"social" justice

Recently, in http://spectator.org/archives/2011/12/02/social-muddle: The American Spectator Jonathan Witt wrote

The adjective that economist Friedrich Hayek famously called a “weasel word” is alive and well in the feel-good phrases social business, social justice and the social gospel.

In all three of these phrases, the common weasel word sucks some of the essential meaning out of what it modifies by implying that business, justice, and the Christian Gospel are a-social, or even anti-social, until conjoined with a mysterious something else. If only the confusion were of merely academic interest. Unfortunately, the failure to see that business, justice and the Gospel are intrinsically social has led to all kinds of mischief in people’s efforts to organize society — most recently in the Circle of Protection promoted by Jim Wallis and his friends on the left.



The Communications Director for Jim Wallis’ “Sojourners” organization http://sojo.net/blogs/2011/12/08/redundancies-social-justice-and-person… responded with

I disagree.

The modifier “social” doesn’t suck the essential meaning from any of those terms but rather serves as a corrective for misuse or misunderstandings of those terms… .

Witt refers to the Circle of Protection as “promoted by Jim Wallis and his friends on the left.” But, he doesn’t deal with the fact that the National Association of Evangelicals, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Salvation Army, World Vision, Willow Creek, and the Evangelical Covenant Church all signed on, too. These groups would hardly be considered “left” by very many people.

If you have the time for both essays in their entirety, it makes for some interesting reading on the topic of “social” justice.