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Tristyn Bloom
Matthew Cantirino
Anthony Esolen
Gene Fant
Greg Forster
Matthew J. Franck
Collin Garbarino
Robert P. George
William J. Haun
Leroy Huizenga
Katherine Infantine
Joseph Knippenberg
David T. Koyzis
Robert T. Miller
Matthew Milliner
David Mills
Mark Movsesian
William Mumma
Nathaniel Peters
R.R. Reno
James R. Rogers
Russell E. Saltzman
Matthew Schmitz
Kevin Staley-Joyce
David Talcott
Anna Williams
Down at the end of this post, about Connecticut’s attempt to fine Catholic protesters for not being registered as lobbyists, Jeff Milyo makes the obvious—but new to me—observation that, used as a modifier in a fused noun phrase, the word social should basically be read as meaning not:
social scientist
social justice
social security
social worker, etc.
Something to that, yes?
June 22nd, 2010 | 6:16 am
ROTFL
Reminds me of amusing lectures from John Hopkins, a Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge who used to say:
“Sociology? Take that word out of your mouth. You don’t know where it has been.”
June 22nd, 2010 | 10:19 am
As a social worker, I have some agreement, despite the slam. It is more memorable and entertaining to render “social” as equivalent to “not,” I grant. But I think there is something more subtle going on here. The word “virtual” has taken new energy from its use in our electronic entertainments, and has changed slightly in that context. Yet it retains its meanings of “as good as,” or “standing in the place of.”
We are social, networked beings who make many noises during the day whose sole purpose is to announce our location and tribe. Social justice, then, means something like virtual justice, justice that will do for social purposes. Social security gives a good enough appearance of being actual security that we can treat it as equivalent for social purposes.
One sees the problem at a glance. Social convention can allow a substitute to get further and further from reality until there is nothing but the appearance. It doesn’t have to be this way. A person might study social issues scientifically; the social context can be legitimately taken into consideration in considering justice; social worker might actually do some useful work. But there is nothing to keep the “social” version of any good thing from drifting off into complete unreality.
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:12 am
social butterfly?
June 22nd, 2010 | 11:59 am
After some thought, I think I could say it more clearly. “Social” anything runs the danger of becoming “purely social.”
June 23rd, 2010 | 7:58 am
Social contract might work. Social club, social drinker maybe not.
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