Can CST Help Obama?
Writing in The
Obama doesn’t need to take drastic action to make up for this deficit. He doesn’t need to bring a Catholic priest into his “brain trust” like FDR did in 1932, and he doesn’t need to win overwhelmingly among Catholics like John F. Kennedy did in 1960. But here’s the interesting part: In articulating his economic views in ways that are especially accessible to Catholics, Obama would do much more than just increase his chances with that constituency. He’d discover that Catholic social thought provides Democrats with the kind of moral vision and linguistic clarity that their economic positions have lacked for decades now.
I would like to believe this, but I don’t think I do. First of all, I have not seen a great deal of convincing evidence that Obama’s “Catholic gap” is due to specifically Catholic concerns. I think it reflects Obama’s broader weakness among working class whites and latinos. These weaknesses, in turn, are probably more attributable to dynamics of race, class, and culture than issues that are specifically “Catholic” in nature. If I could construct a regression equation to filter out these other variables, I suspect that the “Catholic impact” would be much smaller. That is, of course, a hypothesis that needs to be tested.
More fundamentally, though, I think that Winters underestimates the extent to which the Catholic language he advocates for is no longer the language—if it ever was—of rank and file Catholics. Not for nothing do social justice advocates within the Church complain that Catholic Social Teaching is the Church’s “best kept secret.” Terms like the “common good” and the “dignity of the human person” may resonate among Catholic scholars and activists, but I haven’t seen much evidence to suggest they are recognized by ordinary Catholics as belonging distinctively to their own tradition.
There may have been a time when this was the case. If so, it was the product of an era when Catholics were raised and socialized in a distinctive culture that really was somewhat different from the Protestant mainstream. Andrew Greeley often used survey research to demonstrate the existence of this particular worldview. My recollection, though, is that his research showed that it was less prevalent among younger cohorts than those socialized as Catholics prior to Vatican II.
That’s not to say that there aren’t large numbers of Catholics out there who see doing social justice as a core part of being Catholic. Indeed, large numbers of them (regretfully, in my view) see it as more important than going to
In the end, I agree with Winters that it would be salutary if the Democrats were to make less use of rights-based appeals in articulating their vision for the country. But I don’t think that doing so is likely to have a large impact on the “Catholic vote.”
on July 18th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I think it would be a wonderful thing if Catholic social teaching were to enter more fully into mainstream political parlance.
I suspect, though, that, in terms of capturing the “Catholic vote”, the most cohesive cohort within Catholicism is conservative Catholics, and Obama’s position on life issues is such that it is unlikely he will garner much support from them.
on July 18th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Or could it be that just enough Catholics understand that social justice talk in the context of strong, unyielding abortion-rights talk undercuts the former?
That a “vision” of a just society in which the unborn are treated as non-persons is empty?
Or, even taking abortion out of the picture, something Obama supporters seem unwilling to see: that there may be individuals deeply concerned about justice and charity but who see Obama as at best an empty suit who is the tool of bigger Democratic party interests and at worst a cynical opportunitist who has,e ssentially no record, and they are also turned off by his self-aggrandizement?
Could be….
on July 18th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
“An empty suit.” Elaine, the way you fear Obama to be is precisely the way Bush seems to have turned out in fact to be in Jane Mayer’s new book on torture. My thought all along-the Manchurian Candidate.
Whatever one’s fears are about Obama, they must pale in comparison to the nightmare that has materialized under George Bush.
We’re not starting with a tabula rasa. We’re starting with a track record of what the Republicans have done over the past eight years–and what they will continue to do if still in power.
On abortion. . . which way is the center going? . I know lots of formerly pro-life Catholics who are turned off by the pro-life movement. I myself am uneasy with what I perceive of as a certain type of idolatry. The fetus isn’t simply human, it’s better than human. It’s perfect–sinless, quiet, and closer to God. No one else counts. That’s my worry with respect to Archbishop Chaput. I think, unwittingly, he has created two classes of human beings–the perfect, silent, unborn and the messy, demanding screaming unwashed masses.
on July 18th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
“The fetus isn’t simply human, it’s better than human. It’s perfect–sinlesss, quiet, and closer to God. No one else counts.”
There may be some in the pro-life movement who think this way, Cathleen, but I don’t think it’s a majority position. For me, it’s simple: the fetus is innocent and it’s helpless, and I traveled that way once. Others should be allowed to complete the same passage without intentional interruption. Pro-life also has to include, however, strong support for safety nets for pregnant women and women with newborns.
on July 19th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Cathy: If this is the sort of advice you’re giving to Obama, and he follows it, there will be lots of us who will find it very difficult to vote for him. Caricature is no great contribution to political discourse. What an easy way to demonize those with whom one disagrees: one needn’t look for any common ground between “them” and “us”; serious efforts to understand “which way is the center going” need not be undertaken; It is enough to tar “the pro-life movement” as indulging “a certain type of idolatry”. Although, come to think of it, why Obama would even need a Catholic advisory board is a good question–Democrats already know all this.
on July 19th, 2008 at 8:44 am
As always a lot to think about in Peter’s post.
If I interpret the main point right, Peter wants to know would Catholics recognize their own social teaching, were it to be promoted by Obama, and would they vote for him en masse as a result?
Catholics need to be reminded, as William C. has reminded us–that CST is not simply being against abortion, but that Catholic doctrine as whole is predicated on the worth of human life and our duty to love and protect it as God would.
Our former bishop, Carl Mengeling, did a wonderful job every election year with his voter’s guide, which was more an examination of conscience before voting exercise. He listed something close to a score of issues that related to CST–from abortion to care of the poor and elderly to euthanasia to environmental concerns. And below those topics were a list of questions to ask yourself about any candidate.
In other words, election years were opportunities to get Catholics thinking about the whole range of CST and what it meant in the secular political arena.
Perhaps if priests and bishops made a concerted effort to take that “big picture” approach, CST would not only help Catholics recognize candidates with whom they shared moral affinities, but also help political candidates make better social policies. I hear lots of interesting homilies in which priests provide historical context for the day’s gospel readings or tell stories about their own spiritual growth.
All well and good, but taken together, these homilies are all more about correct interpretation of Scripture and the individual’s quest for God and holiness. Where’s the common good, the collective well being, the caritas in that?
on July 19th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Bravo to Jean for an extremely sensible comment not only about the posts, but the thread introduction.Presumably, Faithful Citizenship (a Call to Political Responsibility) is the major thrust of our Church here in the forthcoming elections. In eneumerating the various priorities(not just one) that voters consider, Bishops urge, “we need to consider what is best for “the comon good.”"
The centrality of that concept was testified to at the Convention in Philadelphia last weekend that c. 800 attended. I guess that was just for activists in some views.
On the other hand, the broad desire to be involved in social justice among young and often disaffected catholics is easy to write off as a kind of general good will, bu tI think it represents more a longing to see more practice as preached in the institution.
Alexia Kelly, who has written much on the common good notion, sees it as a unifying force in our deeply divided society. I think there’s a lot in that and also for the church.
The us and them doesn’t work, it’s true but it keeps popping up in our discussions here. I suspect that has a lot to do with the political preconceptions of the varied posters.
on July 19th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Joe, the finger-wagging is beneath you. Cut it out.
It should be obvious that this isn’t my advice to Obama. My advice to Obama, as I’ve repeated again and again on this blog: in a nutshell: Read Mary Ann Glendon’s Abortion and Divorce in Western Law. See how extreme our abortion law is, in comparison even with the rest of the West. And by the way, see how extreme and dangerous to women and children our divorce law is, too. If you want my view on abortion and the law, see the lead article in The Thomist, April 1991. “Toward a Thomistic Perspective on Abortion and the Law in Contemporary America.”
This is my response to Elaine. Her tacit assumption is that the pro-life movement, if not heeded, can deny the election to Obama. But she fails to take into account the way the move from a more prophetic time in American politics to a more pragmatic time poses dangers for the pro-life movement–dangers in large part of their own making. A forty-year-fight brings scars.
The charge has long been made that pro-life activists don’t care about people after they’re born. I’ve recently begun studying that charge, and thinking about its basis. Here’s what I have found: in response to Roe’s denial of personhood to the unborn, I see in the pro-life literature and on the websites an overcompensation, a functional attempt to portray the unborn in a manner that suggests they are not only persons–they are somehow better, purer, persons. You can see an incipient two-tiered anthropology that coheres with that viewpoint. By the way, it’s not caricature if its true.
It’s not merely activists, it’s people who should know better. For example, Archbishop Chaput, who presents himself as the moral spokesperson for the pro-life movement (at least its Catholic wing), seriously distorts the manner in which the Catholic moral tradition requires us to consider unintended side effects in the First Things piece that we discussed on the blog in May. http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=2009
His question for those voting for pro-choice Democrats: what do those of us who vote for a pro-choice candidate say to the unborn aborted babies in heaven? No other babies, no other suffering people, no one else counts. I’m not aware of Chaput posing such a pointed question to those voting Republican. Yet our moral tradition requires ALL of us to consider the unintended side effects of our actions. It follows that those voting for McCain need to consider the unintended side effects of their actions–the babies dead in war, the babies dead of starvation. It’s not that he does the calculus, and the Republicans win. It’s that all other victims of unintended side effects don’t count at all –they are invisible.
Not to put to fine a point on it: the very certainty that Archbishop Chaput has that the unborn babies ARE in heaven is quite striking– my guess is that this doesn’t cohere with the rest of his soteriology. He doesn’t strike me as a strong Balthasarian-and even Balthasar talks about “hope”; not a presumption that everyone will be saved. But the Archbishop’s certainty does cohere with the move, very popular in pro-life circles, to claim that all aborted unborn babies would go straight to heaven (sometimes configured as martyrs) and the whole push for the Vatican to declare that to be the case. The push didn’t include unbaptized children who haven’t reached the age of reason who’ve died of starvation over the years. The focus in the activist groups was on unbaptized aborted babies. What are the tacit anthropological presuppositions about the status of the unborn vis a vis the rest of humanity that would lead one to think this is a claim that should be made?
I think it’s the reaction to this tacit, two-tiered anthropology that underlies the charge, which I hear more and more as the country moves out of a prophetic time into a more pragmatic era, that pro-lifers don’t care about people after their born. In the end, it’s that charge that has the potential to do the most harm to the movement.
God willing, this will be an article. I’ll send you a copy when I’m done.
on July 19th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Cathleen–
I’m not sure that “Komonchak” is Fr. Komonchak, who posts as “Joseph A. Komonchak.”
Thanks for your expanded comments. I don’t think it’s possible to define a one-size-fits-all pro-life movement. Perhaps that is a weakness in efforts to protect the unborn. For my part, I’m most aligned with the pro-life policies of the Democrats for Life of America, which while opposed to abortion, also espouses many pragmatic solutions for reducing abortions in its “95-10″ campaign.
on July 19th, 2008 at 11:34 am
A further thoughton Catholic committes for politicians.
We all know about the Bush team.
Didn’t I hear on Anderon Cooper 360 this week that an “activist” group had asked hMcCain to dro;p Deal Hudson (of incident Fordh am fame) from his advisors?
(McCain refused.)
Just strikes me that a lot depends here on whose ox is gored.
on July 19th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
The elevation of the unborn to the exaulted status Cathleen mentions–and it seems clear to me she is describing something very real–raises a question I have never seen asked, let alone answered. If aborted babies, being perfectly innocent creatures, go straight to heaven, aren’t they more fortunate than the rest of us? Aren’t they something like angels, and indeed angels who can’t “fall”? I believe it is Catholic teaching that hell, in some form, exists, and that people who reach the age of reason have a real chance of going there, and that in fact that some do go there. It seems to me the risk of hell is the ultimate risk. How could it be denied that those who get to bypass “this vale of tears” and go straight to heaven, without any risk of damnation, are most fortunate?
on July 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Mr. Collier: It’s the same “Komonchak”; I’m away from my own computer, and this is how it comes out.
Cathy:
I hope you’ve also done some study as to whether the common charge against pro-life activists is true. The Catholic Church is a leading pro-life group which happens to run the largest private welfare and social justice system in the country. The last time I looked (this morning), Archbishop Chaput has not dismantled the Catholic Charities system in his own archdiocese, which includes an extensive social justice program. Here’s a pragmatic criterion you might take into account, and advise those making it to take into account. And, as I think you would agree, the charge is a caricature if it’s not true.
The two-tiered anthropology is “functional”, “incipient,” “tacit”, and equivalent in your mind to making the unborn “better, purer persons” than the born. That some such view may be found in “the pro-life literature” and “on the websites” I will take your word for. But how widely? How broadly? Should the whole movement be indicted for this?
Archbishop Chaput is not the leader, much less the sole spokesman, for the pro-life movement.
Where have you found a “push” on he part of the Vatican to declare that all aborted babies go straight to heaven?
on July 19th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
David–
I hope you’re not suggesting that the intentional killing of the unborn does them a favor? If so, would that mean that anyone who has a child would be guilty of depriving their offspring of guaranteed salvation?
on July 19th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
William,
If aborted babies go directly to heaven, it would seem that they are more fortunate than those who live to the age of reason and consequently are at risk for damnation. This seems quite obvious, to me. However, that would in no way give anyone the right to kill. There are a number of situations in which one could reasonably hope to help people by killing them. For example, a sniper might pick people off as they leave church after confession. It seems to me that ultimately, at least according to Catholic thinking, murder is wrong because no one but God has the right to say when someone should die. A person who is dying in agony and wishes to to die so that his or her suffering may be ended, according to Catholic teaching, may not be killed. So ultimately it is not the harm done to the murdered person that makes murder an “intrinsic evil.”
on July 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
To leverage off of Cathleen: “Whatever one’s fears are about Obama, they must pale in comparison to the nightmare that WILL CONTINUE under JOHN MC CAIN.”
Same-o, same-o.
The strongest reason for voting for Obama is this mantra: Supreme Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court.
And yes, boyz and gurlz, there are many other issues facing this nation besides abortion (it will remain legal no matter WHO gets elected!) that fall within the scope of CST. No, I am not including the price of gasoline, either.
How about:
the insipid economy and disasterously weak dollar
the distinct possibility that the dollar will no longer be the worldwide currency of choice
the widening income gap between those that have-to-much and don’t-have-enough
the crushing debt burden that your children and grandchildren will have to shoulder
the fact that we are a debtor nation
the abysmal state of public education
the healthcare crisis
the terrible moral reputation the US has in the rest of the world
the fact that a rather large segment of the US population is not preparing itself for the ever-changing demographic shift and the possible problems that might entail
I am sure that any one of you can name other things.
One-issue voting is lame, unworthy of intelligent people and guaranteed to ensure that this country remains disasterously divided.
on July 19th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Jimmy Mac:
The fallacy that always rears its head in discussions like this is the assumption that the liberal/Democratic solution to those problems – which usually involves more government spending – is the only answer consistent with CST. It is quite possible that a person could be deeply concerned with all of those issues and feel that the liberal/Democratic solution would deepen those problems rather than alleviate them.
In other words, it is possible to be a Catholic whose conscience is formed by CST to believe that Obama and his party’s solutions are not necessarily the only solutions consistent w/CST and in fact might even be harmful to the cause.
on July 19th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Hmmm….you post, head off to clean your garage for a few hours, and look what happens…:-)
Just to be clear, my original post did not have a partisan intent. I referenced Obama because Michael Sean Winters did. But I suppose you could ask the same question about George Bush in 2000, who did in fact try to appropriate certain themes from Catholic Social Teaching (remember the reference to Dorothy Day?).
My question–which Jean nailed better than I did–is whether this “messaging” really had much of an impact on Catholic voting. Do Catholics actually respond to appeals that “speak their language?” I had suggested in my original post that they probably didn’t because fewer and fewer Catholics actually “speak” in a distinctively Catholic way. So whether you are advising Obama or McCain, I suspect the conclusion is the same.
on July 19th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Dear Prof Kaveny,
I’m an undecided voter currently, and I’d like to vote for Obama, but I need him to move to the center on abortion. For example, he could support this 90/10 bill that Dems for Life has sponsored. It is basically a handful of social programs that might help reduce the number of abortions. Or, maybe he could acknowledge that abortion is wrong, even if it shouldn’t necessarily be made illegal. Or, maybe he could say that abortion is not a human/constitutional right, but that it should remain legal for a certain serious reasons.
The thing that would really allow me to be a Democrat again is if the Party would abandon Roe v Wade, but still be pro-choice. Then, abortion would be a state issue, and I could vote for the Democrats nationally at least. But, I’m afraid this is likely to remain only a dream.
Any chance you’ll be recommending these ideas to Senator Obama? (Smile.)
on July 20th, 2008 at 2:11 am
7-19-08 My inexpert understanding of Roe is that the Court did not settle the issue ahsolutely. Rather, it said that because the Court was unable to determine just when the fetus is “ensouled”, that the right of privacy should prevail. It seems to me that this means that unless and until the philosophical, psychological and biological issues involved are resolved, the Court says abortion is none of its business. But perhaps later decisions have settled the issue based on other reasons. Is tjat the case?
Anyway, if it is true that the Court has not settled the issue, then it seems to me that the it would be quite rational for the right-to-lifers to sponsor some real discussions of the philosophical, psychological and biological issues involved, but as far as I can see, there has been no “abortion debate” — no litteral *debates*. Both sides largely just offer their conclusions with no convincing reasons to back them up.
One of the reasons that the problem has been so intractable is that within the larger problem there are many *kinds* of problems involved. It will take philosophers, psychologists and biologists, each respecting the expertise of the others, to give hopefully definitive answers to the most fundamental question, questions which cannot be answers by just one discipline: “what is a human person” and “how do we know one when we find it”. Any politician who furthered such a discussion (perhaps by encouraging non-governmental foundations to sponsor them) it would go far towards ending this endless shouting of conclusions only, followed so often by name-calling. As Bill Cllinton puts it, no one is for killling babies, but, I think, the pro-lifers often act as if the pro-abortioners are. There is a dreadful lack of respect of the other side on both sides of the issue.
My own opinion is that in the earliest stage of pregnancy (say up to 2 weeks) there is no person involved, excepting, of course, the mother, so the tiny creature has no human right to life at this stage. If this is the case, then the stem cell ethical problem vanishes, or it should. But what about later stages? There’s the rub.
It seems to me that the medievals had the strongest answer to those questions — that it is no person until it posseses *specifically* human capabilities, capabilities which define something as a rational animal. With the extraordinary advandes in neuroscience we are much closer to being able to answer these question. The prefrontal lobes which are necessry for the higher levels of thinking, start to function *after* a couple of weeks, thus giving evidence that the creature is doing specifically, defining human activities. As best I can determine, and contrary to most people’s assumptions, even many pro-life Catholics, the official teaching of the Church agrees — there is no person at the very earliest stages. But the Church also teaches that these non-rational beings have a human right to life, a position which on the face of it seems like nonsense to me.
Even if we could be sure just when there is a person there, we would still be left with the subsidiary purely ethical problems of rape and incest and of threats to the mother’s life. I don’t see how you can justify abortion even in the former two cases, but the latter is certainly arguable.
In other words, I think that we do not have clear answers to the big questions, but we’re getting there, and until we do Roe will and should stand. What we need is a president willing to encourage objective thinking about the subject. But that might be asking for a miracle.
on July 20th, 2008 at 4:44 am
Joe, you might want to dig deeper. In a column on his website, Archbishop Chaput has recently threatened to end all Catholic social services if Colorado doesn’t keep its new exemption to anti-discrimination requirements for religious entities’ hiring practices.
“Catholic Charities has a long track record of helping people in need from any religious background or none at all. Catholic Charities does not proselytize its clients. That isn’t its purpose. But Catholic Charities has no interest at all in generic do-goodism; on the contrary, this it’s an arm of Catholic social ministry. When it can no longer have the freedom it needs to be “Catholic,” it will end its services. This is not idle talk. I am very serious.”
http://www.archden.org/dcr//news.php?a=9580&s=2
I recently heard some suggestion by people more familiar with the provision of social services than I am that this is a disproportionate response, given the fact that they lived without an exemption for so long — it just came in in 2007. It appears only three employees are effected by the new law. Given all this, some people fear that it’s an excuse on Chaput’s part to end social services, which many conservative bishops believe attracts too many liberals.
Here’s the anti-defamation league response.
http://regions.adl.org/mountain-states/news/letters-to-the-editor-house.html
Even if you think he’s entirely justified in making the threat, you can’t ignore the impact on pro-life issues. And you can’t ignore the fact that he’s not open to even some sort of compromise effort to save them–the way Catholic Charities tried and failed to save adoption services in Boston.
At the same time, I should say, more broadly, that charity, even government funded charity, isn’t enough. There has to be a broad social and political commitment to women, children, and the poor over the long haul. There has to be advocacy for that sort of help and encouragement.
I keep saying, read Glendon.
2. You don’t seem to like words like “tacit” or “functional.” But they are part of the stock in trade in my subfield.
There are a number of ways of doing ethics.
One way is to analyze straight-up, ethical arguments –for and against a particular position made by professional ethicists. Even then, it takes a lot of close work. Sometimes, the concepts that the argument turns on aren’t the ones that are presented up front. You need to press beyond what concept people say is doing the work to see what concept is actually doing the work.
When ethics enters into the public square, intertwined with political activism, it is rare that people say exactly what they mean. So, you have to dig. You have to see what the underlying assumptions are. So when I analyze the death with dignity movement in Oregon, and its literature, I look at its tacit assumptions, not merely what it says that it is saying. The same goes with analyzing the public interventions of any other political movement–including the right-to-life movement.
It’s part of my job.
on July 20th, 2008 at 8:54 am
At issue, in the orgiinal piece, is Obama’s appropiation of Catholic vocabulary as a means to convey a moral gravity and elan to otherwise dry economic and health care issues.
Perhaps CST vocabulary is understood mostly by scholars and activists. However, as an activist of sorts, I detected a strong thrust of CST vocabulary in Bush’s articulation of compassionate conservatism and in many strains of neo-conservative concentration of social issues. I remember having a conversation about this with a friend. The conensus was that the neo-cons were essentially correct (e.g. big government is not a solution, community-based, subisidiarity is definitely the way to go in terms of empowering local communities to identify local priorites and directions). The problem was that usually those who favour that approach (conservatives) use it as a pre-text to slash funding. It becomes what was referred to as a race to the bottom in that federal gov’t says not my responsibility (meaning $$$), provinces (or states) not my responsibility ($$$) and municipalities are forced to assume the responsibility and cost. But because most people pay attention to BIG government politics on the media, the feds and provinces can boast fiscal responsibility.
But the solution is certainly not to return to big federal government as a systemic solution to these problems. They have a role but not a direct one. I hope Obama’s experience as a community organizer will enable him to understand the role of gov’t as there are quite a number of dinosarus lost in the 60’s and 70’s in senior leadership postions among Democrats.
Just as Catholic intellectuals who supported Bush et al (the theo-cons) were criticized about the war, so too progressive Catholics who are assisting Obama have a responsibility not to be co-opted. The pro-life issue is a very legitimate one that is not only symbolic but existential as well. While I like Obama, I don’t think he grasps this in the way that Bush did.
on July 20th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Elaine:
The Republican response to most social ills? Let them eat cake, so long as the rich get richer, the poor get children and the market forces (which, of course, have the blessing of the heavens) continue to ensure that this may always be so.
on July 20th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Several of the posts here, while indicating -and I beleive sincerely- their commitment to CST, also seem to be governed by American Enterprise Institute thinking., and the assumption that anyone who disagrees is essentially Democrat pro-Obama.
Beyond that, whether or not one agres with Cathy, how often discussion here returns (sometimes tiredly) to the issue of abortion underscores the problem of one issue dominance in terms of the full context of CST.
I still think the thread started out with the question of how well Catholics understand CST and, in particular, “the common good.”
Given the recent Pew findings that we are quite diversive, very pragmatic and tending to be quite tolerant as a group, I don’t think ignorance of what the Church says captures the present scene.
on July 20th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
My last comment on this thread, about which I apologize to Peter for my part in taking it where he didn’t want it to go.
I think Bob’s last sentence in the post above is very important. And I confess that I don’t quite know how to deal with it. I don’t know WHAT captures the present scene. My guess is that we who spend time on dotCommonweal, wherever we stand, probably aren’t exactly representative of the group surveyed by Pew.
on July 25th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Cathy:
I’ve been out of internet-range for a week and only just now read your comment.
Cathy:
A method occasionally used against John Courtney Murray takes a statement that he made and then analyzes its consequences, its logical entailments, and concludes that he opted for a view of freedom that sees it first as autonomy, even vis-a-vis God, in contrast to a more adequate view of freedom as gift and as always already entailing truth. And this procedure is carried out without any consideration of the fact that Murray never denied that human freedom is God’s gift and must be exercised in accordance with his will. I have always opposed this method and procedure precisely because of this neglect, and more generally because it assumes that the consequences the critic draws from Murray’s statement are the only ones that may be drawn. The whole method prescinds from how Murray actually thought and wrote.
This is the reason for my reservations about your argument in which you claim by digging to have unearthed the “tacit” or “functional” anthropology underlying certain statements, as, for example, in your critique that a two-tiered view of the human person is at work in certain defenders of pro-life positions. Your defense of this is that “Sometimes, the concepts that the argument turns on aren’t the ones that are presented up front. You need to press beyond what concept people say is doing the work to see what concept is actually doing the work.” In the first place, concepts don’t do any of the work; minds do, people do. And understanding and reasoning are something more than shuttling concepts around or of choosing concepts with which to work. Your description strikes me as pure conceptualism, linked, I suspect, with the same kind of logicism as the criticism of Murray I mentioned above. And for the sake of both justice and charity I think that before you make such severe criticisms as those you articulated in your first contribution to this thread, you ought also consider what the people you indict might have elsewhere said or done that might, for example, show that they are not working with the assumptions you attribute to them and would not draw the consequences you draw.
on October 16th, 2008 at 11:34 am
[...] The second irony is that Obama’s views may certainly be closer to Catholic social justice teachings than McCain’s. (And hey, why didn’t Obama point out in last night’s debate that the Catholic bishops have closer ties to ACORN–to the tune of $1 million in grants–than he does?) His community-based activism and his views on justice and peace are far more consonant with Catholic social teaching than McCain’s. Michael Sean Winters made that argument in The New Republic, and it occasioned a lively debate at this blog. [...]