A series of posts about virtue, autism, vocation, and the teaching of history.
In the first two installments of this series, I explored how the virtues I teach are echoed as callings to me through my two autistic children. As I teach courage, they call me to be present with them in their fear. As I teach moderation, they call me to examine myself rather than judge others. The third echo, justice, is the focus of this post.
III. Justice
My neighborhood is a quiet place, and even in a smaller town, it feels like a retreat. But for my son Peter, it is filled with unexpected and unbearable noises. He feels that these sounds are attacking him, and so he believes that they are doing a bad thing—they are unjust.
To his mind, justice requires a prohibition on such sounds. In younger years, he would proclaim, “I’m going to put a sign up in our neighborhood that says ABSOLUTELY NO SCREAMING. Also NO BABIES. And NO DOGS.” At other times, he would suggest electronic collars for dogs (and children), which would prevent them from making loud sounds.
I would try to counter these ideas by dipping into the concept of justice. “I don’t think we can say that dogs are wrong for barking, or that babies are being bad because they are crying,” I’d reply. “They can’t talk. This is how they communicate.” This did not persuade him. He would occasionally yell out the door at one of these noisemakers, “BE QUIET!”
Of course, I’m not the only parent who has found it difficult to teach justice to an indignant child, nor am I alone in facing challenges when I engage undergraduates in this conversation. My students agree with me that we are called to justice, but they understand it to mean different things: fair distribution of goods, or equal standing under the law, or equity in social policy, or retributive justice, or restorative justice. Before we can meaningfully discuss justice, we need to understand one another’s definitions. In Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, Alasdair MacIntyre suggests that if we want to grasp our differences regarding justice, we need to realize that we are often talking across traditions. It is no surprise that we don’t always agree about the meaning of justice, because our ideas about it are rooted in layers of intellectual commitment that lead us to different viewpoints. If we want to talk about justice, we must understand the traditions of rationality that produced our ideas, as well as those of others.
In the classroom, I start with my own Presbyterian tradition and focus on two biblical perspectives: justice as the way things ought to be, and justice as a way of living when things are not the way they ought to be. How ought things to be? The prophet Isaiah, in chapter 11, paints a lovely image of the “peaceable kingdom,” in which wolves and lambs, leopards and kids, calves and lions, cows and bears, and babies and serpents all live together in harmony. It’s an image of how things ought to be, especially when combined with the justice-belted ruler the passage promises. He will not judge by surface sight or sound, which might pervert justice; rather he is careful to judge justly for the poor and oppressed. Isaiah’s vision is not of a pristine, primordial perfection; rather, it addresses and heals injustice. The peaceable kingdom emerges from a world that is not the way it ought to be.
How ought we live in a world which is not the way it ought to be? I love the King James Version of Micah 6:8, in which God requires every person “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” “Do justly” suggests that we live as agents of the peaceable kingdom in an unjust world. Doing justly involves our whole selves, at every level—from great acts of sacrificial love to a “cup of cold water” (Matthew 10:42). Thus, I try to live the peaceable kingdom now, even when it is not yet here.
“Do justly” suggests that we live as agents of the peaceable kingdom in an unjust world. Doing justly involves our whole selves, at every level—from great acts of sacrificial love to a “cup of cold water” (Matthew 10:42).
In conversation about justice with my students, being open about my tradition and its assumptions invites them to do the same. For example, a recent student argued fervently for the idea that justice—the way things ought to be—should reward hard work and initiative. She was offended by the idea that justice might help those who seemed less industrious. As she shared her story, she disclosed that she had come from economically challenging circumstances. She worked hard to get here, and people had made sacrifices for her. Creating space for the story behind her assumptions helped us all talk more fully about justice.
This approach might work with students, but how do I explain such nuances to Kathleen and Peter, whose experiences and assumptions are so unique to them? Kathleen wants a world in which everyone is nice and no one is ever upset. In younger years, she would get frustrated when this wasn’t the case, especially when children were crying. She would—according to her own terms—do justly. She would go up to the parents, ask what the fussy child wanted, and then suggest that they give the child exactly that. She later shifted to blaming the child—again, because an upset child did not fit how she wanted things to be. She would suggest, “that child needs to be disciplined,” or that she wanted “revenge” on it. Occasionally, frustrated in these efforts, she would wail, “I wish things would go my way!”
As adamant as Kathleen and Peter have been about their sense of justice as children, it leaves me full of wonder to see that their understanding of it is not static. Both of them have modified their views as they have aged, accepting that what they once thought unjust is not a violation of how things ought to be.
This change has not come from my paternal words about justice. My children have begun to expand their unique visions on their own. What parenting has required of me—and the echoed call they have given me—is persistence. It’s hard to convince someone with autism to see the world differently from their own unique vision. But I can keep the conversation going. Perhaps most importantly, I can learn what their vision is like and affirm their feelings and thoughts about it. I can offer other ways of envisioning what ought to be and how we ought to live. And I can continue these conversations over the years.
This same calling to persist echoes in the classroom. As students reflect on their own assumptions, they need time to process the connection between their own experiences and their ideas about justice. This discernment is not the work of a single class, but the work of a curriculum. In this way, persistence—in asking difficult questions and in making time and space to pursue the answers—offers a good way for students to reconsider justice and to think about how they might do justly.
The peaceable kingdom isn’t here yet, but if we persist in refining our vision of the way things ought to be—in helping the wolves and lambs to rest together, or in offering cups of cold water—we might see glimpses of justice here and now. As Kathleen and Peter soften and modify their views of justice, and as my students see how their lived experiences shape their beliefs, I, too, will continue to listen and to examine my own assumptions. In all of these encounters, I hear the call to persistence in conversation, as well as the call to persistence in doing justly.
Martin Holt Dotterweich serves as director of the King Institute for Faith and Culture at King University in Bristol, Tennessee, where he is also professor of history. He is a NetVUE Faculty Fellow, having been a member of the 2019 cohort of NetVUE’s Teaching Vocational Exploration seminar, and he contributed to the most recent Scholarly Resources volume Called Beyond Ourselves. His work calls him to an emphasis on vocation both in the classroom and the community; his children continue to shape his understanding of vocation. For other posts by Martin, click here.
