The Struggle for Human Dignity in a Consumer-Oriented Culture

Abstract

This article addresses the need to ground our discussions and advocacy to rectify economic injustice in the basic affirmation that the most vulnerable victims of injustice are above all full human beings created in the image of God and that their humanness is therefore inscribed with a dignity which we are bound to respect. There are three areas in which we need to be more attentive to the ways in which our discourse and assistance unwittingly reinforce patterns of defacement even as we seek to address economic injustice: (1) addressing our biases and negative feelings about the materially disadvantaged; (2) clarifying who the materially disadvantaged are; and (3) enlisting the aid of the impoverished in seeking the solutions to economic injustice.