Social Justice In A Baseball Hat

The big, burly Michael Moore looks like
an every-day Santa Clause. How can we take
issue with such a man who looks so generous?

Here's an interesting interaction at View From the Right on social justice. Jim Kalb offers this argument on social justice:

One aspect of "social justice" I don't think anyone has mentioned is that it's the technocratic version of justice. It has to do with the modern preference for simple schemes that control a situation effectively and comprehensively. If that's what you think makes sense then you're going to ignore subtleties, particularities, and qualitative distinctions, and mostly just look at the overall pattern you want and the most effective means of getting there. That's not the aspect people get idealistic about, but I think it's one that gives it a lot of its practical force....

To my mind the two ["technocratic justice" and "social justice"] are the same, or at least convergent. Social justice is strong because it's basically the same as technocracy, and technocracy seems humanly tolerable and even appealing because it basically says the same as social justice. Technocracy takes technology--the rational use of resources to bring about arbitrarily-chosen goals--as the model for rational action in the social and political sphere as elsewhere.

Bruce B. writes:

One of the things that always bothers me about Jim Kalb's ideas (I don't think they're wrong) is that they make the left-liberal system and (presumably) its adherents seem so rational as opposed to emotional. His summaries always seems to miss that so much of left-liberalism is based on emotive terminology/ideas and their effect on real people. "Social justice" is a perfect example of this. It's a tear-jerker, a heart-string plucker and it seems account for a lot of the appeal of leftism on a practical level.

I guess our differences in experience affect what we see. Maybe he's seeing how the elite work (rational and technocratic) whereas my lower social class means that I've only had the opportunity to see the average left-liberal at work. The kind who's heart goes pitter-patter when they hear the phrase "social justice."

Perhaps the left-liberal system and its adherents are both rational and emotional; they are aiming for social and technocratic justice. In trying to understand left-liberals around me, it is certainly true that they are emotionally driven, then they become rational and technocratic in order to right all those wrongs that their superior empathetic, sensitive personalities were reacting to.

The example about the criminal in prison who wants his sex change to be subsidized by the state pulls at the emotional heart strings of the left-liberal, who says that this individual needs the social justice of being who he really is (not a male, not a female, but his own construct, without which he cannot be himself). In order for this unnatural, inhuman, change to take place, these same liberals then have to become technocratic, or unemotionally single-minded, where nothing can get in the way of fulfilling this man's desires, not a spouse or children (many men who want sex changes are married with children), not those in his social and professional world, not the hard-earned money that is being taken from ordinary citizens who would most likely object to this particular usage of their money, and so on.

Therefore, the original trigger may be some kind of emotional reaction to "unfairness," but what seals the deal is cold technocracy. But, as Jim Kalb writes:

To my mind the two are the same, or at least convergent. Social justice is strong because it's basically the same as technocracy, and technocracy seems humanly tolerable and even appealing because it basically says the same as social justice.

I don't think liberals see this as hypocritical or contradictory. Their aim (emotional turned technocratic) is equality. And although it is the elite liberals who have the most clout in making these societal upheavals and appear the most hypocritical, all liberals of any societal position have the same aims. Lower class liberals sustain liberalism by agreeing with the more powerful liberals. The irony, of course, is the existence of "upper class liberals" and "lower class liberals." However much they desire to reconstruct society based on equality, liberals are still beholden to the ancient rules of hierarchy without which they would be unable to install their pet policies.