When Social Justice is Social Coercion.
Holding and expressing personal opinions is fully supported by the Canadian Constitution. Lobbying politicians and public officials for legislation to impose those opinions on others is wrong.
To be, or not to be, woke.
David Rapaport is an adjunct professor at Trent University. His profile is here.
In a recent opinion essay he wrote for a local magazine, entitled “What is ‘woke’ and why is it a four-letter word?”, he characterized the use of the term by politicians and conservatives as a “slur, a dis, an insult, an affront” to anyone who advocates for the disadvantaged and less privileged.
Dr. Jordan Peterson, a former professor at University of Toronto, has lamented the capture of Canadian universities , especially in the Humanities faculties, from a place that encouraged free speech and critical thinking to become a cesspool of postmodernism that promotes Marxist ideologies under various forms on victimology with labels like “social justice”, “critical race theory” and the “transgender movement”. To be ‘woke’ is to be openly sympathetic to one or more of those causes.
A different point of view.
Below, I offer an alternative perspective to that of David Rapaport who appears to be in sync with the contemporary university culture that is unabashedly woke in its attitudes and beliefs as Dr. Peterson contends. I don’t know David personally, or if he genuinely believes his stated woke opinions about conservatives, or if he wrote his opinion piece to polish his woke reputation among his peers, colleagues and students in order to show solidarity within their cultural norms.
From my experience, few people care what others do with their time, money and efforts. Donating to charity is always praiseworthy. However …
… people do become vexed when “social justice” (aka “woke”) advocates lobby law-makers and regulators to replace voluntary acts of charity with mandatory taxes and regulations imposed on everyone.
When our freedoms of informed choice are sacrificed, democracy is undermined and the promises of the Canadian Bill of Rights are dashed.
The Canadian reputation
Politicians like Justin Trudeau have often proclaimed that Canadians are a kind, generous and caring people. If this is true, then an expensive government “middle man”, empowered by legal statutes and funded generously by taxpayers, is unnecessary to help the less fortunate. The oft-touted kindness and generosity of Canadians can be counted upon to deliver the required charitable aid from within local groups and communities voluntarily. There is one caveat, however.
Canadian generosity is only possible provided that our governments don’t tax away the ability for charitable givers to give.
Excessive taxation, enabled by legislated coercion, is a social cancer.
Excessive taxation kills the spirit of Canadians to be kind, generous and charitable to others in need. The more we tax and regulate, the more we outsource our humanity to institutions and then justify our reluctance to give because “that’s what our taxes are for”.
There is no opting out of paying taxes. We do so reluctantly and rarely bother to ask if our tax sacrifices are achieving the desired results. In effect, we absolve ourselves of the personal responsibility to care for the less fortunate after outsourcing that responsibility to the state.
If you wonder why Canadians society seems more impersonal than in the past when our positive international reputation was built, the answer lies in the majority of our citizens choosing to increasingly outsource our humanity to the state with each election.