Nothing Christlike about it

My immersion in theology and biblical criticism has been one of the most intellectually thrilling events of my life. The reading has improved my faith, not weakened it. Faith has improved my life, crutch though it may be. So I am satisfied that my religious turn this year has been truly beneficial, and I have every intention to continue to explore and deepen my faith. That said, it should not have been surprising to me that in only 10 months I've become deeply disappointed in Catholicism as an institution. It appears that I've returned to the Church just in time to witness its inexorable movement to alienate/exclude all westerners who do not accept a subservience to a 17th-century institutional order. As it welcomes the ultra-conservatives of SSPX, it seeks to divide the anglicans by siphoning off its right wing unhappy about the women and gay clergy issues, and to slowly move to eviscerate the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. It's as though the Church does not want anyone whose views would require some degree of flexibility on institutional as opposed to theological matters. Once agai it is proving that the Catholic Church is about itself, not the faith it proclaims. The term "anti-Chirst" is bandied about freely these days (mostly by Fox folks and the radio haters); somebody ought to consider literal application of the term to the Church's attitude about its relationship to its people and its God.

capitalism versus government

Much of what passes for public debate these days is tiresome rhetoric about socialism, taxes, government takeovers, etc., as though the goal of the current government is to destroy capitalism and install stalinist control of American life. The linchpin is reliance on Reagan's dictum, "The Government is not the solution, it's the problem". Couple that with tax cuts and you have the entire Republican party program (with some anti-abortion and anti-gay spice for the neanderthals, who like their politics hot and nasty). They count on the reality that most of the U.S. population really considers itself to be living far better than they expected (the joys of living on debt) and thus consider themselves part of the producing class sought to be destroyed by evil, stalinist taxes; that, and the American creed that the promotion of self-interest is a virtue above all others. The result is what's happening now : government's attempts to solve problems are being assailed as attacks on "liberty" and "freedom" [presumably, the freedom to go into more debt aping the lifestyles of the real beneficiaries of our system, the top 1% whose tax cuts amount to real money]. What they don't recognize, and nobody's saying, is that government only comes into a problem when the money-making apparatus can't or won't address the problem, in most cases because its own excesses created the messes that government must address because no one else will. Our society gives almost unchecked rein to capitalism, but people here don't see it that way. Rather, all they see is government seeking to fix problems which must be fixed if we are to continue to function as a free wealthy country, and rather than seeing such as the cavalry coming in at the last minute to save us, government is seen as a threat to the continued hoggery to which our society has become accustomed. Freedom to be greedy. Freedom to ignore the poor. Freedom to bully immigrants. The land of the free, indeed.

Autonomy versus Democracy

People who complain about the slowness and cumbersome nature of governmental bureaucracies as compared to the efficiency of private organizations are overlooking a major factor in the operational sector of each. Private organizations and businesses are much simpler to run than the government. Decision making is usually handled by a single individual or small board whose goal is simple: make a profit. Of course there are lots of factors that go into reaching that goal, but the goal never changes, and ownership really only has to answer to itself. What they say goes, and opinions from the smaller players, such as low level employees, carry almost no weight at all.
This is almost the opposite tack of the operations of a Democratic government. Governmental leaders are responsible for making sure that the rights of every member of society are not infringed upon. The smallest players, in theory, have as much right to influence a decision as the biggest groups. Minority concerns are some of the highest priorities in a true Democracy. We cannot neglect those who disagree with us (as long as they aren't anarchists, proposing the abolition of the government). The real challenge is to determine whether a policy leads to freedom of choice for the constituency or does it trend toward the oppression by one group over another or even anarchy.
By the nature of its stated intentions, Democracy is a slow and laborious process, and not an easy task. Virtually every issue requires a compromise between opposing factions. Freedom for the populace is a much more difficult goal than profit. People have to learn to be patient with the operations of good government.

progress ?

Here's a quote from 1968 to show how far we've come as a nation. This was from a speeach made by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 : “Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product … if we should judge America by that – counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” It was true in 1968, and it's immeasurably more incisive now.

"I'm just saying"

Evidently "I'm just saying" has become a rhetorical device allowing irresponsible speakers to say whatever bombastic and incendiary idiocy they think will excite the giggling mob which is their audience. For example, Beck's "What will God think is worse, sticking a needle into the brain of a 8 1/2 month old fetus and sucking it out, or breaking a terrorist's arm ? I'm just saying" presents a facially invalid equivalence (because it is not factually grounded in reality in any sense) and the closing device provides an implication of validity distracting the listener from the statement's fundamental fallacy. It's a way of communicating to the unreflective that the speaker is bravely going where only brave leaders go, where sheep have not been lead before, but where they should be if they were smart and brave like the speaker. Of course, the sheep are already there; that's why it's said, but the device gives the sense that the utterance is considered beyond the pale but shouldn't be, thus making the sheep conclude they they too are out ahead of those who disagree with them. That it is poor grammar just makes it all the more attractive to the sheep; we can predict that soon everyone whose opinions consist of only those fed to them by Beck, Hannity, etc will be using the expression constantly (and inappropriately). So in addition to coursening our ethical discourse, these guys are contributing to the deliquency of our language. I'm just saying.

Weakness

Obama's winning the Nobel Peace prize is an act of communion by the civilized world with that aspect of America which is hopeful, charitable and loving. But his critics see it as a "reward for America's weakness". What are these folks scared of ? America as part of a better world, as opposed to its dominating a fractured, dispirited one ? At some point an understandable interest in keeping tax rates as low as possible is no longer a valid basis for opposition to a government acting consistently to strengthen what's best in the country as a community of diverse people. We should be pleased that we are being encouraged by the rest of the world to lead the world, not just one country's top earners. Fear and selfishness are the very essence of weakness.

The Ultimate Reality

When asked by a student, "What is the ultimate reality?", the zen master simply pointed.

What he was saying is that this is the ultimate reality, the one we have now. Here, on this planet, in this form of existence, at this level of awareness. It is far beyond anything we could have ever imagined in our pre-awareness state, before birth. Simple consciousness is clearly our greatest gift, life itself.
Do what you will, but learn how to better make consciousness work for you. That means being clearsighted about things, about attaining an even keel, and recognizing within yourself the infinite limit of your knowledge. Everything in life is phenomenal. Pay attention.

Antipodean Notes

At times past, being far away from home afforded the opportunity to see our lives, looking back at that life from far away, as though others, not us, are living them; physical distance created psychic distance, too. No more. Communications technology now is such that even vast distances mean nothing. But even beyond that, being 10,000 miles away did not produce the changed perspective I expected. Wondering why lead me to thinking that now, on the downside of the sine curve of life, it's time, not distance, which is the predicate to seeing one's life from a perspective removed from life's preoccupations. The shock of distance, this time, produced the realization that while my current view of myself did not change, what I think about myself is vastly different than what I saw as a younger man, when physical distance did cause me to see myself differently than I did when in my own environment. Put differently, when I was young the simple fact of distance caused me to reassess whether the life I was living, back there where I lived, was satisfying; invariably, that self-assessment caused me to adjust my thinking in beneficial ways not likely to have occurred to me had I not so radically changed in point of space. However now, a change of space did not spur any changes; rather, it caused me to realize that some of the important presuppositions guiding my conception of myself as a younger man were now not only no longer important, but just flat wrong. Had I been able to see this when I was younger, things would quite likely have turned out vastly different for me. My myopic view did not change in space as much as I thought it did; otherwise, I would have come to the realizations which I now know time, not space, afforded me. I guess there's just no getting a jump on hindsight.

Considering Frankie's most recent blog concerning the rise of rhetoric over dialectic brings me to address something that has been bothering me since Barack Obama was inaugurated. It concerns a particular Op-Ed columnist, Charles Krauthammer. I read Mr. Krauthammer's editorials in our hometown paper, the Times-Picayune, on a regular basis, probasbly twice a week on average. Mr. Krauthammer clearly owns the talent of a first-rate writer. However, virtually every article by him since the inauguration has been an ad hominem attack on our president.
Now, to his credit, Mr. Krauthammer acknowledges Mr. Obama as an excellent public speaker. But if you know anything about black people at all, saying that one speaks well is tantamount to a veiled insult. And that has been the extent of Mr. Krauthammer's praise for a man that I consider capable of becoming one of the greatest presidents this country has ever had. Am I that wrong about Mr. Obama's character? Is he that poorly fitted to be the most powerful man in the world? The columnist considers the president's message of hope and reconciliation to be nothing more than flim-flammery. He considers the president to be a moron in matters of foreign relations. He calls our president a hypocrite and a deceiver.
Is this all because our president has made overtures of peace to Muslim countries? Is it because our president strives to provide an example of the power of forgiveness that Mr. Krauthammer calls him naive? Is it because Mr. Obama is trying to force much needed change in the insurance and banking industries?
I can understand, and even agree with, some of the criticisms of President Obama. But a constant drone of personal attacks? Mr. Krauthammer clearly has an agenda, one that coincides with the interests of banks, insurance companies and the Republican party. I have a strong hunch that he is being bankrolled by at least one of those groups. I believe that he is prostituting his talent in favor of the biggest spenders.
Because President Obama employs the nice guy approach, certainly does not mean that he is weak. Other countries (and big corporations) cannot walk all over us unless we let them do it. Offering the olive branch of peace is not a sign of surrender, but a valid indication of a willingness to work together toward more desirable outcomes than the ones we currently face. The Republican zealots, with all of their Christian rhetoric, really should acknowledge that the man of peace is truly blessed. And if President Obama has fooled everyone except the Republicans, and he turns out to be evil in the final judgment of history, he is certainly using the methodology of a good Christian.