This Independence Day post is, in a way, a continuation of my conversation with Michael P. on "relativism" and "relativisms."
What are we celebrating today? Authentic freedom or illusory freedom? Freedom for or freedom from? Freedom to do what we ought or freedom to do what we want no matter how base? If rights are not "inalienable," but can be alienated at the whim of a majority, whether it be a majority of the whole or a majority of the Committee of Nine (SCOTUS), aren't we really celebrating a false liberty? In Centesimus Annus, 44, Pope John Paul II said:
If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another. If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. People are then respected only to the extent that they can be exploited for selfish ends. Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.
I ain't as learnt as Michael P., and I don't got Leslie Green's academic credentials (but if it's a credential war, I suspect that Ratzinger wins), but this good 'ole boy from flyover country can spot confusion a mile away, and it ain't coming from Ratzinger but from Michael P. and L. Green.
Michael P. and Leslie G. want to teach the world that in technical philosophical language there are different relativisms and that discussions about relativism "outside of technical philosophical literature [read me, Ratzinger, and others] are deeply confused, and, therefore, confusing." Michael P. goes on to dismiss Ratzinger by suggesting that he is merely engaging in "attractive polemical posturing" rather than engaging in serious thought.
Ratzinger argued in the week before he became Pope that "[w]e are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires." Green and Perry dismiss Ratzinger because he isn't engaged in technical philosophic speak. But, Green inadvertently affirms the future Pope's thesis when he argues that we do have minimum moral standards and that they are determined by the ever changing whims the majority. To this country bumpkin, that sure sounds like relativism. But, what do I know?
And, neither Perry nor Green address the substance of Ratzinger's argument. Who is causing confusion? I don't think it is the Pope!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
[This
is the last in a series. The full
series may be found here.]
Since the
Catholic immigration to the United States began in numbers in the middle to
late Nineteenth Century, religious liberty and Catholic schools have been
intertwined in American history.
Beginning with the Supreme Court’s 1925 decision in Pierce v. Society of
Sisters, which affirmed the right of parents to choose faith-based education
for their children over the state’s attempt to force all children into
government-run schools, and continuing through the 2002 decision in Zelman v.
Simmons-Harris, which approved the inclusion of Catholic and other religious
private schools in the Cleveland voucher program for disadvantaged families, a
robust and living form of religious liberty has been realized in the right of
educational choice for Catholic education.
The Catechism
of the Catholic School recognizes the fundamental right of parents to choose
the school for their children in keeping with their religious faith:
"As those
first responsible for the education of their children, parents have the right
to choose a school for them which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible parents have the
duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian
educators. Public authorities have
the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions
for its exercise." Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 2229.
The Free
Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution speaks in terms of
“free exercise” of religious faith,
The plain import of this phrase – “free exercise” – is that of acting upon one’s
beliefs. “Exercise” denotes
action, not merely passive contemplation. As Catholics, we among believers are
especially drawn to collective exercise of our faith, in the aptly-named Mass
and the other Sacraments.
Coming together as a community in Catholic education
is also a vital form of devotion and religious expression. When, as but one pedestrian example, my
daugher and her class-mates talk about Christian themes in a great literary
work in English class in a Catholic high school, knowing that such a discussion
is welcomed and encouraged, their faith is exercised and the blessings of religious liberty are realized again.
By choosing
Catholic education for our children, we continue in a long-standing tradition
and participate actively in that continuing exercise of religious liberty. And whatever choices we make as
families, whether to parish or public schools or alternative arrangements such
as home-schooling, we can join together in this weekend’s celebration of our
nation’s birth by celebrating as well the cherished freedom to make educational
choices for our children. Let us
also remain committed to expanding those opportunities for all.
Happy Fourth of July!
Greg Sisk
Here is an address, delivered by Pres. Coolidge (one of my favorites!), back in 1926, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Declaration. (It's hard to believe that presidents and politicians used to be able to talk, write, and think like this.) A bit:
. . . When we take all these circumstances into
consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the
Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature's God
and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme
Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine
Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background,
it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say "The people seem to
recognize this resolution as though it were a decree promulgated from
heaven."
No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion
that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the
result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound
philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular
preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the
people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. No doubt the
speculations which had been going on in England, and especially on the
Continent, lent their influence to the general sentiment of the times.
Of course, the world is always influenced by all the experience and all
the thought of the past. But when we come to a contemplation of the
immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went
into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our
search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons,
and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly
undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how
to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text
that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine
spirit. . . .
Friday, July 2, 2010
"Yes, abortion is killing. But it's the lesser evil."
That's the tiltle of an op-ed by Antonia Senior that was published in the Times of London on June 30, 2010. The essay is causing a stir. See this response by Albert Mohler. I haven't found a good link to Senior's essay.
She begins the essay by explaining that she was in the Tower of London and encountered an interactive display that asks visitors whether they would die for a cause. After some reflection, Senior answers that the cause for which she would stake her life is the cause of women's liberation, and for Senior, that includes the right to abortion.
Senior acknowledges that an abortion involves the taking of a life. But she concludes that that realization doesn't change the calculus. She states: "you can't separate women's rights from their right to fertility control. The single biggest factor in women's liberation was our newly found ability to impose our will on our biology." She concludes her essay with these words--"As ever, when an issue we thought was black and white becomes more nuanced, the answer lies in choosing the lesser evil. The nearly 200,000 aborted babies in the UK each year are the lesser evil, no matter how you define life, or death, for that matter. If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too."
I wish that Senior had heard the fine talk that Erika Bachiochi (see) gave on pro-life feminism at the recent annual conference of University Faculty for Life.
Richard M.
A must-read piece by John Allen, the reporter-on-things-Catholic whom all Catholics, of all stripes, seem to respect:
. . . I’m inclined to think the past week does mean something, and here’s
my first-blush stab at expressing it: Collectively, I think these events
both symbolize and advance the collapse of Catholicism as a
culture-shaping majority in the West. When the dust settles,
policy-makers in the church, particularly in the Vatican, will be ever
more committed to what social theorists call “identity politics,” a
traditional defense mechanism relied upon by minorities when facing what
they perceive as a hostile cultural majority. . . .
Of course, some observers -- and not just religion’s cultured
despisers, but many Catholics themselves -- welcome all this, seeing it
as a long-overdue dose of humility and accountability. On the other
hand, a growing band of Catholic opinion, certainly reflected in the
Vatican, believes that a “tipping point” has been reached in the West,
in which secular neutrality toward the church, especially in Europe, has
shaded off into hostility and, sometimes, outright persecution.
Some blame a rising tide of neo-paganism in the West for the church’s
woes, while others say church leaders, and especially the Vatican, have
no one to blame but themselves. Whichever view one adopts, the
empirical result is the same: Catholicism no longer calls the cultural
tune. Benedict’s decision to launch an entire department in the Vatican
dedicated to treating the West as “mission territory” amounts to a clear
acknowledgment of the point.
Facing that reality, Catholicism, both at the leadership level and in
important circles at the grass roots, is reacting as social theorists
would likely predict, with a strategy that other embattled minority
groups -- from the Amish to Orthodox Judaism, from the Gay Pride
movement to the Nation of Islam -- have often employed: Emphasizing its
unique markers of identity, in order to defend itself against
assimilation to the majority. . . .
To be sure, Benedict XVI’s ambition is not merely that the church in
the West will be a minority, but a “creative minority,” a term he
borrows from Arnold Toynbee. The idea is that when great civilizations
enter a crisis, they either decay or are renewed from within by
“creative minorities” who offer a compelling vision of the future.
The $64,000 question, therefore, is whether Benedict’s version of a
“politics of identity” is the right way to unleash the creativity in
Catholicism that will allow it to play a transformative role in the
cultural movements of the future. One thing’s for sure: projecting a
robust sense of Catholic identity seems poised to be the guiding
principle in Rome for some time to come.
I reflected, by the way, a bit on the "creative minority" idea in this reflection on Deus Caritas Est, "Church, State, and the Practice of Love".
Michael S.,
I don't know that I've ever met a relativist. The serious issue, in my judgment, is ethnocentrism. I've met some ethnocentrists.
On the challenge of negotiating the relationship—sometimes but not always a relationship of
tension or even conflict—between “universal” values and “local” values, the
essays in Andras Sajo, ed., Human Rights With
Modesty: The Problem of Universalism
(2004) & Christopher L. Eisgruber & Andras Sajo, eds., Global Justice and the Bulwarks of Localism
(2005) are a good place to start.
Michael P.
Michael S.,
There are different relativisms: in particular, anthropological, epistemological, cultural. Most discussions of relativism I've encountered outside the technical philosophical literature are deeply confused and, therefore, confusing. Wringing one's hands about "a dictatorship of relativism" may be, in some quarters, attractive polemical posturing; it is not, however, productive philosophical discussion. In any event, here are some thoughts: Perry, "Are Human Rights Universal? The Relativist Challenge and Related Matters," In Perry, The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries (Oxford, 1998).
Michael P.
