If there is no fixed concept of justice, how shall men know it is violated ?
– Fulton Sheen, Communism and the Conscious of the West
[MODE: RANT / START]
I. Nowadays special interest groups and lobbyists of all sorts continually make demands for some kind of "justice". Justice for harm done to animals, the environment and even the climate. Justice for racial prejudice and sexual harassment. Justice for economic plight and for wrongs committed in the distant past. Justice for a public insult or a dirty look. Justice for this and justice for that and, holy smokes, would you look at that hat. The list is unlimited and, frankly, the general screech for justice which currently pollutes the public square gives TH2 a stomach ache.
II. Now let TH2 swallow a couple of antacid tablets and pose this question: Why is it that these demanders for justice are never specific on the type of justice they want? TH2 is not referring to those persons who have truly suffered injustice. Nor is he denying the recompense that is their due. Rather, TH2 is speaking of those who make the demand for justice into a career. Say, like the professional "social justice" activist, the leader of a teacher’s union, or any one of the Fabianists at the CBC. They talk alot about justice for "the people" and "the workers", though it seems they are unwilling to confront the centrality of the issue. Why? Because the justice they maintain is a vacuous abstraction – and into this vacuum do petty grievances flow.
III. But this is the trick. So long as justice has no objective connotation, one can complain about a lack of justice about whatever issue one wants and for as long as one wants. This is why more and more justice is demanded after an original justice has been exercised. A new injustice of no interest to the general public (except for a small group of neurotic liberals with some great need to over–assert themselves) must be invented, publicized and exaggerated to be more widespread that it is. If not, the Vulgar Left would have nothing to complain about and therefore be out of a job. Without the achievements, successes and status of others, they would have nothing to feed their envy. To celebrate the accomplishments of others is, to them, a great sin.
IV. This is also explains why the language employed is consistently ambiguous. For example, take the term "social justice". What the hell does this phrase mean? TH2 hears it all the time from bellowing Vulgar Leftists, but never is it accurately defined. Adjoining the word "social" to the word "justice" obviously works to place justice in a subjective context, making a situation more complicated and broader than it is in actuality. “Social justice” does not gravitate around justice per se. The vague "social" aspect is more so emphasized. The "social" deals with a spacious array of things and conditions, indeed, an infinite number of them. Therefore "social justice" is merely abstract justice.
V. The reason why justice is made into an abstraction is simple. It allows for everything to be justifiable. It makes exceptions to the rules into rules. More precisely, it is yet another manifestation of the relativism in modern times. Regardless of the perversity of whatever action or a transgression against a whatever law – and they can only be considered perversions and transgressions when a comparison is made to that which is just or normal, they can be justified to the n'th degree so long as it is presumed that justice is devoid of objectivity.
VI. Now if every kind of action or state in life can be justified, then it necessarily follows that attitudes and behaviours of the majority of people must be changed or “educated”. But this can only be effected by coercion and propaganda. Today it is called Political Correctness. Those who search for abstract justice overlook the fact that human nature is not easily altered. Nevertheless, since they have this insatiable need to control other people’s lives (as they clearly have no control of their own), they assail those norms and traditional values that foster and promote aspects of normal human nature. As exceptions are made into rules, so is the unnatural made "natural", and thus the previously unjust made justifiable. Those who do not submit to their dictates are either vilified into oblivion or penalized by a judiciary increasingly predisposed to listen to the ramblings of radical feminists, wealthy socialists, anarchists and other such vulgarians.
VII. So what we discover is that our professional demanders of justice are not working for those who have suffered injustice. Instead, they are quenching their own egos and instilling within themselves a feigned sense of virtue. They exaggerate injustices associated with poverty and “homophobia” because it gives them a public platform to rebuke others and make themselves look and feel good. They do not want justice, for if justice did arise they would have nothing to complain about. Moreover, it is an excellent form of employment, a quick way to celebrity, and an easy way to promote the most obtuse of agendas, at the taxpayer’s expense of course. Government is so much duped by these rascals that it unthinkingly showers them with grants to write reports with such titles as: “A Non–Judgmental Critique of the Social Injustices Associated with Patriarchic Corporate Structures and how Ecofeminist Social Engineers can make the Office a Happy Place”. The title is invented. The verbosity is not.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[END RANT]
JUSTICE UNJUSTIFIED
