Tma_2_Dd208

The Idea of Social Justice Social Justice can come in many forms, but I think it is mainly a way of treating everybody fairly, and equally. The idea is to keep everybody safe from social harm, out of severe poverty, and away from being discriminated against. Everybody should have the right to be treated exactly the same, despite age, gender, race or income. It is a forever changing concept to demand your right to equal justice depending on what is going on in the world at the time. Equal is the key and most important word. It has taken many centuries for this notion to be attained in the past not everybody had equal rights. A feminist scholar, Marian Young made a good point saying social justice is not about materialistic things. This evidence is not quantative, or visual, yet she has hit on a fair point, in order to obtain equality not only do we have to help each other to help ourselves, and focus on what we as individuals can achieve, we have to look at the bigger picture, not what we can buy or afford we need to better ourselves, and the government can make that more achievable. Recognition is also extremely important, for if you are not recognised how can you ever be treated fairly' Some voices are heard, whilst others dismissed, someone rich famous and influential is more likely to heard than the common man. Nancy Frazer introduced ideas of being treated fairly, and also argues that this also has to be considered alongside redistribution. She agrees with Young on its not all about how much money you can get, or how much access to resources you can have, but its whether people are recognised to be equal, and treated with equal dignity and respect, I agree after all we are all human beings no one is better than anyone else in my eyes. The government show the way by putting down anti discrimination laws, and also by creating equal opportunity programs, by showing the rest of us that it is a good idea to follow their lead. In order to obtain social justice, certain basic needs must be offered and obtainable to all people, such as education, trade unions within the workplace, medical care, and obvious necessities such as a place to stay and food to eat. This in turn, leads to the welfare of people. This could only ever be achievable if everybody works together, although it never really be universal, as I think morality differs from culture to culture, and so is public policy. However if the government redistribute wealth it is a sure fire way to helping the people in need and assuring equal access to resources. John Rawls even suggests that redistribution throughout the welfare state would create a much fairer society, for even in the most socialist of nations there is much poverty and unequal distribution. He wants poor people to have the same rights as everybody else in order to lead a decent life. But have is this achieved' Well there are many different ways, reviewing the health services. Access the libraries and education facilities, decent childcare facilities, and education. Through redistribution of taxes it would be possible that everybody has equal access to them. Another way it can be achieved is if the wealthier people give to charities and the poor. It is a good thing to be focusing on towards a better future for future generations. The government have worked hard and set up schemes to make it easier and more appeasing to work. Looking at the evidence in the Social Justice book page 69, of a statement from a government leader Tony Blair on the “welfare to work” initiative it shows visual evidence of him talking, but behind him in bold letters it says opportunity, responsibility, and modern welfare, and I personally agree with the extract 3.1 It is focused on the lone parents, disabled and unemployed and ethic minorities work is the best and fastest route out of poverty, and is the most reliable way to achieve economic independence, he also says by contrast not working is demoralising, loss of motivation and worsening well being for the individual. This to me is evidence that the government have taken notice of the increase of people not wanting to work, and giving them the incentive to go back to paid work, after all not working does make you lazy, and teaches your siblings and children to live easy free and of the state, which in turn will lead to economic crisis. In order to assess evidence of injustice, we have to look at what type of evidence it is, the reliability of it, and the influence of it. This is what I feel is to be some good points I have noticed reading the evidence given in the social justice book, and watching the dvd1 surveillance. Historical Evidence If you look at what ‘Lister’ said on page 39, he gives qualitive evidence of poverty, by going to live in and amongst the poor people, and examines their way of life and habits. The only problem being with this kind of evidence is that he could have over dramatised it. It is a very good way of understanding how the people suffered, however sometimes historical evidence can not be very reliable if it is from distant memory. Contempary Evidence This can be a very rich and vivid type of evidence of what it felt like for the person involved living out the actual injustice, and therefore is very important for them to be heard, however it cannot be generalised as it is one persons account of what happened to them, it gives you an idea of how the person feels. Statistical or Quantative Evidence This evidence is all to do with tables, charts, graphs numbers and data. It is the most reliable type of evidence and is used and trusted a lot from politicians. As it is information gathered from a lot of different accounts, through interviews or surveys, however this is expensive and is not a personal account overall. On looking at the graph on page 37 to do with comparing income equality I can see the figures are very reliable, taken from a mass of people over a long period of time, but they have not examined the wealth along side it, only the income therefore it is not a fair way to see how the poorer person is at hardship. Occupational Evidence This evidence is to do with the work force, and can really only be trusted if there is quantative evidence to back it up. Visual Evidence Surveillance is a good form of evidence as you can see exactly what is going on with your own eyes (i.e. CCTV). However the other type of visual evidence is photos, which is not so trusting as you can only see what the photographer wants you to see and can mislead you by editing pictures or cutting parts out, making sure the reaction they want you to have. In the dvd1 surveillance under gated communities, l was very aware that if you didn’t have much money you could not live in a gated community, therefore people became excluded from a society that can cause tensions between the people in them and the people excluded from them, creating an inequality in the society. Journalistic Evidence This evidence is through newspapers and news, some of the evidence may be true such as market monitoring research, interviews or quotes, however it is a very persuasive way for you as the reader to see things their way and they may only be interested in a good bit of gossip. The best way to achieve social justice is by bringing all different types of evidence together, and analyzing it. It’s the only way to get the whole picture. I have learnt that in order for an injustice to be resolved, firstly they have to be heard as an individual, then there is ways of making it public, so that the problem becomes aware to everyone else, by gathering in communities to address particular vulnerabilities, it creates the potential to be heard, this can be through the media or through unions or through petitions, once there is evidence of a problem the government have to take notice, if it is deemed morally wrong to a society as a whole, then actions can be made to make the injustice changeable, and laws get put into place to make sure it doesn’t happen anymore, thus giving the idea that injustice is forever changing over time. As l mentioned earlier a lot of injustice is due to lack of communication respect, and recognition. These three things are valuable as without them we can be placed into situations where our welfare is at harm. A whole society can be affected if there is no right too walk down the street whether you are gay, or disabled, or old, nobody deserves to suffer abuse and harm, just because of how they are, or how they live, or what religion they are. There has to be moral law. Nobody should be discriminated in this day and age yet they still are, but with the idea to bring about change, it will produce rights and entitlements for all walks of life, and also lead to overthrowing oppressive governments. True social justice is only found when everybody can work together, be non judgemental, and accept the current norm’s of morality as the price of being included into the community. WORD COUNT: 1,599 REFERENCE THE OPEN UNIVERSITY 2008,DVD1 CHAPTER 4 SOCIAL JUSTICE, Welfare, crime and society.UK...as follows Frazer 1995a 1995b, page 17 Gino coeffient graph (Source UNDP 2006 ) TABLE 15,P 37 Lister, page 39 Rawles 1971, page 16 Tony Blair (DCLG 2007) page 62 Reflection I enjoyed doing the essay although l found it quite challenging trying to understand what was needed of me, then to try and get it all into 1600 words .l have defiantly developed my reading skills through out this tma, as there was quite a lot of the book to read, l could benefit from learning how to reference better how to make the question more understandable and how to draw from other books and evidence from wider sources.