Abstract
This article will attempt to draw from the deep wells of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s understanding of justice and beauty, respectively, so as to find possible linkages between the two that might be helpful in our quest to understanding this important theme. In order to do this successfully, this article, first, invites readers into Wolterstorff’s understanding of justice based on inherent worth. Hereafter, in a similar fashion, the article explores, as a second theme, Wolterstorff’s understanding of beauty as related to the so-called grand narrative of art. Regarding both themes, I follow a basic structure: outlining the problem; offering critiquing, and exploring possible alternatives. It is hoped that this article will finally, and by way of conclusion, resolve some of this tension between justice and beauty, by examining three specific ways in which Wolterstorff has attempted to link these two themes.
Highlights
On a visit to Potchefstroom in 1975, Nicholas Wolterstorff was, for the first time, confronted by the faces of those suffering under the apartheid system
We turn to our first question: What makes justice beautiful? In order to get to the root of this question, at least when dealing with Wolterstorff, it is important to try and understand what might circumscribe justice as being ugly
To better comprehend Wolterstorff’s understanding of this kind of justice, a short definition might suffice: 3 This might sound strange in the contemporary South African context: Does Wolterstorff propose that concerns such as retribution, redistribution or restitution are part of “reactive justice”? In this way, any reaction against reactive justice becomes dangerous and can even be drawn up in world-escaping idealisms that propose abstract justice or pietistic “dignity” at the cost of the very real needs of those suffering at the hand of injustice – the kind against which Boesak and many
Summary
On a visit to Potchefstroom in 1975, Nicholas Wolterstorff was, for the first time, confronted by the faces of those suffering under the apartheid system. Throughout this article, I will come back to the idea that Wolterstorff operates, in my own reading, with a hermeneutic of starting from the wronged, the oppressed, as a direct result of his experience in South Africa This is especially clear when he writes about justice, but seems to be operative in the background with regard to beauty. Boesak highlights that the cruelty and inhumanity – the “ugliness” if I may – of the apartheid regime is its (in)ability to abstract goodness (or prosperity, happiness, and development) from “myths”, “principles”, “grandiloquent ideals” and “programs” instead of seeing human reality and suffering for what it is This was dependent on “deifying”, “romanticizing” and “idealizing” real relations, in order to achieve its ends. We will need to ask whether and how these two themes relate to one another and whether that relation might be helpful in the way we understand and execute those understandings of either justice or beauty
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