Saturday, January 15

Socially consciousness, social responsibility, social justice

Inaugural Protesters Take On War, Other Issues: "The war in Iraq transformed Nancy Mancias from a socially conscious artist into a social activist...."

In the American political context "socially conscious" connotes left-wing "liberal", but literally speaking, right-wing evangelicals are also "socially conscious" in the sense of conscious of society. Otherwise, why would they be so upset about issues like abortion, gay marriage, and inserting religion into daily life? Surely that shows a concern for society, too, but somehow like the words liberal and progressive, the left has appropriated "socially conscious". Instead of much about social consciousness, on the web I found a bunch of stuff about "being socially responsible", which generally indicated to corporate responsibility.
From ExxonMobil in the UK:
Being socially responsible means operating safely and with due care for the environment.
From a Times study of Cadbury Schweppes:
For a company, being socially responsible means using its resources and its influence to shape the lives of fellow citizens for the better.
From Corporate social responsibility in Greek Shipping:
It is worth stressing that being socially responsible means not only complying with relevant legislation, but also going beyond compliance and investing more than required into human capital and the relations with stakeholders.
From the government of Singapore, something a little different:
An individual who is socially responsible strives to be self-reliant and not be dependent on society. Such an individual also plays an active role in helping others in society who need assistance.

Being socially responsible means putting nation before self, while taking care of one's personal and family welfare. To instill in every Singaporean the values and moral fibre that will make him a good citizen takes a long time, if not a lifetime.
From Competition, Cooperation & Co-creation, on a meditation website:
Being "socially responsible" means moving from competition to cooperation in our thoughts and actions. This shift in consciousness is usually the result of a new awareness of one's relationship with the earth: the first evidence of applied systems thinking at a personal level....Competition as we understand it, must eventually give way to cooperation. Margaret Mead's cross-cultural studies led her to conclude that cooperation is more effective than competition at maximizing production.
Like I'm going to take Margaret Mead as an authority on development.

From I Count -- I Count You! EQ and the New Workplace
Socially responsible people have a social consciousness and a basic concern for others, which is manifested by being able to take on community-oriented responsibilities. This component relates to the ability to do things for and with others, accepting others, acting in accordance with one's conscience, and upholding social rules.
That's pretty vague.

From Change After the Radical Right’s Presidential Victory Can Come From the Republican Party, by someone who claims to be a conservative, swing voting Democrat who agrees with many of the Republican Party’s issues on some social and mostly all economic issues:
Americans must combat radicalism and fight for liberty, equality, and social justice within both political parties. We cannot leave the Republican Party out of being involved in these social movements or it will continue to be homogenous and relatively unaffected by diversity.

If more socially responsible people join the Republican Party, not only can they redirect the attitudes of the radical wing of the GOP they can also prevent ignorant and socially irresponsible people like President George W. Bush from becoming president.
And what's the opposite of "socially responsible"? Bush is described as "supremely socially irresponsible". Which led me to Socially Irresponsible Investing
The premise of SRI [socially responsible investing] is that investing for profit is socially irresponsible by its very nature. It is just assumed that capitalists are hell-bent on destroying the planet and robbing everyone in sight in order to satisfy their own greed. No further explanation is necessary.

SRI boosters seem not to have noticed that the most successful market-based economy in the world (the U.S.) has the cleanest air and water, the longest life expectancy, and incredible prosperity. Obesity is rampant while hunger is unheard of. Though pilloried by leftists as a racist, exploitive society, in any American city minorities can be seen driving European luxury cars. Entrepreneurial telecom firms have equipped many of these exploited peoples with the latest in cell phone technology, apparently at affordable prices....

According to Doug Henwood, editor of Left Business Observer and a well-known socialist critic of the stock market, there is simply no way to invest responsibly. If you want to earn stock-market-like returns, you must buy a regular mutual fund and "realize that what you're doing is unethical." Social responsibly, he warns, is an exercise in futility in a capitalist system.
And in Virtues of vice:
REGRETTABLE though it may be, the wages of sin can be well worth having. Vice Fund, a mutual fund started 14 months ago by Mutuals.com, a Dallas investment company, is profiting nicely from what some would consider the wickedest corners of the legitimate economy: alcohol, arms, gambling and tobacco. So far this year, Vice Fund has returned 17.2% to investors, beating both the S&P 500 (15.2%) and the Dow Jones industrial average (13.2%) by a few points.
Then I did a search for "'social justice' and socially responsible" and came up with all of this. Indeed, as Samurai Appliance Repair Man says, it looks as if "social justice" is using
government force to steal the fruits of your labor (usually money via taxation) that you've honestly earned through your own work and creativity and give it to bureaucrats and other leeches who did nothing to earn it.
For the leftist, "justice" or "fairness" means economic inequality is unfair, and to say otherwise makes no sense to them. But on the other hand, does that mean everyone should receive the same rewards, no matter what the quality of their work is? Should an unskilled floor-sweeper earn the same as someone who risks his life in the course of his work? Should a ditch-digger earn the same as a surgeon? Should an incompetent surgeon (or ditch-digger) earn the same as their competent counterpart? Is that fair? To get back to Ms. Mancias
"There is one cause, and the one cause is we oppose the Bush administration's agenda, and under that umbrella are many, many issues," said Mancias, who cited the president's policies regarding abortion, the environment and fair trade as other concerns.

Even though I'm opposed to the right-wing positions on abortion, gay marriage, and the role of religion in daily life, those are certainly "issues" that demonstrate a social consciousness, social responsibility, and even a concern with social justice.

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