A rule of thumb; or, Catholic social teaching isn’t what you think it is
Monday, July 20, 2009
If you have someone claiming they’ve found a third way beyond left and right other than liberalism, what they’re advocating is probably yet another warmed-over version of fascism. I’d say that’s especially the case if the idea of the “sanctity of life” figures prominently into this supposedly innovative vision.
I would also add that a position’s supposed insusceptibility to placement on our current conceptual map is not ipso facto an argument in its favor — the frequent claim that this is a point in favor of Catholic social teaching, for instance, seems to be a variation on the common Christian reliance upon the supposedly intrinsic appeal of the counterintuitive. (“You think that it’s good to be healthy and happy, but actually being poor and dying is what’s really good. Isn’t that cool? Doesn’t that just fucking blow your mind? That crazy God!”)
In reality, Catholic social teaching seems to me to fall outside of our normal political spectrum because on the one hand, it requires individuals to start behaving in a moral and honorable way, but on the other hand, it appears to have no mechanism for getting them to do so. (“We don’t need a “statist” solution, we just need people to start being more generous! Don’t you see?”) In other words, it falls outside the political spectrum because it’s a fantasy — and not even a very appealling one. I’m not willing to trade the vague promise of a gift economy to supplement that market for the right to contraception, for example. I’m not willing to radically rethink the role of civil society if we’re told in advance that the result will require shaming and scapegoating of homosexuals. I could go on.
A question that doesn’t get asked enough in these discussions is why popes are coming up with social teachings. I think that it’s naive to think that they’re benevolently sharing their wisdom about how to set up concrete social relations. Rather than viewing Catholic social teaching as an actual practical agenda, we should view it as immediately practical — to the papacy itself. It’s part of the interminable process of forming and maintaining alliances, about which Schmitt already told us all we need to know in Roman Catholicism and Political Form. Catholic social teaching needs to be a “third way” because it needs to appeal to various groups whose interests are in conflict. It needs to hold onto its alliances with the ruling powers in order to maintain the church’s privileges, and it needs to maintain its popular base of support as well. It needs the crazy right-wingers for foot soldiers in the stupid social issues (which are where the papacy’s heart really is), but it needs to convince the well-meaning liberal Catholics that there are really good elements in the church worth holding onto as well. The list goes on.
I don’t think that the Church intends to incite a fascist revolution by any means — though it has certainly felt perfectly comfortable with them wherever they’ve arisen. Its goal, rather, is its own self-preservation. I assume that if a political party arose with the goal of instituting Catholic social teaching as a positive political program, the pope (whoever he happened to be) would privately chuckle at how naive they were — and would publicly send out cautiously-worded documents that would reassure the members of that party that he approved while simultaneously appearing to distance himself from them so as not to alienate the members of the other parties.
I think it’s undeniable that this is a brilliant strategy. But treating the “social teaching” produced by this strategy as some kind of coherent positive vision that will solve all our problems seems crazy to me — although the very fact that people do so is yet more evidence of the brilliance of the strategy, since it is able to provide a rallying-point for intellectuals who can maintain their loyalty to the church and get a sense of unearned superiority as a kind of pure unmediated gift.
Monday, July 20, 2009 at 9:45 pm
This definitely has to be the most revealing post in terms of the direction of the weblog and An und fur sich over the past few years. There is no third way, mediating position, radically new possibility, hope for breaking out of the deadlock! There are exactly two positions on any question: the liberal and the conservative, the right and the wrong, the red and the blue, what Adam believed as a youngster and what he believes now.
Want to know what Kotsko thinks? Easy! Ask the nearest right wing evangelical hack what he thinks. And then, reverse it. Hold up a mirror. Flip it. And it’s not just content, it’s also a matter of relative importance. Are you a Southern Christian who thinks two or three issues are the very most important questions, like ever, in world history? Oh, Mr. Kotsko, he agrees with you. He just believes exactly, and when we say exactly we mean exactly, the opposite way you do. And he’s just as proud of it as you are. Reactionary all the way down. Sheeesh!
Monday, July 20, 2009 at 9:55 pm
You’re lucky that you’ve been around so long, because you are in flagrant violation of the comment policy.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 12:10 am
“on the one hand, it requires individuals to start behaving in a moral and honorable way, but on the other hand, it appears to have no mechanism for getting them to do so.”
If the RCC (or whatever quasi-Catholics who’re trumpeting “Catholic social teaching” in a particular instance) doesn’t have any good routes for making people more “moral and honorable”, isn’t that already a pretty huge problem for them, even apart from what’s supposed to be their substantive “social teaching”? That they effectively have no discipleship going on?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 12:46 am
old,
Come now, you must know that’s bullshit. I very much doubt that Adam believed in CST as a “youngster” and this position isn’t a pure binary anyway. He is saying we must have principles. The creation of a new world, and that’s what we want not simply a recasting of civil society as such, is no new creation if we reject egalitarian princples and simply repeat the same logic that flows beneath this society. I find it really surprising you would think Adam just reverses whatever a conservative thinks after reading this post where his argument is essentially a realist look at the issue of power within the Roman church itself.
I’m sorry that we at AUFS have missed the revolution going on, but if its a right-wing revolution than it is a reactionary one and it is right to rebel against reactionaries, even if only through a discussion of theory.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 12:55 am
No one has ever said that there isn’t a radical possibility for something new here. If you’re going to work for that, however, you have to actually imagine something new and interrogate the old logics and paradigms. What have you offered here except some moral superiority and the adolescent sneer towards the sheeple.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 4:35 am
Two words for this ‘new synthesis’: anarcho syndicalism. Recently promoted by thinks as Chomsky et al, origins back in the likes of Proudhon, Kropotkin et al. Gift economy is the kind of ‘mutual aid’ that these kind of people have been banging on about for hundreds of years.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 4:55 am
I think this discussion also fails to see the historically situated nature of CST, and its largely reactive nature. For example, Rerum Novarum was produced in 1891. This is after almost a century of political upheaval regarding the topics it discussed. Recall the Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, and is itself responding to many other social movements that preceded it.
And the sketch of the left is somewhat tiresome as I’ve tried pointing out to Blond on numerous occasions. What contemporary left winger really believes in a strong state?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 5:34 am
Alex, Zizek.
Anthony, CST is the last thing Adam discovered on his way to a complete reversal of his ‘youngster’ position, and now, as someone once said, there is nothing so odious as the position one has most recently left behind. And the post does assume a world of pure binaries. CST isn’t a real position, according to the post. It’s a cynical one intended to retain some sense of power with both sides. I realize that as a Deleuzian you are committed to “the creation of a new world”; I just think that spending as much time as AUFS has lately in attacking “Christians who wrongly think of themselves as progressive” or whatever, is no way to get there. My conviction that Adam simply reverses what conservatives think developed long, long before this post.
And it’s not as if I don’t share a frustration with the catholic hierarchy for paying lip service to anti-war and anti-capitalist positions while refusing communion to and investigating those who are pro-choice, pro-gay, and pro-poor, I just find tiresome the continual equation of a whole raft of people from Halden to Millbank (with whom I’ve expressed genuine disgust) with some sort of “right wing revolution.”
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:14 am
I almost put ‘Apart from maybe Zizek’. I hearby retract your zing.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:37 am
old,
Seriously, I thought you were better than this sort of confused thinking. If you want to continue to psychologize (I really could care less what convictions you have about Adam’s thinking just as I’m sure you could care less about the convictions I have about your thinking) then I’ll have to erase the comments. No one here is speculating from your personal life why you have a number of very bizarre positions and I would expect you to return the favor. If you’re annoyed with the posts then don’t read them. If you want to engage with them then we expect you to actually say something instead of simply “You’re only saying that cause you’re reactive”. It really is very simple.
Now, I see no argument at all, not even the hint of something persuasive, in your suggestion that the post posits pure binaries. The world can have a plethora of political positions, some may even be genuinely radical or representing a break with the current multitude of configurations, and CST can still be a cynical position. For CST to represent some kind of new position it would have to be the case that the author of the article is correct in saying there is only a left-wing statism and a right-wing free-marketism. That is not the case and so Benedict’s encyclical shares a lot in common with many already existing positions with an overarching conservative vision of society. Why is that something we should support and not speak out against if our conscience says we should? What is it that you’re trying to gain by getting us to shut up?
I’m not the one who suggested there is a “right-wing revolution” happening. It was you who suggested that Adam was somehow being reactionary and so I assumed you agreed with the Guardian article claiming that there is something truly radical in the Pope’s encyclical. I actually agree with Adam’s analysis that these sorts of social teachings are designed to make sure nothing really changes, to keep a sort of comfortable position for the hierarchy of the Roman church within the current political situation, and that religion as such isn’t the main driver behind politics (though perhaps its logic is somehow theological).
Now stop psychologizing and make a contribution or go away.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 7:21 am
Interesting. Although, I wonder if you could comment on whether you see this as intrinsic to CST or something that occurred as a strategy over time. When Rerum Novarum came about, it was responding to some very real stuff: denouncing child labor, supporting unions, advocating for limiting work hours.
Folks in the CST world tend to say that the social teaching of the church is ancient and only takes a overtly politicized form in 1891 (I’m assuming you would disagree with this?). The doctrines don’t seem arbitrary or contrived in their judgments. You agree with the logic because you are part of the community that constructs that knowledge, no? And if not, if you aren’t within the confines of “the Venerable Brethren the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other ordinaries of places having Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See,” then you shouldn’t give a damn. Or are they just pretending to be for an audience of the church, really disguised to create a new world order? Is that what you are saying?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 7:38 am
Or are they just pretending to be for an audience of the church, really disguised to create a new world order? Is that what you are saying?
No, that’s not what I’m saying. If anything, I’m saying the exact opposite: it’s pretending to lay down principles for a new world order, but is intended to enhance the papacy’s prestige within this world order.
Of course Rerum Novarum was addressing real problems — albeit coming very, very late to the party. Catholic social teaching now is also addressing real problems: war, poverty, nuclear disarmament, etc. It couldn’t fulfill its job if it was a bunch of totally random proclamations. The church today needs to appeal to an increasingly radicalized popular base in the Third World and an increasingly educated and liberal base in the First — just like back in 1891, it had to deal with the late-coming capitalist development in Catholic countries. Of course the principles didn’t just appear entirely out of thin air in that historical moment, because that’s the way the papacy does things: it mines the tradition in order to preserve apparent continuity.
Old, I do think there’s something clever in providing a cynical explanation for my positions in response to a post where I’m providing a cynical explanation for the pope’s. How’s that working out for you, being clever?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 7:59 am
Actually, CST isn’t addressed merely to those within the Catholic Church, but addressed to the world and to everyone, Catholic, Christian and non-Christian “people of good will”, fulfilling the pastoral function the RC Church sees towards it.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:08 am
I see. But nuclear disarmament is going to radicalize the Third World and create willing foot soldiers of the conservative Global North, yet also appeal to the “increasingly educated and liberal base in the First”? That’s a tall order, particularly on issues that span the creation of unions to locally sourced food production to a firm engagement with just war tradition.
On the ground, a major problem is that most Catholics don’t know that CST exists. If anything, my most conservative pro-life students were often greatly challenged by an “ethic of life” that excluded capital punishment. I’m not sure CST is disseminating in a manner that would do the work you think it is able to do.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:11 am
Okay, actually, if I’m going to leave up your comments, I might as well respond, Old. I think it’s pretty insulting to assume that my positions are based on my desire to offend my Sunday School teacher — or that, bizarrely, I’m just now getting around to rejecting the last little bits of my conversion to Catholicism (why the time-lag? and doesn’t the conversion itself complicate the one-sided rejection narrative?).
In reality, my positions have grown in large part from communities I’ve been involved in now. For instance, the community at CTS fully included gays as a matter of course and also held me accountable to feminism — and through my practical engagement with those communities, I became convinced that those positions are non-negotiable and impatient with those who feel squeemish about them.
Similarly, I wouldn’t be talking about Catholic social teaching at all if I weren’t engaged with the white male theology circles that dominate theology blogs and that give a lot of creedence to Radox and “quasi-Catholicism” in general. In this case, my engagement has convinced me that many of these positions are lazy and self-satisfied, and I’m compelled to argue strongly against them in the hopes that a worthy opponent will, at the very least, make them better.
When I moved away from Kankakee, I effectively managed to put the reactiveness away — a reactiveness that was extended artificially long by my living so close to Olivet. Now that I’m no longer engaged with the evangelical community on a day-to-day basis, I don’t take them very seriously — in fact, I have a reputation as an apologist for them among our secular associates because all I ever write about them is that people probably shouldn’t take them seriously. If I was still nursing a grudge against my childhood pastor and determining all my positions based on them, then I’d be a pretty sad and pathetic person. That’s really what you think of me? That’s really the best way you can think of to respond to my arguments? In short: Why do you have to be such a dick?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:18 am
Melissa, Different parts of CST appeal to different groups and fulfill different functions. Of course if you isolate on single position it’s not going to appeal to everyone or do all the jobs that CST needs to do. So to me, your first paragraph is basically a silly argument.
As for the dissemination of CST, like all the official documents of the church, it’s meant for the intellectuals of the church, which means the intellectuals who represent certain constituencies. They’re not writing directly to the base communities, for example, but to the liberation theologians.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:36 am
Can you see why it feels inconsistent to say that CST is supposed to mobilize the uneducated masses yet you also say it is written for the church intelligentsia?
Also, I, like many people, disengage when called silly, particularly when asking for clarification. I’d hate to ask you to be nice, or even gentle, but I am.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:47 am
Some kind of feminism that allows you to feel “held accountable” simply because you’re pro-choice all the way and then in the next breath dismiss a woman who disagrees with you by calling her arguments silly.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:48 am
I called your argument silly, not you.
I understand how it sounds inconsistent, but intellectuals aren’t separated from their constituencies — especially in my example of Latin American base communities and liberation theologians. CST doesn’t have to be directly transmitted to the masses, the leading intellectuals just need to be able to say, “The church is really on our side! They’re all about poverty, etc.!” It’s about keeping people loyal to the church — hence the grab-bag, “something for everyone” feel. The leaders of all different groups (except maybe those who have abortions) have something to point to and say: “Look, the church is on our side!” Even gays can point to the Vatican’s acknowledgment that homosexuality isn’t entirely chosen, etc.
I should clarify that I don’t think CST is the sole manifestation of the papacy’s general strategy of self-preservation and self-aggrandizement — it’s just an especially prominent aspect in the modern world.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:50 am
I’m sorry, Old, you’re right — feminism means that women are intrinsically incapable of making silly arguments.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:57 am
No, but it does mean attention to the fact that women have been historically excluded from academia and that many, many women now involved, even many of the very smartest, often feel like they don’t measure up or as if they are being dismissed as silly. This is exactly the kind of thing that shows how 18-30 year old males can feel good about feminism by being the group that supports legalized abortion most heavily all the while failing to grapple with a host of other real issues confronting women.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 9:04 am
I’ve continued to engage with her! Even in that very same comment, I wasn’t just flatly dismissive — I said why I thought the argument she was making was silly. Even if we have to use another adjective, I do think it was kind of a petty attempt to find a contradiction in my argument, an attempt that failed because it didn’t make much sense — would I have been taking her more seriously as a dialogue partner if I’d patted her on the head and told her what a nice little argument it was? And when she brought out the point about intellectuals vs. the masses, I responded further. I guess I can apologize for using the word “silly,” given that historically it’s been more associated with women, but other than that, I’m at a loss for why I’m supposed to feel bad here.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 9:07 am
If you have any other attempts to discredit me personally, I’ll give you one more comment to do it — after that, you have to stay on topic or be deleted. The only reason you haven’t been deleted so far is that I — apparently naively — regard you as a friend. So far we have the idea that I’m in a shadow fight with my childhood pastor and that I think being pro-choice gives me lisence to be verbally abusive toward women. Is there anything else?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 1:15 pm
It seems like the substance of Old’s claim is that Adam’s critique of CST reveals Adam’s commitment to the binaries of liberal-conservative politics. But this just does not hold — Adam is arguing that CST, specifically, does not provide the exteriority to this binary that some say it does (such as that Douthat fool in the NYTimes). This supposed CST exteriority is really just another layer of what we already have. Against Old, Adam’s criticism here is certainly out of a commitment to the possibility of something beyond liberal-conservative politics.
And so I think that these more personal attacks should just be discarded, wholesale.
As for Halden & co, I see these as representative of figures coming from a more traditional background who might be inclined to move in more politiclaly radical directions. Alliance in these directions can be good, of course … but at the same time there’s a sort of cliched quality to these directions. If these directions are going to be creative, it’s necessary to call them out on these cliches — and I think that this is what Adam has been doing, and rightly so.
Perhaps discussion on these points would be helpful — but again, these personal insinuations are unnecessary at best.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I don’t see how to read the first paragraph of this post as anything other than a defense of the binaries when it specifically suggests that we immediately be suspicious of third way claims, especially when they disagree with Adam’s position on life issues. Besides the claim in the first two comments above has been that I see this as a longer term trend in Adam’s thought. Strange, in my view, is the continual assertion of the “personal” nature of these attacks. The best reading, in my view, of what I was up to is Adam’s suggestion tha I was offering a cynical explanation for his position in response to a piece in which he offered a cynical reading of CST. If it’s a personal attack to say that someone seems to hold all the reverse positions of Christian fundamentalists, then I’m just not understanding AUFS’ with respect to its understanding of personal. It is, for instance, a long standing critique of Christian fundamentalism itself that it simply reversed the position of nineteenth century German liberals.
My other insinuation was that the sheer number of these kind of posts (and the regularity of lengthy response forums in conjunction) is evidence that AUFS is becoming overdetermined by a reaction against these sort of folks. Four out of the last six posts and something like ten or eleven of the last twenty some posts are in whole or in part evidence of this trend (most of them signed by Adam) either topically in meta fashion by policing comments. I’m sorry, that’s just out of whack. Again, I fail to see how such a claim is personal.
Finally, I called Adam out for dismissing an entire paragraph a woman wrote as silly. I don’t care if that is termed personal or not; I’ve heard from the mouths of perhaps a dozen women involved, or who once were involved, with academic theology that it is precisely such overwrought jocularity that turns them off to, makes them feel intimidated by, and ultimately causes them to choose another direction from white academic theology.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 3:19 pm
old,
Perhaps Adam could have written this more clearly, but it seems obvious to me. I’ll try and parse it out as clearly as possible. It seems implicit in the first sentence that liberalism is a kind of “third way” between left wing politics of the socialist and communist variety and right wing politics that support unbridled free markets (obviously I’m not presenting a full definition of either “wing”). Now liberalism is itself not really a “third way” and so it is unsurprising when someone looking for a “third way” that is not liberalism ends up with a more socially conservative and largely authoritarian (perhaps fascism seems hyperbole, I don’t think it is, but lets set it aside for a minute) politic that is more right-wing than “third way”. This has been the case throughout history and so there is ample reason to be suspicious of any proclamation of a third way coming from what is, by and large, a right-wing institution.
I also think you’re confusing reaction with response. If reacting to something is a priori bad then what you are doing here is, by your own logic, bad. If you don’t like the focus the writing has taken lately then I would suggest you don’t read it. In a few months it will have moved on to something else probably.
As for your failing to see the difference between psychologizing Adam’s position and his cynical reading of CST, well, I don’t know how to show it to you. It seems to me on the one hand you have an accusation that Adam is fighting with his Sunday School teacher based on, I think, poor readings of what he’s written and on the other you have an analysis of CST that a lot of other people subscribe to as well. Adam provides evidence for his reading, you provide accusation.
As to the whole feminism thing. I really hate these kinds of argument. It really seems to me that you’re asking for a double standard where men can be harsh with one another but have to hold the hands of women because they can’t handle it. It seems to have an essentialist argument lying underneath of it and I hate it. There are plenty of people who are intimidated by the harsh tone academic arguments often take, men and women, and many of them leave the academy because of it. Now, I am sorry if people being told that they have made a silly argument is hurtful, but it seems to be a misunderstanding of what can be said and still be respectful. It also seems entirely cynical for you to make this accusation as you’re participating in the jocularity here!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 3:21 pm
You’re misreading my first paragraph, where there are three positions named other than the claimed “third way” — left, right, and liberal (which would include all of American liberal and most of American conservative).
Here are examples of personal attacks:
“There are exactly two positions on any question: … what Adam believed as a youngster and what he believes now.”
“Are you a Southern Christian who thinks two or three issues are the very most important questions, like ever, in world history? Oh, Mr. Kotsko, he agrees with you. He just believes exactly, and when we say exactly we mean exactly, the opposite way you do. And he’s just as proud of it as you are. Reactionary all the way down. Sheeesh!”
The difference between that and my claim that Melissa was making a silly argument is that I was talking about her argument and you’re talking about my person. You’re talking about how my personal history has determined my views and the personal emotions I feel when I am expressing them and the personal dispositions (a reactionary personality) that makes me arrive at them. In short, you have personally attacked me — the relevant text makes up about half of the text of your post. Then you followed it up by saying that I think my pro-choice position gives me a “get out of jail free” card when it comes to attacking women. Again, that’s a personal attack — in response to what amounted to a claim that I found one specific aspect of Melissa’s argument contrived (i.e., not a personal attack).
There are a million non-personal attacks you could’ve made. You could’ve said that I’m just reversing fundamentalism and that that’s boring — certainly that’s a critique that would cut to the bone given my comment policy. You could’ve said that my account of the origin of Catholic social teaching is too cynical to be credible, because the various popes obviously embrace certain moral values sincerely and sincerely want to propagate them. That seems to be at the heart of what Melissa’s saying, and it’s a perfectly valid, non-personal critique.
The distinction I’m drawing here is not difficult to understand — although it’s pretty customary to blur it in blog conversations in order to dismiss people who advance their positions too forcefully.
The simplest explanation for the prevelence of “these kinds of posts” is the one I offered: I have become more engaged in dialogue with the mainstream of theology bloggers and have become increasingly distressed by certain patterns I have seen there. You might also note that my last abortion post occurred in the wake of the assassination of a well-known abortion provider. Similarly, this post comes in the wake of a major encyclical on Catholic social teaching (which, for your information, I was never that on-fire about when I was a practicing Catholic) and major discussions among various theologians about how transcendently awesome Catholic social teaching is. I did my post about Jennings’ series because I discovered that the book on homophobia — on which I was deeply involved, recently (as in, my involvement ended a length of time ago most conveniently measured in weeks), as a research assistant, copy-editor, indexer, and liaison to the publisher while Ted was out of the country — was available for preorder on Amazon.
You don’t need to delve into any kind of psychodrama to explain my behavior. Perhaps there are deeper factors at work and perhaps I should go to analysis or something, but my behavior with regard to the mainstream of the theology blogs is basically identical to the way I responded to the so-called “Theory Wars” related to The Valve and to the various critiques of Zizek that came out of that — with neither Theory nor Zizek having any direct plausible connection to my upbringing. I responded like I did then for the same reason I respond like I do now — because I take ideas very seriously and react strongly against what I view as wrong, lazy, and insidious ones, especially when they relate closely to what I study. The comment threads become long because the topic is contentious and I am stubborn. None of this behavior is limited to or determined by the concerns of Southern Baptists. It’s just the way I am. It’s the way I’ve always been, the entire time we’ve been interacting on the internet. I could speculate on why you are suddenly reacting to that tendency, but I won’t because that would be an ad hominem argument.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 5:31 pm
It’s one thing to be taken to task for psychologizing by Deleuzians; it’s quite another to elicit an aghast response when I raise the spectre of killing the father with someone who has written an entire book on a psychoanalytic philosopher. I didn’t say anything such as Adam has a vendetta against his youth pastor or whatever the charge morphed into in the words of others. I will concede undue rhetorical flourish in making the charge when I could have added a sentence or two of substantive argument to back it up. Nevertheless, in the material you’ve just quoted, Adam, the basic two claims are that you’ve reversed the positions of your youth and allowed yourself to be overdetermined by the same questions as Southern Christians.
It’s one thing to be called out on as a poor friend when I’ve never particularly received gestures of friendship. I have made an effort to attend 1/2 dozen or so papers of people from these blogs over the course of the last three AARs. Not one person attended mine. Now that’s understandable given the time slot early morning on the last day and given the fact that the topic was more biblical/historical than philosophically theological. Totally fine. But it’s quite another thing for Adam, in blatant disregard of a continual rant that has now turned into official blog policy, to pretend as if I’ve never heard of Paul’s argument against the law, when that was *the precise topic of a paper that he personally advertised here* and in direct line with what I’ve argued in these parts since my first post. That was the reaction in the last comment thread where something related to my intellectual project came up and when I suggested that I might have taken account of Paul, the conversation was simply dropped. The substance of my position has *never* been given any serious consideration by you, Adam. That too is fine, but there are these sideswipes every now and then (like the one just mentioned) that certainly don’t smack of friendship.
As to the question of hypocrisy or wanting to give a free pass to women or whatever, I very much agree with Anthony that men have been turned off by these things too. It’s just that there’s a greater tendency to feel burnt by these kinds of things among women. And that’s not essentialist necessarily. It’s driven, in my view, primarily by historical factors. To simply say that we treat everyone just as rudely is de facto is akin to argue that a written test that only white firefighting candidates seem to pass can’t be racists because everyone takes the same test. Why aren’t there more, or really any, women firefighters that stick around here? My general policy is to refrain from bruising debate until I get sick and tired of people that I feel are bullying other people. I’m constantly reevaluating whether that’s even an appropriate time to fire away, but have yet to be completely persuaded of the never, ever, no polemics position.
As for the substance of the claim, it’s not simply a question of personal dislike. I can now see the “third” position named as liberalism in the first paragraph. However, it’s really just a stand in, and the swipe regarding abortion proves it. Whether you call the positions liberal or radical, the fact is Adam would be hard pressed to name more than a few relatively inconsequential positions where he doesn’t just hold the reverse of Christian fundamentalists. He’s brought up abortion and homosexuality. But it goes far beyond that as far as I’m concerned. It’s the death of God stuff (which almost nobody except fundamentalists talk about anymore) and his way of framing scientific discussions and roundly dismissing third parties as irrelevant while bragging about punching a voting card exactly the way the democratic party says he should, etc. For everyone else around here, I can think of times and ways in which they’ve positioned themselves against the reigning ethos of the Ted Kennedy wing of the democratic party. I’m hard pressed to think of those things when it comes to your stated positions, Adam.
I’ll move on after this discussion, as has been suggested more than once. If so desired, the aggrieved parties can have the last word.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Doug, do you feel better now? I’m still trying to figure out what you hope to gain by “exposing” Adam here. Is it that he didn’t attend your talk? Or that he votes democratic? None of this, by the way, seems to me to suggest any kind of “reversal from fundamentalism”. I mean, really man, you are just throwing shit from the sidelines here with that charge. You also seem to keep separating the contributors here form Adam. I have in the past brought up homosexuality as an issue and think that “debate” about it within the religious context is largely idiotic. Though my views are, for the lack of a better word, nuanced on abortion I still largely support the right to them for women. Many of us take the death of God stuff seriously (my adviser, not Adam, convinced me of its importance and he is hardly a fundamentalist) and Brad’s dissertation pushes it forward. Do you really think Adam likes the Democratic Party as such? I mean, do you really think that? Can you really not read people well? I vote straight democratic too because strategically it makes sense. Come on man, he advocated dissolving the Senate because the Democrats can’t agree to do shit there!
As for my own non-attendance at your paper, I really don’t care about Pauline thought and, more importantly, I have a rigorous “no attendance” policy at the AAR. I have never, for instance, seen Adam present at the AAR.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I’ll say it again, by the way, no one has suggested you “move on”. It has been requested that you stop with the obviously personal attacks and make an actual contribution to the debate (within the realms of possibility determined by the blog). You’ve done so in the past, so I assume you can do so now. The pity party thing isn’t really doing it for me though.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Oh, good grief.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Here’s a quick response to the claim that I never deviate from the Democratic Party line: this post from less than two weeks ago, you know, during the whole period that supposedly proves that I’m nothing but an inverted fundamentalist.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Also, on the “sanctity of life” remark: I was referring to Agamben.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I think we can safely say that at some point nerves were struck.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 8:24 pm
We do seem to have stumbled into a place where that anathematized locution is one of the few appropriate responses.
Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Old, a couple of things.
First, who are the fundamentalists seriously talking about death of god theology? I would absolutely welcome this development if it is the case. Near as I can tell from my various dealings with such things, the discussions in such circles rarely move beyond the profundity of bumper sticker takedowns: “Nietzsche = Dead; Jesus = RISEN!”
Second, I think it is premature to conclude that Adam (or AUFS as a whole) in recent months has opted for a totally reactionary position w/ respect to fundamentalism. Why, as a matter of fact, our annual think-tank session at the AAR, scheduled each year meticulously, sometimes at great pains and in defiance of physics and ontology, always to coincide with your presentations, is scheduled to discuss pacifism–a concept Christian fundamentalism has a painfully awkward relationship with, like a spectacular fart nobody wants to acknowledge or deny.
Third, I’m never going “off the grid” again! I’m coming in on this way too late.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 11:50 am
I for one would be really interested to hear Adam or Anthony articulate something on pacifism, as mentioned above.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 at 11:57 am
Brad’s reference to our secret pow-wow was a joke — unless I was excluded, too. I don’t have anything especially insightful to say about pacifism.