First, I think that Christians should stop yakking about “consumerism.” “Consumerism” is not the problem—capitalism is. Consumerism is the work ethic of consumption, the transformation of leisure and pleasure into duties. Talking about consumerism is a way of not talking about capitalism, and I’ve come to think that that’s the reason why so many people, including Christians, whine about it so much. It’s just too easy a target. There’s a long history behind this, but the creation of consumer culture is very much about compensating workers for loss of control and creativity at work, and those things were stolen because capital needed to subject workers to industrial discipline. (I don’t, by the way, believe that we inhabit a “post-industrial” society. Our current regimes of work are, indeed, super-industrial.) Telling people that they’re materialistic is both tiresome and wrong-headed: tiresome, because it clearly doesn’t work, and wrong-headed, because it gives people the impression that matter and spirit are antithetical. As Christians, we should be reminding everyone that material reality is sacramental, and that therefore material production, exchange, and consumption can be ways of mediating the divine.

As for abortion, I think we have to stop seeing it as the primary culprit in a “culture of death.” Abortion becomes conceivable as a moral practice once we take individual autonomy as the beau ideal of the self; but to recognize that is, if we’re logical, to indict not only abortion but also our cherished idyll of “choice” or “freedom.” But that, then, is to indict capitalism, which employs a similar language of sovereignty both to legitimate itself and to obscure the remarkable lack of creative freedom at work. I know that I’ll catch a lot of hell for saying this, but I think that a lot of opposition to abortion is sheer moral sentimentality which turns the fetus into a fetish. (You’ll notice that I think fetishism of some sort or other is a pretty salient feature of the contemporary American moral imagination.) Many of the same people who oppose abortion are champions of laissez-faire capitalism, and they either don’t see or don’t care to see the linguistic and cultural affinities between themselves and the pro-choice advocates they fight. They’ll retort that capitalism doesn’t kill anyone in its normal operations, but, first, that’s just not true—capitalism has never been instituted or maintained anywhere, not even in the North Atlantic, without considerable coercion and violence—and second, it doesn’t matter, because the exercise of market “autonomy” has devastating effects on individuals and communities regardless of whether or not they wind up dead. (“Yeah, the company cut your medical benefits or cut your job or left your town a mess, but hey, you’re still alive!”) When I say this, a lot of people retort that I’m “changing the subject.” In one way, yes I am, but for a reason—because I want them to see that it is the same subject, in a different guise. Talking about abortion is a way of not talking about the “autonomous individual,” the latest ideological guise of libido dominandi, discussion of which would topple quite a few idols, and not just “reproductive choice.”

Do read the whole interview. A must. Check it out here.

 ”Yesterday, the Canadian Federal Court issued an opinion in the case Canadian Council for Refugees, Canadian Council of Churches, Amnesty International, and John Doe v. Her Majesty The Queen. This case challenges the “Safe Third Country Agreement” between Canada and the United States that came into force in December 2004. This agreement provides that, with limited exceptions, individuals who first enter either Canada or the United States and then attempt to cross a land border into the other country in order to lodge an asylum claim must be returned to claim asylum in the first country they entered. In assessing the constitutionality of the agreement, the Canadian Court found that the United States does not comply adequately with Article 33 of the UN Refugee Convention, which prohibits return to persecution, or Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits return to torture — specifically naming the Maher Arar case as an example of the United States’ failure to protect.”

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.)

Let us recall, in case we had ever forgotten, that the US administration is on record as arguing that foreigners who show up at the border have “at most” a right against “gross physical abuse”. That’s it. No wonder people are staying away.

Apart from the long list of don’ts imposed upon teenagers, society infantilizes teens by prohibiting them from pursuing love and sex. Citing the plethora of incoherent laws that forbid carnal activity to teens, Epstein adds the prohibition on marriage to the prohibition on work as one of the key methods adults use to infantilize teens. The strict laws regulating sexual behavior became necessary because the experts concluded that young men and women were too “immature” for that ultimate of “adult” relationships, marriage.

As with work, until the 20^th century younger teenagers were permitted and encouraged to pursue romance. Epstein explains that modern sensibilities forced an erroneous depiction of Romeo and Juliet as 40-year-olds instead of what they were: not just teenagers but young teenagers. Epstein begins this section of the book with the story of a woman who, at 13, married a 21-year-old man and stayed married for more than 80 years. Today, her husband would be jailed.

What do we know that our ancestors didn’t? Not much. Epstein cites four presidential wives who married as teenagers and stayed married for their entire lives, including Rosalynn Carter and Barbara Bush. In the old days, marriages lasted longer than ours, yet today we reserve marriage for “adults.” However, the divorce rate among adults shows they aren’t much more successful than teenagers might be. Indeed, men who marry young tend to have successful marriages more often than not. This isn’t to say all teenagers are ready for marriage. But obviously many are.

- Adolescence: A Heresy; R. Cort Kirkwood

More:

Venezuelan bishops declare constitutional reform as “morally unacceptable”

Article-by-article summary of the constitutional reform

Do we just have to put up with this? Is there an inevitable choice to be made between dogmatic rigorism and a humane, kindly relativism? I think that in the theories we have just been talking about, there are three things people have not thought through carefully enough. First of all, religions (and nowadays, also agnosticism and atheism) are seen as being all of the same kind. But that is by no means the case. There are in fact sick and degenerate forms of religion, which do not edify people but alienate them: the Marxist criticism of religions was not entirely based on delusions. And even religions whose moral values we must recognize, and which are on their way toward the truth, may become diseased here and there. In Hinduism (which is actually a collective name for a whole multitude of religions) there are some marvelous elements – but there are also negative aspects: involvement with the case system, suttee [self immolation] for widows, which developed from beginnings that were merely symbolic; offshoots of the cult of the goddess Sakti – all these might be mentioned, to give just a little idea. Yet even Islam, with all the greatness it represents, is always in danger of losing balance, letting violence have a place and letting religion slide away into mere outward observance and ritualism. And there are of course, as we all know but too well, diseased forms of Christianity – such as when the crusaders, on capturing the holy city of Jerusalem, where Christ died for all men, for their part indulged in a bloodbath of Moslems and Jews. What that means is that religion demands the making of distinctions, distinctions between different forms of religion and distinctions within a religion itself, so as to find the way to its higher points. But treating all content as comparably valid and with the idea that all religions are different and yet actually the same, you get nowhere. Relativism is dangerous in quite particular ways: for the shape of human existence at an individual level and in society. The renunciation of truth does not heal man. How much evil has been done in the name of good opinions and good intentions is something no one can overlook.

—Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Beliefs and World Religions. Trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 203-4.

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Most of us don’t believe in creating rules for informal spaces.   Most would think The Golden Rule should suffice.  Fortunately and unfortunately, we have passed the threshold for number of readers where being more explicit is necessary.  In the end, we have about a dozen comment policies and those won’t be articulated further except on a corrective basis.

As a side note, there has been talk of ending commenting on Vox Nova permanently.  While some will see this as conspiratorial, for the most part it has to do with size.  Despite claims to the contrary, we don’t all agree on everything.  What is considered edgy in some circles of partisan commentary is considered crankish in other corners.  One way to resolve conflicts over comments – and let me emphasis how much we loath having to debate bans behind the scenes – is to end comments.  There are times comments really add to the dialogue.  More often and most importantly they tend to make a blog’s reputation.  While I think there has been incitement at times for which authors are ultimately responsible, too often comments have devolved into childish bickering.  While we aren’t the biggest dog on the block, we are big enough that we would survive without commenters coming to see what train wreck they can cause or enjoy.  Despite that, there are comments that are quite enjoyable and really add unique perspectives. 

No such luck. Meet the new warrior shepherd, Archbishop Timothy Paul Broglio.

[NOTE: Some VN readers are concerned that comments have been turned off on this post. For a good summary of the VN contributors' thinking on comments, see this post. Frankly, it seems evident why certain folks want to comment on this particular post: the predictable responses are easy to imagine and I'm not sure I see the point of rehearsing those debates again and again. I had suggested to VN as a whole that we disable comments for the entirety of the Advent season, but we opted against it. I, however, will be closing comments on my own posts during this time. If you are truly dying to let yourself be heard, this blog seems to be willing to provide an outlet for your patriotism. As always, you are welcome to email me at the address listed on the About the Contributors page.]