To John Horvat and his blogpost on how to respond to the Opioid Crisis. Part of his solution involves winning the Culture War This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
I was on board with some of what Horvat was saying until he uttered these fateful words:
That is why winning the Culture War is so important. It preserves the remnants of order that keep society from degenerating into frenetic intemperance. To the degree that order’s institutions are destroyed, society will lose its coherence and plunge into chaos.
Did we ever consider the possibility that there was a culture war because of how Christianity ruled over culture? Note first, we should not have been ruling over culture in the first place; and second, there was a change in culture because how we mismanaged our reign over culture. People were being oppressed and the Church didn't care for as long as it had a certain degree of control over culture. We had a culture war because the Church failed both in trying to rule over culture and in how ruled.
The term 'Culture War' implies a desire to conquer over others. To claim to do this in order to protect their best interests is called paternalism. And for as long as the Church seeks to have a paternalistic relationship with society, we will either have a culture war or a misguided rule over culture.
Perhaps instead of trying to win the Culture War, which does nothing but misrepresent the Gospel and provide stumbling blocks to those who otherwise might listen to it, we should strive for culture coexistence. This means that the Church should collaborate with all interested parties as an equal partner in how to create and maintain a culture that addresses the problems of unchecked individualism and materialism. Horvat was more than correct in identifying these factors as being destructive influences. Yes, unchecked individualism and materialism can exasperate problems like the drug addiction seen in the opioid crisis. But letting the Church lord it over others, which is prohibited by Jesus but is the result of fighting, letting alone winning, the Culture War is not the right response.
The Church's problem in how it relates to society is that it has been attempting to share society with others by presuming a privileged position of supremacy over society. Totalitarian control is not the only outcome that such a position over society can produce. A paternalistic relationship with society is also a result of achieving a privileged position of supremacy over society. And the problem that this paternalism poses for the Church is that, because it is not the same as totalitarianism, it seems innocent. But in the end, it still results in lording it over others. And when people see the already apparent faults and weaknesses of the Church, they are right to protest any attempt by the Church to seek anything more than trying to share society with others as equals.
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Jan 22
To Joseph Pearce and his blogpost that both criticized and complimented Viktor Orbán’s speech that Identified Christianity as European culture and civilization. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.
Where I heartily agree with Pearce is in his criticisms of Orbán's speech. Where I struggle is where he agrees with Orbán's speech. In addition, Pearce seems to forget pre-revolutionary France and Russia while criticizing revolutionary France and Russia. What, btw, caused him to forget about Spain? Revolutions occur for reasons. Revolutions may be counted as illegitimate responses, but such does not imply that there were no legitimate grievances. And we should note that in the pre-revolutionary times of France, Russia, and Spain, the Church sided with wealth and power and thus associated the Gospel with the exploitation that wealth and power were living off of.
We should also note that there are two kinds of utopias that people promote or defend. The first kind is an absolute utopia. Though I am a Marxist of sorts, I fully disagree with Marx's belief in a utopia on earth. But one can follow significant parts of what Marx said without his baggage like his utopian beliefs, his materialism, and his insistence on revolution. One only needs to work for improving what we have in ways that give more political and economic power to workers while trying to undo Capitalism's inherent exploitation of people to appreciate Marx.
The second kind of utopia is the kind implied when people try to disrupt the status quo in order to improve things and work for justice. It is a relative utopia. A relative utopia is a creation of those who think that things can't get better and thus there is no need to change to the status quo or even to try new political or economic systems. And absolute utopias are not the only kind of utopias that produce reality nightmares. The founding and creation of the United States of America was a nightmare for many a people, and still is.
Before we expanded our influence across any sea, America was a nightmare for many people of color who lived within our borders. And because of our economic system, that is still true. Then we should consider all of the interventions our nation has involved itself in to control who leads a given country. The coups we supported and sometimes even participated in replaced democracies with tyrants in Iran, Guatemala, Greece, and Chilé to name a few. We supported established dictatorships in Nicaragua, Cuba, and Iraq to name a few. And let's not forget that Afghanistan's 30+years of war was started by our support of terrorists whom we called 'freedom fighters.' And none of that includes the various ways our capitalism at home exploits people abroad.
In addition, we should not forget that the current refugee crisis Europe is experiencing is due in large part to Western foreign policies starting with the invasion of Iraq. How is it that the West can shut the door to those whose need to emigrate was created by the West? The same can be asked specifically of the United States with its past and present policies in South and Central America. Is Pearce afraid that too many immigrants will spoil the remnants of a Christian European utopia?
While Pearce does an excellent job in identifying the concept of ethnalotry, he is not consistent. For he does not challenge Orbán when Orbán says:
By the light of Christmas candles we can clearly see that when they attack Christian culture they are also attempting to eliminate Europe.
Should we say to Christians in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, or America that when others try to put out their Christmas lights, those others are trying to extinguish the Europe inside of them?
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Jan 23
To Rev. Ben Johnson and his 5 point criticism of OxFam’s report on wealth inequality. In that report, Oxfam noted that 82% of the world’s wealth is owned by 1% of the people. Tis appeared in the Acton Blog
Where to begin with Johnson's criticisms of the Oxfam report? His first point is wrong. Poverty is defined by earning a certain percentage under the median income. As wealth disparity grows, so does poverty. But something else should be added here. In Capitalism, power, especially political power, follows wealth. And the result of inequality is not just the consolidation of wealth, but the consolidation of political power as well. And that affects how government represents its people. For example, the US is now classified by some as an oligarchy, not a democracy (see http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 ). Such is the result of the growing wealth disparity which in turn strengthens the political position of those with wealth.
But just the statistics themselves should give us reason for pause. With people struggling to buy houses, support their families, feed their children, educate their children, purchase adequate health insurance, and provide for their golden years, that wealth inequality can be seen as cause for much hardship. Plus, why does a minister, Johnson is a reverend, not reprimand the 1% for their hoarding of wealth? There is a historical reason. The Church has often sided with those who possess wealth and power. Perhaps this is why Johnson is trying to minimize the significance of the unequal distribution of wealth.
Johnson's second point is more than absurd. Claiming that Trump is a pauper is so disingenuous that it borders on being delusional. Assuming that Trump will pay back his debts, that borrowing to make money is not unusual for the wealthy, in fact it is a privilege. The wealthy can borrow huge amounts of money because they have the collateral to do so. We should point out here that there are no middle or lower economic class families that can borrow the same amount of money Trump has borrowed. Is Johnson asking if Trump's debt makes him a victim of the economy?
Johnson's third point needs better documentation. Besides relying on a conservative site--humanprogress.org is a creation of the Cato Institute--for its happiness data, it has not been regarded as a highly reputable source for factual information ( see https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/human-progress/ ). In addition, if we were to look at our own nation, America has dropped from being the 4th happiest in 1981 to the 20th happiest in 2014. In fact, when one looks at the top 5 nations measuring happiness, while in 1981, the top 5 nations were all democracies, in 2014 only one of the top 5 nations in terms of the ranking in happiness is a democracy (see http://humanprogress.org/f1/2542 ). And in terms of overall happiness, there seems to be a decrease in overall happiness in the world in 2014 than in 1981 (see http://humanprogress.org/f4/2542 ).
But happiness isn't the only factor that we should measure. We could ask about labor conditions for people around the world, environmental impact of our economic systems, as well as the social impact.
The minimum wage argument is often made by people who side with Johnson without much attention to the details First, there is no distinction between the correlation of minimum wage and employments rates from country to country. But second, what goes unexamined by Johnson as he links higher minimum wages with higher rates of unemployment is the dilemma that our current economic system presents to those who work low-skilled jobs. For they are presented with the choice between settling for poverty wages or unemployment. And considering that the 1% hold 82% of the world's wealth, just perhaps the amount of wealth held by the most wealthiest people might be playing a role in why the minimum wage is inversely related to employment.
Finally, while Johnson notes in his last point the myth of an omniscient government, he seems to neglect the myth held to by free market advocates that the free market is virtually infallible. In addition, Johnson is missing an issue of government exercising partial control of the economy. The real question isn't about whether the government is exercising control, it is about who is controlling the decisions of the government. A more democratic government would better represent the interests of more groups of people than the current oligarchy in which we find ourselves.
Johnson's too eager to defend the status quo that is seeing growing wealth disparity and increasing negative impacts on the environment. We also are seeing more armed conflict throughout the world. Perhaps Johnson should retreat to the drawing board before he lists the things wrong with the Oxfam report on global wealth inequality.
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