anyway, morally within a group rather than say the police for example.
And it's really rare that I come across a person that exercises this fallacy. To be honest, aside from very few oddballs, I only know about this whole concept from the internet. Maybe I live in a bubble, but I doubt that.
lol i thought this was a Leibniz diss.
And how far would you like to go to enforce "justice" may I ask? Maybe implement some quotas or incentives for special "unjustly" treated groups?
+Artem Unfortunately, I have found that identifying an issue, like this bias, it significantly easier than finding solutions for the problem :|
*chefs kiss*
I was born without that wiring I guess...
or mental health issues. This is very interesting.
Life is not fair? Who Knew? :)
“Just world theory” as it was developed by Melvin Lerner is a materialistic (atheistic) concept. It doesn’t take into consideration many factors. Psychology and philosophy are linked, one actually came from the other. Philosophy comes along with religion because otherwise it would be all sentiments with no logic or reasons behind. If we use the law of Karma - the metaphysical law of universal justice, then we’ll see why a certain soul embodied in this world gets bad results even though being good. Because the fruits of action (karma) can come from the previous lives. Moreover, according to the Vedic Holy scriptures it’s said that we have both the free will and God who sanctions all the actions to happen. What happens, whatever it may be, is a result of our past deeds derived from the overall karma accumulated. There it is also said the intricacies of karma are hard to understand, that’s why we sometimes can’t know why a certain thing happened. However, there is always a reason behind it with no coincidence.
And with that, the torture and murder of innocents is justified.
@@byrongsmith Yes and No simultaneously.
Yes means these actions are still sanctioned by God because the accumulated karma has to be released in a certain way. A person commits crimes, tortures and murders in this life and will get a result from it in the form of similar suffering. This can either happen in this life or in the next one when we could say he didn’t do anything bad, he’s innocent but still suffers so much. There is a reason in one of the previous lives and the deeds we are not always aware of.
No means that knowing this, we shouldn’t overuse our free will because it would disturb others and would accumulate a bad karma for the doer which would definitely be released in a certain way in one of the next lives or maybe even in this one.
If we take out God with His mercy and power and a concept of a soul which transmigrates from one body to another with its deeds accumulated, then the video above is justified. But not when we include these important elements. The extent to which we are able to see a certain concept logical depends on what we believe in.
@@vedas4life584 You are literally justifying the abuse of children.
This is the moment when it might be time to stop and ask yourself, really ask, "am I the baddie?"
@@byrongsmith I am not God
@@vedas4life584 what a copout. The Ancient Asian pederasts invented the "karma" hoax. The Ancient Greek pederasts invented the "just world" hoax. The conman Melvin Lerner just plagiarized them both. The State uses them to pacify stupid sheeples such as yourself. Your doubletalk won't work here.
BIRD BOX
Bernie 2020
Dude, I like what you're trying to do, but really, it's like you type catch phrases into Wikipedia and then decide on what other people already said. You should really look at taking a few courses in the subject matter as there is a reason that many of these ideas a full blown professions that require years of study to be able to really grasp it and given your repeated references to your religion of Spock within the series, I just don't see you fully grasping it without help.
Destiny is actually in perfect action even when we get hurt.
So babies that are tortured and killed in a war zone are receiving their destined experience? Destiny sucks.
@@byrongsmith if we consider ourselves as bodies, then yes, destiny would suck. However, a metaphysical concept of Destiny also includes God’s will as well as understanding that we are not the bodies but immortal souls who transmigrate from one body to another. The sufferings of the body do not touch the soul which remains always the same. Those who perform those violent acts are the ones to be punished for it by God. Sometimes they are born in the conditions when suffer as kids or babies. This is how their bad karma comes to action. However, those who make them suffer, also get their bad karma accumulated which will also be released one day in their suffering. This is how this cycle works.
@@vedas4life584 Thanks for giving an outstanding example of the kind of thinking that blames children for their own abuse and says nothing should ever be done to reduce suffering. Apparently, every millisecond of pain, trauma and anguish is fully deserved, and indeed we cannot try to break the cycle of abuse lest the perpetrator fail to get their due weight of suffering the next time they respawn.
@@byrongsmith You are welcome! However, I didn’t talk about the ways to respond to these things yet. What you are saying is a classical response in the form of victim blaming which doesn’t help at all. This response is usually associated with the materialistic Just world theory which doesn’t include God, soul transmigration and accumulated activities with results. First, we had to build the basement in order to understand how things work. Only after that we can talk about what has to be done.
Victim blaming is definitely not the way out, it’s an additional violence towards the one who is already suffering. There is a classical example in Yoga Sutra 1.33 on how to react:
1) to be friendly towards the happy ones
2) to be compassionate towards the unhappy ones
3) to be joyful towards others’ success
4) to be neutral in reaction towards evil.
We should also ask ourselves if in any of these 4 scenarios we are able to help and if yes, then we should help. If not, then definitely not to blame and at least to try to support in any form.
Yes, we still have the free will which we should use in making right choices to break this vicious circle. All the world religions talk about this same idea on doing right things and by this to come closer to God🙏
@@vedas4life584 "Victim blaming is definitely not the way out, it’s an additional violence towards the one who is already suffering."
The one who is already suffering *justly*, according to you. The blaming may only happen inside your head, but you are still blaming the abused child for their abuse, affirming internally the rightness of the situation in which the transmigrated soul of that child is receiving the deserved outcome of the crimes allegedly committed in a previous life.
In your head, with your metaphysical post hoc rationalisations in place, this all makes sense. But the fact remains that you are looking at an abused child and (even if only internally) saying they asked for it, and saying that the traumatic experiences inflicted against that child's body don't really count because they cannot touch their soul.
This is not classic Just World Fallacy, a piece of sophistry that functions to enervate the morally necessary revolt against an unjust world. It is also a cruelty disconnected from the reality of those who actually suffer severe injustice.