Thursday, January 31, 2013

Further Discussions on Social Justice

The doctor who wrote the original post has received a supportive (and anonymous) response. Here's that post and my reply:
Flamboyant reactions to this kind of thinking shouldn't surprise anyone, Doctor. I find that whenever Social Justice is criticized or attacked outright, its True adherents' reactions seem reminiscent of those who burned heretics at the stake. Remember, Social Justice is the central dogma of the new canon, and it has been my observation that its defenders most frequently label its attackers as members of a malevolent outgroup, usually one that enjoys profiting at the expense of others or succeeding as a result of broad and innovative social structures that exist ostensibly for the betterment of mankind. Of course, those attacking Social Justice are assumed to ignore or discount any greater benefits that society may impart on individuals in their insistence on the primacy of the individual. For once, just for once, I'd like to hear one of my colleagues who proselytize the Justice angle sit down and admit that maybe, just maybe, they didn't understand human nature to the extent that their overarching plans for organizing the many facets of each of us, all three hundred million, just might not trump my desire to be left to my own devices to a reasonable degree. The same force that drove the crusaders south time after time throughout antiquity must drive the modern Justice crusader as well, because the desire to abstain from society's grand new plans for me (and perhaps your desire as a physician to sit it out as well), aside from paying for the public resources I use, evidently makes me an object of continual inquisition. After all Doctor, what kind of a sin is that?
I've been called a lot of things during my long time on the Internet. "Flamboyant" is a new one.

But that aside, allow me to counter a few statements that show, at best, a shallow understanding of religion in general and social justice in particular.

Those who are eager to point out the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the many, many faults of how Christianity has been expressed by human adherents also seem relentlessly silent about the expressions of good in the history of the religion. The invention of the hospital, the maintenance of the west's intellectual heritage, and the scientific method are but three examples.

And as a specific concept, Social Justice is hardly a new invention. Papal encyclicals from the 19th century forward have made it an abiding principle of Catholicism. The end of slavery was a Protestant example. So the concept of a "new canon" is patently false.

Perhaps your colleagues refuse to admit your point because it has no roots in reality, either scientifically or spiritually. Humans are social animals while free-roving individuals are outliers at best and sociopaths at worst.

The point I made before I'll make again. The resources you "use" can scarcely be cataloged, accounted, and charged. You use the safety of a nation where the hungry don't range through neighborhoods hunting for food, the safety of a nation with a strong defense, the benefits of a stable economy, the convenience of stores filled with goods you want to buy and the money to buy them with, the benefits of an educated workforce.

By all means be an individual, if that's your heart's desire. That is the core of the American dream. But don't think it comes cheap and don't think it would be possible in a different context.

I'll offer you a trade. I'll push governmental social justice only when it's cost-effective and truly serves an over-arching need that will impact every individual, if you in return will offer to not promote Randian individualism and objectivism to the tipping-point of caving the country that allows you to express it.

Oh. And the word you're looking for in the last sentence is Parsimony. And yes, it is a sin.

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