Tag: chesterton

  • We have Already Accepted Anything that Anybody of Intelligence ever Disliked in Socialism

    We have Already Accepted Anything that Anybody of Intelligence ever Disliked in Socialism

    I am no socialist believer. On the contrary, I reject socialism both for its aims and for the means it proposes in attempting to achieve those aims; for its attack on the dignity of man and its disregard of the gift of freedom. That said, we are too accustomed in our rejection of one ideology to accept without examination a differing ideology. In our enthusiastic rejection of Socialism we must avoid the trap of embracing without reflection Capitalism. Unfortunately, we have become accustomed to apply the moral maxim “avoid evil, do good” to our economic philosophies, “avoid Socialism, live Capitalism.” Capitalism is not “good”. It differs in many respects from Socialism and many aspects of a Capitalist system can be good if carried out morally but it does not on the whole oppose the evils of Socialism.

    In The Outline of Sanity , G. K. Chesterton quipped, “We have already accepted anything that anybody of intelligence ever disliked in Socialism”. On its surface, this may appear a bold and indefensible position. Rather, however, we should accept it as a challenge to more self-reflection. How have we done with this Capitalist system; has it provided the authentic good for mankind that we should have sought? In order to provide some insight into what we might have expected from Socialism and what we actually have I a reproduce here in its entirety an essay by a contemporary and close friend of Chesterton, Fr. Vincent McNabb:

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    For the purpose of clear thinking on social matters, I venture to set down some thoughts on Socialism

    Very gravely I add they are not meant to be a defense of Socialism. They are merely social facts, the knowledge of which has been arrived at by a process of observation. I set them down as the astronomer tabulates and records his observed astronomical facts, not knowing what use may be made of them but feeling that it is his duty to record them whether they are used or not.

    A late writer in an influential Catholic review maintained that absolution could not be given to a Catholic Socialist who came to confession because the policy of the Socialist party was secularisation. The argument, couched in the accustomed forms of the schools, was very persuasive. But on second thoughts it could be seen that the premises, which served to insure the conclusion desired of the writer, would also serve to justify not a few conclusions which the writer would disown.

    Socialism is accused of wishing to a number of undesirable things. Indeed, the common method of disproving Socialism is to show by striking and detailed word painting that if Socialism became dominant in the Commonwealth, the state of things thereby introduced would be intolerable and even unjust.

    (1) One of the first charges made against Socialism is that it would socialise everything and everybody and that it would therefore make slaves of us all, or at least of all except the State officials under whom we should all be regimented, case-papered, paid, fed, tendered and buried. This argument if carefully drawn by a man of feeling can be particularly effective. It is perhaps the locus communis which for years has left me not unmoved whenever I hear it.

    But, on second thoughts, it appears that this inhuman programme which Socialism is expected to bring forth is already in great part realised and not by the Socialists.

    Mr Belloc and others who are confessedly not Socialists agree that Socialism is committed to this dismal homogeneity and slavery. But they add that it is a thing in great part and essentially realised by existing political parties. One has only to read The Servile State to be haunted by the idea that not only existing Socialism but the existing Conservative and Liberal, and Democratic and Republican parties, are committed to a programme of socialised services which rest essentially on a basis of compulsory work, i.e. slavery.

    Moreover, in such a thorough-going Monarchy as Germany, the number of social functions that have now become socialised are almost as many as most Socialists would claim for their Socialist State. Indeed, the formula of the most absolute monarchy “L’Etat, c’est moi” needs a change not of form but of content, to be the programme of every advanced party in modern political education.

    All this is dramatically confirmed by the diagnosis made by Leo XIII of the actual state of social affairs. ‘A small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the labouring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.'(Rerum Novarum.)

    It is quite evident that this existing state of things is substantially what Socialism is condemned for proposing to bring in! Moreover, it is equally evident that the state of things condemned by the Pope is not due to Socialism; but if attributable to any party, then to Conservatives, Liberals, Republicans or Democrats.

    (2) A second plea for decrying Socialism is that it would secularise education.

    Here as elsewhere in this paper no attempt is made to accept or deny these pleas although it is well known that a large portion of the Education Act of 19021 was inspired by a leading Socialist.

    But anyone dread Socialism because it will secularise education? Has not education, even in these countries, been largely and dominantly secularised? In the United States public education is completely secularised. There it was a bourgeois revolution and not Socialism that brought in secularisation. In England the secular programme is officially Liberal.

    If, then, a Socialist is to be refused absolution because his party would bring in secularism, how can absolution be granted in England to a Liberal whose part have an equally secular programme; and in the United States, to both Democrats and Republicans, who agree in accepting and defending the present secularism? At any rate, secularism is not something future to be dreaded but something present to be uprooted.

    (3) A further argument against Socialism is that it would degrade women by taking women out into the spheres of public work

    But statistics are at hand to prove that women workers are to be found in almost every sphere of labour; moreover, they have often been employed because being non-unionised they could be forced or persuaded to accept a lower rate of wages than men. This is most strongly confirmed by all kinds of investigators. Recently the Municipal Vice Commission of Chicago found that a great deal of the prostitution in their rich city was due to the abnormally low wages paid to girls in a number of employments. The present state of women is such a matter of shame that many of the arguments against the suffrage movement are pointless.

    But what has Socialism had to do with the degradation of women? And if Socialists are not to be absolved for a crime they have not committed, why may absolution be granted to those by whom the crime has been either committed or approved?

    (4) A further and most forcible argument against Socialism is that it would destroy the home. This argument is of great service in strengthening minds that see in the home the only hope of a nation’s future. Any political party that threatens the home, no matter what its claim to social service, must be looked on as anti-social.

    But, it may well be asked, has the home not already been threatened? Indeed, have the threats not been but too well realised and are not great masses of the workfolk wholly homeless. A room or two overcrowded with inmates can not be called a home. A house in such conditions and in such surroundings that the infant mortality is twice and thrice as much as in well-to-do neighbourhoods cannot be called a home. Yet the recent blue-book on the housing of Great Britain and Ireland has an eloquence of statistics proving that the homes of our country are not merely threatened but vigorously attacked and undermined.

    Moreover, to repeat the argument of the previous section, woman’s work has largely taken wives from their own homes and made them wives, not mothers. This is to destroy the home.

    Now this again is not a future evil to be dreaded, it is such a rooted present evil that any whole-hearted efforts to uproot it are likely to offer the features of a revolution.

    Yet again, not Socialism but some other political or industrial policy has set up almost unnoticed this enemy of the home.

    (5) Lastly, and this is perhaps the most urgent of all the pleas against Socialism, it is said that Socialism would destroy the inborn and inalienable right of property.

    But if the right of property means, not that some men shall own all property but that all men shall own some property, one asks ‘Where is the right of property existing in the world today?’ Is the inalienable right of property kept in a state of things where vast numbers of work-folk have not a square yard of land and are never even more than a month from destitution? Is this inalienable right a fact in a state of things where by the testimony of a Pope ‘a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the labouring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself,’ and where there are ‘two widely differing castes … one which holds power because it holds wealth and which has in its grasp the whole of labour and trade, on the other side there is the needy and powerless multitude, broken down and suffering’ so that ‘some remedy must be found, and found quickly, for the misery (i.e. want) and wretchedness pressing so heavily and so unjustly on the vast majority of the working classes’. (Rerum Novarum).

    It is evident that this state of injustice whereby the vast majority of the working classes are in a position of misery is not exactly a state based on the right of property

    For injustice is the forcible taking or holding of property. And it is evident that this state, based on the violent interference with the right of property, is not in any measure due to the political party called Socialism. It must therefore be due, either in its rise or maintenance, to the other political parties which Catholics freely enter without dread of being refused absolution.

    As was said at the outset, this line of thought is not meant nor perhaps even fitted to be a defense of Socialism. It is merely an observed and recorded fact for the guidance of Social thinkers. If a Social thinker refuses absolution to a member of the Socialist party because the Socialist party would bring in a state of things, why does he not refuse absolution to the other political parties; for the state of things is already in existence and has been brought about or, at least, is being upheld by them?

    It is evident therefore that there is some flaw in the course of reasoning which would withhold absolution on a probability and give it on a fact. Either the premises are not observed facts or the reasoning is amiss.

    For the moment our task is to point out that somewhere there is a flaw in the chain of reasoning, with the hope that social thinkers will revise either their facts or their deductions.

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    One lesson from this discussion; we must not accept an ideology of Capitalism as a counterpart to the ideology of Socialism. Capitalism should be for us nothing more than a set of tools to be used under the guidance of a well-informed and just economic philosophy. I have written and will continue to write here at A Sensible Life of those principles that must inform sensible economic living. Let us begin with gratuitousness.

    For more information on Fr. Vincent McNabb please visit the McNabb Society web-site.

  • The Great Boycott Controversy

    The Great Boycott Controversy

    I recently initiated a boycott of Gilbert Magazine, not because I dislike the magazine but, on the contrary, because I love it (though I recognize its failings) and I love the American Chesterton Society (ACS). I love these institutions in much the same way that I love the United States of America and in much the same way that I love my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame. I do not love them because of their perfection but, rather, I love them because of their potential good, their potential beauty and even because of the beauty and goodness that has been, hoping that it may be again. I love them with their failings.  In fact, I love them so much that I am willing to expose their failings to the light of day.  I am eager to love them in a manly way and I fear any failure of love that may manifest itself in the form of indifference.  So, in the case of Gilbert Magazine and the ACS  my love took the form of a boycott.

    The occasion that gave rise to this action of love was the editorial by Dale Ahlquist in an issue of Gilbert Magazine published in the months leading up to the recent presidential election (“Why I Won’t Vote for Mitt Romney”, May/June 2012).  I laid out my objections to Mr. Ahlquist’s editorial in another article here at A Sensible Life so I will not say much more about it in this piece other than to say that I found it impossible to get through to folks at the ACS without resorting to the step that I eventually took, the Boycott.  The good news is that the Boycott had an almost immediate positive effect.  I was able to get the attention of some folks at the ACS.  The Boycott engendered some conversation on Mark Shea’s blog as well as on the ACS blog and the ACS Facebook page.  Unfortunately, the folks with whom I interacted remain entrenched in their support of Mr. Ahlquist’s position.

    Let me just say that though I find Mr. Ahlquist’s position poorly reasoned and indefensible, I would not normally make a public objection to an individual’s privately held belief.  The problem with Mr. Ahlquist’s error is manifestly that it is not a private error but one that he made publicly not only in his own name but also “for the editorial board of Gilbert Magazine“.  In effect, he relied upon his position on the editorial board of the magazine and as president of the ACS to attempt to sway readers away from a sensible approach to our 2012 elections.  Rather than remaining silent or, better yet, encouraging Gilbert readers to actively support the candidate on the correct side (if not absolutely correct, then most certainly correct on a relative basis compared to his opponent) of the great moral absolutes of our day (marriage, life, religious freedom), Mr. Ahlquist led those who would follow him to disregard their civic duty.

    In the somewhat jovial though serious debate that ensued as a result of the Boycott, Mr. Shea and other Ahlquist/ACS supporters objected strenuously to my objection but their objections can broadly be summarized in two points: (a) Gilbert Magazine and Mr. Ahlquist have minimal influence in this country and (b) Mr. Romney was a flawed candidate (a point to which I stipulated over and over again).  I don’t know which of these objections I found more troubling.  The first indicates to me a frivolousness (and by that I do not mean Chestertonian frivolity!) that is unbecoming of an organization founded upon the memory and thought of the great apologist and social/political commentator, G. K. Chesterton.  I cannot imagine Chesterton taking a controversial position and then when that position runs into some public resistance, tucking his tail between his legs and saying, “well it doesn’t really matter what I say because no-one reads what I have to say anyway”.  Further, this frivolous response to my objections seems to me to indicate a failure on the part of  Gilbert Magazine  and the ACS to embrace the significance of the role they could (and frequently do) play in reclaiming our culture and society and the positive impact they could have in the public square.  I am glad they had some fun with the Boycott but I am disappointed that to a certain extent their fun became a cover for their inability to defend an indefensible position.

    With regard to the second point the Ahlquist/ACS defenders raised, the faults of Mr. Romney as a candidate, I can only say that I found it to be a red herring.  Of course, Mr. Romney was a flawed candidate.  However, this objection merely served to attempt to distract the conversation away from the fact that they were unwilling to act positively to remove President Obama from office.  In all the dialogues in which I engaged, none of the Ahlquist/ACS crowd was willing to admit the obvious: no matter how bad a candidate Mr. Romney was, he was substantively better than President Obama on all three of the great moral absolutes facing us this election cycle (defense of real marriage, protection of innocent life and protection of religious liberty).  Why did they refuse to acknowledge this reality?  I fear it is because of an ideological bias against Mr. Romney’s party.  I also fear there is a substantial contingency within the ACS that appears to hate the Republican Party so much that it is unwilling to ally itself with the Republicans in order to save the lives of innocent children, save the institution of marriage in our country and safeguard our religious freedoms.  I realize Mr. Romney would likely not have done all we could hope in any of these areas.  But there is no doubt that as a result of having President Obama in office for another four years we will lose more lives of innocent unborns that we would otherwise have done; our religious liberties will be further eroded; and marriage will suffer greater and more powerful attack.

    Herein lie the reasons behind the Great Boycott. I wanted to awaken Gilbert Magazine, the ACS and Mr. Ahlquist to their responsibilities as the foremost commentators on Chestertonian thought in the United States.  Have fun, by all means but do not be frivolous!  Also, I would like to see the ACS work with others of us out here in the hinterlands to educate the American public in authentic Catholic social teaching.  For too long Catholic social teaching has been misconstrued in such a way that it has led many men and women of good will to believe in progressivism.  Progressivism and big government control of social programs are not authentic manifestations of Catholic social teaching.  A proper understanding of gratuitousness, freedom, responsibility, subsidiarity and solidarity will lead us to a distributed approach to dealing with the needs of our brothers and sisters and with our economic activity.  These concepts will lead us away from a focus on centralized government.

    Let us unite in guiding and informing our society.  Let us have fun doing it but let us be serious about it.  Let us be willing to work for small victories (like defeating President Obama) when no greater victory is within our grasp!

    “Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” (GKC) Hence, the Great Boycott…

  • Presidential Campaign

    Presidential Campaign

    I launched A Sensible Life back in June with the intent to write about authentic Catholic social teaching: gratuitousness, solidarity, subsidiarity and a distributed economy. My intent was and is to cover these subjects from a theoretical and practical standpoint. I want to write about public policy relative to these topics as well as writing about down to earth ways we can live these principles in our families and in the larger economy.

    These topics still serve as the primary reason of being for A Sensible Life. Unfortunately, as I was launching A Sensible Life I failed to take into account the fact that we were entering into the prime season for what one could reasonably call the most important presidential campaign in the last several generations. Because of this presidential campaign, I have allowed myself to focus the attention of A Sensible Life on politics more than I would have otherwise liked. Please be patient with us. I will steer the ship back to more weighty and interesting matters. However, pardon me if I spend some more time now and in the next few weeks on the more imminent issues surrounding the presidential campaign.

    That said, I feel the need to lay the cards on the table. Here goes. There is no moral or rational posturing that can justify a Catholic or other person of good will in not supporting Mitt Romney for president. That is to say, it is our moral obligation not only to vote against Barack Obama but to vote for Mitt Romney. How can I say that with absolute certainty? Here is how.

    Moral absolutes: The first issues we must examine as discerning Christian electors are those non-negotiable issues involving intrinsic moral good and intrinsic moral evil. The moral absolutes at stake in this presidential election include: the defense of life from birth to natural death, the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman and the protection of each individual’s freedoms of religion and conscience. These are issues that touch upon the most basic rights of men and women in this country. They are incontrovertible and they trump all other issues.

    On each one of these issues Mitt Romney’s position is without any question or doubt better than that of his opponent. His statements support this conclusion as do his actions. No amount of equivocating will get around this fact. No matter how many people repeat, “well, Romney isn’t perfect on these issues either”, the fact remains that Mitt Romney is substantively better on these issues. No amount of cynicism about the honesty of politicians will relieve us of the moral burden of acting upon this reality.

    Matters of prudential judgment: There are other issues that women and men of good will may debate. These matters, subject to the conclusions of our well-formed prudent judgments, can include important issues like the death penalty, the most just and prudent way to engage in international policy and the application of Catholic social teaching to domestic policy. In a presidential election, these are important issues and should be issues upon which we form our political decisions so long as the are not trumped by issues of a higher magnitude.

    However, in this particular presidential election all issues are trumped by those involving the moral absolutes. And, what is more, there may never have been an election like this one in the history of the United States: an election (a) that involved so many questions concerning moral good and evil and (b) in which there was so much clarity on each of these questions with regard to the positions of each of the candidates.

    I just want to say one more thing about issues involving prudential judgment and that has to do with the question of Catholic social teaching. Many Catholics have taken the position during this presidential campaign that we are justified in voting for or even obligated to vote for Barack Obama because of what he has done with government money and policy in support of the poor. First, as I have said above, matters of prudential judgment cannot trump matters of moral imperative. However, this fact aside, these folks are simply wrong in their understanding of Catholic social teaching. Catholic social teaching (and Christian charity) tells us that we must care for those in need (the poor, the sick, the weak). We do not fulfill this obligation by passing it along to the government. To the extent the government takes my tax dollars to care for my brother, it robs me both of my freedom and my responsibility. Moreover, such activity by the national government is in direct opposition to the Christian principle of subsidiarity. This principle states (for purposes of this conversation) that the needy must be cared for by those closest to them; their brothers or very local institutions. The national government not only bungles such work but it de-humanizes the recipients of its efforts and robs others of the opportunity to fulfill their obligations in Christian charity.

    In summary, there is no case in support of Barack Obama. On the contrary, we are morally obligated to oppose him and to support his opponent, Mitt Romney.

  • Thrift vs. the Green Movement

    Thrift vs. the Green Movement

    The modern Green Movement represents a profound departure from man’s ancient obligation to practice Thrift. In fact, one might almost say that the two ideas are diametrically opposed. This may seem odd given that Thrift with its impetus towards moderation in using the resources gifted to man in creation as well as by its focus on stewardship and guardianship of these same resources shares many common goals or objectives with the Green Movement.

    The root of the distinction between Thrift and the Green Movement lies just there, at the root and source of these ideals. That is, the distinction flows from beliefs about the nature of things (and people). Thrift finds its roots in its understanding of man, who man is, what his relationship is with nature and, therefore, what his responsibilities are toward nature. The Green Movement, on the other hand, finds its roots in a denial of man, a denial of man’s relationship with nature and a denial of man’s role as guardian. One might almost say that the Green Movement is the Anti-Thrift.

    Are my ideas too strongly stated? Let’s look at a couple examples.

    How about the way we should treat animals? Thrift (and its associated virtues) would tell us we should treat animals well because they are gifts to us from a Creator who expects us to care for them. Thrift would also tell us that animals have use to us as human beings (whether it be as companions, beasts of burden or sources of food and clothing) and that by being good guardians of these creatures we will, in addition to doing the right thing, be enhancing their usefulness to us and ensuring they will continue to live and prosper and continue to fulfill our needs (physical, aesthetic, spiritual) and those of our children. The Green Movement, on the other hand, would tell us that our obligation toward animals derives from the animals’ equal status with us as co-inhabitants of nature. Therefore we have no rights where they are concerned and our obligations to them are limited to a sort of non-interference. This view of our relationship with animals is not only illogical but it results in a very impoverished understanding of our relationship to nature, an impoverished understanding of our obligations to nature. Rather than the robust and positive view proposed by Thrift, the Green Movement proposes a neutral or even negative view of our obligation. Rather than cultivating, beautifying and enriching, our role is simply to do as little damage as possible.

    Let’s look at the related example of the care of our forests, and the animals in them. Thrift would tell us to enjoy our forests, use the abundant resources to be found in them, live in them, ensure the endurance and prosperity of at least large sections of them and maintain (or increase) their beauty and health. Thrift would tell us to care for the streams and rivers within our forests both because of their beauty and goodness and for their value as a source of water and fish. What of the Green Movement? Well, the predecessors of the Green Movement (those who practiced conservation) have stopped all logging in our forests and have spent years doing their best to put out all forest fires within their eaves. And now these same folks and their big government allies are moving to limit all human access to the forests. Rather than following the path of Thrift that would have led to a rational planned use of our forests, including thinning the forests and using the lumber gained from the thinning for legitimate human needs, we now have overly dense forests (many times more dense than they were 100 years ago) that are subject to devastating fires that simply destroy the timber. Additionally, of course, they kill countless animals and wreak havoc on the forest streams. This is what happens when we practice conservation rather than Thrift.

    I will not go on. I will simply conclude by saying that in A Sensible Life we will propose ideas aimed at living Thrift – sensibly, rationally and with an eye toward goodness and beauty.

    And because we cannot end without a word from Chesterton, here is one from What’s Wrong with the World, “If a man could undertake to make use of all things in his dustbin he would be a broader genius than Shakespeare.” I’m sure he meant no disrespect to Shakespeare…

  • Political Labels (Defining our Terms)

    Political Labels (Defining our Terms)

    I recently heard on the Mike Gallagher show an interview with Jonah Goldberg of the National Review. I usually agree with much of what Mr. Goldberg has to say. In this particular interview (June 5), however, I took strong exception to one of his points. Mr. Goldberg made the statement that it is only liberals who indicate a desire to stop using labels to identify political positions. They do this, he said, because they are opposed to taking a principled stand on any issue.

    I think Mr. Goldberg is only about half correct. While it is true that much of the political discourse in this country avoids (intentionally or unintentionally) any principled stand on a particular issue, it is not true that only individuals of one political persuasion tire of the use of labels in our conversations in the public square.

    Mr. Goldberg may also be correct in his assessment of certain individuals’ tendency to hide behind labels in their desire to avoid substantive debate. I think it more likely, however, that many of us in our interactions in the public square use labels out of laziness. We find it easier in the brevity of our communications to use a word or two to describe ourselves or our opponents than to truly describe our own position or their position.

    The reality is that we frequently don’t know what the “one-worders” mean! Really, what is a liberal? What is a conservative? Let’s define our positions! What are we interested in? What is our hope for our economy? Our country? Our culture? Perhaps we’ll find that our positions are not that far apart. Certainly we will find that there are issues about which we strongly disagree but at least then we can have a conversation about the merits of the various positions on those particular issues.

    Chesterton said in What’s Wrong with the World that , “I suppose most conservatives are conserving the traditions of the last revolt.” Chesterton would not have defined himself as a conservative and had some not so complimentary things to say about those who did so this quote should be understood in that context. What I believe he rightly points out here, though, is the truth that conservatism itself is subject to a definition that rests on a shifting foundation. What is it that conservatism purports to conserve? Let the conservative define his position, define what it is he wants to conserve. Let the liberal define his liberality. As I see it, the problem with the liberal “movement” is that it is not liberal.

    I’ll save my definition of terms for another day. Until then, I resolve to speak in full sentences. If I use a label for someone or some ideology, I will make sure folks know what I mean by it…