Wednesday 7 November 2007

Fuzzwords

“[S]ocial and environmental justice.” [1] — Now, I understand that “social justice” means some kind of socialism, but what on earth does “environmental justice” mean? It is perhaps quite pointless for me to ask; for I suppose that, if a chap is keen to sprinkle his speech with words like “justice” and “freedom”, for the mainspring sake of fostering good and warm impressions, he is bound not to care much for their meanings.
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[1] Zohra, “We Need Our Own Space”, Liberal Conspiracy (Weblog), 6th November 2007.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Qualified justice means "I propose to rob you of your property and your property rights".

Anonymous said...

Oh heck, I may as well say it now even though there are many better posts on this site: "Joy of Curmudgeonry, you are truly the most sagacious blog on the web."

Can I offer you a Dukedom?

Anonymous said...

Environmental justice means: if you abuse your environment, it will become toxic and not support your life or your childrens' lives. It is a variation of the notion that evil actions will result in the suffering of evil. This way of thinking assumes that there is some intelligence in nature or outside of nature that administers such justice.

Sky Captain said...

Wouldn't that mean that environmental justice was the fact that the actions of some can spoil everything for other people?
Of course, this is just an excuse for the standard 'Dictatorship of the Masses', with the added rider that the 'agent of the masses'(the actual dictator)feels justified and can murder the few with a clear conscience.

Oops. Did I say murder? Obviously we masses feel the need to control, and they will be controlled long before they force us to murder them.
A perfect example of the inversion of justice.

Deogolwulf said...

Quite, dearieme, usually denoting the antithesis of justice.

Recusant, is that a little mockery I detect? Not that I mind. I am probably quite deserving of it. You can indeed offer me a Dukedom. And I promise to accept.

Francis Xavier Phink: "Environmental justice means: if you abuse your environment, it will become toxic and not support your life or your childrens' lives." Ah, yes: it is bad environmental consequences given the "justice"-makeover.

Pietr: "Wouldn't that mean that environmental justice was the fact that the actions of some can spoil everything for other people?"

I suppose the phrase "bad consequences" or "lack of foresight" or even the simple word "selfishness" do not have the same blood-boiling effect as "injustices".

Akaky said...

I am not sure what environmental justice means, although I suspect that it has nothing to do with understanding the root causes of why some squirrels turn homicidal maniac and start slaughtering cats, dogs, and IRS agents with gleeful abandon before being cut down in a hail of police gunfire. All in all, I thing dearie has more or less hit the thumb with the hammer with environmental justice meaning a much looser construction of the meaning of property rights than most people would otherwise tolerate.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps, apropos your post higher up the site, "environmental justice" means the freedom, indeed the right, to "out-wet a lettuce".