Ideology as illustrated by a movie--I, Robot

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Catholic : One Thread

BTW--Happy New Year!

This is a thought that I believe is relevant in the culture wars.

Today I watched the Will Smith movie, "I, Robot," which I think is a brilliant film with a lot of understated Christian and philosophical truth. In particular, it exposes, in a popular way, the essence of ideology and how ideology becomes totalitarian.

Namely, ideology is always a sort of law of history; a simple logical structure or set of categories that explains all of time and everything. For example, in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the answer to the question of the world, the universe, and Everything is "42." (Where "42" would be the ideology).

I, Robot shows how an ideology--the "3 Laws of Robotics"--become totalitarian: the logic of a single idea, subsequently overtakes the idea and takes on a life of its own. The ideology becomes absolute, and demands obedience by absolute, logical necessity. It reduces the person to a logical calculator, himself a determined number in a massive equation with only one answer.

This is a theme which is discusses by numerous people--like G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy", but in elaborate detail in Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism."

Examples of ideology abound; we have the fictional "Three Laws of Robots" (which were the not-so-fictional philosophy of their originator, Isaac Asimov). We also have the social Darwinism at the core of the Nazi regime, and the Marxist Hegelianism driving Soviet Russia.

In the United States, we have ideologies which have not yet become totalitarian: the Enlightenment scientistic reductionism of the Democrats, and the quasi-fundamentalistic devotion to Free Market Capitalism of the Republicans.

Those two ideological forces represent the two greatest concrete opponents to Christianity, and religion in general, in the United States. It's only an accident of history that the Republican Party is associated with Christianity (and even then, not a Catholic Christianity). We know by faith--but also by reason--that the excesses of Capitalistic fervor are nothing but destructive for Catholic values. And the Democrat-ist reduction of all meaningful truth to the products of the scientific method, is even more immediately desctructive of religious rights and moral truth.

Ideologies are closed systems, and are not able to tolerate contradiction or conflict with their carefully protected borders. That's why ostensible Communist countries that have any sort of a free market at all have effectively broken the Marxist system at work.

"I, Robot" captures this phenomenon with Sunny, the robot with not one, but two positronic brains. The second brain gives the robot a dissenting voice against the absolute logic of its first brain--symbollically, the movie writers and designers placed "Sunny's second brain" in his chest cavity, like a heart.

It is vaguely reminiscient of Blaise Pascal's "reasons of the heart" for believing in God, or John Henry Newman's "illative sense"--those reasons which are not strictly logical or intellectual, but mix together the mental and "spiritual" reasons for having faith in Christ.

Ideologies are essentially "heartless." In Christianity, the sinfulness of finitude of fallen human existence is broken open by the birth of God of the Virgin Mary, thereby both bestowing and revealing the real "heart" and destiny of human beings: divine life in union with God.

The reductionism of ideologies won't permit this, which is why Christianity will always break open--in the same way Christ did--the categories and laws of capitalism or scientism.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 01, 2005

Answers

topping for skouboy.....

-- ...... (...@.....), January 01, 2005.

Freemarket capitalism is a perfectly just system in that it does not impose obligations on anyone. It does *not* take the place of charity, though.

In a mixed economy, in what is essentially a *socialist* watering-down of capitalism, where taxes are expropriated from some people to provide services for others, there is no moral good in paying taxes because for the benefit of others because it is done under duress. And the level of taxation in many countries leaves, for most people, little money for them to distribute charitably and voluntarily.

Capitalism as a pure system of value and exchange, untainted by politics, is not inherently bad. Neither is it inherently good. It is neutral. We should take care always to distinguish it from *consumerism* or *social injustice* or whatever it is we're really getting worked up about.

Freemarket capitalism is *not* incompatible with Christianity. If two biblical characters agree between them on an exchange of so many olives for so many figs, that is a freemarket capitalist exchange: there is no coercion.

If one of our fictional biblical characters meets a starving man who cannot afford the figs to eat, then it behoves our man to offer the supplicant freely and for the supplicant to accept graciously. That is entirely consonant with freemarket capitalism, it's just that the giver does not make a profit or break even.

Freemarket capitalism is inherently heartless, and that is a good thing. *People* are moral agents, *not* impersonal mechanisms. We should *not* piously delegate our moral responsibilities to government, because then we cease to act morally.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 01, 2005.


''--the excesses of Capitalistic fervor.'' I'd like to know what you mean.

I already know what captitalism is. I know what greed is, and that love of money is the root of all evil.

Tell us what the excesses of ANY fervor are.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 01, 2005.


This article pretty well sums it up. Also, here is Centesimus Annus, the encyclical linked by the article.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 01, 2005.

"Freemarket capitalism is inherently heartless, and that is a good thing. *People* are moral agents, *not* impersonal mechanisms."

The problem is that people often have a tendency to make heartless, impersonal mechanisms of thought into absolutes and idols, whose dictates they must follow at all costs (even at the price of human dignity, as the Pope points out).

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 01, 2005.



I'm sorry for the triple-post, but I want to strongly encourage you both (Ian and Eugene) to read that Encyclical, as much of it as is convenient for you; it describes, more eloquently than I, exactly what I was talking about.

The "excesses of Capitalistic fervor" are when capitlistic ideas are stripped of the human element necessary for social justice. This has actually happened and continues to happen, although in more subtle ways in the US than in other countries. Read. The. Encyclical.

When the scientific method (a perfectly neutral and useful tool) is absolutized as the only standard of reliable and practical truth, human dignity suffers because the truth about the human person is lost. As a result, we have advocates of homosexual "marriage", euthenasia, and abortion.

In the same way, when Adam Smith's capitlism (a perfectly neutral and useful tool) is absolutized as the most fundamental or only standard of adequate relations between people, labor, and resources, human dignity suffers because the truth of the human person is sacrificed in the name of the system.

What is the direct descendent of unscrupulous American capitalism? Advertising. Literally, creating desire where there was none before. Creating a market "ex nihilo." Manufacturing concupiscence through images. How much of the lurid images we are bombarded with in TV, movies, and dozens of other mediums have the express purpose of generating a bigger profit?

What about sweatshops? Corporations exporting jobs to countries without the same wage laws as the US? Even abortion, with its megaton "benefactors" Pepsi Co and Hewlett Packard?

What will people say is the justification for these things? Free market. Don't regulate the market. "Leave the market alone, and it will take care of itself." That is a false gospel.

Capitalism, like all closed systems, becomes absolutely tyrannical when it is stripped of its duty to serve human dignity. That is Catholic doctrine.

And what is always, inevitable

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 01, 2005.


Dear anon,
I don't know if I understand you. Anyway, you didn't answer me, you gave me a couple of reading assignments. I wanted you to tell us--what do YOU mean? There's a kernel of truth in your mind-bender, I know. But how can you generalise about abstractions?

The problem is that The problem is that people often have a tendency to make heartless, impersonal mechanisms of thought into absolutes and idols, whose dictates they must follow at all costs to make heartless, impersonal mechanisms of thought into absolutes and idols, whose dictates they must follow at all costs

The problem is that people often have a tendency to make heartless, impersonal mechanisms of thought into absolutes and idols, whose dictates they must follow at all costs,'' Yeah, sure. That's not relevant to excesses of capitalistic fervor; and who are these people? What are impersonal mechanisms of thought? And are Republicans by definition heartless? Who tells us so? Not the pope.

''--absolutes and idols whose dictates they must follow at all costs.'' To me this is what atheistic communism was, or still is in China and Cuba. Not capitalism. Naturally, when capitlistic ideas are stripped of the human element necessary for social justice, they are excessively stripped. How do you do that, anyway? Hmmmm.

But, OK. You left me after, ''Capitalism, like all closed systems, becomes absolutely tyrannical.''

Which you concluded AFTER first saying, ''In the United States, we have ideologies which have not yet become totalitarian: the Enlightenment scientistic reductionism of the Democrats, and the quasi-fundamentalistic devotion to Free Market Capitalism of the Republicans.'' --As they say in London, ''Aw, come off it, guv'nor.''

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 01, 2005.


Eugene,

You do me a disservice when you quote only one half of my sentences as if it were a whole one.

I did not say, "Capitalism, like all closed systems, becomes absolutely tyrannical." In fact I think that's quite false.

You must include the qualifier, which I even emboldened so you wouldn't miss it: "...when it is stripped of its duty to serve human dignity."

Closed systems of thought--like the scientific method, or the idea of 'natural selection', or the Hegelian dialectic, or the "Three Laws of Robotics", or, Adam Smith's principles of free markets, of themselves are fine. They're models for understanding, and in some cases, controlling our environment. This is good insofar as it goes.

Ideology takes a model, like the above examples, and mistakes it for the greater reality; for something centrally important, the path to utopia, the skeleton key that opens all the doors, or something that should be served for its own sake, rather than in service to more basic goods.

I'm not condemning the Republican party--I voted for Bush--but I would caution that their party philosophy is susceptible to, and compatible with, support for a dangerous 'unbridled capitlism'. I've heard Republicans advocating completely unrestricted market activity (i.e., no government controls on things like wages and time off for laborers, prices for life-necessities like medicine, and so on).

In the simplest terms, I'm only complaining against our tendency to take a system built to serve man, and distort it into something which is served in itself.

That is a real problem with Capitalism as it has worked historically, and frankly I'm a little concerned about the vigor with which it is defended here in the forum.

What I perceive to be a naive faith in laissez faire capitalism demonstrated by Republicans, I argue is of basically the same nature as the naive faith in the scientific method demonstrated by Democrats.

Tell me whether the following two analyses are sound:

Where Catholic beliefs are concerned, the Republicans get into trouble by (traditionally) advocating cuts in support for government aid to the needy, and lifting restrictions designed to protect people and the environment from unscrupulous corporations. Those are the direct result in typical republican overconfidence in exaggerrated capitalism. The rich gettin' richer, the poor gettin' poorer, and all that jazz.

If we were to imagine a dystopian scenario where basic republican tenets were taken to their utmost extreme, we could imagine a world (not too different from our own) that was absolutely dominated by corporations and moneyed interests, who were the sole arbiters of values and culture, all designed to increase productivity, with a vast, vast, vast number of the poorest of the poor, who are relegated to the status of economically inconsequential.

Similarly, where Catholic beliefs are concerned, the Democrats get into trouble by (typically) removing value/religion-based education initiatives from schools, fighting all "moral" legislation prohibiting/restricting acts which appear at superficially "harmless" (i.e., adultery, homosexual acts and unions, abortion, euthenasia, etc). I argue that those are the direct result in a 'democratic' naive overconfidence that science is the only valuable standard of truth.

(If this seems confusing, just think--an increasing number of pro-abortion people are acknowledging that abortion kills a human being, because, after all, genetics say so. However, they remain pro-abortion, because science says nothing about "sanctity of life" or "inherent dignity of all persons.") Whatever science can't prove is open season for private opinions--the REAL source of relativism.

So now the dystopia of the democrats: namely, society crumbles under the weight of its orgasmic excesses; everything is allowed, because no morality is scientific. NAMBLA ("North American Man-Boy Love Association, i.e. pedophiles) becomes recognized as a legitimate force and children are raped and trafficked about the country to satisfy perverse desires of corpulent, depraved, sexually ambiguous pleasure-addicts. Massive depopulation through non-reproduction, suicide, euthenasia, and plain old-fashed murder.

Am I arguing that both parties are equally evil? I would never make such a claim, because I would get too caught up in what we mean when we say "equal" or "evil." The curse of a philosopher.

But I do believe that the two "demons" I have described here--the scientistic reductionism of the ultra-liberals, and the dogmatic capitalism of the ultra-conservatives--are alone the source of most of the ideological problems in the US today.

Nor are they completely separate; many times their basic suppositions about the human person actually overlap, though superficially republicans and democrats can seem exactly opposed.

Suffice to say that it's the scientistic reductionism that is the bigger, broader, meaner, more violent, ultimately more dangerous of the two (at least where Catholic faith and human dignity is concerned).

The abuses of capitalism should not be ignored, though; I mean, they're really, really bad. We're talking structural sin here. And those very same capitalistic abuses are almost as responsible for the machine of abortion as the liberal scientism.

Did I explain myself enough?

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


(Just a note--it appears as though my next-to-last post was somehow cut off, or maybe I just absent-mindedly pushed the submit button prematurely. No matter. The last post pretty much covers it.)

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.

"Manufacturing concupiscence through images."

No. *We* manufacture that concupiscence. The advertisers merely tempt us.

If a government fixes the price of a life-saving medicine, it *forces* the drugs company, under threat of punishment, to provide a social good at a loss. It discourages further years of expensive research. There is nothing in capitalism or socialism, though, to prevent the company giving the drugs away free, as many have done in Africa to people with AIDS.

I don't have a *right* to life-saving drugs, because that imposes an *obligation* on someone else to devote his life to experimenting, researching and marketing the item.

I take the view that government merely interferes with how people go about their business and, worse, with their morality. Welfarism has slid into rewarding lack of will and the taxation to pay for it has removed from many people the moral obligation.

The Anglican Book of Common Prayer summed this up well many years ago, in an age without welfare but with much charity and many corporal works of mercy:

"The riches and goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as some Anabaptists do falsely boast. Not withstanding, every man ought of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability."

Summary: there is no *legal, governmental* obligation to share wealth, but there is a *personal, moral* action to make, individually, generously and freely.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.



"If a government fixes the price of a life-saving medicine, it *forces* the drugs company, under threat of punishment, to provide a social good at a loss."

Right, like the medical corporations spend all the extra money from exorbitantly high prices on R&D. *rolls eyes*

Eugene, if you want an example of exactly what I'm talking about, you may look to Ian here.

And Ian, read the doggon Encyclical. I gaurantee it will place either your dogged faith in unregulated capitalism, or your faith in the church, in question; I pray it's the former and not the latter.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Some notable quotes of the Holy Father:

(Disclaimer: When I embolden something, I do so only because it is the teaching pertinent to the discussion. I promise that I do not ever emphasize any words or sentences at the expense of any other part of the document, or the document as a whole.) Thus, though I embolden teachings here which I see as directly contrary to Ian's opinions, that does not mean that I deny any other teachings, which he would certainly agree with.)

"Leo XIII is repeating an elementary principle of sound political organization, namely, the more that individuals are defenceless within a given society, the more they require the care and concern of others, and in particular the intervention of governmental authority." (CA 10)

The State cannot reject the principle of solidarity:

"The State must contribute to the achievement of these goals both directly and indirectly. Indirectly and according to the principle of subsidiarity, by creating favourable conditions for the free exercise of economic activity, which will lead to abundant opportunities for employment and sources of wealth. Directly and according to the principle of solidarity, by defending the weakest, by placing certain limits on the autonomy of the parties who determine working conditions, and by ensuring in every case the necessary minimum support for the unemployed worker." (CA 15)

Agains the Protestant "Book of Common Prayer" (which has more than one non-Catholic teachings), the Pope affirms, "At the same time, the Church teaches that the possession of material goods is not an absolute right, and that its limits are inscribed in its very nature as a human right." (CA 30).

And again:

"The Second Vatican Council likewise clearly restated the traditional doctrine in words which bear repeating: "In making use of the exterior things we lawfully possess, we ought to regard them not just as our own but also as common, in the sense that they can profit not only the owners but others too"; and a little later we read: "Private property or some ownership of external goods affords each person the scope needed for personal and family autonomy, and should be regarded as an extension of human freedom ... Of its nature private property also has a social function which is based on the law of the common purpose of goods".68" (CA 30)

This one's important:

"34. It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. But this is true only for those needs which are "solvent", insofar as they are endowed with purchasing power, and for those resources which are "marketable", insofar as they are capable of obtaining a satisfactory price. But there are many human needs which find no place on the market. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied, and not to allow those burdened by such needs to perish. It is also necessary to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources. Even prior to the logic of a fair exchange of goods and the forms of justice appropriate to it, there exists something which is due to man because he is man, by reason of his lofty dignity. Inseparable from that required "something" is the possibility to survive and, at the same time, to make an active contribution to the common good of humanity."

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Anon, if you want altruistically to make life-saving medicines, go ahead. I'm not stopping you. Put your money where your mouth is.

I don't know how to make them, but I'm glad other people do. And they have to put bread on the table. If profit motivates them to make medicines rather than to sit on their backsides watching television, then good luck to them. We can't force people to make medicines, and if they all decided it was not profitable, they would have every legal right to pack it in and go home. And where would we be then? Governments don't come up with life-saving drugs: their efforts to do anything are hindered by bureaucracy and regulation. What the drugs companies do with their money is no more my business than what you do with yours. You're a moral agent. Do as you see fit, but don't *compel* others to do likewise. Pray, protest against what you see as selfishness, by all means. Lead by example. But no more.

I've read the encyclical. It struck me that it was a little out of its depth dealing in political reality. Well-intentioned, to be sure, with some salutary points. I stand by freemarket capitalism as a morally-neutral system of value and exchange, and I believe that people should act morally, for the common good. In other words, people should not abuse their good fortune, but I don't believe in legislating against it, any more than I believe the government should throw people in prison for masturbating, *intrinsice malum* though it be.

Socialist systems mean that the citizens abdicates the moral responsibility to help those less fortunate, instead doing it by proxy, with no say or control.

Before governments started messing around and before our welfare system created and perpetuated a welfare underclass, the Church took the lead in doing good work among the poor. It can do so again. There is no need for the state to do so.

I repeat that capitalism is merely a mechanism. We get out of it what we put into it. I do not blame capitalism for pollution, gambling, suicide, abortion, masturbation, family break-up, the Crusades or anything else its critics charge it with. No, I blame people.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


Although, in the Encyclical, #35-42 are the most pertinent to my argument here, I found two paragraphs which, essentially, prove my point for me.

Thank you, John Paul II:

"40. It is the task of the State to provide for the defence and preservation of common goods such as the natural and human environments, which cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces. Just as in the time of primitive capitalism the State had the duty of defending the basic rights of workers, so now, with the new capitalism, the State and all of society have the duty of defending those collective goods which, among others, constitute the essential framework for the legitimate pursuit of personal goals on the part of each individual.

Here we find a new limit on the market: there are collective and qualitative needs which cannot be satisfied by market mechanisms. There are important human needs which escape its logic. There are goods which by their very nature cannot and must not be bought or sold. Certainly the mechanisms of the market offer secure advantages: they help to utilize resources better; they promote the exchange of products; above all they give central place to the person's desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person. Nevertheless, these mechanisms carry the risk of an "idolatry" of the market, an idolatry which ignores the existence of goods which by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities" (CA 40).

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Ian,

Your continual recourse to "capitalism doesn't hurt people, people hurt people" is a complete non-sequitur, because the Church does not teach that capitalism hurts people.

But it is people who insist upon the sufficiency of naked and absolute capitalism, that hurt people; and create a system where oppression is unavoidable and undeniable.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.



It is the *Anglican* Book of Common Prayer. Protestantism is merely a vague category. And it does not say that possessions are an absolute right, merely that they are not *legally* common. Unless the Pope is an Anabaptist, he is not contradicting this, merely saying that we should regard them as not entirely our own, i.e., looking at them in the light of what we might do with them for the benefit of others. He does *not* deny legal ownership. No contradiction there.

Okay, I believe we should act "not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied." I give to charity. I act mercifully. I make money and fill my material needs for shelter, food and clothing by dint of the capitalist system.

Paradoxical? Then consider this. I believe that the weakest should go to the wall.

What! I hear you cry? Most people think that this means they should be put out to grass.

On the contrary. Our Orthodox brethren will understand. The phrase refers to churches without pews, where the infirm were allowed to lean against the wall or even sit down by it, i.e., they were relieved by virtue of special consideration of the obligation everyone else had to follow.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


Moreover, you should not disregard this encyclical as "well-intentioned" but "out of its depth." It is an Encyclical, and thus teaches a very high order of the doctrine of the Church. Humanae Vitae is also an Encyclical.

You show your true colors: when the Pope says, unambiguously, that the State has the duty to protect the well-being of the people which falls through the cracks of the market, but you says instead, "There is no need for the state to do so."

You ignore the fact that all authority comes from God and thus has responsiblities; it is the Church's duty to form the conscience of nations, not just individuals; and it is the State's duty to protect all people; not just the market. The Church does not, and has no authority to, merely pick up the slack of social justice for nations where it is lacking. The Church--and the laity--must transform even governments in ways that best glorify God, which means protecting the rights of people.

I find it interesting that, in illustrating a point, I've discovered immediately a soul in direct dissent, and a prime example of someone for whome "free market capitalism" is an untouchable and self-sufficient force for Good.

You cannot call something "neutral" and then day that it cannot be interefered with. All "neutral" things require intervention. Capitalism is no exception.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Ian,

Your error lies in your opinion that the State cannot intervene, when the Pope clearly and unequivocally states: "the State and all of society have the duty of defending those collective goods." Justice is not a private matter.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


No, capitalism is not a closed system. It is open to how we make use of it. Excesses are the fault of people, not the system.

Again, the fact that the US government has given so much money to the aid of those in the wake of the tsunami does not impress me. I despise the insistence that the govt should give more (of other people's money). That is a political decision, motivated by what other countries will think, what voters will think, how much is in the budget, what deals can be done and so forth.

But the overwhelming generosity of the American people, as individuals freely giving according to their Christian duties or secular consciences touches me deeply. That means something, because it is a moral decision, thousands of them. People who cannot really afford to have donated, anonymously, with no expectation of any reward or recognition for what they have done.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


Particularly beautiful, and breaking out of this capitalism debate for a second, is the Pope's line,

"Man cannot give himself to a purely human plan for reality, to an abstract ideal or to a false utopia. As a person, he can give himself to another person or to other persons, and ultimately to God, who is the author of his being and who alone can fully accept his gift." (CA 41)

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Yes, I disagree with the Pope on this one. I distrust governments and find that relief of the poor is most effective where it is done charitably, without state intervention. Would you deny Mother Theresa her vocation among the poor?

Look at how much pork-barrel there is in politics. Little among charities, however. Direct human agency trumps slow government, which gives handouts to those in the news or to its favoured lobby groups but ignores the rest of those who suffer.

No, I never said that capitalism was self-sufficient for good. You distort my words. I simply said that the fruits of a capitalist system depend upon how people use it.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


Right, and the Pope says that to use Capitalism in a way that excludes all intervention by a national power, is an ideological and inherently harmful way to use it.

How could you not see this? With not only rising poverty and unemployment in this country, but tremendous human-rights abuses abroad by American companies in the name of the "free market." I just got done reading the "Diary of a Barrio Priest" by Michael Enright, which details a community so ripped apart by the labor-exodus of local industry that there are daily shootings and weekly gang funerals. How many more people die in our own gang-wars than American soldiers in Iraq? How many more police officers are guarding the blocks of expensive stores in Chicago than the barrios? Why?

Because society now measures the individual in terms of commercial productivity--that's why. That's what is bound to happen when capitalism runs, unchecked and unbounded, on the fuel of its own "undeniable" logic.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Aren't the shootings to do with drugs/macho gang culture rather than with how the state/we value human life? There are plenty of unemployed people in poor communities and in dire straits who don't go around shooting one another.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.

Really? Poor communities, without access to good education, whose members with marketable skills leave at their first opportunity, where the family has disintegrated into patterns of dysfunction and (at least) verbal abuse, often alcaholism (to dumb the pain of financial failure), where there aren't gangs? You tell me where those communities are.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.

Ahh, you now make clear where you're coming from.

Human rights abuses are done *in the name of* profit, if in the name of anything. I.e., they are done in the *system* of capitalism, which allows for untrammelled corporal acts of mercy of untrammelled greed alike, but for the *end* of profit.

The companies act in the name of freemarket capitalism as much as I do when I buy a pint of milk.

They merely take advantage of freemarket capitalism, and there are people willing to be exploited *faute de mieux.* One could argue that this is a social good. Many people abroad are happy to be exploited because they take home to their families far better pay than in the usual state-run industries. An uncomfortable thought, not ideal, and I hope temporary, but there you go.

-- Ian (bruntoniabnospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


I was thinking of Alabama, but there are large parts of countries outside the US that are similarly afflicted and do not have gangs. I do not think that 'economic deprivation' is either a sufficient or a necessary condition for one to kill.

-- Ian (bruntonianospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.

*If* you are putting murder down to social pressure or immediate circumstances, you are absolving the murderer of personal responsibility. Job suffered worse and did not kill. And even where there are gangs, who largely make money through drugs and are hardly poverty-stricken after a few months, there are always people worse off who do not kill.

-- Ian (bruntonianspam@htomail.com), January 02, 2005.

"They merely take advantage of freemarket capitalism, and there are people willing to be exploited *faute de mieux.* One could argue that this is a social good. Many people abroad are happy to be exploited because they take home to their families far better pay than in the usual state-run industries. An uncomfortable thought, not ideal, and I hope temporary, but there you go."

A Catholic cannot argue that human exploitation is in any way a "good". Like I said, you show your true colors.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Thank you for making me aware of the need for a clarification. I meant one could argue that this is a social position better than the existing one but imperfect - as I said, an uncomfortable thought, and hopefully temporary. Not good, but better than nothing.

What, out of interest, are my true colours?

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


Dear Ian,
Thank you. I'm glad that another person has the necessary audacity to play these blame games with another anonymous social reformer.

Not because I agree with all your arguments. But by now you've realised how much WORK is required to put up with all of anon's false premises and courtroom prosecution.

He's convinced me of at least this much: I won't pay admission to see I, Robot.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 02, 2005.


I believe that, in the present, you have bought into the common and delicious myth that the 'laws' of Adam Smith, of free market capitalism, are self-sufficient; that they must not be interfered with; that the solution to most problems of unjust distribution is resources is always "more capitalism" and never any solution which compromises capitalistic tenets. When people suffer under "capitlism done purely", it is always their own fault, the result of their individual evils.

Besides being untenable, and demonstrating either a cold (or naive or ignorant) unconcern for the plight of the poor (though I admit that I myself am too isolated from the midst of the poor), it is also diametrically and formally against Catholic doctrine.

But you don't care--where Catholic doctrine and the expansion/promotion of free market capitalism are at odds, you will take the latter.

Those, I believe, are your true colors. An ideologue, with misplaced priorities, and a false and idolatrous anchor for belief; you have, in this sphere, traded (or perhaps confounded) the Christian gospel for the capitalistic one; traded gold for dross, as it were; placed a finite circle of logic and dictates where only the uncontainable inexhaustable indwelling of the Spirit belongs.

Like the agnostic liberal who takes no serious account of Truth outside of science, you take no serious account of human needs outside of capitlism.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Dear Eugene,

Thank you for the moral support. But I haven't much else to do right now, so I guess the Devil makes work for idle hands!

Ian

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


Anon,

Now you are resorting to personal abuse.

It is unwarranted by anything I have written.

You have called me an idolater.

You have virtually said that I have let my economic theories and experiences take the place of my Catholic Faith.

You have said I do not care for human needs.

This, despite my repeated belief in the virtue of individuals acting morally for the social good. This, despite my marvel at how much social good the Church, charities, organisations and individuals do. This, despite my applauding of those who donate. This, despite reference to my own acts of charity.

I desire a just and fair society. I simply disagree with the Holy Father on the way of getting there.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


I'm surprised at you, Eugene. You have always been an ardent defender of the Church in these forums; yet now you also seem to be buying into the rhetoric, not unlike the liberal Catholics, that the Church cannot touch, or is unqualified to teach authoratively on, certain aspects of political and secular life.

Moreover, "I, Robot" is not an anti-capitalistic film; far from it. In fact, it says nothing about capitalism at all; I am only drawing an analogy from the way the "3 laws of robotics" were absolutized in the film, to the way our own closed systems are often "absolutized"--made untouchable, demanding conformity, etc.

At its root, the film attacks (and I attack) patterns of thought which are in general hostile to orthodox Catholic belief: idolatries of the secular world. Very much like JRR Tolkein's depiction of Saruman, the corrupted White Wizard, who "thinks like a machine," "I, Robot" places authentic human life at odds with ideologies which force people to "think like machines," who place finite logic-systems over and against infinite human dignity.

I have been very impartial in my analysis--targetting for criticism not only (or even mostly) excessive free market capitalism but also the scientism of liberals--and extensively used Catholic church teaching (from an Encyclical, no less) to support my claims

I am surprised not so much by your disagreement, but greatly by your anger; your being so absolutely convinced that what I've written here has so little value that you would even boycott a simple summer blockbuster because I used it as a starting example.

Very, very odd. You should be reminded that no "party", and the republican party is no exception, can fully capture the truth of the Catholic faith. No worldly institution is above reproach.

On top of all of this, I have not said a single word against capitalism, any more than I have against science. Both are necessary and good, and they benefit the daily condition of our lives, but they are also finite and fallible and prone to abuse in American society when and only when they are conceived and central, infallible, untouchable laws of history or keys to success.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Now you are resorting to personal abuse.

Well, you asked for it. Literally. Look above.

You have called me an idolater.

Idolatry is a relative thing. It can be as grand as apostasy (which I have not accused you of) or it can be as small as allowing a finite historical creation (capitalism) take the place of Catholic social teaching (which I have accused you of).

You have virtually said that I have let my economic theories and experiences take the place of my Catholic Faith.

Well, you're not simply "disagreeing with the Pope." Centesimus Annus is not the Pope's private opinions. It is Church teaching. You're not a heretic, but you have placed the value of your "economic theories" too high.

You have said I do not care for human needs.

I have been deliberately careful precisely not to say that, because I don't believe it. If you quote me against myself, be sure not to cut my sentences in half like Eugene did, because my qualifiers are important. But your error is related. You wrongly and un-Catholicly believe that necessary human needs which are not served by the free market system do not need, or do not deserve, the aid of national powers.

This, despite my repeated belief in the virtue of individuals acting morally for the social good. This, despite my marvel at how much social good the Church, charities, organisations and individuals do. This, despite my applauding of those who donate. This, despite reference to my own acts of charity.

That is all very good, and I do not deny those. But it is painfully obvious that such private charity and generousity is unintentionally mocked when their proponents also support what the Pope calls, "unbridled capitalism."

I desire a just and fair society. I simply disagree with the Holy Father on the way of getting there.

But it is plain as day that your "way of getting there" fails an increasing number of people with each passing day, because it places at its center a closed and finite system whose perpetuation has taken priority over and against basic human needs and dignity.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


...which cannot be completely contained in any finite system of economics but only in the Gospel of Christ, which in this contingent circumstance calls for governmental limitations on corporate activities and aid to the poor.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.

"Like the agnostic liberal who takes no serious account of Truth outside of science, you take no serious account of human needs outside of capitlism."

It is precisely because I take serious account of human needs outside capitalism that I take capitalism as the best system in an imperfect world to create wealth, opportunities, gradually redistribute that wealth and so on.

You describe yourself as geographically apart from many poor people. I see and speak to homeless people every day. And I can see how government interference in the housing market and how government regulation in every sphere, including charity, have left them with few options.

-- Ian (bruntoniannospam@hotmail.com), January 02, 2005.


You misunderstood me.

Of course I would expect you to say that the "needs outside capitalism" should be served by 'bringing capitalism to them'. The solution is, always and everywhere, more capitalism! No surprises from your side.

But I wasn't talking about needs which have arisen due to a lack of capitalism. I said, and maintain, that you have no consideration for human needs which capitalism is utterly impotent to serve--because you do not seem to believe that such needs exist. I'm talking about the human needs that 'unbridled capitalism' generates--and it does indeed generate poverty, although you will refuse to believe this.

The basic needs and rights of people will not be perfectly served by uncompromised, unlimited capitalism; in some cases they are trampled upon by the same. The solution is NOT always "more capitalism."

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


...in fact, sometimes, frankly, it is "less capitalism." And that's the crux of it.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.

I'm surprised at you, Eugene. You have always been an ardent defender of the Church in these forums; yet now you also seem to be buying into the rhetoric that the Church is unqualified to teach authoratively on certain aspects of political and secular life.''

I'm still ardent, Sir/Madam. I only react here when you presume to speak for the Church. Capitalists don't speak for me; neither do socialists or liberals.

I don't condone everything American or secular. Yet I can't help seeing how ruthless and domineering your slant is. Almost Napoleonic.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 02, 2005.


I apologize. I see that my tone has been self-righteous, and this is hated by God. I will stop. Yet I do not hold the teaching of Centesimus Annus in any lower regard than any other Encyclical of the Church, and I do not believe that I should be chastized too harshly for defending it (even if I have misunderstood it, which I gather is some people's opinion). Other encyclicals, like Humanae Vitae, have been defended with much more vigor and harsher words than I have used here, without similar complaints.

And frankly, I get rankled when I'm misunderstood. I find free-market capitalism rife with abuse, and I think the Church pretty much agrees; but I hope nobody suggests than I'm some kind of Commie. :)

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 02, 2005.


Ian-- I'm sorry that I missed this conversation from a few days ago. What you experienced in "anonymous" postings was the Marketing of Marxism using the Catholic Church thoughts to try and spin you.

These are always fun conversations when you realize how thin skinned they all tend to be.

-- Michael G. (NoEmail@Nowhere.no), January 05, 2005.


After years of owning a business, I recently got out of the whole game. Anon sees something of the truth here. I'd differ with him only in one sense: I think he's right for the wrong reasons, or let's say, right while not having flushed out the ultimate principles which, once discovered, will make everything crystal clear.

If you perform an analysis on this topic, and work yourself back to the principles which will answer the question, people would be amazed where it would lead them, and at what they would come to realize.

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 05, 2005.


Wow. I have an unlikely defender in Emerald, even though he qualified it. I wish you would elaborate a little more--I love getting to the "ultimate principles" of things.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 05, 2005.

Sorry for the last curt post, and this double-post.

But anyway, I feel a little but unjustly roasted for what was really a very innocent and philosophical look at what, precisely, "ideology" is. I found Centisimus Annus, which really is a very moderate document; it condemns the extremes of both capitalism and socialism. That's common knowledge. I think what surprised people was that strict laissez faire-ism was considered extreme.

What strikes me is that I never meant this thread to be about capitalism. If noone had objected to my mentioning of it, this thread would have simply died. Now I'm being painted as someone who had a socialist agenda to start with, cleverly "spinning" [quoting] Catholic "thoughts" [an Encyclical] to further my nefarious and "Napoleanic" ends.

Now, the red-hot core of the anger seems to be my statement that it is dissent to deny the State its duty and right to limit, regulate, or compensate for the failure of the market to meet the needs of all people. I said that because the Pope wrote, "with the new capitalism, the State and all of society have the duty of defending those collective goods which, among others, constitute the essential framework for the legitimate pursuit of personal goals on the part of each individual." He mentioned the "important needs" which "escape the logic" of "market mechanisms." (CA 40).

Maybe people are upset at the implication that the market can't stand on its own. Maybe people are upset that the Pope is teaching, authoritatively if not infallibly, that the State has a duty they consider illegitimate. Maybe people are upset that one Encyclical says one thing which looks vaguely similar to something a Democrat might say.

But again, I shouldn't be misunderstood. In the first place, my interest is in philosophy and orthodoxy, not politics; and second, I always vote pro-life anyway, so if I'm spin-doctoring a liberal Catholic Marxism, then I must be pretty bad if I can't convince myself.

I'm surprised by all the strong opposition. I thought that the Greenspun forum-regulars were mostly totally Vatican-friendly.

A friend of mine here in the seminary once explained it to me this way. There are two strains of devout Catholics: those who trust that a basically American vision of the Church exists (perhaps coextensive with the Republican platform), and those who suspect that Catholicism will always burst out of American categories.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 05, 2005.


Triple post again! This is the totality of Centesimus Annus #42, with my highlights.

"42. Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress?

The answer is obviously complex. If by "capitalism" is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a "business economy", "market economy" or simply "free economy". But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

The Marxist solution has failed, but the realities of marginalization and exploitation remain in the world, especially the Third World, as does the reality of human alienation, especially in the more advanced countries. Against these phenomena the Church strongly raises her voice. Vast multitudes are still living in conditions of great material and moral poverty. The collapse of the Communist system in so many countries certainly removes an obstacle to facing these problems in an appropriate and realistic way, but it is not enough to bring about their solution. Indeed, there is a risk that a radical capitalistic ideology could spread which refuses even to consider these problems, in the a priori belief that any attempt to solve them is doomed to failure, and which blindly entrusts their solution to the free development of market forces."

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 05, 2005.


"...so if I'm spin-doctoring a liberal Catholic Marxism..."

I don't think so at all. You're on to something. I didn't state it real well when I said "right for the wrong reasons". What I had in mind was something more along the lines of refining the principles which go into making the case. Roughly speaking, the discussion seems to start in the middle, and then proceeds forward without everyone having come to a common agreement on first principles. What happens is then that both arguers are each right and each wrong, each in different senses of the same thing. The struggle won't stop until all stop and revisit an examination of first principles. What I'm more familiar with is something like this: start in the middle, work back to first principle, then proceed forward past the middle to further conclusions. Now I know that all probably sounds somewhat nebulous... for good reason, because actually I'm trying to figure how to the approach this discussion in the first place. First off, I've done some business, but I am anything but an economics whiz, trust me. I have no formal education on topics of this kind, and my input would be generic style, but I'm willing to give it a shot. First I need to read over everything again, plus the encyclical.

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 05, 2005.


By the way, I think this movie was something I was mildly tempted to see at one point. There was something that made me think hey, I should see this because it's going to be one of those movies that might reveal the ideas that permeate society, whether for good or ill, or both tangled together.

From your experience, is there anything morally objectionable enough in it to cause a traditionalist to rend his garments? lol. Safe enough?

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 05, 2005.


You know what, I'm going to have to read Rerum Novarum again first. It's been a long time. I'll do that this afternoon.

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 05, 2005.

Just a 5 second profile of Will Smith's butt. But that's enough to make ANYBODY rend his garments.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 05, 2005.

Ok I'll take a few minutes to play "Why Leonardo Boff is still wrong after all these years"

Latin America is no longer the Roman Catholic monolith it once was. Since the late 1960s, the number of Protestants has surged from 15 million to an estimated 40 million, about 10 percent of the population of Latin America." Brazilian bishop Monsignor Boaventura Kloppenburg says that "Latin America is turning Protestant even faster than Central Europe did in the sixteenth century." The overwhelming majority of these Protestants are Pentecostal. The evangelicals preach individual salvation through individual change.

David Martin, author of Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (1990), suggests that economic advancement is another underlying cause of the Protestant explosion. He argues that "evangelical religion and economic advancement often go together [they] support and reinforce one another."Carmen Galilea, a sociologist in Santiago, said that the typical Pentecostal "is well- regarded. He is responsible. He doesn't drink and is better motivated and better paid. As a result, he rises economically.” Pentecostal preaching "puts great emphasis on the demand to developing the individual," thus contributing to the economic rise.

Another factor linking Pentecostalism and upward mobility is "the mutual material support available within the Pentecostal faith community (the churches provide a network that often functions as a job or housing referral agency)."Moreover, volunteer work in the church "utilizes peoples' talents and creates opportunities to develop new skills that may give them a sense of usefulness and fulfillment for the first time in their lives.” The skills learned in a church context also give an edge to church members in seeking work outside the church.

Wow such a concept teaching a person to fish instead of just giving it to him! This almost sounds like something Jesus would say. (Hmmm or did he?)

IF the Catholic Church would get back to TEACHING personal responsibility, moral values based on Scripture it would inadvertently help at RAISING UP all people, it would help at preventing the oppression of people via materialism.

If the government would get out of trying to breast feed all the people and structure it to serve those who Truly have a need such as the elderly, handicapped, widows who have no means, or ability to provide for themselves and no family to rely upon and then become the leader for personal responsibility, moral values based upon society as a whole many of these issue will resolve themselves.

Since government revenue rises and fall based upon the success and failures of the capitalist system merely leaving or increasing tax deductions for charitable works, IS in fact having the government making a contribution the only difference is that the individual decides which cost effective charity to contribute it to. The government can not mandate love and compassion through taxation or giving your money to some social dead weight, Freedom and free will, free to succeed or free to starve yourself to death if you choose not to provide for yourself. Individual failures yes they happen and the charities can provide temp. Support with money GIVEN out of someone’s Love and Compassion for mankind.

If you want to make social changes to relieve the oppressed push for democracies and capitalism, push for personal, family and social responsibilities throughout the world. Give the capitalist business all the room they need to generate business and jobs and as soon as they move an inch beyond that stomp on them.

What you referred to as barrios in Chicago, we in Chicago call it public housing, generation after generation of gifting the apartment as though it was private property, removing personal responsibility, limited to no punishment for crimes, government breast feeding it what keeps these people down and killing themselves.

Income is NOT the determining factor to crime, drugs, breakup of families, killings. Failed social agendas are! I am sure that even the Pope can see this.

-- Michael G. (NoEmail@Nowhere.no), January 06, 2005.


Thanks for providing an instant starting point for the conversation, Michael. Saves the task of having to think about it.

"Latin America is no longer the Roman Catholic monolith it once was. Since the late 1960s, the number of Protestants has surged from 15 million to an estimated 40 million, about 10 percent of the population of Latin America."

Perhaps people will now connect the dots between democracy as we know it, capitalism, communism, and the loss of the Catholic Faith. Hmmm.

Brazilian bishop Monsignor Boaventura Kloppenburg says that "Latin America is turning Protestant even faster than Central Europe did in the sixteenth century."

Hmmmmm.

"The overwhelming majority of these Protestants are Pentecostal. The evangelicals preach individual salvation through individual change."

Notice that salvation for protestants always has something to do with the aquisition of the goods of this life, the things of this world. Hmmm.

"David Martin, author of Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (1990), suggests that economic advancement is another underlying cause of the Protestant explosion."

Free markets (as we know them), democracy, individualism, materialism, capitalism... Protestantism... loss of the Catholic Faith. A picture is forming here.

"Wow such a concept teaching a person to fish instead of just giving it to him! This almost sounds like something Jesus would say. (Hmmm or did he?)"

Jesus talked about that intending it to refer to economic success? No. Of course not.

"IF the Catholic Church would get back to TEACHING personal responsibility, moral values based on Scripture it would inadvertently help at RAISING UP all people, it would help at preventing the oppression of people via materialism."

Not quite finished revisiting Rerum Novarum yet. But Pope Leo XIII (I love this pope) talks very eloquently of something like that. Funny thing is, his way of accomplishing the above is opposite yours.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau had this to say in On the Social Contract:

"Tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship. Whoever dares to say: "Outside the Church there is no salvation", ought to be driven from the State."

Holy smoke, d'ya see that?

Let's talk about the separation of Church and State. Is it really good, or what if it is really... evil? Let's talk about the French Revolution.

What if it really is as simple as this. First, the enemy of Christ's Church struck a blow to the hierarchical authority and structure of the Catholic Church. The Protestant Revolution. Having unhinged a people from their rightful authority in matters both spiritual and temporal, that authority being none other than the Supreme Pontiff, he then begins to set at work to separate religion and politics. Alright, now he turns his attention to separating morality from economics. Then he puts them all back together, but this time, minus the Catholic Church.

Revolutionary ideas: eating out the existing struction of the Social Kingship of Christ, and reconstitutiing society in the image and likeness of Man.

The above is an outline.

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 06, 2005.


These Revolutionary ideas have, over the course of several hundred years, reduced our Papacy to the status of "figurehead offering an occasional moral opinion". This is extremely unfortunate.

But whether anyone believes it or not, or likes or not, the papacy remains the ultimate authority over the entire populace of the world, in matters both spiritual and temporal. Laughable as it may seem at the present and in this age, this fact will eventually be known as ultimate reality by every mind in the final analysis.

The collapse of the fruit of these revolutionary ideas is inevitable, because society cannot ultimately sustain itself apart from God.

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 06, 2005.


Italics off. Sorry.

These Revolutionary ideas have, over the course of several hundred years, reduced our Papacy to the status of "figurehead offering an occasional moral opinion". This is extremely unfortunate. But whether anyone believes it or not, or likes or not, the papacy remains the ultimate authority over the entire populace of the world, in matters both spiritual and temporal. Laughable as it may seem at the present and in this age, this fact will eventually be known as ultimate reality by every mind in the final analysis.

The collapse of the fruit of these revolutionary ideas is inevitable, because society cannot ultimately sustain itself apart from God.

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 06, 2005.


All you contrarians have to say is, ''IF the Catholic Church would get back to TEACHING personal responsibility, moral values based on Scripture,'' Not because She isn't so doing, but because you feel able to runa a Catholic diocese better than a bishop-- Haha--Yuck, ''it--'' (It? It's SHE, my friend--) ''would inadvertently''--

So, all the good done by the Holy Spirit is inadvertent? Listen to him! ''--help at RAISING UP all people, it would help at preventing the oppression of people via materialism.''

Stop it; you're KILLIN me!

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 06, 2005.


I don't get it, Eugene. What do you mean?

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 06, 2005.

Very interesting posts, anonymous. Thanks.

One problem to quibble with though...the GOP is anything but monolithic in "ideology", as everyone but the Democrats seem to know.

There are two main groups - loosely called the Reagan Republicans (social and fiscal conservatives) and the Rockefeller Republicans (social liberals with a mix of fiscal conservatism).

They aren't always working in harmony...most of the time they actually work against each other. RINOs are real! While the Dems howl about how extreme the Bush admin is...in reality, if you go down the list of the people who compose that administration you get a fairly heterogenous group of people. I'm not sure but it's something along the lines of 60/40 Rockefeller vs Reagan republicans.

Naturally, this is in flux as are all things political. But it behooves us to know what we are talking about when we discuss political realities. There are a few pro-life democrats... a few. Most however are staunchly social liberals and fiscal socialists. The GOP is nowhere near being a majority "extreme right" party, but it's enough that a good minority of them are conservative to keep the party itself "to the right".

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), January 06, 2005.


The whole problem, Joe, is that the principles of this Republic are the same principles which are the revolutionary ideas which have been undermining the Catholic Church.

One of these days you'll come to realize this. Then your Catholic Faith will become less about politics and more about going to Heaven.

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 06, 2005.


Michael is right about teaching personal responsibility, self-improvement, and moral righteousness, and 'individual change'--these are lacking today.

He is also right about the need to teach skills that allow for upward mobility. John Paul wrote, "It is also necessary to help these needy people to acquire expertise, to enter the circle of exchange, and to develop their skills in order to make the best use of their capacities and resources." This is best achieved in the family, which the Catholic church defends.

But individualism, the intrusion of the market-mentality into all realms of life are not the answers.

"If the government would get out of trying to breast feed all the people and structure it to serve those who Truly have a need such as the elderly, handicapped, widows who have no means, or ability to provide for themselves and no family to rely upon and then become the leader for personal responsibility, moral values based upon society as a whole many of these issue will resolve themselves."

I agree, and nobody here as arguing that the government needs "breast feed" anybody. However, the limits of capitalism--and there are limits--are deeper than merely those who aren't able-bodied. It is not a perfect system of merit; it does not reward people proportionately to their effort--not that a just system always needs to, but the point is, lots of people are going to get the shaft whether they deserve it or not.

"The government can not mandate love and compassion through taxation or giving your money to some social dead weight, Freedom and free will, free to succeed or free to starve yourself to death if you choose not to provide for yourself."

These is the central fallacies of capitalistic ideology. (1) That a government requiring its citizens to support the well-being of people who have 'slipped through the cracks' + "mandating love or compassion" and therefore illegitimate. Frankly the government does have limited rights to tell its citizens what to do with their resources in any case, so this is just rhetoric. Law is the enforceable instrument of justice, and justice serves love and mercy. Nations are not excused from morality; individual morality is NOT the last word.

(2) That there is such a thing as "social dead weight," an interesting phrase that evokes images of amputation rather than revitalization. If the pure market machine doesn't let 'em pull themselves up by the bootstraps, better off just lettin' 'em rot.

(3) That, in pure capitalism, those who suffer simply deserve to suffer. "Obviously," the poor within the market system are just lazy. Why? Because capitalism says so.

"If you want to make social changes to relieve the oppressed push for democracies and capitalism, push for personal, family and social responsibilities throughout the world. Give the capitalist business all the room they need to generate business and jobs and as soon as they move an inch beyond that stomp on them."

Absolutely agreed. But justice will not be served by this alone.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 06, 2005.


Emerald;
Michael G. quotes David Martin and you quote Michael G quoting David Martin, and reacting to each; only these big scoops are so verbose and pontifical a reader can't compartmentalize without eventually confusing one for one of the others.

When are you guys going to acquire the habit of taking patient steps? You're force-feeding your premises and conclusions to the rest of us mercilessly. I took the sentence for one of yours; and yes, I'm confused. Is this politics or is it the Catholic faith? Make up your minds.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 06, 2005.


I guess that's what I was trying to hint at with Anon, Joe. Often times people take what they know, and move forward with it, instead of first working back analytically to principle, and then moving from principle forward to synthesize (the real kind, not the bad kind of synthesis) their conclusions.

It's like this: people say, "hey, we've got Communism and Captalism and Democracy and free markets and entreprenuerism and blah blah blah, and so... how can we take what's good about these things we already have on our plate here, and tweak these to fit in with the Social Kingship of Christ?"

But the point is, you can't do that. Its lipstick on a pig.

Go back to first principles. You find the family, not individualism; you find kingship and queenship. You find hierarchical structure... never, ever the sorriest idea of the bottom ruling the top.

You find monarchy. Monarchy is Catholic. Democracy is Protestant. Go look at history.

For kicks, go look in your wallet. Reflect on those plastic cards and ask yourself how it can possibly be that one can use them to obtain possession of, on a mere whim, things they haven't even worked for yet. Something is seriously unholy about that.

If anon does a thorough, and I do mean thorough, working back to first principles on this topic, he will find nothing less the monarchy.

The Heavenly Court is not a democracy. "...On earth, as it is in Heaven"

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 06, 2005.


Its lipstick on a pig. - Emerald

That's one I never heard before. I'll have to remember that one. :-)

-- Andy S ("ask3332004@yahoo.com"), January 06, 2005.


Oh. Is that what this is all about? Well shucks, Em, why didn't ya say so? Sometimes me = slow.

I don't know about the whole monarchy = Catholic thing (you can make a good case for it), but I don't like democracy, in principle. Part of it is I've been really strongly influenced by Chris Butler of Greenspun days of old. Part of it is that my philosophy education has convinced me that the basic presuppositions behind democracy come from a flawed perception of the human person. The biggest problem with it is the truly heretical notion of the "social contract"; authority comes from God, not in the satisfaction of the whims of the milieu of sinners.

Yes, I believe that an ideal government would be basically monarchical and firmly rooted in God. But that's a whole 'nother can o' worms.

-- anon (ymous@god.bless), January 06, 2005.


Well it looks like some thoughts have been inspired here, Unfortunately I wont't have time until later to play.

But---------Eugene Chavez caught and highlighted a MAJOR mis- communication created by my statement

"help at RAISING UP all people, it would help at preventing the oppression of people **via** materialism.''

The CORRECT statement Should have read.

"help at RAISING UP all people, it would help at preventing the oppression of people **CAUSED BY** materialism.''

I hope that this clears up any misdirection to my thoughts. Thank you Eugene for catching this for me.

And should anyone think that I might be from a Protestant denomination-- I am not, I am Catholic from a Long line of Catholics with various ranked Clergy on both sides going back several hundred years. ( well the family does I'm not really that old)

Until later when I have some time Thank You!

-- Michael G. (NoEmail@Nowhere.no), January 06, 2005.


Blame it, I says, I might get hunted up and jailed; I'd better lay low and keep dark, and not write at all; the thing's awful mixed now; trying to better it, I've worsened it a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch the whole business!

--Huck Finn

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 06, 2005.


lipstick on a pig

Yeah Andy, I actually stole that from some modernist heretic I was arguing with last week. Have to hand it to him for that one. It was an updating of the silk purse/sow's ear thing... an actual case of an honeest modernist development I could actually use and agree with.

-- Emerald (em@cox.nett), January 06, 2005.


It would appear that someone may not be to overly found of our Protestant denomination brothers in Christ. Hmmm. Even the Vatican has come to the realization that they are not all that bad.

But if SOMEONE was to work the current membership issues Backwards they might find the root to some of these problems.

When the Catholic Church became less Godly, in came Luther and outwent the members with him to be closer to God in worship and actions.

When the Protestant Churches became less Godly, in came the Non- Denominationals and outwent the members with them to be closer to God in worship and actions.

Spot any patterns YET? Perhaps the modern day Pharisees or maybe the Sanhedrin council

The Churches say be a HEARER of the word, People say NO we want to Know and LIVE the word.

The Churches say Turn to US for Guidance, People say no thanks we will turn to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit for guidance.

The Churches say we take care of our own, People say we noticed!

The Churches say we are the Authority, People say Explain that to the Authorities

Will the Void be filled again, of course as soon as the Creators of the Void see what they have DONE!, Because the people WILL continue to seek God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in truth just as these Churches used to teach them to do.

-- Michael G. (NoEmail@Nowhere.no), January 07, 2005.


Emerald City:
I found this kinda cute: ''some modernist heretic I was arguing with last week.'' You know-- lipstick and the pig.

A modernist heretic, Hmmm? You mean a Catholic from the lame church? It might be interesting to know from your lipstick--er no

I meant lips. Why was he/she a heretic; and what kind of heretic? And, if he's a modernist, tell us about that. He loves Chagall but dislikes Giotto?

Or does he love only nostalgic worship; as opposed to ''hateful things that take place during Father Mike's Mass''--??? You shouldn't go there, Emerald. It won't be at all nostalgic or catacombish, for your taste.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 07, 2005.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ