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dwellordream · 2 years

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Religion, gender, and the Virgin Mary: Catholics and Protestants

“Prior to the Henrician Schism, Marian devotion was an integral part of English Roman Catholicism. The Rosary was a popular devotion, Marian shrines and festivals abounded, and Elizabeth of York, the wife of Henry VII, followed the practice of well-born women to wear a girdle, supposedly the Virgin Mary’s, during pregnancy. While the sixteenth-century reformers sought to reduce the attention paid to Jesus’ mother, they were not hostile to her, especially in comparison to their Victorian successors. They praised her as a model of faith; they wanted merely to lower her status, not denounce her.

Their condemnation of Marian shrines and relics differed more in degree than in kind from the critiques of their Roman Catholic contemporaries like Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More. As England slowly became a (predominantly) Protestant nation during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603), Marian imagery was appropriated to describe the Queen. Scholars disagree about the extent to which the Virgin Mary continued to be invoked or whether Marian icongraphy was subsumed by descriptions of Elizabeth I.

However, their agreement that the imagery of the Virgin Mary continued to be used in a positive way suggests a continuation of the pre-Reformation tradition, even if the object of that idealisation may have changed. At the same time, an Anglican tradition of restrained Marian devotion began to develop, beginning with Lancelot Andrewes in Elizabethan England and continuing in the seventeenth century by Andrewes as well as other Caroline divines, including William Laud’s protégé Jeremy Taylor, Mark Frank and Herbert Thorndike, and the devotional writer Anthony Stafford, whose The femall glory was republished in 1869 by Orby Shipley, an Anglo-Catholic clergyman (and eventually a convert to Roman Catholicism).

At the parish level, after the Restoration Anglican clergymen held up the Virgin Mary as an examplar of adherence to church teachings. This tradition of a restrained Marian devotion was apparent in the poetry of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells and a nonjuror after 1689. Ken praised Mary as ‘The true Idea of all Woman-kind’ and described her as ‘Mary ever bless’d, whom God decreed,/ Shou’d all in Glory, as in Grace, exceed’. This positive tradition coexisted with one that used the Virgin Mary as shorthand for unorthodox beliefs and practices.

Although the complaints could seem trivial – among the charges filed against Archbishop William Laud at his trial in 1644 was that, while he was chancellor of Oxford University, a statue of the Virgin Mary had been erected over the porch of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin – the fact was that even the apparent trivialities showed how widespread was the assumption that invocations of the Virgin Mary were sufficient evidence of deviation from Anglican orthodoxy. Anti-Marian rhetoric was one component of the anti-Roman Catholicism that characterised England during the reigns of Elizabeth and her successors.

The secret Jesuit missions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the attempted invasion by the Spanish Armada (1588), the Gunpowder Plot (1605), the periodic Jacobite invasions after 1688, and French involvement in the 1798 rebellion in Ireland all contributed to the popular stereotype of English Roman Catholics as actual or potential traitors. Partly because of a perceived link between Roman Catholicism and absolutism, anti-Roman Catholicism was one of the factors that helped incite the English Civil Wars (1642–49) and the ‘Glorious Revolution’ (1688–89).

Even a century later, when religious tensions had somewhat subsided, violent anti-Roman Catholicism briefly reappeared with the Gordon riots in London (1780). Anti-Roman Catholicism revived in the nineteenth century and was in some ways more significant than earlier manifestations of the prejudice. The vitality of religious conflict in this period has led Arnstein to argue that ‘it is more fruitful to look upon the Victorian conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism as a separate chapter rather than as a mere footnote to studies of the Reformation’, while Paz describes anti-Roman Catholicism as ‘an integral part of what it meant to be a Victorian’.

Many Victorians voiced the standard objections to Roman Catholicism: that the priesthood denied the believer a direct relationship with the Trinity; that Roman Catholics paid more attention to objects and saints than to the Trinity; that Roman Catholicism was not scripturally based; and that Roman Catholics’ blind obedience to priest and Pope predisposed them to prefer absolutist governments. The reinvigoration of anti-Roman Catholicism was partly a response to the increasing numbers of Roman Catholics.

The Roman Catholic population multiplied almost ten times, from 80,000 in 1770 to 750,000 in 1850, or to 3.5 per cent of the population, and became more urban and less dependent on the gentry. Much of the increase was due to the immigration of Irish people: by 1851 Irish Roman Catholics outnumbered English Roman Catholics by about three to one. However, anti-Roman Catholicism was so well-established prior to the 1820s that there was no obvious relationship between the number of Irish and the level of anti-Catholicism in any particular area. Roman Catholics’ higher public profile in the nineteenth century also contributed to the inflammation of prejudices against them.

Catholic emancipation (by the Catholic Relief Act of 1829) allowed Roman Catholic men who met the property requirements to enter Parliament. In the next decades the prayer campaigns for the conversion of England, which included daily repetitions of the Hail Mary, led by the converts Father Ignatius Spencer (born George Ignatius Spencer, a younger son of the second Earl Spencer) and Ambrose Phillips de Lisle (also Ambrose Lisle Phillips), revived the fear that English Protestantism was under assault, a fear that seemed to be confirmed by the restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England in 1850.

This event, popularly derided as the ‘Papal Aggression’, marked the end of the missionary period in England and the regional missionary government, and gave Roman Catholics a leader within their country: Nicholas Wiseman, born a Roman Catholic, who had spent most of his adult life in Rome, first as a student and then as rector at the English College there. His return to London as the new cardinal of Westminster in November 1850, only days before Guy Fawkes’ Day, gave an added intensity to the annual anti-Roman Catholic activities and marked the apogee of public anti-Roman Catholicism in the nineteenth century.

Anti-Roman Catholicism was further fuelled by the conversions of prominent Anglicans. A small number of privileged Anglicans, like Phillips de Lisle and Spencer, converted in the 1820s, but the public impact of these early conversions was limited. Anglicans became seriously concerned in the 1840s, when converts became both more numerous and of more prominent position. The most famous and, for Anglicans, unsettling conversion was that of Newman, in 1845.

His conversion had been some time in coming: dismayed by the 1841 controversy over his Tract 90, which argued at length that there was no contradiction between Roman Catholic doctrine and the 39 Articles, in 1843 he resigned as vicar of the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford. Even with these warning signs, his late-night, rural conversion in October 1845 sent shock waves throughout the Church of England. Tractarians lost one of their most prominent and articulate spokesmen, while their Anglican opponents seized on it as proof that Tractarianism ‘has furnished, and continues to furnish, to Romanism all its most valuable converts’.

…In particular, Anglicans worried that the material aspects of Roman Catholicism would seduce good Protestants. Sinclair warned: ‘Going merely to hear music at the convents and Popish churches often ends in going there to worship ... the excitement of listening to the Stabat Mater and such beautiful music in honour of Mary, is not only profane, but dangerous’. That the prevailing concern was with defections from within rather than assaults from without, when born Roman Catholics far outnumbered converts, suggests that Anglicans perceived weaknesses in their Church.

What Jenny Franchot has noted about anti-Roman Catholicism in antebellum America is also true for Victorian anti-Roman Catholicism: ‘anti-Catholicism operated as an imaginative category of discourse through which antebellum American writers of popular and elite fictional and historical texts indirectly voiced the tensions and limitations of mainstream Protestant culture’. Few were as sanguine as William Lockhart’s grandfather, who, on hearing that his grandson had converted, said: ‘Well, young men take odd courses, now-a-days; he might have taken to the turf.’

More typically, these conversions profoundly affected those involved, whether they remained in the Church of England or became Roman Catholic. Those who converted suffered many hardships, including, as David Newsome has noted, ‘social ostracism, alienation of friends, loss of money, position, and employment’. For twenty years after his conversion Newman did not see Keble and Edward Bouverie Pusey, two close friends with whom he had shared leadership of the Oxford Movement.

The grief felt by those who stayed was expressed by the high churchman and future Prime Minister Gladstone in a letter that in hindsight is doubly sad, given that its receipient, Robert Isaac Wilberforce, was to convert several years later: I do indeed feel the loss of [Henry Edward] Manning, if and as far as I am capable of feeling anything – It comes to me cumulated, and doubled, with that of James Hope. Nothing like it can ever happen to me again. Arrived now at middle life, I never can form I suppose with any other two men the habits of communication ... and dependence, in which I have now for fifteen to eighteen years had with them both.

…Gladstone’s and Wilberforce’s experiences were not uncommon for men of their class, for as Arnstein has observed: ‘Most significant nineteenth-century Englishmen had either a close friend or relative who became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith.’ Many converts were motivated by a search for the authority they believed to be absent from the Church of England. Their pre-conversion attitudes towards the Virgin Mary differed. For some, Marian devotion – or at least the desire for it – preceded conversion.

The year before he converted, Faber begged Newman for permission to pray to the Virgin Mary. (Permission was denied, on the grounds that religious practices should remain distinct.) On a trip to Paris in 1845, Sophia (Sargent) Ryder, whose late sister Caroline had been married to Manning, her husband George, and George’s sister Sophy purchased rosaries. Sophy was given a book of Marian devotions by Manning, who was in Paris at the time. All three Ryders converted in the spring of 1846.

Phillips de Lisle believed that the Virgin Mary encouraged his conversion to Roman Catholicism, which occurred in 1825, when he was 16 years of age. However, Marian devotion was a stumbling-block to others. Newman confessed that even in 1843, when he had essentially given up ministry in the Church of England, ‘I could not go to Rome, while I thought what I did of the devotions she sanctioned to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints.’

Some converts never did develop a warm Marian devotion. Manning, his gift to Sophy Ryder notwithstanding, was one of them. Nevertheless, the Virgin Mary was blamed for many of those conversions. The Anglo-Catholic bishop Edward Stuart Talbot remembered his mother saying ‘that those who went [into the Roman Catholic Church at mid-century] were those who had begun to practise devotions to the Blessed Virgin’.

This displacement conveniently allowed Anglicans to ignore the fundamental issues of ecclesiastical authority that troubled the converts and to dismiss them as having an inferior religiosity. While converts were not necessarily motivated by a desire for more Marian devotion than was allowed in the Church of England, once within the Roman Catholic fold they were likely to practise it. Those converts were a key reason why Marian devotion, which had not been a significant part of recusant Catholicism, revived from the 1830s.

…The increase in Marian devotion may have been, as Susan O’Brien argues, attributable in part to the congregations of French and Belgian nuns who began to establish English houses in the 1830s, and it may also have been, as Barbara Corrado Pope has suggested, an expression of anti-modernism. Regardless of their motivations, in practising Marian devotion the converts enacted on a personal level what was occurring on an institutional level.

In the Roman Catholic Church the century 1850–1950 is called the Marian age because of the many reported Marian apparitions, the declaration of the Immaculate Conception (1854), and a general increase in Marian devotion. Marian devotion had polemical as well as religious uses. Unlike their recusant forebears, who were forced by the legal and social situation to suppress public expressions of their faith, Victorian Roman Catholics were emboldened by their civic equality. Their greater confidence led them to invoke the Virgin Mary as a means to assert their identity as Roman Catholics.

…The Virgin Mary’s prominence in nineteenth-century England was not attributable solely to Roman Catholics, either their theology and devotional practices or the animosity these inspired. Keble’s and Sellon’s desire for limited Marian invocations demonstrates that the development of what came to be called ‘Anglo-Catholicism’ also played a role in generating those controversies. Anglo-Catholicism grew out of the high-church wing of Anglicanism.

High-church Anglicans emphasised ritual, ecclesiastical authority, and the Catholic identity of the Church of England; in politics their interests were often identified with those of the Tory Party. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, there were three main types of high-church Anglican: traditionalists, Tractarians, and ritualists. Traditional high church Anglicans defended both the English Reformations and the establishment of the Church of England.

They valued the writings of the early church, but they used them conservatively and in conjunction with the reformers, always insisting that Scripture was the basis of belief and that the Established Church had the right to abandon ancient traditions. They (along with many evangelicals) held the mainstream receptionist view of the Eucharist, that is, that Christ was present in the communion elements only to believers rather than to all who partook of the sacrament.

Although its fondness for ritual and tradition could lead to accusations that it was too close to Rome, traditional high-church Anglicanism was characterised by a fierce anti-Roman Catholicism, which was pungently expressed by the declaration of the clergyman Walter Farquhar Hook: ‘I have always hated the Church of Rome as I would hate the bitterest Enemy of my God.’ Other high-church Anglicans declared the Roman Catholic Church to be ‘a grossly idolatrous Church, debasing and enslaving her adherents’, as well as being the ‘twin sister’ of paganism, and they described Roman Catholics as indifferent or irreverent worshippers who had little knowledge of the Bible.”

- Carol Engelhardt Herringer, “Religion, gender, and the Virgin Mary.” in Victorians and the Virgin Mary: Religion and Gender in England 1830-1885

#history #english #victorian #christian #carol engelhardt herringer #religion #victorians and the virgin mary

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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Toxic Waste — Belfast (Sealed Records)

Photo by John Campbell

Belfast by Toxic Waste

The mid-1980s were crushingly unhappy times in far too many places: El Salvador, Afghanistan, Soweto, Southwest Philly. And so on. But we shouldn’t neglect Belfast. The dominant narrative of the Troubles features a number of signal events from the period: the Bobby Sands-led hunger strike; the bombings at Hyde Park, Regent��s Park and the Grand Brighton Hotel; the Maze Prison escape. For the population of Belfast, everyday life was an ongoing experience of being under the cosh — of the S.A.S., of the U.D.A., of the I.R.A. (and the Provisional I.R.A., and the numerous smaller paramilitary groups espousing loyalty to Ulster, to the Republican cause or to generalized mayhem). Walled-off neighborhoods, guard posts commanded by men with heavy guns, regular patrols of armored vehicles—the city was a de facto warzone. Hence the name of the Warzone Collective, an organization run by a bunch of Belfast anarcho-punks during the mid-1980s and intermittently through to the present. Toxic Waste was a punk band active in the Warzone Collective, and Sealed Records has done us all a very serious solid by reissuing Belfast, an anthology originally released in 1987 that collects a number of Toxic Waste’s songs. It’s a terrific record, documenting some oft-overlooked music from a vital punk scene and its vigorously politicized response to the lifeworld’s chaos and violence.

The songs on Belfast are taken from two moments in Toxic Waste’s development: Side A has been selected from records produced in 1985 and 1986: From Belfast with Blood — The Truth Will Be Heard, a split EP with Stalag 17 released by Mortarhate (run by Londoner punks Conflict); and We Will Be Free, an LP compiling songs by Toxic Waste, Stalag 17 and Asylum, first released by the Warzone Collective. Side B includes tracks from a later session, featuring Toxic Waste’s Roy Wallace alongside members of DIRT, a London-based anarcho-punk band. There are sonic consistencies that render the sounds on both sides comparable, most notably the dual male and female vocals, though on Side A, founding member Patsy sings, and on Side B, you hear Deno from DIRT. For both line-ups, the influence of Crass is palpable, in the interplay of the voices and the relative simplicity of the songs’ constructions — and legend has it that Toxic Waste was created in the aftermath of a 1982 Crass gig in Belfast.

You can draw a fairly direct line from Stations of the Crass (1979) to We Will Be Free to Nausea’s Extinction, from “You’ve Got Big Hands” to “As More Die” to “Godless.” That sort of genealogy building is informative and interesting, but the importance of the immediate social context of Toxic Waste’s music should not be reduced. The situation of anarcho-punks in a politically fraught conjuncture like mid-1980s Belfast lends the music a particular power. Songs like “Tug of War,” “Burn Your Flags” and “Religious Leaders” demonstrate the band’s continual symbolic and ideological displacements, to a marginal in-betweenness, then to a radically placeless outside. As anarchists, the punks in Toxic Waste weren’t Catholics or Protestants, Fenians or Loyalists, natives of Sydenham or of New Lodge. Their relations to Northern Irish identity were infernally complex. There’s this, from “Song for Britain”: “You take a look at Northern Ireland / And think it’s too far away to worry about / But it’s not that far / And you may have to experience what we’ve put up with for years.” That seems like a collective “we,” cutting across the country’s sectarian lines. But in a city so divided, where could that “we” live with any sort of stability? And from whence does the treat in that final clause originate? Then on “We Will Be Free,” you hear, “I am not Irish / I am not British / I am me / I am an individual / Fuck your politics! / Fuck your religion! / I will be free! / We will be free!” Shorn of national, religious and political markers, who is that “We”? Is it the same “we” that speaks in “Song for Britain”?

It’s impossible to say for certain, and all of those contingencies and fluidities make the music on Belfast volatile, always on the move, always riven with restless desire. Perhaps the most coherent statement of the intent driving Toxic Waste can be encountered in “Traditionally Yours” (present on the record in two versions, from the two iterations of the band — a double voicing that further complicates all the other double voicings): “The struggle became a movement / Human rights was its concern / ‘How dare they!’ cried the rich / We’ll see those fuckers burn!” The anarchist language embedded in the passage is as powerful as it is ambiguous. What do we make of the past tense? Does that indicate that the movement is moribund, undone by Northern Ireland’s violence? And what about that “we”? Is it spoken by the song’s lyric speakers, representing the anarcho-punks that sing? Or is that “we” the “rich,” expressing their outrage at and malign plans for the anarchist cause? The syntax remains unresolved, and while Northern Ireland’s worst armed struggles have receded, these songs remain explosive, messages from displaced people that systems of oppression would like to exploit, exhaust and cast aside. But even the most institutionally entrenched powers find that Toxic Waste isn’t so easy to dispose of.

Jonathan Shaw

#toxic waste #belfast #sealed records #jonathan shaw #albumreview #dusted magazine #punk #anarcho punk #ireland

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arcticdementor · 3 years

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Today the richest 40 Americans have more wealth than the poorest 185 million Americans. The leading 100 landowners now own 40 million acres of American land, an area the size of New England. There has been a vast increase in American inequality since the mid-20th century, and Europe — though some way behind — is on a similar course.

These are among the alarming stats cited by Joel Kotkin’s The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, published earlier this year just as lockdown sped up some of the trends he chronicled: increased tech dominance, rising inequality between rich and poor, not just in wealth but in health, and record levels of loneliness (4,000 Japanese people die alone each week, he cheerfully informs us).

Kotkin is among a handful of thinkers warning about a cluster of related trends, including not just inequality but declining social mobility, rising levels of celibacy and a shrinking arena of political debate controlled by a small number of like-minded people.

The one commonality is that all of these things, along with the polarisation of politics along quasi-religious lines, the decline of nationalism and the role of universities in enforcing orthodoxy, were the norm in pre-modern societies. In our economic structure, our politics, our identity and our sex lives we are moving away from the trends that were common between the first railway and first email. But what if the modern age was the anomaly, and we’re simply returning to life as it has always been?

…

Most of the medieval left-behinds would have worked at home or nearby, the term “commuter” only being coined in the 1840s as going to an office or factory became the norm, a trend that only began to reverse in the 21st century (accelerating sharply this year).

…

Along with income stratification, another pre-modern trend is the decline of social mobility, which almost everywhere is slowing (with the exception of immigrant communities, many of whom come from the middle class back home).

Social mobility in the US has fallen by 20% since the early 1980s, according to Kotkin, and the Californian-based Antonio Garcia Martinez has talked of an informal caste system in the state, with huge wage differences between rich and poor and housing restrictions removing any hope of rising up. California now has among the most dystopian of income inequality, with vast numbers of multimillionaires but also a homeless underclass now suffering from “medieval” diseases.

Unfortunately, where California leads, America and then Europe follows.

…

Patronage has made a comeback, especially among artists, who have largely returned to their pre-modern financial norm: desperate poverty. Whereas musicians and writers have always struggled, the combination of housing costs, reduced government support and the internet has ended what was until then an unappreciated golden age; instead they turn once again to patrons, although today it is digital patronage rather than aristocratic benevolence.

A caste system creates caste interests, and some liken today’s economy to medieval Europe’s tripartite system, in which society was divided between those who pray, those who fight and those who work. Just as the medieval clergy and nobility had a common interest in the system set against the laborers, so it is today, with what Thomas Piketty calls the Merchant Right and Brahmin Left — two sections of the elite with different worldviews but a common interest in the liberal order, and a common fear of the third estate.

…

Tech is by nature anti-egalitarian, creating natural monopolies that wield vastly more power than any of the great industrial barons of the modern age, and have cultural power far greater than newspapers of the past, closer to that of the Church in Kotkin’s view; their algorithms and search engines shape our worldview and our thoughts, and they can, and do, censor people with heretical views.

Rising inequality and stratification is linked to the decline of modern sexual habits. The nuclear family is something of a western oddity, developing as a result of Catholic Church marriage laws and reaching its zenith in the 19th and 20th centuries with the Victorian cult of family and mid-20th century “hi honey I’m home” Americana. Today, however, the nuclear household is in decline, with 32 million American adults living with their parents or grandparents, a growing trend in pretty much all western countries except Scandinavia (which may partly explain the region’s relative success with Covid-19).

This is a return to the norm, as with the rise of the involuntarily celibate. Celibacy was common in medieval Europe, where between 15-25% of men and women would have joined holy orders. In the early modern period, with rising incomes and Protestantism, celibacy rates plunged but they have now returned to the medieval level.

The first estate of this neo-feudal age is centred on academia, which has likewise returned to its pre-modern norm. At the time of the 1968 student protests university faculty in both the US and Britain slightly leaned left, as one would expect of the profession. By the time of Donald Trump’s election many university departments had Democrat: Republican ratios of 20, 50 or even 100:1. Some had no conservative academics, or none prepared to admit it. Similar trends are found in Britain.

Around 900 years ago Oxford evolved out of communities of monks and priests; for centuries it was run by “clerics”, although that word had a slightly wider meaning, and such was the legacy that the celibacy rule was not fully dropped until 1882.

This was only a decade after non-Anglicans were allowed to take degrees for the first time, Communion having been a condition until then. A similar pattern existed in the United States, where each university was associated with a different church: Yale and Harvard with the Congregationalists, Princeton with Presbyterians, Columbia with Episcopalians. The increasingly narrow focus on what can be taught at these institutions is not new.

Similarly, politics has returned to its pre-modern role of religion. The internet has often been compared to the printing press, and when printing was introduced it didn’t lead to a world of contemplative philosophy; books of high-minded inquiry were vastly outsold by tracts about evil witches and heretics.

The word “medieval” is almost always pejorative but the post-printing early modern period was the golden age of religious hatred and torture; the major witch hunts occurred in an age of rising literacy, because what people wanted to read about was a lot of the time complete garbage. Likewise, with the internet, and in particular the iPhone, which has unleashed the fires of faith again, helping spread half-truths and creating a new caste of firebrand preachers (or, as they used to be called, journalists).

…

English politics from the 16th to the 19th century was “a branch of theology” in Robert Tombs’s words; Anglicans and rural landowners formed the Conservative Party, and Nonconformists and the merchant elite the core of the Liberal Party. It was only with industrialisation that political focus turned to class and economics, but the identity-based conflict between Conservatives and Labour in the 2020s seems closer to the division of Tories and Whigs than to the political split of 50 years ago; it’s about worldview and identity rather than economic status.

Post-modern politics have also shaped pre-modern attitudes to class. In medieval society the poor were despised, and numerous words stem from names for the lower orders, among them ignoble, churlish, villain and boor (in contrast “generous” comes from generosus, and “gentle” from gentilis, terms for the aristocracy). Medieval poems and fables depict peasant as credulous, greedy and insolent — and when they get punched, as they inevitably do, they deserve it.

Compare this to the evolution of comedy in the post-industrial west, where the butt of the joke is the rube from the small town, laughed at for being out of touch with modern political sensibilities. The most recent Borat film epitomises this form of modern comedy that, while meticulously avoiding any offence towards the sacred ideas of the elite, relentlessly humiliates the churls.

The third estate are mocked for still clinging to that other outmoded modern idea, the nation-state. Nation-states rose with the technology of the modern day — printing, the telegraph and railways — and they have been undone by the technology of the post-modern era. A liberal in England now has more in common with a liberal in Germany than with his conservative neighbour, in a way that was not possible before the internet.

Nations were semi-imagined communities, and what follows is a return to the norm — tribalism, on a micro scale, but tribalism nonetheless, whether along racial, religious or most likely political-sectarian tribes. Indeed, in some ways we’re seeing a return to empire.

…

The middle-class age meant the triumph of bourgeoise values and the decline of the middle class has led to their downfall, widely despised and mocked by believers in the higher-status bohemian attitudes. Now the age of the average man is over, and the age of the global aristocrat has arrived.

#ed west #unherd

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thebabushka · 3 years

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Thanksgiving

The first "thanksgiving" happened in October of 1621, but the constructed history and significance of that event has been over 500 years in the making. When I was a child I liked Thanksgiving because it meant family time. When I became a man I felt angered and betrayed by the truth of the holiday. Now, as a father, I see Thanksgiving as a teachable moment - a chance to properly frame the history of the day while still enjoying time with my two boys, my wife, and my family. Holidays are a wonderful chance to remember where we come from, what is important to us, and how we got where we are. Mark Twain is attributed as saying something to the effect of "history doesn't actually repeat itself, but it often rhymes." Thanksgiving gives us a lot of opportunity to reflect on this.

In order to better understand the first Thanksgiving, we start nearly 100 years earlier in the 1530s. The King of England, Henry VIII, wanted to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (she was the first of what would end up being six wives), but the Pope wouldn't allow it. So the King declared that the Pope was no longer the head of the church. This set England on a path that renounced Catholicism in favor of the Church of England as the ultimate religious authority, and set the King as the head of that Church. 100 years later, it was not acceptable in England to be any sort of Christian other than as part of the Church of England.

The King of England was a powerful man who may have usurped a religion to get what he wanted. The religious intolerance of England back then echoes to recent times as strife between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. And while today England is full of people who are allowed to practice other religions, it is interesting that in 1620 the pilgrims to America were the "wrong kind" of Christian to be in England. (Perhaps there will always be "wrong kinds" and "others" in our society, and perhaps the test of our virtue isn't in the certainty of our beliefs, but in our tolerance for alternatives.)

Intolerance was a problem for the group of Christians who would become the Pilgrims, and that intolerance ran both ways. They wanted to be separate from the Church of England, and to worship in their own way. But such dissent would not be tolerated and they were persecuted. So they fled England and moved to Holland where there was some acceptance for differences in religion. However, these separatists didn't like their children learning dutch and adopting dutch culture. They found it hard to integrate with Dutch society while retaining strict adherence to their own specific religious and cultural doctrine. So the decided they needed to move again.

The Separatists were immigrants in Holland, but without the willingness to integrate they could not make Holland their home. They themselves were intolerant of their new host country. England wouldn't tolerate them. They wouldn't accept Holland. And they refused to change themselves. Their self-imposed isolation led them to the idea that they could be left alone in America, and land with no King, to do as they pleased... and they intended to establish a new society based on their specific and strict religious and cultural beliefs.

So they worked out a deal with England (and I am simplifying this a bit). England would give them passage to America, where they would prosper and work off the debt for this passage by sending surplus back to England, to the profit of the investors. Because of this, the Pilgrims weren't the only people on the Mayflower. With them were indentured servants they forced to come along, and some "company men" who were responsible for seeing to the financial success of the colony. In their journals, the pilgrims referred to these people, with whom they would have to live and work, as "the strangers".

So the forces that brought the pilgrims to America were both religious and financial. Here was a group of people divided between those seeking to create and spread their idea of a religious haven, and those who wanted to make money.

Fortunately the obvious conflict came to a head early, and before they stepped off the boat to start their new colony they wrote and signed the Mayflower Compact, which established a secular government for the colony. The leadership for the colony would not rest in religion, but would be shared by all. Well... not all... 41 men signed, out of the 101 total passengers on the ship. Women, indentured servants, and children were not given authority to participate in the compact and did not sign it.

But this story isn't just about Pilgrims, it's also about the New World: America, and the people who already inhabited it. While it's likely Norse sailors (specifically Leif Ericson around 1003) were the first Europeans to North America, Christopher Columbus is the most well known. Ponce de Leon was the first to reach what would become the United States. These explorers and those that followed brought with them horrible epidemics of disease, for which the native population had no defenses. Not only were their immune systems unprepared for the new diseases, they had no experience or medicine for treating these new illnesses. There is no conclusive estimate of the population of Native Americans living in what would become the United States before European explorers arrived, but credible attempts have estimated a population as low as 2 million, and as high as 18 million. Similarly, we can't know how many died to disease, but we do know that whole villages disappeared after the arrival of the Europeans. And we know that by 1900 there were only about 250,000 Native Americans left. Which means that 400 years after Europeans arrived, the population of Native Americans was reduced by somewhere between 90 and 99%, with some tribes disappearing entirely.

When the first settlers started to arrive, they weren't coming to an empty continent. They were coming to a place where people had been living for thousands of years. They had trails, and traded with one another. They had separate and distinct cultures and languages. They had specialized skill sets and industries. But now they were all being devastated by unrelenting waves of epidemic disease and war brought by visitor after visitor looking to exploit the resources of the new world. Those that survived smallpox were still vulnerable to measles, and plague, and new variants of influenza. Imagine wave after wave of disease killing half or more of the population over and again. Those who didn't die still got sick. Who gathered the food? Who tended to the ill? It was devastating to the people, and their cultures. Their infrastructure crumbled, their population reduced, and their way of life was decimated. The effect of such devastation to the psyche of a people is beyond imagining.

And so it was when the Mayflower arrived 130 years after the first explorers. On their first two expeditions ashore the pilgrims found graves, from which they stole household goods and corn - which they would plant in the spring. On their third expedition they encountered natives, and ended up shooting back and forth at each other (bows versus muskets). The Pilgrims decided they didn't want to settle in this area, as they had likely offended the locals with their grave robbing and shootout, so they sailed a few days away. They found cleared land in an easily defended area and began their settlement. This fantastic location was no happy accident. Just three years previous this place was called Patuxet, now abandoned after a plague killed all of its residents. The Pilgrims will say they they founded Plymouth, but it might be more accurate to say they resettled Patuxet.

By the time the Pilgrims found Patuxet it was late December, and they huddled in their ship barely surviving the brutal, hungry first winter. By march only 47 souls survived, though 102 had left port 6 months before.

There were, roughly, three different groups of local Natives. They had been watching the pilgrims carefully all winter, just as the pilgrims had been watching them. In the days before there had been frightening encounters between pilgrims and natives, and the pilgrims were rushing to install a cannon in their emerging fortification. They were on high alert, and expecting confrontation. Given the history, mutual fear, and mistrust, a violent encounter between the two groups seemed imminent and unavoidable.

The story many of us were told is that Squanto and a group of Indians approached the pilgrims, as if neither had ever seen the other before, and in greeting Squanto raised his hand and said, "How". The actual truth is that a visiting chief named Samoset strode, alone, into the middle of the budding and militarizing pilgrim town and said, "Welcome Englishman." And then he asked for a beer. (Truth.) It turns out Samoset was visiting local Wampanoag chieftain Massasoit, and he spoke some broken English, which he had learned from the English fishermen near his home. He took it upon himself to open negotiations with the new settlers. He told them about the local tribes, and brokered an introduction to Chief Massasoit, with whom the pilgrims ultimately signed a treaty.

Along with the treaty came Squanto, a Native American originally from the now defunct Patuxet tribe. Squanto was invaluable to the Pilgrims. Not only could he act as a translator, but he also knew the local tribes and the area itself. It was where he grew up. He knew what food was available, what crops to plant and how, and he knew not only the language but the disposition and history of local tribes. Speaking with the locals isn't enough if you can't discern their desires and motives. Squanto was a great friend to the English Pilgrims, and acted in their interests, sometimes to his own peril.

How did Squanto learn English language and culture? Squanto had been kidnapped by the English captain Thomas Hunt in 1614. Hunt abducted 27 natives, Squanto among them, which he sold as slaves in Spain for a small sum. These hostilities, just years before the arrival of the Pilgrims, are the reason for the initial animosity and aggression toward the English Pilgrims when they arrived, and why the natives were wise enough to attack the English, even if their bows were not a match for English muskets. Exactly how Squanto survived in the old world, or how he got from Spain to England, is unclear. It is known that a few years after his abduction, Squanto was "working" (likely as an indentured servant) for Thomas Dermer of the London Company. Dermer brought Squanto back to the location of the Patuxet village in 1619 as part of a trade and scouting venture, but the village had been wiped out by disease. After acting as translator and negotiator for Dermer on that trip, the now homeless Squanto stayed in America and went to live with Pokanoket tribe. The terms of this arrangement are not clear. It is possible Squanto was a prisoner of the Pokanoket, and that he was "given" in a trade that allowed the Dermer to exit a dangerous situation. Regardless, Squanto chose to live out the rest of his life with the Pilgrims in his childhood home of Patuxet, now renamed Plymouth by the (re-)colonizing English Pilgrims. Whatever the exact details, Squanto was one of the most traveled men in the area - having been born in America and spending time in Spain, England, and Newfoundland.

Squanto's time with the pilgrims appears full of adventures. He was sent as an emissary for peace and trade on behalf of the pilgrims to numerous tribes. It also appears he leveraged his influence among the Europeans to make some of his own demands from these tribes, which drew the ire of many local tribal leaders. Chief Massasoit even called for Squanto's execution. When William Bradford (Plymoth's Governor) diplomatically refused, Massasoit sent a delegation to retrieve Squanto from the Pilgrims. Again Bradford refused, even when offered a cache of beaver pelts in exchange for Squanto, with Bradford saying, "It was not the manner of the English to sell men's lives at a price”. Squanto was very valuable to the Plymoth colony, but he died in 1622 of "Indian fever".

In October (most likely) of 1621 the Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest. The was indeed a harvest feast attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. Both groups brought food and games to the three day celebration. But this was not the start of the Thanksgiving holiday in America. It was a harvest festival, and harvest was common ground that both cultures celebrated. The American holiday of Thanksgiving was first celebrated as such when George Washington and John Adams declared days of thanksgiving during their presidencies. This was followed by a long period where subsequent Presidents did not declare such events. A writer and editor named Sarah Hale, most famous for penning "Mary Had a Little Lamb", began to champion the idea of a national "Thanksgiving" holiday in a 17 year campaign of newspaper editorials and personal letters written to five different Presidents. Perhaps because of her insistence and the popularity she garnered for the idea, Abraham Lincoln revived Thanksgiving as a unified national holiday in 1863. A few years later Congress enshrined it as a national celebration on the 4th Thursday of November.

And this is my Thanksgiving. It's not the simpleton's story of an awkward greeting followed by a good meal. It's the story of a King who wanted a divorce, religious self-righteousness, the greed of men, a clash of cultures, a struggle for survival, loyalty and betrayal, the creation of a national holiday intended to help mend a nation torn apart by civil war, and the myths we created to tie us all together. As always, truth is a much more engaging and explanatory than a politely shared fiction.

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Da Vinci Code: A Better, Smarter Blockbuster Than You Remember

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I didn’t get it. When Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code took the world by storm in 2006, I was far from being a professional critic, but I could still be highly critical of something like this. It was an adaptation of the biggest literary phenomenon of the decade not starring Harry Potter, and it was arriving in cinemas with the kind of media frenzy usually reserved for Star Wars. All the while, its rollout suggested it had aspirations to be an awards contender. How could something that high-handed live up to that kind of hype?

As a splashy Hollywood version of Dan Brown’s most popular potboiler, The Da Vinci Code premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May and was the subject of countless faux-examinations about early Christianity on the cable news circuit—as well as the object of ire for some modern Christians’ growing need for perpetual outrage. Protests occurred at theaters throughout the U.S., while other international markets banned it outright. And all of that cacophonous noise was over… a pretty middle-of-the-road adventure movie. One that features Tom Hanks earnestly looking into the camera to declare “I need to get to a library!” as the music swells. Really?!

So, yes, I missed the appeal. And judging by the infamous catcalls the movie received at Cannes, which were followed by a tepid critical drubbing in the international press, I wasn’t alone in thinking the movie amounted to a lot of overinflated hoopla.

But a funny thing happened when I sat down to watch it on Netflix the other day, about 15 years after its release: I realized what a big goofy delight the movie could be with the right mindset, and what I as a teenager—and so much of the contemporary film press during its time—missed out on.

To be sure, The Da Vinci Code is still a ludicrous story that both benefited from and was weighed down by the sensationalism of its conceit. Written on the page by Brown like any other airplane-ready page-turner, with nearly each short chapter ending to the implicit musical sting of “dun-dun-DUN!,” the book is a pleasantly conceived time-filler. It’s about secret societies, dastardly supervillains, and a matinee idol for the academia set named Robert Langdon. Essentially Indiana Jones if Harrison Ford never took off the tweed jacket, Langdon is an expert in the real world field of art history and the fictional one of symbology, and his monologues give the proceedings a nice bit of pseudo-intellectual window-dressing. It’s all no more challenging to the viewer (or their storyteller) than the background details provided by M in James Bond flicks.

This formula turned Brown’s first Robert Langdon novel, Angels & Demons, into a literary hit, but what made The Da Vinci Code an international phenomenon—and thereby grabbed Hollywood’s attention—was the kernel of a brilliantly explosive idea: What if the MacGuffin in the next story wasn’t some abstract relic from antiquity but something that would challenge our very idea of Christianity today? What if the story of the “Grail Quest” turned out to be evidence that Jesus Christ was married? And what if Christ had children by that marriage?

And, finally, what if the evil “Illuminati” baddies here were an offshoot of the Catholic Church wanting to cover it all up?

Brown derived this twist from the research of Lynnn Picknett and Clive Prince in The Templar Revelation, a highly speculative text which posits the relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene has been downplayed for millennia by the Catholic Church, beginning with the Council of Nicaea—the ecumenical Roman council in 325 C.E. that essentially decided which early Christian texts would comprise the New Testament and which would not—and continued through Leonardo da Vinci secretly placing Mary Magdalene in his “The Last Supper” mural by putting her at the right hand of Christ. In an era with a growing interest in conspiracy theories, this one was the mother lode.

Brown took these fringe theological ideas and gave them an erudite sheen in The Da Vinci Code while still essentially writing a piece of fluff. It’s an international escapade where the MacGuffin is the most interesting element.

This made for an addictive beach read, but in Howard and Sony Pictures’ pricey movie adaptation, the pretenses were heightened to operatic levels. Consider the way Howard and cinematographer Salvatore Totino bask in the oppressive shadows entombing the frame whenever Paul Bettany’s murderous Brother Silas appears on screen. As a homicidal albino monk, Silas wouldn’t look out of place battling Roger Moore over nuclear codes. But Howard’s film plays it completely straight by coveting each shot of Silas’ self-mutilations and prayers, and by suggesting the character has something profound to say about the zealotry of religion (or perhaps just the Catholic sect of Opus Dei).

Similarly, Hans Zimmer writes a lush ecclestial score throughout the film, seeming to imply this is some mighty exploration of religion, and a study in the conflict between faith and skepticism. After all, the doubting Langdon is forced to revisit his Catholic School youth when he discovers his new friend is the direct descendent of Jesus Christ.

That all these elements ultimately act as scaffolding for a popcorn movie in which adults can indulge in entertaining a little heresy, or at least give lip service to religious introspection while also cheering the car chases and convoluted plot twists, turned off plenty of critics. Yet it’s fair to now wonder if such middlebrow pleasures simply went over some heads?

As a film, The Da Vinci Code is a lot more basic than its presentation suggests. Nevertheless, there is an intriguing premise at its heart that made it an international watercooler discussion in the first place, and the perfect culture war lightning rod of the Bush years.

While I wish Brown did more with the megaton-potential of his setup, he nevertheless provided an unusually brainy foundation for his potboiler. One in which subjects like medieval history, early Christian theology, and the treasures of the Louvre were put front in center in pop culture, as opposed to superheroes and space wizards.

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It’s still a frustration that The Da Vinci Code and its sequels abandoned his pearl of a MacGuffin right when its intrigue was at its highest. Genuinely, what would you do if you discovered you’re the last living descendent of Christ and can change the world religions with a single DNA test? Even so, rather than relying on ultimately meaningless plot devices like magical space stones, or cursed pirate treasure, Brown’s story caused audiences to examine the foundations of their world, and the origins of the tenets that might guide their lives.

Whether or not the Templar Order really found the remains of Mary Magdalene and realized she was the bride of Christ, the origins of what is and is not Christianity, or Christlike, being decided by a bunch of acrimonious bishops at Nicaea challenges viewers to more seriously interrogate what they accept as handed down gospel. And the millennia-long persecution of women touched upon in The Da Vinci Code ferrets out the enduring realities of modern gender dynamics, even if Brown and Howard tack a wacky and amusing conspiracy theory on top of it.

The Da Vinci Code is popcorn soaked in bombastic media hype, but it still leaves you with more to digest than the type of mainstream blockbuster spectacles that have replaced it in the last 15 years—often while receiving far less rigorous criticism from the modern film press.

Consider how in the pivotal scene on which The Da Vinci Code turns, Ian McKellen makes a meal out of the reams of exposition he’s handed. It’s left to McKellen’s mischievous smile to sell and explain the vast historical background that informs the film’s thesis. In most modern blockbusters, these scenes have been reduced to the perfunctory—bare bone obligations that must be met as quickly and unexceptionally as possible. But the narrative mystique that occurs when such exposition is handled with awe is at the very heart of The Da Vinci Code, and the movie sparks to life within the twinkle of McKellen’s eye.

“She was no such thing,” McKellen’s Sir Leigh Teabing bellows when the misconception of Mary Magdalene being a prostitute is mentioned. “Smeared by the Church in 591 Anno Domini, the poor dear. Magdalene was Jesus’ wife.” The anger in McKellen’s voice perhaps betrays an all too personal knowledge of the mistruths spread in the name of religious orthodoxy. And when he asks other characters to “imagine then that Christ’s throne might live on in a female child,” audiences are likewise invited to conspire–dreaming of the potential real world implications of an otherwise wild fantasy.

It may not be great art or history, but The Da Vinci Code uses both to offer a great time—or at least a pretty good one where Paul Bettany is depicting obsession with God instead of cosmic cubes. And 15 years later, after its era of star-led spectacles has passed, the picture still works as a blockbuster meant to entertain adults with at least a passing interest in issues more mature than what they used to talk about on playgrounds. Given the state of modern Hollywood tentpoles, that sounds blasphemous, indeed.

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roguelike-theory-blog · 6 years

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Pure waste of bandwidth

A few Girard-inspired, mathematical-theological stories for my friends.

Voting for itself. Girard dismisses the Hilbert’s programme, comparing the attempt to prove mathematics using mathematics to “the parliament voting for itself”. It is a correct comparison, yet its value as a criticism is ambiguous. As a french logician, Girard might actually know that the French Republic – and arguably the modern politics – has actually been founded with the parliament voting for itself. In 1789, the new-founded National Assembly of France was concerned with the question, whether it actually does represent the general will? This question was resolved affirmatively by the notorious Abbé Sieyès, who took the structure of his argument from the catholic thinker Nicolas Malebranche.

Malebranche was concerned with proving prothestants wrong, as catholics usually are. The problem was, whether the Catholic Church, that is, its body of cardinals was the one, unique representation (in the yet religious sense, from which we will later found the legal concept of representation) of God on Earth – as opposed to the possibility of the multiple, partial, conflicting representations of his will favored by the protestants. His thought experiment was simple: “Say we gather all of the cardinals together and let them take a vote, whether they, together, do or do not represent the god’s will. The ones who say ‘no’ are obviously not real cardinals: you can’t be a cardinal if you don’t believe in the institution. So everyone who is a real cardial will say ‘yes’, thus determining by unanimous vote that the Catholic Church is indeed the one and unique representant of God”.

Now let us postpone the matter of the obvious begging-the-question; let us also not indulge for now in the beautiful ways with which Malebranche tries to fix it; let’s focus on how this argument is still at work in our very lives. Abbé Sieyès used this very same argument to prove that the Assembly is the real representative: if your particular will is against it, you’re just not of the Republic and your will doesn’t count. The whole seeming ridiculousness of the argument pales in comparison with its incredible effectiveness: the modern politics was born with all its representative-democratic weirdness. There’re likely philosophical ways to ground this idea onto something more fundamental, yet the notoriousness of such an ouroboric event is clear, and the break that happened here is on the level of a new self-supporting thought from which, however, the ‘real things’ are being created on a daily basis.

Can’t we say that Hilbert’s programme is the same type of event, just imposed kind of retrospectively onto the history of mathematics? The mathematics voting for itself, let the naysayers be damned into luddistic hell? In this case we can go on living with its theological form while embracing the fruitful mathematical content it gave us. And then our next move, the move of the ones who dares to respect and use mathematics without believing in it, should obviously be to look for the heretics and the heretical thoughts. We should not be content with those who just dismisses mathematics altogether (the boring, impotent atheists) – the real heretic is the one who is of the mathematical practice, but questions its belief structure. How do you call the hagiography but about heretics? Heretography?

Hysterizing the computer. Now one of those heretics is Brouwer, whose whole project was about questioning the givenness of the a priori. Insane idea, completely against Kant, of course, as it questions the very distinction between thinking and praxis. A priori as something completely given assumes some kind of a collapse of the process of thinking in time, with all of the theorems already there somewhere, indeed nothing more than Anselm’s ontological argument, but about mathematics. Brouwer scouted this a priori and found his own fixed point theorem, which states that there’s something that exists but can’t be found. Now that’s unsettling for Brouwer who is, by the way, of a Schopenhauer’s persuasion. To question the whole thing, Brouwer looks for the most extreme point of this a priori givenness, and it’s nothing else but the law of the excluded-middle: it’s only there if you can always do the anselmnian jump to the farthest conclusion. Brouwer slows down this seemingly instantaneous jump by denying it, inventing the intuitionistic logic, and actually somehow manages to get pretty far with it, reformulating even a part of topology in this new light. However this heresy was not approved by his holiness Hilbert, already too influential on the continent – isolated Brouwer loses his mind and dies, never seeing any hope of his work being useful.

A different development was up at the same, however, concerned a piece of metal to be called computer. There were a few of those machines already, and it was obvious that there’s going to be more. On the other hand, it didn’t actually take very long for people to notice how incredibly useful the intuitionistic logic was for this machine: much more than the ‘classical one’. The computer became the redeeming object of Brouwer’s logic – he never saw one, never even thought of one, yet turned out to provide the most important concept for its study. The depth of Brouwer’s premature contribution to Computer Science is beyond the wariness of tertium non datur: his work predicted the notorious problems with the floating-point numbers, and his topology turned out to be a weird tool to study computable functions, which is a cross-sub-disciplinary link of strange awesomeness for the easily excitable people like me.

So if we’re desperately looking for any escape from the horrible weight of the Kantian-Hilbertian mathematical theology, shouldn’t we look into the computer? One of the weird things about the computers is how easily we all were persuaded, not so long ago, that everything in the computer is “virtual” (not in the sense in which philosophers use the epithet, but in the sense the marketers use it), that is, not exactly material… Which is nonsense, a structure of disavowal, which has to be thoroughly contradicted on all the levels, starting on the level of primitive processor instructions which, according to the simplest laws of thermodynamics, can’t perform any destructive operation – can’t forget any value of any variable – without wasting some energy, emanating some heat. This kind of thought is as material as it can be.

Right here, right now, I can show you how the materiality of computer affects our everyday life in a very noticeable, annoying fashion. Let us recall that to study the whole population of computers a special concept was invented, ‘the Turing machine’. It was a strange abstraction, seeking to provide an ideal type for those machines, a link between their real bodies and the computable functions which are performed by them. It is used in science, yes, but it is also used too much in the arguments between the adolescent programmers, if you ever dared to talk to them – “C and Lisp are the same thing because of the Turing machine”... But let’s leave them be. Where’s the Turing machine’s fault?

Turing machine is imagined to have an infinite time and an infinite memory space. That’s what we can sometimes believe about our computers. When our computers run out of time – that is, we subjectively feel that they are slow – we’re annoyed and happy to fix it. The existence of the computer as a time-consuming device is obvious and we’re perfectly equipped to notice it; every second it’s slowing down we’re feeling it, I think, already at the level of our bodies; yet there’s no realistic limit to how long a computer can run. What is harder to notice, yet much more objective, is the limit of its memory: the computer runs just happily, using as much memory as it can, until there’s no more memory at all. Then strange things begin to happen.

What does exactly happen when the computer is out of memory? Of course, it can just kill the hungry program: it’s not part of the algorithm’s mathematical abstraction, but at least predictable. Usually, however, stranger things happen. One of the ways the computer pretends to have more memory than it actually does is by “swapping”: using the HDD instead of the RAM to store whatever is to be stored in memory. HDD is 10k times slower than RAM: when it’s used for memory too much, nothing crashes, but everything is suddenly very slow. We hear strange noises. The computer starts misbehaving. Random things crash because of the timing issues brought by the lack of speed.

Now we can allow ourselves to see this “lack of memory” in the aristotelian-lacanian light, as something that is material by being actively opposed to the (mathematical) form, not-reducible to it (if only to escape the attempt to inscribe the whole OS, other programs and the hardware into one big ad hoc mathematical structure making any mathematical study of the algorithms pretty much useless). I say “lacanian”, faithfully to Lacan (his Real was Aristotle’s matter), because this is indeed the very point where the subjectivity of computer in the lacanian sense is obvious: it lacks memory (desire) – it acts out (hysteria). If we consider how hackers use a similar problem, the buffer overflow, to do whatever they want to the computer, the analogy becomes rich enough.

The materiality of the neural network. In 1892, one W. E. Johnson described “symbolic calculus” as “an instrument for economizing the exertion of intelligence” (btw, Johnson is described by Wikipedia as “a famous procrastinator”). Far from enabling new types of intelligence by itself, the thing was to save on the wasted expenditure of the old ones. With this I want to introduce another dimension of the materiality of the computer: the one which I’ll describe from a paranoid-marxist perspective, following the Adorno’s belief in the truth of the exaggerations.

Neural network is an amazing shiny new thing, it economizes our exertion of intelligence all right, yet the weirdest part of it all is that we kinda have no idea how it works. We can describe the output (in our terms which we impose on it), and we can describe the inner structure (it’s all matrix multiplication), but there’s no translation between the output and the inner structure except for the one that is by running the neural network themselves. The neural network’s thinking, in general, lacks the conceptual content we’re so much used to, it doesn’t exactly distinguish the parts of bodies and stuff like that. It operates on a belated, not-yet-conceptual level. We can actually through pain identify some general things that it actually notices on the images and stuff like that, but only partially and constantly recognising that it’s we who’s pulling the vague ideas of the NN to this conceptual level.

To illustrate how the NN works there’s no better example than the notorious network which draws cats upon sketches of cats: http://affinelayer.com/pixsrv/index.html . Try it out, you can do it online. Now, what are the concepts with which the neural network thinks about cats? It’s… well, it knows an eye, but that’s more-or-less it. Everything else is more like a texture of a cat, in a very weird sense of a texture, the one available to us after we discovered the 3D rendering.

So there’s knowledge of things in the NN, yet it’s either not on the human level, or it’s somehow hidden. To explain this, Schopenhauer comes to mind: “an entirely pure and objective picture of things is not reached in the normal mind, because its power of perception at once becomes tired and inactive, as soon as this is not spurred on and set in motion by the will. For it has not enough energy to apprehend the world purely objectively from its own elasticity and without a purpose”. That is to say: NN understands cats exactly as much as it needs to (with the need imposed by its operators, most of the time the Capital), and no more.

Now the paranoid-marxist intervention: what is this lack of knowledge? Who has it? Is it not the proletariat? If we have a training set of thousands of pictures, on which a neural network is trained to recognize dozes of features, those features had to be tagged beforehand by some pure workers (most likely from India, am i right?), who themselves were likely constructed through a cheap-labor marketplace such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (the name familiar from Walter Benjamin), pretending to be machines to create a neural network which pretends to do the human work. Can’t we say, exaggerating, that the neural network is a labyrinth of numbers in which anyone looking for the human [labor] is to lose his track?

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kgstoryteller · 7 years

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A STATEMENT FROM CHRISTIAN ETHICISTS WITHOUT BORDERS ON WHITE SUPREMACY AND RACISM

The following statement was written by over 250 concerned Christian ethicists and theologians, including several Daily Theology members.

For a full and updated list of signatories, please see click here.

A Statement from Christian Ethicists Without Borders on White Supremacy and Racism

August 14, 2017

As followers of Jesus Christ and as Christian ethicists representing a range of denominations and schools of thought, we stand in resolute agreement in firmly condemning racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and neo-Nazi ideology as a sin against God that divides the human family created in God’s image.

In January of 2017, white nationalist groups emboldened by the 2016 election planned an armed march against the Jews of Whitefish, Montana. On August 11th and 12th, hundreds of armed neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. As we mourn the deaths of 32-year old counter-protester Heather Heyer and state troopers H. Jay Cullen and Berke Bates from this most recent incident, we unequivocally denounce racist speech and actions against people of any race, religion, or national origin.

White supremacy and racism deny the dignity of each human being revealed through the Incarnation. The evil of white supremacy and racism must be brought face-to-face before the figure of Jesus Christ, who cannot be confined to any one culture or nationality. Through faith we proclaim that God the Creator is the origin of all human persons. In the words of Frederick Douglass, “Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference.”

The greatest commandments, as Jesus taught and exemplified, are to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves; and so as children of God, and sisters and brothers to all, we hold the following:

We reject racism and anti-Semitism, which are radical evils that Christianity must actively resist.

We reject the sinful white supremacy at the heart of the “Alt Right” movement as Christian heresy.

We reject the idolatrous notion of a national god. God cannot be reduced to “America’s god.”

We reject the “America First” doctrine, which is a pernicious and idolatrous error. It foolishly asks Americans to replace the worship of God with the worship of the nation, poisons both our religious traditions and virtuous American patriotism, and isolates this country from the community of nations. Such nationalism erodes our civic and religious life, and fuels xenophobic and racist attacks against immigrants and religious minorities, including our Jewish and Muslim neighbors.

We confess that all human beings possess God-given dignity and are members of one human family, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or country of origin.

We proclaim that the gospel of Jesus Christ has social and political implications. Those who claim salvation in Jesus Christ, therefore, must publicly name evil, actively resist it, and demonstrate a world of harmony and justice in the midst of racial, religious and indeed all forms of human diversity.

Therefore, we call upon leaders of every Christian denomination, especially pastors, to condemn white supremacy, white nationalism, and racism.

Contemplate and respect the image of God imprinted on each human being.

Work across religious traditions to reflect on the ways we have been complicit in upholding and benefiting from the sins of racism and white supremacy.

Pray for the strength and courage to stand emphatically against racism, white supremacy, and nationalism in all its forms.

Participate in acts of peaceful protest, including rallies, marches, and at times, even civil disobedience. Do not remain passive bystanders in the face of the heresies of racism, white supremacy, and white nationalism.

Engage in political action to oppose structural racism.

We will bring the best of our traditions to an ecclesial and societal examination of conscience where rhetoric and acts of hatred against particular groups can be publicly named as grave sins and injustices.

Finally, as ethicists, we commit—through our teaching, writing, and service—to the ongoing, hard work of building bridges and restoring wholeness where racist and xenophobic ideologies have brought brokenness and pain.

(If you are a Christian ethicist or teach Christian ethics and wish to add your name, please email Tobias Winright at [email protected] or Matthew Tapie at [email protected] or Anna Floerke Scheid at [email protected] or MT Dávila at [email protected] with your name, highest degree, title, and institution. Institutions are named for identification purposes only and this does not necessarily represent their support of this statement, although we hope they do, too.)

For a full updated list of signatories, please click here:

Signed (as of 8/15/17 at 9:PM),

MT Dávila, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Andover Newton Theological School

Anna Floerke Scheid, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Duquesne University

Matthew A. Tapie, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology, Director, Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, Saint Leo University

Tobias Winright, Ph.D., Mäder Endowed Associate Professor of Health Care Ethics and Associate Professor of Theological Ethics, Saint Louis University

Kevin Glauber Ahern, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Peace Studies, Manhattan College

Ilsup Ahn, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, North Park University

Andy Alexis-Baker, Ph.D., Lecturer in Theology, Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago

Mark J. Allman, Ph.D., Professor of Religious and Theological Studies, Merrimack College

Barbara Hilkert Andolsen, Ph.D., Professor of Christian Ethics, Fordham University

Matthew Ashley, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Notre Dame

Christina A. Astorga, Ph.D., Professor of Theology and Department Chair, University of Portland

Lauren Murphy Baker, MA, Ph.D. Candidate and Teaching Assistant, Alber Gnaegi Center for Healthcare Ethics, St. Louis University

James P. Bailey, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Duquesne University

Justin Barringer, Ph.D. Student in Religious Ethics, Southern Methodist University

Jana Marguerite Bennett, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theological Ethics, University of Dayton

Gerald Beyer, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Villanova University

Sr. Mary Kate Birge, SSJ, PhD, Fr. Forker Chair of Catholic Social Teaching, Mount St. Mary’s University

Jeffrey Bishop, M.D., Ph.D., Tenet Endowed Chair of Health Care Ethics and Professor of Philosophy, Saint Louis University

Nathaniel Blanton Hibner, , MTS, Ph.D., Candidate, St. Louis University

Kent Blevins, Ph.D. Professor of Religion, Gardner-Webb University

Elizabeth Block, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics, Saint Louis University

Elizabeth M. Bounds, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Candler School of Theology and Graduate Division of Religion

Luke Bretherton, Ph.D., Professor of Theological Ethics & Senior Fellow, Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University

James T. Bretzke SJ, Professor of Moral Theology, Boston College School of Theology & Ministry

Mikael Broadway, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics, Shaw University Divinity School

Shaun C. Brown, Ph.D. Candidate in Theological Studies, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

Sarah Morice Brubaker, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology, Phillips Theological Seminary

Scott Bullard, Ph.D., Senior Vice-President and Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Judson College

Bradley B. Burroughs, Ph.D., Fully Affiliated Faculty in Ethics and Theology, United Theological Seminary

Stina Busman Jost, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics, Bethel University

Ken Butigan, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer – Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies; Affiliate Faculty – Catholic Studies, DePaul University

Jonathan Cahill, Ph.D. Candidate – Theological Ethics, Boston College

Lisa Sowle Cahill, Ph.D., Monan Professor of Theology, Boston College

Charles Camosy, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theological and Social Ethics, Fordham University

Lee Camp, Ph.D, Professor of Theology and Ethic, Lipscomb University

Victor Carmona, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Diego

Kevin Carnahan, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Central Methodist University

Colleen Mary Carpenter, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Theology; Carondelet Scholar, Saint Catherine University

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carter, Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego, Commissioned Elder of the United Methodist Church

Shaun Casey, Th.D., Professor of the Practice of Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; Director – Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University; former Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Hoon Choi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Bellarmine University

Ki Joo (KC) Choi, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Seton Hall University

Drew Christiansen, S. J., Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Global Human Development, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs

Dolores Christie, Ph.D., Catholic Theological Society of America – Executive Director (Retired)

David Clairmont, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Comparative Religious Ethics, University of Notre Dame

Meghan Clark, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Moral Theology, St. John’s University

Forest Clingerman, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Ohio Northern University

David Cloutier, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, The Catholic University of America

Elizabeth Agnew Cochran, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Duquesne University

Dan Cosacchi, Ph.D, Canisius Fellow and Lecturer of Religious Studies, Fairfield University

Richard D. Crane, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Messiah College

John Crowley-Buck, Ph.D., Adjunct Instructor; Loyola University Chicago

Paul G. Crowley, SJ, Jesuit Community Professor of Theology, Santa Clara University; Fellow – Markkula Center for Applied Ethics; Editor Theological Studies

Jeremy V. Cruz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, St. John’s University

Lorraine V. Cuddeback, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Teacher Scholar, University of Notre Dame

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Loyola University Chicago

Charles E. Curran, Ph.D., Elizabeth Scurlock University Chair of Human Values, Department of Religious Studies, Southern Methodist University

Shawnee M. Daniels-Sykes, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics, Mount Mary University

Kery Day, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religion, Princeton Theological Seminary

David DeCosse, Ph.D., Director of Campus Ethics Programs, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University

Rev Dr Miguel A De La Torre, Ph.D., Iliff School of Theology

Teresa Delgado, Ph.D., Director – Peace and Justice Studies, Associate Professor and Chair, Religious Studies Department, Iona College

Daniel DiLeo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor and Director – Justice and Peace Studies Program, Creighton University

Dana Dillon, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology, Providence College

Christopher Dowdy, Ph.D., Chief of Staff, Paul Quinn College

Jason T. Eberl, Ph.D., Semler Endowed Chair for Medical Ethics and Professor of Philosophy, Marian University

John P. Edwards, Ph.D.; Director, Center for Pastoral Ministry Education and Adjunct Professor, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, Villanova University

Stephanie Edwards, Ph.D. Candidate, Boston College Department of Theology

Rick Elgendy, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology, Wesley Theological Seminary

Joseph Fahey Ph.D., Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice

Margaret Farley, Ph.D., Gilbert L. Stark Emerita Professor of Christian Ethics, Yale University Divinity School

Daniel Finn, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict

John J. Fitzgerald, J.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, St. John’s University

Nichole Flores, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia

Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt University

Curtis W. Freeman, Ph.D., Research Professor of Theology and Director of the Baptist House of Studies, Duke University Divinity School

Jason Fout, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Anglican Theology, Bexley Seabury Seminary Association

Lisa Fullam, Th.D., Associate Professor of Moral Theology, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

Richard Gaillardetz, Ph.D., Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology, Boston College

Mark Gammon, Ph.D., Associate Dean and Matthew Simpson Professor of Religion, Simpson College

Peter Gathje, Ph.D., Vice-President for Academic Affairs/Dean and Professor of Christian Ethics, Memphis Theological Seminary

William George, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Dominican University

Joseph K. Gordon, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology, Johnson University

Michael Granzen, Ph.D., Affiliate Professor of Christian Ethics, New Brunswick Theological Seminary

Rev. Rachel E. Greene, M.Phil, D.Phil. Candidate and Supervisor, Cambridge University

Paul J. Greene, PhD, Assistant Professor of Theology, St. Catherine University, MN

Katie Grimes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, Villanova University

Rev. Dr. David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University, President, Society of Christian Ethics

Leo Guardado, Ph.D. Candidate, Theology and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

Karen V. Guth, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross

Hille Haker, Ph.D., Richard McCormick, S.J. Endowed Chair of Catholic Moral Theology, Loyola University Chicago

Lori Brandt Hale, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religion, Ausburg University

Steven R. Harmon, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity, Boiling Springs, North Carolina

Melanie Harris, Ph.D., Professor of Religion, Texas Christian University

Timothy Harvie, Ph.D., LicDD, Associate Professor in Philosophy and Ethics, St. Mary’s University

Barry Harvey, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Baylor University

Jennifer Harvey, Ph.D., Professor of Religion, Drake University

Derek C. Hatch, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Studies, Howard Payne University

Stanley Hauerwas, Ph.D., Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Emeritus, Duke University

Kristin Heyer, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Boston College

John Mark Hicks, Professor of Theology, Lipscomb University.

Mary E. Hines, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Emmanuel College

Mary Ann Hinsdale, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Boston College

Waymon R. Hinson, Ph.D., Psychologist/Marriage and Family Therapist; Former Faculty Abilene Christian University

Bradford Hinze, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Fordham University

Christine Firer Hinze, Ph.D., Professor of Theological and Social Ethics, Fordham University

Ward Holder, Ph.D.. Professor of Theology, St. Anselm College

Fr. David Hollenbach, SJ, Ph.D., Pedro Arrupe Distinguished Professor, Walsh School of Foreign Service and Senior Fellow, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, Georgetown University

Kendra G. Hotz, Ph.D., Robert R. Waller Chair of Population Health And Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Rhodes College

Fr. James E. Hug, SJ, Adrian Dominican Sisters

Michael J. Iafrate, Ph.D. (Cand.), University of St. Michael’s College; Co-Coordinator, Catholic Committee of Appalachia

Mary Jo Iozzio, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College

Marinus Chijioke Iwuchukwu, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Theology, Duquesne University

Kate Jackson-Meyer, Ph.D. Candidate, Theological Ethics, Boston College

Michael Jaycox, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics, Seattle University

Kelly Johnson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Dayton

Laurie Johnston, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Emmanuel College

Christopher D. Jones, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, Barry University

Peter L. Jones, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Institute for Pastoral Studies, Loyola University Chicago

Cameron Jorgenson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics, Campbell University Divinity School

Grace Yia-Hei Kao, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Ethics, Claremont School of Theology

James Keenan, SJ, Canisius Professor, Director of The Jesuit Institute, Boston College

Conor M. Kelly, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, Marquette University

Thomas M. Kelly, Ph.D., Director, Academic Service-Learning, Professor of Theology, Creighton University

Michael Kessler, J.D.,Ph.D., Associate Professor of the Practice, Moral and Political Theory, Department of Government, Georgetown University; Managing Director – Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs; Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

John Kiess, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Loyola University Maryland

Jason King, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Saint Vincent College

Jaime Konerman-Sease, BA, Ph.D. Student in Theology and Ethics, Saint Louis University

Benjamin LaBadie, Ph.D. student – Theological Ethics, Boston College

Jennifer Lamson-Scribner, MA, Ph.D. Candidate and Teaching Fellow, Boston College

Sean Larsen, Ph.D., Managing Editor – Syndicate; Adjunct Professor of Religion, Carroll University

Nathaniel Jung-Chul Lee, Ph.D. Candidate, Baylor University; Adjunct Professor, Loyola University Maryland; Associate Rector, All Saints Chevy Chase Maryland

Paul Lewis, Ph.D., Professor of Religion, Mercer University

Stephen Long, Ph.D., Maguire University Professor of Christian Ethics, Southern Methodist University

Rev. Julie A. Mavity Maddalena, Ph.D. Candidate, Christian Ethics, Southern Methodist University; Director of Spiritual Life and Faculty, Brooks School

Mindy Makant, Th.D, Assistant Professor, College of Theology, Lenoir-Rhyne University

Lois Malcolm, Ph.D., Professor of Systematic Theology, Luther Seminary

Daniel Malotky, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Humanities, Lucy H. Robertson Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Greensboro College

Ellen Ott Marshall, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Christian Ethics and Conflict Transformation, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

Paul Martens, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religion, Baylor University

Fr. Bryan Massingale, S.T.D., Professor of Theological and Social Ethics, Fordham University

Charles Mathewes, Ph.D., Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia

Jillian Maxey, Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Theology and Jewish-Christian Relations, Boston College; Religious Studies Instructor, Boston College High School

Megan McCabe, Ph.D. Candidate, Boston College; Instructor, Gonzaga University

Jennifer M. McBride, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Doctor of Ministry Programs and Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics, McCormick Theological Seminary

Christine E. McCarthy, MPhil, Ph.D. Candidate, Teaching Associate Department of Theology, Fordham University

Eli S. McCarthy, Ph.D., Director of Justice and Peace, Conference of Major Superiors of Men; Professor – Justice and Peace Studies, Georgetown University

Brett McCarty, Th. D. Candidate – Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School

Jimmy McCarty, Ph.D., Director, Office of Multicultural Affairs and Adjunct Professor, Seattle University

Rev. Dr. Daniel Wade McClain, Ph.D., Director of Program Operations and Visiting Assistant Professor., Loyola University Maryland; Associate Rector, St. David’s Episcopal Church, Baltimore

Vic McCraken, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology, Abilene Christian University

Leonard C. McKinnis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Constructive Theology and African American Religions, Saint Louis University

Jermaine McDonald, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Ethics, Kennesaw State University

Michael McNulty, SJ, Ph.D., Scholar in Residence, Marquette University Center for Peacemaking

Kathleen McNutt, Ph.D. student, Instructor of Record, Loyola University Chicago

Christina McRorie, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, Creighton University

Mark S. Medley, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, Georgetown, Kentucky

Marcus Mescher, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics, Xavier University, Ohio

Alex Mikulich, Ph.D., Catholic social ethicists, New Orleans, LA

Stephen D. Miles, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Immaculata University

Richard W. Miller, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Creighton University

AnneMarie Mingo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of African American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Affiliate Faculty in The Rock Ethics Institute, Pennsylvania State University

Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Ph.D., Professor of Theological and Social Ethics, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and Graduate Theological Union

Brandon Morgan, Ph.D. candidate, Baylor University

Daniel A. Morris, Ph.D., Independent Scholar, Northfield, VT

Debra Dean Murphy, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religious Studies, West Virginia Wesleyan College

Ryan Andrew Newson, Ph.D. Visiting Assistant Professor of Christian Studies, Campbell University

Kristopher Norris, Ph.D., University of Virginia; Visiting Distinguished Professor of Public Theology, Wesley Theological Seminary

Dawn M. Nothwehr, OSF, Ph.D., The Erica and Harry John Family Endowed Chair in Catholic Ethics, Catholic Theological Union

Kevin J. O’Brien, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religion, Pacific Lutheran University

John J. O’Keef, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Creighton University

Stephen Okey, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology, Saint Leo University

Martin J. O’Malley, Ph.D., Research Scholar at Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany

William O’Neill, S.J., Ph.D., Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

Katherine Ott, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Drew University Theological School

Erik Owens, Ph.D., Associate Director, Boise Center for Religion and American Public Life; Associate Professor of the Practice of Theology, Boston College

Scott R. Paeth, Ph.D., Professor of Religious Studies, DePaul University

Melissa Pagán, Ph.D., Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Religious Studies, Mount St. Mary’s University

Andrew S. Park, Ph.D., Professor of Theology and Ethics, United Theological Seminary

John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D, Emeritus Professor of Social Ethics, Catholic Theological Union

Karen Peterson-Iyer, Ph.D., Lecturer, Department of Religious Studies, Santa Clara University

Joe Pettit, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Morgan State University.

Stephen J. Pope, Ph.D., Professor of Theological Ethics, Boston College

Mark Potter, Ph.D., Chair of Religious Studies, Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Newton, MA

Scott Prather, Ph.D., Director, The Center for Organizing Theology, Memphis, TN

Matthew Puffer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Humanities and Ethics, Valparaiso University

Tisha Rajendra, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Loyola University Chicago

Dan Christy Randazzo, Ph.D, Chester Reagan Chair of Quaker and Religious Studies, Moorestown Friends School, Moorestown, NJ

Emily Reimer-Barry, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of San Diego

Autumn Alcott Ridenour, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Religious and Theological Studies, Merrimack College

Rev. Raymond R. Roberts, Ph.D., Pastor, River Road Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA

Brooks Robinson, M.Div., M.T.S. Candidate, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Pastoral Associate at St. Alphonsus Church

Gerardo Rodríguez-Galarza, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, St. Norbert College

Ruben Rosario-Rodriguez, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theological Studies, Saint Louis University

Karen Ross, Ph.D. Candidate, Instructor, Loyola University Chicago

Susan A. Ross, Ph.D., Professor, Loyola University Chicago

Matthew A. Rothaus Moser, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Theology, Loyola University Maryland

Nancy Rourke, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Theology, Canisius College

Heather Miller Rubens, Ph.D., Executive Director and Roman Catholic Scholar, Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies

Julie Hanlon Rubio, Ph.D., Professor of Christian Ethics, Saint Louis University

Jeremy Sabella, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor, Kalamazoo College

Todd Salzman, Ph.D., Amelia and Emil Graff Professor of Catholic Theology, Creighton University

Jame Schaefer, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics, Marquette University

Jocelyn A. Sideco, Master of Theological Studies, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, minister, educator, retreat director, blogger

Daniel P. Scheid, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Duquesne University

Gerald W. Schlabach, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, University of St. Thomas

Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Ph.D., Stillman Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University

John Senior, Ph.D., Director of the Art of Ministry Program and Associate Teaching Professor of Ethics and Society, Wake Forest University School of Divinity

Matthew Shadle, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, Marymount University

Angela D. Sims, Ph.D., Vice President of Institutional Advancement, Associate Professor of Ethics and Black Church Studies, St. Paul School of Theology

Kara Slade, Ph.D. Candidate, Theological Ethics, Duke University

Fr. Allyne Lev Smith, Th.D., St. John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church

Rev. Chad Smith, M.Div., CEO of HumanWealth Partners, Massachusetts Council of Churches Advisory Board

Melissa Snarr, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt University Divinity School

John Sniegocki, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Xavier University Cincinnati, OH

Kathryn Getek Soltis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics, Director, Center for Peace and Justice Education, Villanova University

Aaron Stalnaker, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Indiana University

Andrew Staron, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology, Wheeling Jesuit University

Fr. Christopher Steck, S.J., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Georgetown University

Michael F. Steltenkamp, S.J., Ph.D., Professor of Religious Studies, Wheeling Jesuit University

Darryl W. Stephens, Ph.D., Director of United Methodist Studies, Lancaster Theological Seminary

Laura Stivers, Ph.D., Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Education, Professor of Ethics, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, CA

Stephen M. Stookey, Ph.D., Professor of Religion, Director of Online Religion Programs, Wayland Baptist University

Charles T. Strauss, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History, Mount St. Mary University

Sandra Sullivan-Dunbar, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Loyola University Chicago

Rev. Carlos Summers, M.Div., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Retired)

Henry T.C. Sun, Ph.D., Pastor, Fairfield (CA) Presbyterian Church

Philip E. Thompson , Ph.D., Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Heritage, Sioux Falls Seminary

Dr. J. Jeanine Thweatt, Visiting Lecturer, Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL

Terrence Tilley, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Theology, Fordham University

Jacob W. Torbeck, Teacher of Record, Loyola University Chicago

Emilie Townes, Ph.D., E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society, Vanderbilt University Divinity School

David True, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religion, Wilson College

Elisabeth T. Vasko, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Duquesne University

Andrea Vicini, SJ, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Moral Theology, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry

Aana Marie Vigen, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Loyola University Chicago

Gerald S. Vigna, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Theology, Alvernia University

Gregory Dean Voiles, Ph.D., Adjunct Instructor of Theology and Ministry, Trevecca Nazarene University

Gregory D. Walgenbach, Ph.D. Institute for Pastoral Ministry Instructor, and Director of Life, Justice, and Peace, Diocese of Orange

Andrew Walsh, Ph.D., Professor of Religion and Theology, Culver-Stockton College

Kate Ward, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, Marquette University

Darlene Fozard Weaver, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Director, Center for Catholic Faith and Culture, Director, University Core Curriculum, Duquesne University

Melanie Webb, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor, Augustine and Culture Seminar Program, Villanova University

Myles Werntz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics and Practical Theology, Hardin-Simmons University

William Werpehowski, Ph.D., McDevitt Professor of Catholic Theology, Georgetown University

Melanie Webb, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor, Augustine and Culture Seminar Program, Villanova University

Traci West, Ph.D., Professor of Christian Ethics and African American Studies, Drew University Theological School

Todd Whitmore, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame

Joe Wiinikka-Lydon, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Religion, Birmingham Southern College

Sara Wilhelm Garbers, Ph.D. Candidate, Loyola University; Instructor and Director of Formation and Contextual Education, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities

Reggie Williams, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, McCormick Theological Seminary

Rick Wilson, Ph.D., Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Chair and Professor of Christianity, Columbus Roberts Department of Religion, Mercer University, Macon GA

Rachel Hart Winter, Ph.D., Director – St. Catherine of Siena Center, Dominican University

Michelle Wolff, Ph.D., Instructor, Duke Divinity School

Katie Wrisley Shelby, Ph.D. Candidate – Historical Theology, Boston College

Jessica Wrobleski, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Theology, Wheeling Jesuit University

Nathaniel Van Yperen, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion, Gustavus Adolphus College

Sameer Yadav, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Westmont College

Sandra Yocum, Ph.D., University Professor of Faith and Culture, University of Dayton

Ivonne C. Zimmerman, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Methodist Theological School

Sr. Angela Zukowski, MSHS, D.Min., Professor, Director of Institute for Pastoral Initiatives, University of Dayton

#white supremacy #racism #christian ethics

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willkommen-in-germany · 7 years

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Der Kulturkampf (‘culture struggle’) is a German term referring to a set of policies enacted from 1871 to 1878 by the Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, in relation to secularity and the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Prussia. In contemporary discussion, the term, along with ‘culture war’ is often used to describe any conflict between secular and religious authorities or deeply opposing values, and beliefs between large factions within a nation, community, or other group.

In 1871, the Catholic Church ruled 36.5% of the population of the German Empire. This included Germans in western Prussia and millions of Poles. Bismarck sought to appeal to liberal Protestants, who comprised 62% of the German Empire, by reducing the political and social influence of the Catholic Church. By the height of anti-Catholic legislation, half of the Catholic bishops were in prison or in exile, a quarter of the parishes had no priest, half the monks and nuns had left Prussia, a third of the monasteries and convents were closed, 1800 parish priests were imprisoned or exiled, and 1000s of laypeople were imprisoned for helping priests.

Bismarck’s program backfired, as it energized the Catholics to become a political force in the Catholic Centre party and revitalized Polish resistance. The Kulturkampf ended about 1880 with a new pope willing to negotiate with Bismarck and with the departure of the anti-Catholic liberals from his coalition. By retreating, Bismarck won over the Catholic Centre party support on most of his conservative policy positions, especially his attacks against Socialism. The term Kulturkampf first appeared c. 1840 in a review of a publication by Swiss-German liberal Ludwig Snell on “The Importance of the Struggle of liberal Catholic Switzerland with the Roman Curia”, but only gained wider currency after liberal member of the Prussian parliament, Rudolph Virchow, used it in 1873.

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alamio · 5 years

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willkommen-in-germany: Der Kulturkampf (‘culture struggle’) is a...

#Deutschland #alamio.de #alamio #Kleinanzeige #inserieren #anzeige

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cutsliceddiced · 4 years

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New top story from Time: The Best TV Shows of 2020 So Far

No matter what you expected out of 2020, the reality has almost certainly been different. As the coronavirus swept from country to country, making especially brutal landfall in America, even those who remained healthy and employed struggled with loneliness, boredom, anxiety, cabin fever. And in late May, as Americans in major cities faced their third month of quarantine, the senseless death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer launched a wave of protests against law enforcement’s violence toward the black community. Television, frankly, seems pretty insignificant in the face of both crises. But it did help us stay informed, connected and sometimes even intellectually stimulated at a time when the mere sight of other human faces could serve as an inoculation against loneliness and despair. From the holy agony and ecstasy of The New Pope to the unholy high school terrors of Dare Me, here are 10 shows that helped me weather the first half of this difficult year. Here’s hoping they make whatever you’re living through right now slightly more bearable, too.

Better Call Saul (AMC)

With more and more shows ending or getting canceled after a couple of years, so as not to wear out their welcome in a Peak TV moment infatuated with novelty, Better Call Saul’s fifth season demonstrated the value of patient, thorough character development. It took this long to trace downtrodden public defender Jimmy McGill’s (Bob Odenkirk) transformation into the slick, morally flexible Saul Goodman whom we encountered fully formed in Breaking Bad. In season 5—arguably the series’ best to date—we watched him become a so-called “friend of the cartel,” a designation which earned him a harrowing hike through the Mexican desert with Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), among other brushes with death. But the most exquisitely painful story line traced the impact Saul’s emergence will inevitably have on his partner Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn)—a captivating character in her own right, torn between her own capacity for mainstream success and an internal compass more aligned with his outlaw ethics.

Better Things (FX)

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After executing a full, successful third season of her single-parenting dramedy without disgraced co-creator Louis C.K., Pamela Adlon had nothing to prove with season 4. The show loosened up under her solo leadership, adopting the vérité-style rhythms of 20th-century independent films and growing more confident in that meditative style with every episode. Like some of her avant-garde influences, Adlon doesn’t tell discrete stories so much as create scenarios whose themes spark reflection on the part of the viewer. This time around, she had me thinking about the power of friendship among parents (especially divorced moms), the way raising multiple children might feel more like a cycle than a series of individual timelines, how we deal with our anger at people who’ve wronged us but will never take it upon themselves to make amends.

Betty (HBO)

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Crystal Moselle’s adaptation of her wonderful 2018 indie film Skate Kitchen could be Better Things’ little sister. Like that show, Betty, which debuted in May, consists of half-hour episodes that prioritize character-based insights, emotional resonance and dilated moments of crisis and transcendence over tightly constructed plots. But its subject is that glorious, terrifying transition from teenage life to adulthood in the big city, where freedom looks like a skateboard, a fake ID and a little bit of pocket money. Coming-of-age stories are never in short supply, yet the distinctive faces and personalities who make up the show’s central all-female skate crew are like nothing I’ve seen on TV before.

BoJack Horseman (Netflix)

There are great shows that ended badly (Game of Thrones, Lost, Roseanne 1.0), and then there are the divisive finales: The Sopranos, Seinfeld, Mad Men, Girls. Much rarer are series that go out on the perfect note, not just bidding fond farewells to characters viewers have grown to love (or love to hate) but elegantly tying up their most salient themes. When BoJack mastermind Raphael Bob-Waksberg left his titular anthropomorphic horse (voiced by Will Arnett) and the ghost writer who became his most insightful friend (Alison Brie’s Diane) in silence on a rooftop after six excellent seasons, his finale joined the ranks of Six Feet Under, Halt and Catch Fire, M*A*S*H and very few other shows that left us exhausted, tearful and grieving but ultimately satisfied.

Dare Me (USA)

Netflix’s hit docuseries Cheer made cheerleading a TV sensation this winter—which only made it more frustrating that Dare Me attracted so little attention. Set in a Midwestern town whose local real estate magnate (Paul Fitzgerald) is angling to cash in on the talent of a cheer squad that happens to include his two daughters by different wives, this thriller springs to life when he installs a tough, beautiful new coach (Willa Fitzgerald of MTV’s Scream) who challenges the top-girl status of his rebellious eldest child, Beth (Australian actor Marlo Kelly, beguiling). In the center of a conflict marked by escalating violence is Beth’s best friend Addy (The Get Down’s Herizen Guardiola), a quietly determined cheerleader still figuring out who she is. It was a riveting mystery, adapted from co-creator Megan Abbott’s novel, but equally enthralling was its dark, dreamy atmosphere. Before USA canceled it, in April, Dare Me promised to become everything I’d hoped HBO’s more popular, less original teen drama Euphoria would be.

The Great (Hulu)

This period dramedy is about as faithful a depiction of Catherine the Great’s rise to power in 18th-century Russia as Comedy Central spoof Another Period was a document of upper-crust Rhode Island life in Edith Wharton’s time. And that—along with Elle Fanning as a young Catherine, Nicholas Hoult as her debauched imbecile husband Peter III and dialogue from the droll, raunchy mind of The Favourite co-writer Tony McNamara—is what makes it so fun. Like its Oscar-nominated predecessor, The Great is a hilarious satire about gender and power as well as a reminder that European history wasn’t all as polite as Masterpiece miniseries make it out to be.

Mrs. America (FX on Hulu)

You could see the backlash to this all-star historical drama—which earned almost universal acclaim from critics, this one included—coming as soon as it was announced. Creator Dahvi Waller’s nine-part miniseries cast the beloved Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly, tracing the right-wing ideologue’s origin story in tandem with the implosion of a 1970s feminist movement led by women like Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba), Bella Abzug (Margo Martindale) and Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman). So it was easy for some to accuse the show of making Schlafly too sympathetic. Here’s the thing: depiction isn’t endorsement, and Waller’s inquiry into what made feminism’s most influential female enemy the tyrannical, bigoted, infuriating person she was did not by any stretch of the imagination constitute apologizing for the harm she wrought. On the contrary, this smartly written, beautifully acted and subtly insightful series made it possible for even those of us who find Schlafly’s self-hating views mystifying to imagine how flesh-and-blood humans can devolve into self-serving monsters.

The New Pope (HBO)

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Religion has become an unexpectedly popular subject for TV, in the afterlife comedies that don’t stop coming (The Good Place begat Forever, then Russian Doll, Miracle Workers and most recently Upload), in explorations of identity like Ramy and Unorthodox and in accounts of political conflicts driven by religious differences, from Our Boys to Derry Girls. A sequel to the 2017 miniseries The Young Pope, which took Jude Law’s upstart American Pontiff on a journey from bad faith to true faith, Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s The New Pope is something extremely different. With Law’s Pius XIII in some sort of divine coma and Muslim extremists terrorizing Catholic targets, his lieutenants at the Vatican recruit a depressive British cardinal (a tender, delicate John Malkovich) to take his place. Rather than dissecting 21st-century Catholicism, both seasons feel like an attempt to conjure the headspace of religious mysticism, in shots with all the majesty of a Renaissance fresco, a story whose mystery rivals the Book of Revelation and a sense of humor steeped in existential absurdity.

The Plot Against America (HBO)

In 2004, the late giant of American literature Philip Roth imagined an alternate reality in which Charles Lindbergh won the 1940 election, kept the U.S. out of World War II and set about reshaping the country to suit his isolationist, anti-Semitic views. Sixteen years later, with xenophobia, nativism and white supremacy on the rise, Roth’s novel about a Jewish family caught in this nightmare didn’t need much tweaking from The Wire collaborators David Simon and Ed Burns to resonate. The prestige-TV veterans simply stacked the adaptation with an ideal cast (Winona Ryder, John Turturro, Zoe Kazan and Morgan Spector are all spectacular), warmed up its shots with the unnerving golden light of nostalgia and got out of the story’s way… until the very end, which replaced Roth’s too-neat conclusion with something more suitable for 2020.

Vida (Starz)

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It was not Tanya Saracho’s choice to end Vida—the drama she created about two Mexican-American sisters who return home to L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood in the wake of their mother’s death and attempt to save her poorly managed bar—after three seasons. Given just six supersize episodes, a reduced budget and a shortened production schedule with which to complete her expansive meditation on family, community and identity, Saracho and her writers had to do the heartbreaking work of “killing our darlings,” as she put it in a recent interview, to make room for all the “stories we owed.” The result bordered on miraculous: a thoughtful, emotional, sexy season of television that, without feeling rushed, probed mysteries that the sisters’ mom left behind, set every major character on a path of richly deserved growth and ended with a scene that had this viewer crying as hard as the characters themselves.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

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whatisonthemoonarchive · 5 years

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Catholic Social Teaching and the Tea Party

Here is an article I wrote a while back when I was still active in tthe Tea Party movement:

A recent article in the Catholic Newsletter “Our Sunday Visitor” entitled “Is the Tea Party movement in sync with Catholic teaching?” has raised some interesting issues relating to the ideals driving the Tea Party and the teaching of the Catholic Church. The article notes that:

A study commissioned earlier this year by the National Review Institute found that 28 percent of tea party supporters identified themselves as Catholic. Yet while the movement may include aspects that are attractive to practicing Catholics, there are also serious questions about whether the at times radical views and controversial practices seen from tea party protesters fit with the teachings of the Church.

Of course the teachings in question are mostly related to the issue of “Social Justice”. This is an area that both the Church and Catholic Tea Party members need to address because, as the article points out, Catholic participation in the movement is growing. Some see the Tea Party movement as a populist uprising rooted in frustration and are at a loss to explain the significant Catholic involvement:

Although the tea party movement lacks a centralized leadership, with its divergent branches representing an array of different interests and viewpoints, the group’s common focus is on limited government and reduced taxation, creating a political ideology that combines elements of libertarianism and populism.

While populist movements have a long track record in the United States, Catholic historian David O’Brien told Our Sunday Visitor that they have generally been associated with Midwestern or Southern Protestants and, in some cases, have been fueled in part by anti-Catholic sentiment. But the tea party movement has grown out of a shared frustration over the nation’s current economic situation — something Catholics are not immune to — giving it a strong appeal.

“People are either out of work and don’t think they are ever going to get a job again, or they are very fearful of losing what are not very good jobs to begin with,” said O’Brien, the University Professor of Faith and Culture at the University of Dayton. “There’s this huge anxiety, and that cuts across religions, races, even classes.”

But among Catholics, he said, the support for the tea party movement has been unique.

“I don’t recall a broad-based Catholic populist upsurge of anything of this variety,” O’Brien said.

Some Catholic leaders see a contradiction between the principles animating the Tea Party movement and the teaching of the Catholic Church:

Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America, said that Catholic voters have been known for their propensity to switch party allegiance, but their strong show of support for the tea party comes as a surprise.

What strikes me is that even though Catholics are attracted to this movement, there really is a pretty sharp tension between some of the basic teachings of the Church in regards to politics, the role of government and what we owe to the poor, and what these tea party advocates are promoting,” Schneck told Our Sunday Visitor.

Others see a compatibility between the Church’s teaching and the Tea Party’s concerns:

According to Father Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, the radical extremists in the tea party represent only a small percentage on the fringes of the movement. At its heart, Father Sirico said, the tea party and its view of government are very close to the Church’s social teaching on the principle of subsidiarity, which favors doing things on a simplified level rather than leaving them to a more complex, centralized organization.

“I think the majority of the people who are involved in the tea party movement prefer things to be done at the most local level possible,” Father Sirico told OSV. “They are not against government in principle, they are against the excessiveness of government that we see, and that’s expressed in the principle of subsidiarity.”

Many of the stances tea party activists have taken on political issues also would resonate with Catholic voters, Father Sirico said. For example, many practicing Catholics would likely agree with the tea party’s concern about the overreaching involvement of government in schools and health care, he said, and though the movement has hesitated to identify itself as pro-life, the majority of tea party activists appear to be in agreement with the Church’s stance on abortion.

But while he doesn’t feel that there is a conflict for Catholics to join the tea party, Father Sirico said, he does think tea party advocates could benefit from a greater understanding of Catholic teaching.

The Animating Principles the Drive the Tea Party Movement

Although I am not a Catholic, I am a member of the Tea Party movement and have a great deal of respect for the Catholic Natural Law tradition and moral philosophy. Given that, I have an interest in seeing this supposed conflict resolved. The first thing which strikes me is that even those who see the concerns driving the Tea Party movement as incompatible with Catholic teaching admit that the extent of rank and file Catholic support for the movement is unprecedented for what they consider to be a mere populist reaction rooted in frustration. Perhaps it is time for these people to consider that the Tea Party movement is more of a positive movement to reform America based on our fundamental founding principles and not merely a reaction of frustration to economic conditions. Looked at from that viewpoint, it is not hard to explain Catholic participation in the movement. These Catholics apparently see a common ground between the principles that inspired America’s founding, as expressed in our Declaration of Independence and enshrined in our Constitution, and the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. The fact that they are members of the Tea Party movement and still consider themselves to be Catholic indicates that they see no conflict. By not even considering this possibility, some Catholic leaders and scholars are insulting the intelligence and integrity of a large and growing number of rank and file Catholics. Why alienate so many Catholics when they just may be onto something? One would think that a more thorough investigation into the compatibility between the concerns driving Tea Party members and the teachings of the Catholic Church should be conducted before writing off Catholic Tea Party members as misguided.

A good start has been made by Catholic leaders like Father Sirico of the Acton Institute for Religion and Liberty. As noted above, he does not see an incompatibility between the two. In defending the Tea Party movement, he mentions the Catholic principle of subsidiarity and suggests that the Tea Party movement should incorporate such notions in presenting a comprehensive expression of their ideals. In another article, Father Sirico also mentions the Protestant notion of “Sphere Sovereignty” along with subsidiarity as principles that the Tea Party should embrace explicitly. (In his viewpoint, they already have implicitly adopted them.) Father Sirico’s suggestion is a good one and is already in the process of being implemented here in Vermont. Earlier this year a local Tea Party associated group hosted a series of sessions entitled “The Biblical Roots of American Civilization” that were aimed at expressing the moral underpinnings of the American experiment in ordered liberty which animates the Tea Party movement. The coordinator who set up the sessions is a Catholic, the person who created the website to host the material developed is an Evangelical, the person who covered the expenses is an Orthodox Jew and the person who recorded the event is a local Regent for the Catholic Daughters of America. I am the one who gave the presentations and am what could be considered a “Home Church” Christian. We are all concerned with exploring the moral underpinnings behind our founding vision of ordered liberty. The site can be accessed here: http://www.thelibertyfoundation.us/ It is a work in progress and some of the texts still need to be added, but all of the YouTube videos of the presentations are there.

In the presentations we explore the notion of the dignity of the human person as a being created in the image of his creator as the source behind what has come to be known as “American Individualism”. We make a clear distinction between this ideal and the notion of self-centered selfishness. In doing so we point out that Americans are not only noted for their individualism, but for their tendency to form voluntary associations and give to charity. This tendency of Americans to form voluntary associations was noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic "Democracy in America": Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types — religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. Americans combine to give fetes, found seminaries, build churches, distribute books, and send missionaries to antipodes. Hospitals, prisons, and schools take shape that way. Finally, if they want to proclaim a truth or propagate some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form an association. In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association.

We also echoed such founders as George Washington in expressing a healthy concern for the expansion of the role of government: "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."

We defined “irresponsible action” as that which allows government to expand into areas of society with which it is ill equipped to deal. The reason for avoiding such an expansion is two-fold. First it is a threat to individual liberty and second it crowds out the institutions of “Civil Society” such as the Family, Church, etc. We noted that Adam Smith had pointed out in his “Theory of Moral Sentiments” that Man has a natural moral sentiment, which finds fulfillment in acting with benevolence towards others. The moral sentiment is best developed by voluntary associations, which are undermined by the intrusion of the state into the “Sphere Sovereignty” of the institutions of Civil Society. In short, our opposition to the growing expansion of the role of the state into areas that are more properly the domain of Civil Society is far from a negative reaction to economic conditions and a lack of concern for the poor. Making such an accusation not only undermines the intelligence and integrity of Tea Party members, it displays intellectual laziness on the part of those making the accusation.

Compatibility With Catholic Social Teaching

This brings us back to the compatibility of the principles driving the Tea Party movement with Catholic social teaching. I started looking into this when one of the Tea Party's coordinators, who is Catholic, came to me with questions on the issue. These questions were prompted by the fact that such teachings are to be a part of her son's Confirmation instruction. The source for the teachings she sent me came from the U.S. Bishops Conference. A quick review of the material confirmed my view that the basic moral principles expressed were compatible with the ideals of the Tea Party. These principles are related to the dignity of the human person, concern for the poor and solidarity. Where the problem comes is when there is a jump from those basic moral principles to the support for a specific political agenda. In short, the biggest difference is over means and not ends. We in the Tea Party do not see the expansion of the role of government into the arena of Civil Society as likely to achieve the noble ends expressed in the sections on basic principles. On the contrary, we see the increasing expansion of the role of the state as more likely to lead to the collapse of American civilization.

Another problem is with what was not listed in the basic principles. While there rightfully was a focus on human solidarity, there was hardly any mention of the importance of individual human liberty. There was no mention of the principle of subsidiarity. There was mention of the problems with an “unchecked” market, but no mention of the problems that come from an expanded role of the state unchecked by a concern for the principle of individual liberty and the sovereignty of the institutions of “Civil Society”.

Of course the material from the U.S. Bishops Conference is viewed as an official source, so the conclusion on the part of many is that where there is a difference, the two approaches are not compatible. There is another source on this subject, however, that could be considered even more official than the U.S. Bishops Conference. It is a site called "The Social Agenda" and it was put together by François-Xavier Nguyên Cardinal Van Thuân President, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. (He is not the current President, as he passed away in 2002) Given that this source is connected with the Vatican, it should have even more official credibility than the material being taught now.

Teaching from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

In reviewing this The Social Agenda site, I found in its teaching much more compatibility with the concerns of the Tea Party movement. It is also more comprehensive in its approach than is the material listed on the U.S. Bishop’s Conference website. In addition, it sticks to fundamental principles for the most part and does not insist on support for specific issues like those associated with the expansion of the welfare state. An exception is made for areas where it sees no room for difference, namely “The Evil of Abortion and Euthanasia”.

The first session starts out with (the) affirming the dignity of the individual human person and the importance of human freedom:

The question of morality, to which Christ provides the answer, cannot prescind from the issue of freedom. Indeed, it considers that issue central, for there can be no morality without freedom: It is only in freedom that man can turn to what is good…” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 34)

Of course, it defines that freedom so as not to confuse it with selfishness and license. It then goes on to affirm “The Social Nature of Man” in a manner very similar to Adam Smith and his “Theory of Moral Sentiments”.

“The cardinal point of this teaching is that individual men are necessarily the foundation, cause, and end of all social institutions. We are referring to human beings, insofar as they are naturally social, and raised to an order of existence that transcends and subdues nature.” (Mater et Magistra, n. 219)

From there it insists that the state cannot adequately fulfill man’s social nature by itself:

In contrast, from the Christian vision of the human person there necessarily follows a correct picture of society. According to Rerum Novarum and the whole social doctrine of the Church, the social nature of man is not completely fulfilled in the State, but is realized in various intermediary groups, beginning with the family and including economic, social, political and cultural groups which stem from human nature itself and have their own autonomy, always with a view to the common good. This is what I have called the subjectivity of society which, together with the subjectivity of the individual, was cancelled out by Real Socialism (SRS, nn. 15, 28).

(Centesimus Annus, n. 13)

In the socialist approach, where the state assumes all roles to itself, “the subjectivity of the individual, was cancelled out”. The Tea Party movement is determined to see that this does not happen in America. In doing so we echo the site assertion that:

“The foundation and goal of the social order is the human person, as a subject of inalienable rights which are not conferred from the outside but which arise from the person's very nature.... Likewise, the person is not merely the subject of social, cultural, and historical conditioning, for it is proper to man, who has a spiritual soul, to tend towards a goal that transcends the changing conditions of his existence. No human power may obstruct the realization of man as a person.” (World Day of Peace Message, 1988, n. 1)

In making the following assertion, the site is contrasting the Christian view of the human person with the socialist view:

Likewise, the person is not merely the subject of social, cultural, and historical conditioning, for it is proper to man, who has a spiritual soul, to tend towards a goal that transcends the changing conditions of his existence.

The concept of such conditioning has infected the welfare state societies of the West and is a threat to both human liberty and a thriving Civil Society. This is another concern that we in the Tea Party share with teaching expressed in this site, but do not find echoed in much of the material being presented in the U.S. under the subject of “Social Justice”.

This site also emphasizes the concept of subsidiarity as well as solidarity and thus makes it easier for Catholic members of the Tea Party movement to see how the Church’s teaching is compatible with the principles that were at the heart of America’s founding.

“The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good (CA, n. 48; cf. QA, nn. 184 186). God has not willed to reserve to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to every creature the functions it is capable of performing, according to the capacities of its own nature. This mode of governance ought to be followed in social life. The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should inspire the wisdom of those who govern human communities. They should behave as ministers of divine providence. The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention. …” (CCC, nn. 1883 1885)

There is also the question of how the free market approach to economics is viewed. Most Tea Party members have a positive view of the free market approach to economics. This view is often referred to as “Capitalism”. The term has been the source of much confusion and has been written about negatively by most Catholic scholars. The problem is more one of terminology than principle as expressed in this site. Properly defined, the site expresses a very positive view of free market Capitalism as long as it is part of a pluralistic order that includes a vibrant Civil Society upholding human dignity and a government protecting human rights:

“Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress? The answer is obviously complex. If by capitalism is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a `business economy,' `market economy,' or simply `free economy'.” (Centesimus Annus, n. 42)

Finally, we arrive at the crucial issue of what has been referred to as “The Welfare State”. The approach to this matter lies at the heart of the difference behind much of what is being taught under the guise of social justice and the concerns of the Tea Party movement. Once again, Tea Party members will see their concerns shared by this site:

“In exceptional circumstances the State can also exercise a substitute function, when sectors or business systems are too weak or are just getting under way, and are not equal to the task at hand. Such supplementary interventions, which are justified by urgent reasons touching the common good, must be as brief as possible, so as to avoid removing permanently from society and business systems the functions which are properly theirs, and so as to avoid enlarging excessively the sphere of State intervention to the detriment of both economic and civil freedom. In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of state, the so called `Welfare State.' This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the `Social Assistance State.' Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State.” (Centesimus Annus,n. 48)

I will conclude by suggesting that the principles, which motivate the Tea Party movement are the same as those that led to America’s founding. Given this, the question of whether the concerns of the Tea Party movement are compatible with Catholic teaching is the same as whether Catholic teaching is compatible with the principles that inspired America’s founding. I would like to suggest that they are as long as Catholic leaders who are instructing Catholics make use of a more comprehensive set of materials as a source. There are some differences in emphasis between the principles promoted by the Tea Party, which are derived from America’s founders, and even this website put together by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. The biggest difference is the view of the state. Both see the necessity to limit the role of the state, but the Tea Party puts more stress on this point. It also, in echoing America’s founders, is more concerned about the nature of the state as an institution rooted in force. Still, such wariness over the nature of the state is not without its parallels in Catholic thought. Many of the American Puritan thinkers, who came to America and were so involved in setting up the institutions that helped to shape American civilization, were enthusiastic students of St. Augustine. Augustine made the distinction between the “City of the World”, which was represented by the state and was based on force, with the “City of God” which was represented by the Church and was based on love. He saw the state as only becoming necessary because of the Fall and its role was to prevent humans from engaging in evil. In this he was echoing St. Paul in insisting that the state’s role was to “Wield the Sword” as a protector of the innocent against the “evil doer”. Augustine was also noted for his claim that God gave Man dominion over creation: a rational being, given dominion over irrational nature. God did not give Man dominion over his fellow Man, or rational beings over other rational beings. He said this in response to the Pagan notion that some men were born to rule and some men were born to be ruled. Such views influenced Catholic thinkers in the Middle Ages to promote the institutions of representative government and to oppose slavery and other forms of absolute rule. Catholic Historian Lord Acton wrote about this in his essay “The History of Freedom in Christianity”. Augustine’s views influenced America’s founding by influencing the Puritan settlers who arrived on these shores. That influence was such that he has been referred to as an honorary founder.

If the Catholic Church is to address the concerns of a large and growing number of Tea Party faithful, it should take a look at the areas of common interest between Catholic teaching and America’s founding principles.

Robert Maynard

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angrycollectordaze-me-blog · 5 years

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Paper代写：Modern British nation-state

本篇paper代写- Modern British nation-state讨论了英国近代民族国家。英国近代民族国家的兴起始于1485年建立的都铎王朝，并以此作为英国近代史的开端。这不仅因为英法百年战争后英国由于失败而不得不退回到不列颠岛，从此按照民族原则和地域原则致力于内部发展，为民族国家的建立划定了方向，而且都铎王朝的建立结束了英国内部兰开斯特和约克两个家族的长期斗争，封建领地军事贵族的力量随之削弱，扫除了组建民族国家的最大障碍。本篇paper代写由51due代写平台整理，供大家参考阅读。

Nation-states emerged in Western Europe, mainly British and French nation-states. Both these countries were established under monarchies at first, that is, national monarchies, and then they changed from monarchies to democracies. The British monarchy strengthened the centralization of power by sweeping away the domestic separatist forces and religious reform, established a unified domestic market and supported the development of national languages, thus promoting the formation of a unified national state.

A nation state, a sovereign state based on a nation, must have two important factors, namely, state sovereignty and ethnic unity. At the same time, the nation-state is a form of state that appeared in the late middle ages of Europe and generally formed in the bourgeois era. Britain's nation-state emerged in the late middle ages and early modern times, and its national sovereignty and national unity emerged with the decline of Roman curia and the collapse of the Latin Christian world in the middle ages. The establishment of the British nation-state was achieved through the struggle with Roman Catholic forces, foreign islamic conquest forces and internal feudal separatist forces.

There were many factors contributing to the establishment of the modern nation-state in Britain: historical, accidental, and sociopolitical. This paper tries to elaborate from three aspects: the establishment of Tudor dynasty ended the feudal division within England and took many measures to strengthen the royal power; the generation of English national consciousness and its influencing factors; In the process of English reformation, secular kingship gradually got rid of the shackles of Roman church.

It is generally believed that the rise of modern nation-state in Britain began with the establishment of the Tudor dynasty in 1485, which was regarded as the beginning of modern British history. This not only because the British and French war in one hundred after the British because of failure and had to return to Britain, in accordance with the principle of national and regional principle, committed to the development of the internal for the establishment of the nation state designated the direction, and the establishment of the Tudor dynasty ended within Britain family of Lancaster and york two long struggle, the power of the feudal estates military aristocracy then weaken, remove the biggest obstacle to form a national. Herry VII, the first Tudor monarch, took a series of measures to strengthen the monarchy and make Britain strong.

For Henry Tudor, the most important thing was to restore the power of the British monarchy beyond the power of aristocratic gangs. In response, Henry vii married princess Elizabeth, daughter of Edward iv of york, through marriage only, uniting two warring families and bringing them under the rule of the king. In addition, he reduced the power of the nobility, especially the military power of their independence. Henry vii also faced the question of how to restore and strengthen the crown. From the beginning he tried to get the king to run parliament rather than parliament, and the most important way was to increase the royal revenue. His main sources of income are royal estates, customs revenue, court fines and his feudal privileges as the supreme Lord. When Henry vii died, he left about two million pounds -- a sum equal to the regular income for at least fifteen years.

There are many factors and manifestations of the emergence and development of British national consciousness. English, as a national language, is the linguistic expression of British people's national identity.

In medieval England, Roman Catholicism ruled the Christian world, and Latin was the religious language. In addition, French was widely used in England in the 14th century. It even says that "there are two french-speaking kingdoms, one on the continent and the other on an island not far from the continent." After the conflict between Britain and France intensified, the hundred years' war broke out, and the confiscation of British aristocrats' territories in France, the British began to hate the French and regarded French as the "language of the enemy".

After the middle of the 14th century, with the emergence of national consciousness of the British, English gradually rose to the same important position as French and Latin. At the beginning of the 15th century, Henry iv actively advocated the use of the national language -- English. In 1440, Henry vi founded the grammar school, which actively supported the development of national languages. The reformation under Henry viii led to the replacement of Latin with English in religious ceremonies. 1611 the promulgation of the king James bible is of great significance to the formation and development of the English community. In addition, the British people are also concerned about and supportive of the development of national languages: English was adopted in literary creation, and published books promoted the growth of national languages among the British people.

In early British society, Christianity formed a partnership with secular kingship, with the church and the kingship working together to share the power of the state. "The spread of Christianity in Britain had a stabilizing effect on the monarchy." The influence of Christianity permeated all walks of English society. With the development of kingship, the cooperative relationship between church power and secular power developed into a confrontation. As early as the time of Henry ii, the two sides clashed over the separation of the courts from the traditional church and the secular world.

Henry viii, who had been ordered by the Pope to be jin, broke with Catherine in order to settle her divorce. Both the civil class and the aristocracy wanted to carry out the religious reform, obtain the church property, and urgently demand the overthrow of the Catholic rule in favor of the development of industry and commerce. In the second half of 1530, a reform group headed by Thamas Crornwell formed in the council. Between 1532 and 1534, parliament passed the "first year's salary of priests" and the "law against taxation to holy see", which greatly increased the royal revenue. In 1534, Henry viii had parliament pass The supreme law, declaring The king to be The sole and supreme head of The Anglican Church. The greatest influence of Henry VIII's time was the abolition of monasteries. The confiscated land was given to the nobility or auctioned to the big bourgeoisie, thus forming a vested interest group against the restoration of Catholicism in English society and expanding the social base of the religious reform.

During Edward VI's reign, the teaching of the church of England was protestant. But these measures were largely overturned when Mary I came to the throne in 1553. She tried to restore Catholicism as the official religion of England and punished the infidels with Bloody Mary. In 1558, Elizabeth I took the throne and further promoted the religious reform and advocated religious tolerance. In 1559, she ordered the parliament to pass the Act Of Supermacy, establishing the British episcopal church as a formal British religion and reconfirming the supreme authority Of the British monarch over religion and the secular world. The article 39 formulated in 1563 took the bible as the only criterion of faith, which greatly strengthened the loyalty and obedience of the subjects to the royal power and finally made the Tudor dynasty's theocratic rule reach its peak and the nation-state was consolidated unprecedently. At this point, the English reformation was over.

Begins with Henry VIII's top-down reformation, on the surface, the original is just get rid of the papal control Henry viii, to divorce Catherine of a means of solving the mammoth historical background in Europe in the 16th century was endowed with the meaning of The Times, make its "is no longer a depends on the king's personal will isolated phenomenon, and become a kind of the behavior of the country, a nation reflects the collective will of action". By the time of Elizabeth I, legislation and repression finally established the status of protestantism in England and brought it under the control of secular power. At the same time of negating the Roman Catholic faith, the supreme authority of the British monarch was established, which consolidated the absolute monarchy system and external independence and sovereignty.

Of course, the nation-state is a complex historical and social issue, and its establishment is influenced by many factors. Britain's nation-state came into being earlier. Although it is partly related to its geographical location, it is more from the development of various internal forces, which is generally regarded as an "endogenous type". The rise of the nation-state began with the establishment of a unified territory and the strengthening of centralized power, and then began to compete with the Pope for the leadership of the state. Among them, the formation and development of national language plays an important role in inspiring people's national consciousness. After the establishment of the unified Tudor dynasty and a series of religious reforms, especially after English gradually became the national language, Britain also had the embryonic form of modern national state. After the British bourgeois revolution in 1640, its national monarchy gradually transferred to parliamentary democracy, laying the basic features of modern state system.

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iprayunceasingly-blog · 6 years

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After peace agreement Eritrea's first step must be helping youth, priest says

New Post has been published on https://pray-unceasingly.com/catholic-living/catholic-news/after-peace-agreement-eritreas-first-step-must-be-helping-youth-priest-says/

After peace agreement Eritrea's first step must be helping youth, priest says

Asmara, Eritrea, Jul 26, 2018 / 11:33 am (ACI Prensa).- After a peace accord signed this month ended 20 years of conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, an Eritrean Catholic priest said the country needs to focus on opportunities for youth, to stem the flow of emigration.

“Peace is the base. Now we need to start to build a better future for our youth,” said Fr. Mussie Zerai, a 2015 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder and president of Habeshia, an organization which helps immigrants and refugees in Italy.

A peace agreement was signed in July by Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki and Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed, formally ending a lengthy war between the two countries, which are located in the Horn of Africa.

Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a border war from 1998 to 2000, and intermittent border clashes have continued since then. The July 8-9 summit formally ended the border conflict, restored diplomatic relations, and opened the nations' mutual border.

The priest told EWTN that the peace agreement has fulfilled 20 years of dreams and given people hope for the future, but should be followed by guaranteeing freedom, education, healthcare, and jobs, to “reduce the exodus of young people.”

Eritrea is a one-party state whose human rights record has frequently been deplored. Isaias has been president of the country since it formally gained independence in 1993.

Zerai, who was involved in the peace-building efforts, said he and others had been trying to promote dialogue as the solution for the two countries.

Religion, as well, had a role, he noted, since the prime minister of Ethiopia “invited all religious leaders” to become involved in preparing “the people for reconciliation and for tolerance and for good relations between neighboring countries” following the accord.

Religious freedom has long been a concern in Eritrea, which was highlighted in the U.S. State Department’s annual report on the state of international religious freedom, released May 29.

The report documented the arrest of hundreds of independent Protestant Christians in Eritrea, where the government reportedly coerced numerous individuals into renouncing their faith.

Catholics make up about 5 percent of the country’s population and Oriental Orthodox nearly 40 percent. The Eritrean Catholic Church uses the Alexandrian rite.

Zerai said the Catholic Church in Eritrea is very active in all aspects of society, including evangelization, charity, education, and healthcare, but faces government discrimination.

Authorities recently shut down eight free Catholic-run medical clinics, he explained, which prevented the Church from serving the poor people in those areas. Authorities said the clinics were unnecessary, because of the presence of state clinics, he said.

“Our hope is that with peace maybe the internal policy will change,” Zerai said, decrying the lack of rule of law over the last two decades.

“Now with peace I hope the country, the government, will start to build this important infrastructure and structure for the country.”

CNA Daily News – Middle East – Africa

#After #agreement #Eritrea's #First #helping #must #peace #Priest #says #step #youth #Catholic News

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usnewsaggregator-blog · 7 years

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Behind Quebec’s Ban on Face Coverings, a Debate Over Identity

New Post has been published on http://usnewsaggregator.com/behind-quebecs-ban-on-face-coverings-a-debate-over-identity/

Behind Quebec’s Ban on Face Coverings, a Debate Over Identity

That difference has now been crystallized by the new law, which no one even knows how — or whether — to enforce.

“French Canadians in Quebec behave like psychologically embattled people,” said Patrice Brodeur, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Montreal. “They are a majority in the province, but a minority on the continent. That means they are often blind to the ways in which they end up being the victimizer, imposing itself on minority groups.”

The face-covering law, titled the State Religious Neutrality Law, is the current Quebec government’s effort to address an angry debate that has blistered social ties and dominated provincial politics for more than a decade. And it is not likely to settle the argument.

Just on Tuesday, a motion to debate removing a large crucifix that is prominently displayed in Quebec’s National Assembly was blocked by the governing party, the same party that created the face-covering law — illustrating yet again how fraught and emotionally charged the subject of religious symbols is in the province.

Photo

Runners making their way past the Mount Royal Cross in Montreal. The cross was installed in 1924 by the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society, which promotes Quebec’s sovereignty. Credit Cole Burston for The New York Times

The debate centers on how traditionally white, Catholic and French-speaking Quebec can absorb and respect the religions and cultures of immigrants arriving to the province, while protecting its own identity.

Rejecting multiculturalism, the Quebecois speak instead of “interculturalism” — a concept of protecting both French culture and minority rights. But until now, that concept has never been codified.

The first try came in 2008 by a government commission, which was created to respond to a so-called “accommodation crisis,” when conflicts between members of religious groups and local institutions made regular headline news. One involved the Y.M.C.A. in Montreal, which replaced windows in its exercise room with frosted glass at the request of the synagogue next door so that Orthodox students would not see women exercising.

Continue reading the main story

Run by two well-respected academics, the commission issued 37 recommendations focused on increasing integration, reducing intolerance and secularizing the state. Controversially, it suggested that all state officials in positions of “coercive power” — like police officers and judges — be barred from wearing any religious symbols, and that the large crucifix hanging prominently in the provincial legislative chambers be removed.

The government voted unanimously to keep the crucifix, and the report was shelved.

The debate resurfaced in 2013, when a new provincial government suggested expanding the ban on religious symbols to all state employees.

Though cast as a bill on secularism, much of the debate stuck on voiles — the word used in Quebec for both hijabs and niqabs, because Muslims are the largest non-Christian religious group in the province, though only around 3 percent of the population according to the most recent census. (As for those who cover their faces, local estimates peg the number of women in the entire province of Quebec — population 8.39 million — who wear the niqab or burqa at 50 to 100.)

The role of women has played prominently in the debate.

“Quebec for the last 50 years has been fighting against the power of religion in public institutions,” said Diane Guilbault, the vice president of the advocacy group For the Rights of Women in Quebec. “Suddenly, this battle has become racist. Why? We were against religious symbols long before the first veils came here.”

For second-wave feminists like Ms. Guilbault, the memory of a powerful Roman Catholic Church that pushed Quebec women to stay home, produce the country’s highest birthrate and be excluded from public life is still potent.

In Quebec, unlike the rest of Canada, the Catholic church ran all hospitals, schools and social services until the 1960s, when a social movement known as the Quiet Revolution pushed it out. Women gained the right to vote in provincial elections only in 1940, two decades after most of the rest of the country.

“We are very proud of what we’ve accomplished over 50 years,” said Ms. Guilbault, 62. “We don’t want to go back.”

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Protesters in Montreal waiting for a subway train, their faces covered to show their objection to the new law. Credit Cole Burston for The New York Times

While Ms. Guilbault does not support the new law, she does think the niqab and burqa should be banned. “They are a symbol of the banishment of women,” she said.

Support for the law within Quebec is strong — 91 percent among French speakers, according to an online Angus Reid poll conducted last month that is often cited by the provincial government.

Continue reading the main story

But denunciation of the new law from across the country has been vocal and swift. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that while Quebec makes its own laws, he believed women could make up their own minds on what to wear.

The premiers of Ontario and Alberta both slammed the law, with the Alberta leader, Rachel Notley, saying that it “smacks of Islamophobia.”

Human rights advocates and lawyers fear that the law will further isolate Muslim women and flame anti-Muslim hate crimes, which have risen in recent years in Quebec and across the country. The most heinous was the murder of six Muslims in a Quebec City mosque last January.

“The message is this community is dysfunctional and needs to be corrected,” said Salam Elmenyawi, the president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, which represents 70 mosques and Islamic organizations. “This is institutional discrimination.”

The provincial justice minister, Stéphanie Vallée, who has said that the goal of the law is to ensure identification, communication and security, held a news conference on Tuesday to address the confusion and increasing protests the law has drawn.

People will have to show their faces only at preliminary contact with government workers, she clarified. They then can cover themselves again.

“No one will be thrown off public transit, be refused emergency health care or be chased out of a library,” she said, according to the local news media. “We do not have the intention of setting up an uncovered-face police.”

The agency that runs the Montreal subway and bus system said its workers would not enforce the law until it had been analyzed further. Some people think it will never be enforced.

“In winter, if a woman is wearing a full veil with her two kids and is waiting for the bus, will the driver not accept her?” said Gérard Bouchard, a retired history and sociology professor who was co-chairman of the commission on religious accommodation a decade ago. “No, this is nonsense. We can’t do that. Quebeckers are not hard people.”

Continue reading the main story

Original Article:

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#behind #coverings #debate #identity #quebec

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mediterraneanautumnleaves-blog · 7 years

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Butter. In a way you’ve never seen it before! Or more like the interesting history of it!

Butter, fortunately, still exists. Likewise other dairy products we(Turks) or the Mongols might have had a share in its invention as well as its dispersion. Yet, butter was already known both in Mesopotamia and Egypt. In these civilazitions’ ruins, we can see some drawings of the vertical butter churns, in contrast with the horizantal butter churns which are still being used by the Mongols. But they (Mongols) too might have had taken this food from the nomads surronding them. As a matter of fact, in a papyrus, B.C. 1800, an Egyptian writes about the butter and cheese given to him by a person,probably bedouin, he met in the Sinai. Nevertheless, butter, haven’t followed a path from south to north throughout its global dispersion journey. On the contrary, it came down from north to south. Because it is thought that things with similar names appeared in the Greek and Roman culture, however butter have never been widely consumed, then. That is why the Greek belittled the nomaidc, animal breeding and butter loving Scythians. The ease of cattle raising throughout the rainy meadows in which the Vikings have scattered around (including Iceland) makes for butter to be a Viking invention as well. It wasn’t until the middle ages that the butter produced from cow milk, by the Vikings, and the butter produced from goat milk, by the southern nomads, were to meet in the continent of Europe, residing in the middle of them. However, once the meeting happened butter clung immediately, especially in the north. Mediterranean merchants had the habit of carrying their olive oil with them when travelling to north, for merchandising, as they believed butter to cause leprosy.

The Northerners’ approach to olive oil weren’t much different from that. However, since the Pope himself was southerner, the authority was opposed to butter and this rivalry, bizarrely, even played a small role in the Reform Movement in Europe. For instance, a well-to-do northerner, during the days of fasting was to ask the Pope’s permission in order to consume butter (as it is an animal product). But they were to pay a small ‘forfeit’. It is said that the bell tower of the enormous Rouen Cathedral was built with these forfeit funds. Martin Luther could hint at (in his address to the German bourgeoisie, 1520) the Pope sending awful oils to the North and banning the butter consumption during fasting days. Eventhough, it might now be hard to believe, the conflict between these two fats, butter and live oil, was indeed big. Even more interestingly, when studying Europe’s religious beliefs map, after the days of Luther, we see that there are Protestansts in butter consuming regions and Catolics in olive oil consuming regions.(France, was divided between butter and olive oil sympathizers, as it was divided between the Catholics and Huguenots)

Moreover, the same map, shows clearly the differenenciation between the choice of wine and beer as favorite drinks. The exception is Ireland but when Ireland is in question the most powerful instinct is to believe in what the English belive in: ‘They eat butter, drink beer but believe in the Pope.’

Don’t fret and think that I argue that this important ideological difference(meaning, being Protestant or Catholic) should be reduced to the differentiation between butter/beer and olive oil/wine. Anyways, there are no norths and souths fot this matter now, everybody eats,consumes, everything. Yet, there is no harm in saying that there are interesting coincidences.

(translation by me, original version below)

And the original version of the text:

Tereyağı, neyse ki, hala var. Bazı başka süt ürünleri gibi bunun icadında veya yayılmasında bizim ya da Moğollar’ın payı olabilir. Ama gerek Mezopotamya’da gerekse Mısır’da, tereyağı bilinen bir şeydi. Moğollar’ın hala kullandığı yatay yayına karşılık, dikey olanlarının resimlerini de bu medeniyetlerin kalıntılarına görebiliyoruz. Ama onlar da bu yiyeceği çevrelerini saran göçebelerden almış olabilir. Nitekim İ.Ö. 1800’den kalma bir papirüste Mısırlı, Sina yöresinde tanıştığı – muhtemelen Bedevi- birinin kendisine getirdiği yağla peynirleri anlatır. Buna rağmen, tereyağı, dünya üzerinde çıktığı yayılma yolculuğunda, güneyden kuzeye bir rota izlemedi. Tersine, kuzeyden güneye indi. Çünkü Yunan ve Latin kültürlerine benzer bireylerin adı geçtiği sanılıyor, ama tereyağının hiçbir zaman yaygın bir kullanımı olmadı. Yunanlar, tereyağı düşkünü göçebe ve hayvancı İskitler’i bu yüzden aşağılardı. Vikingler’in yayıldığı(İzlanda dahil) bol yağışlı alanlarda geniş çayırlar olması, bu çayırlarda sığır beslemenin kolaylığı, tereyağını ayrıca bir Viking buluşu haline getirir. Onların yaptığı inek sütünden tereyağının ve güneyli göçebelerin yaptığı koyun sütünden tereyağının, arada kalan Avrupa kıtasında buluşması ta Ortaçağ’a kadar gerçekleşmemiştir. Ama bir kere gerçekleşince tabi hemen tutundu- gene özellikle kuzeyde. Akdenizli tüccarlar, tereyağının cüzama yol açtığına inandıkları için, kuzeye alışverişe giderken zeytinyağlarını yanlarında götürüyorlardı.

Kuzeyliler’in de zeytinyağına karşı tavrı bundan pek farklı değildi. Ama, Papa’nın kendisi güneyli olduğu için, otoritenin büyüğü tereyağına karşıydı ve bu rekabet, tuhaf bir şekilde, Avrupa’daki Reform Hareketi’nde bile küçük bir rol oynadı. Örneğin, hali vakti yerinde bir Kuzeyli, oruç( perhiz) günlerinde terayağı yemek için( ‘hayvani’ bir besin ya) Papa’dan izin alabiliyordu. Ama bunun için kiliseye küçük bir ‘ceza’ ödemesi gerekiyordu. Koskoca Rouen Katedrali’nin çan kulesinin bu ceza paralarıyla yapıldığı söylenir. Martiin Luther ise 1520’de Alman Soyluları’na hitabında, Papa’nın kuzeye berbat sıvı yağlar gönderip perhiz günü tereyağı yenmesini yasaklanmasına dokundurabiliyordu. Şimdi inanması güç gelebilir ama, bu iki yağ arasında çatışma öyle böyle değildi. İşin daha da tuhafı, Luther günlerinden sonra Avrupa’nın dini inançlar haritasına baktığımızda, tereyağı yiyen bölgelerde Protestanlar’ın, zeytinyağı yiyen bölgelerde Katolikler’in oturduğunu görürsünüz.( Fransa, Katolikler ve Protestan Hügnolar arasında olduğu gibi, tereyağcılar ve zeytinyağcılar arasında da bölünmüştür.)

Üstelik bu aynı harita, birinci içki olarak şarabı seçenlerle birayı seçenlerin ayrımını da oldukça net bir biçimde yansıtıyor. Belli başlı istisna İrlanda, ama İrlanda sözkonusu olduğunda, İngilizlerin inandığına inanmaktan daha güçlü bir içgüdü yok. Onlar tereyağı yiyor, bira içiyor, ama Papa’ya inanıyorlar.

Bu önemli ideolojik farklılığın( yani, Katolik ya da Protestan olmak) tereyağı/bira ve zeytinyağı/şarap ayrımına indirgenmesi gerektiğini iddia ettiğimi düşünüp telaşa kapılmayın. Hem zaten şimdi bu işlerin kuzeyi, güneyi kalmadı; herkes her şeyi yiyor. Gene de, ilginç rastanlılar olduğunu söylemenin sakıncası yok.

I found a bit strange that the writer didn’t include an explanation of the process of making butter. Since, he usually does in this book but I guess that will be in another post :D

Text taken from the book: Tarih Boyunca Yemek Kültürü

Written by: Murat Belge with the drawings of: Latif Demirci

Published by: İletişim Yayınları,2013

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