A "Social Justice" Fisking

No fun for you, bucko!

Lileks fisks a pro-slavery manifesto. My characterization, obviously, not the author’s. But read it (and weep) and judge for yourself. The part that really bothered me is the appeal to enforced monasticism.

Last but not least, there is a deep connection between a life worth living and social justice.

To achieve a major reallocation of wealth, those who have more than enough must find sources of contentment other than laying their hands on still more goods.

This is what many religions offer.

Those who have lost this source of goodness, or have found it twisted, are called upon on to search for other springs of meaning. And nobody is better placed or more equipped than President Obama to return us to this old, but never more current, subject: What makes a good life.

People in monasteries tend to think they have a great life.  My reduced lifestyle in favor of giving a goodly percentage of my income away is a form of what this guy is recommending, and I’m deeply satisfied and happy with my choices.  I’m all in favor of giving to the poor – but as an individual, not as a government wealth-redistribution scheme. This guy’s version of social justice glorifies government, not God.  I’m upping the stakes by going Galt; backing out of the economy still further as a political protest.

This twit would enforce the lifestyle, Judge Smails-style: You’ll get nothing, and like it!  His arrogance is breathtaking.  What he is so vacuously promoting is slavery, and he seems okay with that: It’s for your own good, really!  You see, once he clears all of this pesky materialism out of our lives, we’ll turn – because we lack any other options – to “spiritual projects” and focus on the greater good of humanity.  Obviously, God really blew it by giving us free will, but he’ll kindly correct that error.  We shall be thankful.  (Or else!)

The Anchoress thoroughly debunked the idea that the monastic lifestyle can be enforced here and here.

But the thing is…being subsumed by something greater than oneself is only glorious when one is at liberty to assent to it, when one volunteers to be absorbed into the collective. That is, in fact, the ultimate expression of liberty. Being compelled into the collective – or herded there – against ones will, against one’s liberty, against one’s declared choice – even against one’s constitution, has nothing to do with glory and everything to do with tyranny. One is an ultimate human freedom and a good. The other is the antithesis of human freedom. And that is evil.