27 Replies to “What Is Social Justice?”

  1. This is an excellent summary that even the most clueless university student should be able to understand (even though she/he would object to it). Many years ago the brilliant columnist, the late Auberon Waugh, suggested that the adjective “social” should be read in the same way that English-speakers from the 18th to the 20th centuries used the adjective “Dutch” — as in “Dutch treat” or “Dutch overn” or “Dutch uncle” — to denote that the noun modified should be considered as the opposite of its normal meaning. Thus, “social justice” should be considered the opposite of, or at least a counterfeit of, “justice”; so, too, with “social democracy” or “social conscience”, etc.

  2. “social Justice” is just a buzz phrase that camouflages neo-com injustice – justice in statist socialism is non existent because what is “just” is not based in inviolable morality but political expediency – so “justice” is simply the over powering agenda of the political purging state rather than an ethical equalizing effort by independent jury.

  4. That’s sort of how I take it. The word “justice” means what justice means, so when someone modifies the term with the adjective “social”, they must mean something different from justice.

  5. Haven’t you heard? That social justice thing is so last century. … that and the tax payer is starting to catch on. … now they use the term “social licence”.

  7. Jonah Goldberg explained it very well. The progressive “Social Justice” worked out really well in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, and elsewhere.
    As well, he also talked about the those opposed in the classic Bolshevik terms of being “enemies of the state” or “enemies of the people”. All sorts of property confiscation and murder are eventually always the trademark of the “social justice” crowd.

  8. Before the property confiscation and murder comes ridicule and then demonetization. The Marxist Nazis also practiced the same methods.

  9. “Freedom must be sacrificed in order to redistribute income”.
    If you are very brave, ask a lot of young “adults”, especially those in college—you know, the one’s being trained to run everything—whether they are willing to give up their freedoms in exchange for the comforts provided them by the state. Then ask them whether they think the rest of us should be forced by law to do likewise, in the name of “social justice”—i.e., material equality.
    The fantasy that the state can and should deliver us from all of life’s travails—the fantasy pedaled by its hucksters in our classrooms—has, as the hucksters know, an eager audience in the adolescent. You might say that it is a political philosophy for the adolescent. But it’s the adults who shall real its whirlwind.

  10. If The Enlightenment was the coming of age of man, socialism is the effort to return us to our adolescence. It’s working.

  11. “Social justice” puts the yeast in breadlines, unless of course you are promoting it. Than you are fully deserving of al a carte meals.

  12. With the exception of “social drinking”, putting the word “social” in front of anything negates its meaning. “Social science” is not science, “social justice” is not justice, and “social life” is not life.

  13. Seems to me the current Bishop of Rome is a social justice practitioner.
    It’s part of the liberation theology formed with the marriage of church and Marxist thought formented in South America.
    It also helps explain his recent pronouncement that communism and the church are working toward a common goal.
    Anybody else notice how their sect has been hijacked?

  14. Much fun can be had using the term for situations when lefties are hoisted on their own petard.

  15. ” About the general connection between Christianity and politics, our position is more delicate.
    Certainly we do not want men to allow their Christianity to flow over into their political life, for the establishment of anything like a really just society would be a major disaster.
    On the other hand, we do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything—even to social justice.
    The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy [=God] demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist’s shop. Fortunately it is quite easy to coax humans round this little corner.”
    Demon Screwtape
    The Screwtape Letters
    By C.S. Lewis

  16. Let’s face it.
    There are two words in politics that automatically become oxymorons if you attach a qualifying adjective to them: justice* and democracy.
    * Reading the words “EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL UNDER LAW” on the US Supreme Court building, one wag (PJ O’Rourke? Paul Fussell?) noted that only one word was necessary: justice. The rest were all redundant.

  17. Funny that I used my real name (by mistake) on that post. My father, motivated by his faith (Roman Catholic) has been a great local advocate for social justice for much of his life, so if anyone who knows us both has been in any doubt, it is clear that I must think he is a political naif, one of Lenin’s “useful fools.”

  18. One of the tactics I use whenever someone says they’re going to create “social justice” is to say, “Social Justice??! Yippee! I get to run the Gulag” The other thing I like to point out is that having achieved equality of consumption, they still haven’t achieved equality, because where is the equality of input? If everyone is getting paid the same, surely everyone should be working the same (or not at all, which somehow seems to be the reference standard). Will no one have to work night shifts? Will no one have to do risky or dirty jobs? If not, how will those jobs be accomplished; and if so what, if any, incentive will be given to those able or willing to do them. This is usually the point at which an attempt is made to change the topic.

  19. Social Justice = university aged Communists looking for an excuse to hate you, so they can feel good about killing you and taking your stuff when the revolution comes.
    Eventually they seem to grow out of it, right about the time their parents stop buying their toilet paper for them.
    Unless they get a government job. Then it sets like stone.

  20. Social Justice is simply an extension of Pierre Who Unfortunately Could Only Die Once Trudeau’s “Just Society”.

  21. “Before the property confiscation and murder comes ridicule and then demonetization. The Marxist Nazis also practiced the same ”
    If you are an urbanite you may not have noticed that many governments, not the least of which is Liberal Ontario’s, have already moved to the tactics mentioned by Ken.
    The “Green” Energy Act stripped municipalities of the right to deny industrial renewable energy projects(wind and solar especially)… though this is obviously selectively applied to benefit Liberal politicians and cronies(hence no offshore turbines for Brad Duguid’s riding or on hilltops of Michael Gravelle’s).
    There was not only no honest and complete cost/benefit analysis for the “green” Acts, there were no actual health and acoustic studies on which to base O.Regs purported to ensure safe setbacks…those who objected to what amounts to expropriation without compensation were called names and accused of being enemies of progress…the battle still rages as Ontario Liberals ignore the plight of the rural communities riven by the wind industry.
    Since the province is now governed by a majority of Liberal voters who embrace corruption and lies because they are told this is transparency and accountability those who do not comply with the new world order are demonized as anti-democratic and treated as sub-human crazies.
    The planet is being saved so wild landscapes like the unspoiled forest/wetland watershed of Lake Superior(the ridings of Minister Gravelle and Minister Mauro excepted) are being sacrificed despite the cost of existing object lessons such as Prince Windfarm now being paid NOT to produce, because paying to get rid of unneeded electricity was so embarrassing…
    It is hard not to weep.

  22. If one fails to grasp a difference between the concepts of social justice and justice they should think about the differences between an electric chair and a chair.

  27. Social Justice means you will die young from drugs, booze, aids, syphilis, gun and a large TV!

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