June 18, 2009

Alexander Hamilton and the Social Disease

Social justice, like most buzzwords, is so heavily used that we have ceased to think about what it means (if we ever did). It seems to have simply become a stamp of approval (much like “green” or “reduced calorie”)—if it’s social justice, it must be good. I, on the other hand, maintain that “social” adds the same gloss to “justice” as it does to “disease.” Please allow me to explain.

Some part of my brain gets very frightened when people use words without their meaning. Perhaps this is because it is a symptom of groupthink, or perhaps it is simply the offensiveness of ignorance proudly displayed. At bottom, though, I think the problem is that words, once detached from the ideas or things they represent, become very dangerous. They allow people to fool themselves and others into doing things they would never condone if they stopped to think about it.

Worse, I think some people do this intentionally, as a sort of marketing strategy for their ideas. If I know people won’t buy what I’m selling if I tell them what it is, I’ll borrow the reputation of some other word and add a modifier in front of it. So prunes become “dried plums” (which at least has the benefit of being technically correct), and toothfish becomes “sea bass.”

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