Can you be a social worker who opposes the very concept of "social justice"?

[MeatMachine]

Hello everyone. I am currently at a pretty complicated crossroads in my life. I'll try to keep this as short as I can, but I feel like I cannot easily summarize most of the conflating problems about this.

Simply put, I am majoring in Social Work to become a social worker. I want to use higher education to make impactful differences to help unfortunate people improve the quality of their lives, with a primary focus for helping address issues of homelessness (though I am certainly considering the numerous other options). However, I've been struggling internally with a lot of concepts that are being taught, and after doing quite a bit of personal research on my own, I find myself completely turned off by several core components of social work - primarily, the fundamental adherence social workers must have to the Social Work Code of Ethics and its governing principles. After having witnessed the potential ugliness and tyranny of progressivism within my personal life via Gamergate, I've noticed that a lot of social work principles that are being taught are enshrined not only as indisputable truth, but warranting absolute just cause... in short, I feel like the process in becoming a social work major is, first and foremost, indoctrination into the unchallanged political philosophy of postmodernist progressivism.

I've considered that this may simply be the political bias of the college that I am attending (and it's certainly no secret to anyone that today's academia has been completely usurped by progressivism), but simply reading the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics prominantly and repeatedly states "social justice" as a core ethical principle.[footnote]Value: Social Justice

Ethical Principle: Social workers challenge social injustice.
Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers? social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice. These activities seek to promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers strive to ensure access to needed information, services, and resources; equality of opportunity; and meaningful participation in decision making for all people.
http://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp[/footnote]

The problem I have with this is that, after critically researching "social justice" on my own, I find that social justice, as a concept, is inherently unjust. To keep from rambling on about the details as to why, I'll simply share the Wikipedia page for the criticism of social justice ideology [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice#Criticism] and a short YouTube video I found and edited that I felt adequately summed up the core problem of social justice [http://www.tubechop.com/watch/6869390].

So, what does everyone think? I really do sincerely have the passion and drive to want to systemically help people who are suffering in unfavorable circumstances, but I wholly disagree with several of the fundamental basis's that form the social work profession. What the hell do I do?

 

[Zontar]

To be honest, I wouldn't trust a social worker for a moment if they actually did hold modern social justice as their core values, though then again I doubt someone who does hold those values could last particularly long in the field.

Just bear through it. I'm currently going though social science as an openly Conservative Harper supporter, I get through it by doing what I can to keep myself cool-headed and rational in my arguments. Thank god most of my work is how well you argue and reason it and not the argument itself, or I'd probably have failed half my courses. An anthropology teacher of mine really didn't take well to my being a reservist and having an open disdain for moral relativism, but I still managed.

Something I've found is that the 'closet tory' holds true, there are a lot more people in higher education who are conservative, libertarian or classical liberals then would first appear, and that a lot of them are simply quiet due to the fact that there is a fear of wrongthink in universities of all places.

 

[MeatMachine]

To be honest, I wouldn't trust a social worker for a moment if they actually did hold modern social justice as their core values

So in order to succeed as a social worker, you have to be a hypocrit and a liar?

...though then again I doubt someone who does hold those values could last particularly long in the field.

...a hypocrit and a liar who must also work directly against the systematic principles of social work conduct, while maintaining their secrecy of being a hypocrit and liar who works against the systematic principles of social work conduct?

Something I've found is that the 'closet tory' holds true, there are a lot more people in higher education who are conservative, libertarian or classical liberals then would first appear, and that a lot of them are simply quiet due to the fact that there is a fear of wrongthink in universities of all places.

Let me say that I deeply appreciate your honesty and insight, but what you are saying is significantly more troubling than what I was initially worrying about. I know academia is starting to spiral more and more into Orwell's nightmare, but are you suggesting that it's just as bad after you graduate?

Jesus Christ, I just want to earn a fairly lucrative job in a helping profession without the fear of Marxist McCarthyists black-bagging me over the suggestion that poverty is not caused by oppression...

 

[Zontar]

To be honest, I wouldn't trust a social worker for a moment if they actually did hold modern social justice as their core values

So in order to succeed as a social worker, you have to be a hypocrit and a liar?

...though then again I doubt someone who does hold those values could last particularly long in the field.

...a hypocrit and a liar who must also work directly against the systematic principles of social work conduct, while maintaining their secrecy of being a hypocrit and liar who works against the systematic principles of social work conduct?

I do feel it should be pointed out that social justice is a concept which has changed radically over the years, to the point where I don't think the Social Worker Code of Ethics can really be said to still have it be applied as a concept that is a core part of its values in deed, even if it is in name. Social justice used to be a far right leaning belief, and depending on the usage could be argued to have remained so until as recently as the 1980s before undergoing a left shift until now where it has become a far left one.

At the end of the day Social Justice is whatever people who adhere to it say it is, and it just happens to be used by the more authoritarian leaning left. Conservatives, in theory, could take the title for ourselves tomorrow if we wanted to.

Something I've found is that the 'closet tory' holds true, there are a lot more people in higher education who are conservative, libertarian or classical liberals then would first appear, and that a lot of them are simply quiet due to the fact that there is a fear of wrongthink in universities of all places.

Let me say that I deeply appreciate your honesty and insight, but what you are saying is significantly more troubling than what I was initially worrying about. I know academia is starting to spiral more and more into Orwell's nightmare, but are you suggesting that it's just as bad after you graduate?

Jesus Christ, I just want to earn a fairly lucrative job in a helping profession without the fear of Marxist McCarthyists black-bagging me over the suggestion that poverty is not caused by oppression...

Oh no, it isn't ANYWHERE near as bad after you graduate. No one cares about your politics or ideology after you leave university since everyone is more interested in getting work done right and on time. If anything the real world is more in line with what universities should be like. I know I've had some of the most well thought out and thought provoking discussions about my province's politics at the lunch room of the factory I work at during the summer then I ever did in my collage.

 

[Des-Esseintes]

Alright mate, I think you're gonna have to be more specific about what these social justice issues you're having trouble with actually are and how this pertains to the job you'll be doing. Otherwise I can only give the most theoretical advice.

My mum works in the field, most of her work is simply trying to parse government requirements and trying to get people who can't look after themselves care that won't destroy their family's finances or get people on her back about budget constraints - and then inevitably having to work out another solution when the government lowers the budget some more. If your issue runs more along the lines of 'I don't agree that white privilege is a thing' then you're probably not gonna run into any problems. Your job will mostly be 'how the fuck do we advertise this needle exchange to the homeless when government ordinance only allows us to run in these areas where they've also been cracking down on vagrancy and pan-handling?'

 

[DrownedAmmet]

I think you are making too big a deal out of this, like Zontar said the real world usually doesn't give a shit about your political beliefs as long as you get your fuckin job done.

But also, I don't see how you could have a problem with that code of ethics. If you take away the words "social justice" it pretty much just says don't discriminate, it shouldn't have anything to do with politics

 

[CrystalShadow]

... This seems an awfully twisted set of questions.

First off, what does 'social justice' even mean? Both in terms of what you are being critical of, and what you claim is being expected of you?

It's one of those terms that is so vague and indistinct it really has no meaning whatsoever anyway without clarification.

Being 'for' or 'against' something that badly defined really seems like an utter waste of time.

The point of a social worker's existence is to help people who struggle with various things.
Within that you find tension between government rules, budgets, and indeed, some ideological influences.

But at it's heart, it's about trying to help people whose lives aren't going very well for some reason.
Often, that is a difficult, thankless task, both because of the nature of many of the people that need help, and the way the bureaucracy involved makes it really complicated to actually do what people need sometimes.

The ideology is just some people with too much time on their hands worrying about abstract ideas, and trying to claim that their set of arbitrary assumptions about how things work is more important than someone else's.

Politics and this whole left-right BS is a waste of time, more often than not, given the idiots that claim these titles, or try and force them on others.

Or kneejerk reactions based on one word the people complaining about it often don't even understand. ('Socialism' is a good one if you want a kneejerk brain-damaged reaction from a lot of Americans. Not so effective at causing dumb reactions anywhere else in the world. XD)

At the end of the day ask yourself why you're trying to be a social worker in the first place.
Because while it is a field dominated by ideological goals. (who defines what kind of people need help and what don't? As a random example), it doesn't depend on any one ideology.

The only fundamental requirement of it in the end is the desire to help people.
It is inferred from this requirement that there are people who need help of some kind,
and also sort of vaguely implied (but not very strongly) that not all people are equal, (and that something should be done to redress the imbalance a little - You might question this implication, but think about it? If it weren't true, why bother even trying to help anyone with anything in the way social workers do?)

Take from that what you will.
But I don't think it's really all that helpful to dwell on academic nonsense ideas about this kind of thing, regardless of what they are.

Plenty of idiotic ideas around no matter what political or ideological path you follow. Just because you dislike one stupid idea and are fond of another, doesn't make you a better (or worse) person.
Just means you've gone with whatever seems right to you.

When it comes to the subject of societies (and related things, like economics) objectively true and correct answers are few and far between.
Be wary of anyone that claims they know what the 'right' answer is, no matter what they claim.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

The problem, of course, being the very definition of "social justice" - or to be more clear, how this definition has been hijacked by progressives.

 

[Zhukov]

Yes. Yes you can.

If you do your job properly and don't be a dick nobody will give a damn what your ideals are.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Put yourself into hypothetical situations in which your ideals might conflict with your work, and go from there. You gotta figure out if your ideals have any real impact on how you'd perform your work.

As for social justice, the most important thing it entails is the importance of context, regardless of the semantics that get argued in the critiques you list (and seriously, Wikipedia gives freakin' Machiavelli and Hayek of all people?!) as those seem mostly relegated to meta-ethics. I don't see how you could have a problem with that social work code of ethics, all it really says is "take the real implications of context into account". Of course oppression isn't the sole cause of poverty, but denying that the hierarchical relations of power in our society have a real impact on people's lives is denying what we actually encounter in real life.

So you have to ask yourself; would you, in your work, deny such things as the 'glass ceiling' and the impact it'd have on a certain client you're trying to help? So in short, you should figure out what your ideals really boil down to in real life. Outside of the semantics, outside of the meta-ethics.

And on a sidenote, the Gamergate fustercluck has absolutely nothing to do with how social justice is talked about in academia. If anything, we groan at how that madness got handled.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Interestingly, I had a family member who went through a very similar crisis of conscious.

She was raised very wealthy and privileged and was about as liberal/progressive as they come. She went to work as a Nurse in a pretty poor area in a major city, largely hoping to help the poor, disenfranchised, etc.

What she found was that things aren't nearly as black and white as she thought they would be. In other words, not everyone who she had to help was poor or in dire straights due to institutional racism, or predatory capitalism, or wealth inequality, or (insert social justice 101 buzzphrase); a lot of the people were in these bad situations because they were really, really stupid and/or really awful people.

The simple fact is that it's very rare if you work in any sort of public service job that literally everyone you assist is going to be a "feel good" type of case. You simply have to take the good with the bad. If you work with the homeless, yes you're going to get the cases of the guy with the heart of gold who lost his job and is just down on his luck but is really motivated to rectify his situation. But you're also going to have to deal with the guy who has zero interest in getting a job, and is perfectly content to spin BS stories about how he and his (fake) kid are on street so he can get enough change to buy a pint of cheap vodka.

That being said, there are other ways to help people besides being a Social Worker. You could work a regular 9 to 5 job that will likely pay better than social worker and contribute your time and money to an organization that fights against homelessness in ways you might find better or more effective.

Anyway, don't know if this helps but it's definitely something you need to think about, but if I were you I'd lean away from social work unless you are REALLY dedicated. You generally need a Master's Degree to be a social worker, and a Master's of Social Work consistently ranks as one of the worst Master's Degrees you can get (both in terms of job opportunities and compensation). So you're looking at a lot of debt (and time and work) to do something you don't seem that dedicated to.

 

[Dalsyne]

I used to follow someone on Twitter who was a social worker. He was also gay and very anti-social-justice. Quite the interesting fellow. So yes. Keep a level head and you won't lose your beliefs.

 

[Des-Esseintes]

What she found was that things aren't nearly as black and white as she thought they would be. In other words, not everyone who she had to help was poor or in dire straights due to institutional racism, or predatory capitalism, or wealth inequality, or (insert social justice 101 buzzphrase); a lot of the people were in these bad situations because they were really, really stupid and/or really awful people.

Sure is complicated, it leads to all sorts of unanswerable questions? Does institutional racism which makes people much more likely to live in a poorer, segregated, area, which also leads to people having less access to a good education, lead people to become really stupid and a lot harder to help? How much is that a learned behaviour and how much is innate? Is it even worth thinking about seeing as being a dickhead is a universal thing? Do people deserve to live decently regardless of whether they're 'working hard' or not? If these people have kids then, fuck me, how do we help stop the cycle if having awfully dumb-dumb parents means they only have access to the worst possible education?

It's a real shit show to be dealing with.

I Being down in the dirt of this sounds like the roughest job - you have to deal with the usual douchebags you'd face in any face-to-face job turned up to ten, plus an added bonus of seeing humanity scarring events on the regular.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

If you want to help people, then help people. Being beholden to any particular set of ideals will only hinder you. Do what you think is right.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

What she found was that things aren't nearly as black and white as she thought they would be. In other words, not everyone who she had to help was poor or in dire straights due to institutional racism, or predatory capitalism, or wealth inequality, or (insert social justice 101 buzzphrase); a lot of the people were in these bad situations because they were really, really stupid and/or really awful people.

Sure is complicated, it leads to all sorts of unanswerable questions? Does institutional racism which makes people much more likely to live in a poorer, segregated, area, which also leads to people having less access to a good education, lead people to become really stupid and a lot harder to help? How much is that a learned behaviour and how much is innate?

Her words, not mine, but by 'stupid' here, I don't mean uneducated, I mean making terrible life decisions. You don't need a PhD to know that if you have 3 kids from 3 different guys, none of whom provide any financial support, then having a 4th kid from another guy is not the best idea. Hell, a 6 year old can figure that one out, but she had to deal with stuff like this constantly.

 

[MeatMachine]

As for social justice, the most important thing it entails is the importance of context, regardless of the semantics that get argued in the critiques you list (and seriously, Wikipedia gives freakin' Machiavelli and Hayek of all people?!) as those seem mostly relegated to meta-ethics.

Yes, I'll admit that the Wikipedia article's choices of critics is largely irrelevant, particularly Machiavelli (I could stop there) mentioning that social justice is simply a copout justification for maintaining the status quo (which, in most instances I'm seeing now, seems to be quite the opposite).

I don't see how you could have a problem with that social work code of ethics, all it really says is "take the real implications of context into account". Of course oppression isn't the sole cause of poverty, but denying that the hierarchical relations of power in our society have a real impact on people's lives is denying what we actually encounter in real life.

Perhaps I'm focusing too much on stringent definitions and the strict, absolutist adherence to such definitions; maybe that kind of obsession is deceiving me, and causing me to simply forget the point to much of this. Admittedly, most of the social work classes I've taken so far (Into to, Ethics in, Human Behavior in, Writing for, etc) have stressed the importance of retaining flexibility in interpreting each situation subjectively - I guess it's just hard for me to reprogram my brain to think this loosely after 4 years of military service (which, as many servicemen know, condition you to follow all directions precisely and without questionable interpretation to minimize risk of damage and death).

Yes. Yes you can.

If you do your job properly and don't be a dick nobody will give a damn what your ideals are.

I think you are making too big a deal out of this, like Zontar said the real world usually doesn't give a shit about your political beliefs as long as you get your fuckin job done.

But also, I don't see how you could have a problem with that code of ethics. If you take away the words "social justice" it pretty much just says don't discriminate, it shouldn't have anything to do with politics

It's easy for me to conflate my college learning environment with that of the practical working environment. This isn't the first time I've been in a "preparation" phase of my life that has drastically misrepresented the reality it was supposed to prepare me for.

Yeah, I guess I was just psychin' myself out for a while. Thanks for everyone's input and helping to put my mind at rest - I think this thread can be locked now.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Perhaps I'm focusing too much on stringent definitions and the strict, absolutist adherence to such definitions; maybe that kind of obsession is deceiving me, and causing me to simply forget the point to much of this. Admittedly, most of the social work classes I've taken so far (Into to, Ethics in, Human Behavior in, Writing for, etc) have stressed the importance of retaining flexibility in interpreting each situation subjectively - I guess it's just hard for me to reprogram my brain to think this loosely after 4 years of military service (which, as many servicemen know, condition you to follow all directions precisely and without questionable interpretation to minimize risk of damage and death).

Ohhhh yeah. Coming from someone who's interested in getting into the same or a similar line of work; that stressing of flexibility probably doesn't even half cover the amount of improvisation and adaptability you'll need to do well and survive in social work. Not only are there quagmires of bureaucracy to deal with, loopholes you'll have to exploit and whatnot, there's also the simple fact that you're dealing with a lot of individuals. And, well, people are...people. There'll be weirdness, there'll be craziness, there'll be lots of stupidity. All that in both clients and organisations you'll have to deal with. I'm already gritting my teeth for it and I still have at least two years to go.

It's perhaps why certain postmodern, 'leftist' in some eyes, philosophies prevail in the social work world. Coming from a philosophy background, more 'right-wing' in some people's eyes, ways of thinking do indeed adhere a lot more to hard definitions and abstractions. Think logical positivism, think the neo-liberalist 'homo economicus'. There's indeed an authoritarian streak to them (neo-liberal economists for instance were totally cool with supporting South American dictators), as it were, and yeah I get why that feels comfortable for ex-military personal (no offence meant here).

The problem is that those abstractions and that strictness barely works in the muddled soup that is our daily life and with dealing with issues in that life. And that, in the end, is the most important thing about ideas like social justice; our lives are really complex and messy, so let's pay a lot more attention to context and let go of theoretical strictness so we can actually get shit done and make life better for large groups of people.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well don't confuse internet spazoid social justice and real professional conduct, these things are on different planets.
At least I hope that is still the case, if you found this shit overlapping that would worry me greatly and then I would advise a career change.

But I don't know the specifics so you will need to give us some concrete examples, not internet spazoid stuff, the shit they actually teach you.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I would just power through the college rhetoric and move on, assuming you're dead set on following through with it. It's what I had to do a few times with my major, History. I had a few professors who adhered to the revisionist "white Christian men are the cause for every bad thing" view, and one guy even thought Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong could do no wrong. I just humored them, saying what I knew they wanted to hear, then proceeded to throw everything out the window the moment I finished my finals.

It's a well-kept secret in academia that 90% of what you are taught in social science has no bearing on a career in said field. Take my aunt, for example. She's been a social worker most of her life, holding various positions in government and academia. While she's a liberal, she has no love for the social justice movement, and having that view hasn't negatively impacted her career.

 

[sternduckling51]

Social justice is just a phrase and doesn't have to mean the things that people who complain about SJWs all the time take it to mean. Nothing in this policy looks like you're going to have to be campaigning on behalf of gay marriage or "the patriarchy" or support positive discrimination (or whatever it is you have an issue with).

If you're worried that you're constantly going to have to cave to multi-culturalism and moral relativism and will be unable to criticise people who aren't white, heterosexual men then you don't need to worry.

Social justice here just means "Discrimination [against minority power groups] is bad (when it happens). Poverty and unemployment create problems that can be combated. Social workers work to alievate/manage these problems. People from different ethnicities and cultures may some differences relevant to this work".

You don't have to be a progressive to acknowledge that some people need be helped/ managed.