Class Warfare? Posted by Fr. Richard Rohr on December 12, 2011 Why would the language of “class warfare” gain any traction or credibility today? I cannot understand it except among those who are used to being on the winning side of most “wars”? If you are poor–or marginalized by almost any definition–you have always been the victim of class warfare. Class warfare is also called capitalism: Those who have the most capital win. Those who have less invariably lose. What Pope John Paul II called “rigid capitalism”, as clearly exemplified by the United States of America, has always been a de facto class warfare against the powerless and the poor. That is its very definition. John Paul, from a communist country said that such capitalism was just as evil, and the moral equivalent of socialist communism! If you doubt me, read his encyclical Laborem Exercens, or several others of his and other Popes–which make the same point. Conservative Catholics conveniently ignore almost all social encyclicals, while pretending to love and obey the Pope. I am not impressed when the Republicans accuse President Obama of inciting class warfare. Class warfare is structural and agreed upon in most Western countries, and it is the powerful against the powerlessness. The only change, the only thing new, is that the argument is now both ways! Power has always taken advantage of powerlessness, and powerlessness has the total Christian right to take back that power. Show me one time when Jesus did not take the side of the poor and powerless!
Fr. Rohr's musing evoked the following responses from Johnboy:
Here in New Orleans, the monks at our local abbey make and sell wooden caskets and bake and give away bread loaves to the poor. At Gethsemani in Kentucky, the monks make and sell fruitcakes, fudge and cheese. Wouldn’t we find it rather perverted if, in those monasteries, those monks that produced the goods hoarded the incoming capital allocating only a nominal entitlement sum to the others who were sick, elderly, eremitic or choirmasters for the schola cantorum?
I’m among the defenders of capitalism (highly regulated in a mixed economy) and can occasionally even defend a war. But in both cases, I cannot make a case for either that they are anything but necessary evils or, as we comfort ourselves in saying, just wars. And just wars have collateral damage that must be avoided and mitigated. And they have victims. Capitalism is too often an American Idol and it gets especially idolized by those who are born on third base who like to imagine that they hit a triple. Sure, it has some measure of meritocracy, if you were lucky enough to be given a bat, ball and glove. I just cannot see where Fr Richard is wrong on this one.
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I place this particular blog post in the overall context of decades of teaching by Fr. Richard. Often, like other legitimate authorities in the church, he has offered transpartisan, meta-political critiques. This is to say that he offers us the language, categories and norms for use in doing politics and not, rather, political strategies and positions, themselves. This is a church discipline imposed on our clergy but it does not mean that the rest of us are to dualistically compartmentalize our religious and political lives. Our catholic, both-and, nondual approach sees the opportunity for us to cooperate with the Spirit in every realm of our existence, helping eternal values to break-out always and everywhere in our temporal reality!
Indeed, how blessed are those who practice the Gospel as hermits, pacifists and anarchists! I am deeply grateful to them for their wholehearted response to the Good News and, contrastingly, I realize that I am existentially hedging to some extent by availing myself of the benefits of government. It is they who provide the world the most unambiguous and prophetic witness to Gospel ideals and who most keep green the desire for the Kingdom within my heart.
Only a cynical lawyering of Scripture can justify any measure of violence as Christlike. In my view, then, when the Church articulates just war principles or sanctions civil government, this does not at all suggest a theoretical capitulation to worldly norms but, instead, entails its practical accommodation to our radical human finitude and sinfulness born out of a compassionate pastoral response to our weakness. By forming, reforming and transforming our desires, the church thus helps us navigate away from greater evils through lesser evils even as She helps us move more swiftly and with less hindrance from lesser goods through greater goods to even the Highest Good!
The hermit, pacifist and anarchist have found a Treasure in life’s field. I have found a treasure in you, the church, who’ll compassionately help me even though I cannot wholeheartedly find my way to that field, myself.
1) point of info: US is a mixed economy 2) opinion: which sometimes exemplifies the worst side of its capitalistic element 3) as with government in general, we employ it precisely b/c we are not angels 4) so, it can always be easily critiqued over against idealist notions but less easily from a practical perspective, in my view What we mustn't lose sight of, however, is the relationship between love and 2
freedom, of choice and not using force. So, we should not be “too rough” on our “imperfect system” precisely because it does well nurture freedom. And this is why there is certainly some truth in saying that God and politics do not mix because, even when our political and religious goals coincide, political and religious means otherwise differ insofar as the former is inherently coercive and the latter is manifestly not.
So, we could say that religion and politics do not mix “methodologically” vis a vis the means or methods they employ. On the other hand, because we also recognize that their goals can very much coincide, they very much do mix “axiologically” (valuesrelated) vis a vis the goals or values to which they aspire. So, I like to say that they are “methodologically autonomous” but “axiologically integral.”
The nonestablishment and free exercise clauses of our 1st Amendment were intended to and actually do strengthen the influence of religion in the Public Square. In a pluralistic society, religions will inescapably face the challenge of translating their moral and practical arguments into a language that is transparent to all human reason by employing a logic that can be understood even by nonbelievers and without appeals to explicitly religious apologetics or authorities. This secularization process was one of the fruits of the Enlightenment, which, to some extent, went awry on the Continent and turned into an insidious secularISM that marginalized religion in the Public Square.
All that said, to me, it is sad that so many seem to view this particular aspect of religion — its moral and practical role — as its most important contribution, when this problem-solving, dualistic aspect, while not unimportant, is not at all what differentiates Christianity’s brand in the marketplace of human ideas. Rather, it is Christianity’s nondual approach that sets it apart vis a vis the value-added Good News that God is longing for an intimate relationship with each of us — as Abba, Daddy, Mother, Spouse, Lover, Emmanuel and so on!
I believe that because of resource scarcity we must prudently avail ourselves of economies & efficiencies of scale while avoiding both waste & moral hazards best we can. Which level of service delivery will optimally meet subsidiarity criteria is a dynamic question that must be visited over and over. Institutions tend to take on lives of their own (get self-perpetuating) & suffer mission creep so the answer to questions of subsidiarity can change thru time. After Katrina, thank God for what the churches did for us that government could not! At the same time, the largest amount of goverment waste & largesse has often been in the Pentagon, but that’s no argument for reverting to state militias rather than the army, navy, air force & marines to defend the country. Irony is that some national guardsmen did serve 7 3
tours of duty in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Subsidiarity offers good questions with no easy answers. My bias is libertarian but too many modern libertarians are too absolutist and, not to be mean with ad hominems, a tad kooky?
Our world suffered somewhere around $60 trillion dollars in global wealth destruction in 2008 when the housing and credit bubbles burst. This resulted, in part, from laissez faire capitalism run amok via a lack of transparency (regulations – Wash DC & its lobbyists or K Street) in the credit default swap and derivatives markets (Wall Street). In our usual scapegoating, we blame K Street and Wall Street but absolve those on Main Street, who bought the size homes they didn’t need with money they didn’t have and could not afford to repay. And we’re talking Ft Lauderdale, Las Vegas and California, not inner city Community Reinvestment Act initiatives, as some have so cynically speculated.
The loss in governmental tax receipts resulting from this financial collapse and the ensuing economic malaise, combined with unpaid-for wars, a prescription drug program and simultaneous tax cuts, dwarf in significance the money spent on the bipartisan troubled asset relief program [TARP] and economic stimuli of 2009-2010. The TARP was not so much a Wall Street Bailout as it was a necessary intervention to prevent our indispensable financial infrastructure from collapse. This is to recognize that, analogous to oil pipelines, these credit pipelines are the circulatory system for our economy and had to be preserved. The Dodd-Frank legislation addressed some of the lack of transparency; ideologues who advocate rolling these new laws back are being penny-wise and pound-foolish with their short memories because that $60 trillion in wealth destruction could have funded our entire 2010 budget 17 times!
None of this is to argue that our entitlement programs are now on a sustainable path. They are clearly not and we presently have Southern Europe acting as the canary-inthe-coalmine for any who would whistle past the fiscal responsibility graveyard, imagining that budget deficits do not matter.
The taxpayers of the US have always supported a progressive tax structure where those of increasing means pay higher rates and we have not cynically called this Class Warfare. We have also recognized that small businesses are the primary engine that drive our economy toward fuller employment and that they should be regulated only as much as absolutely needed and taxed in a way that will not destroy their competitiveness and we have not cynically called this Class Warfare either. Government can nurture an environment that supports the engines of wealth and even provide catalysts for the fuel (capital) that keeps them running, but it is also needed to provide road signs (regulations) and speed bumps (money supply) to keep these vehicles out of those ditches that can swallow up 17 years worth of wealth 4
creation in one bad accident.
Most of the strategies we employ and solutions we devise are crafted, legislatively, between the 40 yard lines, this despite the hyperbole that demagogues engage in on the extreme sides of our partisan isles, throwing around terms like socialism, class warfare, appeasement, greedy capitalists and so on. Thoughtful people will get the job done, eventually, even if the process is suboptimal and some of the characters unsavory. Our system is flawed but remains the best the world has ever known. Conversations like this can make it even better.
Fr. Richard has often observed that our political dysfunctions (they are manifold & varied) are rooted in the same dualistic dynamics as our religious shortcomings. I agree with this observation and would like to explicate it from my own perspective.
The optimal nondual (contemplative) approach to reality is multifaceted in that it aspires to 1) intersubjective intimacy via our unitive strivings whereby different subjects/persons celebrate coming together 2) intraobjective identity via our realization of unitary being whereby all realities present as somehow intricately interconnected as objects/functions within a divine matrix 3) intrasubjective integrity via each subject/person’s growth in human authenticity or true-self realization and 4) interobjective indeterminacy whereby created and Uncreated subjects/persons and objects/functions present as also somehow distinct. The nondual approach is profoundly relational as it seamlessly, hence optimally, realizes the truth, beauty and goodness that ensues from these different eternal relationships.
The dualistic (empirical, logical, aesthetical, practical & moral) approaches to reality represent our imbibing of eternity from a temporal eyedropper that our finite existence might not be drowned in God’s ocean of truth, beauty and goodness, a heavenly tsunami that no earthly finite reality could withstand or contain! Our dualistic approach does not represent a theoretical capitulation or departure from our nondual aspirations, only a compassionate and practical accommodation of our radical finitude, while we take the transformative journey.
Dysfunctional religion presents in many ways, primarily from an overemphasis of the dualistic and underemphasis of the nondual. For example, on the journey to intrasubjective integrity, we recognize it as our clinging to the false-self. In moral theology, some have overemphasized the procreative and under-emphasized the unitive dimension of conjugal love. In spiritual theology, some have overemphasized 5
the moral and ascetical at the expense of the mystical and contemplative.
How does all of this apply to the political life?
Most political dysfunction is rooted in the either-or/all or nothing thinking of our dualistic approach. Further, this insidious dualism gets way overemphasized at the expense of our nondual vision of temporal reality. If we look through a Lukan prism, we might see a fivefold Christology, which recognizes that Christ came to orient, sanctify, empower, heal and save us. As Luke’s narrative continues in Acts, we see the Spirit continuing this divine work. A nondual approach inspired, indeed inspirited, by a pneumatological (Spirit-related) imagination sees the Holy Spirit infusing each realm of our temporal reality, always and everywhere, historically orienting humankind, culturally sanctifying us, socially empowering us, economically healing us and politically saving us. This is not to deny that, from time to time, place to place, people to people and person to person, the Spirit’s work has been variously amplified or frustrated in matters of degree; it is to affirm, however, that all good gifts have One Source, Who has coaxed all of humankind along on the journey!
An overly dualistic approach, again, in an all or nothing/either-or way, contrastingly, always sees the Spirit – then but not now, there but not here, in this position but not that or vice versa. Worse, yet, it will see the Spirit in him but not her, us but not them, and not as a matter of degree but to the extent one gets thoroughly demonized and another absolutely deified! This is at the very root of the extremely polarizing rhetorical back and forth between our political parties.
The wisdom of the catholic subsidiarity principle is rooted in the gift of Third Eye seeing, which affirms our eternal nondual aspirations and their proleptic realizations even while compassionately accommodating our temporal dualistic situations within their historical, cultural, social, economic and political contexts. It celebrates the fruits of our prayer that the Kingdom will come, indeed, on earth as it is in heaven.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with an approach that takes from each according to one’s ability and gives to each according to one’s need; at least, it’s worked in convents, monasteries and families for millennia! Because of our radical finitude, however, without theoretically abandoning our ideals, we compassionately accommodate our radical finitude and, precisely because we are not angels, we institute government in the place of anarchy and regulated free markets in the place of any rigid capitalism or socialistic communism.
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To the extent the ideals of our nondual, relational approach are being realized, governmental, regulatory and socialization processes must recede to optimize that freedom which best fosters authentic love. However, to the extent they are frustrated, then coercive government, regulatory and socialized means must be instituted to maintain order and advance the common good. The classical liberal or libertarian impulse (modern conservatism), then, is but a pragmatic critique of anarchism; it errs (and becomes indistinguishable from anarchism) when it treats the ideals of limited government as absolute values and ignores the practical realities that result from our radical finitude. The modern liberal or progressive impulse, then, is but a pragmatic critique of libertarianism; it errs when it treats governmental, regulatory and socialization processes as the default bias, when, in fact, limited government, whenever and wherever practicable, is the proper bias. What both libertarian and progressive approaches have in common, then, is that they are grounded in pragmatic critiques and practical accommodations and not so-called eternal principles; so, all of the pious talk about so-called consistent principles is actually misplaced!
Finally, when it comes to strategic approaches, the subsidiarity principle sometimes sees the virtue in flipping, at other times in flopping. It is only in moral approaches that consistency is fully warranted. But political systems are already grounded, for the most part, in a broad moral consensus (e.g Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and political differences are mostly rooted in practical and strategic differences toward goals that are otherwise already shared, like establishing world peace and eliminating poverty. To always recast our practical and strategic differences in terms of moral reality is just a sinister way to emotionally charge (they say energize) a political base. A nondual approach, via subsidiarity principles and relational ideals, however, transcends all of these differences and nurtures their creative tensions with a peace that surpasses all earthly understanding.
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