Steve said: I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how one group of people (Catholics) look at social level values. Is there any parallel to social values we usually discuss? What are the overarching intellectual values/ideals driving these social teachings?
dmb says: I didn't spend much time on it but I took a peek at the site you linked for us. If I was just shooting from the hip, I'd say there was a mixture of social and intellectual values expressed there. More specifically, I'd say it was a pale, watered-down version of liberation theology, which is basically Catholic Marxism. There was a backlash against it in the church for being too leftist. You can almost see that retreat in the caveat against "collectivist or statist" solutions and yet the vestiage of this remains in their demand for social justice, economic justice and such. These are intellectual principles. On the other hand, they think that human dignity hinges on our being created by God, in the image of God. In their eyes, I suppose, this gives it moral weight. But I see that sort of thing as an unfortunate regression to social level ideas, a kind of authoritarianism. The implication is that these values are the values of the creator of the universe and who the hell are you to say otherwise. But I think the cause is just for earthly reasons and I'm glad they fight for that cause all the same. It would hardly even make sense to complain about the attribution of divine sanction to these values except that that same sanction is sometimes granted to very objectionable causes. Most famously, its been used to justify the burning witches and, more recently, to hide ghastly crimes. In both cases the victims were stripped of their dignity entirely. I mean, the track record of the church makes the site feel a little like bankers-against-money or hookers-against-nookie. The confusion about which is which can be avoided by taking one simple step. Make sure your banker is also a hooker or vice versa. The Pope gave me that advice, so you know its solid. _________________________________________________________________ Stay in touch when you're away with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_messenger2_072008 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
