Formation through Action by Bill Droel

“Consuming and participating in politics by obsessive news-following [and] by arguing and debating” is not politics, says Eitan Hersh in Politics Is for Power (Simon & Schuster [2020]; $27). To binge on MSNBC, devour Fox News or constantly share one’s opinions with friends and family on social media or in phone calls, is “to satisfy our own emotional needs and intellectual curiosities” but in itself serves no “serious purpose.”

Hersh calls the trap political hobbyism: Instead of electoral engagement (canvassing, participating in meetings, etc.), citizens pay lots of attention to political comings-and-goings.  By one survey, 83% of those who spend an hour or more daily on news consumption (TV, mobile devices, reading) spend no time on political activity. Nor does the majority ever act on a community problem. Hersh does not suggest that citizens abandon the news. Genuine activists are well-informed. However, it does not work in the opposite direction: News junkies are not active.

Genuine politics is when people volunteer in order to acquire power. They build relationships, win supporters and broker their power for some social improvement. Hersh, a young professor at Tufts University, is sympathetic toward students and other young adults who support causes. However, he supplies several cautions. Genuine politics might entail spirited protest, but protest in itself is not enough. Though one-off events appeal to young adults, genuine politics means a longer-term commitment to others.

Hersh’s term for shallow participation is slacktivism. This is any symbolic on-line activity or token action that conveys support but only fulfills an altruistic need. These shallow gestures put off the necessity to learn how to vote, how to canvass, how to build relationships. He furnishes fascinating studies about how wearing a button or T-shirt subjectively removes the obligation to do something.   

Political hobbyism is not neutral; it “hinders the pursuit of political power.” It puts attention on entertainment and melodrama. Similarly, it favors “short-term emotional highs,” pushing away the often boring process of real social change. It also favors ideological struggles in which all manner of policies become moral convictions over which there can be no compromise. Both citizens and electoral officials buy into this made-for-TV culture.

Hersh profiles several competent organizers. They are people of empathy who know that whining and yelling only narrow the base. They have no set script but are open to dialogue with anyone. They do not campaign around policy issues so much as they are disciplined about winning and holding power. They have “generous hearts” and exhibit patience.

Hersh’s examples come from electoral politics. He does though apply his theory to the withering of religious organizations, labor unions and civic groups. The phrase spiritual but not religious can typify a hobbyist. Whereas the word religion means to bind together, the hobbyist occasionally tries out spiritual practices like yoga or solitary meditation.

Specialized Catholic Action (capital A) was a worldwide movement in 1940s and 1950s. Its key insight was that faith formation must include action. Discussion groups, theology on tap speakers in the parish hall and Scripture reflections in the bulletin are fine. But adults do not grow in wisdom without action. The Catholic Action method was summarized in the slogan: observe, judge act. In particular Catholic Action said that young adults will be disposed toward Christianity through disciplined action around their concerns about work and relationships. It trained young adults to steadily organize like-to-like, student-to-student, worker-to-worker. Specialized Catholic Action used no gimmicks and promised no quick fix. It is difficult. Several formation programs (Renew, Christ Renews His Church, etc.) have solid content but nearly all stumble on the necessity for action.

Droel edits INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629), a print newsletter about faith and work.

“WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS” – WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

The politics of today demand some philosophical analysis.  We are overwhelmed with alternative reality, alternative truth; ‘incredible’ has become a superlative for ‘credible.’ Views on Epistemology and Philosophical psychology need to be brought into the conversation.  We live in parallel universes; how is politics possible?

Consider the impeachment trial; should Trump be removed from office?   Are there facts that cannot be denied?  I don’t think I’m changing the subject by asking: will the revised NAFTA improve the situation of Mexican workers or is it more oppressive?  What about the environment?

Pilate asked, “What is Truth?” Jesus had said, “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free.”   But, as Pilate, we have choice; we observe what we care to observe and we judge according to our own criteria; it is intentional.  The basic question we ask determines the answer. 

What is the really real? – Idealism – the supernatural overrules the natural. Puritans -John Winthrop, William Wilberforce

What are the causes? – Realism – nature can be known and nature is the criteria, Lincoln, John Courtney Murray, S.J., St. Francis of Assisi, Native Americans

What works? – Pragmatism, evil means are justified by a good end, research data is reality, Jefferson, Gillet, compassion can be a criterion.

Why me and not nothing? – Existentialism, my feelings are reality and the criteria

Why does only nothing make sense? -  Absurdism – Barbarism – might makes right, Donald Trump

In dialogue all five may converge with the same or similar answer. 

  John Courtney Murray, S.J. quotes from Thomas Gilby’s book, Between Community and Society:

“…The basic standard of civility is not in doubt:  ‘Civilization is formed by men locked together in argument.  From this dialogue the community becomes a political community.’”  (1)

Courtney Murray notes that this quote:

“..expresses the mind of Thomas Aquinas, who was himself giving refined expression to the tradition of classic antiquity, which in its prior turn had given first elaboration to the concept of the ‘civil multitude,’ the multitude that is not a mass or a herd or a huddle, because it is characterized by civility.” (2)

Nominalism and Realism

The philosophical question:  what does it mean that all men are created equal is a truth we hold? What is the value of human knowledge?  The question was asked by the ancient Greeks. Aristotle and Plato accepted the validity of human knowledge while Socrates and the Sophists gave little or no value to human thought.  In the middle ages the debate was between the Nominalists and the Realists. The Realists accepted the complete validity of knowledge; the Nominalists did not, or were skeptical.

   

The Nominalist Roscelin (1050-1120) was the opponent of ultra realism.  “Roscelin held that the universal is a mere word.” (3) His adversary was William of Champeaux, who held that universals had a being of their own; “… that every name or term supposes a corresponding reality.” (4) William of Champeaux (1070-1120), “… the same essential nature is wholly present at the same time in each of the individual members of the species in question.”  (5)

Moderate realists accepted the value of human knowledge but in itself universals were not a subsistent entity but relevant constructs. Examples would be the monk Abalard and probably his lover Eloise as well as Thomas Aquinas. 

Copleston, S.J. writes:

“… St. Thomas declares that universals are not subsistent things but exist only in singular things.” 

“The objective foundation of the universal specific concept is thus the objective and individual essence of the thing, which essence is by the activity of the mind set free from individualizing factors, that is, according to Thomas, matter, and considered in abstraction.” (6) The process of abstraction comes from the writings on psychology by Aristotle, provided by Muslim and Jewish theologians from works formerly not available in the West.  

For the sake of discussion, let us classify Idealists as followers of Plato, Realists as followers of Aristotle, Pragmatists as followers of the Sophists and Existentalists and Absurdists as followers of Socrates. None fit perfectly in a category and overlap but dominant tendencies are discernible.

In CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

“We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Here is the basis of political exceptionalism.

Let us look at what the writer of the document, Thomas Jefferson, intended and how Abraham Lincoln gave it new meaning at Gettysburg.

Thomas Jefferson, Principal Author of the Declaration of Independence

Lincoln had great admiration for Jefferson.  He wrote, “who [Jefferson] was, is, and perhaps will continue to be, the most distinguished politician in our history.”   “The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society…”   “[Jefferson] had the … capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men at all times…” (7)

But Jefferson as a pragmatist (What works is Good-True) supported the Constitution that upheld slavery.  He had denounced the slave trade and was forced to remove a complaint on King George III from the Declaration under pressure from delegates to the Continental Congress.  The sentence read, “He (George lll) has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.”  (8)

Slave owners were amenable to the revolution and independence because of anti slavery sentiment in England led by William Wilberforce and the Methodists. (Idealists)

Lincoln was a realist and strongly influenced by Unitarian Transcendentalists such as George Bancroft and Theodore Parker. Ralph Waldo Emerson and other writers should be included.  They said that nature itself was a guide for moral decisions.  The ‘self evident’ was revealed by nature itself.  Lincoln and the others saw the Declaration of Independence as a road map to the ‘City on the Hill.’ (Winthrop 1630) The Constitution is the law, a practical document for now, but can be improved at the direction of the principles laid out in the Declaration. “It is self evident that all are created equal,” gives the document an international dimension.  J. Courtney Murray wrote:  “Today in fact as in theory, the national interest must be related to this international realization, which stands higher and more ultimate in political value than itself.”  (9)  The rights of Mexican workers must be part of any trade deal.  Also nature itself must be a priority.

The feeling that our politics presently put us in two separate universes is not new.  Let’s look at a book written by Ransom H. Gillet, Democracy in the United States, Appleton and Company, New York, 1868.

Gillet was a democratic politician. (Pragmatist)  He was a consultant for Presidents Van Buren and Polk, (Mexican War opposed by Lincoln) “and that no man living commanded more the respect of Chief Justice Taney.” (Dred Scott Decision – slaves are property) He did not like Lincoln and sympathized with the position of the South on Slavery. Gillet opposed secession because he thought that the issue of tariffs and States Rights could be negotiated and did not consider slavery as a cause for pressure on the ambitions of the South.

According to Gillet, “In principle he (Lincoln) was thoroughly anti-democratic …”  (10)

A quote in Gillet’s book on the Civil War from a southern gentleman, Hon. Cave Johnson, (March 2, 1862) on the cause of the war:  “When Andy Johnson (Lincoln’s V.P.) with fifty or one hundred thousand men is sent here for our governor, and Fremont is sent to abolitionize eastern Tennessee and West Virginia, can there be a doubt that subjection and abolishment of slavery are the main objects of the war.” (11)

A strong supporter of of the legacy of Jefferson in 1868 but saw the Constitution as the basic doctrine of democracy, Gillet wrote that adversaries of democracy propose “Laws higher than the Constitution have been proclaimed as the rightful rule of action, and necessity put forth as a source of superior power.”   (12)

Equality meant equality for property owners.  “EQUALITY THE ONLY HONEST BASIS FOR LEGISLATION”  heads a section in Gillet’s book.  (13) Concerns are simply economic yet in his first inaugural address Jefferson, quoted by Gillet mentioned “adoring an over ruling Providence.”   (14)

For Lincoln Equality meant the end of slavery.  Lincoln argued in a debate with Douglas:

“I agree with Judge Douglas he (the Negro) is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own had earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man.”  (15)

Current Politics

All six of the previously mentioned groups have their blind spots, but truth, knowledge of reality, can be achieved by all simply for survival.  Some refuse to distinguish between self interest and the common good, and therefore abuse of power is not an impeachable offence. 

Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist:

“A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective.  The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from abuse or violation of public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar property be demonstrated POLITICAL, as they relate to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” (16)

Refusal to recognize the obvious makes dialogue impossible. When obvious truth is contested we have reached the barbaric.

As noted earlier, Thomas Gilby, O.P. said that, “civilization is formed by men locked together in argument.” (17)   What is missing from the formula is men and women locked together in the celebration and thanksgiving for life.  Panis et vinum sunt veritas.  

Footnotes:

1.  John Courtney Murray, S.J., We Hold These Truths, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1960, p. 6.

2.  Murray, p. 6.

3.  Frederick Copleston S.J., History of the Middle Ages. Vol.2 Pt.1, Image Books, N.Y.1962, p. 164.

4.  Copleston, p. 162.

5.  Copleston, p. 168.

6.  Copleston, p. 175.

7.  Wills, Gary, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992, p. 142. 142                    8.  Richard B. Morris, Encyclopedia of American History, Harper&Brothers, N.Y., 1961,p.542 p.5  9.  Murray, p. 287.                                                                               

10.  Ransom H. Gillet, Democracy in the United States, Appleton and Company, N.Y., 1868, p.261.

11.  Murray, p. 268.

12.  Murray, p. 6.

13.  Murray, p. 121.

14.  Murray, p. 21.

15.  Wills, p. 98.                                                                                                                                   16.  Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, The Federalist, The Modern Library, N. Y., Section 6, p. 425.

17.  Murray, p. 6.