Weird. Falling back on religion in support of a failed and explicitly materialistic theory which forecasts history. The elimination of all sources of authority other than that of the dominant class is the rason d'etre of Marxism. The "self-actualization" claptrap employed by Eagleton makes it official: he and his fellows are insane.

Tom:

But is it not exquisite that he's left himself no way out except religion?

I think if you go back and read some of Catholicism's teachings up through about 1200, many would sound completely at home in the Communist Manifesto.

Except for the Church's belief in a hierarchy of being, the primacy of society over the state, etc.

When was cultural theory relevant? I missed that.

I believe if you go back to, say, the first 1,200 years of Christianity, they believed in effective spells, that the sun revolved around the earth eetc. It has been weird seeing them falling back on materialism and phenomenalism, though they never admit it.

And they're old enough to know better, too.

Harry:

Just be glad you didn't go to college in the 70s/80s, or you'd have Cultural Theory out the wazoo.

"Except for the Church's belief in a hierarchy of being, the primacy of society over the state, etc"

OJ, shouldn't that read "the primacy of the Church over the state"?

I think Catholicism and Marxism are twins separated at birth. All this worship of the poor and the meek to prop up a non-democratic hierarchy whose legitimacy depends on faith. Countries where Catholicism dominated society, including Latin America, Italy, Ireland and Quebec have fared as well economically as communist states until recently in the last century. They have also provided the US with the bulk of its economic immigrants. Both the Church and the Marxists love the poor so much that they would never for a second entertain the thought of actually eliminating poverty.

Robert:

No.

Robert:

Good point. However, thankfully the Anglosphere got the full benefit of the Reformation.

So the one true Church couldn't get as much power as it desired in England and the US.

Render unto Caesar.

OJ, please enlighten me on this golden age of the autonomous Eurpoean "society", blessed by but un-dominated by either popes or kings. All my history books seemed to have skipped this era.

Robert:

How much contact do you figure kings had with peasants? and how much would they have regulated their day-to-day lives? None and not at all. Society was far more important than the State.

Vlad the Impaler springs to mind.

Some rulers have had very hands-on approaches to their subjects, and even when not, they could at any time.

http://www.royalty.nu/Europe/Balkan/Dracula.html

"By 1462, when he was deposed, he had killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people, possibly more. He always thought up some excuse for these executions. He killed merchants who cheated their customers. He killed women who had affairs. Supposedly he had one woman impaled because her husband's shirt was too short. He didn't mind impaling children, either. Afterwards he would display the corpses in public so everyone would learn a lesson. It's said that there were over 20,000 bodies hanging outside his capital city. Of course, the stories about Dracula's cruelty might have been exaggerated by his enemies.

Despite all this, Dracula's subjects respected him for fighting the Turks and being a strong ruler. He's remembered today as a patriotic hero who stood up to Turkey and Hungary. He was the last Walachian prince to remain independent from the Ottoman Empire. He was so scornful of other nations that when two foreign ambassadors refused to doff their hats to him, he had the hats nailed to their heads. He was opposed to the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches because he thought foreigners, operating through the churches, had too much power in Walachia. He tried to prevent foreign merchants from taking business away from his citizens. If merchants disobeyed his trade laws, they were, of course, impaled.

Dracula created a very severe moral code for the citizens of Walachia. You can guess what happened to anyone who broke the code. Thieves were impaled, even liars were impaled. Naturally there wasn't a lot of crime in Walachia during his reign.

To prove how well his laws worked, Dracula had a gold cup placed in a public square. Anyone who wanted to could drink from the cup, but no one was allowed to take it out of the square. No one did."

But of course he didn't interfere much with their everyday lives.

OJ, he did not create a moral code, he was a sadistic butcher, plain and simple.

Obviously it's not that simple.

I wonder how much protection money people paid to his minions to avoid getting fingered for "disobeying" trade laws.

Seems pretty simple to me. He was a sadistic butcher.

Jeff:

"Despite all this, Dracula's subjects respected him for fighting the Turks and being a strong ruler. He's remembered today as a patriotic hero who stood up to Turkey and Hungary. He was the last Walachian prince to remain independent from the Ottoman Empire."

Do you have similar achievements to balance out your abortion butchery?

OJ:
None of the people remembering him today had to live with him, meaning those memories are completely unhindered by first hand experience.

That I recognize there is a certain spectrum of opinion on abortion, and assert that the imposition of one particular choice upon all others is a worse alternative than the current state of affairs in no way makes it "my" abortion butchery.

Your continued suggestion in that regard is libelous.

OJ, here is your quote, with a few replacements:

"Despite all this, Stalin's subjects respected him for fighting the Nazis and being a strong ruler. He's remembered today as a patriotic hero who stood up to Germany and Poland. He was the last Soviet People's Hero to remain independent from the American Empire."

Every great butcher has friends. They are as despicable as he.

Anyhow, how does Vlad the Impaler support your contention that Medieval Europe was a society friendly haven relatively free of ecclesiastical or statist coercion?

Robert:

I agree Stalin was a Russian hero--but an enemy of ours. Vlad was a hero of Christendom, even if a problematic one. One doesn't look for light-handed government in Indian Territory.

Jeff:

Truth is a defense to a charge of libel. Do you not support the right to abortion which has killed 40 million Americans?

Back in your precious Middle Ages, kings touched commoners for scrofula. Kept it up in France through Louis XIV.

Try getting G. Bush to touch you for eczema.

Kings had far more intimate contact with commoners in the Middle Ages than is the case between the classes today.

OJ:
I support the right of people to come to their own moral decisions because I don't believe there is one particular choice that is correct. (In particular, a choice that requires a woman to carry the pregnancy resulting from rape--your point of view, I believe--could easily strike some as a choice that is best not imposed on others.)

That doesn't make abortion any more my butchery than my belief adults should be free to consume alchoholic beverages alchohol related highway deaths my butchery.

Vlad made the choice for 50 to 100,000. You've made it for 40 million.

Harry:

And what percentage of the population do you imagine they touched?

OJ:
Stop the logic chopping. I haven't made a choice for anyone. Any more than than being in favor of legally available alcohol is tantamount to choosing to drink and drive.

If you happen to favor people having the option to, say, enjoy a little port over some after dinner conversation, than blood on the pavement is your butchery.

I have heard you are in favor of the former. That means you have made the choice to drink and drive for hundreds of thousands of people each year (presuming their are ten drunks on the road for each alcohol related fatality).

If the preceding paragraph sounds ridiculous, well, there is a good reason. It is.

Just as ridiculous as "You've made it for 40 million."

Jeff:

A somewhat coherent analogy might be that just as if you support drunk driving you are responsible for the deaths it causes, so if you support abortion your are responsible for the deaths it causes. The only difference is the death rate--100% for abortion, rather lower for drunk driving.

OJ:
That analogy is completely inchoherent.

I don't support drunk driving, I support the freedom to choose to drink. Surely you must be able to see that distinction.

I support the freedom for people to make moral choices, not because I am in favor of abortion, but because I am very much against the kind of society that results where one particular moral choice among many is imposed upon everyone.

Now you may very well disagree with that. But to construe that as somehow pro-abortion, or making abortion my slaughter, isn't discussion. Rather, it is libelous insult.

Jeff:

A simple thought experiment:

Person A, whose right to do so I support, takes a drink. Does anyone die? Maybe, though not simply as a function of the drink.

Person B, whose right to do so I support, has an abortion. Does anyone die? Every single time.

If you can't handle the moral import of your politics, change them.

OJ:
Here is a simple thought experiment. Imagine living in a country with freedom of religion. And not all the religions, nor all the people within a religion, agree on when ensoulment occurs, or the morality of bringing profoundly deformed babies into the world, or the morality of forcing a raped woman to bear the resulting pregnancy.

Now imagine imposing one particular religious position on all the others. Then try imagining religious freedom again.

Guess what, I do handle the moral import of my politics. I believe the immorality attending relinquishing freedom of religion and conscience to the government are worse than the than the immorality of some people making choices that will offend some third parties.

Now, you may disagree with that conclusion, and if you wish to debate it, that is fine.

But to conclude from my position that abortion is "my" slaughter, or that I am in favor of killing babies, is venomous calumny, completely unworthy of reply. I shall keep that in mind from now on.

Offend third parties? Odd euphemism for 40 million dead.

OJ:
The third parties I refer to are observers, like you or I. Clearly, my clumsy wording made it sound like a euphemism.