I love it when Stanley Hauerwas shows up in posts at Vox Nova. He’s a theologian that Catholics should become more acquainted with, and better, challenged by. Thanks, Henry, for giving us a great Hauerwas quote today.
Here is another, from a recent appearance Hauerwas made at church in North Carolina. The text is Hauerwas’ response to the question “How should we vote?” He touches on the topics of democracy, abortion, racism, living wage, truthfulness, etc.
First of all, you’ve got to remember that voting is not an end in itself. First of all, if you want to know what coercion looks like, it’s called a democratic election. It’s where 51% get to dominate 49% . . . . Now that’s democracy: Namely, you create the necessity of conversation through which people get to express their differences in a way you simply have to learn to wait. So elections have very little to do with democracy. They’re just a means to try to help you have debates you need to have that you otherwise would not have. …
“As a person that’s committed to Christian non-violence, which means that you basically have an anarchist view of the world, I try to obey all every law I can to show good faith with my citizen brother and sister who are not of my persuasion. So, I have very strong views about abortion . . . . I don’t mean to say I want Roe versus Wade overturned. What I want, for example, is for some American politician to come along and say, ‘We’re going to give every child that’s born in this society a living wage.’ I mean, let’s start on the positive end . . . .
I do find it hard to vote, but I’m a yellow dog Democrat from Texas. So that is, you know, ‘Democrats from Texas would rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican.’ So I tend to vote, but I try not to take it too seriously. I regard it basically as the Roman circus where you’re given entertainment to stop the American people from concentrating on. . . . what really should be at the heart of the political process. Namely, such as, why is it that no one is angry at the inequality of income in this country? I mean, the inequality of income is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Why isn’t that ever an issue of politics? Because you don’t live in a democracy. You live in a plutocracy. Money rules.
I want to be as politically involved as I can, but I try not to take it too seriously. I’m much more interested in how I can be involved in people getting decent wages that clean the buildings at Duke University than I am about what happens in Washington, D.C. Though I understand, Washington, D.C., has finally something to do with people getting decent wages who clean the building at Duke University. So those kinds of connections you have to make . . . .
I’ll probably vote for Obama, if you want to know. Not that it [matters] . . . . I mean, it’s quite an extraordinary symbolic vote, and I care about it because I’m a white Southerner. I understand race. … But the great problem there is going to be the over-expectations that are associated if he wins. … Racism ain’t gonna go away. So how to negotiate those kinds of matters, is, I take it, a constant issue of discernment that needs to be discussed as the Church because one of the things that the Church rarely does is talk about politics, because again that’s made private.
I’m told I’m supposed to be a ’sectarian fideistic tribalist,’ is the description of me, asking Christians to withdraw from the world. I wouldn’t mind withdrawing, but hell, we’re surrounded. There’s nowhere to go. The question is how to just keep going through, and you’re going to take some losses. So we have to be wilely as serpents on these matters. I’m not asking you to withdraw from politics. I’m just asking you to be there as a Christian.
There’s nothing more important in American politics than being able to hold people to truthfulness, and the reason that American politicians are afraid of telling us the truth is because the American people don’t want to know it. Do we want to know that we’re the richest people in the world, raping the rest of the world [so] that we can remain rich? Do we want to know that Iraqi war really is about cheap oil? Do you really want to know that?
Do you really want to be told that, ‘Look, America is a racist country, and the terms keep getting changed to hide that from ourselves?’ Let an American politician run saying, ‘I’m ready to tell you the truth. Are you ready to vote for me?’ Let the church of God be that people that are ready to hold people to the truth, and then you will be the most political people in the world. Do that.
I’ve always liked Hauerwas. Even though I often don’t agree with what he says, he’s almost always interesting. But his comment about not wanting Roe overturned makes me lose a lot of respect for him.
He must be fun at parties.
But his comment about not wanting Roe overturned makes me lose a lot of respect for him.
He didn’t say that he doesn’t want Roe overturned. He said it’s not his main concern when it comes to abortion.
When a person says “I don’t mean to say I want Roe versus Wade overturned,” I take that to be a statement that they don’t want Roe versus Wade overturned.
Michael J. Iafrate writes : “He didn’t say that he doesn’t want Roe overturned. He said it’s not his main concern when it comes to abortion.”
No.
“I don’t mean to say I want Roe versus Wade overturned.” Means exactly what it means.
So, I have very strong views about abortion . . . . I don’t mean to say I want Roe versus Wade overturned.
He could mean:
1. I don’t want Roe v. Wade overturned.
2. I do want Roe v. Wade overturned, but that would be just a first step, and I want a lot more.
Just from this passage, number 1 is the more obvious meaning. If he had meant 2 (as you seem to think), he should have said, “I don’t mean to say that I’d be content with Roe v. Wade being overturned,” or “I don’t mean to say that I merely want Roe v. Wade overturned.”
Hauerwas doesn’t seem to like democracy, or plutocracy as he would call it.
What should we replace it with, and how would we do the replacing?
Blackadder and Girl Lover – No, things mean what they mean in a context.
But interpret it how you want. I know how important it must be to collect evidence that enables you to “lose respect” for a thinker that poses important challenges to just about everything you believe in. Hope the cherry picked, decontextualized quote enables you to do that.
…he should have said, “I don’t mean to say that I’d be content with Roe v. Wade being overturned,” or “I don’t mean to say that I merely want Roe v. Wade overturned.”
Perhaps so. The text is from a question and answer period of a talk he gave, so it’s certainly possible his words weren’t chosen as carefully as they could have been. Anyone remotely familiar with Hauerwas knows his strong stance against abortion, contrary to BA’s attempt to paint him as another Pelosi.
Hauerwas doesn’t seem to like democracy, or plutocracy as he would call it.
Step one: look again at what he said. He is not equating democracy and plutocracy. Hauerwas is in favor of real democracy, not the fake kind we have in the united states.
He has a new book which might address your question. I have not read it yet.
Michael,
I understand that Hauerwas was equating the democracy we have in the US with plutocracy; I know he was not saying democracy and plutocracy are the same thing.
The implicit assertion in my remark was that we do have democracy in the United States. I suppose I should have made it explicit.
To be clear: I think the assertion that we live in a plutocracy is wrong on the fact and reeks of the conspiracy-theory-type mentality that pervades some left-of-center political thought.
Michael,
You’re right that statements need to be taken in context. But the context of Hauerwas’ statement makes my interpretation more plausible, not less.
Blackadder,
Have you read Hauerwas’s essay “Abortion, Theologically Understood”? His position on abortion is very clear.
Chris,
I have read the essay. As I recall, Hauerwas doesn’t say much in the essay about Roe one way or the other.
I love it when Stanley Hauerwas shows up in posts at Vox Nova.
That explains so, SO much.
To be clear: I think the assertion that we live in a plutocracy is wrong on the fact and reeks of the conspiracy-theory-type mentality that pervades some left-of-center political thought.
Then you can probably demonstrate that he is wrong, in addition to simply asserting that he is.
But the context of Hauerwas’ statement makes my interpretation more plausible, not less.
Then you can probably demonstrate that this is so, in addition to simply asserting that it is.
That explains so, SO much.
Good. I’m glad you’re seeing more clearly where I am coming from most of the time rather than making assumptions like those who claim that I “hate america.”
What should we replace it [democracy] with, and how would we do the replacing?
Hauerwas would ask you one simple Christian: “Who’s the ‘we’?” We Christians do not have much of a vested interest in any particular form of government. We do not have a vested interest in ruling in any form. What we are called to do is be faithful Church in an age of rebellion. The Church doesn’t have an alternative to democracy, war, poverty, hate; it is the alternative, by the grace of God.
I like Hauerwas too, but his reasoning there looks sh#$%^ to me.
I like Hauerwas too, but his reasoning there looks sh#$%^ to me.
His reasoning in which part of the text, on what issue?
Brett – Good call.
Michael,
To prove him wrong, I would point to the common experience of Americans. The common experience of an American is not that their votes are purchased, or somehow coerced. They are influenced, sure, but not coerced. Further, one does not NEED to be wealthy to be a member of the ruling class in America. Still further, at least in design, most of the political power in America is concentrated not at the federal level, but at the local level – town, city, county, state, with power decreasing at each higher layer.
Brett,
The ‘we’ are the people who want to organize our lives together: the we are the individuals who make up the political community – this includes people who are not Catholic and people who reject Christianity entirely.
The ‘we’ are the people who want to organize our lives together: the we are the individuals who make up the political community…
There is no single (“the”) political community.
To prove him wrong, I would point to the common experience of Americans. The common experience of an American is not that their votes are purchased, or somehow coerced.
Most americans don’t even vote. And you can’t speak of a “common” experience of american voters.
urther, one does not NEED to be wealthy to be a member of the ruling class in America.
Right, in theory you don’t. But in reality? That’s obviously another story.
Michael,
There is a single community, you just don’t like it – in the present situation, it’s called the nation-state. But more generally it’s whoever is trying to organize for the sake of the common good. And why can’t I speak of the common experience of American voters? It certainly exists.
And in theory and in reality you do not need money to be part of the ruling class in America – no one is excluded from voting (one part of how we rule our country) or running for office (another part) because of socio-economic status. There are plenty of non-wealthy politicians if you have eyes to see.
There is a single community, you just don’t like it – in the present situation, it’s called the nation-state.
The united states of america is the only political community that exists? Are you serious? Obviously there are political communities outside of the united states but within the united states there are other political communities. There are also political communities, such as the Roman Catholic Church, which are transnational. If you’d only have eyes to see.
“The united states of america is the only political community that exists? Are you serious?”
Nonono. of course that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry it came across that way. I meant there’s a single community we’re dealing with at the moment – the United States, which as you correctly note, includes many political communities within its borders.
I don’t think the Church is a political community. The Church does not operate by coercion but by voluntary association.
What is in question is Hauerwas’ judgment, not whether he likes abortions or not. If he strongly opposes abortion, as seems clear, yet says “I don’t mean to say that I want Roe versus Wade overturned,” one should respond “……….well why the hell not?!?!” Michael, the plain meaning of his comment, in context, is that he does not mean to imply that he wants Roe versus Wade overturned. I can think of many reasons why overturning Roe need not be our sole or possibly even primary concern with abortion. But in what possible world would we not want Roe overturned? In what possible world would we even suggest neutrality (“I’m not saying I DO want it overturned, but I’m not saying I don’t)?
I’m not saying that I want the (fantastical) law allowing citizens to gas Jews to be overturned (even though I have strong views about not gassing Jews).
I agree with Apolonio: his reasoning overall seems rather bad. Is the symbolic-racial-concern- reason really the trump card, in the face of things like movements to expand abortion rights? MacIntyre’s reasoning is much more disciplined and impressive to me.
Pax Christi,
X-Cathedra
From my limited understanding of Hauerwas, I think his problem is that Roe V Wade is a part of the whole system itself; the issue should be to fix the system and realize how it led to Roe v Wade. To just overturn it would be a self-contradiction in the system itself. Thus any such over-turning would not result in any actual pro-life results.
I could be wrong.
Michael,
In a nutshell, I don’t see why those reasons should make one vote *for* Obama. It seems that they are good reasons not to vote for Mccain.
Plus, the fact is, Obama is anti-life on some issues. I agree with many people who think that many neo-cons simply can’t pass through the abortion issue, as if that’s the only issue. However, the fact is when we think about it, abortion and embryonic stem cells research is cruel. Just last week a lady I know was going to get an abortion after five months being pregnant. It’s not that she was poor. It’s just that she made a bad decision. Yet, even bad decisions can have a good outcome (getting a child). If it wasn’t for my friend, who is a priest and his other friends telling her that they will keep the baby, and us on our knees begging in front of the Eucharist, we don’t know what would have happened to that baby. Legalizing abortion made that lady go through the hospital with anxiety and almost aborted the baby (because it’s in the fifth month it takes three days to abort. on the last day she decided she couldn’t). Now there is a baby who is severely injured, maybe for the rest of his or her life, and that woman has experienced this horrible event. So anyone who says Roe v. Wade shouldn’t be overturned or it shouldn’t be illegal (Im not saying Hauerwas said this) can go F themselves. We have two victims here because of this cruel treatment. And you’re telling me that this Obama guy has no problem with this, that he wants to protect this cruel action? You have to be BSing me.
(Excuse my language, but it *is* a post on Hauerwas)
the issue should be to fix the system and realize how it led to Roe v Wade. To just overturn it would be a self-contradiction in the system itself.
Then how did our nation survive for nearly 200 years before Roe v. Wade? Where did the “self-contradiction” lie during all that time?
meant there’s a single community we’re dealing with at the moment – the United States, which as you correctly note, includes many political communities within its borders.
Who is the “we” you are talking about?
I don’t think the Church is a political community. The Church does not operate by coercion but by voluntary association.
The Church is a political community whether you’d like it to be one or not. It is, of course, more than a political community, but it is political nonetheless.
Must all political communities operate by coercion? Doesn’t the u.s. claim to be a voluntary association? I don’t follow you.
But in what possible world would we not want Roe overturned? In what possible world would we even suggest neutrality (”I’m not saying I DO want it overturned, but I’m not saying I don’t)?
I don’t think he’s suggesting neutrality at all. He is refocusing the question.
In a nutshell, I don’t see why those reasons should make one vote *for* Obama.
I don’t think Hauerwas is arguing that people should vote for Obama. He is talking about voting, generally, and in the course of the discussion he mentions that he is probably voting for Obama.
Plus, the fact is, Obama is anti-life on some issues.
I agree.
Legalizing abortion made that lady go through the hospital with anxiety and almost aborted the baby (because it’s in the fifth month it takes three days to abort. on the last day she decided she couldn’t).
A permissive law “made” her go to the hospital intending to get an abortion? I thought conservatives were all about personal responsibility?
And you’re telling me that this Obama guy has no problem with this, that he wants to protect this cruel action? You have to be BSing me.
I’m not sure from this sentence what you think I am telling you about Obama. I do not agree with Obama’s position on abortion whatsoever. I don’t imagine Hauerwas agrees with Obama’s position on abortion either.
Michael,
Hauerwas said, “Do we want to know that we’re the richest people in the world, raping the rest of the world [so] that we can remain rich? Do we want to know that Iraqi war really is about cheap oil? Do you really want to know that?
Do you really want to be told that, ‘Look, America is a racist country, and the terms keep getting changed to hide that from ourselves?’”
Response:
How was that not for Obama? So either he gave reasons for him voting for Obama or he didn’t. If he didn’t, then, well, he should learn how to give reasons for his position. It seems to me that if those weren’t his reasons the only reason he gave was on racism. Give me a break.
You said,
“A permissive law “made” her go to the hospital intending to get an abortion? I thought conservatives were all about personal responsibility?”
Yes, the fact that it is legal means she can go to a hospital and the doctor can perform it. The doctor did perform the early part of the abortion and you know what? That doctor cannot even be taken into account of the fact that the baby is injured.
And I *am* about personal responsibility: response to the Gift of Christ.
Henry,
Of course, I imagine that that is in fact his point. Again, though, I question his judgment. Even in that scenario, how would overturning Roe somehow hurt? I understand that it’s not the system and that the system (whatever we may mean by that) underlies Roe, but how on earth would that translate into any hesitancy about WANTING Roe overturned?
MacIntyre’s point about why Roe should not be the sole focus is because overturning Roe will not end the battle, so to speak. It will defer matters to the states and there will certainly be states who uphold the “right” to abort, effectively only imposing a perhaps annoying car ride upon women from pro-life states who want to exercise that “right.” But granting this, why would we hesitate to overturn Roe ANYWAY?
What’s not at all clear, and seems dangerously presumptive, is the notion that overturning Roe will have NO (absolutely no) positive effect: it will save no lives. Good luck finding enough evidence to support that claim, when the utter force of common sense suggests it will certainly save infant lives, even if its not at all the final victory. Why not then?
So again: it just seems to me that anyone with strong opinions about abortion should not even hesitate to want Roe overturned. Even all of those (like me) who think its but a step, and focus should be concentrated in countless other dimensions….if an interviewer asked you “Yes, but what if I told you you had the opportunity and the power to overturn Roe, would you?” Would we say anything else but “Oh, sure! Heck, why not! Of course, icing on the cake! etc. etc.”
Bottom line: granting Hauerwas’ concerns about the system and striking at the root, I simply can’t imagine any scenario in which he would still NOT want, or even hesitate to want, to see Roe overturned. If you had a headache that was one symptom of a deeper illness you couldn’t cure in one day, why wouldn’t you take the headache medicine anyway? Would you say “Now I don’t want to suggest that I want my headache to be overturned?”
Likewise, I can’t imagine a possible scenario in which any pro-life advocate would say “Now I don’t mean to say that I necessarily want to see….a law that protects a false right of citizens to murder their unborn children at will, effectively denying human rights and dignity to children…….overturned.” Can you?
Pax Christi,
Oh, and the permissiveness law of abortion is contrary to human freedom.
How was that not for Obama? So either he gave reasons for him voting for Obama or he didn’t. If he didn’t, then, well, he should learn how to give reasons for his position. It seems to me that if those weren’t his reasons the only reason he gave was on racism. Give me a break.
I think the passage you cited had to do with Hauerwas’ view that the Church should be a community that seeks the truth. I don’t suspect Hauerwas expects Obama to be the perfect bearer of truth. It seems that he is making more of a pragmatic decision to vote for him.
Oh, and the permissiveness law of abortion is contrary to human freedom.
I agree. But the fact that the woman was able to seek out an abortion does not mean that she was forced into doing it.
X Cathedra
Hauerwas, in his more sophisticated essays on abortion, really brings MacIntyre into his discussion of it as well. “Accoring to Alasdair MacIntyre there is nothing peculiar about the failure of our society to reach a moral consensus concerning the appropriate manner to deal with abortion. Indeed the very character of debate in a liberal, secular, pluralistic culture like ours shows that there is no rational method for resolving most significant matters of moral dispute. Any rational method for resolving moral disagreements requires a shared tradition that embodies assumptions about the nature of man and our true end. But it is exactly the presumption of liberalism that a just society sustained by freeing the individual from all tradition.
“MacIntyre illustrates his argument by calling attention to three different positions concerning abortion
[quoting MacIntyre from "How to identify Ethical Principles"]
“MacIntyre suggest the interesting thing about these arguments is that each of the protagonists reaches his conclusion by valid forms of inferences, yet there is no agreement about which premises are the right starting points. And in our culture there is no generally agreed upon procedure for weighing the merit of rival premises. Each of the above positions represents fragments of moral systems that exist in an unease relation to one another. Thus position A, premised as ‘an understanding of rights which owes something to Locke and something to Jefferson is counterposed to a universability argumen whose debt is first to Kant and then to the gospels and both to an appeal to the moral law as conceived by Hooker, More, and Aquinas.’
“The fact that these are ‘fragments’ of past moral positions is particularly important. For as fragments they have been torn from the social and intellectual contexts in which they gained their original intelligibility and from which they derive such force and validity as they continue to possess. But since they now exist only as fragments, we do not know how to weigh one set of premises against another. We do not know what validity to grant to each in insolation from those presuppositions that sustainted their original intelligibility.
“To understand the roots of our dilemma, MacIntyre argues that we must look to the moral presuppositions on which our society was founded. For in spirite of the appeal to self-evident truths about equality and right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, there was the attempt to provide some cogent philosophical basis for these ‘truths.’ The difficulty, however, begins when appeals such as Jefferson’s to Aristotle and Locke fail to acknowledge these to be mutually antagonistic positions. We are thusa society that may be in the unhappy position of being founded upon a moral contradiction.
“The contradiction, in its most dramatic form, involves the impossibility of reconciling classical and modern viewa of man. Thus as MacIntyre points out:
the centeral preoccupation of both ancient and medieval communities was characteristically: how may men together realize the true human good? The central preoccupation of modern men is and has been characteristically: how may we prevent men interfering with each other as each of us goes abaout our concerns? The classical view begins with the community of the polis and with the individual viewed as having no moral identity apart from the communities of kinship and citizenship; the modern view begins with the concept of a collection of individuals and the problem of how out of and by individuals social institutions can be constructured.
“The attempt to answer the last question has been the primary preoccupation of social theorists since the seventeenth century, and their answers to it are not always coherent with one another”
Etc, that’s only the beginning — it’s a good article, “Abortion: Why the Arguments Fail.” But he really tries to follow from MacIntyre.
Personally, it ends up individualism without tradition is relativism. And this is why our society, formed on it, can go from slavery to abortion.
Who is the “we” you are talking about?
In that case, I was talking about you and me.
The Church is a political community whether you’d like it to be one or not. It is, of course, more than a political community, but it is political nonetheless.
I think there is a misunderstanding between us concerning the proper use of the word political. By political, I mean a community that is bound together by some coercive authority. I think you are using political in a broad sense to mean any human relationship or group of people.
Must all political communities operate by coercion?
Yes, in all political communities there is necessarily a coercive force. A political community requires laws and there must be punishment for transgressing those laws. The enforcement of that punishment requires a coercive force. It sounds odd to me to have to explain this – I thought this is perhaps the only thing that defines a political community as distinct from any other type of community – am I crazy?
In the classical understanding of a political community, people come together to benefit from the various associations that result naturally from human interaction. In order to preserve order and provide protection, the community establishes laws and a group to defend the community from attackers.
Now obviously there are other types of communities that do not require coercive force. They can and do influence the political communities, but they themselves are not political per se.
I think this is the source of a lot of misunderstanding between me and you, and others. Am I wrong to define a political community as necessarily coercive?
How is this text any different from any other leftist crank’s litany on the evil that is America ? Throwing in “Christian” a couple of times doesn’t really change much.
Am I wrong to define a political community as necessarily coercive?
I think so. Anarchists believe that political community can and should be non-coercive. I also think that in theory democracies proclaim themselves to be voluntary communities, not coercive.
How is this text any different from any other leftist crank’s litany on the evil that is America ? Throwing in “Christian” a couple of times doesn’t really change much.
It’s a rare thing to see someone call Hauerwas a “leftist.”
Gerald, people can point to “the evil that is america” and base that judgment on different principles.
I think so. Anarchists believe that political community can and should be non-coercive. I also think that in theory democracies proclaim themselves to be voluntary communities, not coercive.
Ok, I suppose that’s where we disagree. I don’t think you can have a stable community or social order without laws, and without people to enforce those laws, which is why I’m not an anarchist.
But you’re right, in theory, people associate themselves with democracies voluntarily. But within the democratic political community there is certainly coercive force. The principle of democracy is the principle that majority rules, and this rule is not something that is or can be enforced spiritually.
Henry,
Side note: perhaps you should cross-post your more theological posts at the Well. Breathe some much needed life back into it. That may set an example for me to buckle down and post something once in a while. Possibly Brendan too, if he can pull himself away from that whole “family” thing he has going on (get his priorities straight;)
Pax Christi,
X-Cathedra
I might do that; you are right.
How exactly does Hauerwas plan to give every child a “living wage”? Who exactly is going to pay for everyone to have a living wage, no matter what they do or what they contribute in return? Who is going to decide what a living wage is?