Psychology

Although references to social justice are too frequently politicized, and thereby too often transformed into larger and unwieldy debates involving macro-type policies and programs, the most immediate results can be achieved at the grassroots level.  This is because social justice is essentially a human problem and grassroots efforts and human interactions can produce fundamental shifts in thinking about social justice and these shifts in thinking can in turn affect behavioral patterns and expectations in a social context.  The average person, who might feel powerless at times with respect to a variety of social issues, can improve social justice one person or one group at a time in very tangible and very intimate ways.  This paper will discuss how the authors experiences working at a shelter for the homeless provided such an opportunity and how this type of hands-on approach to social justice created the context for pursuing and reinforcing the ideals associated with social justice.

Social justice, as a theoretical paradigm, is complicated by the fact that there are different features of social justice and different factors contributing to the achievement of some degree or social justice or the stubborn persistence of social injustice.  Serving dinner at the homeless shelter, for a fairly lengthy and regular period of three months, highlighted the distributive features of social justice.  The most striking observation was the simple fact of pervasive and wholesale deprivation among many different people.   This deprivation did not relate to luxury goods, but instead to the most fundamental types of needs.

There are seemingly good people, from diverse backgrounds, who lack such basic goods as housing and food.  In a society which professes to be extraordinarily wealthy and extraordinarily dedicated to principles of equality, the reality in the homeless shelter proves quite clearly that this abundant wealth is in no way distributed equally or for the benefit of the social group.  Thus, when considering the homeless shelter experience within the context of social justice, it is the painful reality of extreme abundance coupled extreme deprivation that stands out as the most immediate challenge confronting the average person wishing to contribute to social justice in the face of such extraordinary disparities.  This challenge, attempting through small efforts to close the gap between abundance and deprivation at an individual level, is a social justice challenge that has been complicated by the fact that there seems to exist a simultaneous socioeconomic principle to the effect that all individuals earn their social position in society.

The implication, one the homeless shelter experience suggests is unnecessary and cruel, is that all people to a large extant deserve their positions in society.  People are wealthy because they have earned their wealth and people suffer deprivation because they have not availed themselves of the opportunities availed to them by society.  In the academic literature, noting this type of mentality to the effect that people deserve their fate on the social scale of resources, it has been noted that Welfare egalitarianism, however, is subject to the well-known problem of expensive tastes. Suppose that resources have been successfully distributed in our community in such a way as to leave us all with equal levels of welfare HYPERLINK httpwww.questia.comPM.qstaod5000648163(Keller 530).   Either people do not earn the resources made available by society or they otherwise squander the resources that have been made available.  In either event, and both premises are dubious in a highly competitive and selfish capitalist economy, the average man can contribute positively to social justice by volunteering or helping to eliminate absolute deprivation and to function in some ways as a counselor so that people suffering from deprivation can think of ways to improve their social condition.

Social justice must be purely objective that is, the creation of principles or programs designed to promote social justice or access to social resources for one particular group of people is likely to create more social divisions rather than harmony or equality.  Three months serving dinner at a homeless shelter, to be sure, clearly demonstrates that deprivation is pervasive and that it transcends such human classifications as race, gender, age, sexual preference, and even religious orientation.

The average must not become preoccupied exclusively with the concerns of a particular group if social justice is to be pursued, such as abused children who are homeless, because this type of preoccupation will shift attention and scarce resources toward this particular group and away from other groups also suffering from deprivation and different forms of social injustice.  This may be a controversial suggestion, encouraging the average man to shift away from advocating the cause of particular groups, and yet the homeless shelter experience is persuasive evidence that the best way to make a positive contribution to social justice is not to engage in petty allocation disputes over scarce resources but instead to demand a more equal distribution of abundant resources among all members of society.  This is not meant to suggest that particular groups, say people of color or women, have not faced unique types of social injustices.  Indeed, it is quite well-established that individuals are classified and based on those classifications they face different types of social and economic discrimination.  This reality notwithstanding, dividing the deprived is in a sense conquering the deprived.  The social harmony that one sees when dinner is served at a homeless center is absolutely remarkable people are truly happy to be helped and given advice.   Elderly Caucasians engage in polite and happy conversations with people of color.

Children chat pleasantly with their seniors and openly discuss hopes for a more secure future.  It is in this type of context, where absolute deprivation meets diverse populations suffering from different types of social injustice, that  the common man can make the greatest difference.  This is because attitudes can be changed, deprivation can be alleviated temporarily as people are helped at an individual level, and the problems facing the deprived can be better understood so that public discourse can become better informed rather than dogmatic or ideological.  It wouldnt be a bad idea for all legislators, state and federal, to be required as a part of their highly paid jobs as public servants to serve as homeless shelter volunteers a couple of hours per week in their home constituencies.  The lessons to be learned, and the falsehoods about the homeless that could be disproven, would be of tremendous value.  Legislators becoming the average man could then take these experiences to the policy making arena and perhaps begin to more honestly and more equitably distribute societys abundance resources.