sheila lafountain wrote:
> The problem with social justice (especially some forms of the Hegelian
> variety I suppose) is that there are always consequences. If it's the
> alleviating of suffering that you're after then the game is off. If it's
> the alleviating of suffering for a particular group you're after then you
> haven't escaped the problem you may have become part of the problem.
> Jean Val Jean recognized this problem in Les Miserables and when Javerre
> saw it for himself he no longer wanted to live in such a world. Some
> might say there are only choices but I think some choices are better than
> others. As for putting ideas into practice, perhaps we used
> have a choice in such matters but what if the world has already begun to
> practice.
> Sheila
>
Again, not being argumentative, but what characteristics do we attach to the more
appropriate choices? I am reluctant to accept the god-eat-god nihilism that seems to
inspire the rejection of social justice as a concepts. Surely trade-offs are
unavoidable, and ultimately damaging. My e-mail (indirectly) fostors pollution,
pushing us closer to the final resource crunch. The plight of the homeless affronts
the cultural aesthetic until the culture discursively removes the homelessness object.
I buy carrots from the local embodment of a big chain grocer and force out small family
grocers, suck down pesticides, exploit farmers and transport workers. Etc. and etc.
These descriptive missives seem to do little in bettering our realities, as
contradictory and detached as our respective realities might be. Indeed, accepting the
descriptive as prescriptive hardly seems encouraging. I know this has diverged from
the original topic of Pinochet via abstraction, but it seems like the larger question
behind the particulars of application. Thoughts?
Ken Rufo