Social We Abuse

Via Arts & Letters Daily an essay penned by Roger Kerr entitled “The ‘We’ Word: And the Tyranny of the Majority." From Kerr’s piece,

"In modern speech, Hayek writes, the adjective ‘social’ is applied indiscriminately to a huge number of nouns in a way that undermines their original meanings and recruits them into a collectivist cause. Take the idea of justice. Let’s say that this means the fair and impartial application of legal, moral and perhaps customary rules. But precede it with the word ‘social’ and everything changes. Social justice may require redistributing property and treating people unequally. In this way the word ‘social’ empties the nouns it is applied to of their meaning."

The only “we” should be; we are each and every one of us sovereign individuals.  If, individually, each of us would respect the fact, of our individual sovereignty, and every other individual’s sovereignty, the word “we” would not be misapplied.

Posted by on 12/29 at 05:57 AM

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