In light of Michael Scaperlanda's thoughtful response to my previous post, I'd like to clarify what I mean when I propose that we shift the focus of cultural engagement from top-down impositions of the common good to carving out spheres of communal autonomy in which alternative visions of the good can operate.
First, I agree with Michael that intolerant liberalism cannot allow alternative visions of the good; we see this not only in the newspaper column that sparked my previous post, but in the Catholic Charities case, not to mention even more blatant instances like the French ban on religious garb in schools. I don't propose that we just cloister ourselves and allow this strain of liberalism to run free, but rather that we seek to turn intolerant liberalism into a conception of governance more in keeping with value pluralism. (In this regard, William Galston's value pluralism is more promising than John Gray's).
Second, hesitating to enforce the common good through the imposition of collective norms does not suggest that we separate from society. Indeed, I think cultural engagement can be more robust when those doing the engaging speak prophetically, rather than from the seat of power. Catholic teaching's transformative power is most clearly evidenced within the human person, not the legislative corridors. So far from proposing that we separate from society, I propose that we invest ourselves more deeply in it -- we should be targeting the hearts and minds of our neighbors, not with the aim of capturing the mechanisms of collective power, but with the aim of changing lives.
Third, this conception of the common good is not simply a concession to political reality, but reflects a fundamental premise of subsidiarity, in my view. Subsidiarity calls for the localization of authority in society. For this localization to have any real-world significance, local bodies must have the freedom to defy the surrounding society's conception of the good; otherwise, local bodies are only given power to act as agents of the collective.
Fourth, I do not mean that contested moral questions are never an appropriate subject for state action. Indeed, some contested moral questions can only be answered at the state level. Abortion is an example where the question is not so much whether an individual will be precluded from pursuing alternative visions of the good, but whether certain individuals have standing even to enter into the pursuit of any vision of the good. If we don't answer the question at the state level -- opting instead to give individuals freedom to abort or not abort as they see fit -- that question of standing has already been answered conclusively in the negative.
But on other contested moral questions -- the criminal prohibition on same-sex sodomy, for example -- creating binding legal norms based on one vision of the good is clearly inappropriate, in my view. Bringing the coercive power of the state to bear on citizens who dissent from that vision not only implicates the dignity of those citizens, but it turns subsidiarity into an empty vessel by eviscerating the localizing impetus, validating local authority only to the extent that it comports with an anthropologically authentic conception of the good. Because the validation will hinge on whatever conception of the good is held by those in power, we're back to the problem of subsidiarity as simply a cover theory for the collective to use local agents to pursue its (and only its) vision of the good.
Rob
I've previously noted the degree to which the concept of religion as a set of truth claims has fallen into disfavor among cultural elites in our society. There is a column in today's Christian Science Monitor by Ghassan Rubeiz that takes this one step further, basically arguing that children should not be educated in a religious tradition that views its claims as objectively true (as opposed to simply being valid for those who choose to treat them as valid for their own lives). Many of Rubeiz's recommendations to parents, such as the importance of exposing children to the beliefs and practices of other faith communities, are certainly laudable. But there is a more sinister undercurrent to his argument, a sort of monistic "I'm OK, you're OK" worldview that verges on the non-negotiable, in Rubeiz's view, when it comes to the spiritual shaping of a child. He complains that too often children "are not taught about other religions or at least about the validity of other religions," and that when children are brought up in a faith tradition, "they take it as a prescriptive formula, a community membership, a set of facts and a pass to salvation." He urges parents to teach their children that all religions are "different paths to the same Source," and concludes with the (haunting, in my view) prediction that "NGOs and governments may one day adopt the theme of religious pluralism for children and advocate for it globally" because "[c]hildren deserve to be protected from abuse of fanatic religious socialization just as much as they deserve to be protected from sexual abuse or child labor."
I have no problem with parents who choose to raise their children with the belief that all religions are equally valid and essentially interchangeable. But I have a significant problem with the suggestion that raising a child with the belief that a particular religion is objectively true (which may logically entail that certain claims of other religions are false), is equated with exposing the child to sexual abuse. And unfortunately, I don't think this column represents the fringe view on this issue. It underscores my previously expressed view that religious voices may need to focus more on carving out spheres of community and individual autonomy for themselves, rather than seeking to impose their vision of the common good on a society-wide basis. It is becoming increasingly clear that modern liberalism's idea of the common good will not always be recognizable to those who view religion as more than a preferred lifestyle, nor will it necessarily be accommodating. The question becomes not whether society will reflect an anthropologically authentic vision of the common good, but whether society will even tolerate the pursuit of such a vision.
Rob
Monday, June 21, 2004
I am not even an amateur economist, nor do I quibble with the fact that higher per capita GDPs are a good thing. I do, however, feel obliged to point out that much of the evidence of America's supremacy over Europe in terms of wealth creation (see Steve's post below) has come at a substantial moral cost to Americans themselves. Besides reflecting the degree to which technological conveniences have become standard to the American way of life (even among the poor), the rates of ownership of televisions, cars, air conditioning, etc., along with the square footage of our homes, all provide a sense of the degree to which the consumer culture has found its ultimate expression in modern American life. Given the vastly lower percentage of poor and middle-class Americans who have health insurance, save for college, or save for retirement, I'm not sure that the nearly universal ownership of televisions is a good thing. And I'm doubtful that the rise in square footage of the average home is a positive indicator of a family's overall health, given the corresponding need of both parents to work outside the home in order to make mortgage payments. (I'd be interested in seeing the US-EU comparison of per capita personal debt levels.) If both parents need to be working, I think that the European tendency to ensure paid parental leave after a child's birth is more vital to the health of the family than the square footage of the American home to which the nanny is welcomed every day.
I'm not challenging Steve's characterization of the study's relevance, and I do not suggest we embrace the obviously flawed model of the European social welfare state. But I do think we need to resist any temptation to judge the health of a society (even economic health) solely by measures that feed into culturally destructive habits. In this regard, I was reminded of David Hart's article, Freedom and Decency, in the current First Things (the article is not available on-line). He wrote concerning our society's insistence that censorship is utterly incompatible with freedom. I think his words also apply to the market economy:
A society is just precisely to the degree that it makes true freedom possible; to do this it must leave certain areas of moral existence to govern themselves, but it must also in many cases seek to defeat the most vicious aspects of fallen nature, and to aid as far as possible in the elevation in each soul of right reason over mere appetite and impulse -- which necessarily involves denying certain persons the things they want most. . . . When appetite seizes the reins of the soul or the city, it drives the chariot toward ruin; so it is the very art of sound governance to seek to perfect the intricate and delicate choreography of moral and legal custom that will best promote the sway of reverent reason in city and soul alike.
. . . . The ultimate consequence of a purely libertarian political ethos, if it could be taken to its logical end, would be a world in which we would no longer even remember that we should want to choose the good, as we would have learned to deem things good solely because they have been chosen.
Rob
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Co-bloggers and readers may take interest in an article in the current issue of the Journal of Legal Education by Monte Stewart (formerly with BYU's law school) and Dennis Tolley (a statistics prof at BYU) entitled "Investigating Possible Bias: The American Legal Academy's View of Religiously Affiliated Law Schools." The authors were struck by the fact that practitioners tend to give religiously affiliated law schools a higher rating than fellow academics do in the annual U.S. News rankings, and the divergence between the two sets of scores is greater for religious schools than for secular schools. (For those not familiar with the all-important law school rankings, they are based in part on the school's reputation among academics and its reputation among judges and lawyers.) To try and isolate the possible bias, the authors conducted their own limited survey to rank the religiously affiliated law schools in order of their "conservatism" -- i.e., "the extent to which the American legal academy viewed each school as affiliated with and reflective of a religious tradition generally perceived to be conservative on contemporary cultural or moral issues such as abortion and homosexuality." Of the 44 religiously affiliated law schools (St. Thomas and Ave Maria were not included), the highest "conservatism" ratings went to (in order) Regent, BYU, Campbell, Mississippi College, Pepperdine, Notre Dame, and Catholic; the least "conservative" were Emory, Georgetown, and American.
The authors drew three primary conclusions from their analysis of the data:
The divergence between the respective assessments of academics and practitioners of religiously affiliated law schools is sufficiently greater than their divergence relative to secular law schools to be statistically significant.
The more conservative a religiously affiliated law school is generally perceived to be relative to contemporary cultural/moral issues, the lower the academics' assessment is, compared to that of the practitioners.
The divergence noted in each of the first two conclusions is not due to any differential in scholarly activity as measured by the number of articles published annually either per school or per faculty member.
This may simply be confirming what has been widely known, but it is worth a read, in any event.
Rob
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Most (but not all) religious folks have breathed a sigh of relief now that the Supreme Court has allowed "under God" to remain in the pledge of allegiance, if only for the time being. However, I haven't seen much attention paid by religious folks to the standing analysis on which the Court's ruling was based. In essence, Justice Stevens' majority opinion suggests that noncustodial parents have very limited power over their children's religious upbringing:
. . . Newdow requests relief that is more ambitious than that sought in [the previous California cases Mentry and Murga]. He wishes to forestall his daughter's exposure to religious ideas that her mother, who wields a form of veto power, endorses, and to use his parental status to challenge the influences to which his daughter may be exposed in school when he and Banning disagree. The California cases simply do not stand for the proposition that Newdow has a right to dictate to others what they may and may not say to his child respecting religion. Mentry and Murga are concerned with protecting " 'the fragile, complex interpersonal bonds between child and parent,' " 142 Cal. App. 3d, at 267, 190 Cal. Rptr., at 848, and with permitting divorced parents to expose their children to the " 'diversity of religious experiences [that] is itself a sound stimulant for a child,' " id., at 265, 190 Cal. Rptr., at 847 (citation omitted). The cases speak not at all to the problem of a parent seeking to reach outside the private parent-child sphere to restrain the acts of a third party. A next friend surely could exercise such a right, but the Superior Court's order has deprived Newdow of that status.
In our view, it is improper for the federal courts to entertain a claim by a plaintiff whose standing to sue is founded on family law rights that are in dispute when prosecution of the lawsuit may have an adverse effect on the person who is the source of the plaintiff's claimed standing. When hard questions of domestic relations are sure to affect the outcome, the prudent course is for the federal court to stay its hand rather than reach out to resolve a weighty question of federal constitutional law. There is a vast difference between Newdow's right to communicate with his child--which both California law and the First Amendment recognize--and his claimed right to shield his daughter from influences to which she is exposed in school despite the terms of the custody order. We conclude that, having been deprived under California law of the right to sue as next friend, Newdow lacks prudential standing to bring this suit in federal court.
This reasoning makes a certain amount of sense to me, but I'm wondering if its application and certain extension by lower courts could cause problems. After all, in the Church's view, "[t]he task of educating belongs fundamentally and primarily to the family." (Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation para. 94) Does a parent's loss of legal custody diminish his share of responsibility for the child's education, or deprive him of moral standing to assert claims on behalf of the child's well-being? Is his cognizable interest really limited to what occurs within "the private parent-child sphere?" Are we comfortable with the Supreme Court drawing legal distinctions between a parent's "right to communicate with his child" and his right to "shield his daughter from influences to which she is exposed?" Maybe this is an acceptable outcome to this particular case, and I certainly think that, for prudential reasons, a custodial parent may need to have a greater legal voice in the upbringing of the child, but it seems that there may be factual scenarios where this reasoning will come back to haunt those who favor robust parental rights, not just robust custodial parental rights, in the educational sphere.
UPDATE: A reader emailed me to confirm that my concern has at least some grounding in reality. He currently is litigating on behalf of a non-custodial parent who is being denied input into the religious formation of his child, in favor of foster parents' religious formation decisions. He writes that he fully expects to see the Newdow majority's reasoning injected into the case.
Rob
