Social Justice: a God Higher than Truth?

What is most important to you?

Years ago, my answer to that question was God, for I was very religious. In light of my belief system, this made sense – God should be the most important thing in my life.

But what about truth – is truth less important than God? The significance of this question is that without truth, living life in service to God might be a mistake, because my belief system could be erroneous.

It made some sense, in light of my belief system, to say that I should not consider such a possibility, for on the assumption that my beliefs were correct, it would surely be better for me to focus on serving God than concern myself with blasphemous questions.

But, what if I were wrong?

There is a great quote by Gandhi: “there is no god higher than truth”. I don’t know what he meant by this, but to me it expresses very well my point. Truth should (in general) be the highest priority, for without truth, all our efforts to do good may be in vain, or even harmful.

It is reckless to devote oneself to a cause without exposing oneself to opposing arguments, and without considering the consequences of being wrong.

The advocates of social justice have, to various degrees, defined ideas outside of a narrow band as evil (e.g. racist, sexist, transphobic, etc.) and therefore unworthy of consideration. This attitude has for a long time been adopted by society at large, and the band has become narrower and narrower in this time. Only recently has the process been seriously disturbed.
They say that there are certain beliefs, attitudes and prejudices which pervade our society, leading to discrimination against and the disenfranchisement of certain groups: women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, etc. These beliefs, the actions they motivate and the resulting societal inequalities constitute systems of oppression, e.g. the patriarchy.

Therefore, saying things that reinforce these attitudes is (for example) racist. If you consider the inequalities between whites and blacks in the US, with regards to incarceration say, this is said to be a result of racism, i.e. prejudice (+the power to act on it). Suppose you want to look into the underlying causes, and discover that the greater rates of incarceration are to some extent explained by greater criminality on the part of the black population. Suppose you say so. It doesn’t matter whether this is true or not, the reaction of many social justice activists and ideologues will be to dismiss your statement as racist (since it reinforces the prejudiced attitudes which result in oppression).

But what if it’s true? What if this is an important part of the story? And how can we effectively address problems that we don’t properly understand?

It is very fashionable these days to criticise feminists and “SJWs” on the grounds that they support the wrong kind of equality, i.e. equality of outcome, rather than equality of opportunity. For instance, men and women don’t need to be equally represented in every field of human endeavour, as long as they have equal opportunity.

The response to this will be to say that outcomes would not be so unequal if there were really equal opportunities. Indeed, to say otherwise would be to claim that there are some sort of innate differences between groups that results in unequal or disproportionate representations – which is, of course, the kind of prejudiced attitude that contributes to the oppression. Thus, since discrimination must be taking place, we need to put in place programs (such as affirmative action) to correct this.

They do not want to entertain the possibility that they are wrong, for as stated, this would be sexist, racist, etc. But what if they are wrong, and what if these programs are misguided, or even actively harmful?

“But they’re not!” you protest, as you attempt to silence all who disagree with you. Well, not quite, you allow some disagreement, with a range, but you will never allow dissent about your most cherished and central beliefs, at the core of your ideology. It is deeply troubling that such an attitude, this epistemic arrogance, should be inculcated at so-called “institutions of learning”.

Even if you are right, hearing the other side can only increase your understanding. Therefore, there are benefits to offset any costs. But even more importantly, you must not lose sight of the possibility that you are wrong, or at least, missing an important part of the truth.

I have already been through the process of having my most deeply cherished beliefs challenged and ultimately revoked. The conclusion I finally came to is beside the point – even if I had remained religious I would have learnt from the challenge. But it was a humbling experience, and I am grateful for it.

I know better than to shut myself off from intellectual opposition, no matter how certain I may feel. And this should be the ethos of schools and universities also, but alas, it is evident that, all too often, social justice has been deemed a god higher than truth.