Right Thing, Right Now

Right Thing, Right Now Plot Summary

Introduction

Justice transcends mere legal frameworks; it represents our fundamental commitment to fairness, honesty, decency, and mutual respect. At its core, justice is not something we demand from others but rather what we demand from ourselves—a personal responsibility to act with integrity and consideration for the common good. While courage is about putting ourselves on the line and discipline about getting ourselves in line, justice focuses on how we hold the line between right and wrong in our everyday choices and relationships. The pursuit of justice manifests in three expanding circles of responsibility. First comes personal rectitude—how we conduct ourselves with honesty and fairness in our immediate spheres. This expands to sociopolitical engagement—how we contribute to collective efforts for equality and dignity in society. Finally, justice culminates in a transcendent connection to all living beings, present and future. Through exploring these dimensions, we discover that justice is not merely a virtue to be practiced occasionally but the cornerstone of a meaningful life—one that honors our interconnectedness and contributes to a world where everyone can flourish.

Chapter 1: The Personal Foundations of Justice

Harry S. Truman exemplified personal integrity in ways that transformed American politics. Born in Missouri to modest means, Truman lacked the pedigree of most politicians but possessed something far more valuable—an unwavering moral compass. As a young man, he discovered Marcus Aurelius and the Stoic virtues, which became his guiding philosophy. "The four greatest virtues," Truman explained, "are moderation, wisdom, justice, and fortitude, and if a man is able to cultivate those, that's all he needs to live a happy and successful life." This philosophy was tested early when Truman entered local politics in Jackson County, Missouri. The political machine there operated on corruption and patronage, yet Truman refused to participate. When overseeing county construction projects, he drove thousands of miles on his own dime to supervise work, rejecting kickbacks and refusing to hire contractors based on political connections. He later estimated he could have stolen $1.5 million from the county but instead saved taxpayers many times that amount. While his ethical stance often left him financially struggling, Truman maintained that he preferred to fail honestly than succeed through corruption. Throughout his political career and presidency, Truman maintained this striking personal integrity. He paid for his own stamps when writing personal letters. He refused gifts, declined special accommodations, and lived on his government salary. After leaving office, he turned down numerous lucrative opportunities, believing they would compromise his principles. When offered the Congressional Medal of Honor late in life, he declined, saying he had done nothing worthy of such recognition. What made Truman exceptional wasn't just his policy decisions but his personal rectitude. He understood that justice begins with individual choices—keeping one's word, telling the truth, treating people with respect regardless of their status. Even when facing difficult decisions like desegregating the armed forces—which advisors warned was "political suicide"—Truman acted from principle rather than expediency. When a Southern supporter asked for reassurance about integration policies, Truman pulled a copy of the Bill of Rights from his pocket and simply read it aloud, saying, "I'm everybody's president." Truman demonstrated that justice is not something we theorize about or demand from others—it's a way of life. It's about the standards we hold ourselves to, the promises we keep, the integrity we bring to our words, and the difference we make for others. This personal foundation of justice doesn't guarantee popularity—Truman left office with low approval ratings—but his example reminds us that character ultimately matters more than momentary acclaim.

Chapter 2: Building Just Communities Through Everyday Actions

Justice expands beyond personal integrity into the communities we inhabit and help create. Thomas Clarkson's life illustrates how individuals can build movements that transform society through everyday actions and practical organizing. In 1785, Clarkson entered an essay competition at Cambridge on whether it was lawful to enslave others. After winning the prize, he found himself haunted by the moral question he had explored academically. At a crossroads in Hertfordshire, he reached a life-changing conclusion: "If the contents of my essay were true, then it was time some person should see these calamities to their end." Clarkson began methodically gathering evidence about the slave trade—interviewing traders and former slaves, reviewing records, and documenting atrocities. He boarded slave ships, recording their conditions with "melancholy and horror." Working sixteen-hour days, he cultivated allies including Josiah Wedgwood, who designed the famous kneeling slave medallion asking, "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" Clarkson's campaign pioneered tactics still used today: consumer boycotts of sugar produced by slaves, political petitions, and vivid imagery that forced the public to confront slavery's horrors. Building just communities requires forming alliances across diverse groups. The suffragette movement that followed abolition exemplified this approach, bringing together women of different faiths, backgrounds, and political persuasions. Some were polygamous Mormons, others single women opposed to marriage entirely. Their strength came from finding common cause despite differences. "For the first time in the woman movement," Carrie Chapman Catt declared in 1913, "Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Mohammedan, Jewish and Christian women will sit together in a Congress uniting their voices in a common plea for the liberation of their sex." Justice in communities also means responding to immediate needs. When Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, E.D. Nixon challenged local ministers: "You preachers been eating these women's fried chicken long enough without doing anything for them." A young Martin Luther King Jr. replied, "I am not a coward!" sparking a movement that borrowed lessons from Clarkson, the suffragettes, Gandhi, and Thoreau. Community justice is maintained through continued vigilance and practical commitment—what civil rights lawyer John Doar called "just keep going back," filing motions, pursuing appeals, and refusing to quit despite setbacks. The advancement of justice through community action reveals a pattern across generations: someone sees injustice, decides to act, builds allies, uses creative pressure tactics, and perseveres through resistance. This work is neither theoretical nor abstract—it requires starting small, growing coalitions, and maintaining pressure through setbacks. From abolition to civil rights to environmental protection, justice advances through this dedicated community work that transforms individual moral concern into collective change.

Chapter 3: Transcending Self-Interest for the Common Good

Moving beyond self-interest represents a fundamental shift in moral development—one that transforms personal success into service to others. Lou Gehrig exemplifies this transition. After a legendary baseball career defined by discipline and achievement, Gehrig was diagnosed with ALS, abruptly ending his playing days. Though offered lucrative opportunities to capitalize on his fame, Gehrig chose instead to serve on New York City's parole board for a modest salary. Even as his health deteriorated, he drove to the office daily, reviewing cases and making difficult decisions. His biographer noted that Gehrig, "with his doom sealed...chose to spend his last days, not in one final feverish attempt to suck from life in two years all that he might have had in forty, but in work and service." This progression from self-achievement to selfless contribution represents what writer David Brooks calls "the Second Mountain." The first mountain involves pursuing career success, financial stability, and recognition—goals that, while worthwhile, often leave us wondering, "Is this all there is?" The second mountain focuses on service to others and contributions to causes greater than ourselves. Barack Obama described this evolution: "Common" ambition drives us when young—to get rich, make our mark, impress others. But mature ambition transforms into something broader: creating a world where people of different backgrounds recognize each other's humanity or helping every child fulfill their potential. John Profumo's story dramatically illustrates this transformation. After resigning from British Parliament in disgrace following a sex scandal that threatened national security, Profumo could have pursued a comeback or monetized his notoriety. Instead, he appeared at Toynbee Hall, a poverty-fighting charity, asking how he might help. Beginning with menial tasks like laundry, he eventually became the organization's chief fundraiser, serving quietly for forty years without recognition or fanfare. His response to personal failure became a model of redemption through service. The transition from self-interest to common good involves recognizing debts we owe to others. Ralph Ellison experienced this revelation while visiting Harvard, where he noticed a memorial listing Civil War soldiers who died to end slavery. "I knew its significance almost without knowing," he recalled, "and the shock of recognition filled me with a kind of anguish." This sense of indebtedness awakens us to our responsibility to pay forward what we've received—to build bridges for those who will follow, to plant trees whose shade we'll never enjoy. This transcendence doesn't require dramatic gestures. We can mentor others, build institutions, champion causes, or simply practice kindness in everyday interactions. What matters is that we move beyond what benefits us personally to what serves humanity collectively. As we do, we discover that what initially appears as sacrifice ultimately becomes the source of our deepest fulfillment and meaning.

Chapter 4: Cultivating Empathy to Recognize Others' Humanity

True justice begins with seeing others as fully human, a capacity that requires deliberate cultivation. Beatrice Webb's transformation illustrates this process. Born into British privilege, Webb had virtually no contact with working-class families until, as part of a sociological project, she lived among them disguised as a farmer's daughter. "I had my first chance of personal intimacy, on terms of social equality, with a wage-earning family," she wrote of this experience. What she witnessed shattered her previously held beliefs in laissez-faire economics and transformed her into a lifelong social activist who coined the concept of "collective bargaining" and helped establish the London School of Economics. Theodore Roosevelt underwent a similar awakening when, as a young state senator, he visited New York City's tenements. Roosevelt initially opposed labor protections, believing government intervention in business was improper. But witnessing children sleeping six or seven to a bed amid toxic chemicals transformed him. Forty years later, he still spoke with horror of what he had seen. His response—"I've come to help"—led to a lifetime fighting for the exploited against entrenched interests. Lyndon Johnson's commitment to civil rights similarly crystallized through witnessing the indignities suffered by his black housekeeper, Zephyr Wright, who couldn't use public restrooms when driving across the South. Empathy requires more than passive awareness—it demands active engagement with others' experiences. We must seek out perspectives that make us uncomfortable, that challenge our assumptions about how the world works. The suffragettes understood this when they brought Mary Peabody, a 72-year-old Northern church lady, to experience segregation firsthand in St. Augustine, Florida. When she was arrested for attempting to have lunch with her "Negro friend," her photograph made front pages nationwide. "After I arrived, I began to see things differently," she explained, and so did many Americans. Cultivating empathy also means recognizing our interconnectedness. "We are all bound together," the poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper declared after the Civil War, "in one great bundle of humanity." Martin Luther King Jr. would later adopt this metaphor, explaining that freedom has a "we" quality—when we strive for it, we help not just ourselves but everyone else. This recognition compels us to action. "When I look at the mass, I will never act," Mother Teresa observed. "If I look at the one, I will." Empathy transforms abstract suffering into concrete humanity deserving our response. The alternative to cultivating empathy—indifference—eventually becomes self-destructive. When we shrug at others' suffering, we invite it upon ourselves and those we love. As the Holocaust survivor Martin Niemöller realized too late: "I am paying for that mistake now, and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me." Justice requires that we break out of our bubbles, that we actively seek to understand lives different from our own. Only by seeing others as fully human can we create a world where everyone's humanity is recognized and respected.

Chapter 5: Love and Forgiveness as Transformative Justice

Gandhi's approach to justice embodied a revolutionary understanding of love and forgiveness. Despite facing brutal colonial oppression, he maintained that love for one's opponents was not merely a moral ideal but a practical strategy for transformation. When asked about his enemies, Gandhi explained: "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet." This refusal to harbor hatred protected not only his inner peace but preserved his capacity to see humanity in his opponents—a prerequisite for changing their hearts and minds. Forgiveness played a crucial role in Gandhi's philosophy of satyagraha, or "truth-force." He understood that holding onto grievances, however justified, ultimately becomes self-defeating. "The weak can never forgive," he said. "Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." This strength wasn't passive acceptance but active transformation—the ability to break cycles of violence by refusing to perpetuate them. When Gandhi's longtime adversary General Jan Smuts imprisoned him in South Africa, Gandhi responded by making him sandals. Years later, Smuts confessed to wearing those sandals often, reflecting that Gandhi had "redeemed him from a sense of commonplace and futility." Martin Luther King Jr. built upon this understanding, recognizing that forgiveness serves justice by creating space for reconciliation. After King's assassination, his colleague James Lawson felt called to meet with James Earl Ray, King's killer. In an extraordinary act of grace, Lawson not only forgave Ray but eventually officiated his prison wedding. When Lawson's teenage son asked why he would do this, he replied simply, "If you believe all the stuff you've been preaching all these years, then you'll do it." This wasn't sentimentality but commitment to a transformative justice that heals rather than merely punishes. Malcolm X's journey demonstrates how love can transform even the most hardened heart. Having experienced racism's brutality firsthand, Malcolm initially embraced separatism and militancy. But during his pilgrimage to Mecca, he encountered Muslims of all races treating each other with respect and dignity. "I've had enough of someone else's propaganda," he wrote home. "I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost." Though his life was cut short just months after this transformation, Malcolm's embrace of universal brotherhood illustrated love's power to transcend hatred. Love and forgiveness don't negate justice—they fulfill it by creating possibilities for healing and growth. They recognize that punitive approaches often perpetuate cycles of harm rather than ending them. As Harvey Milk noted when asked about people who had mistreated him: "If I turned around every time somebody called me a faggot, I'd be walking backwards, and I don't want to walk backwards." Forgiveness frees us to move forward, to create spaces where transformation becomes possible for both the wronged and those who have done wrong.

Chapter 6: Making Amends and Paying It Forward

Justice requires not only acknowledging wrongs but taking concrete action to address them. Abraham Lincoln's early political career demonstrates this principle. After publicly humiliating a political opponent named Jesse Thomas through a devastating impersonation, Lincoln quickly realized how cruel he had been. Rather than dismissing it as political theater, he tracked down Thomas and apologized. More importantly, he carried this lesson forward, developing into the more patient, forgiving leader who would later focus on "binding up the nation's wounds" rather than seeking vengeance after the Civil War. Making amends often requires institutional responses to historical injustices. The Germans have developed a concept—Vergangenheitsbewältigung—which means grappling with the past and accepting collective responsibility. Across Germany, "stumbling stones" have been installed in sidewalks to mark Holocaust victims' former homes, creating ongoing reminders of historical wrongs. This stands in contrast to countries that refuse to acknowledge past atrocities—Turkey regarding the Armenian genocide, Japan concerning "comfort women," or America's belated and incomplete reckoning with slavery. The missionary and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer framed his medical work in Africa as a form of atonement for colonialism's devastation: "We are burdened with a great debt. We are not free to confer or not confer these benefits on these people as we please. It is our duty. Anything we give them is not benevolence but atonement." This perspective recognizes that making amends isn't optional charity but moral obligation—repairing harm rather than merely expressing regret. John Profumo's decades of service at Toynbee Hall represents personal atonement transformed into meaningful contribution. Rather than wallowing in shame after his political disgrace, he channeled his energies into helping others, ultimately becoming the charity's longest-serving volunteer. His response demonstrates how making amends can be redemptive rather than merely punitive—creating good that wouldn't otherwise exist from the awareness of one's failings. Making amends naturally extends to paying forward what we've received. The poet quoted in the book captures this sentiment: "Good friend, in the path I have come," the builder said, "There followed after me today / A youth whose feet must pass this way. / This chasm that has been naught to me / To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be; / He, too, must cross in the twilight dim; / Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!" This ethic of intergenerational responsibility acknowledges our debt to both past and future—we build upon what others created for us and must likewise create for those who follow. The process of making amends and paying forward strengthens rather than diminishes us. It transforms guilt into growth, shame into service. By acknowledging our personal and collective responsibilities, we create opportunities for healing and progress that denial prevents. Rather than seeing amends as burdensome obligation, we can recognize them as opportunities to become better versions of ourselves while creating a more just world.

Chapter 7: Finding Hope in Pursuing Justice Despite Obstacles

The pursuit of justice requires sustaining hope even when progress seems painfully slow or impossible. Frederick Douglass embodied this tension. Having experienced slavery's brutal reality and witnessed continued Northern racism, he had every reason for despair. During an 1852 speech in Salem, Ohio, the weight of injustice temporarily overwhelmed him as his message grew dark and despondent. Breaking the gloomy silence, Sojourner Truth called out: "Frederick, is God dead?" These words jarred Douglass back to hope, reminding him that despair serves neither justice nor those suffering under injustice. Historical perspective reinforces hope's necessity. At any point in the past, total despair would have seemed reasonable, yet progress has consistently emerged through persistent effort. Gandhi faced seemingly insurmountable opposition from the British Empire but maintained that "no cause that is intrinsically just can ever be described as forlorn." Martin Luther King Jr. similarly sustained hope through "the cold and whistling winds of despair in a world sparked by turbulence." These leaders understood that hopelessness is not merely emotionally defeating but strategically counterproductive—it prevents the very action needed to create change. Harvey Milk demonstrated hope's transformative power in the face of personal danger. Convinced he would be assassinated, Milk recorded a message to be played after his death, which occurred just nine days later. Rather than bitterness or resignation, his final message urged others to continue the work: "I hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise." Milk emphasized that movements must transcend individual leaders: "It's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power—it's about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias hope." Hope doesn't mean naive optimism about easy victories. It means continuing to act despite uncertainty, seeing possibility where others see only impossibility. When civil rights marchers were asked if their movement would win, one replied simply: "We won when we started." This perspective recognizes that the very act of resistance creates possibility where none existed before, that each step forward—however small—changes what's possible next. As the civil rights song suggested, we can be "drops of water falling on the stone," which eventually, inevitably crack it. The capacity to sustain hope distinguishes effective justice movements from ineffective ones. Hope prevents cynicism, which masquerades as wisdom but functions as excuse for inaction. It counters despair, which paralyzes when action is most needed. Hope fuels persistence through setbacks and sustains vision through darkness. Most importantly, hope recognizes that justice is never a finished achievement but an ongoing process that each generation must advance. By carrying the fire of hope, we ensure that the long arc of history continues bending toward justice, however slowly or imperfectly.

Summary

Justice emerges from this exploration not as an abstract ideal or distant goal but as a lived practice that begins with personal integrity, expands through community engagement, and culminates in transcendent connection to all humanity. From Truman's incorruptible honesty to Gandhi's revolutionary love, from Clarkson's practical organizing to Malcolm X's transformative journey, we see that justice requires both moral clarity and practical engagement. It demands that we cultivate empathy across differences, make amends for wrongs, and sustain hope through obstacles. The path of justice offers no guarantees of success or recognition. Those who pursue it may face resistance, ridicule, or worse. Yet this path provides something more valuable than external rewards—the opportunity to align our lives with deeper purpose and participate in humanity's ongoing moral evolution. By choosing justice in our daily decisions, we contribute to a world where dignity, fairness, and mutual respect become increasingly possible. As we expand our circles of concern from self to community to all living beings, we discover that justice isn't something we achieve once and for all but a continuous journey that gives meaning to our existence and hope to our shared future.

About Author

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Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday is media strategist for notorious clients like Tucker Max and Dov Charney. After dropping out of college at 19 to apprentice under the strategist Robert Greene, he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multi-platinum musicians. He is the Director of Marketing at American Apparel, where his work in advertising was internationally known. His strategies are used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google, and have been written about in AdAge, the New York Times, Gawker, and Fast Company. He is the author is *Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator*, which is due out in July. He currently lives in New Orleans, with his rebellious puppy, Hanno.

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