Page - 56 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/01

56 | Gerwin van der Pol www.jrfm.eu 2018 4/1 as more to blame than someone who intentionally breaks one dish. Later in life children come to reverse that interpretation: it is not the effect that counts, but the intentionality. Lerner agreed that we may cognitively develop into people who know that in evaluating moral actions intention is more important than effect. But, he sug- gested, our emotional system does not develop accordingly. Lerner claims: the reason that people who “know better” continue to blame themselves and others for “accidents,” stupid, thoughtless decisions, not doing enough, letting themselves go, not having enough courage, being selfish, cruel – is because these blaming reac- tions are so ingrained in our own thinking and our cultural assumptions that they are simply the automatic expression of a long-standing habit. They are automatically elic- ited, habitual reactions, which one cannot turn off simply because one has learned subsequently that they are inadequate or inappropriate.18 Life confronts us constantly with facts and experiences that “go against the grain” because our emotions are not in line with our knowledge of a just world. But rather than give up this belief in a just world, we stubbornly hold onto that belief, and fortify it against attacks, because it seems to be the pillar of our existence. We have, as a society, developed rational strategies – a police force and courts, for example – to protect justice. We also adopt irrational tactics to deal with injustice, by resorting to denial or victim blaming. Or we conclude that al- though an injustice is not resolved now, it will in the end be punished. By these means we can uphold our belief in a just world. However, we may have difficulty doing so when we see severe injustice, countries at war, starva- tion or criminal acts beyond our imagination. To be able to live with such in- stances (as we must do while watching the daily news) we construct an op- posite world, an unjust world, a world that is not ours, where different rules function. We position ourselves outside this Unjust World. This response is seen in the pastor. When the schoolteacher eventually con- fronts him with the suspicion that Klara and Martin are behind most of the crimes, the pastor, who is quick to publicly attack his children for the smallest flaws, he is outraged at such accusations and refuses to see the schoolteacher ever again. His strong reaction is a defence mechanism: by believing the school- teacher, he would have entered the Unjust World. By calling the schoolteacher a liar, he upholds his own belief in a Just World. The worst thing that can happen is that the atrocities and immorality we are confronted with can no longer be explained within the boundaries of the Just World. What the pastor seeks to prevent is what happens to the spectator 18 Lerner 1980, 121.