Human Justice by Human and the Lights
Human Justice tells the compelling true story of a human rights lawyer’s last trial in a 15-year career spent helping people living on the margins enforce civil rights and anti-discrimination laws.
Corporate values, which are only about money and nothing else, played out to their logical extreme in the case, signaling that corporatism is incompatible with a sustainable future for our species and our planet.
In this interview, the author, Human and the Lights, explains more about his book and his life decisions.
Q. You’ve spent a good part of your life as an attorney. But something transformed your life. What was it?
A: I accepted that lawyering was incompatible with being my best self. So after 15 years of helping humans enforce civil rights and anti-discrimination laws, I quit the profession to focus on leading with my heart.
Q: What observations did you make about the judicial system, and how did it shape the changes you made in your life?
A: Most judges want to get it right. I accepted that most judges believe that “getting it right” means elevating corporate values over human values. I believe this mindset isn’t unique to the judicial system, and instead reflects a world where most humans live in societies organized around money.
Most humans are conditioned to default to corporate decision-making: “What is in the best money interest?” No other considerations. I accepted that this sort of reality isn’t a vibrational match for my soul consciousness. Instead of living in a society organized around imaginary money where one human’s gain must be another human’s loss, I want to live in a society organized around empathy, sustainability, and love, which are real.
Q: Why did you write Human Justice?
A: The corporate side treated my client so poorly during the trial that Human Justice is centered around that I decided before it was over that I was done trying cases. They badmouthed him, victim-blamed him, put shame on his name and called him a liar. I refused to put another human through the sort of treatment the corporate side piled on my friend.
After the trial, the members of the tribunal who stood as judge and jury had three months to issue a verdict. Quitting the profession and waiting for a verdict built up loads of nervous energy, and I harnessed it to write the book during the waiting period. I didn’t have an overarching purpose. The words just poured out of me.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from this book?
A: I’m just grateful to have any readers (lol)!
As for me, one takeaway was accepting that my conduct was often in conflict with the sort of reality I wanted to live in. For example, the way I treated the corporate lawyers in Human Justicedoesn’t square with how I believe humans should treat each other—with love and justice—even though those lawyers treated my side in ways that I doubt they believe square with how humans should treat each other.
Second, I accepted that it was hypocritical to write a book about corporate greed while simultaneously profiting from corporatism. Divesting from the stock and bond markets unblocked stuck energy and unlocked new possibilities for bringing light into the world.
Q: How do you assess corporate values vs. human values?
A: Corporate values are always amoral. The sole criterion of corporate decision-making is maximizing profit. That’s it. There’s no consideration of human values. Nothing about:
- Spirituality
- Humility
- Compassion
- Kindness
- Integrity
- Selflessness
- Empathy
- Love
Only money.
The harmonic divide reverberating in society is less about blue values versus red values and more about human values versus corporate values.
The corporates are winning.
Even the most well-meaning among us are helping the corporate side win when we choose to accept their values and play by their rules. This needs to stop. Human values must always trump corporate values.
Q: What further work do you anticipate doing in this area?
A: I recently accepted that after 15 years of lawyering, I was in the wilderness and didn’t know what came next.
Acceptance led to a mindset shift from “spitballing” — in the last year I’ve worked as a door-to-door canvasser for a nonprofit, a pre-K-12 substitute teacher, and a staff member at a neighborhood city park — to a growth mindset of “exploring an infinity of possibilities.”
Whatever I do, I will always do my best to do good, be kind, and put love first. My spiritual exemplar, Marcus Aurelius, laid out the blueprint for living “a satisfying, reverent life” when he wrote: “Concentrate every minute on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.”
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Publish Date: 4/13/2024
Genre: Nonfiction
Author: Human and the Lights
Page Count: 182 pages
Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
ISBN: 9781662947162