The Working Catholic: Signs of the Times by Bill Droel

How do we become aware that a new age has dawned?

Did anyone in November 1492 proclaim that the modern age began the previous month when Native Americans discovered Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)? Did anyone in November 1517 realize that the modern age began the previous month when Rev. Martin Luther (1483-1546) challenged the Roman Catholic bureaucracy? Yet looking back to those events we trace global commerce, exploration, cultural imperialism, a turn to individualism and soon enough new forms of governance.

Did anyone in December 1947 say that modernity has been superseded by a post-modern age because the transistor was invented at Bell Labs the previous month? Did anyone in August 1954 mark the beginning of postmodernism because Elvis Presley (1935-1977) recorded That’s All Right in a style fusing country with rhythm and blues? Yet those events and others were forerunners to a youth culture, to a pervasive cyber-dimension of life, to a view of the earth from outer-space, to instant and world-wide communication of prices, weather patterns, celebrity gossip, political conflict and more.

The same lack of awareness and ambiguity applies to naming generations. After all, someone was born yesterday and someone tomorrow. So can we really demarcate and easily differentiate Baby Boomers from Gen X from the Millennial Generation?

Yet we need markers to understand our place in history, to understand the forces that shape our lives and contour our agency in our place and time.

Gary Gerstle explores the signs of the times in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (Oxford Press, 2022). Gerstle calls each of his stages a type of liberalism. He admits confusion in terminology. For example, today’s neoliberals are usually called conservatives. But whatever the labels, every modern society accepts the basics of classic Liberalism. For example, according to classic Liberalism individuals are not bound by heredity and knowledge (science and reason) is better than superstition. Though the British and others still like the trappings of monarchy, citizens in all classic Liberal societies have a right to participation in governance. Classic Liberalism, no matter the labels of the moment, insists that the rule of law replaces vengeance and property acquired legitimately (including intellectual/creative property) is a protected possession.  

Classic Liberalism was influential in the late 1700s and somewhat in the 1800s. It had an intellectual comeback after World War I, says Gerstle, because of economists like Friedrich Hayek (1899), Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and others.

Gerstle applies the label New Deal liberalism to the second stage of liberalism.  He associates this worldview with President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945), to a degree with President Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) and with President Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973).

New Deal liberalism differs from the classic type of liberalism in that government, labor unions, associations and consumer groups play a role in society and the economy. The shift recognizes that without countervailing forces individual liberty and laissez-faire capitalism make for “an economic disaster.” The market needs an umpire to enforce contracts, to use the military to stabilize trade, to enforce tariffs and the like. Society also needs government to restrict businesses that disregard the public good, to employ workers when hiring slows, to soften the blows of poverty, to purchase when inflation dampens consumer activity, to tackle big projects (health care delivery, utility delivery, infrastructure construction and the like) when private enterprise is incapable.

Gerstle’s third type of liberalism is called neoliberalism. It harkens back to classic Liberal themes and is thus a reaction against the socially-minded New Deal liberalism of Roosevelt and others. Gerstle associates neoliberalism with Presidents Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and with others.

Neoliberalism promises to recover imagination and serious aspirations in contrast to the deadening bureaucracies of the 1960s and 1970s. It says that private enterprise can be efficient and therefore government should use contractors for toll way collections, public transportation, garbage collection, some overseas military operations, space exploration, schools and more. Neoliberalism favors deregulation, free trade and information technology.

In the neoliberal view all encounters are monetized; that is, everything is for sale—even health care, recreation, personal information and water. Its centers of interest are Wall St., Silicon Valley, Hollywood and tech hubs in the Boston and Seattle areas. For neoliberals “cosmopolitanism [is] a cultural achievement,” writes Gerstle. Regardless of their rhetoric, neoliberalism applies to most Democrat and Republican politicians. Neoliberalism perpetuates an old strain of moralizing common in the rugged individual days. It assumes that some liberty can be denied those who are unable to handle responsibility. Neoliberals distinguish the deserving poor from the undeserving poor.

Gerstle hints that neoliberalism has lost luster and that we might be entering a new phase. The crash of 2008, the disruptions from Covid-19, the incompetence of President Donald Trump’s administration, a brutal war in Europe and more raise doubts about the neoliberal promise. What might be signs of a new era? Reports are welcome.

Droel is affiliated with National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629). It distributes two encyclicals that critique neoliberalism; one by Pope Benedict XVI, the other by Pope Francis ($15 for both).

THE FACE OF GOD – A COSMIC SOLUTION

 

Julian of Norwich brought to consciousness that “God is good and all will be well.”  Such trust is easier to understand with an image, but the usual image, God the benevolent Father,

 

  The triune male god presiding over a Christian world.

    St. Michael Roman Catholic Church, Milwaukee, Wi.

has lost its meaning in a world dominated by the structures of patriarchy opposed to workers' rights and to the very existence of the planet.  Where do we turn?

“A great anxiety has God allowed to the sons of men until all return to the mother of the living.” Sir 40, 1

Our Lady of Guadalupe Spain was modeled on the Egyptian Goddess Isis brought to awareness in the 12^th and 13^th centuries of the Spanish renaissance.

Isis

  The story migrated to Mexico and the Black Madonna became the Brown pregnant Madonna of the Americas. 

                                                 

                                         Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico

Our Lady of Guadalupe immerged as a new Goddess and Creator -  Mother of the Cosmic Christ – Messiah.

A feminine God was not new.  The Isis story prompted other representatives of the Black Madonna in other European countries, for example Our Lady of Częstochowa in Poland.

 

                                            Our Lady of Częstochowa

Such images bring up the problem of idolatry – worship of the metaphor.  Our Lady of the Domes Cathedral features the golden Notre Dame de Domes which towers high next to the Papal Palace at Avignon – a center of corrupt papal imperial power. 

                                                   

                                         Notre Dame-des Domes, Avignon, France

There is an obvious disconnect.

“I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt the place of slavery.  You shall not have other gods besides me.  You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth. (First commandment – Deut. 5.)

Our Lady of Guadalupe points to Justice and Mercy but we must remember the warnings from the Bible and the writings of Maimonides, Aquinas, Luther and William James – there is an indefinable ‘more’ beyond the imagination of the beholder or artist.

      

 

 

  

            

The Working Catholic: Green Transportation by Bill Droel

         “Bicycles are not only thermo-dynamically efficient, they are also cheap,” says Catholic philosopher Ivan Illich (1926-2002) in Energy and Equity (Harper Collins, 1974). “Bicycles let people move with greater speed without taking up significant amounts of scarce space, energy or time.”

Jody Rosen affirms Illich’s contention in Two Wheels Good: the History and Mystery of the Bicycle (Crown, 2022). Bikes are “a remarkably effective device for converting human exertion into locomotion,” he writes.

Two Wheels Good is informative, though discursive. For example, Rosen presents stories and drawings that supposedly put bicycles in long ago settings, often associating them with angels or goddesses. In fact, the bicycle is a recent invention, as he details. It became a practical means of travel when wheels were teamed with ball bearings in 1869. The invention of pneumatic tires by John Dunlop of Belfast in 1888 added to bicycle efficiency. By the 1890s there was a bicycle mania. Rosen describes the phenomenon in quirky style: reprinting old newspaper stories about wives who, in their husband’s opinion, neglect the family for the sake of riding a bike.

There is a recreational use of bikes but most riders today are workers—migrants, day laborers, couriers, students, factory hands and those providing transportation for tourists or other workers.

“Our economies [and] our laws are designed for cars,” Rosen states. Yet cars are killing us with accidents, pollution and depletion of resources. Electric cars might be an improvement, but their production causes pollution and depletion of non-renewable minerals, he says. The world needs a “new cycling infrastructure,” Rosen insists.

Chicago Dept. of Transportation, like in many cities, has protected bike lanes, secure bike racks, a registry to assist recovery of stolen bikes and a bike-share program. Bikes and scooters are widely available throughout our city, including in my decidedly non-hip neighborhood. Our city’s electronic lock system for the bikes costs about $10 monthly.

The Chicago program is flawed. It squeezes a bicycle culture into its firmly established auto/truck infrastructure. Plus, in my opinion, there is potential for waste or corruption when municipal services, like Chicago’s bike rental component, are outsourced to private companies. Nonetheless, our city and others have made a start. The future of work and “the fate of cities maybe predicated on bikes,” Rosen concludes.

A bicycle culture means bike shops. Chicago has several independent shops for sales, parts and repairs. Schwinn has a small number of its own stores. It and other national brands are sold and repaired at some hardware stores. Big box retail chains also carry bikes.

During the summer prior to Covid-19 I had the opportunity to tour R-Community Bikes (www.rcommunitybikes.net) in Rochester, NY. It is an all-volunteer operation. Its basic idea is that a good bike takes away one obstacle to holding a job, staying in school and doing necessary errands. Thus on each hectic Saturday morning R-Community gives away refurbished bicycles and some tricycles—a total of 31,500 over the past 14 years. A few higher-end bicycles are sold by appointment for about $150 each.

Several churches and agencies sponsor used-bike drives for R-Community. Needy students, workers and seniors can also drop off their own bike for repair. I was impressed that R-Community volunteers, mostly seniors, are sometimes joined by young adults from the neighborhood, eager to learn the trade.

Other cities likely have non-profit bike shops that aid the community. If you know of one, please inform me.

Droel edits a free, printed newsletter on faith and work: INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)