The president of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology Fr Michael Sweeney, OP makes some interesting–and I think correct–observations about pluralism and totalitarianism in relation to certain cultural trends.\u00a0 The following remarks come from his talk, “Expressing the Good,” that he delivered at the recent Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture Conference.\u00a0 You can read the whole of his talk HERE <\/a>but I wanted to bring the following points to the attention of all of you.\u00a0 I am particular interested in what people think of Sweeney’s thought both in itself and how (if at all) you would see it helping the witness of the Orthodox Church both in the public square and in explaining the importance of such a witness to Orthodox laity, clergy and bishops. I am especially interested in your thoughts because Sweeney’s argument is\u00a0 Thomistic in content and methodology.\u00a0 I am aware that <\/em>many Orthodox Christians are inclined to dismiss Thomism<\/em>. But <\/em>I have found it to be\u00a0 very helpful<\/em> an approach to philosophy and theology and it is a school of thought that held a prominent, and fruitful, place in my own education and spiritual formation as a Catholic.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

In Christ,<\/em><\/p>\n

+Fr Gregory<\/em><\/p>\n

I think that it is imperative for us to realize that appeals to “pluralism” are not any longer merely denoting the social fact that different faiths and customs are represented in most contemporary societies. Rather, given the premises that all knowledge is contingent upon one’s worldview, and that one’s worldview is largely a product of social construction, pluralism must be insisted upon in order to relativize previous social constructions \u2013worldviews or belief “systems”\u2013 in order to achieve “progress” in society, which effort consists in positing a new ideal toward the construction of the social order.<\/p>\n

What will such an order achieve? Always it will promise to maximize advantages to the individual for the sake of achieving a new order in society. This holds, I think, for two reasons: first, the “individual” who must always seek, like Sisyphus, for an elusive autonomy, is a creature who is isolated from history, and therefore particularly susceptible of ideals and possibilities; such a one must look forever forward, not back. (When he does look back it is see evidence for an evolution of society organized around the idea of freedom as autonomy). Second, the autonomous individual is not a social animal; he is not rooted in a community, but is taught to identify himself according to certain preconceptions that he has inherited \u2013his “belief system”\u2013 from which he can be easily detached.<\/p>\n

So, for example, in a number of states the question of gay marriage has been raised. There has been very little conversation about what marriage is, what is the good or the end according to which marriage is ordered. One will, after all, understand marriage according to the premises founded in one’s worldview, and there is no interest on the part of the government in asking what marriage as an institution might have been in the past. Rather, marriage must be divested of previous meanings so that it can be framed in the light of an ideal. So: whatever else it might be, marriage is a stable relationship that is publically acknowledged. Given that the political process itself insists that every individual should be treated equally, it must be that any relationship ought to have the same dignity as any other. In order to absorb competing views, and in order not to disenfranchise anyone, courts and legislators are therefore proposing that every stable relationship between adult individuals ought to be recognized as a marriage. Those who think otherwise because of their “belief system” are free to do so, but privately; otherwise they would be imposing their social construction upon others, and would render achievement of the ideal impossible. The result will be that “consensus” is legislated, not discerned, and that marriage will cease to mean anything other than a relationship that is acknowledged in law.<\/p>\n

A second example: That everyone should have access to health care would seem to be \u2013and is\u2013 a very good thing. However, we must keep in mind that universal health care is not a good, but an ideal. Therefore, there has been little discernment of why it is a good thing, and little clarity concerning what we are attempting to achieve. There is no consensus concerning what we might mean by “universal” (should the health of all children be included, even those of illegal immigrants?) and no consensus concerning what we might mean by “health” (does health involve access to abortion?). The role of government is regarded as one that proposes new social possibilities \u2013posits ideals\u2013 and therefore the government has the task of legislating the ends, along with the means to fulfilling the ends. Therefore there is an urgency that “universal” and “health” must not be too closely defined; they must have the character of an ideal that we are striving for, so that everyone remains free to insert his or her private notions, founded upon previous social constructions, of what that ideal might look like in realization.<\/p>\n

I do not suggest that government is bent upon tyranny or that those who govern are not attempting to seek good things; I do suggest that, willy-nilly, this process is totalitarian in the strict sense, in that it must relativize the particular communities that were once subsidiary societies \u2013families and churches, for example\u2013 in order to create consensus around an ideal. I do hold that a totalitarian state is one that admits of no subsidiary societies, and that a government that presumes to define what is a family is precisely totalitarian.<\/p>\n

In such a system it is futile to speak of the “good”, let alone the “common good.” (When the term is used by politicians they mean, if we look closely, collective effort to achieve the greatest benefit for individuals through ideals that are posited, which does not satisfy what the tradition means by “common” and may not satisfy what we have held to be “good.”) First, the good is not an idea that we might propose, a “being of reason” in the language of Aquinas. It is very precisely not a construct of human invention. It is, like our idea of being or of act, a quasi-idea: the term designates but does not define. According to Aristotle, it designates and depends upon finality: anything that is good has the character of an end that all humans seek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do not suggest that government is bent upon tyranny or that those who govern are not attempting to seek good things; I do suggest that, willy-nilly, this process is totalitarian in the strict sense, in that it must relativize the particular communities that were once subsidiary societies \u2013families and churches, for example\u2013 in order to create consensus around an ideal. I do hold that a totalitarian state is one that admits of no subsidiary societies, and that a government that presumes to define what is a family is precisely totalitarian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5043"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5045,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5043\/revisions\/5045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}