Symbolic Justice

(Buckle up - this one will probably take a bit)

This has been a very weird week and I have been fairly (ok, very) unproductive.

I have had this struggle with academic work.  I think a lot of academia is very odd because we do all this schooling, we write these massively in depth papers about very small things and topics, very few people actually read them, and then we start the process over again with new academics (like me).  So basically we create knowledge that no one really cares about, few read, and then get others to join the party so we still have a job.  When it comes to publication of research and what not, the question 'why does this matter' is always asked and sometimes my answer - obviously rarely out loud however - is IT DOESN'T! 

Clearly this is a very cynical view of academia.  It does have value even if no one cares about the research and all we are left with is educating undergraduates.  They learn to think, understand their world more, and hopefully see that the world is deeper, wider, and more complex than their small cornfield-surrounded home town.  This is good for them and is good for all of us in terms of both general community as well as civically (yep, one day they may each vote once or twice).  But the research.  The stuff that is often of most interest to us academics - it is usually what is of least interest to non-academics.

Well, that may not really be the case.  Turns out the opposite is even possible.  I wrote my MA thesis on something that I thought was cool, but also thought was deeply specific and although slightly counter intuitive had a general interest only to the degree that knowing what we read matters is of interest. 

In the beginning of July a journalist wrote an article about my paper that was on the ARDA website.  The same article was then posted in a couple of other places.  I didn't even know it was up yet and the managing editor from Christianity Today began to email with me about it, and they asked me to write up a fairly lengthy article about it for an upcoming issue.  Then this week the same ARDA article was publish by The Huffington Post.  Which was crazy - both that they picked it up and the response from it.  Maybe the next day, The Blaze, some kind of Christian news outlet I think, published an article based on the HuffPost article.  Then the other day, after HuffPost and The Blaze, Glenn Beck apparently talked about it on his radio show and put an article on his web page.  Dagen, a Swedish newsweekly or something like that, has an article coming out about it soon.  Yesterday a Dallas radio station did a live phone interview with me about it.  It was also on Beliefnet twice (here and here), and a blog that seems to get some attention, The Friendly Atheist. 

It has all been very weird to me.  It is good to see that people actually are interested in the/some of the work that we do - maybe it is just a matter of wording and story telling.  One of the most odd things about it all, I think, has been the comments, responses, and emails that I have received from people.  I have been labeled both a 'whitey' leftist political preacher, as Sara pointed out, as well as a Bible thumping conservative Baylor religion-defender.  Some Christians adamantly reject that 'social justice' is 'Christian,' a lot of non-Christians are offended that Christians think they have a right to 'social justice,' and some Christians are reassured by the fact that when you read the Bible more the odds of supporting social justice increase.  This is all very interesting to me.  What is it about the term, the concept, or whatever it is that is apparently so strong and somewhat divisive?

I think that each response has its own interesting story, but a few initial thoughts: it is interesting that Christians are so strongly opposed, it is sad that there is something about the Christian community that makes the non-Christians think we have no right to 'social justice,' and although I am glad that some Christians are reassured by the findings the question should be raised about what it is they are reassured about?  We are all about having groups to which we belong and knowing who does not.  The reaction seems to show this clearly, with people seemingly saying either 'we are losing!,' 'You are not one of us!,'or 'we are winning!.' 

More interesting to me, however, is the apparent symbolic importance of this amorphous 'social justice.'  It is not, and cannot be, defined concretely in the study.  The question asks whether people need to be actively engaged with social and economic justice in order to be a good person, and so it seems that many of them may have been thinking about personally doing things - the person to person kind of social justice.  But I think I may contented that many of them may have been thinking of what has become the popular conception of social justice - government to person, and this, I think, is the main reason why at least some of the Christians oppose the findings.

For some of them they see social justice as the government forcibly stepping in and removing their possessions to give them away to someone who has less.  The 'needy' person may indeed have less, but they may just be lazy and there is no reason why my hard-earned 'stuff' should go to them just because, they think.  Additionally, it would seem that this has political connotations because clearly socialism, communism, and Marxism all support this approach to the world and none of the attempts have ended very well and most all that we know of have also been very opposed to religion.  The worry may be that people are human and humans are broken and selfish, so it may only be a matter of time before that forcibly removed money starts to be squandered, wasted, and possibly not even find its target anyways.

As far as the charge of the term 'social justice,' I think some parallels can be drawn to what Owen Chadwick talked about regarding the shifting European mind of the 19th century (I know it sounds terribly boring, but it actually is really awesome).  In many ways Europe was divided and it was one of the first times where regular people were able to be more involved with politics and ideas were flying around faster than before thanks to the new(ish) invention of newspaper.  People wanted to take sides on topics, but they didn't want ideas and beliefs, they wanted platforms and sides to join.  This is what the press provided; stronger opinions through more charged symbols attached to some platform.  So some idea would be attached to one platform, say communism, and each side then merely reacts to the presence or absence of that symbol.

Back to today.  We are clearly a politically divided country, and people want/need platforms to be a 'part of.'  I think that social justice has, through its discussion in the media and press, generally become symbolically associated with socialism and communism.  For good reason people think, thanks to the efforts of Marx and friends, the ideas of socialism couple tightly with atheism.  So because communism and socialism were anti-God and had some failed field-trials, it is a very strong political symbol for all that is bad.  Thus we get to the point now where social justice is in some ways generally linked to socialism symbolically and prompts a very strong reaction from all sides.  Some Christians oppose because they see it as the great 'other.'  Maybe some Christians support it because they have either been insulated from the symbolic coupling or have thought beyond mere symbolism.  Or maybe they are on board with that political platform and so the news is reassuring that they are on the 'correct' side.  Many non-Christians are opposed to the coupling because they do welcome the political platform but do not see Christians as a part of their club.  Somehow those crafty Christians created fake ID cards.  Or, and here is possibly the saddest option, they are opposed to the findings because social justice tries to help people and they think Christians are a failure at that and so they are offended by some research that shows Christians support it.  Clearly only in thought and not deed, they may be thinking.

Anyway you slice it, this whole week and the response to all of this has been very interesting.  It has prompted me to possibly look more into this stuff as a research topic.  We'll see.  Any thoughts are welcome, and you get a cookie for making it this far.  Like a mini-pizza size one, of your choice of course.  It is waiting for you in your kitchen right now.  If not, it must have gotten lost in the mail.  Talk to your local post office to rectify this wrong.