Thomas Sowell Understands the Failures of Social Justice Warriors

It's a joke

Thomas Sowell destroys social justice warriors like no other. Check out the book!

Leftists gravitate towards terms that are difficult to define because they are so abstract that they need context to make sense. As the context changes, so does the definition.

There’s another criterion as well: the terms need to be meme-like. They have to sound good and moral.

Take “social justice” for example. On its face, it sounds just dandy. Who would be against such an idea? Only a cretan, a racist, or some other form of deplorable, right?

In reality, the term doesn’t mean anything at all because its definition shifts depending on political context.

The Left counts on the fact that most people don’t stop and think about definitions when somebody comes up and asks, “Do you believe in social justice?”

If you say no, you’ll be mocked. Unless, of course, you can tell them why.

The National Association of Social Workers, a haven for Leftists, defines “social justice” as a “broad term that encompasses a range of injustices that have, in the past and currently, impacted various populations in the United States.”

A “broad term” indeed. A “range of injustices” could mean just about anything because the term “range of injustices” is left for the reader to define.

The same goes for “various populations.”

The definition goes on to focus on minorities as the victims of social injustice, with the implication that white people are, you guessed it, oppressors, and minorities are the oppressed.

It’s a shameless bastardization of the core Marxist tenet of the bourgeoisie (oppressor) vs the proletariat (oppressed).

The solution? The oppressed transformed into the oppressor. That’s what the Left means by “social justice.”

It’s an irrational power play and nothing more.

Thomas Sowell understood the dangers of social justice

Thomas Sowell To The Rescue

Thomas Sowell is an intellectual icon. He’s an ex-Marxist who left the movement because he realized it didn’t make any sense when one looked at the facts and then applied logic.

It’s amazing what a disciplined human brain can do. It can cut through the dense fog of unanchored rhetoric and bring ideas into the light of reason.

Sowell begins his latest book, Social Justice Fallacies, with an exploration of “Equal Chance Fallacies.”

He traces the idea to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau was a prototype of the “Social Justice Warrior” who existed somewhere between the Enlightenment and Romanticism.

Rousseau contended that nature endows all men equally, and any inequality in outcomes must be imposed by man.

Ibram X. Kendi, of bestselling How to Be an Antiracist fame, claims something eerily similar: “racial inequity is evidence of racist policy.”

It’s all Poppycock.

Sowell puts it this way:

At the heart of the social justice vision is the assumption that, because…disparities among human beings greatly exceed any differences in their innate capacities, these disparities are … proof of the effects of such human vices as exploitation and discrimination.

Put simply, social justice advocates are guilty of the logical fallacy “affirming the consequent.”

If A causes B, it does not necessarily mean that if B occurs, it was caused by A, because it could have been caused by something else.

If, for example, Joe is seasick, he’ll have nausea. But if Joe has nausea, he isn’t necessarily seasick. Maybe he’s got food poisoning.

At the heart of the social justice vision is a baked-in bias that inevitably leads to contradiction.

Sowell outlines progressive thinking from the early 20th century to the present. Early progressives did believe that genetics determined success.

Was this a hangover from the Democrats tolerating and even supporting slavery in the 19th century, or is racism a genetic factor in the Leftists’ worldview?

In the name of social justice, early progressives championed the eugenics movement, which was aimed at reducing or preventing the survival of the “genetically inferior.”

When that went out of vogue, progressives switched from genetic determinism to racial discrimination, and this became “the unchallengeable explanation of differences in economic and social outcomes among groups.”

Bottom line: social justice warriors are inherently racist and congenitally stupid.

Gad Saad, the popular Canadian intellectual, agrees.

Saad’s release of The Parasitic Mind is a bestseller like Solwell’s Social Justice Fallacies. Saad is 61 years old.

Sowell is 95, and he’s still at the top of his game.

“Any day that I’m next to the Great Thomas Sowell is a good day,” Saad posted on X. Saad gets it.

Social Distortion

The main problem with the Left is that they rely solely on theory. For a theory to have any value, it must correspond to reality.

The Left’s version of social justice doesn’t make the grade.

“For many social issues, the most important decision is who makes the decision,” writes Sowell.

“Both social justice advocates and their critics might agree that many consequential social decisions are best made by those who have the most relevant knowledge,” he continues.

“But they have radically different assumptions as to who in fact has the most knowledge.”

In short, the Left believes that the collective makes better decisions than individuals.

Sowell points out the case of Ibram X. Kendi, who proposed to amend the U.S. Constitution to establish a Department of Anti-racism.

The DAR would be “responsible for preclearing all local, state, and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity.”

Can you imagine? Probably not, because it’s absurd.

Sowell agrees, arguing that centralized decision-making inevitably leads to erroneous decisions and unintended consequences, including a loss of individual freedom.

Underinformed elites tend to trample over individual rights because their decisions are based not on reality but on unanchored theory.

But make no mistake, the Left need not make sense because it never sleeps.

This means you must remain vigilant.

Whether you’re looking for a refresher on how to tear down “social justice” arguments or looking to protect yourself from the collective, read Sowell’s latest.

You’ll be glad you did because you’ll be better for it.

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