Interpretive Justice: The Shared Burden of Meaning

Interpretive Justice: The Shared Burden of Meaning

Interpretive justice is neither the indulgence of all readings nor the tyranny of one. It is the disciplined middle path between textual anarchy and authoritarian dogma. If interpretive violence fractures meaning by force—through projection, misrepresentation, or erasure—then interpretive justice is the deliberate labor to hold a space where meaning can emerge in shared good faith.

It is not a method, but a mode.
Not a procedure, but a posture.

It is the refusal to dominate a text—or a person—by assigning to them a frame they did not choose.
It is the willingness to carry a reading long enough for its depth to become apparent.
It is the extension of trust not to an argument’s conclusion, but to the dignity of its origin.

To read with justice is to see the interpretive act itself as relation—a triangle of text, reader, and the world they both inhabit. In this field, justice means each is granted their full ontological weight. The reader is not erased in favor of "authorial intent"; nor is the text collapsed into mere reflection of the reader’s mood. And neither are permitted to float free of the real.

Interpretive justice means that meaning is not yours to extract—it is ours to convene.

Signs of Interpretive Justice:

• Accurate framing. The reader names their own perspective and makes room for others. They identify what comes from the text, what comes from themselves, and what emerges between.

• Structural humility. The reader does not force closure where the text insists on ambiguity. Nor do they claim license where the form offers constraint.

• Historical placement. The reader acknowledges the time and world of the text—not to distance it, but to place it within the larger map of meaning.

• Accountable empathy. Justice includes the ethical burden of fidelity. To read justly is to refuse caricature, even of one's enemies. It is to resist using a passage as a weapon unless you have also felt its wound.

• Recursive refinement. A just reader updates their interpretation when new information emerges—whether from the text, the world, or another’s lived experience.

• Refusal of flattening. Justice is the preservation of contour. The text must not be collapsed into a single utility: not merely a slogan, nor merely a trauma-response, nor merely a ritual object. It must be permitted to breathe.

Interpretive Justice in Conflict

When interpretive justice enters contested ground—scripture, politics, relationship—it does not guarantee peace. But it guarantees that the frame of the fight will be named. It insists that the terms of disagreement be visible. That interpretive power be acknowledged, and checked. That no one gets to win by pretending not to interpret.

Justice requires that if you claim the Book, you must be held to the Book.
If you speak in the name of love, your reading must hold space for the other.

Interpretive justice demands accountability from reader and text alike. It requires that we not merely consume meaning but offer ourselves as co-bearers of its cost.

In this light, justice is not the opposite of mercy. It is mercy’s spine.

To read with justice is to say:

"I do not own this text. I do not control its outcome. But I will hold open the field where its truth might live, even if it implicates me. Even if it disarms me. Even if it breaks the frame that kept me safe."

Justice does not seek to end the conversation.
Justice begins it, and holds it open until all may speak.