Comments on: MacIntyre’s Revolutionary Proposal

By: False ultimatums. « Vox Nova

False ultimatums. « Vox Nova — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:09:00 +0000

[...] blogged before on MacIntyre’s thesis that we should resist the argument that one MUST vote, even if all [...]

By: X-Cathedra

X-Cathedra — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 23:30:57 +0000

Further, while I believe MacIntyre would call for a culture influenced by Catholic Christian morality, I don’t think he confuses the principles of practical reason with the articles of faith. All MacIntyre needs to argue against modern conceptions of the good and for a more consistent notion is natural law.

Pax Christi,

By: Zippy

Zippy — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 05:21:18 +0000

It shouldn’t require changing things that it simply isn’t realistic to hope that we can change.

Doesn’t the qualifier “isn’t realistic…” depend on how long a view one is willing to take? Sure, a revived Christendom isn’t on the horizon the day after tomorrow. If one is going to arrive half a millenium from now though it will only be because the repentance from liberalism started today.

By: Christopher Gant

Christopher Gant — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:11:28 +0000

Here’s what I had in mind in criticizing MacIntyre. MacIntyre thinks that liberal democratic societies are characterized by a lack of consensus on the nature of the Good. That’s true enough. But how should we respond to that? If I’m reading MacIntyre correctly, he thinks that we ought to try and recreate Christendom, a social order characterized by a consensus on the truth of Christianity and a specifically Christian conception of the Good. But how do we do that exactly? It seems to me that pluralism is just a fact of life so long as we are unwilling to use coercion to achieve consensus.

I agree that its not fair to require MacIntyre to specify specific policy proposals. He is a philosopher not a policy wonk. But his critique of liberalism should still be realistic. It shouldn’t require changing things that it simply isn’t realistic to hope that we can change.

By: X-Cathedra

X-Cathedra — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:47:10 +0000

Zippy: well said.

Matthew: that about sums it up as far as I understand MacIntyre.

Pax Christi,

By: Zippy

Zippy — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:02:49 +0000

Blackadder is correct about the etymology of the political terms left and right, but the etymology is really moot. The modern-day clash between “left” and “right” isn’t a clash between the monarchists and the liberals, it is a clash between right-liberals and left-liberals. Sometimes etymology is helpful, sometimes not.

By: Blackadder

Blackadder — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:35:20 +0000

Policraticus,

The use of the terms “left” and “right” as political designators dates from the French Revolution. The terms originated because those who favored the monarchy in the French National Assembly sat on the right side of the chamber, while those who opposed it sat on the left. Do you really not know this?

By: Kurt

Kurt — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:10:32 +0000

1924 and Ramsay MacDonald had just won the General Election making him the Labour Party’s first Prime Minister. The British public, particularly the Establishment, was uncertain and curious as to where the first man to call himself a Socialist would take England. A newspaper reporter asked “Mr. MacDonald, there has been a lot of talk about having a Socialist as Prime Minister. The question is, are you a Fabian Socialist? A Christian Socialist? A Marxist? Syndicalist? Mr. MacDonald, what exactly is Socialism?”

MacDonald looked the reporter in the eye, stood up tall and ramrod straight and with all of his Scottish seriousness, intoned “My lad, Socialism is whatever is in this year’s Labour Party Manifesto.”

By: Policraticus

Policraticus — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:35:37 +0000

Blackadder,

The French revolution was defined in terms of the revolt of the people, fighting for the liberal cause (democracy), against the establishment (monarchy/Church), which sought to preserve the conservative machinery. This is not an example of “left” and “right,” and you will not find anyone from that time thinking in terms of “left” and “right.” Why? Because “left” and “right” is situated within the greater liberal democratic paradigm, not in the clash of paradigms. “Left” in our democratic parlance is not equivalent to “liberal,” just as “right” is not equivalent to “conservative.” “Left” and “right” in democratic parlance belong to liberalism. Unfortunately, imprecision reigns in contemporary times where “left” and “right” are conflated with “liberal” and “conservative.” But we must press one another to think more deeply about things rather than passively inheriting poor political talk.

In terms of democratic liberalism, I am liberal. In terms of political paradigms, I am conservative.

It’s not that Wiki is inaccurate, it’s that it is cliff-notes. Just as I would not want to consult an Encyclopedia Britanica in order to write a substantial, researched paper, I do not want Wiki to my shortcut around real study and research.

By: SMB

SMB — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:32:34 +0000

Thanks, Matthew. Now we are getting somewhere.

By: matthewjfish

matthewjfish — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:46:04 +0000

As for MacIntyre’s concrete proposals. It is true he has said little in this regard, and does not see his role or vocation in imagining alternatives to the status quo. But he does stress that this is a work of the imagination, and being that our imagination is so impoverished today, we constantly are drawn back into the unhelpful rhetoric he mentions. On several occasions, however, he has mentioned what he thinks is a good concrete proposal: Peter Maurin, Dorothy Day, and the Catholic Worker movement. He hasn’t said much more than this, an I’ll admit, MacIntyre can be a bit cryptic with these kinds of comments. But if I can infer a practical program from his comments, it would be a kind of anarcho-socialism with economic laws similar to those advocated by distributists, and a healthy local notion of a community more like the city-state or Scottish fishing village. He has also said that the State should be like the phone or electrical company: there are certain things that only it can do, but beyond those, we shouldn’t even think about it most days.

By: Blackadder

Blackadder — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 18:20:21 +0000

Also, while Wikipedia tends to be pretty accurate, I was citing it here only as an example of how the terms “right” and “left” are used today.