Living Justly

I will start off this essay by answering the question of if I am living justly, and the answer is no. As for whether I am using just rhetoric, the answer is yes, but not in a substantial enough amount to counterbalance the injustice of my actions.

So, that begs the following question of why, and the solution to that lies in the inevitability of existing in and contributing to an unjust system. But before I can elaborate on what I mean by that, I must first define the terms and etymology of said terms.

Maulana Karenga, an American activist and author, once wrote about The Book of Ptahhotep and other ancient Egyptian works, wherein he came to the conclusion that “…the ancient Egyptians conceived of speech as essentially an ethical activity of tremendous power that could be used for good or evil” (Karenga, 2003, p. 11). This thought pattern of valuing rhetoric in high standing can also be seen in concise everyday sayings derived from more recent works. An example of this resonance is in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s work Richelieu, wherein the statement of, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” was first coined (Bulwer-Lytton, 1839, p. 39).

These statements—and many others like them—indicate that rhetoric, and the proper articulation of it, is at its core a tool which can be wielded; however, due to the way the post-modern world is constructed, the tool/medium in which we convey ourselves warps into something which forces us into the position of being unjust.

As for what an unjust position is, an American theorist influenced by Plato, provided a linguistically based theory which exemplifies what a just and an unjust position is. That theorist, Richard Weaver, stated that:

Argument from definition, or principle…[—which is what I attempt to do via my rhetoric in this and other essays—is]…the most ethical while…The least ethical type of argument…[is]…that of circumstance…[and]…In this…[least ethical]…form of reasoning, a rhetor uses a specific situation as the basis to make decisions and guide action. (Borchers & Hundley, 2018, p. 164)

So, via that reasoning, an unjust position is founded and upheld by circumstance/anecdotal reasoning in which the individuals cannot escape the limits of their own subjectivity, something that I posit is increasingly prevalent in the post-modern world.

Jeff Orlowski’s documentary, The Social Dilemma, directly addresses this issue, claiming that a tool shifts into an exploitative device once it has its own goals apart from the user, and because social media/electronics are now the primary medium in which to conduct discourse, our actions, argumentation, and rhetoric begin to reflect what the devices want, which just so happens also to be the least ethical and most unjust mode of interaction (Orlowski, 2020).

Yet, individuals may attempt to refute this assertion via the fact that they can still harness the mediums of communication to a just cause and therefore can live justly through that pursuit. Allas though, that is a naïve position to take, as if falls into the aforementioned unethical snare of missing the forest for the trees. What I mean by this declaration is that via the system being exploitative/unjust there is no way to use or not use it for just means.

Exemplars of this nature are how cobalt and manual labor are required to make electronic devices. Via globalization and the outsourcing of tasks to maximize efficiency/profit, there are cobalt mines in Africa, sweatshops in Vietnam, exploitative factory work in China, etcetera.

The companies that outsource their labor and exploit foreign workers implicitly claim that for the prices to remain within reach of the average consumer—myself included—they must do this on a massive scale. When batteries, clothing, shoes, and just about every other product require or utilize these practices somewhere within their supply chain, the only ethical distinction is severity.

Since very few companies want the appearance of not being ethically, socially, or environmentally conscious, they use rhetoric to obfuscate their shortcomings. An example of this is how companies state that they are already all the above and that they are also moving in the right direction at the same time, which really means they are not really doing either (Apple, 2023).

For instance, Apple says that they will, “use 100 percent recycled cobalt in batteries by 2025,” when they have already been caught using “Congolese child cobalt mining” and “manufacturing plants…located in East Asia, the biggest being in Shenzhen,” which are notorious for, “child labour, discrimination…[and]…excessive overtime” (Apple, 2023; Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2007; Kelly, 2023; Russ 2021).

So, then the question is why not divest from all these material things to achieve a state of being just. The answer is: it is a catch twenty-two, because in doing so I cannot enact change and the unethical practices would flourish uncontested.