17th century philosopher thomas hobbes
said that words are wise men's counters
but they are the money of fools
that is as painfully true today as it
was four centuries ago
using words as vehicles to try to convey
your meaning is very different from
taking words so literally that the words
use you and confuse you
take the simple phrase rent control
if you take these words literally as if
they were money in the bank you get a
complete distortion of reality
new york is the city with the oldest and
strongest rent control laws in the
nation san francisco is second
but if you look at cities with the
highest average rents new york is first
and san francisco is second
obviously rent control laws do not
control rent
if you check out the facts instead of
relying on words you will discover that
gun control laws do not control guns the
government's stimulus spending does not
stimulate the economy and that many
compassionate policies inflict cruel
results such as the destruction of the
black
family do you know how many millions of
people died in the war to make the world
safe for democracy a war that led to
autocratic dynasties being replaced by
totalitarian dictatorships that
slaughtered far more of their own people
than the dynasties had
warm fuzzy words and phrases have an
enormous advantage in politics
none has had such a long run of
political success as social justice
the idea cannot be refuted because it
has no specific meaning
fighting it would be like trying to
punch the fog
no wonder social justice has been such a
political success for more than a
century and counting
while the term has no defined meaning it
has emotionally powerful connotations
there is a strong sense that it is
simply not right that it is unjust that
some people are so much better off than
others
justification even as the term is used
in printing and carpentry means aligning
one thing with another
but what is the standard to which we
think incomes or other benefits should
be aligned
is the person who has spent years in
school goofing off acting up or fighting
squandering the tens of thousands of
dollars that the taxpayers have spent on
his education supposed to end up with
his income aligned with that of the
person who spent those same years
studying to acquire knowledge and skills
that would later be valuable to himself
and to society at large
some advocates of social justice would
argue that what is fundamentally unjust
is that one person is born into
circumstances that make that person's
chances in life radically different from
the chances that others have through no
fault of one and through no merit of the
others
maybe the person who wasted educational
opportunities and developed
self-destructive behavior would have
turned out differently if born into a
different home or a different community
that would of course be more just
but now we are no longer talking about
social justice unless we believe that it
is all society's fault that different
families and communities have different
values and priorities and that society
can solve that problem
nor can poverty or poor education
explain such differences there are
individuals who were raised by parents
who were both poor and poorly educated
but who pushed their children to get the
education that the parents themselves
never had
many individuals and groups would not be
where they are today without that
all kinds of chance encounters with
particular people information or
circumstances have marked turning points
in many individuals lives whether toward
fulfillment or ruin none of these things
is equal or can be made equal
if this is an injustice it is not a
social injustice because it is beyond
the power of society
you can talk or act as if society is
both omniscient and omnipotent but to do
so would be to let words become what
thomas hobbes called them the money of
fools
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