What But Not How
In a Common Dreams essay, Dave Robinson, executive director of the national Catholic peace movement Pax Christi, tells us, "Values Voters Should Choose the Common Good Over Facism". Pretty strong language and he uses Thom Hartman's comparison between corporatist trends of the thirties and those of our current era.
He states: "The central question should not be 'are you better off now than you were four years ago?", it should be 'how can we- all of us, especially the weak and vulnerable- be better off in the years ahead? How can we pursue greater peace and justice?"
Fine sentiments,( although Ayn Rand is turning in her grave), but at this juncture in history we are not so much looking for self-evident questions as we searching for answers, theoretical suppositions, articulation of some sort.He ends by saying:
" If we are to be faithful to the nonviolence that Jesus taught and to which we seek to remain faithful, we must be ready to unmask the powers and principalities that have gained a chokehold on our politics and society and challenge them for what they have always been, the real evil that we are all called to struggle against as Vice President Wallace put it so long ago, “always and everywhere.” Unmask and challenge? Go for it!
Unfortunately , we are back to the "evil" thing. And" when opponents are defined not in political but in MORAL terms, they cannot be envisaged as an "adversary" but only as an "enemy". With the 'evil them', no agnostic debate is possible, they must be eradicated. Moreover, as they are considered as the expression of some 'moral disease', one should not even try to provide an explanation for their emergence and success. This is why, as we have seen in the case of right-wing populism, moral condemnation replaces a proper political analysis and the answer is limited to the building of a 'cordon sanitaire' to quarantine the affected sectors." Chantal Mouffe
Dave Robinson knows we cannot continue to quarantine all the poor and disenfranchised, all the terrorists, all the "evil-doers" or all the corporatists either ,for that matter. We have to change all social relations, the political and the economic.
posted by troutsky @ 8:34 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Trout,
You are right, "we cannot quarantine all the "evil-doers", but we can change the system that makes them possible.
I think all the evil doers quartine themselves every 4 years in the white house
when opponents are defined not in political but in MORAL terms, they cannot be envisaged as an "adversary" but only as an "enemy". With the 'evil them', no agnostic debate is possible, they must be eradicated.
I disagree. Christ was clear that the woman caught in adultery, an "evil" woman, should "go and sin no more". This presupposes that she could do so; she did not need to be eradicated, she needed to change her behavior.
Bob, you say we can change the system that makes them possible.
Evil is possible under any system, as a brief survey of history will show. Transforming the system is futile without a similar transformation of heart.
very interesting...thanks for posting
I think Wiser has pointed out the "chicken or the egg" like nature of this debate.Is the "heart" modified by the system it lives under? Is the system created by the "heart"? If the "heart" is what secular humanists believe it to be, a vast jumble of culture, psychology, law, myth. genetics, philosophy,ie super-structural elements then it can morph and be affected by discursive elements. If the "heart" is an eternal characteristic forever determined by original sin, then it creates all that super-structure and is eternally flawed.
Personally, I can go with eternal tension between all these contingent factors, but i cannot accept eternally doomed.
As to the unfaithful wife, here again there exists lots of contingincies, was she valued, was she abused, was she loved? Does the state come in and make adultery illegal based on a moral code? based on societal needs? Who says her behavior must change? There can be no argument based on Wisers discourse.
There can be no argument based on Wisers discourse.
Sorry, Troutksy, I'm not following. I maintain that, to put it bluntly, only a return of the culture to the Church, that is, from every man to Christ, will we be "saved".
Chesterton spent a lot of time talking with people about metaphorical chickens and eggs. I have a tendency to lend out all my Chesterton, but during the controversies with Mr. Blatchford, Chesterton made the salient point that even if a good society would help men be good, it would take exceptionally good men to make that good society.
Don't get me wrong, systemic change must be the eventual goal; but this can only come though the transformations of individual's lives. There are two ways to revolution, that which I have herein expressed, and at the point of a gun.
The human heart must be target number one.
I think i better understand your point. The heart is not immutable,people are not wholy good or bad and therefore there is room for and a chance at systemic improvement?
The transference occurs when the owner class mistakes an attack on his power as an attack on him personally. He gets defensive about his property, leading to reactionary violence. (the Russian revolution occured without any shots being fired, defending the revolution was another matter) I can and do like plenty of this class, even think they have good hearts, but I insist they share their power for the greater moral good that would follow.Your Church also speaks of sharing power but it is in somewhat opaque terms.
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