Responding to Injustice
Injustice should be addressed with calm determination rather than reactive anger; the goal is correction, not revenge.
When Marcus Aurelius corrected officials or responded to injustice, he aimed for the correction of wrong and restoration of right order rather than punishment or revenge. Anger at injustice corrupts the corrective process; calm determination achieves more. This principle guides Stoic political ethics.
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Stoic response to injustice parallels the principled nonviolent resistance of Gandhi and King — effective moral force without hatred.
Meditations
Written about in
- What Stoicism says about anger
Stoicism does not ask you to accept injustice. It asks you to correct it without heat, on the practical grounds that anger makes the correction worse.
- What Stoicism says about being wronged
Here Stoicism stops being passive: injustice is to be addressed, aiming at correction rather than revenge, on the argument that anger corrupts the correcting. Marcus's line that the best revenge is not to be like your enemy sets a standard for method, not permission to do nothing.