So I was at my men's group on Tuesday. We are currently reading and discussing Pope Benedict's Encylical, Spe Salvi. It has been very enriching to say the least. On this particular evening we read the following paragraphs (see below). I found it very interesting that our reading of these paragraphs happened to coincide with my blog discussion on Justice. The Pope's insight is something I would like to share as an addendum to my "Aribiter of Justice" post.
III. Judgement as a setting for learning and practising hope
41. At the conclusion of the central section of the Church's great Credo—the part that recounts the mystery of Christ, from his eternal birth of the Father and his temporal birth of the Virgin Mary, through his Cross and Resurrection to the second coming—we find the phrase: “he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”. From the earliest times, the prospect of the Judgement has influenced Christians in their daily living as a criterion by which to order their present life, as a summons to their conscience, and at the same time as hope in God's justice. Faith in Christ has never looked merely backwards or merely upwards, but always also forwards to the hour of justice that the Lord repeatedly proclaimed. This looking ahead has given Christianity its importance for the present moment. In the arrangement of Christian sacred buildings, which were intended to make visible the historic and cosmic breadth of faith in Christ, it became customary to depict the Lord returning as a king—the symbol of hope—at the east end; while the west wall normally portrayed the Last Judgement as a symbol of our responsibility for our lives—a scene which followed and accompanied the faithful as they went out to resume their daily routine. As the iconography of the Last Judgement developed, however, more and more prominence was given to its ominous and frightening aspects, which obviously held more fascination for artists than the splendour of hope, often all too well concealed beneath the horrors.
42. In the modern era, the idea of the Last Judgement has faded into the background: Christian faith has been individualized and primarily oriented towards the salvation of the believer's own soul, while reflection on world history is largely dominated by the idea of progress. The fundamental content of awaiting a final Judgement, however, has not disappeared: it has simply taken on a totally different form. The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God. It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested. Since there is no God to create justice, it seems man himself is now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world's suffering, protest against God is understandable, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false. It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope. No one and nothing can answer for centuries of suffering. No one and nothing can guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world. This is why the great thinkers of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, were equally critical of atheism and theism. Horkheimer radically excluded the possibility of ever finding a this-worldly substitute for God, while at the same time he rejected the image of a good and just God. In an extreme radicalization of the Old Testament prohibition of images, he speaks of a “longing for the totally Other” that remains inaccessible—a cry of yearning directed at world history. Adorno also firmly upheld this total rejection of images, which naturally meant the exclusion of any “image” of a loving God. On the other hand, he also constantly emphasized this “negative” dialectic and asserted that justice —true justice—would require a world “where not only present suffering would be wiped out, but also that which is irrevocably past would be undone”[30]. This, would mean, however—to express it with positive and hence, for him, inadequate symbols—that there can be no justice without a resurrection of the dead. Yet this would have to involve “the resurrection of the flesh, something that is totally foreign to idealism and the realm of Absolute spirit”[31].
43. Christians likewise can and must constantly learn from the strict rejection of images that is contained in God's first commandment (cf. Ex 20:4). The truth of negative theology was highlighted by the Fourth Lateran Council, which explicitly stated that however great the similarity that may be established between Creator and creature, the dissimilarity between them is always greater[32]. In any case, for the believer the rejection of images cannot be carried so far that one ends up, as Horkheimer and Adorno would like, by saying “no” to both theses—theism and atheism. God has given himself an “image”: in Christ who was made man. In him who was crucified, the denial of false images of God is taken to an extreme. God now reveals his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man's God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself. This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude of hope: there is a God, and God can create justice in a way that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh[33]. There is justice[34]. There is an “undoing” of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright. For this reason, faith in the Last Judgement is first and foremost hope—the need for which was made abundantly clear in the upheavals of recent centuries. I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favour of faith in eternal life. The purely individual need for a fulfilment that is denied to us in this life, for an everlasting love that we await, is certainly an important motive for believing that man was made for eternity; but only in connection with the impossibility that the injustice of history should be the final word does the necessity for Christ's return and for new life become fully convincing.
44. To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of that fear of which Saint Hilary spoke when he said that all our fear has its place in love[35]. God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value. Dostoevsky, for example, was right to protest against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened. Here I would like to quote a passage from Plato which expresses a premonition of just judgement that in many respects remains true and salutary for Christians too. Albeit using mythological images, he expresses the truth with an unambiguous clarity, saying that in the end souls will stand naked before the judge. It no longer matters what they once were in history, but only what they are in truth: “Often, when it is the king or some other monarch or potentate that he (the judge) has to deal with, he finds that there is no soundness in the soul whatever; he finds it scourged and scarred by the various acts of perjury and wrong-doing ...; it is twisted and warped by lies and vanity, and nothing is straight because truth has had no part in its development. Power, luxury, pride, and debauchery have left it so full of disproportion and ugliness that when he has inspected it (he) sends it straight to prison, where on its arrival it will undergo the appropriate punishment ... Sometimes, though, the eye of the judge lights on a different soul which has lived in purity and truth ... then he is struck with admiration and sends him to the isles of the blessed”[36]. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (cf. Lk 16:19-31), Jesus admonishes us through the image of a soul destroyed by arrogance and opulence, who has created an impassable chasm between himself and the poor man; the chasm of being trapped within material pleasures; the chasm of forgetting the other, of incapacity to love, which then becomes a burning and unquenchable thirst. We must note that in this parable Jesus is not referring to the final destiny after the Last Judgement, but is taking up a notion found, inter alia, in early Judaism, namely that of an intermediate state between death and resurrection, a state in which the final sentence is yet to be pronounced.
45. This early Jewish idea of an intermediate state includes the view that these souls are not simply in a sort of temporary custody but, as the parable of the rich man illustrates, are already being punished or are experiencing a provisional form of bliss. There is also the idea that this state can involve purification and healing which mature the soul for communion with God. The early Church took up these concepts, and in the Western Church they gradually developed into the doctrine of Purgatory. We do not need to examine here the complex historical paths of this development; it is enough to ask what it actually means. With death, our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell[37]. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are[38].
46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God's judgement according to each person's particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man's work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast.
47. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart's time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ[39]. The judgement of God is hope, both because it is justice and because it is grace. If it were merely grace, making all earthly things cease to matter, God would still owe us an answer to the question about justice—the crucial question that we ask of history and of God. If it were merely justice, in the end it could bring only fear to us all. The incarnation of God in Christ has so closely linked the two together—judgement and grace—that justice is firmly established: we all work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Nevertheless grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully to meet the Judge whom we know as our “advocate”, or parakletos (cf. 1 Jn 2:1).
48. A further point must be mentioned here, because it is important for the practice of Christian hope. Early Jewish thought includes the idea that one can help the deceased in their intermediate state through prayer (see for example 2 Macc 12:38-45; first century BC). The equivalent practice was readily adopted by Christians and is common to the Eastern and Western Church. The East does not recognize the purifying and expiatory suffering of souls in the afterlife, but it does acknowledge various levels of beatitude and of suffering in the intermediate state. The souls of the departed can, however, receive “solace and refreshment” through the Eucharist, prayer and almsgiving. The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon? Now a further question arises: if “Purgatory” is simply purification through fire in the encounter with the Lord, Judge and Saviour, how can a third person intervene, even if he or she is particularly close to the other? When we ask such a question, we should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God's time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too[40]. As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.
[30] Negative Dialektik (1966), Third part, III, 11, in Gesammelte Schriften VI, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p.395.
[31] Ibid., Second part, p.207.
[32] DS 806.
[33] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 988-1004.
[34] Cf. ibid., 1040.
[35] Cf. Tractatus super Psalmos, Ps 127, 1-3: CSEL 22, 628-630.
[36] Gorgias 525a-526c.
[37] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1033-1037.
[38] Cf. ibid., 1023-1029.
[39] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030-1032.
[40] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1032.
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
9/18/2008
9/15/2008
Arbiter of Justice
Here I will attempt to answer some questions that came up in one of the combox's from the "Questions for Members of Labor Unions on Abortion" post. I believe that an entire book could probably (and has already been I'm sure) be written on the subject.
Here are the questions: (Thanks Vero Possumus)
1. "What is "justice"? Who is the arbiter of what constitutes "justice".
2. "In human affairs, who is the arbiter of what constitutes justice?"
First some definitions- (mine unless noted otherwise)
Justice- when you get what you deserve
Arbiter- One who has the power to judge or decide (American Heritage®: 4th Ed.)
Q1. Who is the arbiter of what constitutes justice?
I will rephrase the questions to better explain in what manner I understand what is being asked. Who established/decided what is right and wrong, and who decides/interprets what is fair and equitable in human affairs? To a certain degree that query begs the question, ("is there an absolute right and wrong?"), to which my answer is a resounding yes. To keep from getting sidetracked though, I will just leave that assumptive truth as the fact upon which to base the answers to the two aforementioned questions.
The existence of an absolute right and wrong, as opposed to relativism, necessarily leads one to the admission of an absolute Deity. If all truth is relative then there would exist more than one truth. In either or propositions there is no room for a “both and”. Moral relativists can and do argue otherwise, but then they are defeated by their own argument. If they’re right, then I’m also right. Or at least they can’t tell me I’m wrong. If they tell me I’m wrong, then they lose their argument.
So an absolute Deity exists. In this belief I would describe myself as Thomistic. Without getting too in depth as to what that means, suffice it to say that I am Trinitarian. I believe that the second person of the Triune God became incarnate of Mary who remained ever virgin, just as Martin Luther taught and believed. The second person of the Trinity is Jesus who is Christ. As a follower of Christ and as a believer in His “Good News”, I am a Christian.
So the answer to question 1 is: God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The real difficulty isn’t so much found in question #1 however; it’s found in question #2. Because it’s one thing to know that there is a correct answer available. It’s another thing entirely to know who, amongst the voices clamoring for attention, knows the answer. Bottom line, it’s a question of authority. There are two distinct parts to the answer. Distinct yet united in that they are both disposed toward an orderly society.
Q2. In human affairs, who is the arbiter of what constitutes justice?
First the rephrase of the question: Who decides/interprets what is fair and equitable in human affairs?
Answer part 1- The prudential civil authority decides this. But depending on what that authority understands and administers as true justice, what they decide as being fair and equitable may or may not be just.
Let’s use the United States as an example: We have the Constitution as the highest authority of justice in our society. It is here in the Constitution where what is fair and equitable is defined. But that isn’t enough. If everybody was empowered to private interpretation of the Constitution there would be chaos. The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, recognized this. So, built in to the Constitution was the mechanism for giving life to the document. Thus two branches of government protect and build upon these laws. A third branch judges the protective actions and tertiary laws enacted by the other two branches against the written word of the Constitution and the tradition of how it has been followed.
Answer part2- Since what a civil authority decides on as being fair and equitable may be inconsistent with what God has actually decided is fair and equitable we must look further into the question.
God had established what is right and wrong. Throughout time God has revealed His truth to us in both oral (tradition) and written form. God has also embedded the truth on our hearts. There are things, without being revealed through oral or written means, that every person can know, (e.g. taking another person's property against their will is wrong). God, also in his wisdom, recognized that every individual can’t be empowered to authoritatively determine what divine truth is. Especially when that determination of right and wrong binds other people.
Throughout history, God has given certain individuals/groups the power to govern his people and authoritatively interpret matters of faith and morals (Justice). In the fullness of time God revealed Himself to man in the person of Christ Jesus. Now Jesus shook things up pretty good.
1- He gathered about him twelve followers and gave them authority over people. (Matt 18:18)
2- Of the twelve followers, Simon Bar Jonah was given special authority and had his name changed by Jesus to reflect this (Cephas). (Matt 16:19)
3- These twelve had successors who wield their authority in perpetuity.
4- For the last 2,000 or so years this line of succession has continued.
5- Some have attempted to appropriate this authority through leaving the community and the obligation for obedience to its proper authority.
In the end, there is only one actual authority on Earth for interpreting equity and justice according to God’s revelation and investment of responsibility. All other interpretations are true only in as much as they measure up to what God has established in the Catholic Church.
So the short answer would be: The Magisterium of the Catholic Church headed by the Pope.
Here are the questions: (Thanks Vero Possumus)
1. "What is "justice"? Who is the arbiter of what constitutes "justice".
2. "In human affairs, who is the arbiter of what constitutes justice?"
First some definitions- (mine unless noted otherwise)
Justice- when you get what you deserve
Arbiter- One who has the power to judge or decide (American Heritage®: 4th Ed.)
Q1. Who is the arbiter of what constitutes justice?
I will rephrase the questions to better explain in what manner I understand what is being asked. Who established/decided what is right and wrong, and who decides/interprets what is fair and equitable in human affairs? To a certain degree that query begs the question, ("is there an absolute right and wrong?"), to which my answer is a resounding yes. To keep from getting sidetracked though, I will just leave that assumptive truth as the fact upon which to base the answers to the two aforementioned questions.
The existence of an absolute right and wrong, as opposed to relativism, necessarily leads one to the admission of an absolute Deity. If all truth is relative then there would exist more than one truth. In either or propositions there is no room for a “both and”. Moral relativists can and do argue otherwise, but then they are defeated by their own argument. If they’re right, then I’m also right. Or at least they can’t tell me I’m wrong. If they tell me I’m wrong, then they lose their argument.
So an absolute Deity exists. In this belief I would describe myself as Thomistic. Without getting too in depth as to what that means, suffice it to say that I am Trinitarian. I believe that the second person of the Triune God became incarnate of Mary who remained ever virgin, just as Martin Luther taught and believed. The second person of the Trinity is Jesus who is Christ. As a follower of Christ and as a believer in His “Good News”, I am a Christian.
So the answer to question 1 is: God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The real difficulty isn’t so much found in question #1 however; it’s found in question #2. Because it’s one thing to know that there is a correct answer available. It’s another thing entirely to know who, amongst the voices clamoring for attention, knows the answer. Bottom line, it’s a question of authority. There are two distinct parts to the answer. Distinct yet united in that they are both disposed toward an orderly society.
Q2. In human affairs, who is the arbiter of what constitutes justice?
First the rephrase of the question: Who decides/interprets what is fair and equitable in human affairs?
Answer part 1- The prudential civil authority decides this. But depending on what that authority understands and administers as true justice, what they decide as being fair and equitable may or may not be just.
Let’s use the United States as an example: We have the Constitution as the highest authority of justice in our society. It is here in the Constitution where what is fair and equitable is defined. But that isn’t enough. If everybody was empowered to private interpretation of the Constitution there would be chaos. The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, recognized this. So, built in to the Constitution was the mechanism for giving life to the document. Thus two branches of government protect and build upon these laws. A third branch judges the protective actions and tertiary laws enacted by the other two branches against the written word of the Constitution and the tradition of how it has been followed.
Answer part2- Since what a civil authority decides on as being fair and equitable may be inconsistent with what God has actually decided is fair and equitable we must look further into the question.
God had established what is right and wrong. Throughout time God has revealed His truth to us in both oral (tradition) and written form. God has also embedded the truth on our hearts. There are things, without being revealed through oral or written means, that every person can know, (e.g. taking another person's property against their will is wrong). God, also in his wisdom, recognized that every individual can’t be empowered to authoritatively determine what divine truth is. Especially when that determination of right and wrong binds other people.
Throughout history, God has given certain individuals/groups the power to govern his people and authoritatively interpret matters of faith and morals (Justice). In the fullness of time God revealed Himself to man in the person of Christ Jesus. Now Jesus shook things up pretty good.
1- He gathered about him twelve followers and gave them authority over people. (Matt 18:18)
2- Of the twelve followers, Simon Bar Jonah was given special authority and had his name changed by Jesus to reflect this (Cephas). (Matt 16:19)
3- These twelve had successors who wield their authority in perpetuity.
4- For the last 2,000 or so years this line of succession has continued.
5- Some have attempted to appropriate this authority through leaving the community and the obligation for obedience to its proper authority.
In the end, there is only one actual authority on Earth for interpreting equity and justice according to God’s revelation and investment of responsibility. All other interpretations are true only in as much as they measure up to what God has established in the Catholic Church.
So the short answer would be: The Magisterium of the Catholic Church headed by the Pope.
Definition of Sophist
I see that a number of my visitors are searching for the definition of "antisophist" on the various search engines and that is what brings them to my blog. Very flattering, it's like finding a picture of yourself in the dictionary under the word "geek".
Just so those readers won't ultimately be disapointed, here is the definition of "Sophist". The definition to which my blog is supposed to be "Anti" is 1b, and 2.
Sophist
soph·ist
–noun
1.
a. any of a class of professional teachers in ancient Greece who gave instruction in various fields, as in general culture, rhetoric, politics, or disputation.
b. a person belonging to this class at a later period who, while professing to teach skill in reasoning, concerned himself with ingenuity and specious effectiveness rather than soundness of argument.
2. a person who reasons adroitly and speciously rather than soundly.
3. a philosopher.
Just so those readers won't ultimately be disapointed, here is the definition of "Sophist". The definition to which my blog is supposed to be "Anti" is 1b, and 2.
Sophist
soph·ist
–noun
1.
a. any of a class of professional teachers in ancient Greece who gave instruction in various fields, as in general culture, rhetoric, politics, or disputation.
b. a person belonging to this class at a later period who, while professing to teach skill in reasoning, concerned himself with ingenuity and specious effectiveness rather than soundness of argument.
2. a person who reasons adroitly and speciously rather than soundly.
3. a philosopher.
9/13/2008
Papal Thought
Here is a post with some links to various Papal Encyclicals regarding pressing issues of the day. I will post them by their english title. The official titles are of course in Latin. Some of them are a little difficult to read, and some are not. Some are truly humbling (at least for me) when you realize the depth of thought that exists outside your own. All are very enlightening.
Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor the landmark teaching from Pope Leo XIII regarding workers and industry in the new world economy emerging in the 19th Century.
Human Life The prophetic teaching and explanation of proper Christian thought on contraception. Pope Paul VI
Gospel of Life John Paul II's remarkable letter expanding on Paul VI's encyclical. Really the seminole teaching on the value of all human life.
Faith and Reason John Paul II showing how faith and reason are not in opposition to each other, but compliment each other. It was sure nice having a world class philosopher as Pope.
Centissimus Annus JP II expanding on Rerum Novarum on it's 100th anniversary.
Saved Though Hope Benedict XVI, an explanation of what is hope. Very interesting in how it shows that placing hope in "salvation" though science and civil government is false. An absolute must read, especially in these days of Barack Obama and his whole HOPE slogan. After reading this encyclical, you will be better able to explain why Obama makes you ill. Also, it illuminates what is so stupid about liberals wanting to be called "progressives" as if it is flattering.
Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor the landmark teaching from Pope Leo XIII regarding workers and industry in the new world economy emerging in the 19th Century.
Human Life The prophetic teaching and explanation of proper Christian thought on contraception. Pope Paul VI
Gospel of Life John Paul II's remarkable letter expanding on Paul VI's encyclical. Really the seminole teaching on the value of all human life.
Faith and Reason John Paul II showing how faith and reason are not in opposition to each other, but compliment each other. It was sure nice having a world class philosopher as Pope.
Centissimus Annus JP II expanding on Rerum Novarum on it's 100th anniversary.
Saved Though Hope Benedict XVI, an explanation of what is hope. Very interesting in how it shows that placing hope in "salvation" though science and civil government is false. An absolute must read, especially in these days of Barack Obama and his whole HOPE slogan. After reading this encyclical, you will be better able to explain why Obama makes you ill. Also, it illuminates what is so stupid about liberals wanting to be called "progressives" as if it is flattering.
9/10/2008
Questions for members of labor unions on abortion
For the last 13+ years as a professional firefighter, I have been privileged to belong to a labor union. In that time, I have served in various capacities including my current position as assistant V.P. I believe this membership in a labor union is a privilege for several reasons; early in my career I benefitted from the union’s, and specifically from my Local leadership’s dedication to ensuring that all represented employees are treated with justice. Also, my membership has afforded me the opportunity to express to those with opposing viewpoints and opinions, the moral and philosophical justification of the labor movement in regards to workers rights, and its’ contribution to a just society. To many, I appear to be enigmatic in my seemingly contradictory embracement of positions traditionally held and championed by opposing political parties with contradictory liberal and conservative philosophies.
I realize that for some, membership in a union is simply a necessity of employment with the only requirement being the payment of monthly dues. For others, it’s no different than membership in some social fraternal organization (e.g. the “Elks”, “Eagles”, or “American Legion”). For many it is seen as an opportunity to have a voice in the workplace and in the local, state, and national political discourse. For me it’s all of those things, and something much more.
Before I explain, let me ask:
Do you support the labor movement? Do you promote the cause of workers receiving a livable wage? Do you believe that the hours of work required of laborers should be limited by contract rules and statutes that include mandatory overtime pay? Should employers be responsible for providing a workplace free of unnecessary health risks and disparity in the treatment of workers based on their race, creed, skin color, gender, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation?
Are your answers to those questions just simply your opinion? Is there no right or wrong answer? Is your “yes” simply because supporting and promoting those causes puts money into your pocket, improves your economic and social condition, and gives you power? Does it come down to the simple idea of “Might makes Right” born of the 18th century “Will to Power” philosophers that inspired Marxism and National Socialism? If supporters of "organized labor's" issues happen to be in power because they win a popular election does that establish or prove the truth of those positions regarding workers (and anyone else’s) rights? Is there no right or wrong but only the powerful and the powerless?
I think not. I believe that the cause for worker’s rights is worthy of being supported because they are based on an objective moral truth. That is; all people have the right to be treated with dignity, respect, and justice simply due to the fact that they are human persons. Collectively; workers rights, minority rights, religious rights, freedom of speech, freedom of self determination… are basic human rights issues. Those who are powerless are still entitled to those rights (such as the people in Darfur) and when deprived of them, it is recognized as a human rights violation.
To deprive someone of these rights is an injustice. All injustices are wrong. However, some injustices have more grave consequence on the victim than others do. Therefore it can be said that all injustices are equally wrong, but all wrongs are not equally unjust. For Example; it is rightly recognized by our judicial system that stealing a pack of gum is an injustice and is therefore against the law (a misdemeanor). Embezzling someone’s pension is also stealing, but is a worse injustice and therefore the consequences of breaking that law are greater (a felony with prison time).
As you readily see, the more grave the consequence of a wrong, the worse the injustice that has been committed. The Founding Father’s of our country rightly recognized that we have "...certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...” arranged in that order out of right reason not coincidence. To pursue happiness you must be free, to be free (have liberty) you must first be alive! To be alive is the foundation of all these rights because we're talking about a human person who is alive.
To work for protecting the rights of people in regards to workers justice is good. But, it is only good as long as you are not denying them a superior right. You can't promote a grave injustice while protecting a hierarchically inferior issue of social justice. To do so opposes the integration of human rights into our society, thus disintegrating human rights.
The protection of innocent human life, from conception to natural death, must be promoted by organized labor and all interested in a civil society. This encompasses the issues of abortion, destructive embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and euthanasia (“death with dignity”). To promote other human rights issues at the expense of, or while simultaneously attacking a hierarchically superior right, (specifically the right to life upon which all other human rights are contingent), is an abomination of justice.
Every day approximately 3,200 (ref. CDC 2008 statistics) unborn infants lives’ are ended through procured abortions in the United States. It is the single most important human rights issue of our time, and I daresay, of all time. We must protect and promote the rights of workers to fair wages, reasonable hours, and healthy working conditions. Just not at the expense of innocent people’s lives.
The endorsement of candidates for political office who defend this human rights violation is not warranted. Especially from a union that represents a profession dedicated to protecting people's lives.
I realize that for some, membership in a union is simply a necessity of employment with the only requirement being the payment of monthly dues. For others, it’s no different than membership in some social fraternal organization (e.g. the “Elks”, “Eagles”, or “American Legion”). For many it is seen as an opportunity to have a voice in the workplace and in the local, state, and national political discourse. For me it’s all of those things, and something much more.
Before I explain, let me ask:
Do you support the labor movement? Do you promote the cause of workers receiving a livable wage? Do you believe that the hours of work required of laborers should be limited by contract rules and statutes that include mandatory overtime pay? Should employers be responsible for providing a workplace free of unnecessary health risks and disparity in the treatment of workers based on their race, creed, skin color, gender, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation?
Are your answers to those questions just simply your opinion? Is there no right or wrong answer? Is your “yes” simply because supporting and promoting those causes puts money into your pocket, improves your economic and social condition, and gives you power? Does it come down to the simple idea of “Might makes Right” born of the 18th century “Will to Power” philosophers that inspired Marxism and National Socialism? If supporters of "organized labor's" issues happen to be in power because they win a popular election does that establish or prove the truth of those positions regarding workers (and anyone else’s) rights? Is there no right or wrong but only the powerful and the powerless?
I think not. I believe that the cause for worker’s rights is worthy of being supported because they are based on an objective moral truth. That is; all people have the right to be treated with dignity, respect, and justice simply due to the fact that they are human persons. Collectively; workers rights, minority rights, religious rights, freedom of speech, freedom of self determination… are basic human rights issues. Those who are powerless are still entitled to those rights (such as the people in Darfur) and when deprived of them, it is recognized as a human rights violation.
To deprive someone of these rights is an injustice. All injustices are wrong. However, some injustices have more grave consequence on the victim than others do. Therefore it can be said that all injustices are equally wrong, but all wrongs are not equally unjust. For Example; it is rightly recognized by our judicial system that stealing a pack of gum is an injustice and is therefore against the law (a misdemeanor). Embezzling someone’s pension is also stealing, but is a worse injustice and therefore the consequences of breaking that law are greater (a felony with prison time).
As you readily see, the more grave the consequence of a wrong, the worse the injustice that has been committed. The Founding Father’s of our country rightly recognized that we have "...certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...” arranged in that order out of right reason not coincidence. To pursue happiness you must be free, to be free (have liberty) you must first be alive! To be alive is the foundation of all these rights because we're talking about a human person who is alive.
To work for protecting the rights of people in regards to workers justice is good. But, it is only good as long as you are not denying them a superior right. You can't promote a grave injustice while protecting a hierarchically inferior issue of social justice. To do so opposes the integration of human rights into our society, thus disintegrating human rights.
The protection of innocent human life, from conception to natural death, must be promoted by organized labor and all interested in a civil society. This encompasses the issues of abortion, destructive embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and euthanasia (“death with dignity”). To promote other human rights issues at the expense of, or while simultaneously attacking a hierarchically superior right, (specifically the right to life upon which all other human rights are contingent), is an abomination of justice.
Every day approximately 3,200 (ref. CDC 2008 statistics) unborn infants lives’ are ended through procured abortions in the United States. It is the single most important human rights issue of our time, and I daresay, of all time. We must protect and promote the rights of workers to fair wages, reasonable hours, and healthy working conditions. Just not at the expense of innocent people’s lives.
The endorsement of candidates for political office who defend this human rights violation is not warranted. Especially from a union that represents a profession dedicated to protecting people's lives.
5/03/2007
Zero Tolerance
A conversation with a relative this morning got me thinking. Most schools have a zero tolerance for violence policy. What that means is that any violent act (fighting, wrestling, puching, kicking, assault) will get you expelled from school. No contingency exists which allows for defense of self or others. You strike someone, you're out!
Traditional Christian moral philosophy, best expressed by the Catholic Church in which subsists the fullness of God's revelation to man, says this about the legitimate use of force.
From the Catechism:
Legitimate defense
2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. "The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one's own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not."65
2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one's own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:
If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's.66
2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67
2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68
I think zero tolerance policies are the cowards way out of using logic and reason when faced with the necessity of making a judgment of a situation. This cowards way out is probably the result of the litigation industry (attorneys) and their pursuit of money instead of justice. It is immoral and unjust to punish someone for excercising their right to defend themselves or another innocent party in the face of an assault.
I also wonder how much "zero tolerance policies" and the refusal to use corporal punishment in schools has contributed to the increase of violence in our society? If there were real and understandable reprecussions to misbehavior for students in K-8 (getting a spanking), would there be the amount of lethal violence in our schools? Why have things like Columbine and Virginia Tech started to happen?
Pyro
Traditional Christian moral philosophy, best expressed by the Catholic Church in which subsists the fullness of God's revelation to man, says this about the legitimate use of force.
From the Catechism:
Legitimate defense
2263 The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. "The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one's own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not."65
2264 Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one's own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder even if he is forced to deal his aggressor a lethal blow:
If a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repels force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. . . . Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's.66
2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.
2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67
2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68
I think zero tolerance policies are the cowards way out of using logic and reason when faced with the necessity of making a judgment of a situation. This cowards way out is probably the result of the litigation industry (attorneys) and their pursuit of money instead of justice. It is immoral and unjust to punish someone for excercising their right to defend themselves or another innocent party in the face of an assault.
I also wonder how much "zero tolerance policies" and the refusal to use corporal punishment in schools has contributed to the increase of violence in our society? If there were real and understandable reprecussions to misbehavior for students in K-8 (getting a spanking), would there be the amount of lethal violence in our schools? Why have things like Columbine and Virginia Tech started to happen?
Pyro
5/01/2007
"It Didn't Happen Here"
This would be a good read. It talks about why Socialism never got the strong base here in the United States that it has in European Democracies. Of particular interest to me was the influence of both Catholic social doctrine, Protestant cultural tendencies, and the influence of Organized Labor.
(Excerpt from the Hoover Institution www.hoover.org)
Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks.It Didn’t Happen Here: Why SocialismFailed in the United States.W. W. Norton & Company. 379 pages. $26.95
Socialism is fading throughout the Western world. In Germany, after two decades of immobility by the centrist Christian Democrats, taxes have now been reduced substantially by a Social Democratic government. In Australia and New Zealand, where conservative governments long pursued interventionist policies and left economies wracked by inflation, labor parties now apply neoliberal market principles. According to Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, the greatest ideological distance has been traveled by the Labour Party in Britain, whose leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair, stated in an interview that his administration would "leave British law the most restrictive on trade unionism in the Western world."
While the death knell sounds for socialist theories, it may be timely to consider again the old question of why the United States never experienced a socialist movement with the strength and durability of those in Europe or the revolutionary force of those elsewhere in the world. Lipset and Marks revisit this topic in their fine new book, It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States.
At first, socialists turned a hopeful eye to American shores. After all, by the late nineteenth century the United States had the most advanced capitalist economy in the world. Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and other socialist thinkers believed that a mature capitalist society would produce contradictions that would compel workers into a socialist mass movement. As we know, it soon became apparent that capitalism was not headed into collapse. The increasing mechanization of industry did not deprive businessmen of the surplus value "expropriated" from their laborers; rather, it created enormous windfalls, and at the same time made goods available to a broader proportion of the population than ever before.
Still, the American working class was not without grievances. As Lipset and Marks tell it, the Socialist Party of America did find limited popular support in the first decades after its founding in 1901. But the party achieved its very circumscribed success by maintaining its distance from European socialism and, instead, by laying claim to distinctively American values.
Much credit for the early success of the Socialist Party is due to its smart and charismatic leader, Eugene Victor Debs of Indiana, who first gained prominence organizing railway workers. In the 1912 presidential election, with Debs as their candidate, the Socialists received almost a million votes. They also did well in 1920, while Debs was in an Atlanta federal prison, serving time on a sedition conviction for speaking against the 1918 war bond drive. Popular outcry eventually led Republican Warren Harding to release Debs from prison. Throughout his career, Debs portrayed himself as a victim of government repression and capitalized on the American tradition of sympathy for free speech and hostility to the state.
Few socialists found their way into Congress, the most notable of these being Victor Berger, elected many times from Milwaukee, and Meyer London from Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Numerous cities, however, elected socialist mayors. Mayors Daniel Hoan in Milwaukee and Jasper McLevy in Bridgeport, Conn., were both longstanding Socialist Party members. The populations that repeatedly elected these men were not a stereotypical propertyless proletariat. The workers in these cities were homeowners and civic participants — members of unions and fraternal and life insurance societies.
In another contrast to European-style socialism, low taxes were a major plank in successful Socialist Party platforms. In Milwaukee, according to Lipset and Marks "[p]roperty taxes under successive socialist mayors from 1910 to 1940 were actually lower than in the period before and after their administrations." Socialist-led municipalities placed a strong emphasis on fiscal restraint and efficiency and on eliminating corruption. They often had the full support of the business community in addition to homeowning workers. Victor Berger, the leading socialist in Milwaukee, emphasized the consonance of socialist ideas with those of the American Founders, declaring in 1905: "Friedrich Engels once said: ‘Give every citizen a good rifle and fifty cartridges and you have the best guarantee for the liberty of the people.’ Thomas Jefferson held the same views exactly."
Lipset and marks provide an important analysis of the early American union movement, one which goes far in explaining the failure of European socialism to win adherents in the United States. In a section entitled "American Antistatism and Labor," the authors argue that the American labor movement long opposed programs that would have extended the role of the government. The reasoning behind this attitude, expressed eloquently by labor leader Samuel Gompers, was that the state would be far less likely to protect the American worker than to serve the interests of his corporate masters. Gompers was a London-born cigar maker who emigrated to New York in 1863. He was president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) from 1886 until 1923 (except for 1895, after he was defeated by a Socialist Party candidate). Gompers advocated "the wage-earners doing for themselves what they can toward working out their own salvation," massing their own collective power against the power of the industrialists, without the intervention of the state. The authors note that "the AFL was opposed to state provision of old-age pensions, compulsory health insurance, minimum wage legislation, and unemployment compensation, and from 1914 on was against legislating minimum hours for men." Quoting historian David DeLeon, they argue that "‘Social democracy, communism, and other relatively authoritarian movements that rely upon coercive centers of state power’ have run against deep libertarian currents in American culture and as a result have never succeeded in developing deep roots."
The size and diversity of America’s immigrant population presented further obstacles, cultural and organizational, to the American socialist movement. Lipset and Marks report that by the mid-nineteenth century, only one-fifth of wage earners in the United States had native white parents, and almost three-fifths were of immigrant origin. The labor force in the United States soon became the most ethnically heterogeneous in the world, they state, and by 1930 "roughly one-third of the total population was of foreign stock." Seeking to explain "why the party failed to gain the allegiance of the poorest, most vulnerable sections of the population," Lipset and Marks point to the difficulties of uniting immigrants of different languages and cultures — populations which competed for jobs and whose ethnic animosities were often encouraged by employers and politicians. Studies have shown that immigrants were far more likely to look to their own people than to a political movement for help with their immediate needs and long-term security. Jewish and Catholic immigrants created flourishing voluntary and fraternal societies that provided social services and health, unemployment, and life insurance. Fraternal life insurance companies had 8.5 million members by 1910; more wage earners were members of fraternal societies than of labor unions. The proliferation of voluntary associations among Jewish, Italian, and Slavic immigrants in cities like Chicago and New York amazed reformers.
Moreover, the traditions immigrants brought from the old world were often hostile to socialist aims. Lipset and Marks point particularly to resistance to socialism among immigrants from Catholic countries. Political observers were already commenting on this phenomenon in the years before Word War I. Lipset and Marks cite British author G.D.H. Cole, who wrote, "the growing political strength of Catholicism was of great influence in keeping the Trade Unions aloof from any movement wearing a socialist label or ‘tainted’ with class war doctrine or materialist philosophy of action." Lipset and Marks argue that while Catholic leaders in the United States endorsed trade unionism, they repeatedly attacked socialism and pronounced the sanctity of private property. In doing so, they followed the lead of the Vatican, which condemned socialism in the papal encyclicals of 1891 and 1903. Archbishop Sebastian Messmer of Milwaukee did not transgress the bounds of his authority in declaring that "the private ownership of property is supported by the gospel apostolic teaching, and the rules of the Church, and is a divine ordination, not to be changed by the hand of man. . . . A man cannot be a Catholic and a Socialist."
As the proportion of Catholic workers grew, the American Catholic church also had direct influence over the political leanings of the labor movement. Church leaders urged the American Federation of Labor to adhere to Catholic social views and to eshew political remedies in favor of "pure and simple" trade unionism. They were persuasive. Lipset and Marks write that "Samuel Gompers, although a Jew, worked hard to convince Catholic church leaders that he was sympathetic to their outlook."
This analysis contrasts with the traditional linking of capitalism and bourgeois democracy with the Protestant faith, an association that arises from Max Weber’s original formulation in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Lipset and Marks argue the opposite: that there is a strong correlation between capitalism and Catholicism. They point out that "in Germany, socialism flourished primarily in the Protestant areas in the east, e.g., Prussia, while in western Germany, the Catholic Church, as in Latin Europe, repeatedly condemned atheistic materialistic socialism and weakened the appeal of the Social Democratic party." Recent studies have demonstrated that Catholic immigrants were longtime supporters of the liberal parties in England, Canada, and Australia, and the U. S. Democratic Party. As these parties strayed from principles of individual liberty, sound money, parental rights, and voluntarism, however, Catholics moved to the parties that newly espoused them, as the Republican party has done since the New Deal. Lipset and Marks do, however, lay at Protestantism’s feet another trait that repeatedly bedeviled the American Socialist Party — a tendency towards sectarianism, doctrinal wrangling, and schism.
Lipset and Marks thus demonstrate how homegrown traditions of mistrust of state power and respect for private property interacted with the attitudes of immigrant populations to deny European theorists’ dreams of a socialist America. They give credit to American affluence and social mobility. They lay out the reasons why the significant labor unrest of the years surrounding the turn of the century was not often expressed in political terms. And they point to structural features, foremost among them our two-party system, that made it difficult for the Socialist Party to gain a political foothold. It is by this close attention to historical circumstance, as well as a grasp of broad cultural features, that Lipset and Marks make an important contribution to a discussion that has been marred by overgeneralizations on one side of the political spectrum and bitterness and self-delusion on the other.
Pyro
(Excerpt from the Hoover Institution www.hoover.org)
Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks.It Didn’t Happen Here: Why SocialismFailed in the United States.W. W. Norton & Company. 379 pages. $26.95
Socialism is fading throughout the Western world. In Germany, after two decades of immobility by the centrist Christian Democrats, taxes have now been reduced substantially by a Social Democratic government. In Australia and New Zealand, where conservative governments long pursued interventionist policies and left economies wracked by inflation, labor parties now apply neoliberal market principles. According to Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, the greatest ideological distance has been traveled by the Labour Party in Britain, whose leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair, stated in an interview that his administration would "leave British law the most restrictive on trade unionism in the Western world."
While the death knell sounds for socialist theories, it may be timely to consider again the old question of why the United States never experienced a socialist movement with the strength and durability of those in Europe or the revolutionary force of those elsewhere in the world. Lipset and Marks revisit this topic in their fine new book, It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States.
At first, socialists turned a hopeful eye to American shores. After all, by the late nineteenth century the United States had the most advanced capitalist economy in the world. Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and other socialist thinkers believed that a mature capitalist society would produce contradictions that would compel workers into a socialist mass movement. As we know, it soon became apparent that capitalism was not headed into collapse. The increasing mechanization of industry did not deprive businessmen of the surplus value "expropriated" from their laborers; rather, it created enormous windfalls, and at the same time made goods available to a broader proportion of the population than ever before.
Still, the American working class was not without grievances. As Lipset and Marks tell it, the Socialist Party of America did find limited popular support in the first decades after its founding in 1901. But the party achieved its very circumscribed success by maintaining its distance from European socialism and, instead, by laying claim to distinctively American values.
Much credit for the early success of the Socialist Party is due to its smart and charismatic leader, Eugene Victor Debs of Indiana, who first gained prominence organizing railway workers. In the 1912 presidential election, with Debs as their candidate, the Socialists received almost a million votes. They also did well in 1920, while Debs was in an Atlanta federal prison, serving time on a sedition conviction for speaking against the 1918 war bond drive. Popular outcry eventually led Republican Warren Harding to release Debs from prison. Throughout his career, Debs portrayed himself as a victim of government repression and capitalized on the American tradition of sympathy for free speech and hostility to the state.
Few socialists found their way into Congress, the most notable of these being Victor Berger, elected many times from Milwaukee, and Meyer London from Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Numerous cities, however, elected socialist mayors. Mayors Daniel Hoan in Milwaukee and Jasper McLevy in Bridgeport, Conn., were both longstanding Socialist Party members. The populations that repeatedly elected these men were not a stereotypical propertyless proletariat. The workers in these cities were homeowners and civic participants — members of unions and fraternal and life insurance societies.
In another contrast to European-style socialism, low taxes were a major plank in successful Socialist Party platforms. In Milwaukee, according to Lipset and Marks "[p]roperty taxes under successive socialist mayors from 1910 to 1940 were actually lower than in the period before and after their administrations." Socialist-led municipalities placed a strong emphasis on fiscal restraint and efficiency and on eliminating corruption. They often had the full support of the business community in addition to homeowning workers. Victor Berger, the leading socialist in Milwaukee, emphasized the consonance of socialist ideas with those of the American Founders, declaring in 1905: "Friedrich Engels once said: ‘Give every citizen a good rifle and fifty cartridges and you have the best guarantee for the liberty of the people.’ Thomas Jefferson held the same views exactly."
Lipset and marks provide an important analysis of the early American union movement, one which goes far in explaining the failure of European socialism to win adherents in the United States. In a section entitled "American Antistatism and Labor," the authors argue that the American labor movement long opposed programs that would have extended the role of the government. The reasoning behind this attitude, expressed eloquently by labor leader Samuel Gompers, was that the state would be far less likely to protect the American worker than to serve the interests of his corporate masters. Gompers was a London-born cigar maker who emigrated to New York in 1863. He was president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) from 1886 until 1923 (except for 1895, after he was defeated by a Socialist Party candidate). Gompers advocated "the wage-earners doing for themselves what they can toward working out their own salvation," massing their own collective power against the power of the industrialists, without the intervention of the state. The authors note that "the AFL was opposed to state provision of old-age pensions, compulsory health insurance, minimum wage legislation, and unemployment compensation, and from 1914 on was against legislating minimum hours for men." Quoting historian David DeLeon, they argue that "‘Social democracy, communism, and other relatively authoritarian movements that rely upon coercive centers of state power’ have run against deep libertarian currents in American culture and as a result have never succeeded in developing deep roots."
The size and diversity of America’s immigrant population presented further obstacles, cultural and organizational, to the American socialist movement. Lipset and Marks report that by the mid-nineteenth century, only one-fifth of wage earners in the United States had native white parents, and almost three-fifths were of immigrant origin. The labor force in the United States soon became the most ethnically heterogeneous in the world, they state, and by 1930 "roughly one-third of the total population was of foreign stock." Seeking to explain "why the party failed to gain the allegiance of the poorest, most vulnerable sections of the population," Lipset and Marks point to the difficulties of uniting immigrants of different languages and cultures — populations which competed for jobs and whose ethnic animosities were often encouraged by employers and politicians. Studies have shown that immigrants were far more likely to look to their own people than to a political movement for help with their immediate needs and long-term security. Jewish and Catholic immigrants created flourishing voluntary and fraternal societies that provided social services and health, unemployment, and life insurance. Fraternal life insurance companies had 8.5 million members by 1910; more wage earners were members of fraternal societies than of labor unions. The proliferation of voluntary associations among Jewish, Italian, and Slavic immigrants in cities like Chicago and New York amazed reformers.
Moreover, the traditions immigrants brought from the old world were often hostile to socialist aims. Lipset and Marks point particularly to resistance to socialism among immigrants from Catholic countries. Political observers were already commenting on this phenomenon in the years before Word War I. Lipset and Marks cite British author G.D.H. Cole, who wrote, "the growing political strength of Catholicism was of great influence in keeping the Trade Unions aloof from any movement wearing a socialist label or ‘tainted’ with class war doctrine or materialist philosophy of action." Lipset and Marks argue that while Catholic leaders in the United States endorsed trade unionism, they repeatedly attacked socialism and pronounced the sanctity of private property. In doing so, they followed the lead of the Vatican, which condemned socialism in the papal encyclicals of 1891 and 1903. Archbishop Sebastian Messmer of Milwaukee did not transgress the bounds of his authority in declaring that "the private ownership of property is supported by the gospel apostolic teaching, and the rules of the Church, and is a divine ordination, not to be changed by the hand of man. . . . A man cannot be a Catholic and a Socialist."
As the proportion of Catholic workers grew, the American Catholic church also had direct influence over the political leanings of the labor movement. Church leaders urged the American Federation of Labor to adhere to Catholic social views and to eshew political remedies in favor of "pure and simple" trade unionism. They were persuasive. Lipset and Marks write that "Samuel Gompers, although a Jew, worked hard to convince Catholic church leaders that he was sympathetic to their outlook."
This analysis contrasts with the traditional linking of capitalism and bourgeois democracy with the Protestant faith, an association that arises from Max Weber’s original formulation in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Lipset and Marks argue the opposite: that there is a strong correlation between capitalism and Catholicism. They point out that "in Germany, socialism flourished primarily in the Protestant areas in the east, e.g., Prussia, while in western Germany, the Catholic Church, as in Latin Europe, repeatedly condemned atheistic materialistic socialism and weakened the appeal of the Social Democratic party." Recent studies have demonstrated that Catholic immigrants were longtime supporters of the liberal parties in England, Canada, and Australia, and the U. S. Democratic Party. As these parties strayed from principles of individual liberty, sound money, parental rights, and voluntarism, however, Catholics moved to the parties that newly espoused them, as the Republican party has done since the New Deal. Lipset and Marks do, however, lay at Protestantism’s feet another trait that repeatedly bedeviled the American Socialist Party — a tendency towards sectarianism, doctrinal wrangling, and schism.
Lipset and Marks thus demonstrate how homegrown traditions of mistrust of state power and respect for private property interacted with the attitudes of immigrant populations to deny European theorists’ dreams of a socialist America. They give credit to American affluence and social mobility. They lay out the reasons why the significant labor unrest of the years surrounding the turn of the century was not often expressed in political terms. And they point to structural features, foremost among them our two-party system, that made it difficult for the Socialist Party to gain a political foothold. It is by this close attention to historical circumstance, as well as a grasp of broad cultural features, that Lipset and Marks make an important contribution to a discussion that has been marred by overgeneralizations on one side of the political spectrum and bitterness and self-delusion on the other.
Pyro
4/19/2007
The Wheels of Justice
I'm a big fan of St. Thomas More (Sir Thomas More for those who don't believe in the Communion of Saints), so maybe that's why modern day attorneys and our justice system usually make me want to vomit.
Everybody who commits a crime ends up with a lawyer who attempts to have their client excused from justice due to circumstances beyond the clients control. Usually the defended is painted as some sort of poor helpless victim who no longer has a free will or is otherwise unable to be held responsible for his or her actions. Such is the case with the pastors wife being tried for murdering her husband.
Some of the things that she claims happened to her may very well be true. Does that mean that she can't be held accountable for her actions? What if she had gone and shoplifted? If you are treated poorly does that mean that you have license to do whatever you want?
Justice systems in Western society have become an industry. We need a philosophical return to the belief that Justice is the administration of deserved punishment or reward.
Pyro
Everybody who commits a crime ends up with a lawyer who attempts to have their client excused from justice due to circumstances beyond the clients control. Usually the defended is painted as some sort of poor helpless victim who no longer has a free will or is otherwise unable to be held responsible for his or her actions. Such is the case with the pastors wife being tried for murdering her husband.
Some of the things that she claims happened to her may very well be true. Does that mean that she can't be held accountable for her actions? What if she had gone and shoplifted? If you are treated poorly does that mean that you have license to do whatever you want?
Justice systems in Western society have become an industry. We need a philosophical return to the belief that Justice is the administration of deserved punishment or reward.
Pyro
6/20/2006
Mel Gibson's new movie, APOCALYPTO
I just watched the trailer for Mel's new movie Apocalypto. The movie is set in Mayan times and from what I can gather, has several storylines. One storyline follows a group of Mayans who are competing in a tournament of a Mayan game that is a cross between soccer and basketball. From watching the trailer I believe that the bigger storyline is the fall of the Mayan empire, or at least the fall of a certain group from power within the Mayan empire. It looks to me as if the movie will be awesome. If you like Mel's typical genre of movies, then this will definately be a must see. I think Mel is making a commentary on modern times with this film. There is a caption during the trailer that reads "A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within". This is a Will Durant quote. My mind races as I plug in all the current situations which this quote indicts. Christiandom and the splintering of her children in to competing factions. Western society with it's gangreous limbs and diseased heart swallowing all manner of poison in the disorded desire to consume all that presents itself as nourishment. American liberals and conservatives and their reinterpretation of the founding documents, and the intent of the document's writers, in a misguuided desire to lend historicity and authority to the current philosophical errors of modernism.
On whatever level you decide to view the film, it should be an enjoyable exerience.
Pyro
On whatever level you decide to view the film, it should be an enjoyable exerience.
Pyro
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