INGENERAL USAGE, “social justice” is the struggle for fairness in society. It involves subjective judgments and debate about how that can be advanced. By contrast, “Social Justice” (upper case “S”, upper case “J”) is often equated with Critical Social Justice (CSJ) — a theory which brooks no criticism.
Taking some of its cues from Marxist thinking, CSJ holds that society is split into groups based on power/privilege/oppression. These groups are usually based on immutable characteristics such as sex, skin colour and disability. It follows from this that inequality is embedded in the very structure of society, a malignancy we must all fight to expunge.
CSJ takes as self-evident assertions that are highly contestable: for example, are the immutable characteristics that CSJ focuses on the right ones to understand the dynamics of society? Is CSJ’s power/privilege/oppression split in society too simplistic? How are individuals assigned to “advantaged” groups to be treated if they are the victim of personal misfortune? More fundamentally, should people not be valued (and judged) as individuals in their own right, rather than perceived through the prism of a sweeping group categorisation?
CSJ states that
