Category: Culture

Diluting the pro-life message

I think I appreciate the interconnectedness of things as much as anyone. People’s commitments (or values, or whatever you want to call them) tend to come in clusters or constellations if only because people try to live by coherent philosophies (or ideologies, if you prefer).

I long puzzled that the pro-life position was predominately “conservative,” while conservatives simultaneously tended to favor capital punishment and imperial wars. I’m not trying to make a hackneyed point about hypocrisy; I really found it puzzling, because, in the immortal words of Sesame Street, “one of these things was (at least superficially) not like the others.” I had some trouble discerning the coherent philosophy behind such a mixed bag of views. I now suspect that it involved credulity about (a) the guilt of all convicts on death row and (b) the legitimacy of some pretty flimsy causa belli.

And why couldn’t liberals, with their vaunted care for justice, see the injustice of abortion? I’m still not positive, but I think it’s because they have made celebration of the sexual revolution so central a part of their ideology (or philosophy, if you prefer).

I long for the day when abortion will not be a partisan issue because both parties will be pro-life.

And because I long for that day, I resent it when an entire conservative agenda, including some of the dumber talking points, is crammed into an ostensibly pro-life publication — resenting it if only because it is a conversation stopper and increases the likelihood that abortion will remain highly partisan. The GOP has been trying to make the pro-life cause its wholly-owned subsidiary, giving darned little in return, for a good 30 year now, and I hate to see the cause succumbing.

Exhibit A: a recent mailer from Indiana Right to Life. James Bopp, Jr., GOP activist (with a long and distinguished pro-life record as well) editorialized in a “Freedom Manifesto” that occupied one quarter of the mailer. Examples:

  • “President Obama is pursuing a socialist agenda based on … equality of outcomes.”
  • “Mr. Obama’s vision of radical equality … transform[s] our country into a socialist state, where all life’s decisions are subject to control …..”
  • “Taking over the auto and banking industries was only the start of the country’s most audacious power grab.”
  • “Gun control … is about equating law-abiding gun owners with criminals.”
  • “Mr. Obama’s foreign policy is based on moral equivalence and multiculturalism, denying American exceptionalism.”
  • And finally, “This fight is between freedom and a new evil empire of tyranny – previously the Soviet Union, but now it is our own government.”

Forget for a moment how shrill and “on script” some of this is. Why is it in an Indiana Right to Life publication?

I’ll give Bopp credit for not giving the GOP a free pass. He didn’t. He said they were “on probation.”

But why probation? Because Orrin Hatch and others folded on stem-cell research? No. Because it tolerated pro-abortion Republicans like Arlen Specter? No (unless “liberal” is now code for “pro-abortion”). Rather:

[T]he party compromised its position as the champion of conservative values when its “no-new-tax” pledge was abandoned; when elected Republicans failed to stop excessive government spending, earmarks and deficits, and then proposed bailouts; when the party spent millions supporting liberal Republicans in primary and general elections who then switched parties and or endorsed Democrats; and finally when the party nominated for president the media’s favorite Republican, who then voted for a trillion-dollar government bailout. [Bopp supported, by the way, Mitt Romney — a vehement position I never figured out.]

And how can the GOP get off probation?

The Republican Party can reclaim its leadership by recognizing that it is – the party of conservative principles and policies and thus the party of freedom, prosperity and security. But deeds must match words.
A united congressional Republican opposition to Mr. Obama’s socialist agenda is a critical step.
Also key is putting the Republican Party’s money where its mouth is, by engaging in aggressive lobbying against Mr. Obama’s entire socialist agenda, and by making available the party’s financial support to only bona-fide conservative candidates.
And finally, the party should never again remain silent when Republican public officials betray the trust of the American people by abandoning their conservative principles or engaging in unethical conduct. The Republican Party must recognize that it, too, will be held accountable.

Only one brief mention of abortion in the whole Manifesto. No mention of euthanasia. No mention of stem-cell research. Just lots of “power grab” and “socialist” and sundry other horribles.

Did I mention that this was an Indiana Right to Life publication? Doesn’t this kind of ideology dilute the pro-life message as surely as incorporating it into the “seamless web” so beloved of Catholic “social justice” folks? Or even more?

Exhibit B: Indiana Right To Life Political Action Committee announced a few months ago a blanket policy of endorsing no Democrats because, in essence, party pressure makes pro-life Democrats fold. I can defend that decision on its own, but then a few months later we get this “Freedom Manifesto.”

Virtually every Sunday, we sing from the Psalms “Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day his plans perish.” I’m not very trustful of interest groups, either, and nothing about this newsletter raised my trust in the judgment of IRTL.

Am I nuts to say this? Am I just being petulant? No, this sort of thing is a pretty settled conviction with me these days. See here and here.

I’m almost 62, and I’m going to say what I think …

I was at a small party tonite for a young friend who’s (1) turning a year older and (2) soon going away for more schooling. The host, a bright not-so-young man (though he’s younger than me) and I enjoy each other’s company quite a lot, and our lives are intertwined in multiple ways, including that he’s my grandson’s godfather.

On some political cultural issues, we found ourselves not only agreeing on the substance, but mutually marveling, after he brought it up, at how widespread is the virtual ban on uttering our opinions aloud. In some of the more or less conservative circles we travel in (we did not discuss all these; some were his list, some mine):

  • You can’t talk about caring for God’s good creation without being thought a left-wing environmentalist (especially if you call it “the environment,” which I try not to).
  • You can’t say that capitalism has its limits.
  • You can’t say that “creative destruction” is profoundly un-conservative in a very important sense.
  • You can’t question “American Exceptionalism” or you’ll be accused of something like “moral equivalence.”
  • You can’t suggest that America isn’t omnipotent and can’t do any stupid thing it chooses with impunity.
  • You can’t suggest that we’re not going to grow our way out of this malaise – or that if we do, there nevertheless will come some day, probably soon, a malaise we cannot outgrow, and that our mountains of debt have a lot to do with that.
  • You can’t say that our economic system is not fundamentally different than the state capitalism David Brooks was trying to distinguish from our system a few days ago.
  • You can’t suggest that we’re running out of oil and that the days of the automobile as so central a feature of life are numbered.
  • I’m not even sure you can safely say “the sexual revolution was at best a mixed blessing, and I think it was a net setback for humanity.” Not even in “conservative” circles as “conservative” mags like National Review now have writers who are shacking up without (or at least before) wedlock. (Wanna know why same-sex marriage has valence? Look at what heteros have done to marriage.)

To his observation, and after running down a quick mental list of my own, I found myself saying “I’m almost 62 years old and I’m going to say what I believe — if only so I can say ‘I told you so’ some day.”

I’m wondering if that should be the new subheading on the blog instead of my beloved Latin maxim. That’s kind of what I’ve been doing in this blog. But I am pretty eclectic, and it’s not all negative or adulatory. Some of it’s just my sense of intrigue on a topic that I want to share.

Anyway, all those things you can’t say? I just said ’em. And I’m stickin’ to it.

A tacky icon meets its end

As Jason Peters puts it at Front Porch Republic, Zeus has been avenged for offenses against statuary.

“I guess it takes a divine sense of irony to destroy a fiberglass and foam statue outside a place called Solid Rock Church,” said Monroe assistant fire chief Connie Flagration. “You want irony in a god, but this might be going a bit too far.”

Details here and here.

I don’t understand why I don’t hear weeping in heaven. Or maybe I do.

“Fervently Catholic, proudly gay, happily celibate”

A New York Times feature Saturday morning profiles Eve Tushnet, styled A Gay Catholic Voice Against Same-Sex Marriage. Eve Tushnet is a very intriguing and forthright thinker/writer who had dropped off my radar though I had admired her in the past.

I find her intriguing today because, on a general topic that remains contentious (which is why it merits careful discussion, again and again, until sanity reigns) and shrill (it often seems that the world is divided into “it’s an abomination” and “you’re a closet queen homophobe” camps), I find myself agreeing with her almost 100%. Her position lifestyle convictions — shared at least in general terms by Orthodox, Catholics, and at least a few others — are neither antinomian nor “phobic” about anything.

Read the profile and read Tushnet’s website a bit. (Here is the link to subscribe to her blog, offered because it was deucedly hard for me to locate.)

Although one might fault her for writing and talking so much about her own sexuality (there’s too little privacy about private things in our exhibitionist age), I believe I understand her decision. In a world where opinion on homosexuality is as polarized as I described, a still-recent convert to a humbler, more historic Christian tradition may be excused for saying repeatedly that “the Gospel is good news for everybody” (as Fr. Thomoas Hopko put it) and “I’ve got credibility because I’m joyously living what I say.” So she’s not hiding her little light under a bushel.

I claim no exalted expertise or credibility on homosexuality. I have watched, read and thought a lot about it as one of the contentious “culture wars” issues of the day, and I’ve pushed back against the gay rights cause where I thought it was going beyond a demand for human dignity and impinging on the rights of others (in general, see my discussion of Chai Feldblum here). When I pushed back, I regretted the wounded and uncomprehending looks from some “out” acquaintances and friends, and accordingly triple-checked and recalibrated my Golden Rule Empathyometer. (I wasn’t off by much if at all. Whew!)

Here’s where I may disagree with Tushnet:

  • “Fervently Catholic” — “She could do better than that,” says this still-recent Orthodox convert from Protestantism. ‘Nuff said about that. 😉
  • “Proudly gay” — these aren’t her words, and perhaps she wouldn’t use them. I simply don’t know what they mean. Pride about anything is dangerous. Pride about unchosen homosexuality seems as silly as being “proudly straight.” And “gay” is also problematic: I thought “gay” connoted non-celibacy; I’ve even had televised debates where my adversary scornfully dismissed the possibility of celibacy with some catty crack like “what do you think ‘gay’ means!?” “Matter-of-fact about her homosexual orientation” seems apt. “Convinced that sexual orientation cannot be changed” is plausible as well, as the falls of several high profile evangelical “reparative therapy” fans attest. But “proud.” Nah.
  • “She does not see herself as disordered” — this passing characterization, in case you’re unaware, represents a gentle repudiation of the Roman Catholic position that homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered.” I’m inclined, in contrast to Tushnet, to agree with that characterization — while quickly adding that there’s something(s) “objectively disordered” about a lot of things in this world. For that reason, I have not taken “objectively disordered” as a put-down, or particularly applied it to persons as opposed to inclinations and practices.
  • “Sin ‘means you have a chance to come back and repent and be saved,’ she says” — While it is true that “sin” doesn’t mean “you’re bad,” neither does it mean you have a chance to come back and repent and be saved. Sin (Greek amartia) means missing the mark (from which miss you indeed can repent etc.).

Somehow, though, it seems inadequate simply to say I agree with the rest of Tushnet’s “positions” in the profile. Instead, I especially appreciate her courage in advocating and modeling celibacy and passionate friendships, including same sex friendships, as the profile alludes to Tushnet’s “theology of friendship, as articulated in books like St. Aelred’s ‘On Spiritual Friendship.’”

I know some decent people who think that anything like “passionate friendships” are just too dangerous (or some such thing) for people with homosexual inclinations, but were there no other problems with that view, there is the very real danger in of any self-imposed, or socially-imposed, isolation. My attitude (to put it in terms of one of my own besetting sins) basically is “The world’s a dangerous place. I can’t stop eating just because I have an inclination to gluttony. I must eat – and risk loss of control – or die. And by analogy ….” I’ll bet you can fill in the rest (which presumes a universal human need for deep friendship). We’re “persons” only in relationship, and an isolated “individual” isn’t much to brag about.

Tushnet is refreshingly realistic about temptation, too: “‘It turns out I happen to be very good at sublimating,’ she says, while acknowledging that that is a lot to ask of others.” Perhaps a lot to ask especially of people trying to become fully human persons in close relation to others.

But in the world, as in the monastery, when a Christian falls, he/she gets back up. And if you fall again, you get up again. Maybe you ask yourself at some point “Am I exposing myself to too much temptation? Should I flee like Joseph from Potiphar’s wife?,” but that’s not my call to make for anyone other than myself.

Eve Tushnet: I’m putting you on my blogroll. Keep up the good work.

Eat Local

Ironic that this ad should come from Hellmans, a Unilever® brand.

I’ll go one step further: don’t just buy American. Buy local as much as possible. I’m not yet doing CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) for urgent personal reasons, but I may next year. And I am heading to the Farmer’s Market soon.

[HT Front Porch Republic and The Distributist Review]

Oh: one more thing. Buy and read Michael Polan’s, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual. Funny and practical commentary on The Seven Words (also coined by the author): Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Had I taken such advice 40 years ago, I wouldn’t look like the Goodyear blimp, or consume $thousands in medicines each year, or need to pay someone to help me lose 72 pounds (26 down, 46 to go!).

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

by William Butler Yeats

<!– (from The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats) –>

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

“An Irish Airman foresees his Death” by William Butler Yeats. Public domain. (HT Writer’s Almanac)

Madness, Genius, Torment

I’m fascinated by the tortured, twisted biographies of so many creative types (not that I have a great deal of time to read extended biographies, but my websurfing habits lead me to encounter vignettes fairly often).

Today’s Writer’s Almanac has a little biography of Allen Ginsberg, born this day in 1926, and an excerpt from his poem Kaddish. Mental illness up the family tree. Ginsberg came to terms with being a very “out” homosexual, but he was tortured earlier in life with perceptions of antisemitism and addition to the burden of very eccentric parents.

Coincidentally, the New York Times today also has an obituary for “poet and Ginsberg muse” Peter Orlovsky. Troubles by the number, heartaches by the score. Booze, drugs, anything but monogamous.

Falling somewhat short of torture and torment perhaps is the life of E.M.Forster, author of Passage to India, which placed him at the top of the heap of British novelists, but also marked his virtual withdrawal from further publication during the rest of his life. Here’s a little attempted insight into the backstory (titled “A Closet With A View,” should you want a hint).

I could go on, but my day job beckons.

Speaking of “day jobs” and shifting a bit, I puzzle at times about the neural connections behind the scientific and engineering careers of many excellent amateur musicians I know. And don’t forget Russel Crowe’s unforgettable portrayal of a mad mathematician and game theorist in A Beautiful Mind.

Okay, I’m in a university town, and the university is a Land Grant school with an Ag and Engineering emphasis historically, so that’s anecdotal. So’s the tortured gay artist impression. But they’re my anecdotes, on my blog, and I’m stickin’ to ’em. (Insights welcome just the same.)

And I’m adding creativity to the list of things I don’t understand, saying a heartfelt Kyrie Elieison for these folks who suffered mightily, transgressed commandments quite openly — and made our lives richer.

The planetary healing decided to “summer” up north, I guess

Two years ago Thursday, when He (you do capitalize the pronoun for this President, don’t you?) locked up the nomination with a win in Minnesota, our now-President promised:

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

So, how’s the healing going in the Gulf of Mexico, your highness?

Idea du jour: the pre-obituary

What a dreary afternoon for a holiday! I needed a pick-me-up, and P.J. O’Rourke provided it.

O’Rourke has a great idea for reviving the newspaper biz, which desparately needs great ideas and revival: the pre-obituary:

What I propose is “Pre-Obituaries”—official notices that certain people aren’t dead yet accompanied by brief summaries of their lives indicating why we wish they were.

The main advantage of the Pre-Obit over the traditional obituary is the knowledge of reader and writer alike that the as-good-as-dead people are still around to have their feelings hurt. It was a travesty of literary justice that we waited until J. D. Salinger finally hit the delete key at 91 before admitting that Catcher in the Rye stinks. The book’s only virtue is that it captures, with annoying accuracy, the maunderings of a twerp. The book’s only pleasure is in slamming the cover shut—simpler than slamming the door shut on a real Holden Caulfield, if less satisfying. The rest of Salinger’s published oeuvre was precious or boring or both. But we felt constrained to delay saying so, perhaps because of an outdated Victorian hope for a death-bed flash of genius.

Let us wait no more. With the Pre-Obituary we can abandon pusillanimous constraint and false hope and say what we think about the lives of public nuisances when their lives are not yet a dead letter. And we won’t be stuck in the treacle of nostalgia and sentiment. We won’t find ourselves saying of some oaf, “His like will not pass this way again.” Or, if we do say it, we can comfortably add, “Thank God!” The precept of Diogenes isn’t “Do not speak ill of the living.”

Think of the opportunities we’ve missed already….

By O’Rourke’s lights, several notables besides Salinger needed pre-obituaries, but we blew the chance:

  • Beatrice Arthur
  • Paul Newman
  • John Kenneth Galbraith
  • Ted Kennedy

But we’re not too late for some others:

  • Jimmy Carter
  • Gore Vidal
  • Noam Chomsky
  • Norman Lear
  • Ed Asner
  • Ben Bradlee
  • Ross Perot
  • Ted Turner
  • Jane Fonda
  • Barney Frank
  • Harry Reid
  • Bernie Sanders
  • Christopher Dodd
  • Bernadine Dohrn
  • Bill Ayers
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber
  • Donald Trump
  • Paul Krugman
  • Ben & Jerry
  • Keith Richards
  • Mick Jagger
  • Janet Jackson

I might quibble with  few on that list, but overall, it’s target-rich.