Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Fri Oct 11 13:18:32 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
Message-Id: <200210111918.PAA00556@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 15:18:26 -0400
To: la
Subject: Re:
Status: RO
There are a lot of possible interpretations. One is that it's
easiest to generate answers if you have principles that answer
all questions in advance. It follows that the most talkative
people on the net are going to be like that. Also, if you're
in a liberal environment, which we all are, it's hard to avoid
being a liberal unless you have principles of that kind. Then
too, marginalizing people as much as conservatives are marginalized
corrupts them intellectually because nothing they say matters.
And maybe everyone is corrupted that way today because nothing
anyone says matters, to the extent public discussion is more
or less a front and public issues are decided by institutions
and their interests and by political manipulation rather than
debate.
Jim
= = = Original message = = =
What do you make of the fact that they display the very loss of
rationality that you, more than anyone, have identified as the mark of
liberalism?
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Tue Oct 22 10:13:20 2002
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Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 12:08:00 -0400
To: la
Subject: Re: What is Islam
Status: RO
Yes, I remember the conversation. I think at the time I said
that even though Islam has bad tendencies it's a religion and
not an ideology. The fact it has a holy book and an array of
precedents (hadith) that those who promulgated them believed
in wholeheartedly and modelled their lives on and the fact that
it has actually sustained huge numbers of people for 1400 years
means that it doesn't have the limitless logical inhumanity and
intrinsic mendacity of a totalitarian ideology. Khomeini for
example was not and could not view himself as being the ultimate
standard in the sense that the communist party or the Fuehrer
were the ultimate standards.
For all that I agree that Islam does tend toward narrowness,
inhumanity, aggression, extermination etc. in a way Christianity
does not and that the tendency becomes particularly strong under
stress.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Thu Oct 31 10:20:03 2002
From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
Message-Id: <200210311719.MAA23558@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 11:47:20 -0500
To: la
Subject: Re: Fw: more on America and tradition
Status: RO
To be pessimistic is not the same as not to care for something.
You wrote an article proposing that America had died. I take
the notion more to heart than you do. That doesn't mean I'm pleased
by the idea. It seems to me though that the flaws that have led
to the death of America--understood as a overarching concept
that is also a concrete political order tied to a particular
people, place, and culture--were intrinsic. That doesn't mean
there was never anything good about America. It's just that she
is not the highest standard. In particular, the public aspects
of America--the Constitution and Federal Government--are not
earthly absolutes. All men and institutions are flawed after
all, and none of them last forever. Also, the formal political
order doesn't outrank utterly the society it governs.
I admire the Founding Fathers greatly. I do find them--and the
Constitution--more admirable than lovable. Even so, there is
a great deal of genuine good in ideals like liberty and equality
when taken as they took them in a limited sense and with a background
understanding of objective Christian and classical moral order.
Those ideals call each of us to think about what he should do
and pursue it actively, and to respect others and cooperate with
them in pursuit of what all recognize as good. They inspired
many good men including my ancestors to do many good things.
They are what we have had. Still there was something missing,
an explicit recognition of some concrete authoritative standard
of truth and goodness. With that thing the system would not have
been at all what it was but without it we've gotten--quite naturally
I think--what we have now.
So what now? Your proposal that America has died could of course
be wrong, as could my notion that America as a formally particularist--confess
ional or ethnic--state would not be America (I think a formally
particularist America is also utterly unrealistic). Also, there's
nothing at hand to replace "America" as a political ideal, standard
and object of loyalty. So to me it makes sense politically to
assume things can be turned around, that maybe the Republic or
the real America or whatever can be restored with some reforms
that supply or make up for what has been missing. You don't rush
things that have been valuable into the grave. So a lot of the
stuff on lewrockwell.com does seem destructive to me. I think
though that one should also take seriously the possibility that
the way things are is the way things will be and think about
where to go in that event.
So I suppose the direct answer to the question is that I am attached
to America, among other things, but as to American public institutions
and ideals when you stand back and look at things soberly the
attachment is probably mostly in retrospect. Things die, and
I think you have to live more by what is alive, what lasts and
what is more important.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Tue Nov 5 13:12:34 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
Message-Id: <200211052012.PAA29676@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:21:27 -0500
To: Sk
Subject: Fwd: FW: Hello
Status: RO
Hello Derek,
I don't think Confucius influences us in the West much at all
except I suppose by standing for a different social ideal. Not
many people care about though except as something to be explained
away.
Confucius is of course most influential in the East where people
appeal to him no doubt for a variety of purposes. I think there
he stands for an ideal of loyalty, integrity and consciousness
of social obligations. No doubt his version of the Golden Rule
enters into the understanding of what those obligations are,
how they are justified, and how they should be carried out.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Tue Nov 5 13:23:23 2002
From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
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Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:28:00 -0500
To: ma
Subject: Re: In regard to your anti-feminism article
Status: RO
Hi Mary,
Thanks for your note. A lot of the favorable responses I get
are from women. I think that's natural, since the thing feminism
destroys -- human connectedness in line with how people are and
without a lot of theoretical overlays -- is something women are
usually more conscious of than men.
I certainly agree that feminism isn't an isolated problem but is part
of a package that includes the other things you mention. As for my
other views, you can look at the stuff at http://www.counterrevoluti
on.net/kalb_texts/.
Best wishes,
Jim Kalb
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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Thu Nov 14 07:34:53 2002
Date: 14 Nov 2002 09:34:45 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Fw: more on America and tradition
To: jkalb@nyx.net
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Status: O
To be pessimistic is not the same as not to care for something. You
said America had died. I take the notion more to heart than you
do. That doesn't mean I'm pleased by the idea. It seems to me though
that the flaws that have led to the death of America--understood as a
overarching concept that is also a concrete political order tied to a
particular people, place, and culture--were intrinsic. That doesn't
mean there was never anything good about America. It's just that she
is not the highest standard. In particular, the public aspects of
America--the Constitution and Federal Government--are not earthly
absolutes. All men and institutions are flawed after all, and none of
them last forever. Also, the formal political order doesn't outrank
utterly the society it governs.
I admire the Founding Fathers greatly. I do find them--and the
Constitution--more admirable than lovable. Even so, there is a great
deal of genuine good in ideals like liberty and equality when taken as
they took them in a limited sense and with a background understanding
of objective Christian and classical moral order. Those ideals call
each of us to think about what he should do and pursue it actively,
and to respect others and cooperate with them in pursuit of what all
recognize as good. They inspired many good men including my ancestors
to do many good things. They are what we have had. Still there was
something missing, an explicit recognition of some concrete
authoritative standard of truth and goodness. With that thing the
system would not have been at all what it was but without it we've
gotten--quite naturally I think--what we have now.
So what now? Your proposal that America has died could of course be
wrong, as could my notion that America as a formally
particularist--confess ional or ethnic--state would not be America (I
think a formally particularist America is also utterly
unrealistic). Also, there's nothing at hand to replace "America" as a
political ideal, standard and object of loyalty. So to me it makes
sense politically to assume things can be turned around, that maybe
the Republic or the real America or whatever can be restored with some
reforms that supply or make up for what has been missing. You don't
rush things that have been valuable into the grave. So a lot of the
stuff on lewrockwell.com does seem destructive to me. I think though
that one should also take seriously the possibility that the way
things are is the way things will be and think about where to go in
that event.
So I suppose the direct answer to the question is that I am attached
to America, among other things, but as to American public institutions
and ideals when you stand back and look at things soberly the
attachment is probably mostly in retrospect. Things die, and
I think you have to live more by what is alive, what lasts and
what is more important.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Thu Nov 14 07:35:27 2002
Date: 14 Nov 2002 09:35:22 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Subject: Re: (forwarded from James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org)
To: jkalb@nyx.net
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Status: RO
I'm not sure "concrete historical America" is the right expression.
I think I value the formal political aspects of the American
union less than you do. I don't view those things as the whole
of America or of the traditions that people have lived by in
America. So for example if the North and the South have come
to be essentially opposed societies that loathe each other, and
the only way to keep things together would be for one or the
other to demolish and remake the social order of the other by
force, then to my mind if one side tries to separate by procedures
that seems consistent with the understandings on which the common
government was founded in the first place, it seems to me they
shouldn't be forced to stay in.
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Thu Nov 21 05:55:32 2002
From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
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Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 7:17:19 -0500
To: la
Subject: Re: america more
Status: O
As I think I've said, my view is that as a matter of theoretical
analysis, America looks dead. As a practical matter, (1) the
analysis might be wrong, (2) you shouldn't rush to turn off life
support, and (3) you need some focus for action. Therefore your
letter to Warner makes perfect sense to me. On the other hand,
it also seems to me right to think about what it makes sense
to build toward if it's true that America has decisively become
a universal polyglot empire.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Sun Nov 24 07:37:33 2002
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 9:37:07 -0500
To: usn_pr@msn.com
Subject: Re: How is all this possible?
Status: RO
Hello!
The answer I think is that what controls and limits what the
government does is less anything written like the Constitution
than the general understanding among influential people what
makes sense. As to living a normal Christian life I think people
have to find a niche somewhere. They can't just go with the flow.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Sat Nov 30 05:29:16 2002
From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 1:58:45 -0500
To: la
Subject: Re:
Status: O
Pre-60s liberalism mostly had to do with redistribution of income,
post-60s with redistribution of other aspects of social position.
Both propose comprehensive bureaucratic administration as the
way to achieve fairness and rationality. There was a lot of overlap
-- Brown v. Board was pre-60s, the War on Poverty post-60s. Also,
antidiscrimination measures are commonly justified as a way to
redress economic inequalities.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Sun Dec 1 06:36:58 2002
Date: 01 Dec 2002 08:36:55 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Anything for December 1 issue?
To: da
Status: RO
Anyway -- I think the idea on immigration is that self-government and
good social order are difficult to achieve. They require common
habits, attitudes, loyalties, memories etc. that enable people to
trust each other, deliberate together reasonably, make common
decisions and work together freely and productively toward worthwhile
goals. As a result, good government, a good society or whatever can't
be just a matter of abstract principles that any random group of
people can sign on to and put into effect.
Another way to put it is that if you want a free and tolerably
well-run society you have to have a common culture. Culture isn’t a
set of principles that can be stated and taught though, it’s mostly
something people take for granted because they’ve grown up with it and
it has made them what they are. It requires particular loyalties and
attachments and a sense of “us” and “them.” Such things
are part of a normal human life and are therefore good.
As to immigration, what all this means is that economics isn’t the
key. What’s important -- especially today, when the tendency is toward
dissolution anyway -- is the effect on Americans as a people, on our
habits, common understandings, mutual loyalties, and so on. Too many
different people from too many backgrounds, especially when
maintaining ties to the old country is easy and the idea of common
culture is in disfavor, and we won’t have an American people at
all. What we’ll have will be a conglomerati on that can’t possibly
rule itself and will inevitably become the clients and subjects of
some small ruling class that dominates the government bureaucracy.
I think something like the foregoing is viewed as a sort of pons
asinorum for understanding the present situation. If you’re wrong
about it you’ll be wrong about a lot of other things, because you
won’t understand basic principles.
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Sun Dec 1 18:41:37 2002
From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002 14:15:22 -0500
To: da
Subject: Re: Anything for December 1 issue?
Status: O
Hi Dawn,
I don't think the idea is that ethnic homogeneity guarantees
anything, there are many possible problems, but that radical
continuously shifting ethnic heterogeneity makes well-developed
social standards of any kind, and therefore free public life,
impossible. The claim isn't that ethnicity is everything or even
the most important thing, but only that it plays a role that
can't be overlooked. It is the latter claim that current attitudes
toward immigration deny.
Jim
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Tue Dec 3 05:04:10 2002
From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
Message-Id: <200212031204.HAA07046@mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 23:46:09 -0500
To: dawneden@panix.com
Subject: Re: Home o'genius
Status: O
Nihilistic right-wingers seem often to become alarmingly racist and
antisemitic. Still, speculation is no way to settle anything.
More to the point, I think it's a mistake to try too hard to ferret
out racism, antisemitism and whatnot. It seems to me that there aren't
many people in the world who aren't bigoted in one way or another, and
focusing on one style of bigotry as a sort of supreme moral pollution,
thereby giving all other styles a free pass by comparison, strikes me
as distorting. It seems to me better to go directly to the question of
what's good and bad, what leads to a better life for people generally
and what doesn't. Also, it seems to me that some sort of preference
for what's familiar and what's one's own seems to me a necessity for
normal political and moral life, and that kind of preference can count
as racism these days.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Tue Dec 3 05:47:01 2002
From: James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 0:27:26 -0500
To: jg
Subject: Re:
Status: RO
I read it. The facts he mentions are well worth publicizing. It seems
to me a mistake though to take the UN human rights documents as an
ultimate standard. There are a lot of odd things in them that I think
deserve to be ignored, interpreted away or whatever. Also, I think
there can't help but be problems with a set universally compulsory
code because such a code can't be based on any particular social or
cultural understanding and so will likely proclaim the viewpoint of a
self-regarding elite that thinks it should run everything.
As to Islam I think it is enough to publicize the acts -- e.g.,
cruel punishments, religious oppression, jihad, threats to assassinate
UN rapporteurs, etc. and then make critical remarks about them,
including commenting on their gross deviation from international
standards and the actual practice of other countries. I would
use the human rights documents in a symbolic way in accordance
with their persuasiveness, as one sign among others of what's
accepted internationally, and not in a way that suggests they're
authoritative in themselves.
jk
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From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Fri Dec 6 15:58:01 2002
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From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re:
To: J
Status: O
Hello!
Thanks for your note.I certainly agree that dissipation and loss of moral
freedom are basic problems. I'm not sure you can get by them though by trying
harder let alone legislating austerity.
It seems to me the basic problems are metaphysical - what kind of world are we
in and what can we know about it. Because if nothing's available to us beyond
the objects and methods of inquiry of modern natural science then it's really
true that appearances are all there is and all we can do is try to manipulate
them for the sake of any purposes we happen to set for ourselves.
jk
From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Tue Dec 10 05:14:45 2002
From: Jim Kalb
To: woodst@sunysuffolk.edu
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 07:13:11 -0500
Status: RO
Hi!
Glad to see you continue to raise the issue of the universal state
vs. multiple partial authorities. I think it's THE political issue
today. That and God I suppose -- the universal state substitutes for
the cosmos, so you really can't have multiple authorities and no final
human despot unless people think that there's already a cosmos with
binding moral principles even if there's no despot to create one by
his fiat.
The neocons, Neuhaus and whoever, sometimes talk about the importance
of "mediating institutions," "civil society" or whatever. They
conceive those things as purely contractual though, which reduces them
to the level of individual wills. To say there can't be any
discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, sex and whatnot is
to say that in civil society only voluntary contractual arrangements
among interchangeable individuals are going to be allowed. Pure
contract can't stand up to the absolute state and absolute individual
will though. It's not enough.
Hope all is well with you and yours.
Jim
From James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG Thu Dec 12 14:31:47 2002
Date: 12 Dec 2002 16:31:36 EST
From: James.B.Kalb.69@Alum.Dartmouth.ORG (James B. Kalb 69)
Reply-To: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Nice
To: Cog
Status: RO
Thanks for the note!
It seems to me we should stay in the UN but object to things we find
objectionable and say forthrightly what our objections are. That was basically
the conclusion of the human rights article.
The UN as an organization is dangerous because it mostly represents the
interest of (1) its constituents, who are mostly a collection of tyrants, and
(2) itself, which is tyrannical as well because there's really no one for it to
be answerable to. Still, it's somewhat of a forum, and we should make our pitch
where there's a forum.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Fri Dec 13 17:17:15 2002
To: la
Subject: Re:
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From: Jim Kalb
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Status: O
> Well, the Catholics could be as anti-national as the Jews, and there are
> a lot more Catholics.
>
They can certainly be anti-nationalist in the sense of rejecting the nation
state as a supreme and unique earthly authority.They can't consistently be
anti-national though in the sense of melting everything down into one,
because they don't have a comprehensive law for all aspects of life. For
that reason they need human authorities other than religion - the family,
particular culture, various political groupings etc. All those need to be
limited and relative though so the Church can exert some sort of general
supervisory influence. A world state would be worse from their point of
view than the nation-state.
--
Jim Kalb
From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Sat Dec 14 08:28:06 2002
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Subject: Re: [Upstream] Trent Lott did enormous damage
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= = = Original message = = =
Americans will remember Lott because he will be
the majority leader at the time of the next election, and the
news industry
will make sure Americans don't forget this incident.
Yes, people have a short memory, which is exactly why the news
industry will
remind them about Lott's statement.
Lott's statement is like giving gasoline to an arsonist.
----- Original Message -----
It doesn't depend on whether he remains majority leader and we
won't have to wait until the next election. This will be a reason
for not only the Democrats but for everyone with an ax to grind
to demand convincing proof of good faith on racial issues from
the Republicans. No amount of proof will be enough because everyone
on some level knows good faith is impossible. So it'll be the
same prove-you're-not-a-racist treadmill as before only squared.
I wouldn't blame Lott too severely. On this issue all public
figures have to live a lie and it's hard to live a lie year after
year. The consequences of faltering aren't the same for everyone
of course. So it's less like giving gasoline to an arsonist than
it is like striking a spark in a world permanently soaked with
gasoline in which eventually a spark is inevitable.
jk
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From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Dec 15 06:38:45 2002
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Subject: Re: [Upstream] Sex Cannibals
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From: Jim Kalb
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 08:38:34 -0500
Status: RO
I'm not sure why Reuters thinks it can just assume that this should be
treated as a crime. Assisted suicide is the coming thing, and if a woman
has the right to control her body the same should apply to someone who
kills himself. I doubt that Reuters would object to any of that. But if
those things are accepted, the victim had the right to choose death, the
perp had the right to help him, and once the victim was dead his remains
could be disposed of in accordance with his final wishes. So where's the
problem? Why shouldn't the perp be treated as a hero of human rights and
free expression and get a MacArthur "genius" award?
jk
On Sat, 14 Dec 2002 18:50:34 -0800, Jim Boyd wrote:
> News from the German branch of the Democratic Party:
>
>
> Police Scan Alleged Internet Sex Cannibal's Videos
> Thu Dec 12,10:01 AM ET
--
Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Dec 16 16:49:46 2002
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Subject: Re: What's Wrong With Human Rights
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Thanks for the note!
I don't know the detailed answer to your question but you're not completely
off-base. The failed Bricker Amendment of the early '50s was intended to
deal with the problem you point to.
The Senate has been comparatively reluctant to ratify human rights
treaties, and when they do ratify one they normally insert reservations
intended to preserve US constitutional principles. Still, courts try to
preserve the coherence of the law, and US courts have some sympathy for
left/liberal causes, so you have to expect that one way or another the more
international human rights law there is the more it will affect American
law.
jk
--
Jim Kalb
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu Dec 19 05:35:17 2002
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Subject: Re: IF's advice to DH about criticizing Christianity
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The normalization of homosexuality, or rather the abolition of the concept
of sexual normality, reflects a view of material existence as raw material
to be used for whatever purposes we happen to have. Things have no meaning
other than the meanings we put into them.
The Incarnation -- God made flesh -- requires that flesh be able to express
deity in a way that is recognizable to us. For that to be possible the
human body must have meaning and purpose that we recognize rather than
create. Otherwise flesh could express only our own arbitrary
interpretations.
Sexuality is central to the expressiveness of the human body. If
*sexuality* does not have meaning and purpose that precede our choices it's
hard to see how the human body could.
The "progressive" view of sexuality, that it's a free human construction,
is thus at odds with the Incarnation. It reflects a view of material
reality that makes it impossible for material reality to express anything
but what we choose to view it as expressing.
jk
--
Jim Kalb
From James.B.Kalb.69@alum.dartmouth.org Thu Dec 19 17:25:17 2002
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Subject: Re: =?Windows-1252?Q?Re:_=5BView_from_the_Right=5D_New_Comment_Posted_to_'Is_?= =?Windows-1252?Q?segregationism_=93bigotry=94=3F'?=
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I think the facts are as I have stated them. My understanding
(from my recollection of Epstein's book) is that even in the
South there was no particular bump up in the rate of black advance
after the 64 CRA except in certain areas. Epstein suggests that
the reason for the improvement in those areas was that making
discrimination illegal undercut the practice of suppressing black
enterprise and enforcing separation through extralegal violence.
Obviously things weren't great in 1948 or 1963. Things aren't
great today either, and part of the reason for the serious problems
we have today is the direction the civil rights movement took.
To my mind the question is what the best way to go forward would
have been. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me to think a continuation
of the Booker T approach might have been best -- retaining voluntary
separation and conceivably some separation in public facilities
as required by custom, combined with more support for black education,
police protection for blacks, and continual reduction in the
more insulting aspects of segregation.
Maybe all that would have been impossible or bad for one reason
or another. But the integrationist approach -- saying blacks
and whites are the same and we're not going to allow them any
separation and say all differences are illegitimate and due to
racism -- has very serious problems as well. And people who look
at the statistics have a hard time showing it had any special
economic benefit.
jk
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On Tue, 11 Feb 2003 08:39:08 -0500, Seth Williamson wrote:
>> ...And as to the third sentence, it seems he thinks the cultivated
>> reasoner has no reason to do what he does not please to do...
>
> Well, all I can say is, I can't see how this follows.
I think your cast of mind and mine are too different to discuss these
issues productively, at least by email.
> I think I disagree with you about the extent to which we reason our way
> to moral action. We KNOW things are right or wrong--we don't reason our
> way toward them. And that's all we need.
Agreed that by and large in practice explicit reasoning plays a subordinate
role in deciding how to act morally as it does in deciding how to do other
practical things. I do think though that if we believe some line of conduct
can't be justified at all but must be viewed simply as something some of us
sometimes feel like doing it loses authority for us and that affects what
we do especially if contrary motives are in play.
--
Jim Kalb
View from the Right: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/
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On 11 Feb 2003 14:29:27 -0500, Seth Williamson wrote:
>> Agreed that by and large in practice explicit reasoning plays a
>> subordinate role in deciding how to act morally as it does in deciding
>> how to do other practical things. I do think though that if we believe
>> some line of conduct can't be justified at all but must be viewed simply
>> as something some of us sometimes feel like doing it loses authority for
>> us and that affects what we do especially if contrary motives are in
>> play.
>
> You can always show that it's at least reasonable to do the right
> thing. To that extent it can always be justified. If the other guy
> accepts the same axioms you do, then you can prove it.
You seem to suggest that axioms are simply arbitrary though. Why should
that be? And why think that all reasoning can be reduced to axioms? It
seems to me that not much besides mathematics can be fully formalized. For
other things no conclusions that matter can be drawn without the help of
judgment, experience, common sense and the like. Those things don't have
axioms worth mentioning -- remember Pascal's distinction between the spirit
of geometry and the spirit of finesse. Does that mean that outside
mathematics nothing can be justified, because it can't be based through
clear logical steps on universally obvious axioms? (The best writer on the
spirit of finesse, although he doesn't call it that, is J.H. Newman in his
Grammar of Assent.)
> It seems to me that your line of reasoning, though, breaks down when
> confronted by--for example--the Nietschean umbermensch. At least as far
> as "proving" anything goes. If the superman's interior life truly
> surpasses our own in some sense, then we a) couldn't know it for a fact,
> and b) he might reasonably claim to be beyond good and evil as we know
> it.
You can also break down reasoning by confronting it with Cartesian doubt.
Maybe I'm just a brain in a vat with electrodes supplying all my
sensations. Maybe you're just an AI program. Maybe (from your point of
view) it's the other way round. Maybe anything. Are all these assumptions
equally reasonable? Certainly if I were convinced it was all so you'd have
trouble proving the contrary to me.
> It is considerations like these that have made me believe that attempts
> to "prove" the rightness or wrongness of given actions have, at the very
> least, a limited utility. The great majority of human beings know
> what's right and wrong in most situations that life presents. We sense,
> whether we can prove it or not, that the weightiest ethical demands of
> life are rooted objectively somehow in a transcendent order.
Limited utility is not the same as no utility. If you hold, as Scruton
apparently does, that there's literally no justification for common moral
standards from the standpoint of the actor, I think you have very serious
problems. That doesn't mean that I want to make actual morality depend
wholly on demonstrations.
--
Jim Kalb
View from the Right: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/
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On 11 Feb 2003 20:05:04 -0500, Seth Williamson wrote:
> You complained--am I
> remembering this right?--that it was his position that we can not KNOW
> some moral propositions to be the truth? I believe strongly that we can
> KNOW such things--but not that we can prove them. It seemed to me that
> Scruton went no further than this.
My complaint against Scruton is that in the essay you posted he says
repeatedly and quite specifically that there is no first person
justification for accepting (e.g.) ordinary sexual morality. As to the
actor, they are simply matters of habit and prejudice.
> Is this what Scruton is saying? That there is no justification for
> moral standards? I took him merely to say that our "prejudices," as he
> used the Burkean word, could not be justified with an iron-clad chain of
> logic of the sort that would satisfy everyone.
The latter is not what he says. He says "no first person justification." To
the actor, they simply can't be justified at all although an external
observer might notice that there are benefits to other people having such
prejudices. He's a professional philosopher and it's a mistake to assume
he's saying anything normal.
--
Jim Kalb
View from the Right: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/
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[The quotations marked "DMcC" are from Daniel McCarthy, the rest is mine.]
DMcC: "Institutions have been designed and redesigned along abstract
formal principles from time immemorial. Chivalry, slavery, and marriage,
to name three institutions, were all designed or redesigned in
accordance with abstract principles such as valor and charity during the
Middle Ages. Those abstract principles were all informed by Christian
tradition; in an analogous way notions of freedom and equality today are
informed by Enlightenment-Jacobin tradition (to put it crudely and in
oversimplified terms). "
It's certainly true that changing interests, conceptions, ideals and
whatnot have led to changes in warrior codes, slavery, and marriage.
It's harder to think of those institutions as "designed and redesigned"
in the sense of modern attempts at social and cultural reconstruction.
Some differences:
1. The means at the disposal of reformers. The modern bureaucratic state
and its agents (e.g., bureaucratic corporate employers) have much more
ability than previous governing institutions to force people to act in
ways at odds with their own habits, attitudes and perceptions. The
modern system of public education and modern mass communications also
vastly increase the control of social life by reforming elites.
2. The extent and nature of the changes intended. An attempt
categorically to abolish sex roles as a legitimate principle of social
organization seems to me far more radical than an attempt to get rid of
polygamy or divorce. The same could be said about multiculturalism,
which is the demand -- backed by force of law -- that all particular
cultural standards be deprived of public authority and replaced by
rational universal standards defined by experts and bureaucrats.
3. The nature of the ultimate standards imposed. The standards of modern
social constructivism are things like freedom, equality and efficiency.
What's notable about them is their absolute abstraction and
disembodiment, and so their liberation from every concrete image or
tradition of the good life. What they tell us is that there are no
objective substantive goods, only human desires, so what is desired must
be taken to be what is good. Further, since all desires are equally
desires their objects must be viewed as equally valid goods. The point
of politics and morality then becomes the maximum equal furtherance of
human desires. Such a standard is radically at odds with allegiance to
any tradition. It demands total continuing reorganization of human life,
with only market and bureacracy as legitimate principals of order.
Nothing like that has ever been undertaken before the modern period.
DMcC: "Though I'm not entirely sure that fundamentals, whatever they may
be, cannot be fully articulted. The fundamentals of Christianity seem to
be pretty well articulated and have in the past and are today used in
constructing social and moral worlds."
I don't think the fundamentals of Christianity can be fully articulated
so that all you have to do is read the text that articulates them, grasp
its meaning, and apply the principles rationally to whatever questions
and situations come up. That seems closer to a description of
fundamentalist Islam. I suppose there are forms of fundamentalist
Protestantism that go pretty far in that direction too. I agree that
people try to construct social and moral worlds based on such notions,
but don't think the attempts are well-founded or successful.
The view of most Christians, and of all Christendom during most of
Christian history, is that articulations of principle are partial and
incomplete ("we see through a glass, darkly") so there have to be an
authoritative tradition, interpretive community, and teaching authority.
Also, Christianity typically respects the relative autonomy of various
aspects of social life. It recognizes a distinction between Christ and
Caesar, for example, and unlike Islam doesn't have a universal
comprehensive code of law. So except in special cases like monasteries
or corruptions like liberation theology it tends to avoid social
constructivism.
DMcC: "Political fundamentals of various kinds have been articulated and
used as a basis for designing and re-desiging nations, usually to
terrible effect but in some cases -- maybe the US Constitution, maybe
the Articles of Confederation -- to tolerably good ends."
I think the reason the American efforts were more successful than more
utopian attempts (for example, the French, Russian and Iranian
revolutions) is that in America the principles applied extended and
formalized previous practices, and they were not at all comprehensive.
They allowed most social and political practices and attitudes to
continue functioning on lines already established and to develop outside
the direct control of the central power, which had quite limited
responsibilities.
DMcC: "what I wrote defends "specific tradition"-qua-"specific
tradition," in that it is precisely the specific attributes of a
tradition on which its worth and strength depend. So I would say that
"specific tradition" in the abstract is more useful than plain
"tradition" in the abstract, because the usefulness inheres not in the
characteristics of tradition -- in which both abstract tradition and
specific traditions necessarily share -- but in the characteristics of
specificity."
It sounds like you may be saying that tradition has no systematic
relation to the good, beautiful and true, so that a particular tradition
is worthwhile or not in the same way something you happen to hear on the
radio might be. In other words, "tradition" (unlike say the market or
expert consensus) should not be viewed as a social process through which
various perceptions, experiences, enduring concerns etc. accumulate and
become organized, concrete and usable in social attitudes and habits
that make for a better life. Do I understand you correctly, or does that
go too far? (In some ways I'm not sure of the exact nature and extent of
our disagreement.)
DMcC: "Part of the problem with favoring traditionalism over
constructivism in the abstract is that the day may come when the only
traditions left are those of the Left. We're more than half-way there
already; for example, the consolidated welfare state is a living
tradition in a way that old-fashioned federalism is not. "
I don't see this as a basic problem. The Left characteristically wants
to suppress habitual ways of doing things in favor of something
rationally designed to promote equality and the fulfillment of human
desires. Saying "hurrah for tradition" is therefore essentially
antiLeftist and reactionary. Also, the traditions of the Left are always
parasitic, and a society in which the only traditions left were those of
the Left couldn't exist at all. Most of the traditions of any actual
society will always be non-Leftist and even at odds with Leftist
understandings and goals.
As an example, the welfare state can't work unless most people are
reasonably honest and most families are on the whole functional. That
won't happen unless people accept and pass on informal understandings
that they feel to be authoritative of what it is to be a good person,
what family members and others owe each other, and so on. Such
understandings are always traditional and particular, and they always
have anti-PC aspects that from the viewpoint of the Left pollutes them
and means they should be abolished. A tradition of honesty, for example,
denigrates some people as "dishonest." Since "dishonesty" is the defense
of the weak against oppression, such a tradition "blames the victim."
Also, to avoid dishonesty requires some ideal of individual moral
integrity. Such an ideal is essentially elitist, and for it to be
concrete enough to be usable it must have some connection to a
particular cultural background and so be racist as well according to the
Left.
DMcC: "To institute or re-institute federalism, even if done in the name
of the dead tradition (which, while not quite the same thing as an
"abstract formal principle," is close), would be closer to
constructivism than to traditionalism."
I agree that attempts to resuscitate dead traditions have a
constructivist aspect, and my essay didn't deal with them. I said
"The fight for tradition is not a matter of creating it or putting it on
life support but of opposing the things that disrupt it, strengthening
the things that support it, and providing ways for it to defend itself
so it can grow back when it has been weakened. It is facilitating the
natural functioning of human society."
So I was treating "tradition" as a general constituent of any reasonably
functional society rather than with the question of what to do about a
particular tradition that's died or been suppressed. I would agree
though that attempts to bring back something that has mostly died or to
set up something new are sometimes necessary. It seems to me that in
such cases one should respect what we know about how the world works,
including the necessity of tradition. Federalism on the whole does so,
because it limits central authority and so lets autonomous informal
social authorities go their own way.
DMcC: "My predisposition is to oppose conscious reconstructions of
social institutions; I give tradition the benefit of the doubt over most
princples. But there's a strict limit to how far one should go in that
direction: the content of traditions and principles ultimately matters
more than the mere fact they are either traditions (good) or abstract,
quasi-rational principles (bad)."
There are limits to everything, but in this case the limit seems
difficult to describe strictly. Tradition in the end has to be justified
by reference to truths that exceed it, but we can't know the truths at
all well except through tradition and with its aid.
jk
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On 01 Mar 2003 17:43:25 -0500, Seth Williamson wrote:
> "And Burke’s provocative defense, in this connection, of 'prejudice'--by
> which he meant the set of beliefs and ideas that arise instinctively in
> social beings, and which reflect the root experiences of social
> life-—was a revelation of something that until then I had entirely
> overlooked. Burke brought home to me that our most necessary beliefs may
> be both unjustified and unjustifiable from our own perspective, and that
> the attempt to justify them will lead merely to their loss."
>
> The key phrase here seems to be "from our own perspective."
As an Orthodox Christian you have a perspective to rely on that is not your
own. I don't think that's true of Scruton. He's a "Godless conservative."
(I should say that as a non-EO I have a higher opinion of our ability to
know natural law etc. than you do.)
The phrase I particularly notice is "the attempt to justify them will lead
merely to their loss." He doesn't suggest that there can be a recovery from
the fall, a Paradise Regained. If that's right then the only thing that
suggests itself is to keep people from thinking about things. That solution
he obviously does not apply in his own case.
We read him differently though. I've been startled by interpretations
people have put on things I've written, so it's quite possible that I could
be misreading Scruton as well.
[Hope you've bounced back from illness, by the way!]
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun Mar 2 02:28:14 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Discussing civil rights in the classroom
From: Jim Kalb
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 21:28:22 -0500
On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 19:50:20 -0500, TW wrote:
> How (if at all) is it possible for a professor of our
> persuasion to discuss the civil rights movement in the context of a
> college
> course on American history in such a way as not to violate his
> conscience?
> In other words, is it possible to cover this material in something other
> than the triumphalist good-versus-evil mode with which we are all
> familiar?
I suppose there's the value-free social science thing. If you put it in
technical form you can say most things. Richard Epstein wrote a whole book
saying civil rights laws stink and got away with it because he put the
argument in value-free technical economic terms. So make no judgements,
suggest no judgements, just mention things that favored the victory of the
movement like the advent of TV, the growth of the welfare state and
rationalizing social policy generally, elite concern with positions that
will play well abroad, etc. I suppose one could also mention some of the
costs of the movement, the abolition of local autonomy, the erection of a
comprehensive supervisory bureaucracy, state reconstruction of social
relations and the human soul and so on.
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Feb 18 02:32:04 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: paleo-right@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [paleo-right] Re: Kalb, Tradition, Gottfried--Terminology, etc.
From: Jim Kalb
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 21:04:04 -0500
In-Reply-To: <200302180014.h1I0EpL11391@andros.alumniconnections.com>
> I do not think it is possible to
> defend tradition-qua-tradition in the abstract. Only specific traditions,
> even those do not frame themselves as traditions, have any hope of
> commanding anyone's loyalty.
But saying that is defending specific-tradition-qua-specific-tradition in
the abstract.
Such defenses do have some utility. One must start with the intellectual
and social world that actually exists and deal with it. That world has a
very strong and destructive streak of constructivism, the belief that
social institutions can and should be designed and redesigned in accordance
with abstract formal principles like freedom and equality.
Saying "you can't construct a social and moral world because fundamentals
can't be fully articulated, ways of life can only be lived and understood
from inside, and standards worth relying on can only grow up over time"
doesn't solve all problems but it's at least a beginning dealing with some
problems. If someone says other things are needed too I agree.
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon May 12 20:04:22 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: jbk@vectra.kalb.ath.cx
To: gj
Subject: Russell Kirk
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 12 May 2003 16:05:29 -0400
Hello!
Just read the piece on Kirk. Some interesting stuff in it (apart from
the Tyranny of Liberalism quote). The bits on the reception of Kirk's
book were good, also the stuff about imagination. My own inclination is
to say that imagination can't be promoted directly but if you get
concepts and basic orientation right then imagination will follow and
clothe everything in a fitting way. I don't know if that makes me
Kirkian or non-Kirkian or anti-romantic or what.
Maybe an example would be the Tridentine mass. It's just a text with
some instructions, and a low mass is really quite sober, but the
physical arrangement of the worshippers, priest and servers, the sounds
and silent parts etc. make it possible to feel that you are coming into
the presence of something enormously important and eternally unchanging.
Another example would be traditional sexual morality (the stuff about
Santorum etc. has me thinking about the subject). The rules as
recognized e.g. by the Catholic Catechism just seem like a bunch of
arbitrary restrictions to people today but they make it possible to
understand men and women and their relationship as something with a
specific nature and function that give it great importance in defining
what we are.
In both cases the imagination can be understood as something that
supervenes on a collection of rules and practices and to constitute a
world that has the weight and transcendent dimension needed for life to
become tolerable and human. Another way to understand the process is
that the imagination, rather than constituting something, becomes a sort
of mode of perception of the transcendent realities to which e.g. the
old Mass and traditional sexual morality are ancillary.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu May 8 15:32:28 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: jbk@vectra.kalb.ath.cx
To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu] Malignant narcissism
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 08 May 2003 11:33:29 -0400
--=-=-=
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Content-Disposition: inline
A very interesting suggestion from Leon Podles on the conduct of the
bishops and a possible tendency among them toward malignant narcissism.
The goal of malignant narcissists, it seems to me, is to redefine
reality their way. As M. Scott Peck says, they are "the people of the
lie." Such people would naturally be drawn to religious institutions
that have accepted the liberal/modernist view that reality is something
we construct, while nonetheless retaining something of the hierarchical
spirit. If their position is such that they represent Christ to their
people, and "Christ" is whatever they make Him to be, then they define
spiritual reality. They have everything they want.
I should say that this isn't just speculation on my part. Experiences in
the Episcopal Church, including a rector who might have stepped out of
Peck's book, convinced me it's a real problem there. So what Mr. Podles'
comment suggests to me is that it's a problem in the Catholic Church
as well.
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu May 8 13:01:24 2003
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To: Ha
Subject: Re: Eugenics - and other evils
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 08 May 2003 09:02:25 -0400
In-Reply-To: <20030508094832.56338.qmail@web21010.mail.yahoo.com>
Hello!
As the introduction to my page says, it's not intended to set forth a
position. That ought to be clear. The page includes links to people who
are hopelessly opposed to each other -- Catholics, protestants, Jews,
national bolsheviks, the unabomber, etc. It should be obvious I don't
agree with all of them or even think they're all good people.
What the page intends is to be something like a bibliography of
materials regarding (1) conservatism, (2) tradition, and (3) issues the
dominant rationalized utopian liberal outlook can't digest. The last are
important because the dominant outlook intends to extirpate tradition
and conservatism, not to mention God, morality, human nature and much
else. It's therefore important to bring out all its weaknesses and to
show that there are many alternatives to it. In addition, it seems to me
a traditional outlook can handle all these issues much better than any
rationalized view since tradition does not intend to reduce the whole
world to a single system under human control. So by mentioning the
biological human differences that the eugenicists emphasize I am
bringing up issues that the dominant outlook can't handle but
traditional viewpoints can.
It is true of course that that the eugenicists intend to respond to
biological differences by bringing them under human control, and that is
objectionable. My reason for including the link is that their site
documents the extent and importance of the differences, and the way the
dominant view suppresses discussion of them. It's possible there's
another site that does the same thing equally well without the
propaganda for eugenics, but I don't know what it is and so can't
include it instead.
Perhaps I should add that the page predates my conversion to
Catholicism. I don't see anything on it that urgently needs to be
changed in line with my conversion, since as I have said it's intended
to be simply a sort of bibliography, a list of links to sites that raise
issues the dominant view can't handle and collectively (although not
necessarily in each case) point toward a more traditional and
conservative view. As such it states no position and is simply put
forward as an aid to investigators. Still, it seems likely that as time
goes on it will change in line with my own changed outlook. Just how I
don't know at present.
Best wishes,
jk
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu Mar 6 12:41:03 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 07:40:52 -0500
To: Er
Subject: Re:
From: Jim Kalb
In-Reply-To:
X-MailScanner: No virus detected by mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU
Hello!
Thanks for your notes.
The traditionalist conservative page includes a lot of stuff I don't agree
with and some that isn't traditionalist or conservative. The idea is to
include things that help in the development of a type of thought. That can
include contrary things that need to be taken into account and are useful
in one way or another.
The biology/eugenics sites usually take a materialist reconstruction-of-
humanity-through-technology view of things. I don't include them because I
agree with their slant but because biology and genetics are real and
because liberals and the left find them toxic. In a way it's like including
bug spray in a site on garden parties. It's not that it's pleasant in
itself but it has to do with realities and it gets rid of pests.
As to postmodernism, there are various ways to construe it. Certainly there
are respects in which Catholicism and traditionalism can turn it to
account. Basically, it seems to me the postmoderns have realized that you
can't construct a world out of logic, science etc. as the moderns wanted.
The Catholics and trads could have told them that all along. The pomo
response is to say that there is no truth, that "truth" is whatever you
make of things. So it's easy enough to point out that there's more to truth
than that, that to the extent it's somewhat constructed it's a social
construction through tradition rather than an individual constructed, and
that since we can't help but view it as *true* then we have to believe that
whatever community we belong to is somehow revelatory. Then that leads us
to comparison of the claims of various communities to be bearers of
revation which ends by making the Catholics look rather good.
jk
On Thu, 6 Mar 2003 01:20:12 -0500, Er
wrote:
> First, I noticed you had some links to some biology/eugenics websites. I
> have not reviewed them yet, and I will look at them to be fair to you,
> but are not these types of things actually based on liberal and
> evolutionary views of mankind?
>
> Now, I do want your academic feedback on something.
>
> What do you make of postmodernism. First there is the question of the
> postmodern condition. As a Catholic Traditionalist, I would be the first
> to admit that there are many viewpoints today, and I would add many
> dissenting viewpoints from the truth.
> However, postmodernism, as a philosophical framework, posits a
> pluralistic type approach. I guess here I am speaking of much of
> continental philosophy such as existentialism, phenomenology, and the
> like. Do you have any thoughts on this matter or any academic sources to
> suggest? I know there was a recent article in Intercollegiate Review on
> this type of thing. Intercollegiate Review is an ISI publication, and I
> am sure you are aware of it.
From jkalb@anubis.nyx.net Sat Mar 8 23:50:42 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: James Kalb
Subject: mail
To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2003 16:50:57 -0700 (MST)
There are a lot of possible interpretations. One is that it's
easiest to generate answers if you have principles that answer
all questions in advance. It follows that the most talkative
people on the net are going to be like that. Also, if you're
in a liberal environment, which we all are, it's hard to avoid
being a liberal unless you have principles of that kind. Then
too, marginalizing people as much as conservatives are marginalized
corrupts them intellectually because nothing they say matters.
And maybe everyone is corrupted that way today because nothing
anyone says matters, to the extent public discussion is more
or less a front and public issues are decided by institutions
and their interests and by political manipulation rather than
debate.
Jim
= = = Original message = = =
What do you make of the fact that they display the very loss of
rationality that you, more than anyone, have identified as the mark of
liberalism?
--
Jim Kalb
View from the Right: http://www.counterrevolution.net/vfr/
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Mar 24 23:36:30 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 18:34:30 -0500
To: In
Subject: Re: Davies hand-out
From: Jim Kalb
In-Reply-To: <002c01c2f24c$388a01c0$b319f7a5@e5dq2>
X-MailScanner: No virus detected by mailhub.Dartmouth.EDU
Hello!
I think people are crazy not to write letters. Even if His Eminence is a
free to be you and me kind of guy you might catch him in a mood in which
he's willing to let Latin mass types have the Latin mass. Besides, the Pope
has this need to reach out to everyone, and he'll probably get along with
the Eastern Orthodox better if he treats traditional liturgies as if they
were more than tolerated vices in the Latin Church, so maybe he'll do the
right thing.
On the grand issues I guess I'm sort of a moderate foaming-at-the-mouth
right-winger. Meaning that I think Vat II was a pastoral council aimed at
the modern world that's worked out badly because a lot of the new
directions were misconceived. Which means that the Pope is a Pope, Fr.
Cullen is a priest, the new mass is a mass etc. but I don't feel any need
to kowtow to all the innovations. People didn't suddenly become smart in
the mid-20th c. after having been dumb all those years.
Anyway, I'll tack on my draft letter. Comments welcome. The argument --
"the Church needs the Tridentine mass to do outreach" -- is probably
unusual but it worked for me so why not say so. It'll give him something to
goggle at if he reads it.
Jim
--
Jim Kalb (kalb@aya.yale.edu)
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Fri May 16 20:39:37 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: jbk@vectra.kalb.ath.cx
To: "La
Subject: Re: further response to your point on race
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 16 May 2003 16:40:56 -0400
In-Reply-To: <002001c31be3$9511be40$1d118d0c@worldnet.att.net>
I agree there's something odd and a bit unsavory about the neocon habit
of saying "I oppose AA because it's bad for blacks" when all significant
black leaders think it's a do-or-die cause.
It seems to me the thing to say would be something like "I oppose it
because it's unjust, it puts government in a role it shouldn't have, it
makes for lies and bad human relations, and it's not really a benefit
for the intended beneficiaries." So the concept that it doesn't really
benefit blacks should stay in but at the end. Since black leaders favor
AA it has to function more as a response to an objection than a primary
reason.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Fri May 16 20:44:42 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Sender: jbk@vectra.kalb.ath.cx
To: "( Stephen )"
Subject: Re: link story
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 16 May 2003 16:46:06 -0400
In-Reply-To:
I'm so happy I don't have anything to do with the Anglican Communion any
more!
The "and became fully human" is an outrage. The Nicene Creed is an
absolutely fundamental formulation and to make the Incarnation more
astract -- which is what is being done -- for the sake of appeasing
people who will never be appeased anyway is, to put a charitable
interpretation on it, unbelievably stupid.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sun May 18 12:44:13 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: jbk@vectra.kalb.ath.cx
To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Subject: [alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic] Re: The problem of evil
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 18 May 2003 08:45:40 -0400
"Charming79" == Charming79 writes:
Charming79> It is logically impossible to believe that both evil, and
Charming79> a good and powerful God exist in the same reality, for
Charming79> such a God certainly could and would destroy evil. We have
Charming79> evidence of so much evil that is seemingly pointless and
Charming79> of such horrendous intensity. For what valid reason would
Charming79> a good and powerful God allow the amount and kinds of evil
Charming79> which we see around us?
The obvious answer to the logical point is that toleration of evil may
allow still greater good. For example, free will is a good but its
existence means that evil can and (if the free will is real) no doubt
will be chosen. So on the face of it toleration of evil is necessary to
a greater good. More generally, the existence of anything that is not
God, and has some relative independence and autonomy, means that
something will exist that does not participate fully in God's
perfection. The respects in which that thing falls short will involve
evil.
All that assumes that "omnipotence" doesn't include impossibilities,
that God can't make a rock that's too big for him to move, he can't
create a truly free being that is certain always to make the best
choices, and so on. (We have no way of knowing how far the "and so on"
extends.)
The real issue I think is how to explain a world in which there is both
true good and true evil. I don't think it can be done without assuming
that purpose is a basic aspect of how things are, which seems to require
God.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon May 19 16:48:20 2003
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: Can you get the church to mary you spiritually but not legally?
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 19 May 2003 12:49:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To:
"Randy" == Randy writes:
Randy> How does not wanting to be penalized by taxes have anything to
Randy> do with the centerpoint of our relationship??? We are looking
Randy> to get married, we're looking for the church to do it. If there
Randy> was a law that married people had to get poked in the eye every
Randy> year, would we be less commited to each other for trying to
Randy> find a way not to get poked in the eye???
It's an interesting question you raise.
I don't think the "centerpoint of our relationship" is the whole story.
"Relationship" sounds like it has to do with your feelings, attitudes,
intentions etc. The whole point of marriage though is that it's an
institution that's not altogether dependent on those things. Once you're
married you stay that way even though your feelings, attitudes and what
not change.
Also, the instititution is not purely a religious one -- it's also
natural and social. If two atheists get married in a civil ceremony
they're married, even in the eyes of the church. It seems that what you
want to do is separate the personal, religious and natural side of
marriage from the social side -- to have a marriage recognized as such
by the parties and the Church but not society at large. Can you pick and
choose in that way though in the case of something so basic?
One thing that makes the situation complicated is the current attempt to
abolish marriage as a social and legal institution. If the arrangement
the law calls "marriage" is simply a contract between any two persons
terminable at the will of either that establishes some sort of relation
between the two during its duration I'm not sure how seriously anyone
need take it.
Sorry for such a vague response. Summary:
1. In general, it seems wrong, for the sake of avoiding a moderate
financial obligation, to try to be married from a personal, natural
and religious standpoint but not a general social standpoint.
2. On the other hand, if the general social standpoint is getting to be
that there really isn't any such thing as marriage, then maybe it's
not so bad.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 08:53:25 2003
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To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Subject: [alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic] Re: A bit more on the Tridentine Mass
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 04:54:57 -0400
"Doug" == Doug writes:
>> The granting of indults,on the suggestion of Pope John Paul II, has
>> been relaxed to the point that the only ones who cannot get it are
>> those who would try to force all to see things their way and their
>> way only.
That may have been his suggestion but it hasn't happened that way. In
many dioceses, the bishop won't go along at all and in others he only
allows the old mass at great intervals. Until their recent meeting with
the Pope, for example, the Scottish bishops only allowed 4 indult masses
a year for the whole country.
Other bishops make things difficult in various ways. In one very large
American diocese for example, in which Voice of the Faithful is allowed
to meet on church property, the local Latin Mass congregation is allowed
one mass a week at an awkward time and location and nothing else --
e.g., no coffee hour, no ability to use the space for meetings, no
nothing.
All this may change though -- it's apparently quite likely that Rome
will grant a sort of universal indult this year that lets any priest who
so wishes offer the old Mass without going through his bishop.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 08:54:07 2003
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To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu] Re: Sullivan
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 04:55:39 -0400
Homosexuals like to play act and turn things into other things.
Subversion is no doubt on some level a goal. And, the claim to be a
conservative, a Catholic etc. adds to his saleability -- the gay English
Catholic conservative who doesn't say anything against the things
liberals really care about and subverts the things they hate is
obviously a marketable item.
He's not a must read. I don't think he puts a lot of thought into what
he writes, that's how he's able to write a much as he does. He does have
a point of view though. So I think if you do read him you have to be
aware of what that view is, what's behind it, and his untrustworthiness.
You have to hold him very much at arm's length.
jk
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 08:57:48 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Sender: jbk@kalb.ath.cx
To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu] Re: Is Bennett a bourgeois bohemian?
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 04:59:21 -0400
Does anyone know the facts? Bennett claims he mostly broke even. If
"lost $8m" really means "lost 100K over a 10 yr. period" with no huge
swings when the gains are netted, and it really didn't interfere with
his duties and obligations, I'd be inclined to view it as somewhat
hazardous rich man's hobby but not a serious vice. Whether it's the
right thing for a virtuecrat to be doing is another question
jk
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 19:01:24 2003
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To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu] Re: No Subject
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 15:02:56 -0400
"TomMcW" == Tom McWhorter writes:
TomMcW> Somehow, I don't remember lack of pressure as being part of
TomMcW> the deal when I was growing up. If I did not get good grades,
TomMcW> or I misbehaved, or was "out of line" in any of a variety of
TomMcW> ways, I was made to "suffer" mentally, physically, or both. I
TomMcW> suspect that was true of most.
It seems to me the "pressure" today has to do with lack of a stable
setting rather than external pressure as such. If you think the world's
basically pretty settled and you have an OK place in it, and your old
man yells at you because you got a D on your report card, it might
bother you but life goes on. If everything's up for grabs, and the idea
seems to be that if you don't get into a top college then you really
won't exist because nothing exists unless it can make a special place
for itself that others have to recognize, then you'll feel the pressure
is intolerable when someone mildly hints that you might do a bit better.
In the latter case everything about you is being called in question.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
^
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 19:02:15 2003
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Sender: jbk@kalb.ath.cx
To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu] Re: No Subject
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 15:03:48 -0400
"TomMcW" == Tom McWhorter writes:
TomMcW> I can see that lack of stability in the social environment
TomMcW> could result in anxiety. But why is that worse now than it was
TomMcW> in the 50's and 60's? The only thing that I can think of that
TomMcW> appears to have gotten worse is the stability of the family.
TomMcW> Everything else has changed, but is not necessarily worse. The
TomMcW> *rate* of change does not seem so different.
The family's the most basic part of the social environment though,
especially for children but also I think for the rest of us. And people
say that jobs and careers are much less stable and much more of a
perpetual scramble than they were then.
We're talking about two different levels of stability though. Things
could be completely stable in a gross overall social sense, with nothing
in public life changing much ever, and still be completely unglued in
everyone's private life. In fact that seems to be the direction we're
going. The kids are all raised by MTV, they hang around in packs because
closer personal ties are untrustworthy, their parents are all divorced
and getting sex changes, but the music they listen to, the styles and
the notions about what life is about haven't changed much in 35 years.
(OK, I'm exaggerating slightly.)
jk
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 19:06:18 2003
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Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu] Re: not that simple
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 15:07:51 -0400
"la" writes:
la> It's nt that simple or understandable. If you have discretion in
la> the way the rule is enforced, that would result in disparate
la> impact on different classes of students, and if you don't have
la> discretion, that would also result in disparate impact on
la> different classes of students (since some classes of students
la> would violate the rule more than other classes of students). So I
la> don't follow your argument.
Your position is enormously simplified and improved by a per se rule
though. Disparate impact by itself isn't against the law, it just puts
the presumptions against you. If it were a problem in and of itself then
you couldn't have laws against murder.
The best way to win when there's disparate impact is eliminate all
issues other than the rule itself. That way you don't have to battle the
presumption against you on issue after issue. You talk to your lawyers,
find out what other districts have done and what's recommended as "best
practice," choose the rule that seems likely to stand up in court, and
then apply it absolutely blindly. That way there are no factual
questions about what happened in the particular situation. Everything
reduces to a pure legal question about whether rule X is OK.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 19:06:48 2003
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To: jkalb@freeshell.org
Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu] Re: not that simple
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 15:08:21 -0400
"la" writes:
la> Interesting. Now, just to make sure I understand you, are you
la> saying that the practice of zero tolerance is due to the presence
la> of blacks, to lessen the appearance of disparate impact of
la> disciplinary rules vis a vis blacks and whites?
The presence of blacks is enough, and the clearest case in which
mindless per se rules are necessary. There are more general reasons as
well. Once discretion is suspect because there is no common good but
only power, and once equality of treatment has become the crucial point
because there's no substantive goods and formal criteria are everything,
then everything must be made explicit and public so it can be reviewed
and checked for rationality and compliance with standards. That means
per se rules.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 19:07:16 2003
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Subject: [kalb@aya.yale.edu] Re: not that simple
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 15:08:49 -0400
"la" writes:
la> Again, very interesting. I had not previously picked up, however,
la> that racial disparities in punishments was the reason for zero
la> tolerance. I thought zero tolerance came about as a result of
la> horrendous things happening, like mass murders in school and so
la> on. And those things were themselves the consequences of the
la> general permissiveness. Have you seen article specifically making
la> the connection between race disparities and zero tolerance
la> policies?
Can't think offhand of an article other than a few newpaper comments
about things like the moral necessity of picking up prepsters for
truancy if problems with youth gangs make stricter enforcement seem
advisable. It's obviously necessary though. Racial disparities mean that
*everything* has to be formalized, documented and made defensible, so if
you crack down because you're worried about Columbine, if you decide
that buying people off and looking the other way aren't enough any more,
the only way you can think of doing so is through mindless per se rules.
It's the style in which things are done now. In a way of course it's
artificial to separate all these things. Racial disparities are only the
most dramatic instance in which the demand for formalization seems
justified to people. Once the trend of thought gets started it pops up
everywhere.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue May 20 19:18:49 2003
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Subject: [alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic] Re: Would Jesus weblog?
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 20 May 2003 15:20:22 -0400
"rlm" == R L Measures <2@vc.net> writes:
rlm> Jesus spoke Aramaic, which is used in the Qumran scrolls. They
rlm> contain a first century account of his lectures. They were
rlm> discovered between 1946 and the early 1950s . The RCC fought for
rlm> over 3-decades to suppress 80% of the documents found in Qumran,
rlm> cave-4.
Do you have a reference for that? I was under the impression the scrolls
had little to do with Christian origins except general background, and
that the RCC made no attempt whatever to suppress them
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed May 21 12:00:51 2003
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Subject: [alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic] Re: Irish Mass (wasRe: the Rosary)
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 21 May 2003 08:02:25 -0400
"Ockisard" == Ockisard writes:
Ockisard> While it's true that the current Missal is likely closer to
Ockisard> early Christian Eucharistic celebrations than those in the
Ockisard> Missal of Pius V
To my mind that's not a recommendation. An archeological reconstruction
is interesting to visit but it's not something one lives in. Also,
reconstructions always get things wrong and usually show as much about
the person doing the reconstructing as actual practice way back when.
Besides, there's legitimate development. When Christianity was an
illegal minority religion, and everyone believed in unseen powers
anyway, it was easy for people to believe that when they attended mass
something very important and special was going on.
Today we're in a different situation. I think something like the old
Mass is needed to bring out the reality and significance of what is
happening. As least as presented I think the new Mass blends too much
into the everyday.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed May 21 12:37:20 2003
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To: TD
Subject: Re: great idea for a website
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 21 May 2003 08:38:55 -0400
In-Reply-To: <1e1.94fd81a.2bfb8614@aol.com>
It's hard to know what to call things. To my mind "paleo" suggests
something somewhat sectarian. It's a term that arose and has mostly been
used in the setting of rather bitter disputes among people all calling
themselves conservatives. The advantage of "traditionalist" is that it's
not much used and it emphasizes the need local stability, maintenance of
ties, and opposition to universal rationalization, all of which I think
are key points.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed May 21 15:55:07 2003
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: Irish Mass (wasRe: the Rosary)
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 21 May 2003 11:56:40 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To:
"Ockisard" == Ockisard writes:
Ockisard> And, of course, it has been argued that the Resurrection in
Ockisard> itself is not a neccissity for the salvific nature of Christ
Ockisard> (that's heretical, of course, but I find some good reasons
Ockisard> to mull that over occassionaly).
It seems to me the Crucifixion tells us more than the Resurrection. If
God happened to find himself dead for some reason it seems obvious he'd
make himself alive again. What's surprising is that he'd become man and
take part in human life to the extent of allowing himself to be tortured
to death.
One of the things that drew me to the Church (I'm a convert) is that
they always had the crucifix front and center. That told me that these
were people who knew there are serious problems and thought they had
something that could deal with them.
Ockisard> I don't think we will ever see a return to the pre-Council
Ockisard> Mass
It would be unusual for something to be restored just as it was. We'll
see what happens if this rumored "universal indult" actually comes down.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed May 28 12:37:43 2003
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Subject: [alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic] Re: poses a question
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 28 May 2003 08:39:32 -0400
--=-=-=
It sounds like the complaint is that the Church exists at all as
something other than what the people who happen to be present at any
particular time want it to be.
To the extent that's so then I agree that a very basic need is
catechesis -- telling people what the Church is and stands for, and why.
"Ockisard" == Ockisard writes:
Ockisard> This isn't what I think, but...
Ockisard> ...in surveys that I've seen, the major concerns - the major
Ockisard> crises - voiced by laity and clerics, globally, that are
Ockisard> said to need addressing, are:
Ockisard> 1. the democratization of the Church (power to govern in the
Ockisard> hands of all, particularly at the parish (not diocesan)
Ockisard> level; elimination of any hierarchy not 'elected');
Ockisard> 2. allowing priests to marry - and the ordination of women
Ockisard> would 'naturally' follow;
Ockisard> 3. freeing the liturgy to be particular to a community - not
Ockisard> necessarily a national conference, but on the parish level
Ockisard> by a parish liturgical counsel (one comment I read - "Church
Ockisard> should be exciting and fun");
Ockisard> 4. completely rethinking the theology of the Sacrament of
Ockisard> Marriage and reconciling that 'new theology' with divorce
Ockisard> and alternate sexual lifestyles;
Ockisard> 5. Inculturation, inculturation, inculturation;
Ockisard> 6. Sexual inclusiveness and de-sexualization (God the
Ockisard> Person, not the Father; Christ the Person, not God and Man,
Ockisard> etc.).
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
--=-=-=
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
--=-=-=--
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed May 28 19:28:42 2003
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Newsgroups: alt.politics,alt.religion,alt.religion.christian,alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: More Bush religion funding.
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 28 May 2003 15:30:21 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To:
"Stephen" == Stephen writes:
Stephen> If it remains an active Church then the Fed. government
Stephen> should remain away as they are supposed to stay separate from
Stephen> Churches according to the principle of the separation of
Stephen> Church and State.
It's not obvious why making government funds available on the same terms
with regard to both secular structures and houses of worship constitutes
an "establishment of religion," which is what the 1st amendment is
concerned with.
To the contrary, it seems free exercise violation (also in the 1st
amendment) if the government says "we'd give you the money if you used
the building for anything but religious purposes, but that's what you
use it for so tough luck."
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed May 28 23:31:54 2003
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To: Ia
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 28 May 2003 19:33:45 -0400
In-Reply-To: <594HebwWH2160S01.1054162087@uwdvg001.cms.usa.net>
I agree the argument can't be taken straight (which is why I back off
from it in my blog entry). As you point out it's part of an attempt to
make sense of language without reference to a transcendent standard and
so simply as a collection of practices.
Still, the argument is an interesting one. The difficulty it suggests --
the impossibility of distinguishing correct from incorrect applications
of a word and so of knowing what's being asserted -- does seem to apply
when someone claims he has a personal identity that others must respect
that consists in having idiosyncratic feelings.
When someone says "a homosexual is what I am, because I feel that I am,
and other people should recognize that to criticize me for acting to
realize my true being is to attack what I am" he's saying something that
no one can evaluate. The current convention is that he therefore wins.
The W argument suggests a response, that since no one can evaluate the
claim it's not a claim anyone can make sense of.
I suppose actually the W argument suggests a very strong response, that
the claimant can't know himself what he's talking about. But I think
there's something to that, at least when very strong assertions like
claims of essential personal identity are based on private feelings.
Otherwise people wouldn't agonize so much and so fruitlessly over issues
of identity.
I don't think the CBOL-3 analogy works. A computer language isn't a
language in the absence of a human being to interpret it.
Incidentally, I was glad to see you resurface at TAC after your
departure from FP.
jk
if> Wittgenstein's private language argument is wrong. There is only
if> one computer left in the world that runs the language known as
if> CBOL-3, and it works fine. Worse, his argument is relativistic,
if> because it implies that if other people aren't around to judge my
if> language use, there is no standard, because it is impossible to
if> have a transcendent standard. He is one of the enemy
if> philosophically; he is not one of us.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Jun 10 19:18:30 2003
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: just an idle thought
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 10 Jun 2003 15:20:50 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To: <3ee03c19$0$4227$a04e5680@nnrp.fuse.net>
"bardi" == bardi writes:
>> I'd add that Humanae Vitae is one of the reasons I became Catholic.
>> It wasn't at the top of the list, but it helped the situation come
>> into focus. "Why is it," I asked myself, "that the only man in the
>> world who has an idea how to make human sense of sex is an aged
>> celibate?"
bardi> I am curious..in what way?
Sex is overwhelming, intensely focused on the other person, and
dissolves boundaries. It involves a sort of mutual nakedness
(psychological as well as physical) and self-giving. It makes people say
things like "this is bigger than both of us" and believe that what they
feel trumps normal good sense.
So the question is what kind of setting would enable someone to make
sense of such a thing and make it part of the pattern of a good life.
It seems that sex requires an enduring connection between the lives of
the parties that once established no longer depends on changeable things
like current feelings.
If sex isn't part of an objective union of the two persons, if it's just
a "relationship" as people talk about such things today, then it's a
matter of current dispositions and feelings so there is no real
self-giving. A sexual "relationship" that is simply an informal
connection attempts to turn sex into an arm's length thing. The attempt
fails because arm's length is exactly what sex is not not. Each party in
such a relationship acts as if he's giving himself, but is in fact
keeping all options open. That introduces an element of radical
dishonesty into something very basic. It's corrupting.
So sex must be integrated with a permanent connection to which one could
sensibly give one's all. Also, the sexual act must itself by its nature
contribute to that connection and its permanence. Sex is too vivid an
experience and the impulses involved are too strong to let us interpret
it into something other than what it forces itself on us as being. If it
feels like an act of self-giving then it must somehow objectively be
just that. Otherwise it won't be part of a comprehensible life.
Normal non-contracepted sex between a man and a woman is a functional
union of the bodies of the two that by its nature invokes enduring
serious responsibilities and points beyond the immediate feelings and
interests of the two, because it is the sort of thing that produces new
life. Since its nature, by the constitution of the human body, is to
produce new life, it naturally calls for a union of lives. That call for
union makes the self-giving implicit in the sexual experience reasonable
and in fact obligatory.
So it seems that if you carry on your sex life in the way Paul VI and JP
II (not to mention just about all Christians before about 1930) say you
should it'll make sense. Your understanding of your situation and your
relation to your spouse will reflect what the sex act expresses. If you
don't then either you'll be living a lie (as in the case of a
non-marital "relationship") or you'll be trying to force an
interpretation on sexual acts (e.g., contracepted acts) that doesn't
come out of the nature of the acts themselves. In both cases you'll be
trying to make your will or interpretation dominate the situation and
that won't work. Basic things like sex have their own way with us.
[Sorry I took so long to get back to you. I was away for a few days.]
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Jun 11 12:10:44 2003
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: just an idle thought
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 11 Jun 2003 08:13:08 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To: <3ee69c4c$0$3912$a0465688@nnrp.fuse.net>
"bardi" == bardi writes:
bardi> To me the act of sexual congress between married people
bardi> involves a great deal more than procreation.
Agreed. The issue is how much of the "great deal more" will be there if
sexual congress is intentionally closed to new life. The problem with
contraception etc. is that it turns sexual congress into a different
sort of thing. By the intention of the parties it becomes an act that by
its nature has no real consequences. Since the parties have
intentionally deprived it of consequences they're making it an act that
has only the significance they choose to give it. The result is that the
union of the parties becomes unreal. It becomes a matter of the
interpretation they decide to put on their acts, and everyone knows
interpretations change. So the act can't involve real self-giving. It
feels like it does, and the parties may tell themselves it's so, but
it's play-acting.
An analogy might help. Someone might say "joining the army isn't just a
matter of getting yourself killed. There's a lot more to it. There's
patriotism, loyalty to comrades, devotion to duty, the feeling of being
part of something bigger that has a high purpose, etc., etc., etc. And
everyone knows actual fighting wrecks armies. Besides, even in wartime
lots of soldiers don't die so getting killed can't be essential. So what
I'll do is set up something I'll call an army that can never be sent
into battle. That way I can get all the good things without the
disadvantages." It won't work though. Eliminating the risk makes the
other stuff pointless.
Another analogy: a group of friends might enjoy having each other over
for dinner. For them it's not just a matter of physical nourishment.
There's also the pleasure of seeing each other, the companionship, the
mutual generosity, the interest of new dishes, etc., etc., etc. There's
the problem though that if you eat too much you can't eat any more and
besides you get overweight. So one of them might suggest having a bottle
of Ipecac around so after eating everyone could take some and go off and
vomit. After that they could eat some more or maybe go off to another
dinner.
It seems to me that would be a bad idea. Even though physical
nourishment isn't the only thing going on at a meal it's a necessary
part of what a meal is. Take it away and you get something quite
different that won't have the same significance.
bardi> And that extra can be impacted negatively. Even more in this
bardi> day and age more than previous times when the economy was
bardi> geared toward a single parent household. Not just financially,
bardi> but emotionally. Large families may have their strong points,
bardi> but they can also cause a great deal of stress.
Today as always there are a variety of ways to live, some which better
fulfill human nature than others. We should all choose the better and
avoid the worse. One issue you raise is the legitimate use of natural
family planning -- refraining from sexual intercourse during fertile
periods. It seems to me a couple isn't obligated to have sexual
intercourse on any particular day or have as many children as possible.
On the other hand, if they intend to have no children or treat children
as lifestyle accessories it's not much of a marriage. I don't have a
grand theory just now as to where to draw the line.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Jun 11 14:04:04 2003
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To: "St
Subject: Re: enjoyed your sites and article recommendation
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 11 Jun 2003 10:06:25 -0400
In-Reply-To: <205E107579497E409CD8D159942B92FA0186C793@fs-mail.fsllp.com>
Thanks for the note, and for the link.
The "Discipline of Place" was well written in many ways and takes an
interesting approach toward the issue of traditionalist concreteness v.
liberal abstraction. I hadn't thought of liberals as wanting eternity
before, although it's true of course that abstractions are not dependent
on time or place.
I suppose one could develop a comparison of liberal eternity, which is
the unchangingness of formal abstractions like liberty and equality, and
traditionalist eternity, the presence within changing things of
something real and substantive that does not change.
I wonder though how one would make place a discipline. Simply by
choosing to make it such? Or by some reorientation that makes rushing
about seem pointless? But in the latter case it wouldn't be a
discipline, exactly. It would be something you accept and come to see
things in.
I can think of disciplines of time -- use your time thus and so -- but
the only disciplines of place I can think of are monastic rules that
require monks to stay on the premises. I suppose "gadding about" has a
bad name. There's also Pascal's comment that man's basic problem is that
he can't stay quietly at home, and the Englishman who complained that
the problem with California is that there's no *there* there.
Interesting points. I will look at your other articles also.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Jun 11 15:25:51 2003
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: just an idle thought
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 11 Jun 2003 11:28:14 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To: <3ee72695$0$3901$a0465688@nnrp.fuse.net>
"bardi" == bardi writes:
bardi> I would have to disagree. The union of the parties remains
bardi> quite real..as a tangible expression of their love for each
bardi> other.
The situations are quite different though. A non-contracepted act of
normal sexual intercourse creates a profound objective union between the
two parties, because it gives the couple's bodies a functional unity of
a kind that is basic to the existence of the human species. It's an
essentially serious act, not at all the sort of thing one can shrug off
or reinterpret into something different from what it is.
A contracepted act doesn't create that kind of objective unity. You say
it is nonetheless a tangible expression of love. To my mind though sex
doesn't seem like a social observance, a greeting card or whatever, to
which we can give the meaning our sentiments suggest. What it naturally
expresses -- unity and mutual self-giving -- is intertwined with its
natural function. Sex is not something we control. It goes its own way
in accordance with what it is and creates a situation to which our
feelings adjust.
I suspect that we will continue to disagree on all this at least for
now. The issues are too basic for a few arguments to bring anybody
around. To me though it seems that you're not treating sex unequivocally
as a basic constitutive principle of human life. You're treating it as
something we can control and mold as we wish. You want to get the
benefits of sex while controlling its consequences, even though the
benefits depend on the seriousness of the consequences and therefore of
the act itself.
bardi> To carry this argument to its conclusion would mean to suggest
bardi> that sterile couples were imperfect in their relationship to
bardi> each other. And contrary to popular mythology, sterile couples
bardi> are actually more likely to remain married.
Not familiar with the popular mythology. It does seem to me though that
a contracepted act and an act that will in fact be sterile because of
age, time of month or some physical disability are different. In the
former case the sterility is part of what the parties are choosing to do
and so if (as in this case) it's radically at odds with the natural
function of the act it changes the nature of the act altogether. In the
latter case the sterility is accidental and so seems much less intrinsic
to what the parties are doing.
All of which may seem like a fine distinction. Still, lines must be
drawn and this line seems to me one that becomes more persuasive with
familiarity. Part of the idea is that you can't willfully interfere with
something as basic as sex to defeat its natural function for the
convenience of the parties without radically changing its role in human
life. The fact that sometimes its natural functioning fails doesn't have
at all the same effect.
bardi> There is a difference between being a volunteer in an army and
bardi> being drafted into the same army. Draftees are just as likely
bardi> to be killed as volunteers,but they have been given no choice.
Agreed. Consent is essential to the validity of a marriage. Without that
requirement it becomes much less likely that the goods of marriage will
be achieved.
bardi> It would seem to me that your [dinner party] analogy actually
bardi> supports the converse argument. One cannot use ipecac to create
bardi> further children.
Don't understand your remark, but if the analogy isn't helpful to you
there's no need to pursue it. The thought was that Ipecac is like
contraception, something one uses to deprive acts that support various
personal and social goods (as sexual intercourse supports marital unity
and eating supports conviviality) of essential natural consequences that
sometimes become inconvenient.
bardi> Sexual congress,imho,is not an obligation. Rather,it is a gift
bardi> of the Spirit. And to say that people must not accept that gift
bardi> because they do not have the financial resources for an endless
bardi> supply of children, is to me somewhat abrupt.
I recognize -- as the Church recognizes -- that at some point natural
family planning becomes legitimate.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Jun 11 19:14:27 2003
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To: "St
Subject: Re: enjoyed your sites and article recommendation
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 11 Jun 2003 15:16:50 -0400
In-Reply-To: <205E107579497E409CD8D159942B92FA010BE70A@fs-mail.fsllp.com>
"cs" == St writes:
cs> Insofar as I've been able to discover, the notion of the necessity
cs> of place as an anchor for a soul rightly oriented towards
cs> transcendent truths is very old. In _Paradise Lost_, Milton gives
cs> voice to the archetypal egophanic revolt of Liberal modernity
cs> through Satan's "glorious" challenge to God:
Still, for us Eden is now lost, and life is a pilgrimage. Man is said to
be an exile on this earth whose true country is Heaven.
One answer maybe is that Eden and Heaven are more definite things than
the abstract liberal Ego that creates its own world in accordance with
its fluctuating desires. Also, the doctrine that God created all things
gives place a reality that matters. It's not simply what we make of it,
it's what God made it, however fallen it is now. We can't treat it -- in
the manner of Satan -- as something of which we are altogether
independent. It tells us something about our limitations and what God
is.
cs> The editors cut out my discussion of PL in the essay as too
cs> esoteric for their readers.
How annoying. Editors should never be allowed to cut.
cs> I think there can be a discipline of place, but less in the sense
cs> of a "self-discipline" to do certain things, and more in a
cs> horticultural sense: a discipline of growth; allowing the
cs> orientation of our souls to be tempered and directed by the
cs> particular. Though I didn't get to it in the essay very clearly,
cs> this would manifest itself in local cultures of care which develop
cs> truly independent (and interdependent) rituals, artifacts, and
cs> ceremonies which arise out of the time and place and erect a hedge
cs> of protection around the health of the community, which is its
cs> fertility. This is what the "traditionalist" fights for ... those
cs> cultural hedges around families and food and energy use, etc.
I agree something like this would be part of a good society.
Some other possible examples of a discipline of place: the Amish are
agricultural by choice, don't use TV, telephones, high-wire electricity
etc., and only go as far as horses will carry them. Orthodox Jews have
to live close enough to each other to be able to make a minyan and on
the Sabbath can only go on foot. The former more parochial organization
of Catholic worship would be another. You worship with the people you
live among.
cs> I think Stein was an American.
That's right, it was Gertrude Stein.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu Jun 12 12:35:21 2003
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,alt.religion.christian,alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Where is God?
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 12 Jun 2003 08:34:51 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To:
"tmgt" == TsatskeMitGroysseTsitskes writes:
tmgt> Is there any way to reach God these days?
A good question. Mostly I think God reaches us rather than the reverse,
so what we can do is give up or get rid of the things that interfere
with that. Examples would include almost any obsession or obsessive
feeling -- hatred, resentment, greed, and what not. It also helps to
realize how self-centered we are and unaware of the reality of other
people and other things. Then I'd suggest reading or talking to people
who seem to know God.
I'm curious, BTW -- what's a "tsatske mit groysse tsitskes"?
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu Jun 12 17:47:50 2003
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: just an idle thought
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 12 Jun 2003 13:47:48 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To: <3ee8ab6c$0$3911$a0465688@nnrp.fuse.net>
"bardi" == bardi writes:
>> To me though it seems that you're not treating sex unequivocally as
>> a basic constitutive principle of human life. You're treating it as
>> something we can control and mold as we wish. You want to get the
>> benefits of sex while controlling its consequences, even though the
>> benefits depend on the seriousness of the consequences and
>> therefore of the act itself.
bardi> I ,like most people, do not appreciate being told my reasons as
bardi> to why we will.
I intended the "To me though it seems that" to apply to each of the
following sentences. It seemed clumsy to repeat it in each case. I am
sorry my failure to repeat it made the subsequent sentences seem
disrespectful.
bardi> Firstly a point,.I do not want to get the benfits of anything.
bardi> As mentioned before, it is all an academic discussion to me,
bardi> being a celibate.
I should have said "To me though it seems that you want the benefits of
sex to be available while its consequences are put under control." I'm
sorry I spoke the way I did.
bardi> hmm..there are species which engage in courtship rituals. There
bardi> are even more species which engage in family raising. But so
bardi> far the human species is the only one which gets emotional
bardi> satisfaction fron the act of sexual congress. With a
bardi> provisio...assuming there is an emotional bond to begin with.
The issue between us, I think, is whether that emotional bond is
independent of the physical function of sex.
bardi> There is a difference between being a volunteer in an army and
bardi> being drafted into the same army. Draftees are just as likely
bardi> to be killed as volunteers,but they have been given no choice.
>> Agreed. Consent is essential to the validity of a marriage.
>> Without that requirement it becomes much less likely that the goods
>> of marriage will be achieved.
>>
bardi> my point had to do with parenthood..not the marriage itself.
My point then would be whether marriage remains the same sort of thing
once it's thought legitimate for the parties to choose or not at will
whether it will include children.
To my mind the decision that a marriage will not include children
deprives it of any reality that goes beyond the (inevitably fluctuating)
desires and interests of the parties. The self-giving implicit in sexual
congress that is the soul of marriage thereby becomes impossible. How
could one give oneself to something that is dependent on one's own will?
How could it be right to give oneself to the mere will and interest of
another equal adult? To make the self-giving possible and legitimate
marriage must be something more extensive. Openness to new life supplies
the missing factor and integrates marriage even physically with the
whole of human life throughout time.
bardi> It is the means that HV was arrived at more than any
bardi> conclusionsthat I disagree with.
For me the means are an argument in favor. It seems to me that the
tyranny of experts is a big problem today. Not only do they tell us what
to do but they say we can't even criticize them or talk back because
that would just show ignorance on our part. We're not smart enough to
have an opinion. Since there are experts on everything we all as a
practical matter get treated as knowing nothing.
Paul VI rejected what all the experts said and followed tradition.
Tradition is the possession of a whole people rather than a few experts.
It summarizes the perceptions and experience of a lot more people and a
lot more sorts of people than formal expertise ever could. The idea that
formal academic expertise with its highly dubious claims of neutrality
and reliability should be our guide to how we should live and what we
should believe on fundamental issues is outrageous. In 1968 Paul VI took
an almost solitary stand against that idea. The whole world owes him a
debt of gratitude for that.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Thu Jun 12 20:31:30 2003
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Subject: Re: [cdleo] From Tragedy to Farce
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 12 Jun 2003 16:31:29 -0400
In-Reply-To: <01a701c33116$75b31ce0$7e8afea9@sarto>
The groaning about a cultural catastrophe always seemed odd. Looters of
priceless art treasures aren't likely to destroy them, these were
durable objects that had already survived millenia of neglect, and the
market for them would be in the West. So it seemed likely that most of
them would be recovered shortly and almost all the rest within a few
decades.
R Kimball> Now playing: the saga of weapons of
R Kimball> mass destruction. Plenty of those, I predict, will be
R Kimball> found, and then we'll be treated to long analyses of
R Kimball> exactly why the media got that wrong, too. Stay tuned.
I think he's going too far here. It's a couple of months since Saddam
fell, there are a lot of people in Iraq who hate the guy and his regime,
and I'm sure there are rewards available for info on stockpiles. How
significant could a WMD stockpile be that nobody in Iraq knew about
except a few diehard loyalists who care nothing for money?
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Fri Jun 13 15:55:14 2003
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Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Subject: Re: just an idle thought
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 13 Jun 2003 11:55:13 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To:
"trifold" == trifold writes:
trifold> I see two possibilities: If God opposes contraception, God
trifold> wants us to have as many children as possible; or God wants
trifold> us to not have sex as often as we want to, even within a
trifold> committed, monogamous, even "sanctified" relationship (why
trifold> God gave us a sex drive, you will have to explain).
Those are indeed the possibilities.
It seems to me that we think things (like one's wife or the sex act) are
real and important if we have to respect them, and we have to respect
them if we can't act however we want to around them without
consequences. So I don't see anything odd in having to refrain from sex
during fertile periods if for some reason having a child would be a bad
idea. It's part of what gives substance to taking one's wife and one's
physical relationship to her seriously.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sat Jun 14 11:11:25 2003
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Subject: Re: just an idle thought
bcc:
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 14 Jun 2003 07:11:27 -0400
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
In-Reply-To: <31dd8bee.0306131613.15842bcb@posting.google.com>
"jb" == Joe Blow writes:
jb> All birth control is artificial including "abstinence". Periodic
jb> abseinence is designed to allow us to have sex without
jb> consequences.
Natural family planning is in some sense artificial, since it involves
decisions based on knowledge of the workings of the body. However, the
effect of the "artifice" is simply a decision not to engage in sexual
intercourse on certain occasions. That looks much less like something
that transforms the nature and implications of the sexual act than say
oral contraception or use of a condum. In the case of NFP each act of
sexual intercourse is just what it would have been without NFP. The same
isn't true in the other case.
>> The popular myth is that ABC has "liberated" woman. Nothing could
>> be further from the truth. The truth is that it has enslaved women,
>> turning them from cherished life partners into objects for men's
>> enjoyment.
jb> I guess you believe that women do not enjoy sex?
Do you believe that the feelings and attitudes of men and women toward
sex are identical?
jb> Except life is not created at this point. Two living organisms
jb> combine into a single organism that grows into a person. Life has
jb> been an unbroken chain for millions of years.
*A* life is created, even if life as such is not.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Sat Jun 14 13:42:07 2003
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Subject: [alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic] Re: Mel Gibson movie star or bigot?
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 14 Jun 2003 09:42:10 -0400
"dwjones" == dwjones writes:
dwjones> i wonder if mel believes like his dad in that the holocaust
dwjones> never happened. after all he has never been critical of what
dwjones> his father has said over the years. instead he tries to
dwjones> shield him from the media.
What would you do if your dad were in his 80s and had some pretty dotty
ideas (along with some good ones to which you owe everything), and you
thought that people might go after him because of your own fame as a way
of getting at you? Would you publicly criticize him and distance
yourself from him, or would you try to shield him from attention?
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Jun 16 12:33:41 2003
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Subject: Re: just an idle thought
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From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 16 Jun 2003 08:33:44 -0400
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"jb" == Joe Blow writes:
jb> I must quibble with you claim that birth control other than NFP
jb> changes the nature of the act. I think any form of birth control
jb> changes the act if we include factors such as relief from the
jb> worry of producing a child and the intrusion of the birth control
jb> procedure into the act.
I don't see worry as part of the act. If I sign a check or get married
whether I'm worried or not doesn't change the act. It does change the
act if the check is drawn on the East Bank of the Mississippi or the
"wedding vows" are simply lines in a play. In the latter case acts whose
essence and human significance is that they are functional have
intentionally been made nonfunctional. That makes them quite other than
what they were.
The claim I'm making really is that the place sex holds in human life
depends on the physical function of sex, on its potential to create new
life. That doesn't mean that the physical function of sex has to be
fully realized through every sexual act. Sex is too expressive to be
viewed simply as a means to an end. On the other hand what it expresses
is something definite and serious, a union of two persons that has an
essential physical aspect. For us intentionally to change that physical
aspect so that it does not serve the function that makes sex and the
union it expresses serious does I think change the nature of the act.
jb> I also maintain that an act not taken is a changed act.
Quite true. There is a difference between engaging in sexual intercourse
and not engaging in sexual intercourse. My point is that NFP (unlike
ABC) does not change any act of sexual intercourse that actually takes
place.
jb> I agree that a couple who submits to NFP experiences its
jb> complications, but just because a process is complicated and
jb> intrusive doesn't improve the desired outcome.
I agree. Inventing complications need not make things better. Nor need
complications make things worse. If I exchange wedding vows in reality
it creates many more complications than if I say the words as part of a
skit at a party. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea actually to
get married.
jb> All of the information necessary to produce another human is
jb> present is all cells. We can now make an embryo from a stem cell.
jb> It won't be that long until any cell would do, I imagine. I do
jb> think that cloning must complicate your view of what a human life
jb> really is.
Don't see why. From a biological standpoint I suppose a human life is a
certain sort of self-regulating functional system. Even if you are right
that someday it will be possible to derive such a system from a skin
cell the same distinction between will remain between a skin cell and a
human life.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Mon Jun 16 17:57:24 2003
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Subject: Re: just an idle thought
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From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
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"trifold" == trifold writes:
trifold> "Enslaved" is a very strong word. And it would better
trifold> describe the state of women in the period before artificial
trifold> birthcontrol than before it. You might also want to consider
trifold> the possibililty that insisting women run the risk of
trifold> becoming human incubators every year or giving up their sex
trifold> lives (the practicial consequence of your so-called "rythm
trifold> method) is itself an objectification of women.
To my mind these claims are highly characteristic of the modern liberal
attitude toward human life and morality: for a woman to have the body
she does, one that functions naturally and healthily in accordance with
a design that should be respected, is slavery. For a woman to be
pregnant is to be a "human incubator." And simply to argue that an act
is wrong and degrading is an attempt to dominate and use another for
one's own ends, and so to "objectify."
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Tue Jun 17 16:23:45 2003
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Subject: Re: [cdleo] Some Journalists Just Won't Give UpDiscredited Myths About Partial-Birth Abortion
References: <006401c334c6$f159a9a0$7e8afea9@sarto>
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 17 Jun 2003 12:23:55 -0400
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jl> Some journalists (and some others) are so attached to comforting
jl> myths about partial-birth abortion that they just won't let them
jl> go -- even after they have been thoroughly discredited by other
jl> journalists, and even after they have been forcefully repudiated
jl> by leading spokespersons for the abortion industry.
jl> Worse, some of the offenders, when they are challenged for
jl> disseminating long-debunked misinformation, simply restate the
jl> misinformation without in any way addressing the substance of the
jl> challenge, or fail to respond at all.
This is an interesting article, and we can speculate why these things
are as they are. Some possibilities:
1. Politics is the epic of the triumph of good over evil. All abortion
is good, so it's out of place and a little bizarre to raise
nit-picking factual points when the universal right to abortion is at
stake.
2. When it's a political question people are careful about facts only if
they think someone they respect might make an issue of it. Pro-lifers
are weirdos from another planet, though. So why worry about what they
say?
3. Experts are always on the side of the liberal left. We all know what
sort of thing is going to come next when the New York Times says
"Scholars say ... " So it follows that nothing that goes the other
way can possibly be true or rational.
I'm sure there are other explanations as well.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Jun 18 00:22:27 2003
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Subject: [alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic] Re: just an idle thought
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 17 Jun 2003 20:22:38 -0400
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"trifold" == trifold writes:
trifold> I don't believe you or anyone else can assert that some
trifold> Design requires that every woman who is able to should have
trifold> babies or give up sex.
That's nice, but you haven't commented on any of the arguments (which
incidentally depend on the role of sex in human life rather than on a
priori claims about design). I should add that to treat woman's equality
as the issue is odd since men are also involved in sexual congress and
whatever obligations flow therefrom.
trifold> It is objectifying in the sense that it insists the essential
trifold> nature of women--their very humanity--is defined by your
trifold> sense of them (in your case, apparently, their biology), when
trifold> in fact, their potential is broader than this, and it is for
trifold> each woman to fulfill it.
Don't understand. Men and women, among other things, have bodies. Sex
is, among other things, a biological function. You seem unable to
distinguish the view that we should respect those features of human
nature and of sex from the view that that those features wholly define
human nature and sex.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
From kalb@aya.yale.edu Wed Jun 18 00:23:07 2003
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Subject: [alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic] Re: just an idle thought
From: kalb@aya.yale.edu
Date: 17 Jun 2003 20:23:19 -0400
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"maf1029" == maf1029 writes:
maf1029> I'm saying that the Church sanctions marriages for sterile
maf1029> men, women with hysterectomies, and post-meopausal women,
maf1029> despite the Church's own prescription that "marriage consists
maf1029> of a sacramental bond between a man and a woman open to the
maf1029> possibility of children."
The man has a male human body, the woman has a female human body, they
are capable in uniting in the sexual act, the natural function of which
is procreation, and the parties do nothing to interfere with that
function. That should make the union open to the possibility of children
in the necessary sense. It's a union of a kind that naturally leads to
conception, and the fact that age or bodily defect will in fact prevent
conception is an add-on that the parties might not even know about. It's
an added circumstance that doesn't change the essential nature of what
they're doing.
In contrast, if they had been fertile and used contraception it would
change their intent and thus the nature of their act. Their intent
wouldn't be to engage in sexual intercourse, and accept the natural
consequences if they should came about, but to but to engage in an act
they had modified to eliminate its natural function. That does seem
different to me.
--
Jim Kalb
http://jkalb.freeshell.org
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
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