Right Thing, Right Now - Ryan Holiday

This was our first book club book and follows Holiday’s look at what it mean to be just, and bring justice to the world. He looks at it in three realms.

• Personal: What justice means in your daily actions

• Sociopolitical: What justice looks like in the political realm and how our actions interface with that

• The One: How justice should be ever expanding the circle of those that have full rights (in law and in practice) in the world

I found the book challenging in many areas and it will be worth another read in the future. Holiday asks us to continue to expand justice at a time when inequality and injustice seem to be on the rise. It’s going to be a hard but needed road to walk for those with some power to continue to help those without power.

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- this is the 3rd book in [[Ryan Holiday]]'s series on the 4 cardinal virtues Pg XIII
1. [[Courage is Calling - Fortune Favors the Brave 202203020724|Courage is Calling]]
2. Temperance
3. Justice (this book)
4. Wisdom

- we are far more concerned with our own "rights" than with what is right/just for society. Pg XVIII
- this encompasses being truthful, which is lacking in so many fields

- do you daily live the golden rule, not just when it's easy or people will see you but when people won't see you. Pg XXI
- love they neighbour as thyself being the golden rule

### Part 1 - The Me (Personal)

- yes keeping your word can cost you. You can't take that new more lucrative opportunity because of prior commitments, but you gain a reputation of always doing what you say. Pg 25

- for all the lip-service we pay to truth and how good it is those to tell the truth and say it's good to expose liars, the truthtellers among us often pay a personal expensive price. Pg 31
- job loss, ridicule, the powerful people they expose punching down and ruining their life with the hoards that take the powerful person at their word even if they've been shown to be a liar.

- can you put yourself in the category of people who always tell the truth? Pg 31
- I suppose I must ask myself that question even about the movies I have ripped. Do I own them all, if not I'm stealing revenue from creators. I could justify it by saying the movie companies steal from creators, but I'm only responsible for my behaviour.

- we evade responsibility because it's hard and what comes with it is accountability for our actions and their outcomes. Pg 36
- I've always said it's easier to abdicate responsibility for the poor outcomes in your life because then you get to maintain the fiction that you're perfect.

- sure cheating can get you ahead, but will you be proud of the place you get? Pg 43
- to a place where you have to rely on semantics to make yourself right or justify your actions.
- is it a win worth having if you had to cheat to get it? You didn't earn it.
- you didn't accomplish on your own merit you cheated.

- it's easier to be a "great" man with accomplishments than to be a good person. Pg 49
- think about [[Lance Armstrong]]. I fault him far more for how he treated others than for the doping due to the cycling culture at the time, but maybe I'm simply giving him an out for cheating that he doesn't deserve.

- if we feel we need to hide an action we shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Pg 57

- you see how much your integrity means to you when it costs you something to stick with it. Pg 82
- does it cost you money, a job, your family?

### Part 2 - The Week (Sociopolitical)

- justice is not fulfilled if anyone is viewed unequally by the law. Pg 122
- this we need to remember as we look at any law in any country. Think of [[Israel]] and the [[genocide]] it’s committing in [[Gaza]].
- Looking at this idea in the context of how laws are enforced would mean we don’t have an equal society today. Where someone can go to jail for years for minor theft and a rich white dude can steal millions via fraud and still get to run a country.

- all the injustice we see in the world now gives us an opportunity to struggle for the rights of others. Pg 129
- how much we struggle for the rights of others speaks to our view of justice and how big our circle is of those that should be accepted as equal speaks to our humanity. The bigger the circle the better person we are

- one thing that never looks bad in hindsight is being kind. Pg 132
- I was thanked with relief at least twice during the holiday purchases because I was simply nice. I told apologetic staff that it was Christmas, anyone rushing was not prepared for the reality of the season. We should go out expecting to wait and not ask staff to rush some crazy amount for our benefit.
- if you want to gauge the worth of someone, how do they treat those they meet where there is a power imbalance

- [[How the Other Half Lives - Jacob Riis]] Pg 139
- a look at the tenements of New York in the 1950’s which shows the poverty of many New Yorkers that go unseen by the majority of the population.

- it’s easy to stay in our bubbles and not do the math on what a crappy minimum wage means to those living with it. Pg 141
- [[The Pitchforks Are Coming… for Us Plutocrats]]
- in this article the billionaire thinks that a $15 minimum wage is all that’s needed for “poor” people to not start an uprising and overthrow the super wealthy. He was simply out of touch on wages even in 2014


- especially when we’re in a position of power we often look for ways to make problems not our fault. It’s easy to sit in our cushy position and if we acknowledge a problem we have to step out and do something about it which is hard work and uncomfortable to our power. Pg 143
- maybe we even have to make personal sacrifices of our luxury to ensure that everyone has a chance at equality

- when we disengage from an argument or cause because it’s to hard we empower the other side to keep going. as they strip rights away from other people. Pg 148, 149

- in the face of big problems it’s easy to think our effort changes nothing but our effort matters to every single person we touch with it. Pg 152
- like being nice to retail employees. It’s a small drop in their day, but it may be the best thing they remember

- just because you argued for the “right” cause doesn’t mean anything will be done. You have to act and put some skin in the game, make some sacrifices to push the cause forward. Pg 168

- are you punching down or supporting a tyrant who does punch down. Pg 204
- I can’t help but think of [[Donald Trump]] and [[Elon Musk]] who often use their popularity and audience to punch down when their fragile egos are harmed. Sure they may feign innocence and say they just criticized someone, but they know what their followers will do with doxxing and violence because the words of some powerful asshole have given license to abuse others
- the followers feel empowered to be assholes on behalf of the rich and powerful which lets them feel like they have similar power

- no one can make you give up. Yes people can make it harder but it’s always up to your decision to quit. Pg 214

### Part III - The All (Is One)

- [[Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau]] Pg 232

- education or wealth don’t speak to your character, how you treat the least desirable and those without power in your community speaks to our character. Pg 235
- how you fight for the rights of those that have none shows your character

- [[Ghandi]]’s 7 blunders of humanity Pg 249
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Religion without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
- Dang how many of the people in power now have many of these blunders as their core identity

- [[The Second Mountain - David Brooks]] Pg 254

- [[The Second Mountain - David Brooks]] says there is time to earn then (hopefully) time to give out what you’ve learned freely to those that have less than you, or are coming up behind you, to help them succeed.
- your second mountain should be about more than your own well-being and be about the well-being of the community around you

- if your doing good for the thanks how good are you? Pg 259
- how much performative “good” is done for the social media clout? Should we discount all that good? We should at least downgrade it a bit because it’s done at least in part for the recognition.

- in light of my [[Elon Musk]] and [[Donald Trump]] thoughts look at [[Harry Truman]] who didn’t choose bribes and corruption for his life.

- [[The Moviegoer - Walker Percy]] Pg 265
- “classic” American novel about a stockbroker who watches movies and has casual sex until something changes and a revelation happens

- [[Our Endangered Values - Jimmy Carter]] Pg 272
- on Kindle Unlimited for me

- there is no justice without taking responsibility for our misdeeds. Pg 282
- that seems laughable when you can get out of anything with enough money and lawyers.

- when land is given back to [[first nations]] it’s not benevolence and they shouldn’t have to be thankful. It’s atonement for deeds visited on their nation that were terrible. It’s atonement for land theft in contravention of treaties signed by our government that were never honoured. Pg 284

- [[The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera]] Pg 293

- as we fight the monsters of injustice we must be sure to not, through our anger at the injustice we fight against, become a monster ourselves. Pg 314
- we must continually expand the circle of those we love and try to get justice for the expanding circle
- so imagine how broken and sad Trump/Musk are to hold the rest of humanity in such contempt
- imagine having such a fragile ego that every insult must be answered and won to make them feel powerful. I can’t imagine the burden of that fragility. To live with it means you have a monster on your back all the time telling you how terrible you are. I choose to instead live in quiet confidence.