Thursday, January 17, 2008
I wrote about some of the connections between the feminist critique of autonomy-based theories of justice (a la Glendon), its connection with Alisdaire MacIntyre's work in Dependent Rational Animals, and how Catholic thought enriches that critique, in the 2006 St. John's symposium on the Jurisprudential Legacy of JPII.
But all this focus on man's dependence on man shouldn't obscure something else that seems missing from the Rush-like world view -- our dependence on God. That's a dependency much more radical than even the dependencies of childhood, old age, and disability than is typically the focus of "dependency justice" talk. Maybe I'm straining too hard to make a connection here, but I just wanted to share something from an amazing book I'm currently reading about an amazing woman by another amazing woman. It's (yes, you're reading this correctly) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mary of Nazareth, by Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda (and, yes, she is related, by marriage, to our very own Michael S.).
M. R. Scaperlanda points out that the words "Let it be" are spoken at three crucial points of the Scripture: by God, during the creation of the world; by Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane; and by Mary, at the Annunciation. Mary's "Let it be" became her life-long prayer. I don't honestly know how this furthers the current discussion, but I keep returning to the following passage from the book on the significance of this prayer, which seems to me to be saying something radical about the "dependence" to which we're all called. (And yes, the Beatles song keeps running through my head as I think through this.)
Mary knew that each human being is accountable, that what we do, how we live, and the choices we make are never without consequence. So by choosing to say to God, "Let my life be your will, and not mine," meant she was willing to live through that end result -- not even knowing what that meant!
When Mary responded to the angel with the words, let it be done to me as you say, she was able to do so because her life's foundation included two important factors.
Mary believed in God, in a good and merciful God. Her image of the creator of the universe was of a mightly and holy being, whose mercy to his people lives on from age to age. And, because this was her understanding of God, Mary was willing to put her entire life in his care -- and her son's life as well!
Mary trusted her God so completely, so deeply, in fact, that she called herself the servant of the Lord. This understanding of "servant," then, is not actually about submissiveness. It is instead about trusting in God's goodness. But it does include Mary's willingness to place the direction of her life in God's hands -- all of it. No matter what "surprise" came her way.
Becoming a mother while still a virgin. Giving birth to the Son of God. Wise men from the east coming to pay her son homage. Listening to her husband's dreams -- even when it meant leaving her home and family and living as refugees.
In every new situation placed before her, Mary was able -- and open -- to see that reality, whatever it was, as parat of God's will for her life and the lives of those whom she loved.
She didn't have to, you know. She chose to say yes over and over. But just because her yes was a prayer did not prevent her from being accountable for the consequences of that yes, in every situation -- even standing at the foot of a cross watching her son die.
Mary was willing to turn her will and her life over to the care of God, and she did so deliberately and consistently, because in the midst of a crazy world, she trusted in the goodness of her Creator.
Michael P. are you also relishing the fact that probably for the first time in MOJ’s four year history another blogger can use our names interchangeably without the need for an identifying P or S?
Rick, your point is well taken, in context Limbaugh might be talking about a Dave Ramsey-type life strategy. And, you are also right that “[i]t is not at all obvious that Limbaugh was trying to make anything like Glendon's sophisticated, anthropological point.” Can the argument be made, however, that Limbaugh’s overall body of work contains elements of an implicit anthropology at odds with an authentic understanding of the human person?
Over the years I have listened to Limbaugh’s show occasionally when driving in the car. My impression is that the line between healthy skepticism about government and a rugged individualistic rhetoric (a strain of radical autonomy) is often blurred. I don’t know whether he is merely waging a political fight against the forces of big government unaware of the ambiguity in the rhetoric or if he implicitly or explicitly holds to an individualistic anthropology.
What I do know (from personal conversations over the years) is that some of his listeners who describe themselves as “conservative” or members of the “religious right” confuse these concepts. It is one thing to say “I earned this money, and I don’t want the government taking it from me through higher taxes because I think that I (along with my peers) am a better steward of my resources than the government.” It is quite another to say, “it is my money, I earned it through my own hard work, and it is nobody else’s business what I do with it.” The latter denies the web of relationships that brought the person to and sustains the person in a place of financial peace. It denies God’s radical gift of all that we are, including our intelligence and ingenuity. It also fails to see that using my wealth for the common good and the good of others is not solely an act of charity but also can be an act of justice. As Mike Schutt says, there is an awful lot of this sort of modernist autonomy thinking going on even in conservative Christian circles, which is one of the reasons I eschew the label conservative for myself.
To the extent that Limbaugh’s rhetoric is fanning these flames of confusion, it ought to be criticized.
Regent law prof (and author of a wonderful new book) Mike Schutt offers this response to my question about Rush Limbaugh's embrace of self-reliance:
I think you have it pegged about right (and I think Michael hit this, too) so maybe this isn't even worth saying, but there is an awful lot of this "autonomy" stuff going around, even in "Christian" thinking about politics, and it's a problem. I'm a conservative because I think government is a generally a lousy vehicle through which to love one's neighbors and, as you point out, is not the most effective way to meet human needs. Charity itself is denatured and community destroyed when human beings begin to rely on government to care for the poor, house orphans, take care of widows, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and the like. It's also wasteful, but that is a secondary problem. The trouble is that community is also destroyed-- and charity made impossible-- by a vision of the human person that says community is not a necessary part of humanness. So Rush has it wrong. Body life is a fundamental Christian and biblical concept that is lost on modern conservatism. I think conservatism has capitulated to modernism, which holds radical autonomy as fundamental tenet. I guess the bottom line for me, as a Christian conservative living in the midst of modernity, is that we aren't fully human beings without meeting the needs of others and having our needs met by others, yet the vehicle for this interdependence is properly the body of Christ in ministry both within and to outsiders, rather than the state.
. . . I think it does get "clearer than that." It is not at all obvious that Limbaugh was trying to make anything like Glendon's sophisticated, anthropological point. Limbaugh said he didn't want to be dependent, or "owe" people, but he was also talking about "insurance plans," which suggests (to me) that he is indicating a desire to be financially, or materially, independent. He's talking about -- or, he could easily be understood as talking about -- a Dave Ramsey-type life strategy, not metaphysics or the mystery passage. There's nothing non-Catholic about not wanting to be in (financial) debt or not wanting to be in the uncertain position of depending on public assistance. (To say this is not, of course, to question the importance, in the Catholic Social Tradition, of providing such assistance to those who need it.)
