A while back, someone said to me that another party probably deserved the dressing-down I wasn't giving them.
And I realised something:
Deserves doesn't matter.
Deserves doesn't matter. Deserves isn't justice.
This isn't just the "many die who deserve life and some live who deserve death" thing. Justice isn't about individuals.
Reparation is about individuals; vengeance is about individuals; punishment is about individuals; deterrence is about individuals; reform is about individuals.
Justice is about the whole.
There are things for which there is no just response, because there is nothing that can be done to even mend the hole actions have made. Whatever was lost will remain lost, irreplaceable; whatever was broken will remain broken, unmendable; for these things, there is no justice.
I find myself reaching for ma'at here, grasping at this sense that true justice mends the rent, connects the unconnected, that true justice is enacted not merely on the level of individuals, but at a level that makes the entire community better.
Maybe someone who does wrong deserves my anger, deserves my dressing-down, deserves whatever else I might want to offer them -- but if my ire will neither correct their wrong nor lead them to correct it themselves, will not improve the community, does not serve the reaching for ma'at -- if none of these things are the case, then expressing it does not reach towards justice.