In a Perfect (Catholic) World, Clergy and Government Combine to Prevent Sin
Any careful observer of current and ancient history can see the obvious sequence: Culture changes, religion changes. It is happening under our noses at this moment. It is in the interests of Catholic clergy to see this truth backwards. A veteran academic recently summarized centuries of right wing Christian political passions.
The link reviews a site called "First Things." It is a site that tries to provide a valid history of merging the Catholic Church into the body of politics to control everything about the lives of ordinary people. One of its clear summaries of that is
But the Catholic Church also has built into its DNA an all-consuming survival instinct, an awareness that evolution and entropy also are its enemies as an institution. From this fear, certainly for conservative Catholics, flows a consistently urgent desire to control this flux that is absent from nearly every other (non-Abrahamic) religion in the world. For this reason, the conservative Catholic ontology insists that the authority of the Church and the power of the state to enforce this authority on its population are the preconditions for morality and virtue
The site repeats a mantra that goes back to the Middle Ages and Thomas Aquinas. It is all human reasoning begins with religion. Culture flows from religious thinking. Politics flows from culture. Religion, in this thinking, is everything. Culture is nothing. A rational world is one where secular leaders, who come into power with the politics which came from the culture, must circle back to religious leaders and the two combine to run people's lives. If politics, which is two steps below religion, is allowed to go its own way the truthful and right way, the correct thinking that came originally from religion is polluted and incorrect.
Ultimately, power and control are the predicates of morality and virtue. The language of Catholic natural law makes this clear. The telos, or goal, of natural law in politics is power, not freedom;
This use of the state to establish certain behaviors in the public is what Gov. DeSantis is doing in Florida with the small university run by the state government. It is what he wants done in Florida's public schools. While it seems like an entirely foreign way to thinking to most people it is a very logical outcome of believing clergy should be at the side of politicians guiding their every move. Only by running things in this way can they be certain they are in charge and there will be no changes as culture and world problems change.
I don't know how others reacted to this post (assuming that they read it carefully). but for me, it made very little sense, confusing the classical understaning of virtue ethics with quotes from an article, probably cherry picked, that were used to warn us about the dangers/implications of so-called Catholic thought. it's that nefarious beast once again, a beast armed with a natural law/virtue morality, a threat to human freedom that has inspired the misquided policies of, among others, the governor of Florida.
ReplyDeleteso, a question: does the state have any responsibility for creating and maintaining an environment/legal structure conducve to the flourishing of its citizens? The church certainly thinks that it does. The American founding fathers certainly thought that it does: witness their concept of a virtuous republic. and certainly the puritancal scolds that now regale us with their notion of virtue: e.g. environmentalism, diversity, tolerance, feminism and numerous other au currant " bag of "virtues". and may I remind you, virtues that they are quite willing to impose on us, using the powever of the state in doing so.
with that let's go back to the classical notion of virtue/an ethic of the good life for a rational creature. (n.b. it has litle to do with our contemporary virture mongers, ideological utopians, incipient totalitarians). the classical view, as we know, goes back to the ancient world, showing up in various ways in the works of Aristotle, Cicero and others. and later in the thought of Aquinas who, again as you should know, was heavily influenced by Aristotle.
classical notions of virtue, then,are rooted in the view that there are ethical principles that flow from the very nature of rational beings and are known by us (self-evident). or any other rational being, say by little green men from Alpha Centuri.
ever heard then about the four temporal/secular virtues: namely justice/fairness/reason, prudence/wisdom, temperance/moderation, fortitude/courage. these, obviously. loom large in Catholic thought thought and as the FT article, rather clumsically suggests. are seen as a still point in a churning world. so, bottom line, what is the state's responsibility in promoting policies that help us to flourish in your world of random change, a world gone mad.
BTW, I find it hard to follow your remarks re culture. all I get out of it is a view of an unrooted, relativistic view of "culture" that has no peduring point of reference.
tsm Thank you for taking the time to spell out your Catholic views. They have been presented in bits before but your post goes deeper into the background.
DeleteI found most curious the sentence "...creating and maintaining an environment/legal structure conducive to the flourishing of its citizens? The church certainly thinks it does." If the Catholic Church actually believed in an environment/legal structure that allowed and promoted the flourishing of its citizens, it would be in favor of abortion rights. It would allow women to be priests. The majority of voters in Wisconsin believe in the flourishing of its citizens, they voted in favor of women's rights. The Catholic Church (and some Protestants) simply do not understand what policies promote the flourishing of citizens.
The Bolsheviks in 1920 believed they knew best how to promote human flourishing. It was through central planning and equal income distribution. Hitler thought it came from avenging the humiliation of the German people from WWI. Trump tells us at every stop it is by electing HIM President.
Is the opportunity for human flourishing enhanced by forcing children who are certain absolutely they are not of the gender assigned then at birth to pretend they are a different gender? I don't think so. But nose-in-the-air clergy and politicians think they know better than children who have been wrongly assigned a gender.
What the majority of voters think government should do to promote the flourishing of citizens changes constantly. If there is something is the nature of humans to help us, it is not the natural law of the ancient philosophers you refer to here often.
quick comment. you have a perverse idea of human flourishing. mass killing one' s child in utero is not my idea of human flourishing. and so on. yours is a mad (in the sense of an irrational, upside down ) world where liars and charlatens rule. a world where it seems that every thing is "up for grabs". this is your world. hope that you are happy in't. as to the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. sure they thought that they were the ones who held the key to human happiness. they were going to create a "new" human of their liking. to hell with any principle or set of principles that would thwart their mad designs. the results? mass killing. a cuture of lies. irrationalism. Gulags. concentration camps complete with gas chambers. get the point?
ReplyDeleteP.S.. a reminder. there are mad utopians amongst us today who want to create a "new" human. as in cyborgs, experiments with humanized mice, trans humanism, etc. look on-line or in the popular press and you with find some mad scientist who thinks that he can make us immortals or whatever. as to those old philosophers that you disdain: they are still taught in most philosophy depts. today. as for me, I find that studying them is liberating, freeing me from being caught up in the ideological cant that passes for "wisdom" in today's world. oh, and that remark about what the majority of voters think gov't should do to promote human flourishing: what if they voted to round up all atheists and shoot them? or economists? think about it.
ReplyDeletetsm -- I did not advocate the version of human flourishing advocated by Hitler or the Bolsheviks. Nor is what the majority thinks at any point in time about how to run things for the betterment of humans always good. Today Christians, gays and atheists are being hunted. I'm just saying your favorites, the philosophers upon which current Catholic thought is based, is no better than the Bolsheviks, Hitlers and crazed majorities wherever they are. Your heroes slap down women and penalize the divorced. Just now I read a long article in the NYT about the 600 plus children abused by clergy in the Catholic Churches of Maryland. There is no evidence Christian rules put into government are superior. There is only the thinking in la la land Christian moral and principles are superior.
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