We must accept the evil done to us as a remedy for that which we have done.

“That’s not fair!”

As a teacher who works with fourteen-year-olds — that strange beast that has a hyperactive, hyper-sensitive notion of justice and fairness — I hear those words all the time. Yet to be honest, we all react that way at some point or another, and sometimes it really isn’t fair.

Yet more often than we’d like to think, we’ve probably been on the dealing end of injustice (or its petty cousin unfairness). Weil suggests that we must accept one as payment for the other.

Injustice as justice — the ultimate paradox.