Yesterday we
closed with a brief quote from Father William Ferree’s pamphlet, Introduction
to Social Justice to the effect that problems that seem insoluble when
approached from an individualistic or collectivistic perspective can become
resolved very easily after shifting to a socially just approach. And since we also said that we would expand
on that today, we can’t do better than extract the entire relevant passage from
Father Ferree’s pamphlet:
Third
Characteristic: Nothing is Impossible
 |
| Father William J. Ferree, S.M., PH.D. |
Another
characteristic of Social Justice, which was already pointed out in Chapter Two,
is that in Social Justice there is never
any such thing as helplessness. No problem is ever too big or too complex,
no field is ever too vast, for the methods of this Social Justice. Problems
that were agonizing in the past and were simply dodged, even by serious and
virtuous people, can now be solved with ease by any school child. Lest this
statement seem too extreme, let us take an actual example of such an insoluble
problem of the past.
A
Common Problem
The following
problem was proposed on a national radio hookup:
I know many businessmen, lawyers, physicians, who
lament the trend to the unethical in the special worlds in which they operate.
They tell me that the tide is running against them, that too many of their
rivals have reduced business ethics and professional ethics to three
principles: 1. Everybody is doing it; 2. If you don’t do it, someone else will;
and 3. You can’t do business nowadays with old-fashioned principles. Especially
in the metropolitan cities, they say, the degeneration is obvious. They blame
this set of persons and that, but they all seem to agree that decline, if not
actual decay, is upon us.
“It’s easy
enough,” they add, “for you preachers to tell us to stand firm, to hew to the
line, and all that. But we have families to support, homes to maintain, food
and clothing to buy . . . . We must do what the others do or be sunk. The crowd
is running all one way; we cannot forever buck the stream!”
 |
| A certain "radio preacher." |
This is a sincere
and straightforward statement of a problem as common as any to be met at the
present time. In fact, it is an understatement: to complete the picture we
should add that the laws of our secularized society are usually in favor of the
crowd which is running all one way! It is not too hard to see that this is
identically the same problem which Pope Pius XI presented in a passage which we
have quoted several times: “It happens all too frequently, under the salary
system, that the individual employer is helpless to insure justice.”
The radio
preacher happened to be a rather pronounced individualist, and the best answer he could
give to his own problem was the following: “Right is right if nobody does it.
Wrong is wrong if everybody does it. What the businessman needs, and what the
professional man needs is a new declaration of independence.”
No
Solution
Notice that the
first part of this answer dodges the question. The businessman had said in
effect, that he as an individual was helpless to insure justice. He knew the
system was wrong, but he did not know how to buck it. The only information
contained in the answer was that there is
such a thing as right and wrong. If the businessman had not known that perfectly well before he stated his problem, he certainly would not have called
his system wrong!
 |
| "We must do as others do, or . . ." |
The second part
of the reply is more to the point; but that “new declaration of independence”
which sounds so nice in a speech, is precisely
what the businessman meant by the last three words of his complaint: “We must
do what the others do or be sunk.”
This certainly is not much help!
It is difficult
to see what other answers could have been given from an individualistic point
of view. The speaker could of course have told the businessman to “use his own
judgment,” or to “do the best he can,” but this once more is not much help; and
the businessman is looking for help. The only other solution would be to tell
the businessman that since he has to make
a living, and has to pay his debts
and meet his other obligations, he should go ahead with his business, since its
injustice is something which he cannot help, and which is only indirectly
willed. This may indeed offer the businessman a chance to save his individual
soul while precariously balancing on a “good intention” in the midst of evil,
but it certainly does nothing to remedy the evil.
The
Right Answer
 |
| Pope Pius XI |
No other answer,
except a frank admission that the problem is insoluble, could be given from an individualistic point of view. The
answer which Pope Pius XI gave to his own statement of the same problem was not
individualistic at all — it was social;
namely, that the employer who found himself thus helpless to insure justice had a duty to organize, among the employers,
institutions which would make the practice of justice possible. How this
organization would be carried out we have seen in the simple example of social
action above (the unjust community).
Once more notice
how directly and clearly the Pope solved that problem which was absolutely insoluble to the radio
speaker who had an individualistic philosophy. That is why individuals, at
least from now on, will not be very bright. Not only that, but they will be
downright wrong — failing against Social Justice.
#30#
