10 of 51

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 2

any necessary laws and legislation) of the state, federal, or local governments. Otherwise, people expected to solve their own problems and mind their own business.

Surprisingly, de Tocqueville's observations about "free association" and its power to solve social problems found its echo in a breakthrough in moral philosophy achieved by Pope Pius XI in the 1920s and 1930s. I say "surprisingly," because many people in the Catholic Church tend to reject de Tocqueville and his work because he did not practice his religion most of his adult life, only "returning to the sacraments" on his deathbed. Thus the fact that the head of the Catholic Church would, to all appearances, rely heavily on de Tocqueville's work is a possibility that many Catholics reject out of hand, failing to realize that truth doesn't rely on how good or bad a person is or may be in the eyes of others.

In any event, there is a body of evidence suggesting that Pope Pius XI studied de Tocqueville and the United States very closely in coming up with his idea of a specially "social" ethic. This he embodied in his concepts of "social justice" and "social charity." Far from being a recommendation to have the State distribute welfare and take over every aspect of everyone's life (even though many Catholics, having a collective dumbness the same as any other group, interpret the pope's thought in just that way), social justice involves people freely organizing to correct the flaws in the social order (our institutions) so that individual justice and all the other individual branches of ethics can once again function properly to the benefit of both individuals and society as a whole.

To teach people how to behave socially and still retain their full individuality, Pope Pius XI hinted that social charity doesn't mean State welfare or organized charity, but loving your institutions as you love yourselves. Learning about the object of your love is an important aspect of love, so that one of the "acts" of social charity is to learn about social justice and how it can be used to restructure out institutions. Social justice, in turn, doesn't mean that the State makes up for all the failings of our institutions to deliver individual justice, but that ordinary people organize to correct the institution (with the help of the State only if absolutely necessary) so that the institution, not the State, once again does what it was originally intended to do and delivers justice to individuals.

A good place to start learning about how to overcome "collective dumbness" is to find a rare pamphlet written in 1948 by a Catholic priest, Rev. William J. Ferree. Some websites have the pamphlet available as a free download, so it's not impossible to find. Titled, "Introduction to Social Justice," the pamphlet was written for high school students to help them learn about real social justice, as opposed to the socialism (disguised or explicit) that so many people have mistaken for social justice.

Yes, America (and everyone else) is, by and large, collectively dumb . . . but the condition is not irremediable. Society is a human construct, and what human beings can screw up, they can also correct. We only need to get busy. As Father Ferree declared at the end of "Introduction to Social Justice," in social justice terms, nothing is impossible.

Learn more about this author, Michael Greaney.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2

Add your voice

Know something about Are we [Americans] collectively dumb as a nation??
We want to hear your view. Write now!