As I made my way on an April morning from Harvard Square to a Tea Party Express rally on the Boston Commons, a quotation and a question wound together in my mind. The quotation is a familiar one from William F. Buckley, that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand people listed in the Boston phone directory than the two thousand who comprise the faculty at Harvard University. Buckley was not condemning intelligence or intellectual achievement. He was expressing trust in the moral intuitions and pragmatic sensibilities of ordinary Americans, and indulging in a playful bit of sacred cow tipping.Read the whole thing. It includes insights into some of the several definitions of "social justice", many of them coming from a religious perspective. Dennis Prager would agree with the sentence in boldface above.
The liberal aristocracy are apt to swoon not over intelligence -- which is found just as much in nurses, mechanics, and executives as it is in the halls of academe -- but over the appearance of intelligence, advanced degrees and faculty appointments, the trappings of an elite education. As Buckley understood, a graduate degree is all too often an elaborate exercise in the avoidance of common sense. Impressionable minds are encouraged to reject the conventions of broader society and conform to the trends and fashions of the illuminati instead, and to cultivate the superior disdain of the learned herd for the unlearned horde.
Update: Dr. Helen discusses F.A. Hayek's book Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. Quoting Hayek:
I have come to feel strongly that the greatest service I can still render to my fellow men would be that I could make the speakers and writers among them thoroughly ashamed ever again to employ the term 'social justice.'From the comments: Social Justice or a Just Society?
No comments:
Post a Comment