The Critics of “Social Justice,” from Jonah Goldberg to Jordan Peterson

“The conservative critiques of social justice are, therefore, wrong on two different fronts.”

If one were to rely solely on center-right or conservative media and public intellectuals for social commentary, one could be forgiven for thinking that the greatest threat currently facing “Western Civilization” is “social justice.” At this point, it is almost a starting point for any kind of discussion between the Left and the Right to discuss that some on the Left (the mythical “social justice warriors”) have gone too far in many cases. This, however, has not kept conservatives and libertarians from repeating the problem ad nauseam and publications on the Right are full of examples of this topic. If this were just an issue of conservatives simply repeating a similar point, I do not think it would be relevant. But more than the repetition, I think the social justice discourse perfectly highlights the intellectual poverty of a lot of the criticism of the Left that has been coming from the Right in recent years.

Browsing conservative magazines, it is easy to find various expressions of this phenomenon. The following series of examples is not intended as a specific criticism of one particular outlet, and I think doing the same with any other publication would not be difficult. However, I think that the almost obsessive attention that only one magazine can devote to one issue is telling. A recent article in National Review argues that the future is all but doomed barring “turning the tide” on social justice in higher education. In the same conservative publication, Noah Rothman, author of the 2019 book Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America, argues that—much like the title of the book suggests—social justice is not about the redressing of historical injustices but is essentially a tool used by the Left to engineer oppressive, redistributive policies. In a similar vein, Jonah Goldberg—another National Review contributor (and now a founding editor at The Dispatch)—explains in a video for PragerU that social justice is little more than a term that the Left uses to signify anything that it finds expedient to further a political agenda at any given moment. Finally, Michael Brendan Dougherty, in a significantly more thoughtful piece than the others, addresses another important trope in the conservative discourse around social justice, namely, victim mentality. Dougherty does acknowledge that the use of victimhood for political purposes is far from exclusive to the Left, and he gives several examples of conservatives using this tactic. However, he does argue that left-wing activists currently engaged in social justice discourse and identity politics have taken this to unprecedented levels. All of this is predictably (and perhaps correctly in a few cases) traced back to Marxism and other ideologies.

As if self-conscious about giving away the game, Peterson prefaces his confession with “I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to because it’s just so goddamn funny.”

It is difficult to blame conservatives for hammering the same point. As Jordan Peterson readily admitted in one of his interviews with Joe Rogan, he found a way to monetize social justice warriors. As if self-conscious about giving away the game, Peterson prefaces his confession with “I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to because it’s just so goddamn funny.” Clearly, it is not just Peterson that has profited from talking about this issue, as the examples above show. However, as I said before, I do not think that repetition on its own necessarily warrants criticism, but the poor level of analysis that produces it does. Now, it might seem unfair—and it probably is—to criticize anything that is acceptable for PragerU, an outlet that barely rises above the level of propaganda. And, after all, figures on the Right have reminded us often that we ought to “steelman” our opponents’ positions before criticizing them. In the interest of fairness, then, I am going to do just that and not use any of the previously cited pieces as examples of the most cogent conservative discourse about social justice.