The Problem With an Unjust World

In a just world, good people are rewarded and bad people are punished. Is it my age, or does the idea of moral clarity seem a little outdated?

Even televangelist Jim Bakker’s confessional memoir, “I Was Wrong,” wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the five years he spent in prison for fraud and conspiracy.

I found the prosecutions of sex predators Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Bill Cosby, and Harvey Weinstein extremely enjoyable. Same with spectacular crash-and-burns of financial and spiritual predators like Bernie Madoff, Jim Bakker, and Jimmy Swaggart. Watching our once-functioning FBI successfully prosecute about 1,500 Jan. 6 insurrectionists using their own incriminating selfies and videos was a refreshing tonic not just for me but, I believe, for society in general.

Don’t most of us dance a little each time a miscreant is hauled off to jail?

I’ve spent nearly seventy years watching life’s endless follies, and for most of that time I generally accepted the idea that the world is inherently fair, and that people eventually get what they deserve. I expect good people to be rewarded, and bad people to be punished. It helps keep my world spinning reliably on its axis, and prevents me from wobbling off into the void. My brain appreciates moral clarity, and I believe our species is hard-wired to enjoy seeing horrible people face consequences for their bad behavior.

Ah, but there’s a catch. Psychologist Melvin Lerner put a name to a curious phenomenon in a 1980 in a paper titled “The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion.” He challenged our “just-world fallacy” by proving that when the world doesn’t meet our expectations about fairness — if misfortune rains down on good people, or demonstrably bad people go unpunished or even rewarded — our brains short-circuit. We start looking for other explanations, often blaming victims for their suffering.

Why did the young lady accompany Mr. Cosby back to his room? How was she dressed? Why didn’t she resist? There must be some reason this happened to her, because bad things shouldn’t happen to good people. And bad people should always get some comeuppance. Right?

Right?

---

Ask well-informed Americans these days, and they’ll likely concede that what once seemed like a reasonably just world is definitely drifting into unknown territory. To anyone paying attention — rather than regurgitating rage bait they heard on TV — the evidence is abundant.

While Epstein took the easy way out, many of the fellow pedophiles in his orbit are walking free. The recently deposed U.S. attorney general, appointed by a convicted felon who also happens to be one of those credibly accused pedophiles, wouldn’t acknowledge Epstein’s victims even as the women stood just a few feet behind her during recent Congressional testimony. Maxwell, Epstein’s moll, was convicted of conspiring to sexually abuse minors and sentenced to twenty years in federal prison, but apparently cut a deal with the then-deputy attorney general to keep her mouth shut about certain powerful people. She got a housing upgrade, and the former deputy attorney general is now the acting attorney general.

See how that works?

Cosby’s criminal conviction eventually was overturned and he’s out of prison, even if he’s losing parallel civil cases accusing him of pretty much the same crimes. Weinstein fears he may die in jail, which would be nice, but nothing much surprises me in a world where no less than a White House lawyer recently intervened on behalf of two loathsome bro-brothers who were accused of rape and sex-trafficking in the U.K. and Romania. We have twice elected a leader who governs with all the sophistication of a smash-and-grab jewelry heist, and watched helplessly as he pardoned nearly all of the Jan. 6 rioters and a rogue’s gallery of other justly convicted prickweasels.

Personal note: If you’re looking for the modern inflection point where the just-world slide started, this moment in 1995 seems as good a place as any.

But it’s getting worse. Not only are horrible people facing no consequences, many of them are benefitting from their bad behavior. They get book contracts, TV deals, and cabinet posts. They become social media influencers, showcasing their loathsomeness on YouTube or social media and accumulating like-minded fans along the way. As of late March, manosphere misogynist Andrew Tate, known as the “king of toxic masculinity,” had more than eleven million followers on X who apparently are unbothered by those nagging rape and sex trafficking charges against he and his brother in Europe, or by the current administration’s efforts to help Tate, a political supporter, safely navigate his legal problems.

We demand justice in our favorite novels and movies, which usually promise that the good guys will prevail even as that standard erodes in real life. But it’s getting hard to ignore the disturbing dissonance between life in fiction and life as it is. The cumulative effect of all that is a collective “WTF?” It’s like watching James Bond actually filleted by Goldfinger’s laser beam, crotch first.

How many times can we watch the bad guys triumph before we lose faith in a just world? How often can we watch people of conscience demonized for doing the right thing before we give up even trying to behave? How long can we pretend to live in a fair and civil society when so much evidence suggests otherwise? How many more victims can we find to blame?

These are scary times, and not just because some of these same people have steered us to the brink of another world war. It’s also scary because I’m just not sure how this story ends. I still believe in a just world, and still have enough faith in humanity to get out of bed each day and hope. I want the concept of karma to be true.

But dang, people. Even if we’re not tipping into the void just yet, I’m pretty sure I can see the edge from here.

---

Journalist Martin J. Smith is the author of five novels and five nonfiction books. Open Road Media will publish his sixth novel, “27 Knots,” in November 2026.