It finds expression as a kind of justice subsumed under equality, where not even the dead can find respite and history itself must be turned into a political weapon. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.” The trouble with the new woke vision of justice is not just that it threatens to fulfill Madison’s prophecy, but that it demands too much of politics entirely. In Federalist 51, James Madison wrote that “Justice is the end of government. Our republic was founded upon a human-and therefore flawed-love of both liberty and justice. This issues in a quest to eradicate inequalities produced by markets, classes, racism, sexism, and every other form of discrimination, real or imagined. The woke instead pursue a justice monomaniacally defined by equality. But we must balance justice against other goods and virtues that make for a decent life in common: forgiveness, order, prosperity, equality, honor, civility. The cry of “no justice, no peace” reflects a partial truth: without a measure of justice, civic peace becomes an impossibility. It is the coda to the refrain of no justice, no peace, a phrase that was similarly vaulted to the national stage in the wake of Ferguson, whose roots also lie in the wake of racially motivated vigilante violence.Īs Hampton observes, “rest in power” suggests possibilities of meaning tied to the protest slogan, “no justice, no peace.” At the surface level, it evokes the idea that the truly woke dead cannot know peace until justice comes, and that the bearers of their memory should discover inspiration for the struggle from their death.Ĭonsider first the demand for justice. What rest in power offers mourners of Dream and Tupac Shakur and Sandra Bland over rest in peace is the chance for a senseless death to matter in a way that a life could not. But her explanation of why the phrase became popular is striking: Last September, Slate’s Rachelle Hampton lamented the phrase’s increasing “overuse,” and the threat that it might become diluted to the point of meaninglessness. In the last few years, it has become a more widely-used phrase of choice for those on the left to remember the dead.
Rest in power phrase how to#
One acquires the sneaking suspicion that we consequently don’t know much about how to die-or how to remember those who have passed.Ĭonsider one relatively recent shift in how some people now memorialize the dead: “Rest in Power.” The phrase first appeared in public about twenty years ago courtesy of Oakland, California’s graffiti culture. We structure our society around delaying it at almost all costs, and tend to shield ourselves from looking too closely as it arrives to claim our loved ones. Prior to the pandemic, for most Americans, ordinary life involved a comfortable orbit between home and work, and strenuous efforts to avoid contemplating the passage of time too deeply. As Jocko Willink is fond of pointing out, that time is always running out. The choices we make, the people and objects toward which we display our love and devotion, and the manner in which we spend our time form that preparation. Whether we know it or not, we live in preparation for dying.
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