Kristi Noem and the Changing Definitions of “Justice”

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem
(NBC News Photo)

Audiences who read my blog without knowing me personally, might be surprised to learn that I used to be outspokenly conservative. You wouldn’t know it from my current positions, obviously, and I never cottoned to bomb-throwers like Rush Limbaugh, whom I repeatedly caught voicing opinions in areas where he clearly lacked accurate information. But I pinched political viewpoints extensively from thoughtful, information-based conservatives like Thomas Sowell and P.J. O’Rourke.

Therefore, when stories like the Kristi Noem scandal grab national attention, I don’t just read the reports as they exist. I also test the narrative against the person I used to be. My current progressive self reads Noem’s slaughter of a disobedient hunting dog, for the unforgivable transgression of behaving like a puppy, as pure cruelty. Yet my conservative self, thirty years ago, would’ve seen what Noem probably saw, a transgression of established moral authority.

As a conservative, I believed the Chestertonian myth that the existing order exists for a reason, and all change must prove itself to exceedingly high standards. If existing power dynamics disadvantage certain groups, then the established order must somehow recognize such disadvantage as the price of stability. The existing moral authority might be heartless to individuals, and might create disruptions in localized communities, but it harmonized society overall.

Humans tend to believe the universe is essentially just. Prior generations saw justice descending from God, that life’s rewards and consequences represented the manifestation of what Adam Smith called “the invisible hand.” Even non-religious people frequently see universal justice. Karl Marx’s belief in the Grand Synthesis, which would overthrow capitalism and establish economic utopia, remarkably resembles the Christian Book of the Revelation, without recourse to theism.

P.J. O'Rourke

People like Governor Noem define moral authority reflectively. As parent, provider, and giver of moral instruction, she has broad authority to impose her will on those deemed subordinate. But she has that authority, basically, because she has that authority. Having children makes her the final authority for those children’s moral upbringing. Buying a dog gives her power to impose her will on that dog. Children and dog exist, morally, to obey.

In using words like “justice” and “morality,” I’m deploying concepts that lack absolute, agreed-upon definitions. For brevity’s sake, let’s accept Michael J. Sandel’s definition of justice, as not just payback for crimes, but also the distribution of life’s necessary resources to maximize the good. Sandel road-tests several definitions of justice, never completely landing on one. However, even without resolution, his terms feel useful here.

Aristotle’s definition of justice, filtered through Sandel, might read: every person has a role, and justice prevails when every person finds and completes that role. But Friederich Nietzsche wrote a codicil for our postmodern world. In Freddy Nee’s mind, social roles exist to corral the peasantry. The morally developed man (and, for Nietzsche, moral development is male) doesn’t conform to such roles. The morally autonomous Übermensch makes his own.

Moral authorities like Governor Noem, therefore, aren’t subject to the rules they impose on others. One doubts Noem, a mother and grandmother, would tolerate a minor under her moral authority torturing an opossum in a trap, and would recognize animal cruelty as a frequent precursor to hurting humans. Indeed, according to Noem’s excerpted account, she considered killing her dog, Cricket, acceptable, because Cricket first killed domesticated poultry.

Michael J. Sandel

In other words, Noem has the unique authority to kill the disobedient. Cricket only has killing authority when granted by Noem, who reputedly tried, and failed, to train Cricket as a hunting dog. Specifically, a bird dog. Noem expected Cricket, only fourteen months old, to make the moral distinction between game birds, whose deaths became acceptable under Noem’s guidance, from farm poultry.

It’s almost enough to turn me vegan.

American conservatives often disdain Nietzsche because he disparaged Christianity. (Nietzsche’s father, a Lutheran clergyman, died when Friederich was only two. One wonders which Father little Freddy actually rebelled against.) Yet conservatives embrace one key Nietzschean principle, that moral authority comes from imposing the strong person’s will on subordinates, not from transcendent forces one might call “God.” Might, as Aesop taught us, makes right.

Taken together, Governor Noem probably wouldn’t accept the slogan “the cruelty is the point.” For her, the action wasn’t cruel, it was just. Yet her definition of justice differs from Chesterton or Aristotle, both of whom wanted to defend an existing order. Instead, Noem imposes justice from above, as an extension of her ordained moral authority. That represents a massive and unexplainable cleft from the conservatism of my childhood.