The Social Justice Scam

The self-congratulatory strain in contemporary liberalism is boundless.  Many of its adherents actually believe themselves exempt from criticism because their moral rectitude is beyond question.  This is so because they think of themselves as “social justice” warriors.

Nonetheless, there is a problem with this outlook.  In part, this is because these folks are not as pure as they imagine and, in part, because of the flaws inherent in social justice.  The objective they are promoting is not nearly as honorable as they imagine.

Social justice, you see, is often at odds with individual justice.  In attempting to do right by groups, individuals are regularly injured.  Rather than personal merits being acknowledged and advanced, these are submerged in a sea of impersonal posturing.

The Declaration of Independence told us that all men (and women) are created equal; that they are endowed with an array of inalienable rights.  It did not say that groups are created equal or that they have immutable rights.  In other words, the nation’s founders were concerned with personal liberty, not group entitlements.

Yet liberals think in terms of groups.  They are obsessed with the injustices done to collections of invidivials.  Central to their concerns are the biases visited on blacks, women, and gays.  It is these evils they wish to undo.

Who can doubt the historic wrongs done to slaves or their descendants?  Who can question whether women or gays have often been treated unfairly.  But are group remedies the way to correct group wounds?  Might it not be better to switch to an individualist mindset.

Once many Jews were denied entrance to Harvard because they were Jews.  The college set a quota based on religious affiliation.  Now, despite affirmations to the contrary, it has a quota for accepting African-Americans.  They are not excluded, but rather recruited, because of their race.

Is this fair?  In setting race over merit, doesn’t it diminish the value of personal accomplishment?  Praising the virtues of diversity does not refute this truth.  Nor does it undo the damage done by rewarding a biological condition instead of ability or effort. 

If our society is to thrive, if its members are to perform at their best, what people do, as opposed to the status of groups to which they belong, must claim priority.  If not, then inherited standing takes precedence over personal deeds.  This, however, would be as socially sclerotic as favoring elites just because they have always been favored.

My mother used to tell me that two wrongs do not make a right.  Creating new injustices does not rectify past injustices.  If we are ever to be color blind, we must treat minorities by the same standards as everyone else.  The same goes for women and gays. 

Genuine fairness does not ask people about their group connections.  It assesses them according to who they are and what they have done.  Their personal opportunities are neither restricted, nor elevated, by a relationship outside their control.  They, not their parents or grandparents, must be the measure of their virtue.

Imagine, if you will, that I graded my students at Kennesaw State University on the basis of group inclusion.  Suppose that before I assigned a score, I put their tests onto separate piles based on race and gender.  Suppose further that I employed different criteria for each stack.  Would this be justice?

Why then is it justice when we expand this procedure to society at large?  Using the phase “social justice” as a mantra should not obscure the immorality of treating people differently because of accidents of birth.  Yes, blacks, women, and gays deserve a fair shot at success.  But this ought not imply socially enforced equalities.

If people differ—as they always do—shouldn’t these differences be recognized and evaluated for what they are?  While people must be afforded an opportunity to improve themselves, these advances ought to be acknowledged.  If not, this contradicts the notion of opportunity.

“Social justice” is a scam intended to elicit votes based on group membership.  It is not a moral “get out of jail” card.  Liberals who believe this makes them exceedinglly ethical are fooling themselves.  To the contrary, it feeds a phony self-righteousness that ought not be honored.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Spring Comes To Georgia

Winter is over, but this has been a winter to remember.  For the most part it has been unusually warm, although it ended with an unexpected return of artic conditions.  Just when in seemed that the cold weather gear could be put away, it was necessary to bundle up.

Nonetheless, we experienced many weeks of a spring-like climate long before the vernal equinox.  The consequences of this were a delight.  Many flowers blossomed earlier and in greater profusion than is normal.  The redbuds, for example, came out in all their glory.  Instead of nearly being frozen to death, they lasted for weeks.

My wife and I have, in recent years, made a habit of visiting Gibbs Gardens several times from March through November.  This year we got a head start because the daffodils began to come out in February.  They were in full bloom weeks ahead of schedule.

For those readers who are not familiar with Gibbs Gardens, it is one of the wonders of north Georgia.  In addition to featuring twenty million daffodils—that’s right, twenty million—the rotodendrums, roses, and hydrangeas are of incomparable beauty.

As for the Japanese Garden, it produces the sort of tranquility it was designed to elicit.  Whatever the season, ambling along its ponds and contemplating its statues, willows, and Japanese maples, is to be transported into world of peace and serenity.  However stressful a day might otherwise be, its loveliness is a soothing balm.

In any event, living in the exurbs provides an opportunity to interact with nature.  It is possible to watch the cherry trees begin to blossom, the loropetalum flowers to wither from the cold, and the grass struggle to become green.  Then too there are the mocking birds singing their hearts out and the robins scurrying after worms.

If I sound a bit maudlin, it is because I am.  Our glorious spring here in Georgia makes me think back to the brick and concrete streets of my youth in Brooklyn.  There were gardens in my old neighborhood, but they were tiny affairs.  A bush here, an iris and pussy willow there, were about all they could muster.

As I grow older, I better appreciate the small miracles that surround us.  Yes, I know this is a cliché, but it is true nonetheless.  Readers of my column will know that I am not above criticizing current events.  Our recent political environment has been toxic.  It is, therefore, nice to be reminded there is much to be grateful for.

An old Asian epic tells us that a king asked his wise men if there was a statement that would always be true, to which he received an insightful response.  He was told “and this too shall pass” fit his requirement.  Life carries on.  It always does.  Not only the seasons change, but so do the circumstances of our lives.

The problems that we as a nation are now facing will almost surely be solved.  They will probably not be resolved as conclusively as we hope, but sufficiently so that we can move on to something else.  That which seems insurmountable today will recede into a past where its intensity will diminish.

If we can avoid mistakes that cannot be rectified, many unexpected events will consume our attention.  Countless good things will befall us, as will many bad ones.  What these will be cannot, however, be predicted with much accuracy.

In the meantime, spring is only beginning to unfold.  There is certain to be pollen that will set many of us sneezing, but also tree leaves to protect us from ultra bright sunlight.  Rains will fall, another drought might be in store, and eventually summer, autumn, and winter will return.

This, I realize, has been a sappy column.  But every now and then, when the work piles up and some difficulties seem insoluble, I need to be reminded spring reoccurs annually.  And when it does, my wife and I will revisit Gibbs Gardens to recharge our batteries.

Here’s hoping that you can do the same in your personal life and that we as a nation will reconcile our differences without wrecking our futures.  Compromise, genuine compromise, can be as revitalizing as a walk through a daffodil filled meadow.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Book Burning: Liberal Style

Nowadays, given what liberalism has become, I frequently reminisce about what it was when I was in high school in the 1950’s.  The disparities are so glaring that it almost seems to be an entirely different belief system.

Back then, the ravages of World War II were fresh in the minds of my teachers.  The Holocaust had touched the lives of many of those I knew and hence they were eager that we never repeat it.  This meant that it was crucial we never emulate the Nazis.

One of the practices we students were specifically warned against was book burning.  Hitler’s bullyboys had seized materials contrary to their beliefs and tossed them into roaring infernos.  This was to make it plain that ideas hostile to National Socialism would not be tolerated.  Beliefs associated with Judaism were explicitly forbidden.

This ritual horrified my instructors.  They considered themselves intellectuals and cautioned that suppressing marginal thoughts was the express path to tyranny.  If we were ever to learn the truth, we had to tolerate philosophies contrary to our own.  This was the only way to compare opinions and figure out which were correct.

Fast forward to today.  I am sure that contemporary liberals would also condemn book burning.  They too would tell us that this is an anti-intellectual travesty that would set us squarely on the road to medieval superstition.  Only reactionary troglodytes condoned any such thing.

And yet liberals are in the forefront of exactly this sort of behavior.  Not long ago the political scientist Charles Murray was scheduled to give a talk at Middlebury College.  He was going to discuss his recent book Coming Apart, which explains why middle and lower class Americans are dividing into antagonistic camps.

In fact, Murray never got to give his address.  He was shouted down.  For over an hour, a room full of young people booed and hissed.  They called him vile names and were impervious to appeals to hear him out.  They even jostled him physically when he attempted to leave.

These mostly students would, I am sure, have described themselves as “protestors.”  They would also claim to be upholding their constitutional rights.  The first amendment would subsequently be cited in support of this contention.

But let me quote from that amendment.  “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”  Is this what happened at Middlebury?

I submit that it was not peaceful protest.  Nor were the perpetrators asking for a redress of grievances from the government.  What occurred was that a mob abridged the freedom of speech of a scholar they loathed.  Because they mistakenly believed him to be a racist, they refused to let him speak.

This was intimidation, not a defense of freedom.  It was not intended to protect of a marketplace of ideas, but to engage in a fascist power play.  Yes, I know that “fascist” has become an overused epithet.  Those on the left are now remarkably fond of characterizing conservatives in this way.

Nonetheless, look at what took place.  This was an updated version of book burning.  It was an exercise in using violence to shut down free speech.  We should all be terrified, not only of what occurred, but that it was justified in the name of moral principles.

Left wing activists claim to be compassionate.  They tell us they are seeking to protect the downtrodden.  But then again, Hitler told us he was protecting the much maligned German people from oppression.  Was his, however, the best way to go about it?

Murray is pessimistic about what this trend portends.  He has a right to be frightened.  I am sure that those who hate him for the supposedly racist things he once wrote in the Bell Curve never read the book.  It was over twenty chapters long, but they so fixated on one small piece of a single chapter that they rejected the whole out of hand.

Is this what intellectualism has become?  Is this type of intolerance what we transmit to the young in what is euphemistically called “higher education?”  If it is the new normal, our civilization is in grave jeopardy.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Is Addiction a Disease?

According to the news, drug addiction is at an all time high.  Many more young people are now overdosing on narcotics than previously.  Most Americans agree that something needs to be done, but there is no consensus as to what.

Last week I wrote that it was ridiculous to call addition a “disease like any other.”  I said that if it were, the authorities would not need to keep repeating this mantra.  My goal was not to explain addiction, but to use this as an analogy for the nonsense spouted by some in the mainstream media.

Yet when I read this to my wife, she objected.  A medical sociologist by trade, she defended the practice of calling addictions a disease.  She described the ravages caused by drugs and argued that medical treatment was often the appropriate response.

I, however, was not persuaded.  Although I knew about the death toll created by heroin and cocaine, I persisted in my opinion.  Mine was not, I believed, an uniformed attitude.  Having worked for years as a methadone counselor, it was grounded in painful experience.

Consider alcoholism.  There is no doubt that this condition can be fatal.  An over-use of alcohol destroys the liver and rots out the brain.  This is physiological damage of the worst sort that can indeed benefit from medical treatment.  But does this demonstrate that we are dealing with a disease?

I submit not.  Let me start with a pair of analogies.  If a person swallows a bottle of poison, is she sick?  Going to a hospital to get her stomach pumped out is a good idea, but was she ill.  Isn’t it more accurate to describe her as having injured herself and then required assistance in mending this wound?

Wouldn’t the same be true if a man had driven a nail through his foot with a hammer?  Suppose this was an accident.  Would that convert the damage he had done into an illness?  No doubt antiseptics would reduce the possibility of a subsequent infection, but should this later development be equated with his original mishap?

The point is that non-medical factors can create the need for medical interventions.  Not only diseases, but other causes generate physiological damage that responds to physiological treatment.

So what?  Why make a big deal about this distinction?  The answer has to do with causation and control.  In sociology we talk about the “sick role.”  When a person gets sick, let us say with the flu, he is advised to see a doctor so that he can be cured.  The disease is something that happens to him and the doctor is the person responsible for a cure.

Let us now return to alcoholism.  It is not something we “catch.”  There is no virus that has invaded our system.  People become alcoholics when they indulge in alcohol to excess.  This is something they do, not something that just happens to them.  Initially, they have a degree of control that folks who come down with the flu do not.

But again I ask, so what?  The “what” is that alcoholics are responsible for their condition in a way that those who suffer from the flu are not.  They could have prevented the eventual damage by reducing their consumption.  This was in their hands, not the lap of the Gods.

Medicalizing addiction places the responsibility in the hands of the doctors.  It absolves the sufferers of culpability and therefore lessens the demands that they refrain from dangerous conduct.  We are asked not to judge them for their irresponsibility, when that is exactly what we should do.

Drug addiction of virtually every sort would be easy to prevent if people simply stopped using drugs.  So why don’t we make this demand?  Regarding addiction as a disease is not only wrong—it is misplaced compassion.  Kindness of this variety has been complicit in many deaths.  We call it “enabling.”

Some would argue that addiction is too attractive to be prevented.  I say this is an excuse.  Some cultures, for instance the Jewish and Italian, have low rates of alcoholism.  Social pressures, combined with personal courage, can, in fact, reduce what is being described as an epidemic.  But first, we need to stop mislabeling the problem.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University