Is social justice really a serious problem in the country?

November 28, 2023

Social justice is an old concept that has become a hot topic lately.

The Britannica website offers this description: “Social justice, in contemporary politics, social science, and political philosophy, the fair treatment and equitable status of all individuals and social groups within a state or society. The term also is used to refer to social, political, and economic institutions, laws, or policies that collectively afford such fairness and equity and is commonly applied to movements that seek fairness, equity, inclusion, self-determination, or other goals for currently or historically oppressed, exploited, or marginalized populations.”

Human Rights Careers online offers the following: “The connection between social justice and human rights has strengthened over the years to the point where many use ‘social justice’ and ‘human rights’ interchangeably.”

And, from Wikipedia: “Social justice is justice in relation to a fair balance in the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected.”

While the idea of social justice in America has involved everyone having an equal opportunity to make their own choices about their future, there is a faction that believes that certain groups have been discriminated against, and therefore deserve what the Wikipedia description says: equal distribution of things, not equal opportunity to pursue things.

Yes, discrimination does exist. But is it really a major problem?

A new book analyzes the “social injustice” that many people claim to be rampant in America. Titled “Social Justice Fallacies,” the author is Dr. Thomas Sowell, a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a brilliant thinker. 

Comments on the cover of the book say that “The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons.”

“’Social Justice Fallacies’ reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed.”

“History shows that the social justice agenda has often led in the opposite direction, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.”

Those errors were the result of human fallibility, due to the fervor of the crusader mindset, which often is so strong in its followers that they make serious mistakes in their efforts to correct a problem, including ignoring contrary evidence.

In the book Sowell details the problems with this error-ridden theory.

Addressing the idea that everyone should get the same opportunities, or the same amounts of all things, he notes that people with different backgrounds do not necessarily even have a desire for the same things, and certainly do not want to do whatever may be necessary to achieve them. This may perhaps be the case even if those things are given to them.

An example he cites is that some social justice warriors blame sexual discrimination for the fact that women are statistically under-represented among Silicon Valley employees. But a step further into the data shows that the work done in these companies requires engineering skills, and women receive less than 30 percent of the needed engineering degrees. Why? Because they do not choose to study engineering. 

People are not all the same. There are natural and lifestyle differences that play a part in a person’s capabilities and desires. Geographic areas encourage different lifestyles and behavior. Living in Florida is not like living in Alaska, or Iowa, or West Virginia. Growing up in farm country is different than growing up in a big city.

A person’s family and the family’s experiences most often play a major part in how children develop, and how they pursue life.

Sowell wrote that “children raised where there is only one parent present have been found in a number of studies to have a higher incidence of many social problems.” Boys without fathers have a higher incidence of things like truancy and murder. Girls raised by one parent have a higher incidence of teenage pregnancy. 

So, the question of why Billy made the football team and Joe didn’t; why Mary was the valedictorian and Freda wasn’t; or why Jane got the promotion to sales manager over Frank, probably was not the result of discrimination. There are many factors that may be involved in most outcomes other than race, ethnicity or gender.

In seeking persons to fill advanced medical research positions, Sowell posits, do we want equal numbers from all population groups, and hope for the best? Or will we make sure that we get those from whatever backgrounds who have demonstrated a mastery of medical science?

He wrote, “But neither society nor government comprehends or controls all the many and highly varied circumstances — including a large element of luck — that can influence the fate of individual classes or nations.”

And, “Circumstances beyond our control are major factors in economic and other inequalities. Trying to understand causalities is not necessarily the same as looking for someone to blame.”

Is the alleged “white supremacy” real and the result of racial discrimination? Is it because white people make up 59 percent of the population? Or, is it a false flag promoted for some political purpose?

Sowell shows us that social justice is another politically correct concept that causes more problems than it solves.

Potpourri: Some thoughts on a few topics currently in the news

Condé Nast’s liberal online publication Teen Vogue is in the news, and not for anything positive that has happened. Alexi McCammond was hired at the magazine on March 5th, scheduled to start as editor-in-chief on March 24th.

But in the interim, magazine staffers got wind of something McCammond had done, and raised enough cane that the up-coming EIC decided to resign the position she had not yet taken.

What horrendous deed had McCammond done? Had she committed murder, or armed robbery? Pedophilia? Did she vote for Donald Trump?

No. She had committed the unpardonable sin of making insensitive, some say racist remarks in tweets. In 2011. When she was 17 years-old. And has since apologized profusely for her transgressions.

But in this day of hypersensitivity, when anyone can be highly offended by anything or everything, even what one did years ago as a teenager is a hanging offense.

Interestingly, the delicate sensitivities of the staffers of this young women’s magazine were not sufficiently provoked by the sponsored content from the Saudi Arabian government, a country where women are routinely mistreated and subjected to male dominance. 

This is the essence of the cancel culture: ignorance and hypocrisy.

* * *

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., continues to amaze with her impudence, deviousness and heavy-handed partisanship.

When Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., who was recently declared the winner of a challenged election, asked to have her son, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, observe her being sworn in from the gallery above the House floor, Pelosi denied the request. 

“I guess he’s considered a risk,” Tenney said. No doubt. He’s the son of a Republican Representative, graduated from the Naval Academy and is now a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy. Who could be more of a threat to Pelosi than someone with such a positive record? And he never had a relationship with a female Chinese spy, either.

No, he’s not a risk. Pelosi; Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.; Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn.; Elizabeth (the filibuster is racist) Warren, D-MA, et al, are risks. They are working overtime to weaken the Constitution, nationalize our elections and increase the incidence of vote fraud, assist illegal aliens entering the country by the thousands, ignore the 2nd Amendment, raise taxes, increase unemployment, and the list goes on.

* * *

What is supremacy? Merriam-Webster defines it as “the quality or state of being supreme,” which is defined as “highest in rank or authority.” 

How does a group — perhaps an ethnic group — gain supremacy? In the case of a nation, supremacy would naturally go to a group that is much larger than the others, likely larger than all the others combined.

In Spain, for example, the World Atlas tells us that 89.9 percent of its population is Spanish, and just 10.1 percent is of a foreign ethnicity. 

Guess what? In Spain there is Spanish supremacy.

In the United States, even after decades of immigration, the Statistical Atlas tells us that white people still comprise the majority at 62 percent. The next closest group is that of Hispanics at 16.9 percent. Blacks make up 12.6 percent, Asians are 5.2 percent, and mixed ethnicities are 2.3 percent.

As you go back through time, the white majority was much larger. So, when the culture and norms of the United States were evolving, white people overwhelmingly set those standards. And they still exist.

So, the “white supremacy” we hear so much about is not an unusual thing, and it is not automatically a bad thing. 

* * *

Why will the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) not allow the press to participate in ride-alongs with agents at the southern border? Since the news media are the source of the information we depend upon, that might make some think there is something being hidden down there.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that the department is preparing video to distribute to news media, but cited the pandemic among reasons for not allowing reporters, photographers and camera crews into the facilities housing illegal aliens.

“We are focused on our operations, executing our operations, in a crowded Border Patrol facility where hundreds of vulnerable migrant children are located,” Mayorkas said.

Wallace challenged the Secretary, saying his answer sounded like an “excuse,” and that one pool reporter and camera crew could enter one facility and record what’s happening, without endangering the children or the crew.

Mayorkas emphasized the department’s efforts to provide such a video. Apparently, he trusts the government to provide the best information to the public. Yeah, right!

* * *

If you don’t like Dr. Suess, don’t read those books. If you don’t like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson because they were Confederates, don’t try to have the carvings on Stone Mountain removed, just don’t go there. If someone you know of goes to an event sponsored by someone or something you dislike, just deal with the difference in opinion, don’t try to get them fired or otherwise punished. 

In America, small groups don’t get to decide what the rest of us can like.

Only understanding, not rewriting, history will help us meet the future

Unless you have been living in a cave — or like so many these days, voluntarily isolated in a bubble — you have likely noticed the somewhat disturbing resemblances to George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” sometimes written as “1984.” Published in 1949, Orwell’s predictions were off by a few decades. But today, we see more and more how his vision was right.

Orwell’s dystopian story involves a government that controls everything people read, hear, say, eat, breathe and know. The story’s protagonist, Winston Smith, was one of many who had the job of rewriting history to fit the evolving narrative of the totalitarian government. His job was to “fix” every book, magazine or newspaper containing what used to be the truth to conform to what is the new truth.

Today’s political correctness (PC) may be the most recognizable feature from Orwell’s novel. PC mania has been around for several years, and is gaining strength these days. While PC comes from a non-government faction, rather than a totalitarian government like that of “1984,” the results from the non-governmental faction may be little different, as it converts what “used to be” into “what now is.”

An element of PC today is “white supremacy,” or “white privilege.” All of the white folks in America, who had nothing to say about who their parents are, what color their skin is, or where they were born, are the current main target. Nothing is so disliked in America as white Americans.

Have you ever been to Spain? Or to Germany, France or Mexico?

The people in those and other countries are unconcerned with people of other nationalities that visit them. They are simply and naturally the Spanish, the Germans, the French, and the Mexicans. No doubt they like the money foreigners spend in their countries, but they continue to do what Spanish, German, French, and Mexican peoples want to do. 

This is so because those countries have relatively few people there who are not natives of that country. The natives comprise the vast majority of people, and therefore are the dominant element in their culture. And the dominant element in a nation determines what is important and not important.

So, some people say “I really like Spain, except for the Spanish people. They have this supremacy thing going on.”

Is it really surprising, then, that in America, where the white, non-Hispanic people are still the majority of the total population — about 61 percent — that the long-standing American values and ways still dominate the cultural norms of the country? 

The proportion of white Americans compared to others was much larger not so long ago. Our desirable national characteristics have always invited people from other places to come here, and they did, and do. But the culture the white American majority created decades ago still is dominant.

Yet some of those in other races/ethnicities are offended by “white supremacy” and “white privilege.” Somehow, living as the great majority of people have lived for decades is no longer legitimate to these folks.

Even some white Americans have jumped on this bandwagon, feeling the guilt that the others have convinced them they should have, merely because they were born with white skin.

Today, some people say, “I would like America better if it wasn’t for those darned white people.”

It is easiest to criticize something if you know very little about it. The less you know, the easier it is to disparage it. And this is what is the basis of much or most of the cancel culture mania now hobbling the country.

That applies to hating white people, and to removing vestiges of certain people of historical note.

People who have done great things in their lives, sometimes great things for their country, have now fallen into disfavor with the cancel culture faction for something not-good they did that these folks think obliterates all the good they did.

A person that has lived for 60, 80 or more years has had a long period of time to make decisions and take actions. Some of those may not have been good ones. Should we rate their entire lifetime based upon a couple of not-so-good, or even bad things, or should we take the more reasonable route of evaluating all they have done, rather than one or a few things?

It is also common these days for the cancel culture to apply the practice of “Monday morning quarterbacking” to things and people. Without a solid knowledge of what living in past times was like, these quarterbacks feel capable of judging the past using the standards of today. 

That is profoundly imprudent. Without a deep understanding of how things were at a certain time, it is not possible to make a sensible judgement about things that happened long ago. These folks are ill-equipped. It’s like going to play 18 holes of golf with only a putter.

History, the story of our past and how it built the present, is crucial to our future success. If we erase it over some discomfort based upon superficial understanding, we will substantially cripple ourselves.

Rather than erase history because it offends us, we need to study it and learn from it.