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S.M.Y Kayseri's Reviews > The Quest for Cosmic Justice
The Quest for Cosmic Justice
by
by
This book is a brilliant study discussing on social justice and its dire consequences globally. Social justice, dubbed by Sowell as really "cosmic justice" because it has the confidence and the claim to overrule the natural global landscaping. The book consists of 4 essays, which were papers on Sowell discusses the issue. I think, this book is a must-read in understanding the camp agains the movement of social justice because of the lucid, analytical and sober writing of Sowell.
Again, this book explores on the movement now more aptly called as "cosmic justice" because it seeks to mitigate not only the social inequalities but also other misfortunes which arises from the cosmos. Both of the party agree on the need for justice, but only at apparent level because they basically understand the same word for different meanings. The archetypes of the opposing camps can be expressed Hayek vs. Nagel. According to Hayek, "the particulars of a spontaneous order could not be just of unjust" i.e. any gaps or "inequalities" perceived born without any particular intention must not be labelled under the question of justice. On the other hand, Thomas Nagel while agreeing there is innate differences among individuals, found no faults in the state tinkering to equalize the opportunities between groups. Or more accurately, we can pit Hayek's view against Rawls, who said that, "undeserved inequalities call for redress in order to produce "genuine" equalities of opportunities".
While traditionally the conception of justice is based as a process, the conception of social justice is cosmic. What it means is that while prior to this the trial is considered as just even if the judge can't get enough jurors to acquit or determine as guilty the defendant, now rules and conventions can be set aside in order to protect the marginalized group. Thus, according to Sowell, this movement should be rightly called as the anti social justice group as it abandons the safety or the benefits of the whole population in favor of specific groups. One instances is that American civil system allows "discounts" to criminals after considering, say, their unhappy childhood even though their victims seldom has anything to do with their infantile trauma. Aside from that, rules and regulations are wholesalely abandoned for the sake of cosmic justice's dictum "through no fault of their own". SAT test marks, safety of truck drivers risking their lives driving through high risk neighbourhoods are abandoned to help the marginalized groups.
Some of the characteristics of the cosmic justice is as follows:
1. Rules and regulations can be set aside in favor of marginalized group even if it brings adverse effects to the population in whole. As above.
2. Claim to understand the complexities of the varying characteristics in the population, claiming omniscience to the causal relationship contributing to a specific event. The lack of fathers in black communities are claimed to be an effect or setbacks from the days of slavery. But statistic shows that the rate of marriage in black populations post Civil War is higher than in whites and this continues for tens of years only until recently.
3. Operate based on merit. Without assuming omniscience, how do we go about in rewarding merit? People who works hard and became more productive is as good as people who rewarded by merit. Why not better? Because these people who work hard also responds well prospective incentives which we can rely on in the future. And how should we rely on the people of merit, aside from claiming omniscience?
4. Confused between statistical abstraction and fate of flesh and blood human beings. One classical example would be that discrimination is rampant everywhere. But crunch enough numbers, you can get you Aha! statistics. These people attribute the low approval of mortgage among black applicants as a sign of discrimination. The discrepancy with white applicants was sbout 17% and 6% after many variables are kept constant. But again these 6% must not be equated with discrimination to the black people, because it was a black-owned bank. These people used such statistics in highly abstracted state without even bothered to look at the real facts happening. Another example would be income distributions. Most of people does not stay in the same quantile of wealth after 8 years because they have 8 years more of seniority and experience. The movement of people across income distributions is fluid yet talks were given to prioritize the statistical abstracted poorer 20% instead of the remaining 8% who are genuinely poor.
The second essay, Mirage of Equality discussed on the definition of the poor and how the current policies and rhetoric focuses on the bottom 20 which as stated above is fluid, instead of the real 3%. He also discussed on the real existence of performance inequalities instead of perceptions and stereotypes as conceived by cultural realists. Geography for instance, is not egalitarian. The people on this side of mountains can get hundreds of days of rain while none on the other side. These are real differences.
What this entails is that Scottish highlanders behave differently than lowlanders as Braudel said that mountains will always be at the fringe of civilization, and civilization is of urban and lowland innovation. These patterns persists even among them in America and other parts of the world. Similar pattern can be observed between the Gujaratis and the Tamils and other ethnic groups. These are real performance differences, not merely perceptions or stereotypes.
Ultimately, according to productivity, but under the name of equality. It would affect morale, in general and causes many other negative effects. But here, we can see again how the cosmic level of social justice insists of doing this at the expense of the larger group. Redistribution of weallth is also ultimately impossible because it is not distributed in the first place. We pay and receive pay based on the services renderedWhat it entails is that there is a third party who somehow has the capability to decide how much income a person can get as a largess from goverment. This will give a great power to the class of people we today known as politicians. It also reduces the incentives for efficiency. Aside from the paradox of the quest of equality means the ascension of a group that decides the fate of millions, these neophytes promotes inequality in other spheres. By encouraging the immigrants to keep their own culture (to a more extreme point, preventing understanding and assimilation), inequality are made more jarring. Hispanics who cannot speak English earns less than those who can, for an instance.
Sowell reasons that what lies behind the rhetoric of social justice is, ultimately envy. People of poorer groups can escape their loop of poverty by signing up to apprenticeship or tutelage, but if they were to be educated that they are oppressed and victims of bias, how can they stand on their own feet? Envy is exactly insatiable because there is no way income can be distributed equally nor we have a very falseproof measure stick to determine the worth among men.
No one disputes the equality of regard, but as soon as it evolves into equality of performance and the reordering of variables at the expense of whole population, it becomes problematic.
In the Tyranny of Visions, here he discussed on the existence of cosmic visions, and how its sweeping explanations and rhetoric reigns over the flesh and blood fact of the real world. This 50-pages essay is essentially a distillation or a prototype of his later book "A Conflict of Visions" which I had poured my thoughts in another space. His idea in this is that the visioneers are divided to two camps; the solution-ists vs the tradeoff-ists. The tradeoffists do not lay claim that the human mind is omnipotent that the world is infinitely more complex and unknownable than the mind ever can conquer. The solutionists, on the other hand, following their ancestors in "solutions" in revolution, believes in the all miracle wonders of the human mind and naturally presents with some air of moral superiority. After all they (thought to be) founded the all cure, not just some weary compromise.
The last essay, The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution, [08:16, 26/05/2020] Sidi M. Yusoff: Sowell is trying to picture the movement of social justice as a quiet effort to unwoven everything that the American Revolution has done to the people. He, I think, succeeded in focusing that the movement requires a third party to oversee and decide the outcome of the affirmative action. Thus, before we have the judges who sit with their traditional notion of justice, with the correct notion of justice...now we have "justices" who sit there with their own political ideals brought in to the judges' tables. All of the affirmative actions are done to adjust everything according to the third party's aesthetic taste. How should I call it other than aesthetic, because it is surely not ethical to entertain the few by endangering the whole, and surely it is not spiritual to adopt moral superiority with what we think and believed in? Cosmic justice is thoroughly an aesthetic taste, developed in a world of abstraction rather than flesh and blood people. Whole population must be reordered so the posh people can sleep in the night in their well guarded and expensive neighborhood.
The movement impinges on the rule of law, which requires for the citizen to know it before hand of the specific matters of that law before being convicted. But, an employer cannot avoid the charge of racial discrimination even if he treat all of his employers equally, under cosmic justice. Thus, there is no way to specify in precise general rule, known beforehand, what might be necessary to achieve the standard of cosmic justice. It is impossible.
The movement also takes issue with "advantages" of circumstances favoring a party. Thus, the Lebanese profiting in colonial West Africa are attributed to these seemingly biased circumstances and efforts are called to cull these advantages. We have yet to hear this movements shows any interest in overcoming disadvantages instead. Remember, that these advantages never yield to a zero-sum game which surely confer a real disadvantages to others in society. Most of the time the kind of advantages these people have benefited the society in general, the same goes to the Lebanese with its lower price and better understanding of its customers. But it is exactly this type of advantages are now being culled irrespectively to follow the oversweeping, cosmic definition.
In conclusion, this book is a classic to read if you're interested in Sowell. Somehow, more space are spent on rhetoric here compared to his other groups, but it's fine.
Again, this book explores on the movement now more aptly called as "cosmic justice" because it seeks to mitigate not only the social inequalities but also other misfortunes which arises from the cosmos. Both of the party agree on the need for justice, but only at apparent level because they basically understand the same word for different meanings. The archetypes of the opposing camps can be expressed Hayek vs. Nagel. According to Hayek, "the particulars of a spontaneous order could not be just of unjust" i.e. any gaps or "inequalities" perceived born without any particular intention must not be labelled under the question of justice. On the other hand, Thomas Nagel while agreeing there is innate differences among individuals, found no faults in the state tinkering to equalize the opportunities between groups. Or more accurately, we can pit Hayek's view against Rawls, who said that, "undeserved inequalities call for redress in order to produce "genuine" equalities of opportunities".
While traditionally the conception of justice is based as a process, the conception of social justice is cosmic. What it means is that while prior to this the trial is considered as just even if the judge can't get enough jurors to acquit or determine as guilty the defendant, now rules and conventions can be set aside in order to protect the marginalized group. Thus, according to Sowell, this movement should be rightly called as the anti social justice group as it abandons the safety or the benefits of the whole population in favor of specific groups. One instances is that American civil system allows "discounts" to criminals after considering, say, their unhappy childhood even though their victims seldom has anything to do with their infantile trauma. Aside from that, rules and regulations are wholesalely abandoned for the sake of cosmic justice's dictum "through no fault of their own". SAT test marks, safety of truck drivers risking their lives driving through high risk neighbourhoods are abandoned to help the marginalized groups.
Some of the characteristics of the cosmic justice is as follows:
1. Rules and regulations can be set aside in favor of marginalized group even if it brings adverse effects to the population in whole. As above.
2. Claim to understand the complexities of the varying characteristics in the population, claiming omniscience to the causal relationship contributing to a specific event. The lack of fathers in black communities are claimed to be an effect or setbacks from the days of slavery. But statistic shows that the rate of marriage in black populations post Civil War is higher than in whites and this continues for tens of years only until recently.
3. Operate based on merit. Without assuming omniscience, how do we go about in rewarding merit? People who works hard and became more productive is as good as people who rewarded by merit. Why not better? Because these people who work hard also responds well prospective incentives which we can rely on in the future. And how should we rely on the people of merit, aside from claiming omniscience?
4. Confused between statistical abstraction and fate of flesh and blood human beings. One classical example would be that discrimination is rampant everywhere. But crunch enough numbers, you can get you Aha! statistics. These people attribute the low approval of mortgage among black applicants as a sign of discrimination. The discrepancy with white applicants was sbout 17% and 6% after many variables are kept constant. But again these 6% must not be equated with discrimination to the black people, because it was a black-owned bank. These people used such statistics in highly abstracted state without even bothered to look at the real facts happening. Another example would be income distributions. Most of people does not stay in the same quantile of wealth after 8 years because they have 8 years more of seniority and experience. The movement of people across income distributions is fluid yet talks were given to prioritize the statistical abstracted poorer 20% instead of the remaining 8% who are genuinely poor.
The second essay, Mirage of Equality discussed on the definition of the poor and how the current policies and rhetoric focuses on the bottom 20 which as stated above is fluid, instead of the real 3%. He also discussed on the real existence of performance inequalities instead of perceptions and stereotypes as conceived by cultural realists. Geography for instance, is not egalitarian. The people on this side of mountains can get hundreds of days of rain while none on the other side. These are real differences.
What this entails is that Scottish highlanders behave differently than lowlanders as Braudel said that mountains will always be at the fringe of civilization, and civilization is of urban and lowland innovation. These patterns persists even among them in America and other parts of the world. Similar pattern can be observed between the Gujaratis and the Tamils and other ethnic groups. These are real performance differences, not merely perceptions or stereotypes.
Ultimately, according to productivity, but under the name of equality. It would affect morale, in general and causes many other negative effects. But here, we can see again how the cosmic level of social justice insists of doing this at the expense of the larger group. Redistribution of weallth is also ultimately impossible because it is not distributed in the first place. We pay and receive pay based on the services renderedWhat it entails is that there is a third party who somehow has the capability to decide how much income a person can get as a largess from goverment. This will give a great power to the class of people we today known as politicians. It also reduces the incentives for efficiency. Aside from the paradox of the quest of equality means the ascension of a group that decides the fate of millions, these neophytes promotes inequality in other spheres. By encouraging the immigrants to keep their own culture (to a more extreme point, preventing understanding and assimilation), inequality are made more jarring. Hispanics who cannot speak English earns less than those who can, for an instance.
Sowell reasons that what lies behind the rhetoric of social justice is, ultimately envy. People of poorer groups can escape their loop of poverty by signing up to apprenticeship or tutelage, but if they were to be educated that they are oppressed and victims of bias, how can they stand on their own feet? Envy is exactly insatiable because there is no way income can be distributed equally nor we have a very falseproof measure stick to determine the worth among men.
No one disputes the equality of regard, but as soon as it evolves into equality of performance and the reordering of variables at the expense of whole population, it becomes problematic.
In the Tyranny of Visions, here he discussed on the existence of cosmic visions, and how its sweeping explanations and rhetoric reigns over the flesh and blood fact of the real world. This 50-pages essay is essentially a distillation or a prototype of his later book "A Conflict of Visions" which I had poured my thoughts in another space. His idea in this is that the visioneers are divided to two camps; the solution-ists vs the tradeoff-ists. The tradeoffists do not lay claim that the human mind is omnipotent that the world is infinitely more complex and unknownable than the mind ever can conquer. The solutionists, on the other hand, following their ancestors in "solutions" in revolution, believes in the all miracle wonders of the human mind and naturally presents with some air of moral superiority. After all they (thought to be) founded the all cure, not just some weary compromise.
The last essay, The Quiet Repeal of the American Revolution, [08:16, 26/05/2020] Sidi M. Yusoff: Sowell is trying to picture the movement of social justice as a quiet effort to unwoven everything that the American Revolution has done to the people. He, I think, succeeded in focusing that the movement requires a third party to oversee and decide the outcome of the affirmative action. Thus, before we have the judges who sit with their traditional notion of justice, with the correct notion of justice...now we have "justices" who sit there with their own political ideals brought in to the judges' tables. All of the affirmative actions are done to adjust everything according to the third party's aesthetic taste. How should I call it other than aesthetic, because it is surely not ethical to entertain the few by endangering the whole, and surely it is not spiritual to adopt moral superiority with what we think and believed in? Cosmic justice is thoroughly an aesthetic taste, developed in a world of abstraction rather than flesh and blood people. Whole population must be reordered so the posh people can sleep in the night in their well guarded and expensive neighborhood.
The movement impinges on the rule of law, which requires for the citizen to know it before hand of the specific matters of that law before being convicted. But, an employer cannot avoid the charge of racial discrimination even if he treat all of his employers equally, under cosmic justice. Thus, there is no way to specify in precise general rule, known beforehand, what might be necessary to achieve the standard of cosmic justice. It is impossible.
The movement also takes issue with "advantages" of circumstances favoring a party. Thus, the Lebanese profiting in colonial West Africa are attributed to these seemingly biased circumstances and efforts are called to cull these advantages. We have yet to hear this movements shows any interest in overcoming disadvantages instead. Remember, that these advantages never yield to a zero-sum game which surely confer a real disadvantages to others in society. Most of the time the kind of advantages these people have benefited the society in general, the same goes to the Lebanese with its lower price and better understanding of its customers. But it is exactly this type of advantages are now being culled irrespectively to follow the oversweeping, cosmic definition.
In conclusion, this book is a classic to read if you're interested in Sowell. Somehow, more space are spent on rhetoric here compared to his other groups, but it's fine.
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