Rethinking Social Justice: Beyond the Paradox of Protest in a Culture of Contest
By Michael Karlberg
In the summer of 2000, against the backdrop of Vancouver’s beautiful north shore mountains, I was defending a doctoral dissertation that would become a book titled Beyond the Culture of Contest. In that dissertation I examined how central institutions and practices in the modern world have been organized around the principles of conflict and competition: partisan contests in the political arena, contests of advocacy in the legal arena, contests of capital accumulation in the economic arena, contests for grades and recognition in the educational arena, and even physical and mental contests in the arenas of recreation and leisure. Ironically, the doctoral “defense” I was participating in was yet another expression of this culture of contest.
My dissertation examined the questionable assumptions and justifications the modern culture of contest was based on, along with its deeply problematic social and ecological consequences. Those consequences inevitably gave rise to countless movements protesting the unjust and unsustainable nature of the prevailing order. This gave rise, in turn, to the paradox of protest in a culture of contest. This paradox arises because protest and related forms of contentious politics are also expressions of the culture of contest. And they inadvertently reinforce the underlying principles the culture of contest is organized around.
Exploring a way out of this paradox of protest would become a defining feature of the program of research I pursued over the next quarter of a century. Along the way, I benefitted from the engagement of hundreds of individuals who enriched and refined my thinking. For the past decade, a primary thought partner and collaborator on this path of learning has been Derik Smith – a professor of African American literature who had already been grappling, in his own way, with similar questions and concerns.
Our joint path of inquiry recently led us to coauthor Rethinking Social Justice: Theory and Practice in an Age of Transition. This book traces the evolution of the modern discourse on ends and means in the pursuit of social justice. Drawing insights from this discourse and the empirical body of experience associated with it, the book argues that in order to move beyond the prevailing culture of contest – and transcend the paradox of protest – we would do well to orient toward the horizon of contributive justice and center radical constructive agency as a primary means of advancing toward that horizon.
The book also argues that we are living through a transitional age in human affairs when this reorientation is not only becoming possible, it has become imperative. Humanity’s scientific, technological, and economic advances have transformed the conditions of our existence. Under these conditions, the culture of contest is becoming increasingly maladaptive. Indeed, its social and ecological consequences now represent an existential threat.
Much more can be said about these themes, but that is beyond the scope of this brief blog post. Readers are invited to turn to the book for that longer discussion – or to just turn to its summary chapter for a concise overview of our argument.
Back in the summer of 2000, when I was defending my initial argument regarding the culture of contest, the implications of that argument were not yet clear to many observers – including my doctoral supervisors. But today I live in the epicenter of the culture of contest: The United States of America. Back in 2000, few would have predicted the vulgar extremes to which the culture of contest would soon become manifest here. Even fewer would have predicted the way this would, in turn, destabilize the entire post-World War II global order.
Many people are now lamenting the loss of that global order and hoping, somehow, that we can restore it. But those who lament tend to have been the primary beneficiaries of that order. Meanwhile, much of humanity applauds the disruption of an order that served the needs of the few at the expense of the many, and at the expense of generations not yet born.
Regardless of one’s position in relation to that vanishing order, there is no going back because the earth and its multitudes cannot sustain it and will not abide it. We’ve entered a period of profound crisis in human affairs. But in this crisis lies opportunity. What is required now is for growing numbers of people to be animated by a radical social imaginary and to translate this into movements of radical constructive agency focused on building a new social order. If humanity hopes to survive and flourish, this new social order will need to embody the principle of contributive justice. In other words, it will need to be characterized by social conditions in which every individual and group can develop their latent capacity to contribute to the betterment of humanity.
Derik and I have faith in humanity’s capacity to do this. It will not be easy. And it will not happen overnight. But the longer we cling to the past, or the longer we doubt human capacity to do this, the greater will be the toll of human suffering. No species on earth has the cooperative, creative, constructive capacities we have. They’ve enabled us to peer into the depths of the cosmos and plumb the mysteries of the subatomic world. They’ve enabled us to send people to the moon and back, develop instantaneous systems of global communication, map the human genome, and invent machines capable of learning. The powers of the human spirit are up to the challenge. And all the forces of history are now bearing down on us, compelling us to learn how to release these society-building powers in every greater measure through commitments to contributive justice and radical constructive agency.