Aug
7
Grab the popcorn (Updated)
August 7, 2008 | 6 Comments
You know it’s bad when Mark Shea is calling out your blog for incivility.
The thing is, he’s got a point.
Morning’s Minion, completely oblivious to what Shea’s criticism is, misses the point entirely. It’s not so much that Vox Nova is left-of-center but that often that the blog hosts are much quicker to demean or chastise the conservatives on there who comment than the leftists. Yes, Blackadder trudges on bravely, but the overall tenor of the blog is to the left. Which is fine. Almost all of the contributors to VN are faithful Catholics, orthodox in their beliefs, who hold political opinions that I happen to disagree with.
What is a liitle annoying though is the continued protestation of non-partisanship. “What, us liberal?” Umm, yeah. It’s perfectly okay to admit it.
This is a point that Zach makes on his blog.
There are certain commentators who like to think they argue from an unbiased or non-partisan point of view.* In the attempt to be fair and intellectually open-minded, they will consider and critique both political parties. This, by itself, is a good thing. Their misstep comes when they pretend they do not prefer one party over the other, or that they are somehow above such a pedestrian preference. By avoiding making such a commitment to one set of ideas over another, they are able to avoid difficult and embarrassing conversations, like actually admitting they prefer the Democratic plan for society over the Republican one. This often takes the form of an argument that says neither political party is satisfactory, and therefore the correct position is one that rejects the whole “system.”
It is often said this tendency is rooted in intellectual honesty or in a true understanding of the faith or something of that sort. But this is not the case. Really, the rejection of political commitment is a rejection of what is human. Human affairs are imperfect and always will be. And it’s true, from the point of view of Catholic Social Thought or the Platonic realm of true forms, that no political party or set of ideas will be satisfactory. From a certain point of view, nothing political is satisfactory. True justice is not possible in this world. This preference for the ideal is an easy trap for academics to fall into. Nothing human satisfies the academic, because academics are free from the constraints of reality, able to work out the perfect world in their minds. But back in the real world, we have to make choices. We have to make choices about how to live our lives, and we often have to choose from unsatisfactory options. Yes, neither party is perfect. Neither party represents the true political good. But guess what? No party will be such a thing. Under any system.
I think that what is needed to combat this tendency is the honest disclosure of political preferences. Admit you are a partisan and that you have some particular ideas about what the good society will look like, how it will be structured, and what its ends will be. Argue passionately for it. Do not pretend you do not prefer one set of ideas over another.
Of course this tendency is not confined solely to Vox Nova or even to Catholic bloggers in general. I’ve blogged about this in the past, but there truly is no such thing as an independent voter or a moderate. All people who think and write about politics will lean either left or right to one degree or another. This is not to say that all people on the right are of one mind, and all people on the left another. And one can be fairly moderate, but essentially all political thinkers are going to have a general preference.
Of course, I will probably be accused of failing to see beyond the “dualism of the American political system, which in itself is a Protestant way of thinking.” (Wow, a reference to Protestantism. What an original argument from said commenter.) Whatever. This is not a secular argument. Catholics can be completely loyal to the magisterium and come to completely opposite political conclusions. One can heed the Church’s call for compassion for the poor and believe that the state must do all in its power to alleviate poverty, or one can heed the call and believe that governmental involvement makes matters worse. This is not dualism – it’s the reality of human conditioning. Even within the context of Catholic social thought, all people will have tendencies to one side or the other.
But as I said, it’s a bit tiresome to hear the continued denials of ideological thinking. There is no one more guilty of this than Henry Karlson, who continues to wax agnostic on political lables, but then who posts bunk like this:
With so much emphasis put on abortion by key people in the “pro-life” movement, ignoring the value of life at all of its stages, it is understandable why some might end up thinking it’s fine to take life for the “cause.”
Gee, who could Henry be talking about? Of course, in the comments section, Henry will back away with his “I’m merely saying . . .” excuse, but it is obvious to anyone with maybe a little bit of common sense that that the “key leaders” he’s referring to as not completely committed to the value of life in all its stages are, I don’t know, conservatives who don’t completely buy into the notion that the welfare state is the answer to all our problems.
But there’s no partisan point that Henry’s making. No siree.
Perhaps it’s time for the “pro-life” movement to finally emphasize the value of all life, and not to neglect some just because they are no longer in the womb. Then Ivins might have read and followed The Gospel of Life. . . and then he might have actually been pro-life.
Yes, I guess if all those pro-life leaders had more more of an effort to stress that sending anthrax in the mail in an attempt to kill people was wrong, Ivens might have seen the light ahead of time.
I think it’s time to join Dale Price. Enough with these jerks.
Updated: I will concede that the “welfare state” bit narrows down my objection too far. The problem is the “consistent life ethic” part is fairly vague. How, precisely, have these nefarious pro-life leaders failed to live up to the seamless garment conistsent life ethic? What exactly have they done to inspire a murderer, or, to put it more kindly, not done to prevent him from failing to live up to a truly pro-life credo?
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6 Comments so far
Your criticism of me would be right if I talked about “welfare programs” in my post. I didn’t. I only talked about the need for a consistent ethic of life, one which thinks beyond the abortion issue. I pointed out that one needs to read Pope John Paul II’s Gospel of Life where one will see the full ethic. When the focus is only on abortion and excuses are made to ignore other issues, something is wrong.
Partisan indeed.
Instead of reading into posts what is not there, you would do well to respond to the post itself. And I know you can be cranky on here — fine; but isn’t it ironic one of the chief complaints of VN (beyond so-called partisonship, which is erroneous) is that the comments debates often are outrageous? Wasn’t that a part of Mark’s criticism? I myself think it is a shallow thing to post on and use as a point of criticism, for it is the typical way comments are on blogs (and Mark’s too). But perhaps that irony is lost when you want to edge in on an attack, and say Mark’s point was good.
The quotes from Henry Karlson that you included in your post say nothing about a welfare state. How did you arrive at your stated conclusion that his post is about how “the welfare state is the answer to all our problems”?
Whatever, Henry. You write in a vague enough style to leave enough room for doubt as to what it is precisely you are talking about, this way when someone calls you out you can claim plausible deniability. Perhaps you didn’t just mean the welfare state, but whatever it is you were implying, the leap you made was so ridiculous as to merit the ridicule heaped upon it.
You talk about a “consistent life ethic.” Fine. But how about explaining it in clearer terms? What precisely is the inconsistency among key leaders that would inspire a nutjob to go out and kill?
It’s true that Henry did not specifically call out the welfare state as something that the “pro-life movement” is failing to uphold.
Indeed, I suspect that his argument is not so much a, “How dare you call yourselves ‘pro-life’ when you’re not politically liberal” as a, “To have a truly coherant movement it must be a theological movement — go read this encyclical and form a theological movement rather than a political one.”
In that sense, though, it’s a bit of a non sequitor. That the “pro-life” political movement is for all intents and purposes an “anti-abortion” political movement does not prevent spreading a wider understanding of the Catholic theological perspective on why abortion is wrong and how that fits within the wider context of sexuality, the human person and human dignity. Indeed, I think its arguable that the spread of Catholic thinking on natural law, the nature of sexuality, etc. into Evangelical circles (which has been a small but gradually increasing phenominon in the last 20 years) is directly attributable to the work that many serious Catholics have done with serious Evangelicals in the pro-life movement.
Surely the mention of the name would bring a snear to the lips of some self-professed theologians, but I recall reading a piece by Kimberly Hahn about how she gained a respect for Catholic teaching on sexuality directly as a result of conversations she had with Catholic members of a pro-life action group she was active in while still a Protestant.
Also, maybe the reason that the “pro-life” political movement is for all intents and purposes an “anti-abortion” political movement (though I’d add in euthanasia) is related to how the Church teachings on these matters differ, how the status of them differ under American law, and what the actual stances of them are in the actual American political spectrum.
Or to put the last point bluntly, there is nothing to be said to someone who thinks the Republican Party opposes the social -insurance and -welfare state per se.
It’s very simple. If these guys didn’t support abortion, they wouldn’t support the most pro-abortion candidate ever offered by the most pro-abortion party in history.
But of course, they do support abortion, and all the rest is just smokescreen.