Warning: Absurdly long comment to follow.
I have only a little experience with the meme that liberals are abstract while conservatives are concrete, because my time following other blogs is limited (I did glance at your post, Proph).
I do think it is important to point out a sense in which that is true.
I do not think conservatives are defined by loyalty to abstractions. We are defined by loyalty to God; by loyalty to family; by loyalty to specific things or places.
One can, immediately, point out that we are loyal to them beneath a particular abstract code of behavior--lets call it natural law, for simplicity's sake, but you can call it divine positive law if you prefer. We are committed to following this, and thus seem committed to a particular set of abstractions.
Well, yes. Liberals, also, are committed to a particular set of abstractions--personal self-determination, whatever. Whenever you do anything, you're more or less committed to a particular set of abstractions, because abstractions are the result of looking at a particular and drawing from it a universal code of behavior.
The thing is that the conservative abstractions return one inevitably to the individual, historical, situated things we encounter. This God. This country. Your wife. Your children. Your parents. One has a history as a conservative, and this history matters; you cannot shuck it off from moment to moment to moment. History matters, and can make you obliged to do things. And history is the representation of the concrete; that is why, for the universal-interested Aristotle, it was not a science.
For a liberal, though, abstractions do not return one to anything concrete. My self-determination remains, despite whatever came before me; indeed, my self-determination is exercised against wife, children, parents, country, and ultimately God. To be liberal is to think that I should not be defined by the history in which I find myself. The liberal can say, as someone or other said, that history is bunk.
I am defined by the story and narrative in which I find myself, if I am a conservative. You cannot give an abstract reason for why I am in this story; but it still matters. I'm stuck in it. So I am a character in a story.
For a liberal, I am defined not by the story in which I find myself, because I am the author of my story. My abstract reasons only reinforce my freedom from and height above the narrative. I am the author of a story.
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Perhaps no one disagrees with me when I make this point. Everyone might know what I am saying. That's great, if that is so.
But I think that there is something incredibly important about concreteness, that we should keep in mind.
There is a theological narrative wherein, before Christianity, we find adherence to a particular universal code of behavior to be the way man finds "salvation," if you will. This narrative is only partly true, but it is partly true; the important thing for Aristotle is to act in accord with a somewhat abstract, universal code, even if this code is modified by particular circumstances.
But although a Christian _will_ act in accord with a universal code (the Decalogue, natural law), you are no longer saved by so adhering to it. You are saved by adhering to Christ. What matters ultimately is the particular. This is undoubtedly true theologically. According to the theological narrative, however, Christianity revealed through Christ the value of the particular. And this--literal--revelation is still coming to be understood. (Cf. Josef Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity . . . . somewhere in the book).
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Finally, and in a separate point: at least according to some Thomists, metaphysics is in fact the most concrete of all the sciences--Aquinas says it proceeds by "separatio" than "abstractio," or something like that. I'm not ready to say exactly what this means, because a lot of scholars have written on it. But I would point out that metaphysics finds, as the chief intrinsic principle of being, something absolutely unique and uncommunicable (esse) and it finds, as the extrinsic principle of being, something absolutely unique, concrete, and uncommunicable (God).
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Canada's Secular Confessional State Continues
From LifeSiteNews: Homeschooling families can’t teach homosexual acts sinful in class says Alberta Government.
From the article:
"Under Alberta’s new Education Act, homeschoolers and faith-based schools will not be permitted to teach that homosexual acts are sinful as part of their academic program, says the spokesperson for Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.
“Whatever the nature of schooling – homeschool, private school, Catholic school – we do not tolerate disrespect for differences,” Donna McColl, Lukaszuk’s assistant director of communications, told LifeSiteNews on Wednesday evening.
"You can affirm the family’s ideology in your family life, you just can’t do it as part of your educational study and instruction,” she added."
Not much more to say, really. Essentially, they say "Yes, you can teach that irrational religious stuff when you are not actually educating children, like you tell them about Santa Claus. But it cannot be taught, as if it were, you know, actually true."
From the article:
"Under Alberta’s new Education Act, homeschoolers and faith-based schools will not be permitted to teach that homosexual acts are sinful as part of their academic program, says the spokesperson for Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.
“Whatever the nature of schooling – homeschool, private school, Catholic school – we do not tolerate disrespect for differences,” Donna McColl, Lukaszuk’s assistant director of communications, told LifeSiteNews on Wednesday evening.
"You can affirm the family’s ideology in your family life, you just can’t do it as part of your educational study and instruction,” she added."
Not much more to say, really. Essentially, they say "Yes, you can teach that irrational religious stuff when you are not actually educating children, like you tell them about Santa Claus. But it cannot be taught, as if it were, you know, actually true."
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
What communities should we join or form?
At various times, I've written about how creating or joining communities that pursue the good life in common is the best way to bring others to our ideas--or, ultimately, to Christ, because that should be our goal. People tend to convert people, not arguments. I've argued for this from a metaphysical perspective and in a more miscellaneous fashion. I like the metaphysical argument, think it is one of the better things I have written, and I advise you to read it.
The thing is, I don't know of anyone in the Orthosphere who has written about the various kinds of communities / institutions that we can form or join. So I thought I'd provide a little list of the types of such communities, with examples. The list is not scientific; it is not exhaustive; inclusion of a community / institution in the list does not indicate approval of all or even most of the activities of the community, for I am somewhat ignorant of some of them. If I've left any important category out, please let me know.
The following are meant to be for laymen. Obviously there are many religious communities that one can join.
1. Geographically-based, non-parish based communities. Many Christians get together and decide to live together; they might all go to one parish, but the parish does not seem to form the pre-existing nucleus around which they have formed. I've heard of more than one of these, but few seem to last. The Alleluia community in Georgia has lasted, and I've known at least one person who came from it who did not seem nuts; I would like to find out more about them and how they work.
Of course, such things generally tend to be called cults by the outside world. I think that if you want a community you'll have to live with that.
2. Parish-based communities. It is obvious what this is. Protestants might, perhaps, be better at these than Catholics, but Catholics are working on it.
3. Spirituality-based, non-geographic communities. By this I mean a particular organization or group of people who have local groups; these groups meet regularly to pray, discuss life and its trials, and praise God. Some members of the community might live together, rather than merely meeting regularly. Communion and Liberation is such a group, as is Opus Dei, assuming I understand the second correctly. The network that charismatic Catholics seem to form around the country might also form such a community in an informal fashion. There are more, I'm almost certain, but I do not know them well.
These groups can have a surprising amount of trust between their members. Note that these also can be, and are, called cults by those outside of them.
4. Spirituality-based communities that have spun-off from a religious order. Dominican tertiaries, Franciscan tertiaries, etc. One could say that this is the same as 2, but what I have in mind for 2 usually started off as meant for laymen, whereas these usually started off for religious but then expanded to include laymen.
5. Work-based communities. That is, communities meant to help those in a particular line of work reach holiness. The ancient guilds were, if I understand them correctly, such communities. I know of none that exist now.
6. Confessional states don't really exist outside of Malta and Vatican City and maybe a few other countries, at least in the form in which the readers of this blog are apt to be interested. They do not seem likely to be formed any time soon.
I think that unless we are in, trying to join, or trying to form such communities, we are not really serious about what we say.
The thing is, I don't know of anyone in the Orthosphere who has written about the various kinds of communities / institutions that we can form or join. So I thought I'd provide a little list of the types of such communities, with examples. The list is not scientific; it is not exhaustive; inclusion of a community / institution in the list does not indicate approval of all or even most of the activities of the community, for I am somewhat ignorant of some of them. If I've left any important category out, please let me know.
The following are meant to be for laymen. Obviously there are many religious communities that one can join.
1. Geographically-based, non-parish based communities. Many Christians get together and decide to live together; they might all go to one parish, but the parish does not seem to form the pre-existing nucleus around which they have formed. I've heard of more than one of these, but few seem to last. The Alleluia community in Georgia has lasted, and I've known at least one person who came from it who did not seem nuts; I would like to find out more about them and how they work.
Of course, such things generally tend to be called cults by the outside world. I think that if you want a community you'll have to live with that.
2. Parish-based communities. It is obvious what this is. Protestants might, perhaps, be better at these than Catholics, but Catholics are working on it.
3. Spirituality-based, non-geographic communities. By this I mean a particular organization or group of people who have local groups; these groups meet regularly to pray, discuss life and its trials, and praise God. Some members of the community might live together, rather than merely meeting regularly. Communion and Liberation is such a group, as is Opus Dei, assuming I understand the second correctly. The network that charismatic Catholics seem to form around the country might also form such a community in an informal fashion. There are more, I'm almost certain, but I do not know them well.
These groups can have a surprising amount of trust between their members. Note that these also can be, and are, called cults by those outside of them.
4. Spirituality-based communities that have spun-off from a religious order. Dominican tertiaries, Franciscan tertiaries, etc. One could say that this is the same as 2, but what I have in mind for 2 usually started off as meant for laymen, whereas these usually started off for religious but then expanded to include laymen.
5. Work-based communities. That is, communities meant to help those in a particular line of work reach holiness. The ancient guilds were, if I understand them correctly, such communities. I know of none that exist now.
6. Confessional states don't really exist outside of Malta and Vatican City and maybe a few other countries, at least in the form in which the readers of this blog are apt to be interested. They do not seem likely to be formed any time soon.
I think that unless we are in, trying to join, or trying to form such communities, we are not really serious about what we say.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
I exist
Just so you know. Posts will randomly resume soon; don't expect them save on Sundays, as I do work that I enjoy doing on my day of leisure.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Dicta, no. 9
Before choosing sides at an argument, look at what the sides have in common. This is often what divides them.
PS. Grad-student life is catching up with me, and posts are going to be very scarce (i.e., non-existent) for two or three weeks. I will return to your regularly scheduled programing shortly thereafter, rather than continue to try to post updates consisting simply of quotations.
PS. Grad-student life is catching up with me, and posts are going to be very scarce (i.e., non-existent) for two or three weeks. I will return to your regularly scheduled programing shortly thereafter, rather than continue to try to post updates consisting simply of quotations.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Though it's been said, many times, many ways . . .
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
"Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data."--CNBC
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Acedia in America: Tocqueville's View
"A native of the United States clings to this world's goods as if he were certain never to die; and he is so hasty in grasping at all within his reach that one would suppose he was constantly afraid of not living long enough to enjoy them. He clutches everything, he holds nothing fast, but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications.
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