What Is "Social Justice"?
If using the most powerful government in the world to force people to violate their conscience isn't "social justice," what is?
From that hilarious Reno News-Gazette story that was formerly headlined:
Fluke Takes Center Stage In Reno
We learned that taking center stage means that a whopping 10 people showed up in the parking lot of the Sak ‘N’ Save in North Reno to hear activist Sandra Fluke campaign for Barack Obama.
Anyway, the caption read:
Sandra Fluke, a social justice advocate and campaign surrogate for Democratic President Barack Obama, speaks in Reno on Saturday.
As Jonah Goldberg put it over at NRO:
What exactly makes her a social justice advocate, other than the fact that what she actually advocates doesn’t sound nearly as glamorous so journalists are eager to wrap it in a euphemism.
As those who’ve read my recent book know, the use of “social justice” to paper-over leftwingery is a particular gripe of mine (though hardly mine alone). In this case it’s especially vexing because A) it’s supposed to be a neutral description and B) the term is generally understood to have religious, particularly Catholic, connotations. And yet this one woman’s fame is derived almost entirely by her determination to work against the policies of the Catholic Church.
I can't stand the term "social justice" because of the inherent unkindness in the phrase. I mean, if you think that the same aim is better accomplished through different legislation or a different policy approach, you're basically tarred as being for social "injustice."
But of all the people in the world who might legitimately be called, euphemistically, advocates for "social justice," the woman who specifically enrolled in a Catholic law school to take its Catholic policies on the sanctity of human life down? Well, I wouldn't use that phrase.
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Comments:
May '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
Almost any phrase that has "social" in it is a euphemism for socialism.
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
My favorite rant/reasoned brief against the notion of "social justice" as the left uses it is Tom Sowell's book "Vision of the Annointed". He relabels it "cosmic justice" which seems entirely appropriate since the proponents of that brand of justice are most concerned with utopian objectives (the end of poverty, the elimination of inequality, etc.) that will only be possible come the eschaton.
May '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
This won't win me brownie points around here, I realize, but put me down as one who approves the term social justice, which captures something important that is otherwise too easily overlooked. Since human persons are not just isolated individuals, but have an ineradicable "communitarian dimension" (to use JP II's term), terms like justice and injustice can apply not just to individuals, but to "social structures."
Take, for example, a society that rests on a caste system, whereby entire segments of the population are deemed "untouchable."
I agree with you completely that the term has been grotesquely abused and co-opted for thoroughly illegitimate and unjust purposes. But still, I think the solution is to expose that, rather than to throw out the term.
Edited on October 22, 2012 at 4:52pmDec '11
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
Social Justice is whatever the speaker wants it to be, usually leftwingery. The listener must immediately ask, "justice by what criteria?" Then he must ask why the speaker is using such a vague term.
My law school called me soliciting donations, and, as is the custom, told me of new programs. One was about social justice. I suggested a law school should focus on "justice justice" - just civil and criminal courtroom outcomes.
What utility is a Georgetown law degree in pursuit of "reproductive justice"?
Dec '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
I think Dennis Miller has the best take on Sandra Fluke. One of his rants said something about the code of Hammurabi being the predominant legal thought of the day when she started law school.
As for social justice, I absolutely loathe the term as well. Every time I hear it I reflexively check to make sure my wallet is still in my pocket.
Jun '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
katievs:
I agree with you completely that the term has been grotesquely abused and co-opted for thoroughly illegitimate and unjust purposes. But still, I think the solution is to expose that, rather than to throw out the term. · 9 minutes ago
Edited 7 minutes ago
Katie: Given the corruption of the term, do you really see a way to recover it? I fear that it cannot be.
Edited on October 22, 2012 at 5:02pmMay '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
Sorry, Katie, but "Social Justice" is a scam.
It is where the aggrieved get to indict, prosecute and judge whomever they wish. And after they pronounce you guilty they prescribe their own sentence which has neither opportunity for appeal, has no limits as to time and is not subjected to the rules of double jeopardy. In fact, you can be guilty of the same crime in perpetuity and new penalties applied because the aggrieved did feel made whole.
It is a power grab and a way into redistribution fueled by hatred.
May '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
Think how the term "rights" has likewise been abused.
"Reproductive rights", "animal rights", and so on and so forth.
Should we therefore get rid of the term? No. Rather, we should rehabilitate it, because it captures something true that no other term captures.
Let's be thoughtful enough to separate the wheat from the chaff and not throw out babies with bath waters. (Sorry Duane! I don't have a fertile enough imagination to improve on the clichés.)
May '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
Polygamy is another example of social injustice.
It can't be addressed as acts of individual injustice are addressed. It has to be addressed as a social problem, at a structural level.
May '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
The Solidarity Movement was a movement of authentic social justice.
Mar '12
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
How about we drop the "social" and just talk about "justice"?
Isn't justice the goal social or otherwise? I don't remember Jesus using the term social. The term 'justice' appears 136 times in the NKJ Bible. The term 'social' does not appear at all.
Dec '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
I will contend, Katie, that in a society which champions individual liberty and real justice that "social injustice" cannot exist. What you speak of is treating symptoms rather than diseases.
May '11
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
Mollie, this has been a gripe of mine for quite a while. I won't link to myself on this thread (at some point it's unbecoming), but there are many examples of the left's manipulation of language in these not-so-subtle ways. The goal, as always, is to end the argument before ever getting to the merits by painting your opposition as unreasonable from the get go. This is a case-in-point - by virtue of arguing against someone who claims to be in favor of social justice, you are anti-justice before ever opening your mouth to explain that the term is deliberately misleading. It is a rhetorical trick played by those with very few winning arguments.
Feb '12
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
Gotta agree with Katie on this. There is something about social structures which may or may not be unjust, the easy example being Jim Crow laws, to which all other "social injustice" is compared, regardless of the similarity existing. Unfortunately the term has been used out of real meaning. The left has managed to appropriate the best term to describe inherent justice or injustice in a social structure, but also managed to destroy the meaning of the term. In practice this term means nothing, but the listener wants it to mean what it should mean.
The use term creates an unassailable moral high ground in practice, because if you disagree with "the advocate for social justice," you are against social justice! Which will be accompanied with outrageous outrage. It's nothing new really, just employing a term upon which equivocation may be stacked upon equivocation without criticism.
katievs: ...I agree with you completely that the term has been grotesquely abused and co-opted for thoroughly illegitimate and unjust purposes. But still, I think the solution is to expose that, rather than to throw out the term. · 14 minutes ago
Edited 13 minutes ago
Feb '11
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
"Social Justice" is kind of like "community organizer"......
May '11
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
katievs: Think how the term "rights" has likewise been abused.
"Reproductive rights", "animal rights", and so on and so forth.
Even legal rights supposedly derived from our constitution. Many of those are simply obligations placed on other people. It is my biggest problem with the gay marriage debate. Let's not go there, but always keep in mind that any positive right for one person is impliedly a negative right (restriction or obligation) against another person. When we talk about rights against the Government, that is one thing - but it gets tricky (although this doesn't stop the liberal "rights" freight-train) when we claim to have rights against one another.
May '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
katievs: Polygamy is another example of social injustice.
It can't be addressed as acts of individual injustice are addressed. It has to be addressed as a social problem, at a structural level.
Justice implies retribution. Passing a law to prevent further instances is a structural change but carries no retribution.
Slave owners were not prosecuted after the Civil War since what they did was legal at the time they did it. Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional.
May '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
We use different words to zero in on different realities. So, for example, there's a difference between "natural rights" (like the right to life) and "civil rights" (like the right to vote.) It's a useful distinction.
The term "social justice" captures something real. When it's used rightly, it draws moral and political attention to real problems concerning the common good.
Edited on October 22, 2012 at 9:04pmJun '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
The term "social justice" was hijacked--most likely irredeemably--first by anti-Semite fascist-friendly Fr. Charles Coughlin in the 1930s (who called his commentary magazine "Social Justice,") and later by the American socialists of the religious left--both ends of the Occupy Wall Street spectrum.
Edited on October 22, 2012 at 5:37pmMay '10
Re: What Is "Social Justice"?
EJHill
Justice implies retribution.
Does it necessarily? It doesn't seem so to me.
The Emancipation Proclamation addressed a social injustice without calling for retribution.
Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address is quite amazing for the way it links spiritually the blood shed in battle to reparation for the blood drawn by the slave masters.
Big communal (or social) wrongs incur big communal costs.
They should be recognized and rectified. I think, for instance, that the deterioration of the black family and the way current law creates and perpetuates dependency is a serious problem of social justice.
Edited on October 22, 2012 at 5:53pm