Reading: Academics Awaken: Power, Resistance, and Being Woke
The article opened with a strong statement, "power that seeks to support itself over justice inevitably leads to oppression," which I cannot see anyone disagreeing with; however, I do not believe power could exist without corruption within human society. While recognizing the unjust systems of societies, I cannot fathom what a perfect society would look like. I don't know what our end goal would be. When I was in 6th grade, without understanding the concept of Communism, I designed a Communist society for my assignment, in which I had to design a utopia. I believed in a society in which everyone had equal access to all resources, but would only take what they need, to be a perfect one. Such a system would rely on trust, responsibility and principle to exist, as people would need to act thinking for one another and the greater whole instead of one's self. In my design, I believed that as people care for one another, one person is cared by 100 people, and would thus not feel the need to care for him or herself; however, such ideals remain impossible to achieve. People never seem to trust authorities to account for all their needs. People don't believe authoritative figures understand or care for all their circumstances, and they mostly don't. This makes the appeal of the American Dream to become so strong: people believe only they can provide for themselves. While the United States preaches individualism and the American Dream, leading to many to immigrant to the States seeking a new life to build, as the article suggests, such ideals also have the consequence of all failures being self-induced, even though the system works against immigrants and minorities. However, my roommate textbook World politics: Interests, interactions, institutions discussed how Asian societies that stress community over the individual end up using such ideals to oppress individuals or violate some basic human rights. The text cited Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia as examples of "benevolent dictators" of the 1990s. Mahathir called "the Universal Declaration of Human Rights an 'oppressing' instrument by which the United States and other countries tried to impose Western values on Asians, adding that Asians needed stability and economic growth more than civil liberties." Such values also lead to indefinite corruption. Although justice should be an ideal to strive for, the definition or practical application of the words seems muddy. A government can't account for all the needs of a country's citizens; therefore, countries end up upholding a single value such as individualism or community to address such issues.
Question: What would practical justice in a society look like?
Work Cited:
Dan Zimmerman (May 30, 2014). Jonah Goldberg Calls for Grabbing Guns. Sort Of. Retrieved from: https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/05/daniel-zimmerman/jonah-goldberg-calls-grabbing-guns-sort/
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