Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Anisotropy (Image via Wikipedia)Read related » The Money of Fools
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“Seventeenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that words are wise men's counters, but they are the money of fools. […] 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. […] 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. […] 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. […] 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 individual's 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.” [emphasis added]
— Thomas Sowell, 2010/09/14 (townhall.com)
One of the most corrosive aspects of our society is the inexorable self-imposed pressure to eliminate nuance, as if our ever more digitized environment required that everything be reduced to zeros or ones. All gray-matter variety must be eradicated, until only black and white remain. This, of course, would ultimately lead to life without spice and ubiquitous homogeneous boredom.
As the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation informs us, the early universe was extremely homogeneous, with variations in mass density on the order of only 1 part in 105. Were it not for this tiny anisotropy, however, there would not have been galaxies, solar systems, Earth-like worlds, and life itself. Only nothing (i.e., the complete absence of something) is perfectly symmetric, and, thankfully, it doesn't exist in nature, but only as a concept in the mind of man.
The Founding Fathers of the United States understood, intuitively, that all men are created equal to the extent that they are endowed with certain specific unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are rights that a Constitutionally constrained society can strive to ensure for its citizenry.
But no society can hope to achieve equality of results (despite what The Obama would have you believe), nor would it even be desirable if it were theoretically possible. For it is intuitively obvious that homogeneity of outcomes is as sterile as death itself.
Finally, happiness is the pursuit. You can quote me on that.
Post 1,418 The Fog of Social Justice
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