Why we should care about individual Justice, NOT social justice.

Social justice is a theme that is prominent throughout all aspects of Leftist and often even Liberal movements. They talk incessantly about it, it’s been adopted by University’s, Unions, Private foundations and Charities who all claim to foster social justice as part of their mission for a better future. Bernie Sanders attributed his run for presidency to his “manifestation of commitment to social justice”. It’s everywhere we look and is widely believed to be a force of good.

What if Lady Justice were omnipartial? A new legal culture based on empathy and care might inspire a better use for that blindfold of hers. Credit: Laura Beckman (laurabeckman.com)

To Leftists social justice is the perceived justice in terms of how groups are distributed wealth, opportunities and privileges. Although it might look great on the surface the ugly truth is that Social Justice is in fact a cruel method to take past injustices and use them as an excuse to perpetuate current injustices. It divides and separates people based of their social group (e.g. White, Black, Gay, Trans) and places them on separate moral thresholds in terms of how the social groups have acted or been acted against in the past. A 2009 study on leading academic institutes by Thomas Espenshade of Princeton University found that on their SAT exams Black students were on average given an extra 310 points on their tests, Hispanics an extra 130 and Asians were DOCKED 150 points. This is a direct consequence of social justice, it’s no coincidence that Asians are the highest earning ‘Social group’ in America and that they have one of the most suited cultures to success. Hardly seems like justice does it?

The truth is that social justice is in fact a gross contradiction to actual justice, it does not equal the playing field for all but only for those who identify as part of a group that is deemed to have the right amount of ‘intersectional’ value. It preserves discrimination and inequity by painting all people from a certain ethnicity, race or sex with the same brush. It assumes that all those who are in the same ‘Social group’ face the same challenges and live identical lives. It would for instance conform to the idea that all people of colour have it worse than white people which is obviously not true. That’s not to say that on average people of colour are not poorer than white people but everyone should be dealt with on an individual basis as opposed to a collective one.

Social justice is the pathway down a slippery slope leading to society upholding the collective over the individual. This is when it becomes acceptable for governments to infringe on the individuals rights if it is deemed to ‘help’ the collective, this is how we ended up with ruthless regimes like communist China and Russia. Where political, academic and influential individuals who opposed the government ‘disappeared’ and often still do to this day. This is because such governments claim to represent the collective and thus feel no moral duty to protect the individual who stands in their path. Social justice neglects core principles of Western Democracy such as equality and the belief in each individual’s nonnegotiable rights (e.g Freedom of speech, Freedom of religion). It is true that in the past large parts of western civilization did not grant these rights to minorities which was both evil and immoral but reversing the discrimination is regressive and serves no purpose in furthering society.

Individual justice on the other hand promotes and incorporates basic individual rights and freedoms for all. It sees everyone as an individual and good people are separated from bad people not via their groups intersectionality but by their own respective interactions, actions and beliefs. The centerpiece of true individual justice is freedom which is at the core of western civilizations belief of guaranteeing everyone has equal opportunity. Now of course equal opportunity does not mean we are all situated the same with the same opportunities but rather that no one is going to get in your way for any unjust way (e.g Race). This is the defining characteristic of free and equal western society’s that make them so fair, the promise of individual justice means that anyone blocking someone else’s success unjustly gets moved out of the way.

In a society where we strive for equity is it really fair to generalize or should we treat each person as an individual unique human being. I actively encourage helping those in need but using it as a justification to discriminate against others is frankly immoral.