By Thomas Sowell
Happily, many are waving the banner of social justice today. That means inequities are revealed, addressed, and corrected. Sadly, many champions of social equality are confusing social justice with cosmic justice. That misunderstanding means injustice sometimes reigns as justice (true equality be damned), social visions are cloaked in tyrannical power, and "the principles of the American constitution quietly repealed" (167).
Thomas Sowell wants to correct that misunderstanding.
Dr. Sowell is an esteemed economist and senior fellow at Standford’s Hoover Institution. He is universally praised for what Judge Robert H. Bork has called "his distinctive combination of erudition, analytical power, and uncommon sense."
Thinking, as G.K. Chesterton has said, is “connecting things.” In The Quest For Cosmic Justice, Thomas Sowell wants us to connect how individuals and groups turn their lofty visions of cosmic justice (the way the world should be — "according to them") into a “social justice” which seeks to right the wrongs of select groups, e.g. “the poor.” Sowell leaves no doubt as to his thesis:
General principles, such as “justice“ or “equality," are often passionately invoked in the course of arguing about the issues of the day, but such terms usually go undefined and unexamined. Often, much more could be gained by scrutinizing what we ourselves mean by such notions than by trying to convince or overwhelm others. If we understood what we were really saying, in many cases we might not say it or, if we did, we might have a better chance of making our reasons understood by those who disagree with us (p. vii).
The Quest for Cosmic Justice is comprised of four essays Sowell wrote over a period of years. As already noted, these essays connect his thoughts on the damage done when individuals or groups confuse cosmic justice with social justice.
Essay 1 -- "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" is intended to move us from "the heady rush of rhetoric" to a more careful examination of what actually lays under the mountain of words of those who champion social justice. In short, we must not advocate for justice until we "specify just what conception of justice we have in mine" (3).
Essay 2 -- "The Mirage of Equality" addresses that illusive concept we call equality. Equality is a mirage because the world is not equal. Geography favors farming in some areas over others. Rivers that facilitate travel and economic prosperity are not equally distributed by region. Age brings benefits in life experience. It also provides opportunities to save year over year that are not afforded to the young. Physical prowess coupled with effort over time means life on the basketball court will never be equal. Performance when understood as the payoff for hard work over time means financial and societal "inequalities." Yet many visions of equality ignore these differences and champion equal rewards without equal effort or results. Such crusades are often accompanied by the subtle moral superiority of those who champion them.
Essay 3 -- "The Tyranny of Visions" demonstrates how social visions are championed as ideological dogma void of testing. He writes, "The more sweeping the vision--the more it seems to explain and the more its explanation is emotionally satisfying--the more reason there is for its devotees to safeguard it against the vagaries of facts. . . . Much of the history of the twentieth century has been a history of the tyranny of visions as dogmas" (100, 131).
Essay 4 -- "The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution"helps us see that when ideological crusades (whether from Presidents, Congress, or Judges) trump constitutional government, problems ensue. When the rule of law (people being treated equally under the law) is superseded by an ideological vision (people receive equally under the law), when ideological bias reins, the principles of the American constitution will be (and are being) quietly repealed (189).
There is so much to appreciate about The Quest for Cosmic Justice. It is a book for all time, especially for our time as visions apart from definitions lead to destruction of the social order they propose to enhance. Sowell emphasizes:
1. Different visions of what is just lead to radically different practical policies (47).
2. Different visions apart from definitions mean we will continually talk past each other. Apart from defining "justice," individual or group ideals of “cosmic justice” will necessarily change the meaning of “justice” and “social justice.”
3. Ideological proponents of "social justice" must separate heady feelings of what is “right” with “the costs and dangers of the actual alternatives” of these visions.
Some of my "Lessons learned":
1. Define justice: A heart for social justice, apart from a definition of justice, is only going to lead to injustice. This is my understanding of how Sowell uses these terms: Cosmic justice: The world as it ought to be "from my perspective" enforced under the banner of "social justice" which due to it's unequal emphasis actually becomes anti-social justice; Traditional justice: Ensuring "due process" under the law. Social justice: Rectifying undeserved disadvantages for select groups"(see On My Walk Episode #173).
2. Look deeper: Sowell's work on analyzing the statistics on which cosmic visions are based is a lesson on looking deeper. He highlights the pitfalls of creating statistical abstractions. For example, when describing "the poor." Statistical abstractions are not people. The poor are not a static group as most rise out of "poverty" and most "rich" do not remain in the upper ten-percent of all income. Many of the often derogatorily tagged "rich" are rich because they have lived longer, experienced more, worked longer, and saved longer.
Worth remembering:
1. Milton Friedman: A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.
2. On governmental expansion: In politics, the great non sequitur of our time is that (1) things are not right and that (2) the government should make them right. Where right all too often means cosmic justice, trying to set things right means writing a blank check for a never-ending expansion of government power (186).
3. On freedom: As many have warned in the past, freedom is unlikely to be lost all at once and openly. It is far more likely to be eroded away, bit by bit, amid glittering promises and expressions of noble ideals. Thus, hard-earned freedoms for which many have fought and died have now been bought and sold for words or money, or both (184).
4. On inequalities: Why are different groups so disproportionately represented in so many times and places? Perhaps the simplest answer is that there was no reason to have expected them to be statistically similar in the first place. Geographical, historical, demographic, cultural, and other variables make the vision of an even or random distribution of groups one without foundation (37).
5. On governmental monetary authority: To allow any governmental authority to determine how much money individuals shall be permitted to receive from other individuals produces not only a distortion of the economic processes by undermining incentives for efficiency, it is more fundamentally a monumental concentration of political power which reduces everyone to the level of a client of politicians (73).
6. On social visions as envy: Ideological crusades in the name of equality promote envy, the principle victims of which are those doing the envying (77).
7. On social equity: There has now been created a world in which the success of others is a grievance, rather than an example. Irrational as such ideological indulgences may be, they are virtually inevitable when equality becomes the social touchstone, for equality can be achieved only by either divorcing performance from reward or by producing equal performances (94).
8. On the rich and poor: Perhaps no vision underlies more social and economic theories than the vision of the rich robbing the poor, whether in a given society or among nations (119). The problem comes when a quest for cosmic justice extrapolates an entire class of people from statistics, which when examined more closely, actually disproves the vision of those using them. But because they take the moral high ground of their cosmic vision, “evidence to the contrary is not only likely to be dismissed, but is often blamed on the malevolence or dishonesty of those who present such evidence.”
9. On presumptions: Towering presumptions . . . are increasingly mass-produced in our schools and colleges by the educational vogue of encouraging immature and inexperienced students to sit in emotional judgment on the complex evolution of whole ages an of vast civilizations (149).
10. On governmental power: It may easily be seen that almost all the able and ambitious members of a democratic community will labor unceasingly to extend the powers of government, because they all hope at some time or other to wield those powers themselves (Alexis de Tocqueville, 151).
A biblical perspective:
I think The Quest for Cosmic Justice hits a nerve because we live in a larger story of justice corrupted and justice beingrestored. In that sense the quest for cosmic justice is written in our hearts by the Creator who is just, made the world to function justly, and who provided the solution to human injustice in Christ Jesus. Christ will ultimately right all wrongs in his return. In that sense, God's certain quest for cosmic justice will be his reign of justice over the universe (c.f. Colossians 1:15-17; Revelation 4-5; 7:9-10; 19:11-21; 20-21).
Where does The Quest for Cosmic Justice" land on The Bacon Scale?
Sir Francis Bacon said, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested" (The Essays). The Quest for Cosmic Justice is the kind of book to be chewed and digested S-L-O-W-L-Y. Savor this book.