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PDF versionA Profound (and somewhat accurate) Criticism of Obama
by Michael Sean Winters on Nov. 11, 2010
A wise monsignor once told me of a quote from Jacques Maritain to the effect that we are born into the world with either a liberal heart or a conservative heart, and that either way there is little we can do about it, and that the goal of a genuinely humane education must be to try and understand the widsom unique to the kind of heart you were born without.
This is why I read everything that Peter Berkowitz writes. Along with Rick Garnett of Notre Dame who appears in Q & A with some frequency, Berkowitz always writes articles that make me smarter, even -- perhaps especially -- when I disagree with him.
Berkowitz wrote a review of a new book about Obama for The Wall Street Journal. The phrase "shining self-image of the progressive intellectual" is worth the price of admission, but the whole review is worth a read.
My disagreement with Berkowitz is that I suspect Obama perceives more of the "dark side" of his own intellectual background than Berkowitz admits, although the author of the book being reviewed, James Kloppenberg, may not. I have not read Kloppenberg's book, but I have had to suffer through dinners with liberals who are self-congratulatory in a way that is grating as well as intellectually unsatisfying, so I do not have any reason to doubt Berkowitz's diagnosis.
But I do not detect any air of self-congratulation in the President, although there are whiffs of self-satisfaction to be sure. Ever met a politician of whom that could not be said?
Still, Berkowitz raises an important question for all of us, no matter our ideological predilictions. What is the dark side of our approach? What is the light side of our opponents? And my question for Berkowitz is this: However insufferable a certain type of liberal academic can be, is it true that their myopia is any more dangerous than the myopia found on the right? And which side of the ideological divide is more open to persuasion?
There is, as Berkowitz suggests and Pope Benedict XVI states explicitly and repeatedly, a dictatorship of relativism among many on the left today. But I am equally concerned with the authoritarian sensibilities one can easily discern on the right, sensibilities that seem to have greater effect in American culture today than the foolishness of a few professors.
As a leftie, for sure, and a
As a leftie, for sure, and a political junkie besides, what has distressed me more than anything in this current political crisis we have in this nation, is the prediliction on the part of the righties to say anything that pops into their head as though it were the truth. As Stephen Colbert calls it, "Truthiness". This is true at all levels, both local, state and federal.
When language, which is a gift from God, is twisted for personal aggrandizement, the entire culture is endangered. I'm not for any reason saying that those on the left are not prone to hyperbole at times, but generally our problem is trying to explain ourselves -- not making up answers. After having been in office myself, I know the gift, and the danger, of learning to speak in 'bumper sticker'.
When I read articles or short
When I read articles or short titles and see expressions saying extreme left winger or fanatical right winger, I am no longer certain what is for instance, a right wing fanatic.
I watch the news and occassionally cable talk and catch politicians and others talking about pro-life and it's believers as being right wing fanatics. Wow, they're talking about me!
I use to think that I had a somewhat liberal mindset, you know, being for life and all. But apparently I don't.
If you really study the Church and it's leaders, you will see a consistentency in what is called the 'moderate' world. It is neither right or left and it took me a long time to see it.
I love attacks on the Church, don't you? You see, it usually goes to the character of the attacker, not the character of the Church. We get to see so many interesting people out there.
There is a war of immense proportions going on, and we as peasant Catholics who cannot control outcomes, for we do nothing about it, pay little or no attention to the real menace.
Great article Michael. Maybe
Great article Michael.
Maybe the genetic reasons about left right hold a bit of water.
But people switch parties/churches/catholic/prot/theologies/gop/dnc/ind/green etc....
Its the same old debate - genetics vs. environment.
The whole Relativism riff is
The whole Relativism riff is a line of hooey. No one really denies that absolutes exist - the question is whether we have access to them in their purest form. Since that pure form is God in all his glory, even Aquinas would have to say no.
Those who accuse Rome of hubris do not do so because they are any more relativistic than Rome itself, but because they believe a more accurate version of Church history than Rome itself propounds. If Hans Kung and George Wills are more acurate than the "official" history, than much of Catholic authoritarians crumbles, which is why Rome lies about it.
The reason many of us don't leave over this is that we have as much right to call ourselves Catholic as the hierarchy - and we believe we can wait the oldsters out. Given that most conservatives are more conservative in manner than in doctrine, I suspect those of us who are more liberal do not have long to wait before the Rigalis, Burkes and Chaputs of the Church are put out to pasture at age 80, with a younger cadre of Cardinals eventually allowing B16 to return to the liberalism of his youth.
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