Modernity 

The reduction of the Creation to scientific realism in Galilean physics, Cartesian dualism, and the empiricism of Bacon and Locke reduced and de-meaned the Creation and the creatures in it as part of a project to “conquer” it technologically, scientifically, and industrially. Subdue it, not in the sense of the Bible, in which Man was to act as a good steward of a world that the Creator made, sustained, and indeed loved – it is God’s world, not ours; we were allowed to use it in stewardship but conquer, enslave, and subdue it to increase our power and further our independence from nature and God. We were never intended by the Creator to have such power, and seeking it reveals the hidden meaning of the “apple” in the Garden. Perhaps a more appropriate symbol is the ring of power in Tolkien’s writings. It expresses a pure will to dominate nature and all living things to magnify the power of the one who wields it. One may desire such power to do good – as Galileo, Descartes, and Bacon all wanted –  but in the end it will betray anyone to evil.

    

    Now I realize that part of the charm of what we call “modernity” – the regime of science, technology, and capitalism; modernism in art and philosophy – was that by eliminating meaning and value from their world version, their construct of nature and human nature, they also protected themselves from a Church gone mad. By seemingly leaving metaphysics, morals, and theology to the Church, they sought to protect themselves from Bruno’s fate (the stake). But the seeds they planted destroyed the worldview of the Church, both the good and the bad. The Catholic Church has been fighting a rearguard action against modernity ever since its defeat in the 18^th century. Yes, they now do not challenge the findings of science. They have sought to challenge the metaphysics and moral theories of modernity (all of them) – I confess to sharing that project. But the corruption of the Church made modernity possible in significant ways.

 An Argument for Realism (The Beginning of a Reply to Nelson Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking)

If reality were socially constructed, or reducible to human constructions, this would be a possible way to conceive of certain human beings - in this case, Jewish human beings. If I have my truth and you have your truth, I could only say I don't like this; not that it was wrong and evil. If world versions were immune to falsification of reality - their being no independent, unconceptualized world to compare them to - then this image would be just as intellectually and morally valid as any other (in an objective sense). Reality would have nothing to say. 

. . .

Here I present an argument for robust realism in philosophy and morals.

     It is a commonplace: before we human beings can exploit or do violence a reduction or demeaning of the object of exploitation or violence must happen in our heads. For humans to justify exploitation or violence against another entity—whether it's a person, animal, or environment—they must first mentally diminish, dehumanize, or reduce that entity's value or worth.

Here are some examples, both morally central and less so.

 

·        Enslavers have often justified their actions by portraying enslaved people as inherently inferior, subhuman, or less than human. Terms like "savages" or "beasts" were used to make the enslaved seem less deserving of rights, freedom, or compassion. This mental reduction made it easier to justify cruel treatment.

·        As a prelude to war and part of its conduct opposing sides frequently use demeaning language, like calling the enemy "vermin," "monsters," or "barbarians"; or “gooks,” “infidels,” or “garlic eaters.”  This strips the enemy of their humanity and makes it psychologically easier for soldiers and civilians to support violence or atrocities against them.

·        To justify the mistreatment of animals in factory farms, they are often viewed as mere "products," "meat," or "resources" rather than living, feeling beings. Focusing only on their economic value makes it easier to ignore their suffering. I once toured a chicken slaughter factory – horrible – where the chickens were referred to as “units of production.”

·        Misogyny involves objectifying women, treating them as property or objects whose value is based on appearance, utility, or obedience. This reduction of women to objects or lesser beings makes it easier to justify violence, discrimination, or exploitation against them.

·        When capitalists refer to forests merely as "timber" or "resources," rather than, say, a wonderful part of Creation, it becomes easier to justify deforestation or pollution. The same goes for the sublime oceans being reduced to "fishing grounds" or "waste disposal sites" rather than critical components of the planet's health.

·        Employees – especially sweatshop workers –  are imagined as "human resources" or "cogs in the machine," reducing them to mere economic units rather than people with lives, families, and dreams. This mentality makes it easier to justify overworking, underpaying, or otherwise exploiting workers.

·        The homeless are often dehumanized by being called "bums," "drunks," or "vagrants," which reduces them to their circumstances and strips away their individuality and humanity. This reduction makes it easier for society to ignore their needs or justify a lack of empathy or support.

·        When one culture sees another as "primitive," "backward," or "uncivilized," it can justify the imposition of its own values, systems, and power structures, believing that it is "helping" or "saving" the supposedly inferior culture.

·        On the internet, people are often reduced to avatars, usernames, or opposing viewpoints ("trolls," "SJWs," "snowflakes," etc.), which can strip away their humanity and make it easier to engage in hostile or demeaning behavior that would be less likely face-to-face.

·        Certain groups being consistently omitted or underrepresented in media, literature, and history can diminish their perceived value and importance in the public consciousness. This exclusion makes it easier for their real-world issues to be ignored or for them to be treated as less significant in society. I am thinking, for instance, of how the daily heroism of many professions like nursing is covered up. There are no statues of nurses.

·        People with mental health conditions are often reduced to stereotypes like "crazy," "unstable," or "dangerous," which diminishes their complexity as human beings and can justify discrimination, exclusion, or neglect.

·        Older adults are sometimes reduced to being "senile," "burdens," or "past their prime," which devalues their contributions, wisdom, and needs. This reduction can lead to neglect, exclusion, or dismissive attitudes toward their rights and well-being.

·        When dealing with customer service representatives, people might think of them merely as "robots" or "tools" for solving problems rather than as individuals doing their jobs. This mindset can make it easier to be rude, impatient, or dismissive because the person is reduced to a role rather than seen as a fellow human being.

·        When someone cuts us off in traffic, we might think of them as "idiots," "jerks," or even just as the car they're driving rather than as a person who might be in a rush or having a bad day. Reducing them to a negative label or their vehicle makes it easier to justify our own anger or aggressive driving.

·        Reducing people to "cat people" or "dog people" – like J. D. Vance recently did – can make it easier to dismiss their preferences or personality traits as if they were entirely defined by and their lives demeaned through a single choice.

·        Family members may reduce one person to a "nag" when they repeatedly remind others to do chores, ignoring the fact that this person might just want a clean and organized space for everyone. This reduction can make it easier to dismiss their requests or feel justified in being annoyed.

·        Seeing someone dressed a certain way (like in sweatpants at a grocery store) and labeling them as "lazy" or "sloppy" without considering other contexts (like they might be coming from the gym, running an errand, or having a tough day). This reduction makes it easier to dismiss them or form unfair judgments about their character.

·        When discussing hobbies or interests, someone might reduce an entire group to a stereotype, such as calling all gamers "nerds" or all people who do yoga "hippies." This oversimplifies the diverse range of people within any group and can make it easier to disregard their individuality or dismiss their interests.

·        Sometimes parents or adults might reduce a child’s behavior to “just being a kid” or “throwing a tantrum,” dismissing the potential complexity behind their feelings, like tiredness, frustration, or a need for attention. This reduction can make it easier to ignore or not take their emotions seriously.

·        People might reduce tech support to “the help desk” and treat them as a faceless entity rather than individuals with their own skills and personalities. This mindset can lead to a lack of patience or respect in interactions.

·        Students might see their teachers simply as “homework-givers” or “test-makers,” reducing them to their role in the classroom and ignoring their efforts, motivations, and even their own frustrations or passions.

·        On social media, reducing someone to their most extreme opinion or a single post and dismissing them as “a troll” or “ignorant” rather than considering that they might have a range of beliefs or have been misunderstood. This makes it easier to argue, block, or dismiss without engaging in meaningful conversation.

·        When at a restaurant, reducing a waiter to simply “the server” without recognizing that they might be a student, an artist, or someone working another job. This mindset makes it easier to overlook their humanity or not consider the pressures they may face.

·        Referring to a colleague simply as “the intern” or “the new guy” rather than by their name or acknowledging their contributions can diminish their presence and make it easier to exclude them from conversations or decisions.

·        Referring to a neighbor as “that guy with the dog” or “the lady with the loud car” reduces them to a single characteristic, making it easier to feel annoyed or indifferent towards them without knowing their story or situation.

·        Dismissing someone’s behavior by saying “typical millennial” or “boomer talk” reduces complex individuals to generational stereotypes, which can make it easier to dismiss their viewpoints or opinions without truly understanding them.

 

This tendency permeates human behavior. I think, theologically speaking, it belongs to the essence of “sin.”

 

    When we become deeply familiar with others—whether they are people, animals, or even aspects of the environment—we begin to see their complexity, uniqueness, and inherent value. This deeper knowledge can make it much harder to engage in reductive, exploitative, or violent behavior because it becomes more difficult to dehumanize or dismiss them. Here in a brainstorming fashion are some examples of this:

·        Someone who has a close friend from a different racial or cultural background is less likely to accept or perpetuate stereotypes about that group. Knowing someone personally makes it harder to reduce a whole group to caricatures, as their friend serves as a vivid counterexample, humanizing the group in their eyes. I am grateful that I went to school and played sports with black schoolmates for this very reason. It was an essential part of my moral education.  Familiarity leads to empathy, understanding, and a recognition of individuality, making it difficult to dehumanize or apply simplistic labels.

·        A person who has raised a pet, like a dog or a cat, or who has spent time with animals in sanctuaries, will recognize that animals have personalities, emotions, and unique preferences. This awareness can make it much harder for them to justify animal cruelty, factory farming, or other forms of exploitation. Indeed, understanding an animal's unique traits and behaviors breaks down the idea of them as mere "objects" or "products," making cruelty seem more abhorrent. Again, being with the dogs and cats I was blessed with was an essential part of my moral education.

·        Someone who regularly hikes, gardens, or spends time studying ecosystems may develop a deeper respect for the environment. They are less likely to see a forest as "just timber" or a river as "just water" because they know how these ecosystems function, support life, and are interconnected with human well-being. Direct experiences with nature foster a sense of awe, respect, and understanding of the environment's complexity, making exploitation or destruction feel wrong. I had few – but precious – such experiences as a child. I have made up for that lack as an adult.

·        Working closely with colleagues of different genders, sexual orientations, abilities, or cultural backgrounds can reduce unconscious biases and prevent reductive thinking. Instead of seeing people through the lens of stereotypes, one begins to see them as individuals with their own unique talents, struggles, and personalities. Regular, positive interactions reduce prejudice and promote a culture of mutual respect and understanding, making discrimination or harassment less likely. Again, I was blessed to work in a hospital with many impressive women, making misogyny impossible for me.

·        A parent or caregiver who spends time with children learns to see beyond surface behavior (like tantrums or whining) to understand the underlying emotions, needs, and developmental stages. This familiarity makes it harder to dismiss a child's feelings or treat them unfairly. Seeing children as complex individuals with emotions and needs fosters patience and a deeper sense of responsibility and care. It has been a constant challenge to get to know my children better.

·        Someone who has lived in a foreign country or spent time immersing themselves in a different culture is less likely to see other cultures as "exotic" or "backward." Familiarity with daily life, customs, language, and social norms makes it harder to hold on to reductive stereotypes. Here I value my friendship as a student with Ann-Young Noh of Korea.

·        Learning about the history of other groups or engaging with literature from diverse perspectives can make it more difficult to accept simplistic narratives. For instance, someone who studies the history of indigenous peoples will find it hard to reduce them to just "primitive" or "ancient" stereotypes. In my case, I needed to understand Germans and Russians – Germans to overcome the bad-guy image of war movies, which for some reason I could not accept; Russians, because they were the official “enemy” of the Cold War, and I could not accept this either. Knowledge always adds depth, complexity, and context, which dismantles reductive or exploitative narratives and fosters a more profound understanding of social issues.

·        Being deeply involved in a local community (e.g., volunteering, participating in local events) makes it difficult to reduce people to categories like "the homeless," "the elderly," or "the poor." Knowing their stories, struggles, and contributions makes it harder to accept blanket judgments or systemic neglect. Perhaps I will do that when I retire. Familiarity breeds compassion, breaks down "us vs. them" mentalities, and fosters a sense of shared humanity and community responsibility.

·        Having a family member or close friend who belongs to a marginalized group (such as LGBTQ+, a disability community, or a religious minority) can prevent one from reducing that group to a stereotype. The personal connection makes it clear that each individual in the group has their own distinct identity and story. My niece has been my teacher here. Personal relationships challenge simplistic narratives, foster solidarity, and reduce prejudice through lived experience.

·        Teaching – I am a teacher –  can help one see beyond their initial impressions of competence, age, or background. You learn to see the mentee as a complex individual with potential and unique skills, making it harder to dismiss them based on initial biases. For example, I remember my engagement with a “Goth” student allowed me to see his humanity and understand how he got to where he was.

·        Someone who has personally experienced hardship (like poverty, illness, or discrimination) may be less likely to judge others going through similar challenges. They know firsthand that people are more than their circumstances and are less inclined to reduce others to labels like "lazy" or "weak." Personal experience breeds empathy, understanding, and the rejection of reductive judgments, promoting more compassionate behavior. That is perhaps why “the rich” have such a hard time “entering the kingdom of God” – having compassion for others, caring about justice, lacking mercy or truthfulness.

·        Reading novels, watching films, or engaging with art that depicts a wide range of human experiences can reduce one's tendency to think in stereotypes. For example, a powerful documentary or novel about refugees might make it harder to see refugees simply as a "problem" or "burden." Art and storytelling provide intimate insights into diverse lives, fostering compassion and understanding that makes it difficult to reduce people to mere labels. Well, my love of literature has been good for me.

 

. . .

 

There are different speculations about the origins or genesis of the human tendency to reduce others—whether people, animals, or environments—to justify exploitation or violence. Different sources of “original sin.”

• One perspective is that humans evolved certain psychological tendencies that helped our ancestors survive in environments where resources were scarce and competition was high. Reducing others to enemies, threats, or less important beings could have made it easier to compete for resources, protect one's group, and avoid dangers. By dehumanizing or reducing others, early humans might have been more willing to engage in necessary but morally difficult actions, like war, territorial defense, or even the extermination of rival groups. This tendency might have been adaptive in the context of survival and tribal conflict. [As I have read, studies of primate behavior, human tribal societies, and ancient human remains all show signs of intergroup conflict and the use of dehumanizing language or actions to prepare for or justify violence.]
• We have a strong innate tendency to form groups, creating a psychological distinction between "us" (ingroup) and "them" (outgroup). This can lead to "ingroup favoritism," where people show preference and empathy toward those perceived as part of their group, while devaluing, stereotyping, or dehumanizing those seen as outsiders. This tendency can be seen as a psychological mechanism for maintaining group cohesion, solidarity, and loyalty, which were essential for survival in early human societies. The downside is that it can also lead to prejudice, discrimination, and violence against outgroups. [Numerous psychological studies, such as the Robbers Cave Experiment, show how easily people can be divided into groups and begin to exhibit biased behavior. This dynamic can lead to stereotyping, discrimination, and even violence against those seen as different or outside the group.]
• The human brain uses cognitive shortcuts, or "heuristics," to quickly process information and make decisions. Reducing complex entities to simpler categories (e.g., "enemy," "prey," "danger") is a way to manage cognitive load and make quick judgments in situations where time or information is limited. While these shortcuts can be useful for survival (like quickly recognizing a predator), they also lead to oversimplifications and biases. This reductionist thinking can contribute to stereotyping, prejudice, and justifications for violence or exploitation. [Cognitive psychology research shows that people are prone to biases like the "fundamental attribution error," where they attribute others' actions to character flaws rather than circumstances. Stereotyping and "othering" are seen as examples of cognitive simplification. Or as Jesus put it long before cognitive science: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”] 
• Human societies often perpetuate norms, ideologies, and cultural practices that support reductionist thinking to maintain social hierarchies, power dynamics, and resource control. For example, colonizers often portrayed colonized peoples as "savages" or "uncivilized" to justify exploitation. Cultural narratives and socialization teach people to see certain groups or entities as less valuable or deserving. This conditioning can perpetuate violence, discrimination, and exploitation across generations, reinforcing social hierarchies and power structures.
• When we are faced with morally troubling actions (like committing violence or exploiting others), we may engage in "moral disengagement," a psychological process where we reduce our compassion or justify our actions to avoid “cognitive dissonance” – i.e. the pain of remorse. Dehumanizing others is a key part of this process. By reducing the humanity of the victim, a person can maintain a positive self-image while engaging in behavior that would otherwise conflict with their moral or ethical beliefs. “They can always have more,” said of a grieving Vietnamese mother during the war, for example. [Studies in moral psychology, such as those by Albert Bandura on moral disengagement, show how people use mechanisms like euphemistic labeling, diffusion of responsibility, or victim-blaming to justify harmful actions. Surprise. Such studies seem to confirm the obvious.]
• We are more likely to reduce others to negative stereotypes or dehumanize them when resources (like food, land, or economic opportunities) are perceived as scarce. This mindset makes it easier to rationalize exclusion, competition, or aggression to secure limited resources. This is partly behind the MAGA demonization of immigrants – those “least of our brethren.” It seems undeniable that periods of scarcity (like famines, economic crises, or environmental stress) often coincide with increased xenophobia, intergroup conflict, and violence.
• Humans are hardwired to perceive and respond to threats. When people feel fear or perceive danger, they may become more likely to dehumanize or reduce the perceived source of that threat in order to justify defensive or aggressive actions. Dictators and would-be dictators play on this constantly. I think of the words of Hermann Göring: "Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
• The tendency to reduce others for exploitation or violence has been shaped by specific historical and economic systems, such as colonialism and capitalism. These systems often require viewing certain people, places, or animals as resources to be used rather than as beings with intrinsic value. To sustain economic exploitation, colonial and capitalist systems often promote ideologies that diminish the humanity or worth of the exploited—e.g., treating workers as "labor units" or nature as "raw materials."
• Humans have a tendency to create and enforce social hierarchies, often by reducing those at the bottom to less-than-human status to justify their subjugation or exploitation. Hierarchical thinking makes it easier to rationalize inequality and maintain power structures. I don’t think all hierarchy is necessarily unjust or implies contempt for those at the bottom. But “natural hierarchies” have often functioned as ideology.
• The language and symbols we use shape how we perceive and interact with the world. Linguistic reduction (like calling an enemy "monsters" or reducing an ecosystem to "resources") can psychologically distance us from the full complexity of others, making it easier to justify violence or exploitation.

All of these cause us to distort reality and thus our response to reality. 

. . .

 

The tendency to reduce or distort richer realities to simpler or lesser ones is a kind of failure to align one's thoughts and feelings with the actual nature of things, which implies robust realism—such as that of St. Thomas Aquinas.

     St. Thomas Aquinas was a proponent of a form of robust realism grounded in the idea that reality can impress itself on the disciplined intellect (and heart) — "adaequatio intellectus et rei" (the adequation of the intellect to the thing). For Aquinas, truth involves knowing things as they actually are, in their full richness and particularity, as created by God. When we reduce a richer reality to a lesser, distorted one (for example, by dehumanizing others or oversimplifying complex situations), we fail to align our thoughts and perceptions with the true nature of that reality. This failure can be seen as a kind of departure from truth, in Aquinas's sense—a deviation from the actual nature or essence of the beings or things in question.

    Aquinas's metaphysics is deeply rooted in the concept of being (esse) and the idea that every being has an intrinsic nature or essence that reflects the divine order. For Aquinas, every entity—whether a person, an animal, or an aspect of nature—has a unique essence and a degree of participation in existence, which must be recognized and respected. Reductionist thinking ignores or distorts the fullness of being by oversimplifying or misrepresenting the essences of things. For example, reducing a person to a stereotype or an enemy negates their complexity, dignity, and the depth of their being. From a Thomistic perspective, this is not only morally wrong but also metaphysically incorrect because it fails to recognize the true nature of the person as a unique, rational being with inherent worth.

       Moral response (obligation) is rooted in Being. The real is the foundation of the good life, right action, and appropriate emotion. If you want your words, actions, and way of life to aim at what is good, then you must attune your heart and mind to the being of the world and everything in it. You don’t examine your conscience or values in the first place; you don’t look to the principles or ideals you established for yourself. You have to look away from yourself to see what reality is and be guided by that. (Reality in the sense of the essence and telos of any phenomenon as well as its perhaps unfilled potentials.) To be good is to be attuned to Being, to reality.

   Goethe wrote that morality can be reduced to one thing: truth. Truth in the sense of the uncovering or revealing of reality to the intellect and heart (to reason, which includes both). Truth is Being proclaiming itself to us. 

     For Aquinas, recognizing the truth about beings is not just an intellectual but a moral duty. Failure to apprehend and acknowledge the truth about others—seeing them as mere objects for exploitation, for example—is an intellectual and a moral failure. It is a failure to love and respect the inherent dignity that belongs to all beings as creatures of God. Reductionist thinking represents a failure of reason, a failure of knowledge and understanding. It comes from a deficiency in the human capacity to know and to apprehend the fullness of reality. Aquinas would argue that such deficiencies are the result of various human limitations, including sin, ignorance, and bias, which obscure our understanding and prevent us from fully aligning our thoughts with the true nature of things.

     Aquinas’s philosophy incorporates a robust notion of natural law, which is based on the idea that there are objective moral truths grounded in human nature and the nature of the world. Humans are capable of discerning these truths through reason (including the heart). When people reduce others to mere objects or diminish their reality, they act contrary to natural law because they violate the inherent dignity of those others, who are rational beings with their own purposes and ends. From a Thomistic standpoint, the tendency to dehumanize or exploit others is a failure to recognize and act according to the natural law, which demands that we treat others according to their true nature as rational beings. Reductionist behavior represents a distortion of natural law because it fails to recognize the full moral status of others.

  Aquinas holds that human cognition is intentional, meaning it is directed toward the reality of things outside the mind. To know truly is to have one's intellect aligned with the objective reality of things, as they exist independently of our perceptions or desires. When humans reduce complex realities to simpler, distorted versions, they fail in this intentional act of cognition. They no longer see the reality as it is, but as they have distorted it to be. This represents a gap between the mind and the world—a failure of intentionality to reach its proper object. According to Aquinas, this is not just an error but a kind of moral deficiency, as it often involves self-deception or willful ignorance.

     For Aquinas, every created being participates in the divine order of being and has its place and purpose within that order. Proper understanding of reality involves recognizing this participation—acknowledging the inherent goodness and value of all beings as part of God's creation. When humans reduce others to mere objects or instruments for their use, they fail to see and respect the divine order. They deny the intrinsic value and purpose of those beings, seeing them instead only in terms of their utility or threat to themselves. This denial of the participation of others in the divine order is a profound metaphysical and moral error from the Thomistic perspective.

     Aquinas, following Christian theology, holds that human sinfulness distorts our understanding and inclines us to reduce or exploit others. Original sin has affected human reason, will, and emotions, leading us to misperceive reality and act unjustly. The tendency to dehumanize or exploit others can be seen as a manifestation of this fallen state—a failure to recognize the true nature and value of others. Aquinas would argue that this is not merely a cognitive error but a moral failing that stems from a corrupted will and disordered desires, which prevent us from aligning with God's truth.

   From a Thomistic perspective, the human tendency to reduce richer realities to simpler, distorted ones is a profound failure to recognize and align with the truth of things as they are. It represents a gap between the mind and reality—a failure to see and acknowledge the full essence, dignity, and worth of beings as they participate in the divine order. Such reduction is not just an intellectual error but a moral and spiritual failure, reflecting a deeper disharmony between human cognition, moral understanding, and the true nature of reality.

 . . .

Thus, this phenomenon does indeed support a robust realism, like that of Aquinas, where aligning one's mind and will with the reality of things is both a cognitive and moral imperative. The reduction of reality is seen as a failure to know, respect, and love as we ought, given the true nature of beings in the world.

   Everything I have written about “reductionism” here applies even more to philosophies embracing the “social construction of reality” or the “subjective construction of reality” (solipsism).

Inter-Christian Disagreements

I am so lonely I on rare occasions comment on something I hear on YouTube. I did this recently upon hearing one of those fundamentalist American Catholics trashing “liberal” theology – which means any theology that doesn’t make the “ransom theory” the one essentially defining feature of Christianity. I made an argument against belittling a person’s faith based on their theology. We all can be more or less superficial whatever our theology, and even then we shouldn’t belittle the person. I pointed out that Jesus’s teachings are “precious” to some people who can’t accept the “ransom theory.” The will to force their theology on everyone, not with reasoned argument or lived example but with demagoguery and spin, reveals their bad faith. Someone replied, for which I should be grateful even if the reply was meant to demean my answer rather than to take it seriously. Here is this reply:

“Who cares if Jesus said pretty words......if He didn't [LITERALLY] rise from the dead....He's nothing, but a sweet-talk'n conman and we've all been had!”

…"precious words" what does THAT mean? [by the way it was a sarcastic, rhetorical question] BTW McDonalds believe "Big Mac" are precious words! As for the rest....who cares! Maybe Jesus said "precious words"...maybe not....I've read Shakespeare a few times, not really my buzz....but the Perfect Sacrifice, from the Son of God.....that's what matters! The Son of God SAID SO!!!!!!!!....!!!!!”

 

Screaming at me, I suppose, with all those exclamation marks.  But there is a difficult theological issue at stake. Justification by faith alone – that is Protestantism. Luther’s creed. And faith in what? In the “Ransom theory” – and the Incarnation and Resurrection. Through Adam all humanity was fallen. Absolutely cut off from God’s love or at least ability to show us any grace. A sacrifice was needed. Who was worthy? Only God. So God became human to be sacrificed on the cross so that he could forgive us – but on one condition. That we believe that God became human so that he could die on the cross so that he could forgive us. It is alleged that God-Jesus told us this very thing so if we don’t believe it we are following in Adam’s footsteps. If we can’t believe that, Hell. And we can’t believe that because it makes no sense. So God’s grace is required to believe it, which He gives only to the chosen few for his own inscrutable reasons: the southern Baptists; or non-liberal Catholics perhaps – people disagree about who the select few are. Oh, and by the way, while He was here, God-Jesus revealed what we are at the core of our being and how we can most authentically live. But these truths would have meant nothing if he were just a man and died. Only the supernatural sacrifice proved his teachings. Actually, it doesn’t really matter what he taught. Any teaching would do as long as he proved himself the Messiah by rising from the dead.

   More seriously but closely related is the argument made by C.S. Lewis and others. The “moral teaching” of Jesus is not that revolutionary. Different wise men have taught the same in one variation or the other in many different cultural and religious contexts. It is the law written into the Creation by the Creation. Natural reason and virtue suffice to recognize it. The Golden Rule:

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”

 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

There are many formulations of the same idea in almost all the civilizations of the world – Confucian, Hindu, Gnostic, Platonic, etc. The Gold Rule was not widely known or practiced. But granted: God did not need to become man – the premise of Christianity – to tell us the Golden Rule. St. Thomas recognized that there could be “virtuous pagans” – Pagans who lived a virtuous life according to reason and the Golden Rule. They are in Dante’s Hell – in Limbo where they are not tormented but exist without hope. Christ just confirmed what the wisest of us already knew and the best of us already practiced – so the gist of this argument.

    Being wise and good was not enough to redeem us, to save us, to keep us out of Hell. The best we could achieve on our own was Limbo. A thought like that was behind my critic’s contempt for the “moral teachings” as opposed to the Resurrection. The “perfect sacrifice” was required to give us a chance to escape Hell – if we only believe Jesus was God and sacrificed Himself. It is not the sacrifice itself, but the belief in the sacrifice that keeps you out of Hell. And that seems to be the only important thing. And for that, God became Man.  

   This doesn’t make human sense on many levels. The whole human race was condemned because of the single act of disobedience of the original human beings. I can understand that symbolically. The idea of the perfect sacrifice requires me to understand it literally. That we as a species had gone wrong, had been cut off from or not yet able to reach our highest potential (which required hope, faith, love) – that I can understand. That perhaps only God could set us right I can understand. That He had to become human to do – given the story's assumptions – makes sense. That setting us right he – as a matter of fact – gave his life, had to suffer, sublimely, makes sense. But in this story so far, Jesus’s teachings about our humanity and the change of consciousness (de-selfing) is the reason he had to become human – a sage or a prophet was not enough because more was required than wisdom or virtue, although extreme difficulty and indeed luck involved in becoming virtuous is part of the reason what God had to help his creations.

   But the “ransom theory” states that Adam and Eve cut us all off from the Creator through disobedience. Life in the garden is gone and cannot be won back. According to the narrative, humanity, represented by Adam and Eve, fell into sin through disobedience in the Garden of Eden. This act of rebellion resulted in humanity becoming enslaved to sin, death, and, by extension, to Satan, who gained dominion over humankind as a result of their sinfulness – which is more than just being “immoral,” as though if mankind had to power to be virtuous and good the problem would be solved. That would overcome the alienation from the Creator. The tendency towards vice and the difficulty of virtue are only the effects of the alienation from God.

     In this context, God, being just and holy, couldn't simply overlook the enslavement of humanity to sin and Satan. However, God also desired to restore humanity to a state of grace and fellowship with Him. To do so, a ransom needed to be paid to liberate humanity from this bondage. (The aspect of the myth that rubs against the image of God many have – who doesn’t need to make deals with the devil.

    Jesus Christ, the Son of God, one of the three personalities – distinct yet indissolubly bound – was sent into the world as the ransom for humanity's sins. The idea is that Jesus' life and, more importantly, His sacrificial death on the cross served as the payment to redeem humanity from the captivity of Satan. Jesus offered His life in exchange for the freedom of humanity. Indeed, Satan was "deceived" by God. Satan, thinking he had power over Christ by orchestrating His crucifixion, took the bait, so to speak. However, because Jesus was sinless and divine, death could not hold Him, and by rising from the dead, Christ not only defeated death but also broke Satan's power over humanity. (Lewis tells the same essential story in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.)  

     The resurrection of Christ represents the ultimate victory over Satan. By paying the ransom with His life and then overcoming death, Christ freed humanity from Satan's hold. Satan was left with nothing, as his power over humanity was undone by Christ’s resurrection – like the snow queen in Lewis’s fantasy story. Well, partially undone. If a person does not accept this story of Christ’s ransom, then Satan still has dominion over that person’s soul. The perfect sacrifice was a necessary but not a sufficient condition of redemption from Satan’s power; in addition, we must believe the ransom story; only then does it have redeeming power. Faith in the story saves. It saves whether you are a thief or a murderer being crucified or a Socrates: in terms of salvation, there is no difference between a Socrates and the thief on the cross. Important is only to believe the story – as my critic stated with many exclamation points. But it only saves for Heaven, in the afterlife. This world is still Satan’s. The perfect sacrifice does not really save the world – contra John 3:16. As C. S. Lewis put it: in this life we live in occupied territory (occupied by the forces of Satan).

   The big difference between what makes sense to me – again, assuming one accepts the basic facts that underpin any theology that can be called Christian – and adherents of the “ransom theory” is this: in one telling, the need for salvation, the alienation from God, was caused by a corruption of human nature, an elevation of the Ego at the expense of the natural order and the Creator’s love. In short, the rise of the autonomous self that determines for itself, contra reality, contra God’s love, what is good and evil, real and unreal. Egoism. Which is contrary to love. Division, which is contrary to the bonds of love and care. It destroys the good of this world, of life in this world. After Christ we can live in this world with hope, faith, and love because he not only told us how to but showed us. Perhaps the original goodness of the world cannot be fully recovered but life on earth can express it to some extent (the ideal community of the Church or the loving family). At least we don’t have to see the world as an unregenerate vale of tears even if we can’t undo our mortality, our being subject to fortune, the perpetuation of our distorted natures through unjust, power-hungry regimes (like American capitalism or Soviet communism). We can know that such regimes are contrary to nature and the Creator. In the other telling, the only important fact was God’s helplessness to save his creatures from the power of Satan – who like Edward in Lewis’s story gave into their lower impulses and put themselves in his power. The rules of the Creation could not be broken, even by God. But he did understand the “deeper magic” that Satan was ignorant of:  if an innocent being willing offered his own life in place of a traitor's, the deeper magic would reverse death itself and restore them to life; and God – born as the man Jesus – was the only innocent being.

     In my telling – I assume many others – God made the sacrifice in order to enlighten us about his own nature and ours, and how we had gone wrong. The enlightenment was no mere human wisdom but a sublime leak from a real that surrounds us and is above us. In the ransom theory, God’s advent in human form was a hostage rescue. In my telling, the truths of the teaching are essential; in the ransom theory, they add nothing to what was already known.

  Both accounts are equally absurd if science is the only measure of the possible. Both are mythical accounts that purport to make sense of certain key “facts” – the fact of Jesus’s life, death, and teaching as known from the gospels. Both are attempts to make sense of that which is way over our heads – God, Creation, our broken state, love, etc. It is not that my version is more compatible with science.

     The ransom theory represents God in a way that doesn’t cohere with other necessary features of God. The ransom theory also implies the myth is also literal, historical truth, logically no different from reporting the event at Appomattox Courthouse in April 1865. The whole account is metaphorical – how could it not be with God involved? There are no witnesses to confirm one way of understanding it rather than another. (I will come to the gospels later.9 Mankind is compared to a runaway child who rejects the love and care of his family because he wants to do his own thing. That is a good metaphor, I think, but only a metaphor. And God, like a father, can’t force the prodigal son to return home. Now metaphorically, having taken his inheritance and run, the prodigal son – humanity – is in a way by definition in the devil’s country i.e. in a state of mind in which not love but his own will drives his life.

    Now according to the ransom narrative, the prodigal son is the devil’s property in a literal sense. There is no way for the Father to have him back according to the laws of Being that God himself made and that bind even him? What would God make such laws? Only God knows. They make no human sense. God would have to offer himself to the devil to get his son back. Well, a good father might indeed do that. But his son could not know the father did that, had to do that. He could only learn that secondhand, from an outside source. And if he didn’t believe what he heard, well, the sacrifice was in vein. Though, as God knew but the devil somehow didn’t, he wouldn’t really have to sacrifice himself since God is eternal.

    My version (the version that makes sense to me) also involves magic. The Father couldn’t go after the son himself, since if the son returned by force, and the appearance of the father would leave him no choice, no change would have taken place in the soul of the son. So he reinvented himself as a man unlike any other man who had ever lived, and sent the man to the son. The man lived and taught the truth of the father, and the lost son recognized the goodness and love of his father in the life and teachings of the man his father had sent. The others in the world the son had chosen to live in were exposed by this man, and killed him – as the father knew would happen. Through his death the son experienced such a loss, as though his father had died. And he felt deep shame and remorse. At this, the man sprang back to life and led the son back to the father, for he had forgotten the way. The father ran out to meet him with open arms.

    That is a parable, not literal history. The parable is close to the one Jesus himself used to make sense of things to his audience. To me it is a better story than the ransom. God doesn’t make laws that will tie his hands and force him to deal with the devil to get humanity back. It is not that I think it just a story. If the story doesn’t gesture towards something metaphysically real, well, we are up shit creek. But we are not quite like dogs watching TV in this case, we can reason about things above us based on things we understand from our lives. But to believe our reason can understand higher levels of being directly – that is an epistemological mistake.

. . .

 

I disagree with a premise of the C. S. Lewis argument – which is the argument of much official Christianity: that the “moral teaching” (the word “moral” is distorting) of Jesus was nothing new; thus the ransom was the only purpose for Jesus’s advent, death, and resurrection.

    It is undeniable that the Golden Rule was in some sense known all over the world (though little followed). After all, natural reason was not wholly corrupted by sin. For doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, loving your neighbor as yourself, is a response of human reason to reality, to the reality of the human being as created by God.

    I have serious doubts that the Golden Rule was understood prior to Christ in the full radicality and universality that he taught it. I am quite sure that there was not so much as the idea of what we abstractly call “human dignity” before Christ: there was dignity in being a Jew, or belonging to the upper class, or being an Athenian or Spartan; there was no dignity in mere humanity. Slavery, oppression or extermination of the conquered – these were the norm, and no affirmation of the Golden Rule in Hinduism, for example, led to the questioning of untouchability or the abolition of slavery in any of the cultures where some sage formulated it. (Correct me if I am wrong.) I suspect most people understood it to apply in practice to one’s family and one’s own people – much like Jefferson’s “all men are created equal” in practice tended to mean Caucasian males, perhaps even propertied Caucasian males.

   When Jesus was asked “Who is my neighbor?” – the question itself is an illustration of my point in the previous paragraph – Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here the full meaning of “created in God’s image” is revealed: we share a common humanity. If we saw each other truly – the way God sees us – we would see each other as brothers and sisters. That is our reality that we are largely blind to and largely fail to live by. So deeply ingrained in this blindness (sin) that even after 2000 years of Christianity Christians are largely as blind as non-Christians, perhaps even more so. Christianity had to adapt itself to power. Had to become ideological, distorted to be embraced by elites. The despicable demonization by MAGA Christians of “the least of our brethren” (the poorest of the poor seeking help in “the New World”) is only a recent example. A common humanity: “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matthew 25:40).” Nothing like that was meant by the Golden Rule before.

    And I am unaware of any teaching that says this (again, as part of the Golden Rule):

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you…” (Matthew 5:44)

 

“But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.” (Luke 6:35)

 

That seems crazy. It is sublime. It goes against all our instincts, all our evolution. To respond to hate with hate only begets more hate: a literal devil’s circle. The Israel-Palestine hatred is only the most recent proof of this. Gandhi’s words “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” is a perfect understanding of Christ’s teaching.

  Finally, the meaning of the Golden Rule is expressed in the story of the adulterous woman. The story underscores the idea that Jesus came not to condemn but to offer grace and mercy. While the law prescribed punishment, Jesus demonstrated that mercy is God’s essence. Jesus’ challenge to the accusers – let he who is without sin cast the first stone – highlights that we are all sinners, all blind, all divided from the essential connections. And therefore, none of us are in a position to self-righteously judge others. This invites self-reflection and humility. Jesus doesn’t simply forgive the woman and leave her as she is. He calls her to a new way of living, urging her to “sin no more.” This demonstrates that while forgiveness is freely given, it comes with a call to repentance and transformation. This is another deep expression of a common humanity, of the implications of being “made in God’s image.”

    I say: these deep truths were brought into the world by Jesus alone. His identity with God or his authority to speak for the Father comes from these truths about our nature and the world even more than from any other miracles. On this basis alone people like Tolstoy recognize God in Jesus. I can fully understand that.

 Brief Meditation on Pope John Paul II

Thinking about Pope John Paul II – and the philosopher-theologian Karol Wojtyla - whom I loved and admired. I was always drawn to him because the dignity of the human person is at the forefront of his thought, which is always on my mind as well. The roots of his concern with the dignity of man are not merely theoretical. He grew up in Poland under Nazi occupation. He was the bishop of Krakow, which is to say, the bishop of the diocese where Auschwitz is located – as he himself pointed out as an explanation of his concern with dignity. He lived in communist Poland. Despite the nominal humanism of Marxism, I heard of a person who had lived under communist oppression once express its actual message thus: the basic message you are sent every day is that you have no dignity, you have no worth; your worth is reduced to your labor value or utility to the collective (actually the State and its leaders). This is why I have always been a “liberal.” The individual can’t be reduced like that. The dignity of the  individual has to be the center of any political regime. It is why I came to see the contradiction between this principle – “die dignity of Man is inviolable” as the German constitution puts it (die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar) – and capitalism in its present form as an all-pervasive political and cultural determinant. The city has allowed to market to take over all of the city. We are reduced to our status, wealth, labor power, and such, no different that the man had described his life in communism. Communist propaganda was primitive. Communist propaganda had very little hold over the former East Germans I have known. It was commonly regarded as a joke. The mind control of this regime is light years ahead of anything the Communist rulers were capable of. Like communism – I think much more aggressively and effectively – capitalist life undermines our sense of dignity, of being a unified soul with an independent mind capable of judgment and honestly loving ourselves and seeing others as intelligible objects of love. Even on the progressive left, the ideas that are universally human are debunked in favor of a reduction to category. Colonialism was wrong not because it was a crime against justice, a crime against human dignity. It was wrong because one category of human, white males, oppressed another category of human, people of color, the males of which were oppressing another category, women of color, who themselves often oppressed another category, children of color. But why shouldn’t they if the categories are essential and there is no common humanity, no human family, no human dignity, no Idea of justice to work against it?

   John Paul II worked toward helping people feel their own dignity within inhumane regimes that reduced us to categories, reduced categories to relative value, to do to people what capitalists do to the earth. He was like the Good Samaritan. The fallen “neighbor” was modern humanity.

 Checks and Balances

These are some loose reflections on the American War of Independence, The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War, and where my country is today. They should be treated as speculations, hypotheses even, that I would gladly modify should I read or talk to someone who has more wisdom than I do. Of course, these hypotheses are the result of my thinking, which in turn in based on my reading. I will give my bibliography at the end.

. . .

The “founders” were committing treason. They knew that. The United States was founded on an act of treason. I recall an exchange between Blackthorn and Toranaga in James Clavell’s Shogun:

Toranaga: There are no mitigating circumstances when it comes to rebellion against a sovereign lord.

Blackthorn: Unless the win.

Toranaga: Yes, Mr. foreigner with the impossible name, you named the one mitigating factor.

Well, the American rebels knew this; they knew that the cost of defeat was to die at the end of a rope with their fortunes confiscated.  But for public relations, it was nevertheless desirable to justify themselves. And the British Lockean liberal tradition gave them the means to do that. After all, this was not the first rebellion in British history: the natural right to life, liberty, and property. With a great sense of rhetoric, Thomas Jefferson made one little change: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” After all, no one should think the whole rebellion was about property.

  And then inserted a “proposition” that was at most in the background of Lockean liberalism: “All men are created equal.” I will come back to this.

  Founding your states on natural rights – and the right to remove a government that violates them, if a sufficient number of people believe this to be the case – is a tricky business.

   Liberalism has its roots in the defense of property – a vague term – against the power of the state to take it away through confiscation or “taxation without representation” i.e. without the “consent of the governed.” A big part of the rebellion was the feeling of the propertied elite that their fortunes were not safe, that they were subject to the power of Parliament to tax it away: “taxation without representation” and being governed without consent were thus the big slogans.

   So the colonies became sovereign countries, but countries that manifestly could not survive alone. Most reasonable people of the time recognized that some form of union was necessary for the survival of all.

   So on what basis could the 13 colonies-become-countries form a “more perfect union”? The elites met – the free family farmer, the landless in search of land, the simple artisan (blacksmiths and such), and of course the slaves were not present at the founding. The signers of the Constitution were predominantly from the upper echelons of colonial society, with many being wealthy landowners, planters, lawyers, merchants, and financiers. The few who started life in modest circumstances (Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman) had made it big by that time. The majority were part of the colonial elite with significant economic interests in land, trade, and finance.

    I don’t want to appear cynical or too Howard-Zinn-ish. Some founders, though from the elite and even slaveholders, were genuine republicans (Madison, Jefferson). Many of the compromises necessary to form any kind of a union, much less a perfect one,  were like biting into a shit sandwich for such men. But the sine qua non (the essential condition – Latin phrases, a weakness of mine) of forming a more perfect union that was their property would be protected, legitimate, and hopefully open to increase. Southerners whose wealth was based on slaves did not want northern free farming or trade interests ganging up on them. And none of them wanted a truly democratic system in which the non-elites by control of the legislature could impose a progressive tax system on them or otherwise undermine their interests. They did not want the same kind of rebellion they had just made against their sovereign to happen to them from below. And yet their own rebellion made “consent of the governed” and “no taxation without representation” – and even “all men are created equal” – into principles that could not be ignored.

   The result of all this was the famous system of “checks and balances.” The one thing it prevented that everyone except the core MAGA cultists can agree on: it prevented power from being concentrated into the executive; it prevented an absolute monarch in the style of Louis XIV. (King George was never that kind of a monarch; Parliament governed Great Britain. He did not play a helpful role in the problems that led to the rebellion but he was not a Louis XIV.) They had to make him out to be like that as part of their war effort.) Rich and poor alike, I think – again excepting the Trump cult – can agree on that.

   Checks and balances.

 

I. Checks on Popular Sovereignty

    It gave “the people” – propertied males mostly – the right to vote, to express their preferences. But the electors elected the President: first, they were to exercise their own judgment; then according to party; only by the mid-1800s (in most states, not all) the electors voted in line with the popular majority of their state. From the point of view of democracy, the Electoral College is superfluous and never fails to disturb the democratic sensibilities of the people who have them (i.e. those other than Republicans) – especially when the candidate with a minority of the popular vote wins, as happens regularly these days (2000, 2016).  

  But the Electoral College still “balances” the former slave states against the more popular “free states,” even if the dividing issues are more in the head ow than in property. And it points to an important fact about the original Constitution: it established a union of states, states that gave some of their powers to the federal government but were still – this is ambiguous – the main source of loyalty. In fact, the framers did not have a uniform view on whether loyalty should primarily lie with the state or the union, and the Constitution reflects this tension. The document was intentionally crafted with enough flexibility and ambiguity to allow for different interpretations and to enable the balance of power between states and the federal government to evolve over time. While some framers prioritized state sovereignty, others emphasized the importance of a strong union, and the Constitution was designed to accommodate both perspectives. The Electoral College, which gives the southern and western states a disproportionate influence over elections contrary to the basic democratic principle of one-person-one vote, is part of the checks and balances designed, among other things, to protect property from democracy – to prevent the people from doing what the King could do: tax their property without their consent or even take it away.

 

II. Judicial Checks on Legislature, Executive, and Popular Sovereignty

   The principle of judicial review is not explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution. Judicial review—the power of courts to declare laws or actions of the government unconstitutional—was established through judicial interpretation rather than explicit constitutional text. This was a check the court under Marshall arrogated to itself. The framers of the Constitution were rightly concerned about the potential for "majority tyranny," where the interests of the majority might infringe upon the rights of minorities, including property rights.  Property was seen as a fundamental right that needed protection from the potential excesses of democratic governance. Of course, this makes the Supreme Court a servant of the wealthy. It is one thing for a King to take away my farm, but quite another for the elite to block progressive taxation through the courts.  Federalists, like Alexander Hamilton, saw judicial review as a way to ensure that laws passed by the more "democratic" branches of government (i.e., Congress) did not violate the Constitution. This was particularly important in protecting property rights, which were seen as vulnerable to populist pressures. Hamilton would love the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court and its rolling back of democracy to protect the interests of “property” – today not land- and slave owners but billionaire speculators and enormous global corporations.

   Striking down Roe vs. Wade affects many people in their private lives, but in terms of the regime it was sideshow. The crucial decisions are these:

Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)

Significance: This landmark decision established that corporations have rights under the Contract Clause of the Constitution. The case involved the state of New Hampshire attempting to alter Dartmouth College's charter. The Court ruled that the charter was a contract and that the state could not interfere with it, thereby recognizing corporations as having rights similar to those of individuals regarding contracts. It arrogated to the courts a power not given it in the Constitution: judicial review. That power has mainly been used to protect the rich, protecting property in slaves before the Emancipation Proclamation, and protecting corporations, which previously under common law required the consent of the legislature because of the potential to amass so much capital that they could influence the State.

 

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. (1886)

Significance: Although not officially part of the decision, the headnote of this case is widely cited for its recognition that corporations are "persons" under the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides equal protection under the law. This laid the groundwork for corporate personhood, a foundational concept for corporate rights.

 

Buckley v. Valeo (1976)

Significance: This case established the principle that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech under the First Amendment. This decision laid the groundwork for later cases, such as Citizens United, that significantly expanded corporate political power.

 

First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978)

Significance: In this case, the Court struck down a Massachusetts law that prohibited corporations from spending money to influence the outcome of referendum votes. The Court ruled that the First Amendment rights of corporations to engage in political speech were protected, expanding corporate influence in the political process.

 

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010)

Significance: The most corrupt and horrible decision regarding corporate power, Citizens United held that corporations (and unions) could spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, arguing that such spending is a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment.

 

West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (2022)

The  Court restricted the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate polluting industries.

Now of course the Supreme Court has made the President in effect a King. This could be a double-edged sword. The President-King is not bound by law when it comes to furthering corporate interests but neither is President-King bound by law when opposing them, though no doubt the Court would revise their ruling should corporate cash and media dominance ever fail to make someone hostile to their interests President-King.

 

III. Legislature Checking the Executive

 

   Well, the legislature is not purely based on popular sovereignty. The less populated southern slave states only agreed to the Union if there was a balance of power in Congress. This was brought about by making slaves could as 3/5 of a person for representational purposes, and creating a second chamber, the Senate, in which the states would have two senators each, regardless of population, originally elected by the state legislatures, which the southern elites were confident they could control. Moreover, the President had veto power which only 2/3 majorities could override.

  This system ensures gridlock, at least on any policy that threatens enough interests to provoke resistance. It gives Congress the power to block any executive policy without the responsibility of putting an alternative policy in place. We often here the President is the most powerful person on earth. Actually the President if rather weak, completely dependent on a Congress controlled by all sorts of local and financial interests even to pass a budget.

   And the Supreme Court has made sure that money talks in the Legislative and Executive branches, very loudly indeed.

 

   A primary purpose of the design of the political process through the Constitution and its interpretation by the Supreme Court is to protect “property”. It is like the spider at the center of the web.

     Of course, I agree with the liberal tradition that we have a natural right to property – have a right not to have our homes confiscated; have a right not to be taxed without being able to elect our government. But it depends on the meaning of property. Are we talking about a family farm that has been in the family for generations, or slaves, or stocks in big pharmacies, big oil corporations, giant “hedge funds,” or Boeing? The property of family farms in America surely was not protected against Capital. Capitalism blurs the distinction, reducing everything to a commodity, to potential capital.

  The prime function of a political system cannot be to protect and further the interests of capital, of a corporate and financial elite over the common good. But that is what our political process was largely designed to do, by intention or not. Popular sovereignty exists only in a very attenuated form in America. And the people have been largely deprived of good advisors in the form of their government, at least on fundamental issues.

Some thoughts on the meaning of the Civil War next entry.