A Jewish Facebook friend recently posted a two-picture cartoon. It was labeled, “Equality doesn’t mean Justice.”
Both pictures showed three children of unequal heights trying to watch a baseball game from behind the outfield fence. The first picture showed each standing on one crate.
While the crates allowed the tall and medium-sized boys to see over the fence, the small boy’s view was still blocked. This picture was labeled, “This is Equality.”
In the second picture, the tallest boy had no crate, the medium-size boy stood on one crate, while the shortest boy had two crates to stand on. All could now see the game. This picture was labeled, “This is Justice.”
The following is an abridged version of some of the discussion that followed:
Me: “This is Utopia” (referring to the second picture).
Second participant (presumably also Jewish): “It’s about leveling the playing field. I don’t see anything utopian about that.”
Me: “Justice refers to getting the outcome that one earns or merits. It is not about getting what one needs.”
Second participant: “I don’t agree that justice needs to be earned. It’s a RIGHT.”
The person who posted the cartoon: “I agree with [#2] that justice is not supposed to be contingent on the worthiness of the individual. If someone is hungry, he should be fed, period.”
“If someone is hungry, he should be fed, period,” is a distorted definition of justice. What my Facebook friend described is compassion, not justice. We know that Judaism holds both to be important, but they are not the same.
The Torah commands each of us to help the widow, the orphan, and the poor amongst us as a personal and communal act of compassion, but it also tells us we are to favor neither the rich nor the poor in judgment.
And the obligation to help those in need falls upon us as individuals (often acting in concert with others). Nowhere does the Torah suggest that we should outsource this obligation to the state.
I think it’s great that each boy in the second cartoon got enough crates to see over the fence. But while the cartoon depicted a compassionate response to an everyday situation, the captions suggested that this solution could be applied on a societal level.
Compassion is a wonderful value to exercise — in “micro” situations — among family, friends, and neighbors in day-to-day life. But it’s a terrible basis on which to make social policy and laws on the “macro” level.
This is what is wrong with the whole concept of “social justice.” What does it even mean? What’s wrong with just plain justice?
The Left in general, and Liberal Jews in particular, have added an adjective, “social,” to “justice,” in a well-intentioned but conflated equating of justice with compassion.
Their actual goal is equality — material equality — the centerpiece of socialism. But “socialism” is a term that has fallen in disfavor. So better to call it social justice — and demand material equality in the name of justice.
Who can be against justice? Except “justice” does not mean material equality.
If you apply the solution suggested by the cartoon and captions to society, how does it differ from the Marxist axiom, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”?
That is a utopian sentiment that has failed every time it has been attempted, whether in the soft socialism of Western Europe, which has destroyed aspiration, corroded the character of society, and is on the verge of bankrupting the continent; or taken to its logical conclusion under Communism, which was responsible for the slaughter of millions of civilians last century. (Why is that Communism’s logical conclusion? Because someone has to enforce “equality.”)
That’s why I object to defining food, shelter, health care, etc., as rights. It leads to a culture of entitlement.
If I am in need, I do not have a right to demand that others help me. If someone else is in need, I have an obligation to help that individual (and before that, if possible, to help individual people help themselves).
If I receive help, I have an obligation to be grateful, and should never expect that it’s owed me. And before I receive help, it is my responsibility to do all in my power to earn my living.
“Social justice” and its companion aspiration, “tikkun olam” (repairing the world) have replaced God at the heart of Judaism among liberal and secular Jews.
In its most famous context, the Aleinu prayer from our liturgy, the full phrase is the “the repair of the world under the Kingdom of God” referring to Messianic times when the world will be united under the one God and His commandments. It does not refer to liberal social policies.
The founders of the United States were God-believing men who, though Christians, designed this new nation on Jewish Bible-based principles. The limited government that they proposed rested on a society grounded on biblically based values.
Only accountability to God and adherence to His principles would sustain a self-governing people, who would otherwise turn for accountability to an overreaching and ultimately tyrannical state, imposing its version of “social justice” upon its people.
Milwaukeean Jim Beer is a consultant for nonprofit organizations and describes himself as “a dedicated oxymoron (a Jewish conservative).”
Loading ...