Defining Justice (part 2 in an indefinite series)

I can honestly say that after watching Obama’s address to Congress, I am inspired to finish what I began writing days after the election and have found it hard to finish since then. Ironically, my dear friend Becky, who was kind enough to lovingly challenge some of my theories from my original post, emailed me hours before the President’s address asking whether I was ever going to respond to her response. I can only hope that the following collection of thoughts serves to mirror at least a fraction of the seemingly endless ideas and concepts that are swimming in my head right now.

As I suspected, my attempt to give a (what I consider) brief account of my thoughts on politics, justice and their unholy union has sparked a good amount of debate on both sides of the argument as well as shed light on the how truly complex the idea of reconciling the two ideas can be, given the countless different viewpoints that contribute toward that goal (If you haven’t had a chance to read the comments to Part 1 of this dialogue, they are definitely worth the read). I can honestly say that I am beyond pleased at this fact. As I tried to point out a number of times throughout my little novel, I have no doubt that better minds than mine will have much to say in dispute or support (or somewhere in between the two) of my argument (my brother Matt and friend Noel being perfect examples). My hope was and is to challenge the approach to the idea of relying purely on statistics, personal experiences or hearsay. I do not think these things should be completely disregarded. Rather, I believe that they should be tempered by a consideration for that which we cannot necessarily provide empirical evidence but know in our hearts to be either true, possible or, at the very least, worth considering somewhat non-intellectually (i.e. without restricting the argument to statistics, personal experiences or hearsay). I realize the potentially (or even likely) unrealistic nature of my suggestion. If I were to read my own words, I would be tempted to justifiably ask whether I am essentially asking people to read/consider my intellectual musings while at the same time suspending their own intellect or impulses to apply an intellectual response. In a word: yes. I can appreciate the preposterous nature of this request. Perhaps I can attempt to flush out what exactly I intend with this request and hopefully help those of you willing to continue reading to see where I am going with this.

It would probably be helpful to give you some more background on myself in order to understand why these little brain dumps of mine are so disclamatory. I am (or can be) an extremely logical person. This particular character trait proved especially problematic in my last romantic relationship as, I suspect, is probably the case in many other male-female dynamics. I am not suggesting that men or women are more logical or illogical. I do believe, however, that the manner in which one’s logic is played out (e.g. linear or non-linear) can often differ between those of opposite genders. Without further opening a figurative can of worms, I will just say that I tend to pursue the resolution or answer to an argument or theory to its logical conclusion as well as consider as many possible variables (germane or otherwise) in the process. This may be due to my need to be thorough or (more likely) may be due to some undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder relating to a perfectionist complex I have had since sometime shortly after birth.

Red Bad, Blue Good?

In a word: No. Let me first address my comment about the motivations of Republican voters. For those of you who responded to that notion with arguments that you truly believe that the fiscally conservative policies of the right better serve the poor based on economic records of Reagan and other Republican administrations, I in no way intended to suggest that you are fooling yourselves or that the economic statistics you provided are inaccurate or skewed. I suspect that the majority of Christian voters who share the same beliefs do indeed act out of good intentions and not some self-serving need to keep as much of their money as they can. I also suspect that the same is true for non-Christian voters. I suppose the thinking behind me making that suggestion was directed at me (or rather the former me) who, growing up, was raised to believe that life was simple and could be easily understood by considering only a few select (and supposedly universally excepted) concepts. A few examples of these “concepts” include ideas or theories such as “Anyone can do anything they want if they put their mind to it” or “Your choices determine your destiny” or “If you work your hardest early in life, you will reap the benefits later.” Don’t be mistaken, I still believe many of these ideas/theories are (for the most part) true. What I have come to believe, however, is that I and, I suspect, many others inaccurately took those ideas/theories too far and applied them globally, without consideration of countless factors that would be impossible to consider in full, given the impossibility of knowing what could potentially (and legitimately) prove to be a valid scenario or circumstance that would render these ideas/theories general in nature versus empirical. To recap the preceding run-on sentence, what I am trying to say is that you just can’t know everything about a person’s or people’s situation(s) nor can you apply universal rules for people based on personal experience, statistical evidence or hearsay.

What I would love to do is break down each and every report (statistical or otherwise) and do an extensive follow-up study that researched potentially unexplored factors that may lead to differing conclusions or theories resulting from the original report or study. I do not have the time or resource to do this. What I do know is that for every idea or theory there is a counter argument that almost inevitably introduces a factor or factors that were not initially mentioned or considered in the original argument. More often than not, these counter arguments have an argued response and/or potentially legitimate explanation. For those of you who were in debate club, I apologize for the painfully obvious explanation or description of the concept of debate.

If you are willing to except the idea that you may not know everything (I certainly have), perhaps you would be willing to take a step further with me. Let us imagine for a moment that the world consisted of ten people only. Let us then imagine that each person was either more or less wealthy than the other nine. Now let us imagine that if the top two wealthiest people could determine whether the least wealthy person lived or died based on their generosity. Now let us imagine that the least wealthy person requires $10 to live and the second wealthiest person gives him or her $5 but the most wealthy person gives him or her nothing. The result is that the least wealthy person dies. Granted, this is an extreme and limited example. Please stay with me a bit longer so that I can fully explain the point that I am trying to make. Even though my little hypothetical scenario is simplistic in nature, it speaks to a drastically complex question when considering economic factors, statistical evidence and other unknown variables that affect the mysterious causes and effects of poverty in both the US and the rest of the world. I am sure that entire books have been written as attempts to answer or explain the cause of the disparity between the rich and the poor. I often wonder how many of the authors of such books actually bothered to venture into some of the poorer areas or the world and ask individuals about their lives and circumstances surrounding and affecting their condition. Regardless of whether they did or not, they would still be limited in their ability to speak empirically about any theories or ideas they might suggest. For every story there is another story that can challenge a premise gleaned from the first story.

Let me throw out another hypothetical situation. Let’s say there are two homeless people who beg for money on opposite corners. Let’s say one of them never gets any money from the people walking down the street and the other one gets just enough to survive. Is it fair to say that the one who got no money is better off because he or she is more motivated to improve his or her situation out of necessity? What if he or she dies despite his or her superior motivating forces? At least the other one is still alive. I know the argument gets more complicated when you are faced with questions like what if the one who does get just enough to survive decides to survive on a combination of food and drugs or decides to just do enough drugs until he or she dies. So how do we make sure that the money we give to him or her is spent on what we intend it to be? The answer is simple: we can’t. We have to hope that it will be used wisely. An alternative to giving the money to the homeless person is to actually take them somewhere and buy the food for him or her. This is practical on a micro level but becomes more and more difficult on a macro level. I would be lying if I said there has not been numerous times where I felt it to be inconvenient or impractical on a micro level. I often find myself giving someone money because I either don’t feel that I have the time to go and buy them food or I feel uncomfortable doing so. I can’t tell you what percent of the money I have given homeless people has been used for drugs and how much has been used for food. What I can tell you is that I have never missed a meal or gone hungry because I gave a homeless person money. I should also mention that I have done my share of spending money on things I wanted versus things I needed. I do not consider myself better than the homeless person just because I am in a better financial situation. It is a very real possibility that I could find myself in their shoes by no fault of my own.

I am not suggesting that statistics be completely removed from consideration when attempting to address our economic situation. This would be, without a doubt, terribly irresponsible. What I am suggesting is that we not use numbers as our sole guide for personal decision making at the expense of a consideration of what stories those numbers fail to tell.

Economic Stats: What do they mean?

Are the economic research and resulting statistical numbers indicative of improvement for the lower to middle class? If so, what do the numbers mean for the poorest of the poor? Is the trade off acceptable if it means that those who truly need the most help are the most hurt? I do not believe that I am significantly off base when I suggest that global poverty and hunger are not necessarily problems that have seen noticeable improvements in the past few decades. I am not suggesting that this reality is directly linked to which party is or has been in power. What I would like to suggest is better explained by one Jim Wallis in his 2005 book “God’s Politics” where he writes:

“In a 2004 speech to a conference of mostly faith-based development agencies in the United Kingdom, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown gave a sobering report on how the world was failing to keep the promises of the Millennium Development Goals in the crucial areas of education, health, and targeted poverty reduction. Despite the commitments made by 147 nations to cut extreme poverty in half by the year 2015, global progress was significantly behind schedule. As to the causes of the thirty thousand infant deaths that still occur each day in the poorest parts of the world, Brown pointed to our moral apathy. ‘And let us be clear: it is not that the knowledge to avoid these infant deaths does not exist; it is not that the drugs to avoid infant deaths do not exist; it is not that the expertise does not exist; it is not that the means to achieve our goals do not exist. It is that the political will does not exist. In the nineteenth century you could say that it was inadequate science, technology and knowledge that prevented us saving lives. Now, with the science, technology and knowledge available, we must face the truth that the real barrier is indifference.’”

The point I believe Wallis (through quoting Brown) is trying to make is that, despite the best and honorable intentions of the wealthiest nations to strive to address our society’s most egregious failures to survive or pursue arguably utopian goals of eliminating unimaginable atrocities, such as starvation of infants, we as a global “village” have possibly proven our indifference and/or lack of willingness to truly commit to an eradication of these types of tragedies which seem to be within our grasp or ability to bring to an end.

While this is by no means the entirety of my thoughts on this issue, I feel that if I were to make this post any longer, I would run the risk of losing even the most willing of readers due to the mere word count of the preceeding paragraphs. I fully intend to continue down this line of thought and encourage further responses and the debate that will almost surely accompany such responses. If I were to try and encapsulate the main thought that I hope to convey in this mini-thesis, I would say that it is to ask all of you, fiscal conservatives and otherwise, to consider the possibility that withholding aid to individuals and/or groups in the hopes that it will best serve them in the long run may not actually be a worthy or altruistic goal if it means that the price of such a course of action may result in denying aid to those most in need. It is just too difficult for me to ignore the extreme likelihood that there are numerous individuals and families that would never be able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” no matter how hard they tried. Are they just necessary collateral? My heart tells me no.

As before, I look forward to your thoughts and responses.