As I have said before, any renewal of Western Society is only going to come about from a renewal of the Christian religion and therefore an understanding of why it "failed" is important in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes of the past. And one of the big mistakes, at least for Catholics, has been the religious approach to the laity which encourages their infantilisation and passivity.
In the previous post commentator John Rockwell said:
@Social Pathologist
"Heavy-handed authoritarianism which never admits its mistakes and has the effect of puffing up the leaders and infantilizing the subjects.I think that John Rockwell is absolutely right. Until recently, one of the things that Catholic Trads/Ultramontanists would be at pains of emphasising is the importance of of obedience to Papal teaching by virtue of his authority. The Catholic laity was meant to show an Obsequium Religiosum when it came to religious instruction by his ecclesiastical superiors. It being defined as:
This is a complex topic but I think you're largely right here. An infantilized laity is not only a spiritually dead one but one also prone to capture by other ideologies."
This sort of thing is characteristic of Communist and other forms of super-centralized socialist regimes. [Ed]
Seeking to turn adult subjects back into children who do not have the agency to act in a responsible and competent manner as well as into programmable automations.
Akin to NPCs in video games which act only according to script and unable to change their routines.
Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra;[ED: even when he could be wrong] that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.*The good Catholic was not meant to have any active relationship with the faith, his job was to let the Pope do his thinking for him even in instances where the Pope could be wrong. Here's George Orwell, in 1984, expressing pretty much same concept:
“Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to BELIEVE that black is white, and more, to KNOW that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary.”
6 comments:
The Catholic Church ideology is typical of the ideology designed by people who want to rule over masses of men who are not like them. One size fits all or else.
Its if you'll forgive a leftism an imperial ideology.
Like most imperial ideologies it's not entirely malevolent and combined with other economic measures made the mid to late medieval period fairly stable and humane for much of the peasantry. Rough estimates for example put the medieval work week, counting festivals, feast days half days and such at around 40 hours. This was part and parcel of what the 19th century labor protests and the 40 hour work week demands were about.
Because industrial society can ramp up production really more than anyone needs and won't lower it unless they are forced to either by a deficit of manpower, materials or occasionally demand , they'll devour every hour of life people have and happily destroy society. The arch example here being Japan. People have basically opted out of sex, reproduction and having a Japan . The West is in a similar boat.
The problem though is the church while used to do much good on social grounds it's no longer needed in my of its more useful roles and do to social changes, it's not longer a common religious lingua franca either.
Not quite to self licking ice cream cone status but close and worse corrupted with a lot of stupid ideas.
Those who still believe or still find civic value in its rituals are often not its best thinkers and basically parrot what they are told hence the NPC problem
Fixing that though is simply not possible. Its an ideology from a much less complex world.
As for a replacement. Not doable either . It's kind of worked when it was mostly Europeans, low tech and with an ignorant population locked to the land.
It's not like that and despite that the Deus Vult crowd thinking solid Christendom was never really a thing and is even less a thing when it's membership its too diverse.
Long term I'd guess actual diversity that is , thousands of polities, will reassert itself as industrial society winds down.
This of course will be far from the diverse paradise of the Left, it will be downright hostile but as I believe Ovid said "beat nature off with a stick she will return with a rush."
@A.B. Prosper
The Catholic Church ideology is typical of the ideology designed by people who want to rule over masses of men who are not like them. One size fits all or else.
Not sure about them. The problem I think is the Church's focus on Authority rather than the Truth. It seems to the see the problem as one of discipline and not evangelisation and regards difficulties that one may have with the teaching being a problem of ill will, not understanding. Of course, the underlying Assumption is that the hierarchy is never wrong and that it doesn't matter for the laity since obedience is that matters.
Don't get me wrong. I think that when the Church pronounces an infallible teaching then--at least if your a Catholic--your obliged to believe it, but authoritative teachings always contain the possibility of error and therefore can be legitimately opposed if good reasons exist which are motivated by good faith.
In what sense does todays "Trad" movement involve slavish devotion to the clergy? The trads revile almost all bishops and the lion's share of parish priests. Lay media personalities are extremely prominent, more so than any clerical media figures I can think of. There are a handful of bishops they like (Cardinal Burke, CardinalSarah, Abp. Cordleone, etc.) , but none of these bishops are immune to criticism by lay Trads. JPII and BXVI are frequently criticized. A revival of Trad clericalism is the last thing anyone has to worry about.
And I think you would have to acknowledge the perennial problem that while an 85 IQ laborer can internalize the basics of the faith and develop an interior spiritual life, they are not going to be able to understand the finer points of doctrine, making something like the pre-Vatican II approach needed. Just how it is. Per Aquinas, the common layman can grasp divine revelation but not natural theology, which is why God provided the former. And they probably had a better grasp of doctrine but then then they do now.
Orwell was directly attempting to lampoon Catholicism in 1984 because he was an upper middle class Anglo who hated the Irish. Everyone knows this. Is does not "really make you think".
Put another way: Is an old lady who goes to mass and prays the Rosary every day, but defers to the CDF when asked about Divine Simplicity (assuming she knows what either of those things are)-- "infantilized". What, in precise terms, is missing from the picture? Does having her read the epistle at mass and distribute communion make her less infantile in some way?
What you describe seems to really be the problem that liberal theologians like Blondel had prior to the 60s, in the age of the Oath Against Modernism. They had to engage in doublethink in order to avoid censure, so they assumed that what they experienced was mirrored by the average Joe in the pews.
The problem of the layman (or priest) who doesn't really have a deep faith but goes through the motions because he lives in a Christian-dominant culture will exist in every such society. There is no magic formula that can eliminate it.
@ Anon
The trads revile almost all bishops and the lion's share of parish priests.
Only because they're not singing your tune. If they did change their tune then the trads would be demanding obedience.
And I think you would have to acknowledge the perennial problem that while an 85 IQ laborer can internalize the basics of the faith and develop an interior spiritual life, they are not going to be able to understand the finer points of doctrine, making something like the pre-Vatican II approach needed.
And the question here is, do they need to? One the repeated themes of the Bible is that God reveals himself to the unlearned rather than wise with the implied warning that the religious professional needs to maintain an air of humility and ability to learn. The flow of knowledge is not one way. The whole thing about Pharasiacism is despite the fact that the Pharisee knows the theory down to its minutest detail he still misses the point of it. High quality knowledge alone is not enough. Note, I'm not saying that there isn't a role for religious professionalism.
Put another way: Is an old lady who goes to mass and prays the Rosary every day....
No, but she is when her complaints about having the people who oversaw the molestation are dismissed she's infantalized. One of the things about Catholic teaching is that it has be recieved by the laity if it is to be considered authentic. When they reject a doctrine, i.e. such as taught in Humanae Vitae--i.e. most Catholic couples contracept--it's never said that hey, maybe us clergy have got it wrong; nope, never. It's simply that the laity has gone bad. The idea that the laity's rejection may actually be a sign from God is considered inconceivable by the True and Just Guardians of the Faith.™
Secondly, as the Catechism states; if the Pope teaches something that is wrong, Catholics are obliged to believe it by virtue of his authority. In other words, Catholics are obliged to believe in Papal error. Can you see the problem here?
The problem of the layman (or priest) who doesn't really have a deep faith but goes through the motions because he lives in a Christian-dominant culture will exist in every such society.
Yep, and a "good enough" faith may be quite pleasing to God. I don't think it is that much of a problem. It's far more of a problem when you go to mass every day, are able to discuss the finer points of theology but are still incapable of punishing child sexual abuse. Now you have a real problem.
Orwell was directly attempting to lampoon Catholicism
Orwell didn't like Catholicism but the passage where this came from had nothing to do with Catholicism. I recognised that the Catechism was asking me to do what a good lower party member was expected to do in 1984. C.S. Lewis, who very sympathetic to Catholicism explained that the reason he did not covert was because in doing so he would stop being able to think for himself and allow the Pope to do his thinking for
him.
As for Blondel I think that's a valid criticism, but it's equally applied to all the intensely religious types, liberal or Trad. They all want to clericise the laity.
"Big Brother may not have called it Obsequium Religiosum but he wanted submission of the mind and will. "
Indeed such a characteristic is common to all cults with Socialist societies being gigantic versions of such. Which simply takes it to the extreme that everyone but the leadership are cookie cutter automatons.
Basically all of the most false religion whether in the guise of Christianity or others.
Takes away individual agency in this manner. Compared with the leadership of God himself which delights in the agency of his inferiors.
Even so far as to give man and other creatures free will even as such will ultimately goes according to his plan.
So that Satan was able to rebel as was man able to do so as well. The range of different subrealities created by man good or bad. Superior or inferior. Beautiful or Ugly is also a testament to this.
The order of God looks "chaotic" like the fractal patterns of nature. And the manifold irregular shapes. And the motion of the cosmos.
Yet the order of sinful man corrupted by sin is "cookie-cutter" homogeneity and "grey soulessness" as it is with modernity.
As man is dehumanized and robbed of the Imago Dei as society seeks to turn him into a robot who can only act according to script.
When Man was not far from Eden he was able to recreate the heights of beauty according to the dignity of God he created him.
But it appears that his ability to do so seemed to have been diminished.
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