{It seems to me that, if we are going to deploy “Social Justice Warriors” as a pejorative, and if we are going to further denigrate individuals by labeling them dismissively as “SJWs,” then we should in fairness have a pejorative and a dismissive label for those on the other side of the ideological divide. I hereby dub such individuals "Status Quo Defenders" ("SQDs") and will refer to them as such.}
“It is an illusion to suppose that there is some neutral standing ground, some locus for rationality as such, which can afford rational resources sufficient for enquiry independent of all traditions… to be outside all traditions is to be a stranger to enquiry.” (Alasdair MacIntyre)
Obfuscations and rhetorical sleight-of-hand aside, today’s controversies between Social Justice Warriors and Status Quo Defenders are merely the latest iteration of a perennial struggle over who gets to define “justice” (and “rights” and “freedom”), along with arguments about what tactics are proper to that struggle. No era in human history has been free of such quarrels; they are at the heart of what we call “politics” and they inevitably involve the allocation of power, both de jure and de facto—including, of course, the power to define the relevant terms.
Libertarian SQDs (like Ben O’Neill, about whom I wrote in my previous post) do not care about all that; they operate on the simple principle that what is mine is mine, what is yours is yours, and neither of us is “entitled” to anything beyond that. Libertarian SQDs therefore reject out of hand the very notion of “social justice” and its corollary, the “common good”; their interest in politics and government is entirely defensive—that is, all they want is to be left alone. I suggest we grant them their wish by ignoring them, at least on this issue.
Conservatism, though, is an ideological hobby horse of a different color. Conservatives are by their own acknowledgement Status Quo Defenders, guardians of sacred, time-tested tradition; but a cursory glance at history reveals that traditions change, as do the communities that sustain them. Moreover, even the smallest community possesses more than one tradition; who decides which traditions are to be respected and which to be disregarded? Conservative SQDs counter by insisting that “the things that matter most” are changeless; they hold that definitions of key terms like “justice” cannot be in flux or subject to the whims of the moment. Alas, history refutes that claim as well; to take just one instance, our contemporary notion of “cruel and unusual punishment” is far different than that of our nation’s founders.
So too with “justice,” the meaning of which has always been contested and has always been in flux; “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was progressive in its day, but at some point it began to be seen as crude, simplistic, and even barbaric. As a community changes demographically and historically, the old definitions (and the old allocations of power) no longer represent the wishes, interests, or identities of the community members. To be specific: definitions of justice and allocations of power designed by and for an overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male constituency do not serve a populace that is no longer so constituted.
As Alasdair MacIntyre—no friend of the SJWs—knew, “justice” does not define itself; someone has to define it and someone has to enforce that definition. In his Whose Justice? Which Rationality? MacIntyre argued that there can be no “objective” definition of such terms which, once discovered, would be acceptable to and binding on everyone; he insisted that we proceed necessarily from understandings bequeathed to us from our histories and our traditions—and, as he further acknowledged, we do not all have the same histories or traditions.
The Social Justice brouhaha reflects an ongoing shift in the power structures of academia and of American public life in general. Other voices, other perspectives, other histories, and other traditions, silenced or marginalized in the past, are clamoring to be heard, respected, and, in some circumstances, privileged. Official history—"the story” of the past—has always been written by the victors, but other narratives of equal import exist. Those narratives are not new; what is new is the determination with which they are now being advanced.
Horror of horrors, even language today is up for grabs—who decides what adjectives or pronouns to use, or how to describe those people? Contrary to the insistence of SQDs, language has changed as much over the centuries as have hairstyles, wardrobes, music, etc.; and with changes to language come changes to thought and changes to perceptions of the world, which is precisely what SQDs fear.
Let us take as an example the simple word “fact,” which, as it happens, has a history. Again, Alasdair MacIntyre is instructive:
“Facts, like telescopes and wigs for gentlemen, were a 17th-century invention…It was only in the 17th-century that 'fact’ was first used in a way in which later philosophers such as Russell, Wittgenstein, and Ramsey were to use it. [It is] highly misleading to conceive of a realm of facts independent of judgment or any other form of linguistic expression, so that judgments or statements or sentences could be paired off with facts, truth or falsity being alleged relationship between such paired items.”
There are no facts “independent of judgment”; or, as Thomas Nagle has written, there is no “view from nowhere”. Everything and everyone is “situated,” as they say; everyone has a perspective, and everyone tends to think of their own perspective as “natural,” “objective,” and “real”. When a bunch of SJWs come along and begin questioning, sometimes rudely, the prevailing customs and the assumptions on which they are based, and when they subvert language itself in the attempt to upend the status quo: Status Quo Defenders, who benefit from "business as usual" or who are in any case comfortable with it, defend it just as fiercely as the SJWs attack it.
Paradigm shifts are unsettling; no one likes it when you rain (reign?) on their paradigm. Given the shifting balances of social and cultural power in America, I suggest the SQDs get themselves some umbrellas.
In my next post, I will conclude these reflections with one last look at what “social justice” might mean in practice. What is a “fair society,” anyway?
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