Politics - Opus Publicum

January 20, 2015 Economics, Politics

Neoconservatism and Conceptual Clarity Redux

Addendum, 1/20/2015: A commenter on this post alerted me that I seem to have misread Wolfe’s point about neoconservatism being one branch of conservatism rather than including the other branches he listed as part of his definition of neoconservatism. Since neoconservatism is, in numerous circles, conflated with various forms of neoliberalism, classical liberalism, and libertarianism, I am going to leave the original post up as it may be helpful to some audiences. However, it appears that Wolfe himself is not making this interpretive error. My apologies for the confusion.

A friend directed me to Artur Rosman’s interview with Gregory Wolfe, editor-in-chief of IMAGE Journal. It’s available at Ethika Politika here. The main topic of the interview—Catholic literature—is one I don’t find particularly compelling, but to each their own. What caught my eye was Rosman’s question about Wolfe’s relationship to neoconservatism and the puzzling reply Wolfe made: “Let’s get some terminology straight: neo-conservatism is a branch of the larger conservative coalition, which includes traditionalists, libertarians, and a couple other exotic species. It loses any value if it is simply used to mean ‘modern conservatives.’”

January 12, 2015 Politics

A Final Comment on Charlie Hebdo

There is so much commentary on the Charlie Hebdo (CH) killings and related violence that it’s impossible to digest it all. As best as I can tell, much of it isn’t worth reading anyway. Right now much of the mainstream media’s attention is focused on two things: (A) Who perpetrated the attacks, how, and why; and (B) What the Right, as represented by France’s Front National party, will do to “exploit” this tragedy. Anything which appears critical of CH itself or “the cause” for which 17 people lost their lives is, of course, anathema. The last thing anyone wants to do right now is reflect on what the violence in Paris says about liberal ideology and its attendant pieties, and yet that is exactly what thoughtful persons ought to do at a time like this. Granted, it isn’t easy, as I found out last week when several blogging sites, particularly Patheos’s The Friendly Atheist and the Free Thought Blogs’ Dispatches From the Culture Wars, held my initial reflections on the CH attack up for scorn because I suggested—consistent with traditional Catholic thought and saner periods in Western jurisprudence—that neither blasphemous speech against God and His Church (not Allah and Islam) nor inflammatory speech lacking artistic and intellectual merit deserves legal protection. No, that does not mean CH “got what it deserved.” We might still wonder, however, if the attacks would have occurred at all had French society had not turned a blind eye to barbarism long ago.

January 9, 2015 Politics

Do I Hate Charlie Hebdo?

Do I hate Charlie Hebdo (CH)? The simple, and accurate, answer is, “No.” Don’t tell that to the Friendly Atheist [sic] over at Patheos. In addition to doing a hatchet job to yesterday’s post, “A Comment on Charlie Hebdo,” the blog attributes feelings to me which are not my own. In fact, the only emotions which enter the equation with respect to CH and the brutal tragedy surrounding the paper is sadness. I am sad that 12 people lost their lives at the hands of Islamic murderers. I am sad that the incident is inciting ethnic animus in France. And I am sad that the perpetrators, deluded as they are by a false religion, are continuing their terror spree as I write this brief post. Like Pope Francis, I pray for the souls of these criminals. May they see the light and repent before it is too late.

January 8, 2015 Church, Politics

A Comment on Charlie Hebdo

Let’s start with an uncontroversial claim: Charlie Hebdo (CH) is a low-class, often thoughtless, publication which any decent society should have shut down a long time ago. The failure of French society, now long broken away from its Catholic roots, to suppress the paper does not in any way, shape, or form take away from the tragedy of Muslim terrorists murdering ten CH employees and three police officers, along with the wounding many others. Hopefully the perpetrators will be apprehended, though some are skeptical on that point. Catholics are rightly mourning and praying for the victims and their families, and Pope Francis, in his care for the salvation of souls, has set the example of praying for the terrorists as well so “that the Lord might change their hearts.” The Lord invoked here is not Allah, but the one God in Three Persons, the Most Holy Trinity whose revelation at the Son of God’s Baptism in the Jordan was so beautifully celebrated yesterday by a number of Eastern Christians. Allah, as any faithful Muslim will tell you, had no son. That makes sense, for Allah is no god.