In Search of Social Justice

With marketing it’s all about the art of spin – in its most common form it employs carefully chosen images and language, in order to place the product in the best light possible . . . as if it were without defect. This is mostly a benign form of manipulation, given that most of us are already hip to their tricks, but when marketing spin becomes propaganda it takes on a more insidiously malignant form of manipulation. This is because propaganda attempts to reframe the whole of reality, creating the illusion of associative value – i.e. accepting the propaganda will make you a better person, rejecting it makes you a person of questionable character.

In Europe, during the 20s and 30s of the 20^th century, the propaganda pamphlets of both the fascist, and the communist zealots coined the phrase “social justice” in describing each groups desire to catalyze the grievances of the common man against the ruling class. In this way, the phrase “social justice” is a rhetorical parasite, latching itself onto an unimpeachable virtue, while remaining deliberately ambiguous enough in exactly how the word “social’ isn’t a redundant modifier to the word “justice”. . . given that justice is already a social concept.

I have lived long enough to have met many a social justice warrior – and I always ask them the same question: What’s so deficient about the concept of justice that social justice addresses. As is often the case with this type of thing — most have no idea why they make a distinction . . . it’s simply what everyone else is calling it. But some will be a little more self-aware, pointing out how charity and benevolence are often the forgotten expressions of a just society . . . and there point is well taken. But then there will be those with specific political agendas attempting to extol the envy and schadenfreude of coercive wealth redistribution as a retributive necessity of what constitutes a just world.

So here’s what I’ve learned over the years about social justice: most people just want a world where people do the right thing, including taking care of one another — and you can count me among this group. This is because we all intuitively feel the world is broken — theologically, this is described as our fallen condition. For some, this condition elicits a humble confession that God alone is just, but for others justice is viewed as a malleable human construct, and therefore needs to be constantly repackaged to follow the curve of cultural ethos. In this way, social justice has become nothing more than an empty container awaiting the next iteration of social grievance to define its purpose – which is why propaganda is required to distinguish it from what is commonly understood as justice.

Every consideration of justice begins and ends with some presupposed notion of morality, and every moral framework is predicated on some expectation that human life has value. So the ultimate question is: what gives human life value? Therefore if we’re going to advocate for justice, as we all should, then how we define what is just requires a clear definition of human value . . . and this is the very conversation that too often doesn’t occur. This is undoubtedly why our longing for a just world is so primal – because it goes to the very reason why we exist. Actually, all of our longings point to the same thing – our need for God . . . because there is no other understanding of ourselves apart from him.

. . . and meeting Jesus changes everything.

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