Talk:Chris Kempling

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Chris Kempling is a former good article candidate. There are suggestions below for which areas need improvement to satisfy the good article criteria. Once the objections are addressed, the article can be renominated as a good article. If you disagree with the objections, you can seek a review. Date of review: 6 October 2006

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This article was nominated for deletion on 18/4/2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

[edit] Is Kempling a Canadian activist or a Canadian social justice activist?

Let's keep this based on facts and neutral logic. I know I'll lose a vote on any social conservative topic each and every time with fellow Canadian wikipedians.

The social justice article speaks of freedom of speech as a "basic liberty". Freedom of speech is specifically what Kempling is fighting for. Deet 02:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia defines social justice as follows:

Social justice is a philosophical definition of justice, that is, giving individuals or groups their due within society as a whole. As a concept, "social justice" has fascinated philosophers ever since Plato rebuked the young Sophist, Thrasymachus, for asserting that justice was whatever the strongest decided it would be. The debate continues today as to whether an objective or universal test of 'social justice' can be formed, or whether 'social justice' is merely determined by power, or the lack of it, or by changing custom. The former argument is the position taken by the classical western philosophical tradition: in The Republic, Plato formalized the argument that an ideal state would rest on four virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. This virtue ethics foundation of social justice was further developed by Aristotle, and the philosophical systems of Stoicism and Thomism, and also has parallels in Confucianism. The argument that 'social justice' is an artificial construct is equally ancient in western philosophy, with the Sophists being early proponents; it was revived by the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli, furthered by the subjective philosophy of René Descartes, and is a central idea in many modern and postmodern philosophies. This latter view of social justice is seen in the application of positive law and amoral social control.

Related to social justice are distributive justice and procedural justice.

Social justice is also used in two other contexts:

• to refer to the overall fairness of a society in its divisions and distributions of rewards and burdens and, as such, the phrase has been adopted by political parties with a redistributive agenda.
• to describe the policies of the political Left, presented in a positive light in comparison to the policies of the political Right. Consequently, its use in partisan politics and manichean stance (its antithesis being "social injustice"), makes it a loaded term.

The general definition isn't applicable to this argument, and the two specific definitions emphatically do not refer to Kempling. If we include him in the "social justice" category, we're effectively rendering the term meaningless. CJCurrie 03:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to reprint the article, but again I refer you to the basic liberties section of the article. The first 3 of 6 points apply here. I am concerned that Canadian wikipedians have been applying the term social justice only as defined by the second bullet you refered to ("policies of the political left"). As such, wikipedia calls it a "loaded term", and considers such use POV. The reality is the entire category is POV and should be merged into the general activist category, or specific subcategories should be made (freedom of speech activists, LGBT rights activits, etc).Deet 21:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not certain the John Rawls interpretation is universally accepted. CJCurrie 21:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

But you do think of social justice in terms of policies of the political left, no? Deet 21:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Rather than answering that question, I'll respond to the question you didn't ask:

Yes, I can understand the logic of categorizing a free speech activist as a social justice activist -- even when the "free speech" in question involves something unpopular, hateful or unpleasant. I'm familiar with the battles over "free speech law" in late 19th century + early 20th century America, and I know that many civil libertarians from this period made their careers by defending the rights of some genuinely horrible human beings.

Along similar lines, I can understand the logic of listing Kempling as a "social justice activist". The problem is that this approach is completely off-centre from the modern definition of "social justice", and would open the door to all sorts of unsavoury people claiming the designation for themselves (Doug Christie, perhaps?). If Kempling is to be categorized as a social justice activist *today*, then the term is meaningless.

You may be within your rights to question the validity of the category, but I don't think this is the right place for it (see: WP:POINT). CJCurrie 21:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I had not seen the link before, and I get the point, although in this case it is in direct conflict with the NPOV mandate. Well, the points have been made. Change it back if you like, it's too minor to tar the entire article over it. Deet 22:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

If I understand your meaning correctly, you may want to start a discussion on the "social justice activists" category. CJCurrie 22:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that the category is up for debate now. You can go here to register your opinion. Deet 11:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Failed GA

I'm making a speedy failing of this article for good article. Per WP:WIAGA, this article does not conform with the Wikipedia manual of style. This include lead section, structure, headings' name and most importantly guidelines of biography of living person, where the prose is not presented in a neutral way with an encyclopediac tone. When this matter has been resolved, you may renominate this article again. — Indon (reply) — 13:43, 6 October 2006 (UTC)