Center for Vague Principles of the Left -- err, I mean -- Social Justice
In eight short days, USI will unveil its new Center for Social Justice. Its purpose is as vague as its name: the Center for Social Justice will "foster advocacy for social justice and empowerment through education, research and collaboration. We are dedicated to individual and societal well-being. Through access to information, services and resources we will serve the global community."
How, of course, USI's Center for Social Justice plans on serving the global community is unclear. The website links to other USI departments or press releases. Its research section contains only this nugget: "Complex, social problems require a multifacted approach to generate alternative approaches to strengthen helping systems and society. Faculty and students benefit from the opportunity to work with multiple disciplines." (What does that mean?)
Unfortunately, this much is clear: as the National Association of Scholars found, a social justice center at UMass "consisted of training in agitprop rather than real education. It used the term 'social justice' to justify an academic curriculum focused entirely on 'manifestations of oppression.'" It's unlikely USI's center will be any different -- especially if you take it at its current word.
So what can students and concerned campus reformers do?
The best advice comes from Peter Wood, NAS president (emphasis my own):
You can challenge any of these things. A successful challenge must always be based on the facts. So the first thing I suggest is that you and anyone else you can find who is interested just begin to assemble a well-organized file of what the Center for Social Justice publishes, says, and does. This doesn’t require any skullduggery—and in fact shouldn’t. the publicly available stuff will be more than adequate. That’s because the Center itself will assume until it learns otherwise that it can do and say whatever it wants. Think of ACORN before Breitbart.
So get to work, campus reformers, and let us know how we can help.
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The Catholic concept of "social justice" has been hijacked by the left. The phrase is a contradiction of terms if used in a political sense: the establishment of justice is the purpose of the government which exercises coercion while matters of civil society, i.e. "social" matters, are dealt with through moral suasion and voluntary cooperation.
However, government cannot prudently establish absolute justice here on earth because it cannot judge the heart where greed, envy, malice, and other sources of injustice reside. Real social justice based on real Christian principles that goes beyond formal political rights is established by changing hearts through moral suasion, not through government coercion.
Dec 02, 4:00 pm
Just how has the Catholic concept of "social justice" been "hijacked by the left?" The phrase is NOT a "contradiction of terms if used in a political sense" as you assert. In fact, that is exactly how the Catholic thinkers who coined the phrase intended their concept of social justice to manifest itself.
Even before it was propounded in the Catholic social teachings, Social Justice appeared regularly in the history of the Catholic Church. The term "social justice" was coined by the Jesuit Luigi Taparelli. He co-founded the journal Civiltà Cattolica in 1850 and wrote for it for twelve years. He was particularly concerned with the problems arising from the industrial revolution in the 1840s, based on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas viewpoint. His basic premise was that the rival economic theories, based on subjective Cartesian thinking, undermined the unity of society present in Thomistic metaphysics; neither the liberal capitalists nor the communists concerned themselves with public moral philosophy.
Pope Leo XII, who studied under Taparelli, published in 1891 the encyclical, Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of the Working Classes), rejecting both socialism and capitalism, while defending labor unions and private property. He stated that society should be based on cooperation and not class conflict and competition. In this document, Leo set out the Catholic Church's response to the social instability and labor conflict that had arisen in the wake of industrialization and had led to the rise of socialism. The Pope taught that the role of the State is to promote social justice through the protection of rights, while the Church must speak out on social issues in order to teach correct social principles and ensure class harmony.
Quadragesimo Anno is an encyclical by Pope Pius XI, issued 15 May 1931, 40 years after Rerum Novarum . Unlike Leo, who addressed the condition of workers, Pius XI discusses the ethical implications of the social and economic order, encourages a living wage and teaches that social justice is a personal as well as an attribute of the social order: society can be just only if individuals and institutions are just.
Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus Caritas Est ("God is Love") of 2006 teaches that justice is the defining concern of the state and the central concern of politics, and not of the church, which has charity as its central social concern. The laity has the specific responsibility of pursuing social justice in civil society. The church's active role in social justice should be to inform the debate, using reason and Natural Law, and also by providing moral and spiritual formation for those involved in politics.
The official Catholic doctrine on social justice can be found in the book Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published in 2004 and updated in 2006, by the Pontifical Council Iustitia et Pax
Jan 11, 6:48 pm
Gee, more missing comments (until I left this, that is, then they miraculously reappeared). All of this bellyaching about censorship, then you guys mess with comments you don't like. Every time I get bored with Campus Reform and think about not wasting time here, you guys do something like this that again motivates me to continue pointing out your hypocrisy and dishonesty.
Jan 15, 1:01 pm
Campus Reform has not deleted the comments in question. Comments are deleted only if they violate the site's terms of use, and the user is promptly notified by Campus Reform staff.
If you have evidence of a comment being deleted, please send us an email including that evidence so we can check our logs to see what user deleted it and take appropriate action.
Jan 15, 2:06 pm