On Social Justice
I’m pleased to introduce the newest admission to DuelingBarstools’ Magna Cum Blogroll, the Hyacinth Girl, whom the DialecticalPlaya, King of Rants, describes as “captivating in her phrasing, nuanced in her prose, and a grammatical wizard with her syntax. In short, she’s an exceptional writer.” That’s high praise, people. Hyacinth Girl recently thought out loud about social justice, which made me recall a series of barstool conversations on the same topic that I shared with several friends a while ago. For the purposes of this post, I’m combining them into a single conversation (that will likely devolve into just me writing).
John posited an interesting question: “How can you be a Darwinist and believe in social justice?” That’s a compelling premise, as the concept of survival of the fittest is squarely at odds with, for example, providing “free” medical care to the elderly. Pila probed the question further, however, asserting that some measure of social justice may in fact be consistent with Darwinism, depending on what type of evolutionary creature you consider homo sapiens to be. For instance, solitary predators such as great white sharks probably do not share their catch with fellow great white sharks. By contrast, wolves run in packs, and collectively provide for the young and old – to the extent doing so is efficient for the pack. [Ed. note: for the record, John contends that humans are hairless apes with car keys, and are "not as smart as we think we are, but clever enough to get to the moon."]
I’m no expert on the matter, but human’s are more like wolves than great white sharks. As such, providing for our young, infirmed, and elderly – to the extent doing so is societally efficient – is in our best interests. The pertinent questions, then, are: what is social justice; how to provide social justice; and to what extent do we provide social justice. A well known Chinese proverb is instructive here: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
To build on that proverb, we should teach the poor to fish, not only so they can eat for a lifetime, but so they can generate income by selling their catch – the fruits of their labor. We should further provide the poor with fishing equipment and ample opportunity to fish. Yet, in the US of A, we provide the poor with enough fish to eat three squares a day, but not enough to sell. Nor do we provide adequate fishing education to the poor, or fishing equipment. And we categorically deny the poor the opportunity to sell what they catch (selling fish requires a commercial fishing license, which is beyond the reach of someone lacking the money to eat). Here’s the master doing a far, far better job than me explaining the matter, noting especially why relying on government to play the role of the wolf pack is a dereliction of our self-interested duty:
“Altruistic” acts are limited (in my knowledge) to pack animals. All members of a pack are usually, to some degree, related to one another and “helping” another member of the pack does do good in continuing related DNA, albeit to a lesser extent than solely forwarding the interests of one’s own DNA.
From a Darwinian standpoint, this occurs naturally because packs (societies) that take care of the truly helpless and infirm (Stephen Hawking) may reap benefits that packs that don’t would not. It certainly seems that there must be some benefit for looking out for some degree of social justice, since the propensity to do so has beat out the propensity not to. American society has taken the babysitting of the welfare of others to a degree that may have not only stopped, but reversed the helping effect.
Speaking to John’s question specifically, I don’t think Darwinism and social justice are mutually exclusive. Survival of the fittest, or natural selection, doesn’t necessarily mean that those species that survive are the smartest and/or strongest. Generally, all a species has to do to be successful is to survive and reproduce. According to Doug O’Neil of Palomar College: “From an evolutionary perspective, the fittest individuals are simply the ones who have the combination of traits that allow them to survive and produce more offspring. In fact, they may be relatively weak, small, and not particularly intelligent. What makes an individual fit all depends on the environment at the time and the combination of traits that are most suited to flourishing in it.” For example, the shark is not doing so hot in the current environment despite its fierce predatory and self-interested nature. It has to do with humans over fishing its kind, and if it doesn’t adapt in some manner, whether that’s possible, its numbers will continue to dwindle. Now, the midge, a wingless fly that lives in Antarctica is the real badass. It’s the only insect species to survive in Antarctica through the ages. And that’s because it adapted to its environment. The midge can survive being frozen solid. In its larval stage it can lose most of the water in its body, and can stay in this dried up stage for two years. In summer, the larvae are “reconstituted” and emerge as adults, mate and lay their eggs. Man-eater 0, Wingless Fly 1.
So, I guess my eventual point with all that is that the elderly, infirm, and/or poor are not necessarily failures according to the Darwinism idea of natural selection. To me, it would depend on whether they can successfully adapt to their given circumstances and environment, and make some positive contribution to the group/society to which they belong. Pila’s mention of Stephen Hawking is an excellent example. I agree that if maintaining their inclusion within the “pack” can prove to be of some societal value then it makes sense to support them in some manner. If we can just figure out how to get old and poor people’s cell structure to modify itself in a manner similar to that of the Antarctic wingless fly and stay in vegetative states for two-year periods…
But, really, let’s say an elderly grandmother on Social Security provides free childcare for a grandchild whose parent could not accommodate it otherwise due to the prohibitive cost. Both the parent and child benefit – parent avoids disruption to employment that not having childcare would cause, child likely better off in care of relative – because of the services the grandmother on government assistance provides. This family survives and advances, probably requiring less assistance overall. This is not an improbable scenario. The success (or failure) of this family impacts the whole community to which it belongs.
And, you know, I don’t think Darwin’s intent with his theory was to make a case for separating the wheat from the chaff. Another note from Doug O’Neil: “The phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ was apparently first used in 1851 by the influential British philosopher Herbert Spencer as a central tenet of what later became known as ‘Social Darwinism.’ He misapplied Darwin’s idea of natural selection to justify European domination and colonization of much of the rest of the world. Social Darwinism was also widely used to defend the unequal distribution of wealth and power in Europe and North America at the time. Poor and politically powerless people were thought to have been failures in the natural competition for survival. Subsequently, helping them was seen as a waste of time and counter to nature. From this perspective, rich and powerful people did not need to feel ashamed of their advantages because their success was proof that they were the most fit in this competition.”
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Sarah! I think John’s point though (and this wasn’t clear in the post, as I used John’s quip simply as a lede for Pila’s more thoughtful statement) isn’t that we should separate the wheat from chaff as a matter of course. The context of his statement was in regard to a discussion about the failure of the “war on poverty.” John’s broad statement was a reminder that we are not so far removed from our evolutionary past that we can afford (morally, financially) to accept to have a large portion of our population be unproductive, and utterly dependent on the productive portion.
I really appreciate you taking the time to flesh out what “to the extent doing so is efficient for the pack.” You’re very correct that what is efficient for our “pack” in our environment is very different than what is efficient for either a great white shark or wolves. Certainly nurturing an infirmed Stephen Hawking is efficient. Reasonable people can disagree on what extent of social justice (such a broad term) is efficient, or necessary (even if inefficient). While that is the subject of another post, I would say that rather than debating whether, to what extent, when and how government allocates tax dollars for “social justice,” what would be better is for us to retain control of more of our tax dollars so we can address the social justice needs surrounding us. And that surround us in spite of the war on poverty, for the very reasons Milton Friedman’s video makes clear nearly 30 years ago.
[...] opportunity, and then lament (again) with me America’s spectacularly failed concept of social justice, which provides neither capital nor opportunity, and rewards state-dependency rather than [...]
Sola dosis facit venenum.