The moral of this fable, "Vices are their own punishment," should be etched in marble in front of every church and every courthouse in the nation. It is merely the flip side of "Virtues are their own reward," and yet what a difference that flip makes.
But what the story itself describes is how easily and readily humans use rules and laws against each other, brandishing them like weapons despite the fact that most of them were invented to protect people from harm. Reading today about the "worst divorce ever" made me wonder whether things had changed at all since Aesop's time.
If you think there's no justice in this world, then you're probably just too impatient. The cycle of adjustment rotates at an arc that looks practically flat to the naked eye. This may seem frustrating to those seeking immediate corrections, but swift justice is rarely accurate -- and itcomes with its own consequences in the long run.
Case in point: the 1932 hit movie Letty Lynton, starring young Joan Crawford as a young socialite who inadvertently gets away with murder. It turns out that the script adhered too closely to the plot of the play Dishonored Lady, and a court ruling killed the film's distribution; it's been hidden from public view since 1936. Hardly fair, since the both stories were inspired by true events. In 1947, Dishonored Lady received an official film adaptation, starring Hedy Lamarr. To this day, Crawford's performance has been minimally accessible via bootleggers and private screenings, but for the most part the entire film has been buried beneath decades of woeful neglect.
Thankfully, the internet tends to overrule these kinds decisions in favor of artistic freedom. Letty Lynton is now available for viewing on YouTube, in ten parts. Here's the first installment:
How long will stay up before someone takes it down? How long will it stay down before someone else puts it up again? Will a rabid retro-fashion craze be ignited over Crawford's floofy white dress, just like in '32? These are questions that only time can answer -- at least until 2025, when Dishonored Lady's copyright expires and makes an honest woman out of Lynton.
I was really intrigued by all the images I saw of Crawford in character. Something about the symmetry of her poses (and even her black/white outfits) really suggests the classic figure of that most severe of Cardinal Virtues, the lady Justice. I doubt this is accidental, considering the way the movie uses its titular hedonist to examine concepts of guilt and innocence. That shot of her in the floofy dress is a perfect example of this -- the dress screams girlish purity, but her face is eerie in its knowing ambivalence. One hand grasps the pale curtain and the other grasps the black curtain, as if she is delicately suspended between the forces of good and evil. Just as we always suspected, Joan Crawford is both Yin and Yang. Meditate on that, Christina.
Arriving, as it does, immediately after the Wheel of Fortune, the Justice card helps us make order out of the chaos we've experienced. It entreats us to adjust our position, to listen carefully and then attune ourselves to the music of the higher realms of consciousness. Doing this requires you to sacifice your prejudices and consider perspectives that challenge your subjectivity, and it also requires you to act on your decisions and set the standard for others to follow. What seems "just" to you may seem ludicrous to others, but that's what appeals are for. The important thing is that you are perpetually questioning and adjusting, questioning and adjusting, edging ever-closer to a more harmoniously balanced grasp on reality. [Via]
Traditionally this card is called "Justice," but Aleister Crowley took objection to the heady moral overtones of that assignment. In most philosophical discussions, concepts of "right" and "wrong" rarely hold up to scrutiny, and what is the point striving for justice if the scales are that easily upset? The card became Adjustment, and many modern decks have rolled with that change -- which is in itself a pretty interesting adjustment.
Sacrificing your own ideas of what is "right" is important when it comes to balancing on the sword-blade of truth and letting the scales hang in perfect balance. If you want to keep a keen, impartial view, you'll be required to stay in constant motion -- as the world heaves and roils around and under you, tempting and distracting you from your aim, hopefully you'll find yourself instinctively adjusting your position accordingly, chasing that perfect neutral center. That's why Justice is blind; most tightrope-walkers (or funambulists, if you prefer) would rather see nothing at all than dare look down or know exactly how far they have left to go.
Once a person has found that pivotal position, all you need is a lever to move the whole world. From an early age, Russian artist Nicholas Roerich lamented the toll that warfare was taking on the world's artwork, relics, and monuments. What began as a personal manifesto eventually became a treaty signed by two dozen nations in 1935; it declared sites of art and culture which bore the symbol seen on the banner above to be neutral and protected, the way the Red Cross protects hospitals. Roerich literally changed the definition of warfare by honing in on a single point and applying pressure from the correct angle -- and for a time, at least, the treaty guaranteed that leaders, soldiers, and civilians would also have to adjust their notions accordingly. While his wild and unusual landscapes inspired by travels in Tibet are certainly worth poring over, it's his ecstatically neutral Madonna Oriflamma (pictured above) that I chose to fill in for the angel who usually plays the role of Adjustment.
