One last entry on social justice (and lessons from international relations), and then I think I will have it out of my system. Honest. I suppose at long last it is time to get to the heart of the matter, with apologies to Don Henley.

In The Twenty Years’ Crisis, E.H. Carr quotes Reinhold Niebuhr from a 1927 Atlantic Monthly article: “There is an increasing tendency among modern men to imagine themselves ethical because they have delegated their vices to larger and larger groups.”

My mind immediately flashed to a quote from a co-worker here at Belmont. The quote appeared in an article when he was hired, and I have tried in vain to find that article to be sure I correctly quoted him. Instead, I must repeat it to the best of my recollection: We spend too much time focusing on individual sin rather than the great systematic evils in the world.

Now, as a methodologist, my first reaction is to point out that this is nonsense.  There is no great systematic evil apart from a whole bunch of individual sinning. That is, great systematic evil is simply the aggregation of individual acts; it cannot exist apart from them. It is easy to talk about the Holocaust in the abstract, but it consisted of millions of concrete individual acts; had those individual sins not occurred, there would have been no Holocaust.

The only reason to point to the abstraction is to lessen that culpability. To look at a great systematic evil and come to terms with my individual contribution is frightening, uncomfortable; it means admitting to failure, to a debt. No one likes looking at their portrait of Dorian Gray. It is much more comfortable to point to the flaws in other people’s portraits, to ignore the beam in our eye in favor of the speck in someone else’s.

Yet the experience of the two Germanies after World War II points to the importance of looking that portrait full in the face. Western occupiers, especially the U.S., encouraged public discussion that led eventually to catharsis. It led to repentance, and an understanding of how to and why to fight it in the future. One sees the same principle in Truth and Reconciliation Committees in South Africa and Chile.

To Soviet occupiers, however, Nazi atrocities were something Hitler and his cronies and foisted upon the German people, and the Soviet Union had liberated them from that nightmare. Note that this leaves the massive and invasive state apparatus unchallenged—the problem was not the power of the state, but the people who controlled it. They were the criminals, it was they who sinned. But it also absolves the individual of responsibility in that great systematic evil. Those devils made me do it—I am no longer their co-conspirator, but their victim.

And that is the great attraction of social justice. It allows adherents to remove their focus from their own shortcomings, to feel better about themselves. And not just themselves—the system creates the evil, not other individuals. Faith becomes an outcome, not a process. Moreover, since the problem is abstract, the solutions to it can also be abstract. Not only may we omit the painful process of coming to know ourselves, but we can skip the long, hard work of getting personally involved. We can raise awareness. We can advocate.

We may also, then, substitute government action for individual involvement. In fact, we must; because we must address the entire system, we must use a tool of similar scope. We lose something important, however, when we lose the connection that direct personal involvement brings. As Tocqueville points out, encouraging that connection to our fellow man is vital to the continued success of democracy. Increasing equality increasingly alienates us from each other, and abstract interaction through government—the one not knowing whom they help, the other not knowing who helps them—cannot create the necessary fellow-feeling.

As a result, government fiat must replace personal relationships. We come to relate to each other solely through government. Bureaucracies administer welfare programs, courts must settle even the most trivial questions. Only the government can make you a better person, improve your life, solve your problems. Only the government can take care of you. Only government cares for you. Like a big brother.
But then, what is social justice if not progressive?

I have been submitted for re-education! An alert reader of my last-but-one post (on the social disease in justice) brought it to the attention of a member of Senior Leadership. That person felt compelled to email me to correct my flawed understanding of social justice.
Obviously, the most shocking revelation here is that someone read my blog. That I remain unabashedly heterodox and skeptical comes as less of a surprise. But does this mean that I’ve made my dissident “bones”? Certainly the day was nothing like Ivan Denisovitch’s. Neither does it rise to the level of Vaclav Havel’s imprisonment and harassment. Fortunately, I have not yet been baptized in those fires. So a mere crank, grateful to liberty, I remain.

The social justice crowd seem to enjoy expressing themselves on their bumpers slightly more than the rest of us. I’m not sure to which stereotype this plays—poor, bohemian hippie who doesn’t have to worry about resale value (because the car had none originally), or rich, progressive snob who doesn’t have to worry about resale value (either because the BMW dealership takes them off when you trade it in, or because it saves the next owner the trouble of applying the stickers themselves). But I do know that it shows an appalling naivety. Let me explain.
Two bumper stickers I have seen read “No justice, no peace (know justice, know peace)” and “If you want peace, work for justice.” Of course, by justice, they mean social justice—personal justice (getting what we deserve) being something that creates more discontent than peace (because we all think we deserve better than we get). That is, if you want domestic harmony, redistribute resources to groups who have less (and want more).
One does not have to be a very good student of international relations to realize the futility of that tactic.

Continue reading →

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.”

Continue reading →

John McCain will attend the debate at Ole Miss tonight.
No, he hasn’t made an announcement. But I’m fairly confident he will, and I have been since yesterday morning. How am I so confident? Game theory. Now, game theory doesn’t give you answers. But it does help you discipline your intuition, requiring you to first be explicit about your assumptions and then helping you see their interaction without allowing extraneous considerations to cloud the picture. So think of game theory (or any formal modeling) as Photoshop: it can remove the red-eye and clear up the resolution, but you still take the picture.
So let’s look at McCain’s situation. There are two players, McCain and Obama. They have two choices: attend the Mississippi debate or not. So there are four potential outcomes:

Continue reading →

Please forgive the Enquirer-esque subject line. Of course, I actually know nothing of the religious beliefs of Dr. Hayek, but I strongly doubt that he was a Baptist of any sort, let alone a Southern Baptist. Not, however, because his philosophy made it impossible. As I’ve hinted before, I know of no religious beliefs as compatible with classical liberalism as Baptist (at least, properly understood).
In recently discussing The Road to Serfdom with Ben, he pointed out a passage I had not previously noticed which illustrates a part of this.

What our generation is in danger of forgetting is not only that morals are of necessity a phenomenon of individual conduct but also that they can exist only in the sphere in which the individual is free to decide for himself and is called upon voluntarily to sacrifice personal advantage to the observance of a moral rule. …Only where we ourselves are responsible for our own interests and are free to sacrifice them has our decision moral value. We are neither entitled to be unselfish at someone else’s expense nor is there any merit in being unselfish if we have no choice.

I suppose that, in order to make clear how this relates to Baptist belief, I’d better explain a little bit about Baptist belief.

Continue reading →

In this holiday season, it seems only too necessary to share a thought which occurred to me recently. I can only hope you, dear reader, will not consider me too much of a Scrooge for harshing the holiday mellow. But the fact of the matter is—and this is a fact that should have us all rushing to take up ballots against our oppressors—that Congress, according to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the commerce clause, can legislate that you give Christmas presents.

Continue reading →

First, let me apologize for my extended absence. The last few weeks have been particularly busy in my professional calendar, and I fear it left no time for the joy of blogging. If it’s any consolation, I’ve missed the opportunity to think and write on a regular basis. I guess you could call it a “blogger’s high,” and I’ve certainly been in withdrawal. It should be no surprise—the love of thinking systematically and communicating thoughts to others is what drew me to this line of work in the first place. And I brought you these flowers…
In the stolen moments in my recent schedule, I have had a few ideas I’d like to share. I’d like to propose at least two reforms to our government. Of course, I’d really like to repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments (Ben Bryan has come up with a particularly apropos sobriquet for them, but I’ll let him introduce it). But short of that, here are two ideas.
First, let’s make Congress subject to a limited form of tort law. A tort, of course, is a legal wrong, something done to another for which one owes them compensation to make them whole. (Torte, on the other hand, is a delightful afternoon treat with tea or coffee.) Obviously, it can’t be regular, run-of-the-mill tort law. The entire purpose of forming a government is for it to be able to harm some of us (or our rights) when necessary. The problem comes with government doing it when it isn’t necessary. So I propose that we define a new type of tort, one which only legislatures may commit (and which legislatures would have to define by statute, so I’m obviously tilting at windmills).

Continue reading →