Comments on: Nationalism Trumps Catholicism

By: theomorph

theomorph — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

"Ideally, we should hold our Catholic beliefs *much higher* than our patriotism."

Which is precisely what worries some people when Catholics get involved in politics as Catholics instead of as citizens.

By: Steve Nicoloso

Steve Nicoloso — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

A system of citizenship is not beneficial in itself (i.e., to advance a collective interest), but when (and only when) everybody antes up for a system of citizenship, the system benefits them. Thus, individuals have a direct personal benefit to practicing their citizenship, and it has nothing to do with collectivist ideology.

Yeah, yeah, no one doubts that the system benefits them, you, me, they… some of the time… most of the time. But it is a bald, and unsupportable I think, act of faith to suggest that the system always benefits them. What is this, in fact, but "collectivist ideology"? The system is set up precisely to preserve itself. The contract attempts to ensure that the contract itself stands as the highest law, the medium in which "lesser" differences may be "worked out"… if, in fact, they can be worked out at all (which is quite naturally becoming all the more uncertain). This rule, that you may believe as you want, do as you want, save for when doing so conflicts with this social contract, is, of necessity, the highest law.

Do you honestly propose here that Locke was not looking out for the "good" or "betterment" of society, but only individuals? Capitalism, communism, pluralism, statism, nationalism, facism, socialism, and virtually every other competing -ism of the past 200 years is a straightforward extension of the collectivism of the social contract theory. I'm not painting anything… and your attempt to preempt the point, while valiant, doesn't ring true. Do you honestly believe that the "good" of society cannot possibly conflict with "good" for you? If so, you are the true believer, not me.

Cheers!

By: sibert

sibert — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Another, in my opinion more interesting, question:

Should our loyalty to Christ and His Bride come before our loyalty to denomination? This is acknowledging that the two are not always one and the same. Discuss.

By: YuHu

YuHu — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Are you saying that you can't be both a good Catholic and a loyal American?

By: Steve Nicoloso

Steve Nicoloso — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

But what worries me most of all is when politicians get involved in politics as politicians!!

By: Funky Dung

Funky Dung — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Citizenship (or patriotism) for its own sake seems pointless to me. Ultimately, we are all citizens as we are - Catholic, Protestant, Jew, pagan, atheist, etc. Why should we lose or subjugate our identities when we enter public service? Our moral and ethical foundations can and should guide us.

By: theomorph

theomorph — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, you're the one that keeps bringing in this "contract" terminology. Did I say it was a "social contract"? Nope. The so-called "social contract" is a metaphor, and a bad one, in my opinion. I don't think people generally perceive their relationships as individuals to the community or larger society as a contractual one. Contracts are rational agreements entered by choice. People don't choose to live in society; people are born into society. Why does society persist? Because everybody is going around thinking about how it benefits them, or because people believe they're in a "social contract"? No! Society persists for the same reason a whirlpool forms when you punch a hole in the bottom of your bucket and let the water out: because human societies arise of necessity as a result of the fundamentally social nature of the human organism. They arise in different shapes and forms, some of them more adaptive than others, but societies are not formed rationally; the rationalization comes later, and it never seems convincing, because it's not how things actually transpire.

Why do you think group organization strategies are collectivist by virtue of their being group organization strategies? Simply having a group that's organized does not mean you are espousing a collectivist philosophy. Do ants espouse collectivist philosophy? Lion prides? Schools of fish? There are loads of group organization strategies in nature. So why do human strategies have to get weighted down with allegations of ideology?

Collectivist ideology comes when people try to control a particular social organization (be it a family, a village, or a nation) from the top down, when they try to define it, steer it, make it do what they want it to do. It's a power play. Get somebody stuck in a definition of your own design and then you can proceed to push them around.

Unfortunately, reified narratives are never more than imagined metaphors, and thus always subject to dispute. But what's the point of arguing over reified categories that only exist in your imagination? There are no "societies" as entities in themselves; there are only collections of symptoms that emerge from the agency of individuals and form a recognizable coherency, if not a static, well-defined shape.

By: theomorph

theomorph — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I don't believe in putting collective/social/national interests ahead of individuals, either. Do that and you get Marxism, socialism, fascism, etc. But I don't think there's much abstraction in recognizing that having and following rules is beneficial for everybody, especially me.

A system of citizenship is not beneficial in itself (i.e., to advance a collective interest), but when (and only when) everybody antes up for a system of citizenship, the system benefits them. Thus, individuals have a direct personal benefit to practicing their citizenship, and it has nothing to do with collectivist ideology. As Stephen Pinker put it, "There is no good reason for people to drive on the right side of the road as opposed to the left side, or vice versa, but there is every reason for people to drive on the same side."

All those religions you mention, on the other hand, are nothing but collectivist ideology. More importantly, they're all mutually exclusive collectivist ideologies. The last thing they want is another collectivist ideology to compete with. So if religious people can paint citizenship or liberal government as just another competing collectivist ideology, they bring it down to their level and pummel it (just like they try to paint irreligion as just another religion so they can pummel that as such).

By: Tom Smith

Tom Smith — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I just lost a long comment. Maybe later tonight I'll redo it.

By: Tom Smith

Tom Smith — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I think the tune you mention is commonly known by its first line: "My country tis of thee"

My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died!
Land of the Pilgrim's pride!
From every mountain side,
Let freedom ring!

It's a well-known patriotic tune, but I always thought it was stupid too.

And the Pledge of Allegiance has absolutely no place in church. I'm not a fan of it anyway, because it's silly and has a rather ugly history. But at Mass? What was this guy thinking? Stick to the Missal; don't customize.

This gets back to the whole gripe I had a few weeks back when I whined about the seeming fact that Catholics have to be good, democracy-loving America-worshippers, which is clearly BS, particularly in light of the Church's somewhat rocky history with democracy.

I think the whole thing is a holdover from the days when Catholics were absolutely desparate to fit in with American society. Now that Catholics are pretty mainstream, I see no need to continue the silliness, which really wasn't necessary in the first place.