Rob links here to Chuck Reid's HuffPo piece on Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and Catholic Social Thought. After what I think is, for Reid, an uncharacteristic misstep -- "The record of [Ryan's] public life is that of a man in thrall to a curdled, warped individualism" -- Reid asks, "I, for one, would like to know what he thinks about the magisterium of the Church regarding the positive value of the state."
The Hill reported, a while back, that Ryan had this to say, in a CBN interview:
“Through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that’s how we advance the common good, by not having Big Government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities,” Ryan said.
“Those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life, help people get out of poverty, out into a life of independence.”
And, in his recent speech at Georgetown, he said:
Simply put, I do not believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government.
Look at the results of the government-centered approach to the war on poverty. One in six Americans are in poverty today– the highest rate in a generation. In this war on poverty, poverty is winning. We need a better approach.
To me, this approach should be based on the twin virtues of solidarity and subsidiarity–virtues that, when taken together, revitalize civil society instead of displacing it.
Government is one word for things we do together. But it is not the only word. We are a nation that prides itself on looking out for one another– and government has an important role to play in that. But relying on distant government bureaucracies to lead this effort just hasn’t worked.
It seems to me that these two quotes -- whether or not one agrees with them -- do not reflect a "curdled, warped individualism", but rather a healthy appreciation for civil society institutions, and also that they are not inconsistent with the view (which Reid and I, I'm sure, both hold) that the political authority -- "the state" -- has a positive role (albeit only a $40 trillion, and not a $47 trillion, role) to play in promoting the common good and protecting the vulnerable.
As Julie Rubio urges, in a really thoughtful and generous post over at Catholic Moral Theology, by all means let's engage and argue about the question whether the common good -- understood as Catholics understand it -- is better served (with "better" being identified with reference to criteria supplied by the Church's social doctrines) by the policies proposed by the President and the Democrats in Congress, or by Gov. Romney, Rep. Ryan, and the Republicans in Congress. But this engagement is far more likely to avoid the pitfalls of mere "I'm with my team!" partisanship if we don't charge that Ryan's views and proposals are reducible to Rand or that concerns about the inefficiencies and "crowding out" effects of big government, or the sustainability of current social-welfare programs, reveal "warped individualism" and a denial of the positive role to be played by the state.
See here (the full opinion by the student judiciary is not online so far as I can see) (UPDATE: here is the full, pretty extensive, student opinion):
InterVarsity’s chapter at the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB) is once again functioning as a recognized student organization following a July 28th decision by UB’s Student Wide Judiciary (SWJ). The chapter was de-recognized by the Student Association Senate on April 15, 2012. The de-recognition followed the resignation of the chapter treasurer, who stepped down from his leadership position after revealing that he did not agree with InterVarsity’s Doctrinal Basis.
SWJ ruled that UB’s Student Association Senate improperly failed to distinguish between leadership requirements and membership requirements. InterVarsity chapter activities are open to all students. The 16-page ruling said that “it is common sense, not discrimination, for a religious group to want its leaders to agree with its core beliefs.”
HT: Christianity Today; reader Clark Huston for the full-opinion link
John Courtney Murray, one of the most important Catholic intellectuals of the 20th century, died 45 years ago today. This site collects a whole bunch of his work, and also work about his work. Check it out. And, of course, if you don't own We Hold These Truths, well, you should.
Requiescat in pace
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
My colleague Chuck Reid has a short essay on the Huffington Post raising questions about the tensions between Catholic social teaching and Paul Ryan's embrace of Ayn Rand. An excerpt:
Ayn Rand, to her great credit, rejected racism emphatically. But she celebrated much of the rest of the social darwinist creed. There is no room in her work for cooperation, for community, for concern for the less advantaged. The maximization of individual productive capacity, freed of the impediments of state control, is the byword of her philosophy, so-called "Objectivism." The noble entrepreneur, the far-sighted man of wealth and power, the bold individualist who casts off the shackles of the "takers" and the "hangers-on," is the hero of her fiction. Without him, society itself would crumble to dust.
These philosophical premises, of course, stand in contradiction to the social thought of the Catholic Church, as developed over two millenia of experience. Paul Ryan surely knows this. His tepid protest that he reads the Bible and so cannot be a follower of Ayn Rand rings hollow. The record of his public life is that of a man in thrall to a curdled, warped individualism. I, for one, would like to know what he thinks about the magisterium of the Church regarding the positive value of the state.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
As someone who is still a Democrat (though virulently opposed to the party’s radical pro-abortion agenda) I found the following heartening. See the video in the link here. In it, Erskine Bowles, former White House Chief of Staff under President Clinton, and co-chair of President Obama’s Nation Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, praises Paul Ryan:
“I’m telling you this guy is amazing. I always thought I was o.k. with arithmetic. I’m telling you this guy can run circles around me. He is honest. He is straightforward. He is sincere. And the budget he came forward with is just like Paul Ryan. It is a sensible, straightforward, honest, serious budget and it cut the budget deficit just like we did by $4 trillion.”
The link also provides some of the text of an op-ed piece in the Washington Post in which Mr. Bowles criticizes both Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama for their respective approaches to addressing the nation’s debt crisis through tax and spending policies – Romney for not closing tax loopholes, Obama for not reducing healthcare spending. The entire op-ed is available here.
The tickets of the two parties are now set. By all means, let’s have a serious, adult conversation about the policies advanced by the two sets of candidates. Bowles has showed us how to begin that conversation. This does not mean that any candidate should be somehow immune from criticism. In a society that values freedom of expression how could it be?!
But it does mean that we not demonize candidates, no matter how strongly we disagree with them, and that the criticisms we offer be based on facts. Bowles' example contrasts sharply with that of other Democrats, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz who in “not minc[ing] words” claims that Ryan “would be a nightmare for the middle class” and that he supports legislation that would “ban birth control” (here), and Vice President Joe Biden who in commenting on Romney and Ryan’s approach to banking regulation told a crowd in Danville, Virginia (a town that is 49% African-American) that “They’re gonna put y’all back in chains!” (here at 32:19).
Rep. Schultz and V.P. Biden are of course adults, so maybe the distinction shouldn’t be put in terms of “grown-ups” and “children” since it runs the danger of perpetuating the very discourse we seek to avoid. Perhaps the distinction to draw is one between citizens who have a sincere party affiliation but who wish to engage others in good faith, and those who are hopelessly partisan. The former are most welcome at MOJ. There are plenty of other blogs for the latter.
