In this very interesting-looking new(ish) journal, I believe I have discovered (yet) another diverting time-suck. "An interdisciplinary journal of critical reflections on contemporary culture" . . . what's not to like?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Hedgehog Review
Institutional pluralism, religious identity, and . . . Bob Jones University
A former student of mine -- also a graduate of Bob Jones University -- has been involved in an effort (on Facebook and elsewhere) called "Please Reconcile", which is seeking to push the University to confront, and apologize for, its history of racial discrimination. Apparently in response, the University has issued this statement. Interesting.
Beyond Politics: Greg Wolfe Responds
At my behest, Greg Wolfe has kindly responded to my posts here, here, here, here, and here:
I am grateful to Michael Scaperlanda for engaging my reflections on the culture wars and politicization so thoughtfully. It's true that legal thought has a natural tie to politics -- but law also relates to culture in important ways. An extension of my thesis would be that legal scholars should think more about how culture shapes law. (I happily acknowledge that politics and law can shape culture, but I also happen to believe that too much stress has been placed on that directionality.) Politics and law help to adjudicate competing visions -- visions that are shaped by story and symbol, which well up from the culture. In particular, legal studies would be enriched by a study of narrative -- by the way narratives that give meaning to our lives. Think of the way that abortion has been depicted in film -- for example, "Vera Drake," "The Cider House Rules," and others. These stories shape what we think of when we hear a word like "choice." My argument, in short, is that we've spent too little time and resources on transforming the culture through narrative and beyond. At any rate, thanks to Michael for his generous response to my work. I'm grateful to know about your blog and the good work you are doing. If I can leave with parting advertisement, you can learn more about my work at the IMAGE journal website: We too have a daily blog, "Good Letters," which is available on our home page or as an RSS feed. Our mission is to publish narratives, poems, paintings, etc. that are animated by the Judeo-Christian tradition of faith. Cordially, Greg Wolfe
In ABA's Top 100 again
Although the folks who do the ABA blog rankings continue to think that we "deliberate over canon law," I do appreciate the fact that Mirror of Justice has been included among the top 100 legal blogs for the second year in a row. Here is the email I received from the ABA:
"Congratulations. Editors of the ABA Journaltoday announced they have selected your blog as one of the 100 best websites primarily written by lawyers, for lawyers. Your blog is one of the 15 in the Legal Theory category. 'New legal blogs are springing up on a daily basis—we now have more than 2,000 in our online directory. Competition for the time and attention of lawyers is getting fiercer,' says Edward A. Adams, the Journal’s editor and publisher. 'Half the blogs on last year’s inaugural Blawg 100 list didn’t make the cut this year. That’s a testament to the quality of this year’s honorees, and evidence of the increasing amount of valuable information all legal blogs are publishing.' Now lawyers are being asked to vote on their favorites in each of the Blawg 100’s 10 categories. We encourage you to vote for blogs in all of the categories. To vote, click here. Voting ends Jan. 2, 2009."
Monday, December 1, 2008
Do we "deliberate over canon law"? I don't think so!
The 2008 ABA Journal Blawg 100
These are the 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers, as chosen by the editors of the ABA Journal.
Voting ends on Jan. 2.
For a printable list of all 100 blogs, click here.
If you’re one of the bloggers in the Blawg 100, click here to learn how to promote the honor on your site.
9
votes
Mirror of Justice
In this virtual space, Catholic law professors highlight events of shared interest and deliberate over canon law. In this election year, politics came to the fore. But while these bloggers are of one church, they are not of one mind, and impassioned intellectual discussions ensue.
More on the Moral Natural Law
A while back, several of us had a friendly exchange on natural law and the moral natural law. The International Theological Commission (ITC), whose five year mandate expires at the end of this calendar year, is meeting over the next five days to address a draft document on the moral natural law. The draft is presently entitled, The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at Natural Law. These sessions of the ITC are under the direction of my former colleague at the Gregorian University, and, I believe, still friend, Luis Ladaria, S.J., who retains his post at the Gregorian but is also the Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the General Secretary of the ITC. It is thought that the draft will receive the ITC’s approval soon; however, there are still some procedural issues that must be dealt with prior to publication. Since the ITC will have an audience with Pope Benedict later this week as they conclude their plenary, there may be some chance that the approved text will be released shortly thereafter. I, for one, look forward to reading this document and will try to make it available by hyperlink, perhaps with a brief commentary.
RJA sj
Higher Taxes, Small Businesses, Jobs, and Economic Growth
On several occasions, although not much recently, we have discussed at Mirror of Justice whether increased taxes for those earning higher incomes is mandated, encouraged, or contraindicated by principles of Catholic social teaching, including the preferential option for the poor. (For one such thread from two years ago, see here, here, and here.) Recognizing that tax law and policy necessarily involves prudential judgment, rather than categorical moral claims, the economic consequences of tax policy, which may involve collateral effects the undermine any supposed benefits of enhancing government reviews, should be a welcome addition to the conversation.
In a guest column by the founder of the up-and-coming small business Intertech in today’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Tom Salonek urges reconsideration of proposals to raise taxes for those with income of $250,000, explaining that, in small businesses, “today’s profits fund tomorrow’s growth.” Referring to the proposal to tax the “rich” who earn $250,000 or more, he writes:
I'm one of those people. While there’s no doubt that $250,000 is a lot of money, there is considerable misunderstanding about what that money means when you’re running a small business. . . . At the end of the year, when taxes are due, Intertech’s profit is reported on my personal tax return. While I pay tax on this profit -- at the current rate of 40 percent -- the bulk of the profit remains with the firm. This retained profit covers payroll and some short-term financing. But most important, retained profit funds Intertech’s growth. . . . A growing company consumes cash -- lots of cash.
The fastest-growing small businesses may be only three to four percent of all small businesses, but they account for most of the new jobs in the economy and much of the innovation. And, Mr. Salonek notes wryly, these small businesses aren’t coming hat in hand to Congress to ask for bail-outs. But they do ask not to be crushed by new government regulations and higher taxes.
Greg Sisk
Gregory Wolfe: The Culture Wars Revisited
In 2004, ten years after publishing "Why I am a Conscientious Objector in the Culture Wars," Gregory Wolfe wrote "The Culture Wars Revisited," which is also well worth the read. Here is a sample:
"Being an intelligent participant in political life is a responsibility everyone should embrace.
But in [a] passion for total war, [some cultural warriors don’t] seem to believe that there should be any civilians tending to other matters back home: everyone should be armed and dangerous. The brilliant poet, philosopher, and political thinker Charles Péguy, who wrote in the heat of France’s culture wars of the early twentieth century, understood the all-consuming demands of modern ideological politics. Péguy’s analysis carries weight precisely because he was an utterly political animal. But he also understood the role of culture in maintaining a healthy polity. So he could write with some authority about political activists who scorn those who look after a society’s mystique, the religious and imaginative symbols and narratives that give a culture its identity:
'For the politically minded always recover their balance, and think they can save themselves, by saying that they at least are practical, and that we are not. That is precisely where they are mistaken. Where they mislead. We do not even grant them that. It is the mystic who is practical, and the politically minded who are not. It is we who are practical, who do something, and it is they who are not, who do nothing. It is we who accumulate and they who squander. It is we who build, lay foundations, and it is they who demolish. It is we who nourish, and they who are the parasites.'
A socialist turned Catholic, Péguy became convinced that in the modern era 'Everything begins as a mystique and ends as a politique.... THE MYSTIQUE SHOULD NOT BE DEVOURED BY THE POLITIQUE TO WHICH IT GAVE BIRTH.' As Alexander Dru writes in the introduction of Temporal and Eternal, the book from which these quotes are taken, Péguy believed in the need for 'Christianity always to return to its source, its mystique, and to refound its institutions by allowing the mystique the freedom to create tradition afresh.'”
Beyond Politics IV
Beyond Politics, BP II, and BP III have explored a couple of essays by Gregory Wolfe who conscientiously objects to the culture wars. In this fourth and final post on the subject, I’ll attempt to tie the previous three posts together by suggesting what I think Wolfe has to offer our project.
We are a politically obsessed world. Just look at the media, mainstream or otherwise. Or, take a look at many of our posts on MOJ over the last year. McCain’s caricature of Obama as “the One” worked because it had an element of truth in it. Some – maybe many – Obama supporters viewed his candidacy in salvific terms. But, Republicans weren’t immune from viewing politics (and this election) in these same terms. A victory would deliver us from the evils of Roe. For many on both sides, politics has become, whether we admit it or not, an idol.
I don’t want to unduly diminish the stakes in the election. I grieve over the fact that we elected someone who promised to be the most abortion-rights friendly president ever. And, even if the number of abortions is reduced under Obama (I’m highly skeptical), I fear the continued corrosive effects of Roe on our culture. Others are joy-filled that we have ended 8 years of Republican (and George Bush) rule with all that entailed. Much was at stake. But, Politics is not all and all, and we make it into a false god if we treat it as such. God is still sovereign, and His grace can still find its way into our fallen world no matter who wins an election.
Wolfe decries the politicization of culture. He laments the primacy of politics over every other aspect of our communal life. He says: "One clear lesson ... from the culture wars is that the process of politicization endangers the ability of religion to permeate and renew the very culture that is being fought over." And, I think he is right.
We are a blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory. Legal theory and politics are necessarily connected in a way that literature and politics, for example, are not. Law gets enacted and administered by political means. But, it seems to me the development of legal theory, although intertwined, is a distinct discipline from politics. Viewing our project narrowly through a political lens zaps it of creative energy and insight. Wolfe invites us to open ourselves up to the mysteries of our faith in order to creatively place ourselves, our work, and our vocation at the disposal of the Mystery Himself.
To undertake this task, we ought, I think, to embrace another paradox suggested by Wolfe: "a tragic sense of life - an awareness of our falleness and the limits of human institutions - with a strain of persistent hope." To this Virgil Nemoianu, cited by Wolfe, would add the virtue courage.
Responses to "Excluding Religion"
As (I think) Tom Berg mentioned a few days ago, he and I (and also Steven Smith) have published short responses to Nelson Tebbe's very interesting new paper, "Excluding Religion", on the PENNumbra site of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. My own response is also available here, and here is the abstract:
In a thorough and thoughtful article, Excluding Religion, Prof. Nelson Tebbe asks "whether the government may select religious entities for exclusion from its support programs?" and concludes that, sometimes, it may. "The government," he contends, "need not remain neutral toward religion in its support programs[.]"
In this short response to Tebbe's paper, I first suggest that the reasons Tebbe offers for such exclusion - including "promoting equal citizenship for members of minority faiths . . . , fostering community concord, [and] respecting taxpayers' freedom of conscience", are not particularly strong. Next, I turn to the various "limits" that Tebbe imposes on his permissible-exclusion claim, and attempt to show that, in fact, these limits fit uneasily with the claim they constrain. The aim of this attempt is not to cheer state efforts to - in Tebbe's words - "shape the content of citizens' beliefs through government speech and other means," but instead to warn that the inevitability of such efforts poses a real threat to religious freedom, one that is not likely to be repelled with assurances that the state must act nonpreferentially, or must act with a secular purpose, or must not make theological judgments. If we believe, as Tebbe and I do, that there should be limits on the power, and on the ambition, of governments when it comes to the content of citizens' commitments and the objects of their loyalty, it is essential that we think hard not only about the location of these limits, but also about the reasons for them and the worth of what it is that they protect.
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