13 Replies to “The abracadabra phrase “Social Justice” [Darleen Click]”

1. McGehee says:

   March 26, 2014 at 7:15 am

   Social justice is like what the guy from Daimler said about Daimler-Chrysler: “The Chrysler is silent.”

2. sdferr says:

   March 26, 2014 at 7:21 am

   I prefer the simple formulation: Social justice is injustice. But then I’ve only a simple mind for such stuff.

3. Silver Whistle says:

   March 26, 2014 at 9:06 am

   Forget the adjective when the word justice is present. Scratch them both out and substitute redistribution. Capisce?

4. geoffb says:

   March 26, 2014 at 9:10 am

   From a 1948 book I’m reading, “Ideas have Consequences” by Richard M. Weaver. Chapter 8, “The Power of the Word.”

   The truth is, as we have already seen, that our surrender to irrationality has been in progress for a long time, and we witness today a breakdown of communication not only between nations and groups within nations but also between successive generations.

   Sir Richard Livingstone has pointed out that the people of the Western world “do not know the meaning of certain words, which had been assumed to belong to the permanent vocabulary of mankind, certain ideals which, if ignored in practice under pressure, were accepted in theory. The least important of these words is Freedom. The most important are Justice, Mercy, and Truth.

   In the past we have slurred this revolution over as a difference in ‘ideology.’ In fact it is the greatest transformation that the world has undergone, since, in Palestine or Greece, these ideals came into being or at least were recognized as principles of conduct.

   Drift and circumstance have been permitted to change language so that the father has difficulty in speaking to the son; he endeavors to speak, but he cannot make the realness of his experience evident to the child. This circumstance, as much as any other, lies behind the defeat of tradition. Progress makes father and child live in different worlds, and speech fails to provide a means to bridge them. The word is almost in limbo, where the positivists have wished to consign it.

5. sdferr says:

   March 26, 2014 at 9:16 am

   positivists

   How does Weaver speak of these, or define or designate them? Who are they?

6. geoffb says:

   March 26, 2014 at 9:52 am

   From here:

   The doctrine of nominalism, often also called empiricism, positivism, or materialism, holds that only the individual is real. The universal is seen as a mental fiction useful in organizing the disparate aspects of reality so that they may be more easily studied or categorized. Nominalism explicitly denies any such reality as human nature being grounded outside the knowing mind. In fact, it denies the knowing mind in favor of sense perception alone. Reality is not intelligible, it is sensible only.

7. geoffb says:

   March 26, 2014 at 10:12 am

   Oh, thanks Ernst.

8. Ernst Schreiber says:

   March 26, 2014 at 10:31 am

   Not having read it yet myself, you may thank me by mailing me your copy when you’ve completed it.

9. 11B40 says:

   March 26, 2014 at 10:43 am

   Greetings:

   As I was passing through the Department of Redundancy Department this morning, I picked up a memo that said, (and I quote):

   Social Justice is what…

   Lenin and Stalin brought to Mother Russia and Eastern Europe;

   Mussolini brought to Italy and parts of Africa;

   Hitler brought to everywhere he could;

   Chairman Mao-the-Dung brought to China;

   Ho Chi Minh brought to Viet Nam;

   Pol Pot brought to Cambodia;

   Robert Mugabe brought to Zimbabwe;

   I mean really what was it you thought they were selling ???

10. geoffb says:

    March 26, 2014 at 11:06 am

    Well Ernst I do have a scan of Chapter 8 I could email you in pdf form. Or you could get this copy for about $10 at AbeBooks.

11. charlesaustin says:

    March 26, 2014 at 11:57 am

    Justice can be a verb or a noun. Adjectival or adverbial modifiers are only means to obfuscation.

12. bgbear says:

    March 26, 2014 at 12:36 pm

    Social Justice is that we have got to a point where we have made everyone as equal in the eyes of the law as possible and we still do not like the results.

13. geoffb says:

    March 26, 2014 at 3:10 pm

    If you do ever [want it] you can [reach me] [at] [geoffb5] [at] [comcast] [dotty-old] [net].

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