Customer Reviews

Justice and the Politics of Difference

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Young's clasic book is most often read in seminars on social criticism and/or feminist studies. This is as it should be, for Young's work brilliantly illuminates the direction debates about justice and oppressed groups must go. However, I read the book from the point of view of the work of Warnke, Habermas, and Gadamer, more along the lines of hermeneutics and ideology critique. What I found was an absolutely riviting account of how we define the groups to which we belong, how we believe those groups interact with each other, and the way that the competing demands of these groups are met and dealt with. As Warnke does, Young realigns the concept of justice along a communitarian axis rather than an individualistic axis, proposing that we look at justice in terms of communitites than individuals. Only in this way will the individuals within those communities be able to come to the table with their respective concerns. Like Habermas, she investigates the rhetoric of power that underlies old ways of discussing justice in terms of distribution, denying that justice is a finite commodity that must be rationed. And like Gadamer, Young stresses the need for an understanding of presuppositions in developing theories of history and interpretation. After all, how we define "our" group in great part determines how we define "others".

I found her turn from a rural to an urban paradigm of community to be nothing short of revolutionary. She develops an idea of community-oriented justice that revolves not around the model of self-suffient hamlets, but around the interlocking and often messy communities that exist side-by-side (though often in isolation from each other) in cities. Showing that the idea of self-sufficiency is unworkable in the curent context, Young holds out hope that these interconnected yet distinct communities will show us the way to not only survive but flourish in the postmodern world. Justice does not compete with difference; it grows out of it.

An excellent study, it should be read by any and all, though the jargon cannot help but be technical at times. I agree with the previous reviewer, a good second-year book for students of social work, religion, philosophy, education, or politics, and a great any-time book for anyone concerned with issues of justice in the world today.

Iris Young makes us think about justice not as a set of debts we owe other individuals but as a set of relations between social groups. In a just society, no group is oppressed. Her chapter "Five Faces of Oppression" is a classic. She brings new insights to debates about welfare, affirmative action, and disability. This book also offers a thought-provoking discussion of community. Young argues that we have based our idea of community on the rural life of an earlier age and that city life is where we should look for ideas about how community thrives in diversity.

Young tries to write for a general audience as well as for scholars. Sometimes, she succeeds, although the parts of the book that address particular groups and their predicaments or particular social policies are more accessible than the parts in which she critiques other theories. I would recommend this book for second-year students in college and up. It marks a turning point in social and political thought.

Ignore the silly reviews (here on Amazon) that attempt to pigeon-hole this work as somehow relevant ONLY if one believes the principles of radical feminism. Yes, Young is a feminist. But this book is about much, much more than that. It asks a question that has long needed answering: Do classical conceptions of justice (i.e. distributive justice) adequately account for the diverse experiences of differently situated actors? And if not, how are some groups and individuals marginalized by the dominant philosophical conceptions of justice which have become part of the background understanding of Western civilization? It is Young's wonderful journey seeking an answer to this question that we find in "Justice and the Politics of Difference," and the journey is worth taking with her.

It's tempting to write an essay detailing exactly how politics as a rationale for a system of justice must fail, and indeed should fail, but I don't want to waste my time or yours because this book isn't worth it. To make a long story short, Young's thesis is that in order for justice to be met in our patriarchal, racist, classist society guilt and punishment should be measured by the relative "power" of the people involved. Thus a white man should be punished more than a white woman for the same crime. Not only that, but if a white man were to murder, for example, another white man his punishment should be lighter than if he murdered a black man. Is this justice or an attempt to apply notions of group justice to what must be a system that addresses guilt or innocence on an individual basis? Young actually creates criteria to define exactly how oppressed you are so that through her system you can get what's coming to you.

Perhaps the most ironic part of her diatribe is that she uses her criteria and argues that women are historically more oppressed than blacks. This one example destroys her argument for justice based on politics. As a feminist "philosopher" she deconstructs her argument by tipping the scales to suit her needs, thus oppressing blacks still more.

I've written more than I wanted to, but there you have it in a nutshell. If you think justice is best served through politics then buy this book. If you believe, as I do, in justice as a set of principles to be applied fairly to each person as is their due, then run, don't walk, away from this book.

(Since I wrote this review I came to realize that anybody looking for a book such as this would probably not have the qualms I do regarding misplaced social justice. Nonetheless, if this book jibes with your worldview, so be it. You're welcome to it.)

If you love feminist philosophy, and you don't mind all the impractical ideas and flawed logic, then this is your book. I cannot stand these things, so I found this book to be a waste of trees.