This May Day, this Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, I apologize in advance. But I also don’t. The next few months, I’ll be working hard to spread the word about my new book, Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy, published by the good people at Nation Books. The book is done, and the final details are closing in. It comes out in mid-September.
I apologize because I’m entering this promotional phase. I’ll be reaching out again asking you to help, if you’re so moved. But I don’t apologize about that, really, because the book shares stories that I believe need to be known—stories of the promise and struggle in the new generation of the cooperative movement. At a time when democracy is on the rocks, when the economy seems to run on a mix of autopilot and superheroes, we need these reminders that cooperation has helped build our world and can shape its future.
Learn more here. Retweet this. Maybe even place a preorder. Let me know if you’d like to publish a review or interview, or to schedule an event. Together, let’s help bring this radical tradition back to life.
Various dystopias
In the meantime, there are powers-that-be to troll. Here are some recent publications of mine more or less in that vein:
- Facebook isn’t a startup anymore. It’s not yet a real “community.” It’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to give up control. (Vice)
- Some people want to turn more and more of life into cryptocurrency-powered auction markets. (America)
- Journalists and researchers could share a whole lot more of the data they collect. But should they? (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Read the first scholarly journal article on platform cooperativism behind an impenetrable paywall. Or not. (The Sociological Review)
Works not cited
Have you read what Mark Twain regarded as his best book? Ted Gioia wades through his pious, late-live tribute to Joan of Arc.
Jessica Weisberg points out that America’s favorite guide to the corporate ladder was himself a precarious gig worker.
Black Lives Matter founder Alicia Garza learned to organize in the kitchen.
Now is an interesting time to revisit Mr. Zuckerberg’s pre-IPO letter to potential investors.
Scott Korb wonders whether standardized testing has killed the first-person.
Students are already producers; what if they were co-owners?
My CU Boulder colleagues and I stand with our embattled local journalists.
Times and places
- 2018.05.02: Oakland, CA – “User, Worker, Owner!” #platformcoop event
- 2018.05.24: Berlin, Germany – “Mapping the Ecosystem” #platformcoop workshop at SUPERMARKT, 3-6 p.m.
- 2018.07.26-27: London, UK – Open2018: Collaborative Technology for the Cooperative Economy
- 2018.11.07: Boulder, CO – Colorado Shared Ownership Summit
- 2018.11.17-20: Denver, CO – American Academy of Religion
Schneider tips his hand a bit with the title God in Proof. This isn’t, thank God, another book about the proofs for God’s existence, but rather a search, at once historical and personal, for the God that lives in proofs. The reversal — from proof for God to God in proof — is both linguistically nifty and philosophically important. It isn’t that the proofs for God lead us to God, but rather that God may be found — or may be shrouded — in the language of proofs. People see God in different settings. Some see God in song, others in nature, and others still in humanity as a whole. Schneider, in searching for his God, finds it revealed in the souls who historically sought out proofs for what they believed in.The review was also picked up two other wonderful blogs, Andrew Sullivan's Dish and 3 Quarks Daily. The quasi-New Atheist Jerry Coyne even says he'll read the book. Based on his earlier assessment of my writings on proofs, I don't expect he'll like it, but you never know.]]>
The filter blog Arts & Letters Daily is great, and it’s even greater that today it featured Robert Bolger’s excellent Los Angeles Review of Books review of God in Proof. Writes Bolger:
Schneider tips his hand a bit with the title God in Proof. This isn’t, thank God, another book about the proofs for God’s existence, but rather a search, at once historical and personal, for the God that lives in proofs. The reversal — from proof for God to God in proof — is both linguistically nifty and philosophically important. It isn’t that the proofs for God lead us to God, but rather that God may be found — or may be shrouded — in the language of proofs. People see God in different settings. Some see God in song, others in nature, and others still in humanity as a whole. Schneider, in searching for his God, finds it revealed in the souls who historically sought out proofs for what they believed in.
The review was also picked up two other wonderful blogs, Andrew Sullivan’s Dish and 3 Quarks Daily. The quasi-New Atheist Jerry Coyne even says he’ll read the book. Based on his earlier assessment of my writings on proofs, I don’t expect he’ll like it, but you never know.
]]>
I suppose this is what you get when you publish a book with "anarchy" in the title. This month I've got two new anarchy-related essays, both of which are available in good-old print. Here's a bit of a taste.
One is an introduction to a new collection of Noam Chomsky's writings on Anarchism, straightforwardly titled On Anarchism, which comes out this month from the New Press.
The first evening of a solidarity bus tour in the West Bank, I listened as a contingent of college students from around the United States made an excellent discovery: they were all, at least kind of, anarchists. As they sat on stuffed chairs in the lobby of a lonely hotel near the refugee camp in war-ravaged Jenin, they probed one another’s political tendencies, which were reflected in their ways of dressing and their most recent tattoos. All of this, along with stories of past trauma, made their way out into the light over the course of our ten-day trip. “I think I would call myself an anarchist,” one admitted. Then another jumped into the space this created: “Yeah, totally.” Basic agreement about various ideologies and idioms ensued—ableism, gender queerness, Zapatistas, black blocs, borders. The students took their near unison as an almost incalculable coincidence, though it was no such thing.If you're in the Boston area on November 18, come hear me introduce Chomsky (and you can stay to hear him speak if you want…) at MIT at 5:30. The other bit is a retrospective review in Commonweal (the online version is behind a paywall) of Paul Goodman's 1960 sort-of classic Growing Up Absurd:
Goodman's prose sets out to dazzle us with its iconoclastic attitude and the striking phrases that clothe the author's not-always-consistent arguments. He quotes from his previous books at length. Throughout he attempts to reconcile his claim to be an anarchist with his conservative instincts, a tension borne out in his life as well as on the page; he was a married family man who was promiscuously bisexual, a Jew who opposed World War II. Among the other “mansplainers” of Goodman's time—to borrow a neologism from the feminist blogosphere—one could be forgiven for preferring Ivan Illich, who presented his similarly adventuresome anarcho-conservative proposals with considerably more rigor and coherence; or James Baldwin, who as a black man in exile came by his prophetic tone more honestly. “Allen Ginsberg and I once pointed out to Stokely Carmichael how we were niggers,” Goodman recalled in a memoir-ish essay, referring to a 1967 BBC broadcast, “but he blandly put us down by saying that we could always conceal our disposition and pass.” Carmichael was right.For more: stop by a fine newsstand or bookstore near you.]]>
I suppose this is what you get when you publish a book with “anarchy” in the title. This month I’ve got two new anarchy-related essays, both of which are available in good-old print. Here’s a bit of a taste.
One is an introduction to a new collection of Noam Chomsky’s writings on Anarchism, straightforwardly titled On Anarchism, which comes out this month from the New Press.
The first evening of a solidarity bus tour in the West Bank, I listened as a contingent of college students from around the United States made an excellent discovery: they were all, at least kind of, anarchists. As they sat on stuffed chairs in the lobby of a lonely hotel near the refugee camp in war-ravaged Jenin, they probed one another’s political tendencies, which were reflected in their ways of dressing and their most recent tattoos. All of this, along with stories of past trauma, made their way out into the light over the course of our ten-day trip.
“I think I would call myself an anarchist,” one admitted.
Then another jumped into the space this created: “Yeah, totally.”
Basic agreement about various ideologies and idioms ensued—ableism, gender queerness, Zapatistas, black blocs, borders. The students took their near unison as an almost incalculable coincidence, though it was no such thing.
If you’re in the Boston area on November 18, come hear me introduce Chomsky (and you can stay to hear him speak if you want…) at MIT at 5:30.
The other bit is a retrospective review in Commonweal (the online version is behind a paywall) of Paul Goodman’s 1960 sort-of classic Growing Up Absurd:
Goodman’s prose sets out to dazzle us with its iconoclastic attitude and the striking phrases that clothe the author’s not-always-consistent arguments. He quotes from his previous books at length. Throughout he attempts to reconcile his claim to be an anarchist with his conservative instincts, a tension borne out in his life as well as on the page; he was a married family man who was promiscuously bisexual, a Jew who opposed World War II.
Among the other “mansplainers” of Goodman’s time—to borrow a neologism from the feminist blogosphere—one could be forgiven for preferring Ivan Illich, who presented his similarly adventuresome anarcho-conservative proposals with considerably more rigor and coherence; or James Baldwin, who as a black man in exile came by his prophetic tone more honestly. “Allen Ginsberg and I once pointed out to Stokely Carmichael how we were niggers,” Goodman recalled in a memoir-ish essay, referring to a 1967 BBC broadcast, “but he blandly put us down by saying that we could always conceal our disposition and pass.” Carmichael was right.
For more: stop by a fine newsstand or bookstore near you.
]]>
I’m a little perplexed by the new review of Thank You, Anarchy by Adam Kirsch, an editor of The New Republic among other things. Short of outright disapproving of my book, he replays a common liberal dismissal of Occupy. “For the vast majority of Americans, it was little more than a news story,” he begins, and he ends by claiming, utterly falsely, that “Schneider’s book suggests that the best way to understand Occupy is as a long, earnest holiday from reality, including the reality of politics.” I never once used the word “holiday” in that way; nor is that even what the book “suggests.” The last chapter concludes with a series of reflections on how to carry the ideals of Occupy into reality, and how people are doing so already. The book throughout strenuously insists that through Occupy, people experienced a return to the real politics of the needs of their communities, a break from the false politics of a deeply corrupted system. Kirsch’s reading, anyway, is suggestive of his assumptions, and, unfortunately, of my own failure to be clear enough to disabuse him of them. In that sense, the subtext of the review may be more revealing than the review itself.
]]>
An ongoing hobby of mine is to try and help keep my favorite theologian, William Stringfellow, in circulation. In the past, I've written about his ideas on biography, on the sexuality and the circus, on his partner Anthony Towne's amazing obituary for God, and more. This time, in Commonweal, I had the opportunity to review an important new book about him—An Alien in a Strange Land, by Anthony Dancer. It goes a little something like this:
A lifelong Episcopalian and inveterate Bible-thumper, Stringfellow was a Protestant in the most etymological sense. He saw Christianity as a call to dissent. The great Reformed theologian Karl Barth recognized this, and urged an audience at the University of Chicago in 1962 to “Listen to this man!” Barth saw in Stringfellow’s writing a “theology of freedom” more concerned with proclaiming the gospel than with catering to the habits and fads of American society—a theology unwilling, as Stringfellow put it, “to interpret the Bible for the convenience of America.” Barth also saw in him a way of doing theology free from the pomp and insularity of academia. That Stringfellow has remained mostly ignored in academic theology is at least in part his own doing. He would say that, for the sake of vocation, he had “died to career,” both in law and theology. Though he did quite a lot of each, he refused to define himself by the professional standards of either—they’re principalities in themselves. His writing is decidedly vernacular even when demanding, the product of reading far more from the Bible and the newspaper (as Barth urged preachers to do) than from the theological canon. “A person must come to the Bible with a certain naivety,” Stingfellow wrote; “one must forego anything that would demean God to dependence upon one’s own thoughts.” What he wrote is a model for serious, engaged, and yet decidedly lay theology, carried out with a sense of both play and dire seriousness. Caught as we are between the blogosphere rabble and the over-specialized academy, we need more of this today.Best of all, the folks at Commonweal?realized that they had an article by Stringfellow in their archives: a 1972 call to "Impeach Nixon Now.?What's so special about that??you might ask. Weren't a lot of people calling for Nixon's resignation?in 1972??The thing is, the article is dated May 26. The Watergate break-in was June 17 of that year, less than a month later. Stringfellow's concern, though, was more serious than what ultimately brought about Nixon's resignation: above all, the continuation of a brutal, illegal, unnecessary war. We should have listened.]]>
An ongoing hobby of mine is to try and help keep my favorite theologian, William Stringfellow, in circulation. In the past, I’ve written about his ideas on biography, on the sexuality and the circus, on his partner Anthony Towne’s amazing obituary for God, and more. This time, in Commonweal, I had the opportunity to review an important new book about him—An Alien in a Strange Land, by Anthony Dancer. It goes a little something like this:
A lifelong Episcopalian and inveterate Bible-thumper, Stringfellow was a Protestant in the most etymological sense. He saw Christianity as a call to dissent. The great Reformed theologian Karl Barth recognized this, and urged an audience at the University of Chicago in 1962 to “Listen to this man!” Barth saw in Stringfellow’s writing a “theology of freedom” more concerned with proclaiming the gospel than with catering to the habits and fads of American society—a theology unwilling, as Stringfellow put it, “to interpret the Bible for the convenience of America.” Barth also saw in him a way of doing theology free from the pomp and insularity of academia.
That Stringfellow has remained mostly ignored in academic theology is at least in part his own doing. He would say that, for the sake of vocation, he had “died to career,” both in law and theology. Though he did quite a lot of each, he refused to define himself by the professional standards of either—they’re principalities in themselves. His writing is decidedly vernacular even when demanding, the product of reading far more from the Bible and the newspaper (as Barth urged preachers to do) than from the theological canon. “A person must come to the Bible with a certain naivety,” Stingfellow wrote; “one must forego anything that would demean God to dependence upon one’s own thoughts.” What he wrote is a model for serious, engaged, and yet decidedly lay theology, carried out with a sense of both play and dire seriousness. Caught as we are between the blogosphere rabble and the over-specialized academy, we need more of this today.
Best of all, the folks at Commonweal?realized that they had an article by Stringfellow in their archives: a 1972 call to “Impeach Nixon Now.?What’s so special about that??you might ask. Weren’t a lot of people calling for Nixon’s resignation?in 1972??The thing is, the article is dated May 26. The Watergate break-in was June 17 of that year, less than a month later. Stringfellow’s concern, though, was more serious than what ultimately brought about Nixon’s resignation: above all, the continuation of a brutal, illegal, unnecessary war.
We should have listened.
]]>Occupy Wall Street has had its share of celebrity visits and they haven’t always gone very well either. The example that comes to mind concerns another prominent black leader, Russell Simmons, who was allowed to speak during a General Assembly meeting. He interrupted the discussion at hand and gave his two cents about what, in general, the movement should do, concerning the by-then-tabled question of “demands.” He received applause and thanks. But a few minutes later, after the scheduled discussion continued about how white, male-bodied people on the plaza needed to “check their privilege,” a white, male-bodied young man got up and said something like, “Perhaps celebrities should check their privilege, too.”?That got applause as well. A lot, as I recall. It’s really unfortunate that this has become a racial issue, especially when the occupiers have problems with outreach to some racial groups already. As one black left-wing journalist suggested in a conversation I took part in recently, it may be better understood as a problem of communication styles among different communities rather than active, albeit subtle, racism. But I do think this represents a really interesting effort on the part of occupiers to—so to speak—kill the Buddhas of power and hierarchy in our society. And celebrity really is a huge Buddha.?Even well-earned celebrity. I’ve witnessed other—including white—notable people getting essentially no attention during visits to the plaza. I think it's really telling that Lewis chose not to hold a grudge. From his remarks, I don’t get the sense that he understands the movement in a deep way, but he does clearly understand—from experience—that creating a new world can get messy sometimes. The occupiers’ obsession with process—the General Assembly meeting, in this instance—is one really important case of the role of ritual in what they’re doing. The ritual of process comes before all else because it is the vehicle of the future, and the bulwark against compromises with the past.Read the rest, including Anthea Butler's discussion of the Lewis incident,?at?Religion Dispatches.]]>
Occupy Wall Street has had its share of celebrity visits and they haven’t always gone very well either. The example that comes to mind concerns another prominent black leader, Russell Simmons, who was allowed to speak during a General Assembly meeting. He interrupted the discussion at hand and gave his two cents about what, in general, the movement should do, concerning the by-then-tabled question of “demands.” He received applause and thanks. But a few minutes later, after the scheduled discussion continued about how white, male-bodied people on the plaza needed to “check their privilege,” a white, male-bodied young man got up and said something like, “Perhaps celebrities should check their privilege, too.”?That got applause as well. A lot, as I recall.
It’s really unfortunate that this has become a racial issue, especially when the occupiers have problems with outreach to some racial groups already. As one black left-wing journalist suggested in a conversation I took part in recently, it may be better understood as a problem of communication styles among different communities rather than active, albeit subtle, racism.
But I do think this represents a really interesting effort on the part of occupiers to—so to speak—kill the Buddhas of power and hierarchy in our society. And celebrity really is a huge Buddha.?Even well-earned celebrity. I’ve witnessed other—including white—notable people getting essentially no attention during visits to the plaza. I think it’s really telling that Lewis chose not to hold a grudge. From his remarks, I don’t get the sense that he understands the movement in a deep way, but he does clearly understand—from experience—that creating a new world can get messy sometimes.
The occupiers’ obsession with process—the General Assembly meeting, in this instance—is one really important case of the role of ritual in what they’re doing. The ritual of process comes before all else because it is the vehicle of the future, and the bulwark against compromises with the past.
Read the rest, including Anthea Butler’s discussion of the Lewis incident,?at?Religion Dispatches.
]]>My associate could sense the difference immediately, instinctively, without knowing exactly why at first. An experimental-film critic from Los Angeles, she goes to screenings a lot, and she knew this was not the normal crowd. Afterward, she explained all the subtleties of their misbehavior. They didn’t applaud when you’re supposed to. There was talking and rustling around during the credits—a big no-no, apparently. These people were cliquey, but differently so. What she could sense, I was able to fill in with a little more data: the room was full of religion people. I know because I am one, I guess. (She is not.) First, I recognized one of my editors at a Catholic magazine. There was also a man with a badge from the American Bible Society. When we sat down, I heard the group of dashing, coupled young professionals in front of us discussing things one doesn’t expect most young professionals to be talking about, like grace and the Seven Deadly Sins and plans to give a sermon. Next, another dashing young professional raised his voice above the chatter. Tall, blond, and neatly-blazered, he welcomed us, said he hoped we would enjoy the film, and invited us to discuss afterward how we could collaborate and “mobilize” “our communities” around it. That was another difference between this and the usual screening. We weren’t there to criticize, but to mobilize.Read the rest at KtB.]]>
If you’re into getting worked up about semi-artsy movies, the one you’re supposed to get worked up about lately is Terrence Malick’s new The Tree of Life. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year. And got booed.
You’re especially supposed to get worked up, it seems, if you’re into religion. At Killing the Buddha, I’ve just published an essay about the experience of being faith-based-marketed to at a Tree of Life screening recently.
My associate could sense the difference immediately, instinctively, without knowing exactly why at first. An experimental-film critic from Los Angeles, she goes to screenings a lot, and she knew this was not the normal crowd. Afterward, she explained all the subtleties of their misbehavior. They didn’t applaud when you’re supposed to. There was talking and rustling around during the credits—a big no-no, apparently. These people were cliquey, but differently so.
What she could sense, I was able to fill in with a little more data: the room was full of religion people. I know because I am one, I guess. (She is not.) First, I recognized one of my editors at a Catholic magazine. There was also a man with a badge from the American Bible Society. When we sat down, I heard the group of dashing, coupled young professionals in front of us discussing things one doesn’t expect most young professionals to be talking about, like grace and the Seven Deadly Sins and plans to give a sermon.
Next, another dashing young professional raised his voice above the chatter. Tall, blond, and neatly-blazered, he welcomed us, said he hoped we would enjoy the film, and invited us to discuss afterward how we could collaborate and “mobilize” “our communities” around it. That was another difference between this and the usual screening. We weren’t there to criticize, but to mobilize.
Read the rest at KtB.
]]>The idea of martyrdom hasn’t been in very good shape lately. One common usage of it—“I’ll not be made a martyr!”—refers to the prospect of somewhat tragic but mostly useless suffering, perhaps in the service of a delusional cause, religious or otherwise. Another appears regularly in the news with reference to Islamist terrorists, especially suicide bombers. Still, despite these entrenched negative associations, the idea may be on the mend.The reason I've got in mind is a recent French film that just arrived on US shores, Of Gods and Men. It tells the story of the seven French Trappist monks who were killed in the Algerian civil war in 1996. Not much of a title, but a great movie. I also happened to watch it in an especially fitting place.
As I write, I’m completing a two-week stay at Holy Cross Abbey, a Trappist monastery along the Shenandoah River in Virginia. We’re told that the film did well at Cannes and in European box offices, and that it’s now even drawing crowds in US cities. The excitement is palpable, if subtle. A burned DVD copy is discreetly circulating and being watched on little screens with headphones, and reviews cut out from newspapers appear on the bulletin board, surrounded by exclamation points. Some of the monks here met Father Christian. One has a picture of him on his desk. Most of them remember praying for him and the others after their disappearance. I leafed through an overflowing file of news clippings and communiques between the order’s abbots from that time, full of updates, helplessness, reverence. There’s sorrow in martyrdom, but there’s also, actually, redemption.Read the review if you like, but see the movie if at all you can.]]>
New from me at Religion Dispatches:
The idea of martyrdom hasn’t been in very good shape lately. One common usage of it—“I’ll not be made a martyr!”—refers to the prospect of somewhat tragic but mostly useless suffering, perhaps in the service of a delusional cause, religious or otherwise. Another appears regularly in the news with reference to Islamist terrorists, especially suicide bombers. Still, despite these entrenched negative associations, the idea may be on the mend.
The reason I’ve got in mind is a recent French film that just arrived on US shores, Of Gods and Men. It tells the story of the seven French Trappist monks who were killed in the Algerian civil war in 1996. Not much of a title, but a great movie. I also happened to watch it in an especially fitting place.
As I write, I’m completing a two-week stay at Holy Cross Abbey, a Trappist monastery along the Shenandoah River in Virginia. We’re told that the film did well at Cannes and in European box offices, and that it’s now even drawing crowds in US cities. The excitement is palpable, if subtle.
A burned DVD copy is discreetly circulating and being watched on little screens with headphones, and reviews cut out from newspapers appear on the bulletin board, surrounded by exclamation points. Some of the monks here met Father Christian. One has a picture of him on his desk. Most of them remember praying for him and the others after their disappearance. I leafed through an overflowing file of news clippings and communiques between the order’s abbots from that time, full of updates, helplessness, reverence. There’s sorrow in martyrdom, but there’s also, actually, redemption.
Read the review if you like, but see the movie if at all you can.
]]>]]>NS: The design arguments for God’s existence that you address in The Book of God are typically treated by philosophers and the public as sheer abstractions, or even scientific hypotheses; why treat them instead as literary creations? CJ: No one discipline owns the design argument and its critiques. Historically, the distinctions that people typically draw today among literature, philosophy, and theology just don’t hold up. Professional literary study, especially, has only been around for a hundred years or so. A thinker like David Hume, who is very important to the story I tell about design, did not think of himself as a philosopher but as man of letters: he wrote history, philosophy, and theology, and he served as a diplomatic secretary. This was a typical “literary” career. I try to restore some of that broad range to the topics I write about—though no diplomats have signed me up yet! NS: What’s an example of how you, as a scholar of literature, can shed light on a philosophical debate? CJ: In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Philo, who is skeptical of design arguments, wins the battle, but Cleanthes, who supports them, wins the war. One thing Hume might be suggesting is that if you’re on Philo’s team, you’d best give up your belief that better arguments can win the day all on their own. Yes, the philosophical or conceptual idea of design seems rather abstract, but, at the same time, those arguments are lived and experienced by real people in real time. This is one thing Hume figured out—and it’s a literary point, if you want to put it that way: the rhetoric, the habits of mind, the practices of sociability that accompany what we could call the culture of design aren’t just window-dressing for some philosophical argument. Those things are the argument. That’s why the culture of design is easier to come at through literature rather than the history of philosophy—through practice rather than theory, if you will. We’ve misunderstood the way secularization works if we think that better arguments drive the discussion.
Today at The Immanent Frame, I interview Colin Jager, professor of English at Rutgers and an authority on natural theology in British romanticism. He’s the author of, literally, The Book of God. Our conversation touches on many things swirling through my mind in connection with the book I’m working on—design, debate, and the existence of God. Here’s a bit of the exchange with Jager:
CJ: No one discipline owns the design argument and its critiques. Historically, the distinctions that people typically draw today among literature, philosophy, and theology just don’t hold up. Professional literary study, especially, has only been around for a hundred years or so. A thinker like David Hume, who is very important to the story I tell about design, did not think of himself as a philosopher but as man of letters: he wrote history, philosophy, and theology, and he served as a diplomatic secretary. This was a typical “literary” career. I try to restore some of that broad range to the topics I write about—though no diplomats have signed me up yet!
NS: What’s an example of how you, as a scholar of literature, can shed light on a philosophical debate?
CJ: In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Philo, who is skeptical of design arguments, wins the battle, but Cleanthes, who supports them, wins the war. One thing Hume might be suggesting is that if you’re on Philo’s team, you’d best give up your belief that better arguments can win the day all on their own. Yes, the philosophical or conceptual idea of design seems rather abstract, but, at the same time, those arguments are lived and experienced by real people in real time. This is one thing Hume figured out—and it’s a literary point, if you want to put it that way: the rhetoric, the habits of mind, the practices of sociability that accompany what we could call the culture of design aren’t just window-dressing for some philosophical argument. Those things are the argument. That’s why the culture of design is easier to come at through literature rather than the history of philosophy—through practice rather than theory, if you will. We’ve misunderstood the way secularization works if we think that better arguments drive the discussion.
It’s clear that Jennifer Sleeman isn’t proposing to abandon the church altogether. But a protest should always be in the image of its goal, the means in keeping with the ends. When I heard of her plan, I couldn’t help but think of all the conscientious, passionate people who have already gone, leaving Catholic progressives to fend for ourselves, increasingly isolated. What feels like taking action from the outside can seem more like abdication from within. We need progressives, especially progressive women, in the church and speaking up. A big part of the Catholic story over the last few decades, as the historic reforms of Vatican II have faded into a comparatively reactionary turn, is mass exodus. People disagree with aspects of church teaching, or they suffer at the hands of the clergy, and that’s the end. I don’t mean to minimize the significance of either — for so many people, enough really is enough. It’s too painful to go back. What I’m proposing is a struggle, but a necessary one. But their significance can be exaggerated. When progressives leave their counterparts shape the church more and more as they like it.According to the Irish bishops, mass attendance held steady on Sunday. Despite my complaint, I think I feel a bit disappointed. For a more stirring essay with much the same point, see Mary Gordon's "Why I Stay: A Parable from a Progressive Catholic."]]>
What would happen if, one Sunday morning, the Catholic hordes stayed home from mass in protest? Would the priests listen to the people’s demands? Or would they carry on without us?
Over the weekend I had an essay at Religion Dispatches about an elderly Irish woman who proposed just such a protest in order to take a stand for women in the church. While I support her cause, I don’t think that her methods do:
It’s clear that Jennifer Sleeman isn’t proposing to abandon the church altogether. But a protest should always be in the image of its goal, the means in keeping with the ends. When I heard of her plan, I couldn’t help but think of all the conscientious, passionate people who have already gone, leaving Catholic progressives to fend for ourselves, increasingly isolated. What feels like taking action from the outside can seem more like abdication from within. We need progressives, especially progressive women, in the church and speaking up.
A big part of the Catholic story over the last few decades, as the historic reforms of Vatican II have faded into a comparatively reactionary turn, is mass exodus. People disagree with aspects of church teaching, or they suffer at the hands of the clergy, and that’s the end. I don’t mean to minimize the significance of either — for so many people, enough really is enough. It’s too painful to go back. What I’m proposing is a struggle, but a necessary one. But their significance can be exaggerated. When progressives leave their counterparts shape the church more and more as they like it.
According to the Irish bishops, mass attendance held steady on Sunday. Despite my complaint, I think I feel a bit disappointed.
For a more stirring essay with much the same point, see Mary Gordon’s “Why I Stay: A Parable from a Progressive Catholic.”
]]>