Friday, September 2, 2022

Individualism and socialism versus the family

Here’s another unpublished lecture the text of which I’ve posted at my main website.  The title is “Socialism versus the Family,” and I presented it at the Heritage Foundation back in February of 2019.  The talk begins by explaining the economics and ethos of socialism, and how socialism is related to liberalism.  It then explains the nature of the family, emphasizing the features recognized by natural law theorists and evolutionary psychology alike.  Finally it shows how egalitarian socialism is inherently incompatible with the family, but also how the liberal individualism embraced by too many modern conservatives is precisely what paved the way for the egalitarian assault on the family.  You can watch the video of the lecture here.

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88 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2022 at 4:30 PM

    WCB

    Socialism! Collectivism! Collectivism bad!

    Acts 4:31:5
    31 And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
    32 And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
    33 And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
    34 Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
    35 And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

    WCB

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    Replies
    1. BellomySeptember 2, 2022 at 5:37 PM

      This is an example of charity, not socialism.

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    2. KevinSeptember 2, 2022 at 8:25 PM

      Socialism probably wouldn't be bad at all if it was led by godly men, themselves led by the Holy Ghost, who had no interest in profiting from the system or imposing their own preferences onto others, in a society where all were in agreement and also led by the Holy Ghost and desiring to distribute to those in need.

      The secular version isn't quite so benevolent.

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    3. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2022 at 9:40 PM

      WCB

      It is God mandated communism. Perhaps instead, you prefer the commans of Jesus to sell all you have and give to the poor? Lend to all that ask and do not expect repayment?

      WCB

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    4. Eric VestrupSeptember 2, 2022 at 9:44 PM

      And the people in that passage are doing it voluntarily, not coerced by the state.

      Delete
    5. UncommonDescentSeptember 2, 2022 at 11:30 PM

      If your atheist pals knew that you are suggesting to govern a country according to biblical teachings, they would rip you apart :)

      Delete
    6. UncommonDescentSeptember 3, 2022 at 12:06 AM

      @ WCB:

      It is God mandated communism.

      The Bible is not the Communist Manifesto. Public education has not done you any good.

      Also, the evolutionary gospel says that if you are not well adapted to your environment (if you are poor), those who are better adapted than you (the rich) are going to win the competition, and you are going to have to suck it up. But of course The Bible is far superior than your pseudo-scientific pseudo-theory :)

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    7. Walter Van den AckerSeptember 3, 2022 at 12:55 AM

      Kevin

      I think Ed is criticizing socialism as a system. If socialism as a system is bad, as Ed seems to argue, then even if godly men led it, it would still be bad.
      Of course, godly men would never lead something bad, so the situation would never be actual.

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    8. UncommonDescentSeptember 3, 2022 at 2:26 AM

      @ WCB:

      Also, per your atheist hero, we can not know the causes of things, so you can not expect to cause any effect on us by mangling biblical verses. In your make-believe worldview, everything is just a serendipitous coincidence!

      I really hope I am not causing you any amount of irritation/ discomfort with my quips and ironical remarks. Either way, I can not help it, being the "bag of chemicals" that I am, and the impersonal laws of physics force me to type these types of comments because they helped my ancestors survive :)

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    9. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 2:27 AM

      WCB

      @Eric Vestrup
      Read Acts 5. The deaths of Ananias and Sapphira.

      WCB

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    10. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 4:38 AM

      WCB, you were arguing up and down in the post just below this one that the God of the Bible is evil. And now you're using the Bible as a moral authority here.

      So which is it?

      Delete
    11. BellomySeptember 3, 2022 at 11:04 AM

      In Acts 5, Ananias and Saphira lied to the community, who were counting on their charity, in order to be greedy and keep money they had promised to their community for themselves. The choice here isn't between Randian individualism and communism. One who makes a promise to help others is expected to keep it, lying is a sin, fraud is a sin.

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    12. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 1:52 PM

      WCB

      It is the theists that tell us morality comes from God and the Bible. Council of Trent, God authored the Bible. The Bible tells you to adopt communism. Act 4, 5, 2. Sell all you have and give to the poor. Pray in private. But the vast majority of Christians have no intention of following these commands.

      If these commands are from God, the these Christians should explain why they do not like Bible morality.

      WCB

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    13. Eric VestrupSeptember 3, 2022 at 2:02 PM

      Not sure why you think the account of Ananias/Sapphira gives some sort of rebuttal to my point that this community was voluntarily entering into the arrangement they had. Can you be more explicit?

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    14. Eric VestrupSeptember 3, 2022 at 4:22 PM

      "The Bible tells you to adopt communism."
      You seem to think that a description of voluntarily entered arrangements as given in Acts 4 entails (without further argument) some universal norm for all Christians at all times. A description or account, by itself, does not carry the water you want it to carry.

      "Sell all you have and give to the poor". The immediate context of this account is the rich young man's claim that he has kept the commandments, and Jesus points out what the man lacks to be perfect. Again, the passage isn't a universal command to all Christians for all times. The general point Jesus makes is the difficulty for those with great wealth to enter into the Kingdom of God. Elsewhere, to be sure, there are universal calls for charity, sharing, being a good neighbor, and such. But you're glibly stretching this passage past its natural context to make it some sort of universal "for all times" sort of thing.

      "Pray in private". There is a general admonition against performative or showy prayers designed to impress others with the righteousness of the man making the prayer, and good things are stated about prayers in private. However, no universal command or teaching against public prayer is given. Public or open prayer is not, by itself put forth as wrong.





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    15. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 7:46 PM

      Not going to feed the troll, but those who are unsure how to answer the objection based on Matthew 19:21 should know that this command was given to a particular man. It was not a general command given to all. Even concerning the particular man, the conditional was, “If you want to be perfect…”

      That is a far cry from saying you must do this in order to be moral.

      It goes without saying that if literally everyone had to literally sell everything they owned and give to the poor, then the poor would likewise have to sell all they receive and give to the poor and so forth ad infinitum.

      I suppose at that point we would just take everyone’s possessions, pour gasoline on them, and light it on fire, which coincidentally, is basically what socialism does.

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    16. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 7:18 AM

      @ WCB:

      The Bible tells you to adopt communism. 

      No, it does not say such a thing. Quote mining biblical verses is a dishonest tactic. But hey, being dishonest is very evolutionary. One can only guess how many selfish genes got passed along thanks to their dishonest behavior.

      Sell all you have and give to the poor.

      If you sell everything you have and give it to the poor, then you become poor too. What kind of solution is that?

      But the vast majority of Christians have no intention of following these commands.

      You know that the fallacy of sweeping generalization is, well, a fallacy, don't you? You certainly do not know "the vast majority of Christians". So stop pretending.

      If these commands are from God, these Christians should explain why they do not like Bible morality.

      Evolutionary "morality" says that any tactic that increases your reproductive success is a good one, be it stealing, cheating, raping, etc... So any good evolutionist should adopt them. The result of your religion is a shitty world. But the "theory of evolution" is not meant to be taken seriously. And you are butthurt because you know it.

      You are punching above your weight, WCB.

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    17. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 7:21 AM

      @ Anonymous:

      It goes without saying that if literally everyone had to literally sell everything they owned and give to the poor, then the poor would likewise have to sell all they receive and give to the poor and so forth ad infinitum.

      Yes, according to WCB's "logic", a country where everyone is poor is something desirable. But this is a person who asks if "God can ride a bicycle" and thinks that that is an intellectual achievement.

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    18. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 7:32 AM

      @ Bellomy:

      Lying is a sin, fraud is a sin.

      In the evolutionary religion, both are virtues. Or not. It depends on the environment. And it depends on the exegete you ask. Evolutionary "morality" is elastic as rubber.

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    19. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 9:29 AM

      WCB

      A rich man cannot gain the kingdom of heaven. You cannot serve God and Mammon. He who cannot abandon all he has cannot be a disciple of Jesus. And on and on.

      A lot of people here do not seem to know their Bible or the words of Jesus. And have no intention of carefully reading and understanding any of this.

      WCB

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    20. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 9:48 AM

      Hi Eric, while I view WCB’s non-theistic worldview to be false, I just want to point out that Jesus’ said “sell your possessions and give to the needy” to His disciples (Luke 12.33). In a different occasion, when Jesus was addressing the Rich Young Ruler, Jesus told him to “sell ALL your possessions and give to the poor, …”.

      BTW on another occasion Jesus told a large crowd “No one can be My disciple if he does not give up (or forsake) all his possessions” (Luke 14.33). Of course the “give up”/“forsake” is not exactly the same as “sell all”.

      Cheers!
      johannes y k hui

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    21. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 10:58 AM

      WCB has taken the curious tactic of telling us at the same time that the author of the Bible is a moral monster and yet He is also a moral authority *on this particular issue* somehow.

      Pick one, WCB. Which of your arguments do you think is true?

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    22. Eric VestrupSeptember 4, 2022 at 11:39 AM

      Johannes ---

      Luke 12:33. This is, as I understand the passage, governed by the context established in v. 22, where it says "Then Jesus said to his disciples", which either means the twelve or perhaps a slightly larger group. This does not appear to be a general-for-all-people-for-all-time principle, but rather the idea of complete dependence on God for future missionary and apostolic work by this small group of the earliest believers.

      14:33 --- again, the context indicates a degree of hyperbole. A few verses earlier, J says nobody who does not hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and their own lives can be his disciple. Doesn't that strike you as hyperbole? Doesn't it strike you that the giving up of "everything" is also part of this hyperbole? Or, following WCB's sub-literate village atheist schtick, we can say that the Bible teaches us to hate our parents.

      The general principle is to not be that attached to one's worldly goods, wealth, status, etc, for these things are transitory. All wealth and blessings are ultimately from God, and (as a pastor once told me), you and I will only have our wealth until God doesn't want us to have it anymore. There is also the general principle that too much material blessing can be a great stumbling block.

      Even though I think the context decisively undercuts any attempt to generalize those passages, let's say you disagree. In this case, another test is this: what happens if every Christian did in fact what the passages suggest. Now we have no possessions, no money, and are complete wards of the (nonchristian) state. What then? Doesn't this strike one as an absurd situation?

      EV

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    23. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 12:01 PM

      @ WCB:

      A rich man cannot gain the kingdom of heaven.

      But a rich woman can, therefore no problem for them. Also a rich "person with a uterus" can gain the kingdom of Heaven. So being rich is not a problem. No need to sell anything.

      A lot of people here do not seem to know their Bible or the words of Jesus. And have no intention of carefully reading and understanding any of this.

      A lot of people on the naturalist side do not seem to know their On The Origin of Species or the words of Darwin. And have no intention of carefully reading and understanding any of it.

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    24. Eric VestrupSeptember 4, 2022 at 12:14 PM

      "A lot of people here do not seem to know their Bible or the words of Jesus. And have no intention of carefully reading and understanding any of this."

      So you say. I and a few others have attempted to demonstrate that you have failed even basic fairness to the texts and have made unwarranted generalizations from them.

      I've seen this schtick over the decades, where the village atheist forces texts to say something above and beyond what they say, then attempts to score points by claiming that the church doesn't meet that new standard. Then the village atheist goes away self-satisfied, further ensconced in their warm and gratifying self-image as the possessor of superior rationality and ethics. Oh the doubleplusgoodfeelz!

      I think that there are various good areas where one can say we don't have good answers or final answers to certain metaphysical questions. But claiming that we're supposed to be communists or some sort of leftist is not one area to take seriously.





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    25. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 12:29 PM

      WCB

      Each gospel has its own sell all you have and give to the poor. Each gospels has a different "particular" man.


      Luke 14:33
      Any one who will not forsake all that he hath caanot be a disciple of mine.

      WCB

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    26. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 1:56 PM

      @ WCB:

      Any one who will not forsake all that he hath caanot be a disciple of mine.

      So being a disciple means that you can not have a dime? If you forsake "all that you have", then you end up with nothing, including clothes and food. But being naked goes against Christian teachings and not having food is bad because you en up dead.

      And if everyone sells everything and we are all poor, who is going to pay for the condoms and the abortions and the insuline that your side love so much? In your society people sell things ad infinitum and that's all?

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    27. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 2:43 PM

      @ WCB:

      It is the theists that tell us morality comes from God and the Bible.

      It's the pagan that tells us that morality comes from an impersonal force that he has labeled 'Natural Selection'. But NS has nothing to give, and we theists are not tolerant with people who violate metaphysical first principles. It's a telltale sign that your opponent is not worth the effort. He probably is a modern-day fool who believes that men can get pregnant.

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    28. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 3:59 PM

      Hi Eric,

      Thanks for your response, in which you mentioned that “what happens if every Christian in fact did what the passages suggest. Now we have no possessions, no money, and are complete wards of the (non-Christian) state. What then? Doesn’t this strike one as an absurd situation?”

      My fallible thought:
      (1) Looking at what Acts (biblical document) and other non-biblical early Christian documents said, when Christians did that, they as a community still have possessions-in-common. They pooled their resources both in terms of money and in kind. They sold many possessions and pooled money together. They shared their unsold assets as common property among their Christian communities.
      (2) Naturally the audience of Jesus, when they heard Jesus telling them to sell possessions and give to the needy (BTW the preserved memory of Jesus’ saying was not “sell ALL possessions”), they would have worried about how to have the basic necessities to survive (eg how to get food?). As characteristic of Jesus, he would say “You of little faith.” And in fact Jesus said that in the passage. Right before the “sell your possessions” (Luke 12.33) Jesus already addressed such natural concern: Don’t worry, have faith/trust in God; if you put God’s Kingdom first (eg by obeying Jesus), then God will provided the basic necessities (eg via natural means and thru human agents). In Luke 12.22-34 we read:

      [quote] And Jesus said to the crowd, “Such is the one who stores up TREASURES for himself, and is not rich in relation to God. [referring to the story of an rich business man who grew his riches and saved up his assets but God suddenly took his soul so he could not get to enjoy his riches] For this reason I tell you, do not worry about your life, as to what you are to eat; nor for your body, as to what you are to wear. For life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds! And which of you by worrying can add a day to his life’s span? Therefore if you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about the other things? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither labor nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? YOU OF LITTLE FAITH!!! Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For all these things are what the nations of the world eagerly seek; and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek His kingdom, and these things [ie basic necessities] will be provided to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father has chosen to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts that do not wear out, an inexhaustible TREASURE IN HEAVEN, where no thief comes near nor does a moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” [endquote]

      So base on the above two points (the second point is Jesus’ logic), it appears that the situation would not be absurd.

      My next comment would address your other point on whether those “sell your possessions and give to the needy” whether or not Jesus probably meant what he said. But first I gotta go away for half a day and come back to type my next comment after I am back [if Go permits and enables].

      Cheers!
      johannes y k hui

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    29. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2022 at 3:04 AM


      Hi Eric,

      Now to address your other point on whether Jesus really meant for his followers (followers around AD30 and future generations after that) to “sell possessions” (Luke 12.33 & Luke 14.33):

      Let us temporarily assume that Jesus’ words to the disciples and the crowd (Luke 12.33 and Luke 14.33) on “selling possessions to help the needy and thereby storing up treasures in heaven instead of storing up treasures on earth” have
      (1) a 50% chance to mean either something else or to be not applicable to future generations of followers that come after the apostles’ generation
      and
      (2) a 50% probability to mean really “selling possessions to help the needy and thereby storing up treasures in heaven instead of storing up treasures on earth” for not only the apostle’s own generation but also the future generations of followers.

      The disciples of the disciples of the apostles would probably have better understood Jesus’ intended meaning than other Christian’s who were born much later, and hence the teachings of the Christians from the first 300 years AD would tilt the above 50-50 balance towards one side.

      Below are some quotes about Christians’ view of possessions from the first few centuries. (BTW these are not about Communism, in case anyone is saying that the early Christians were Communists. The early Christians were not telling the wider society to sell possessions or share properties/goods).

      [To be continued in next post]

      johannes y k hui

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    30. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2022 at 3:05 AM

      Continued from my previous post:

      Hi Eric,

      Please see my previous post first. Below are some quotes about Christians’ view of possessions from the first few centuries. (BTW these are not about Communism, in case anyone is saying that the early Christians were Communists. The early Christians were not telling the wider society to sell possessions or share properties/goods).

      “SHARE EVERYTHING with your brother. Do not say, ‘It is PRIVATE PROPERTY.’ If you share what is everlasting, you should be that much more willing to share things which do not last.” – The Didache, c. 100AD

      “PRIVATE PROPERTY is the fruit of iniquity. I know that God has given us the use of goods, but only as far as is necessary; and he has determined that the use shall be COMMON. The use of all things that are found in this world ought to be common to all men. Only the most manifest iniquity makes one say to another, ‘This belongs to me, that to you.’ Hence the origin of contention among men.” - Clement of Alexandria, 150-215 AD

      “We who once took most pleasure in the means of increasing our wealth and property now bring what we have into a COMMON FUND and share with everyone in need.” – Justin Martyr, c.150 AD

      “They [the Christians] take his [Jesus’] instructions completely on faith, with the result that they despise all worldly goods and hold them in COMMON OWNERSHIP.” - Lucian (non-Christian), in his writing against Christianity, c.170AD

      “We who share one mind and soul obviously have no misgivings about COMMUNITY OF GOODS.” – Tertullian, 160-225 AD

      “That expression, therefore, “I possess, and possess in abundance: why then should I not enjoy?” is suitable neither to the man, nor to society... He [God] has determined that the use [of all things] should be common. And it is monstrous for one to live in luxury, while many are in want.” - Clement of Alexandria, 150-215 AD

      “And all the believers were together and had ALL THINGS IN COMMON; and they would sell their property and possessions and share them with all, to the extent that anyone had need.” - Acts 2.44-45

      “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but ALL THINGS WERE COMMON PROPERTY to them. And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each to the extent that any had need. Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles (which translated means Son of Encouragement), owned a tract of land. So he sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” - Acts 4:32-37

      So the above teachings of various early Christian’s tilted the balance of probability to one side. It seems more likely than not that Jesus intended his followers to forgo storing up treasures on earth but instead to store up treasures in heaven through selling possessions to help the needy.

      Like other human beings, I am fallible and thus I am open to correction.

      Cheers!

      johannes y k hui

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    31. UncommonDescentSeptember 5, 2022 at 5:32 AM

      @ WCB:

      You cannot serve God and Mammon. He who cannot abandon all he has cannot be a disciple of Jesus. 

      You can not serve Atheism and Reason. He who follows Hume and Darwin can not practice science. Even Darwin acknowledged that a mind born from blind evolutionary forces should not be trusted.

      "But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" [Letter To William Graham 3 July 1881]

      Which was a wink to Aristotle, an acknowledgment that there are natures and essences, and that humans are intrinsically different from other animals. Monkey-eats-banana-but-does-not-practice-science.

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    32. Eric VestrupSeptember 5, 2022 at 11:33 AM

      For Johannes --- my responses have been simply in response to the claim that certain passages *necessitate* communism/socialism or some sort of ownership-less society for *all* people at *all* times. I have also stated that scripture clearly teaches that we need to have charity and the notion that our physical possessions, wealth, etc are fleeting and ephemeral, bound to this life only. Wealth can be a great stumbling block. I have only reiterated what I think is the standard view of these passages.

      Your patristic citations deal (as I read them) primarily with communal Christian living and I can agree with them without claiming (as the skeptic above seemed to claim) that they necessitate some sort of socialism or collectivism for *all* Christians at *all* times.

      Also, there is a difference between (i) a group holding all its possessions in common and living communally vs (ii) selling everything and giving everything to the poor (which in turn makes one poor and dependent on others). I'm merely reacting (ii), that *all* people at *all* times are supposed to sell *all* things and give the money away. (A wooden village skeptic sort of assertion.) It is this latter situation that I describe as resulting in an absurdity.

      If you want to aspire to be communal or socialist or not own anything, my response is "go for it". I think that voluntary socialism/communism on a small scale (like at the family level, or a small community level) might work. That aspiration, however noble it may be, does not strike me as binding on *all* people at *all* times, like a wooden village atheist reading of those passages charges.

      My position is that there is a happy common-sense medium which I've tried to convey. And, once again, my comments are only and exclusively in response to the idea (which I've heard advanced by skeptics over the years) that we're *obligated* to be communists/socialists.

      (Maybe I should add in closing that the passages discussed are edifying regardless, and it is good for somebody like myself to be reminded of the ephemerality of the world.)

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    33. TalmidSeptember 7, 2022 at 8:05 PM

      One who interprets Our Lord words as a universal commandment to sell all we have needs to adress His interations with Zacchaeus and the centurion and the patristc average suggestion of what the rich should do as giving alms and supporting the Church.

      Catholics and orthodox do have the separation between the average christian life and these than, like the rich man, are called to more. The vows of obedience, celibacy and POVERTY not being to all seems to me a good way of working everything out.

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  2. Vini TadeoSeptember 2, 2022 at 6:25 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. TBSeptember 2, 2022 at 11:30 PM

    Prof. Feser, what would you call a system where the state intervenes in the economy on behalf of the family and traditional social structures/values? In your talk you describe such intervention for egalitarian ends as "socialism," but what about non-egalitarian interventions in support of what you recognize to be the traditional or natural order?

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    1. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 9:57 AM

      WCB

      The U.S. is the only Western Industrialized nation that does not have a health system that gurantees good health care for all. When FDR started Social Security, the GOP started bellowing "Socialism!". When the U.S. started Medicare, the AMA started a campign to stop that bellowing "Socialism!". When LBJ started Medicare, we heard the same old nonsense. "Socialism!". Medicare for all? "Socialism!".

      Socialism is a buzz word from doctrinare ultraconservatives and has been for years since FDR. This has made the U.S. a backward nation with next to no health care for millions.

      We just had a vote in the Senate to cap outrageous, preditory pricing for insulin. The GOP senators refused to vote for that. Maybe we need more socialism in the U.S., not more doctrinaire anti-socialist buffoonery.

      WCB

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    2. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 12:39 PM

      We just had a vote in the Senate to cap outrageous, preditory pricing for insulin.

      If you can not produce enough insulin, then that means that your genes are not good enough. No need to waste resources on the maladapated. Natural Selection culls the less fit.

      And being predatory is being a good, faithful evolutionist. I don't understand why you rebel against your goddess.

      We just had a vote in the Senate to cap outrageous, preditory pricing for insulin.

      If you can not produce enough insulin, then that means that your genes are not good enough. No need to waste resources on the maladapated. Natural Selection culls the less fit.

      And being predatory is being a good, faithful evolutionist. I don't understand why you rebel against your goddess.

      "Organisms evolve over the long term in response to their enemies, and with increased predation intensity more species evolve". Darwinian Genesis, 1:3

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  4. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 2:00 AM

    WCB

    @Kevin
    Social Democracy. It works in Germany and France. And of course we have the Scandanavian model that works very well. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.

    Here in the U.S. we have trie different ways. Arthur Laffer talked Kansas and Louisiana to adopt su]ly side economics and wrecked both states' economies. And we have the deep Southern states with their low taxes, low service economic models. All lowin life expectancies and educational achievments.

    Parasites states kept alive by Uncle Sugar taking money from the blue states. There is some socialism for you.

    And as we speak, we have some GOP politicians telling us that if the GOP wins control in future elections they will 'reform' Social Security and Medicare. The GOP has hated SS since FDR and have long called these programs "Socialism". This bloviating about, "collectivism" and "socialism" is dangerous rhetoric thatt is causing foolish politics from the Reactionary far right GOP.

    WCB

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    1. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 12:24 PM

      @ WCB:

      Parasites states kept alive by Uncle Sugar taking money from the blue states.

      Parasitism is one of the most successful evolutionary strategies. Maybe you shoud go talk to Darwin?

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  5. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 8:35 AM

    Great lecture, Ed. But I find it difficult, or at least not at all obvious, in which of the two tendencies you identify within socialism we should place traditional Marxist socialism (communism).

    On one side, communism is internationalist (as opposed to the tribalism of national socialism) and the ideal state it aspires to reach after the dictatorship of the proletariat is pursued as good in great part because it would allow the fullest self-realisation and happiness of each individual.

    But on the other hand, communism is and has always been very collectivist, inasmuch as it understands each individual as an integral part of one of two antagonistic social classes, where one of them oppresses the other. In this sense, the individual attributes of each person take a back seat and the only thing that really matters is whether he or she belongs to the oppressor or the oppressed class. By the way, we also see this today in modern egalitarian socialism when it divides people into male vs. female, white vs. non-white, straight vs. queer, etc.; and provides confession of guilt, ‘deconstruction’ and full adherence to the woke agenda as only means for redemption if you belong to the privileged group.

    Moreover, traditional communism has also historically had no problem eliminating individuals and even entire collectives for the sake of the community in its struggle for utopia.

    To be clear, I strongly oppose both socialism and liberal individualism, but I have doubts with the idea that national socialism and alike movements are (broadly speaking) the only forms of socialism that reject this individualism or even that modern forms of socialism fully adhere to it.

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    1. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 1:39 PM

      WCB

      We tried lassaiz faire capitalism during the industrial revolution. It was a true horror. Supply side bull doo doo failed spectacularly in Kansas and Louisiana. The Scandanavian model works well. Soviet communism was a disaster. So is crony capitalism. Yabbering and jabbering obout solialism and collectvism may be popular among the crony capitalist set, but the Scandinavian model works well.

      WCB

      Delete
    2. UncommonDescentSeptember 4, 2022 at 8:15 AM

      @ WCB:

      We tried lassaiz faire capitalism during the industrial revolution. It was a true horror.

      Survival of the fittest. If the poor are dumb, that's their problem.

      But the Scandinavian model works well.

      Ahh. Scandinavia. Such a beautiful region of Christian heritage. But wait, didn't you say that Christians are stingy?

      Did you know that according to Norse mythology, all the gods and goddesses originated from the giant Ymir, who emerged from primordial swamp? It's equally silly as your creative myth of all life forms originating from a "primordial soup".

      Delete
    3. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 1:29 PM

      WCB

      Religion is all but dead in the Scandanavian nations. So is extreme poverty and want. For centuries, Christianity gave us heresy hunts, crusades, inquisition, forced conversions, religious wars and made a pest of itself.

      Scandanavia demonstrates we do not need religion to have a successful, progressive and pleasant civilization.

      We see Europe doing well with social democracy as Christianity withers away there.

      Hopefully some day, America will rid itself of doctrinaire, failed, right winged politics fighting decent civilization in name of thhe socialism boogy man.

      WCB
      For centuries,

      For

      Delete
    4. UncommonDescentSeptember 5, 2022 at 5:07 AM

      Religion is all but dead in the Scandanavian nations.

      Not true. They adhere to the value of individuals, which is born from the Christian tradition. The "love thy neighbour" command is Christian, not evolutionary. The only evolutionary command is: "whatever".

      For centuries, Christianity gave us heresy hunts, crusades, inquisition, forced conversions, religious wars and made a pest of itself.

      For a moment I thought you were about to write "Wokeism" instead of Christianity. Modern-day Torquemadas want to convince a certain sector of the population that a man can be a woman, that a man can get pregnant or that human babies are not human (which is blatantly anti-evolutionary and incredibly evil). All those are thoughts that only a cultist mindset would hold. They are ready to destroy livelihoods if people choose not participate in their religion/ fantasy.

      Scandanavia demonstrates we do not need religion to have a successful, progressive and pleasant civilization.

      We can not know the causes of things. It might well be that that's the cause, but we will never be sure. I'm certain you have not read your Hume. No causation = no science (and that includes social sciences and the statistics about "happiness in Scandinavia" that you atheist apologists employ to gain converts). I wouldn't choose to go down that rabbit hole, but in my worldview, reason is paramount.

      Delete
  6. JDSeptember 3, 2022 at 9:42 AM

    What a breath of common sense.

    ReplyDelete
  7. CosmicCatSeptember 3, 2022 at 10:06 AM

    The cause of the breakdown of families is personality types. You see, personality types aren't genetic: every child is born with one almost by chance. That means every family is a mix of disparate personality types (unless they get fortuitous enough to be born with types all of the same group). In ancient times laws were used to enforce conformity and there was little media, so families learned how to get together... by having nobody develop their personality. Kind of like a non-armament pact: nobody develops themselves and we live at peace. But now media of all types is free and plentiful so people develop their personalities and learn that they're not compatible with members of their own family.

    (Yes, I am self-aware I have a bad habit of deleting my comments. I'll try not to do it this time.)

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    1. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 12:35 AM

      With regard to your habit of deleting your comments, you show great self-awareness and judgement in doing so.

      Delete
    2. CosmicCatSeptember 4, 2022 at 11:22 AM

      Kind of a back-handed compliment, but thanks anyway :)

      Delete
    3. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 1:47 PM

      Sorry Infinite Growth, for some reason I thought that I was replying to UncommonDescent, and I wasn't being complimentary!

      Delete
    4. dontfeedthetrollSeptember 4, 2022 at 6:26 PM

      Some habits shouldn't be broken, pal.

      Delete
    5. CosmicCatSeptember 5, 2022 at 7:42 AM

      @dontfeedthetroll This is a philosophy form. We talk about stupid nonsense like p-zombies or living in the Matrix all the time. Why is classifying personalities "too far"?

      Delete
    6. AnonymousSeptember 7, 2022 at 8:15 PM

      @IG

      That seems a good observation, but i doubt that there is no intervention here. We are strongly guided thanks to marketing, social media etc to letting our interests develop and joining together with only people who have the same interests, since we have the power to not have contact with oposition online. This means that family members with have their own quirks and not bother with the others own things because:

      1. We can have plenty of distraction alone with our interests.

      2. We do not need to leaen to have contact with the diferent, so we, at minimum, do not like to dot it.

      Our current social organization tends to make the tendency way stronger that it would be if the only variable was freedom.

      Delete
  8. ficino4mlSeptember 3, 2022 at 7:00 PM

    Prof. Feser starts out on socialism this way: "As an economic and political system, socialism in the strictest sense essentially involves centralized governmental ownership and control of the basic means for the production and distribution of goods."

    It is necessary to go farther back to the labor theory of surplus value. Socialism is not a theory of governmental ownership. It is a theory of workers' ownership. That is why there are Catholic socialists.

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    1. AnonymousSeptember 3, 2022 at 11:05 PM

      Workers owning the means of production are the "Kulaks" and small business owners. That is what actually works out in practice.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 1:39 PM

      WCB

      I note that in California, that state will soon be building its own insulin factory to bring insulin prices down. Owning the means of production. Oh no, Socialism, Socialism!

      WCB

      Delete
    3. TonySeptember 4, 2022 at 8:48 PM

      Socialism is not a theory of governmental ownership. It is a theory of workers' ownership. That is why there are Catholic socialists.

      I don't think that's actually true. Socialism per se implies that the means of production are owned not by individuals but by larger entities, and this is enforced by the state. Thus the state may not directly claim to be "the owner", but it is always choosing who governs the use of the tools of production. And choosing who manages / directs the stuff is one of the major aspects of ownership.

      There is nothing inherent in "workers' ownership" that implies that it cannot take place in various kinds of systems, including capitalism: workers can own the corporation they work at by owning shares in it. There are worker-owned corporations now, in our system. (And naturally, nearly a great many sole proprietorships are owned by the initial worker, when it first gets going.) And if workers' ownership is compatible with capitalism, then necessarily that's not the distinguishing characteristic of socialism.

      Delete
    4. ficino4mlSeptember 5, 2022 at 6:15 AM

      @Tony: as I said, socialism, insofar as it is a theory or rests on a theory, is not a theory of governmental ownership. It is / uses a theory that starts from the notion of surplus value and the workers' creation of surplus value. The worker cooperatives that you mention are precisely the kind of model that socialism considers.

      Delete
    5. ficino4mlSeptember 5, 2022 at 6:16 AM

      to Anonymous 11:05: your comment betrays an ignorationem elenchi.

      Delete
    6. UncommonDescentSeptember 5, 2022 at 7:13 AM

      @ WCB:

      Nature VS art. Artificial insulin comes from art (hence the name).

      3.7 billion years of evolution.
      Billions and billions of different species.
      1 species and only one has developed science (which is kinda strange knowing how ubiquitous "convergent evolution"* is).

      But as I have mentioned several times, evolutionary theory is a creative myth for the atheist mind, the Ymir/ Demiurge/whatever- instead-of-the-Christian-God that the atheist has concocted to itself.

      * Zero "convergence" towards abstract thinking in Nature though. Like a big, massive zero.

      Delete
    7. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2022 at 2:29 PM

      The worker cooperatives that you mention are precisely the kind of model that socialism considers.

      On the contrary: while socialism could say (for a short time) that it gets along with "workers' cooperatives, in reality socialism cannot live with the voluntariness of cooperatives wherein they might all agree "this isn't working out the way we wanted, we will divvy up the assets according to (whatever appropriate measure was laid out) and everyone can go their own ways." Including, the workers working their own property & tools, if that's their preferred way. That is to say, it's only "cooperative" in one direction, and the state enforces that, or it isn't actually socialism.

      It is / uses a theory that starts from the notion of surplus value and the workers' creation of surplus value.

      The "workers' creation of surplus value" without reference to that ON WHICH the worker labors is inherently incomplete. Whether the raw materials (and tools) with which the worker creates value come from "nature" or from other men's goods, it still has to come from SOMEWHERE. Ignoring the value aspect that comes from other men's goods is to simply not enunciate a completed theory to begin with. Socialism does address the issue: at a minimum, it declares that the tools the worker uses must be owned not by individuals, but in common (i.e. this is NOT voluntary). Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum defended private property (including the private ownership of the means of production) and rejected the socialist theory precisely on the point of owning the means of production.

      Delete
    8. ficino4mlSeptember 5, 2022 at 5:42 PM

      To Anonymous 2:29: "the value aspect that comes from other men's goods" is by definition not part of the SURPLUS produced by the LABOR.

      BTW try making a profile with a screen name so we know who you are. There are too many Anonymi.

      Delete
    9. TonySeptember 6, 2022 at 10:27 AM

      Sorry, I thought I had logged in under my name. I was the Anon of 2:29 above.

      It is / uses a theory that starts from the notion of surplus value and the workers' creation of surplus value.

      Since both capitalism and socialism agree that there is surplus value that arrives on account of labor's input, neither the surplus nor that it comes from labor can be used to distinguish between the two economic model groups. What distinguishes them is that the socialist model insists that the means of production must not be privately owned:

      a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

      While it is facially possible to speculate on models that provide for instances where factories (and other means of production) are owned by lower-down entities than the whole community, there are two problems: (1) the fundamental criterion here is that there is no choice about whether the property is owned by "the community", the state mandates it and enforces it. So, while some community other than "the state" may be the nominal owner, because the state sets all of the criteria of what constitutes a sufficiently non-private entity, the state necessarily is embroiled in controlling the conditions of "ownership" on a vastly more intrusive level than in private property. This takes many of the elements of the "bundle of rights" that constitute ownership and puts them into the state's hands. Nominal ownership and actual control are not the same.

      (2) Nobody has successfully articulated an actually workable plan by which "the workers" can exercise control over production without very heavy intrusion of state authority. Even the most optimistic of ideas - which have never actually been implemented in an actual state - effectively would entail government regulation of "boards" and "committees" and "councils". Stanford Encyclopedia's description:

      Finally, and crucially, economic coordination would be based on comprehensive participatory planning. This would involve a complex system of nested worker councils, consumer councils, and an Iteration Facilitation Board. Various rounds of deliberation within, and between, worker and consumer councils, facilitated by this board, would be undertaken until matches between supply and demands schedules are found—with recourse to voting procedures only when no full agreement exists but several promising arrangements arise.

      Anybody who knows the least bit of the history of the National Labor Relations Board knows that anyone relying on the above description without imagining intense government intrusion is wearing rose-colored glasses.

      Regardless, my essential point is that it in socialism it is NOT an option for "the workers" to decide to distribute the means of production that may be "under their control" to individuals, and this constitutes a very grave limitation on their "control", such that it severely constrains a claim that "the state doesn't own the means of production". Yes, as long as you understand all the qualifiers that make that less than simply true. The further constraint on property that has the state determine what constitutes a sufficiently large-scale "means of production" to require it ceasing to be ownable by an individual or a small group of individuals, and the typical mechanisms by which the state wrests control away from said individuals, also constitute reservations on what is meant by saying the state "does not own" the property. Under socialism, whatever community "owns" the property is, ultimately, shored up under a system of state constraints on said property that limits their choices in very important ways.

      Delete
  9. martinSeptember 3, 2022 at 7:33 PM

    Prof. canceled from Eton [The Last Superstition] "A book that changed my life" timestamped https://youtu.be/Z-IZGICa7Tg?t=97

    Eustace Mullins on Heritage Foundation (see New World Order) warning: who is evangelising whom?

    Desperate for you to instead form friendship with Thaddeus Kozinski, someone who will help get you out of the spiderweb of the Great Liquidation/Plandemic agenda (ultimately UN Smart Gulag and CBDC totalitarian control ~Catherine Austin Fitts) and the hideous novel gene injectables.

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousSeptember 4, 2022 at 6:21 PM

    WCB

    @UncommonDescent

    Yes, selling all you have makes for a lousy long term economic system. But that is not what this is about. Jesus was claiming the the end of this world was at hand, soon, soon, oh so very soon! And that having wealth would prevent one from earning a place in the coming Kingdom Of God. This is plain and simple if you bother to read the gospels carefully without apologists goggles on. A rich man connot inherit thr Kingdom of God. Those who gave up homes, and farms would be rewarded one hundred fold in this new Kingdom Of God soon to be here in the life spans of "some standing here". Of course, that never happened as prophecied.

    WCB

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    1. UncommonDescentSeptember 5, 2022 at 5:09 AM

      @ WCB:

      This is plain and simple if you bother to read the gospels carefully without apologists goggles on.

      The problem here is that you are not being consistent with your nominalist worldview (what a surprise?). If your materialism were true, it would be impossible to know what the Bible (or by extension any other text) says, since according to you, the meaning of words is not fixed and changes whimsically according to societal circumstances.

      That means that we can not know what the biblical verses are referring to. Maybe the meaning of the word "poor" has nothing to do at all with the use that our current society adscribes to it. Look at what has happened with the word "woman" in the last 10-12 years. It has lost its meaning thanks to certain cultist mindset born from ignorance and fanaticism.

      WCB, how can we know what the authors of the Bible were referring to if words have not fixed meanings? How can we interpret ancient texts? Maybe what Luke was referring to was that: "fried potatoes with ketchup are better than fried potatoes with barbecue sauce". Or maybe he did not want to convey any meaning at all, he was a prankster who liked to string together words for the sake of it.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2022 at 10:25 AM

      WCB

      Words do have meanings. But not to religious apologists. All of a sudden with words like merciful, compassionate and just, we are told with God we can onlly use words analocally. Sophistry takes over. Christina apologists torture poor little words and concepts until they achieve intellectual nihilism. Merciful no longer means merciful, campassionate no longer means compassionate, just no longer means just. Christinan aplogists soon have abandoned all rational thinking and achieve intellectual nihilism.

      WCB

      Delete
    3. UncommonDescentSeptember 6, 2022 at 12:18 AM

      @ WCB:

      Words do have meanings.

      Fixed?

      All of a sudden with words like merciful, compassionate and just ...

      Could you define those 3 terms?

      Delete
  11. The DeuceSeptember 4, 2022 at 8:06 PM

    Speaking of socialism and the family, I saw that Twitter kerfuffle with Dawn Goldstein in which she claimed that pro-lifers had "made a deal with the devil" by voting for Republicans to end Roe at the cost of (supposedly) less welfare spending (I've yet to see a Republican actually end a welfare program as she clains, but let's pretend that we live in a better world where that actually happens).
    https://mobile.twitter.com/DawnofMercy/status/1565775550043635712

    If reducing abortion at the cost of less welfare is a "deal with the devil," then in must be the case that the innocent lives saved are worth less than the difference in Republican and Democrat welfare spending.

    I'm banned from Twitter, but I wanted to ask Dawn, where does she put that amount exactly? For instance, if each child of God spared a grisly death at the hands of an abortionist meant $10,000 less in overall welfare spending, would that constitute a deal with the devil?

    Or how about if it were only $500? Is $500 in welfare spending worth more than one innocent and helpless human life?

    Or is it just the principle of the matter that innocent human life is worth less than welfare spending, such that if we could sacrifice one million babies just to increase welfare spending by $1, we'd be morally obligated to do so in the opinion of Dawn "of Mercy"?

    Again, I cannot ask this, but if someone else wants to ask for me, or simply screencap my comment and forward it to her, I'm sure she'd appreciate it, since she's so much into "dialogue," and this appears to be just the tenor of dialogue she's into.

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    1. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2022 at 10:32 AM

      WCB

      Father: "Son, if you want a puppy, remember, you have to take good care of it."

      If the good Christians of America want to outlaw abortion, they have to be willing to be responsible for the well being ofall these ne children. We can start with good health care for all.

      WCB

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    2. TonySeptember 5, 2022 at 2:36 PM

      The good Christians are not the ones begetting babies out of wedlock. Since it once was the case that people EXPECTED to take care of their own babies once they conceived those babies, it is not in principle too much to ask of people that they return to shouldering their responsibility properly. And good Christians can certainly undertake to help out with those children whose parents, though behaving responsibly, end up being unable to support their kids - as they have done in many earlier societies.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousSeptember 5, 2022 at 10:47 PM

      WCB

      Next on the list of religious kooks, banning contraception. Cause the Pope etc. Maybe instead of a puppy, we should start with a hamster.

      WCB

      Delete
    4. UncommonDescentSeptember 6, 2022 at 3:15 AM

      @ WCB:

      It's not in your best interest to be pro-abortion, atheists. Not because you give a damn about "blobs of cells" in the womb, but because those "blobs of cells" en up being adult human beings, and it's adult human beings with their fantastic minds that one day will become great scientists.

      63 million abortions since Roe v. Wade (only in the USA) + (roughly 73 million abortions per year worldwide x another 50 years) = 63 + 3.65 = 3.71 billion abortions during the last half of a century. Wow. That's a lot of potential scientists that never got to actualize their powers. What if your Messiah was there, WCB? What if you have sacrificed your savior to the altar of personal convenience? It could perfectly be that the scientist that would have discovered how to "upload your minds into a computer" and therefore grant you "eternal life" is now in an trash can :)

      Delete
    5. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2022 at 5:20 AM

      WCB

      @Eric Vestrum

      "In this case, another test is this: what happens if every Christian did in fact what the passages suggest. Now we have no possessions, no money, and are complete wards of the (nonchristian) state. What then? Doesn't this strike one as an absurd situation?"

      Yes. Exactly. And if that bothers you, speak to the author of these commands.

      WCB

      Delete
    6. UncommonDescentSeptember 6, 2022 at 9:06 AM

      WBC is upset because his neurochemicals tell him to be upset :)

      Delete
    7. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2022 at 2:06 PM

      WCB

      While your neurochemicals tell you to ignore direct commands from the holy ghost as per Acts 4 and 2.

      WCB

      Delete
    8. UncommonDescentSeptember 7, 2022 at 1:18 AM

      And for those like WCB who say that increasing economic help will make people have more children, that's not true. I live in a country where we have a solid web of social services (paid maternity and paternity leaves, special checks for the newborns, free universal healthcare and free education for all) and we have the lowest rate of natality of all Europe (and one of the lowest of the entire world).

      It's the general culture of purposelesness what is at fault. There's nothing to live/ fight for, so people give up. And I am pointing fingers at you, materialists. I consider you the cancer of our society.

      Delete
    9. UncommonDescentSeptember 7, 2022 at 1:31 AM

      @ WCB:

      While your neurochemicals tell you to ignore direct commands from the Holy Ghost as per Acts 4 and 2.

      Not all all. My neurochemicals influence my behavior, but they do not determine it.

      I am a creature of reason, while you and your pals are mere chemical puppets. I have free will, while you and your pals are pathetic slaves to the laws of physics.

      We're not even in the same league, bro. Apples and oranges. But in your world of delusion, there are no essences, so apples = oranges. How sad.

      Delete
    10. AnonymousSeptember 7, 2022 at 10:02 AM

      Do you have any friends UncommonDescent and do you spend time doing anything other than frothing obsessively about your caracature of materialism and fantasining that 'hylomorphism' is now sweeping all before it? I

      Delete
    11. UncommonDescentSeptember 8, 2022 at 4:52 AM

      @ Anonymous:

      Materialism is bunk and hylemorphism reigns supreme. Your annoyance is my happiness :)

      Delete
  12. PapalintonSeptember 5, 2022 at 3:57 AM

    Norm, this is one of the most even-handed and sensible observations ever articulated on this site. It focuses on the shared responsibility of both Mums and Dads in the modern era to jointly raise their children to reach their maximal potential as fully participatory and contributing members in the community in which they live. There is no greater responsibility for which parents can be held to account.

    Long gone are the days when the division of labour was defined on the basis of gender (Mum looks after the kids, Dad looks after the breadwinning). The reality is, our western economic system, founded as it is within the framework of a capitalist market has truly highlighted the fallacy of the traditional notion of family. Reality has shown it to be little more than a failed market system that is fundamentally family-averse, not only at the financial level, but equally at the personal, individual, societal and psychological level.

    Good luck to women who can afford to stay home to look after the children. All kudos to them. They are the very lucky few. But the financial reality for the vast majority of families is a very, very different story and in many cases a harrowing one.

    It should be remembered that the economy, economics, is first and foremost a study of human activity, human behaviour. And as is required in all societies, human behaviour must be moderated and guided through the law. Moderating human economic behaviour, in the same way we moderate human behaviour, be it through criminal and civil law, from its natural entropic tendency towards the worst excesses of economic activity, is the solution. As you say Norm:
    "The solution is to create conditions where both men and women can flourish in their roles as father and mother as well as in their professions."

    Unfortunately, given the adherence to traditional family roles as Dr Feser implies, such activity will be mischievously branded as, 'egalitarian', or worse still, 'socialism'.

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  13. ficino4mlSeptember 5, 2022 at 2:00 PM

    @Papalinton: Agreed. They used to say that before advanced capitalism, the family was a unit of economic production. The family has been changed a lot as the material basis has changed.

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  14. TonySeptember 5, 2022 at 3:04 PM

    Norm, you have commented at length about the right and need for society to be structured in such a way that women can take a wholesome, fully participatory place in the various venues such as medicine, law, education, etc. etc. I agree, in principle, and I am glad that my daughters will have far more open doors than my mother's generation did.

    At the same time, there should be full credit to the fact that having women having open access to "the professions" is not logically equivalent to society treating women exactly the SAME as men in every single respect. For example, the Marine Corp has different requirements for women than it has for men on minimum strength and speed abilities. One can readily conclude that if they had for women the same requirements as they use for men, far, far fewer women would qualify for the Marine Corp. I am not debating whether the different scales is a good or bad thing - at the moment it is the reality, and without the different scales, nearly all women would be excluded.

    But this is just one aspect of the larger reality: women and men are not identical in psychological and emotional ways, either. This implies that, broadly speaking, there will always be various professions / jobs that are better fit for women, and others better fit for men. It is not per se wrong for a society to take such differences into account in forming traditions and customs, and to thereby mold its men and women differently in regards to various professions. Demanding that a society be utterly blind to the differences between men and women in constructing its customs on ALL of its professions, and thus to try to demand that all professions be equally open to men and to women, is to deny differences in both physical and non-physical attributes. (It would be no different, in principle, than demanding that every person be allowed to enter ANY profession, regardless of talent or intelligence or training, i.e. let anybody be a doctor regardless of whether he was able to finish med school, let anybody be a doctor regardless of whether he went to law school, let anybody design bridges regardless of whether he learned engineering...)

    In a nutshell: it is NOT WRONG that each society have norms and customs that mold and constrain people, even though those customs are not intrinsically essential to moral behavior and a wholesome society. And given that, it is not wrong that SOME of those customs impinge on (and constrain) women more than on men, while others impinge on (and constrain) men more than on women. Thus, while it is perhaps possible that humans can arrange a worthy and wholesome society wherein no profession is off-limits to women, it is also perhaps possible that humans can have a worthy and wholesome society wherein the professions of midwife and lactation consultant are off limits to men.

    The implications for other questions than merely belonging to a profession are easy to draw out: there is no essential reason that many other customs cannot distinguish between men and women in a worth and wholesome way.

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  15. Kevin HSeptember 6, 2022 at 5:41 AM

    Norm and Tony,
    I appreciate both of your very nuanced views of how society should arrange itself to bring about the full human flourishing of men and women in the workforce. Something that I've been thinking about is how the current societal situation that we find ourselves in is the result of World War II (in the U.S. anyway) and the need for women to enter the workforce then. Since that time, we haven't exited wartime conditions in the workforce, insofar as the men/women balance was concerned. While I don't have a problem with that, it is something that we as a society haven't really stopped to reflect on to determine how best we should move forward (as the wartime boom in the economy pushed people into consumerism, which tends to discourage critical thinking).

    Additionally, I know that St. JP II has talked about the importance of governments establishing a family wage instead of a living wage, which would enable one member of a household to support an entire family, which encourages parental rights insofar as education, both secular and religious, is concerned. Such a wage would also reduce the burden on single-parent households, as, with only one parent working at a time, the normal cost of items at an economic level would be reduced to accommodate the reduced demand, at least for a time. The question, of course, is, as you both have raised, is that if roughly half of the workforce should exit the workforce, which half should it be? Should only women be expected not to work in the private or public sectors anymore, or should it be more egalitarian? Regardless of which option is chosen, I believe that it is something that we should try to enact in the U.S. soon, as I remember reading a study (or at least the published results of a study) that said that raising children, which women still tend to in a dynamic of both parents working, was in an of itself a full-time job. This means that women are now expected to essentially work two full-time jobs in order to support and care for the family. While some of the could certainly be alleviated by greater husband involvement, I'm not so sure if that alone would solve the problem.

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  16. TonySeptember 6, 2022 at 2:03 PM

    My point is, more broadly speaking, that women should have at the very least the opportunity to pursue professions without it being pitted against her motherhood especially in professions which involve more intellectual endeavors rather then physical, generally speaking most professions are in that mould and even then I am not denying differences in aptitude with regards to these intellectual professions although the differences tend to be fairly neglible. What's important is the opportunity.

    While I generally agree with you, I think that we need to be cautious about even this sort of limited aspiration. It's not that I think certain professions (or groups of them) must be off limits to one sex or the other, it's that I think that given the LEGITIMATE variability of wholesome cultural norms and customs, any one culture might quite reasonably have customs that preclude some pathways that in other cultures are perfectly fine. And (being cautious about this) I don't think we are well-equipped to state categorically that a culture that is set up in such a fashion that a woman, in practical terms, can either pick going into "the professions" or pick being full-time in child-bearer & rearing, but NOT readily do both, is thereby has bad cultural norms. Yes, in some cultures, such norms might be oppressive and wrong-headed, but not automatically in ALL cultures. For example, if a disease has wiped out many more women than men, forming a social convention that women becoming mothers of several children is exactly what society most needs, the development of social pressure towards that and away from the professions that would demand of a woman that she have at most one or two kids would be...not obviously wrongheaded like a mere dumb prejudice that women "aren't smart enough" to be doctors and lawyers.

    And (to bring the issue most home to roost) the transition from one set of physical and economic conditions that constrain what BOTH men and women should expect in order to participate in society, to a completely different set of physical and economic conditions, would necessarily bring about a situation where the old norms, which had been entirely reasonable in their context, are becoming less reasonable, but (for quite some time) there would be no possible objective standard by which to judge the moment at which the old norms "must" be eradicated (by law, not by mere custom, which takes much longer) in order to procure justice. The change, itself, will be disruptive of what justice actually requires, and nobody's judgment of the matter will be definitive.
    (As an aside, if motherhood, child-bearing, and child-rearing were properly valued, nobody would view being a "mere" housewife as a socially low-status vocation. It would, instead, be highly valued and treated as noble and worthy. And while there is every reason to affirm that fathers need to be a daily part of their children's lives, there is no principles that says well-raised children need either the same KINDS of attention, or the same AMOUNT of attention from fathers as from mothers throughout their childhood.)

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  17. TonySeptember 6, 2022 at 6:09 PM

    I know that St. JP II has talked about the importance of governments establishing a family wage instead of a living wage, which would enable one member of a household to support an entire family, which encourages parental rights insofar as education, both secular and religious, is concerned.

    Interestingly, one of the simplest ways of achieving a "family wage" is to NOT pay an "equal wage for equal work" across the board: A family wage-earner being paid more than a single person doing the same job. (This does not imply, by any means, paying men more and women less: if the family wage earner is a woman and the single person is a guy, both doing the same job, it means paying the woman more than the guy.)

    One gospel basis for this would be to point to the parable of the workers and the vineyard owner: he paid the workers differently per hour, by paying them all the same amounts even though it was for different amounts of work. As long as the worker getting the lesser amount agrees that his wage is suited to the work being done, he has no legitimate gripe if the owner pays another worker more for the same work. So, arguably, "equal pay for equal work" is NOT a basic principle of just labor theory, and may even make the "family wage" impossible to achieve.

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  18. TonySeptember 9, 2022 at 7:58 AM

    Norm, I agree with almost everything you have said here. In particular, I think it would be - mostly - better to have social incentives for the desirable actions, than to rely on coercive measures. But the reality is that social incentives and social DISincentives always co-populate an arena, and only SOME social disincentives are coercive. There are vast swathes of social interaction where I choose not to do an action (that is socially undesired) because if do it I will be snubbed, I will be sneered at and considered a boor, a jerk, etc. That's not coercive, but it is an effective social disincentive.

    There could be a social preference to stay at home but this does not have to be done in a coercive way, bur rather create better incentives to stay at home and that might be more effective.

    The problem is this: infants and toddlers and pre-schoolers need, absolutely need, some single person who is their main caretaker, (not a team), a someone whose top obligation, during those years, is to see to their care minute by minute, hour by hour. Someone whose other jobs take second fiddle to those of being the caretaker, so that when the infant needs them RIGHT NOW, they can darn well give them attention right now, not in half an hour when the client is gone. In principle that person could be either the mother or the father, but any OTHER choice (e.g. aunt, grandfather, friend, neighbor, day care center, etc) will always be only a second choice that is fitting ONLY because the first choices of mother or father are not possible. Social disincentives that directly speak to that truth, i.e. that SAY things like "you know, you're putting the kid in day care because you want to pursue a career means the kid will lack valuable benefits", while not being coercive as such, will be felt as oppressive to the parent who doesn't WANT to acknowledge the truth of it, and who wants a career that is well separated from hour-by-hour care of infants. In those situations where the parent's career provides total benefits to the whole family (including the kid) which significantly outweigh the detriment to the kid, the parent may well be right to pursue the career, but they should be making that judgment in light of clear understanding of the detriment the kid will suffer by not having a parent as the main caregiver.

    It is a result of biology that infants need a breast to nurse at and that young infants need that too often to allow the mother to fit it "in between" the tasks of a regular day job. It is also a result of biology that a nursing mother receives hormonal rewards that enhance her bond with the baby, which also make it easier emotionally for her to handle the small daily trials of caregiving than would be the case for a stranger. It is a result of psychology that children need siblings not vastly divided in age. And thus it is a result of human nature that a normal family will have its children in a concentrated clump of the kids a couple years apart, not stretched out one every 6 years. Given these facts, it is driven by human nature that mothers, specifically, will usually be the best infant and toddler caregiver, all other things being equal. Yes, there are individual circumstances that dictate departing from this norm (e.g. post-partum depression could force a change), but it's still a true norm of family life. The fact that we can, when necessary, make other provisions, doesn't disprove it as a norm.

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  19. TonySeptember 9, 2022 at 8:01 AM

    To me though it's not really about working for the sake of earning money or profit, but it's just that women also have creative and intellectual persuasions which they may want to pursue as a part of what makes them human beings ,

    I have known women who do just this - the creative and intellectual pursuit - and apply it precisely to that of being a mother and full-time caregiver. They MAKE it not just a job, but a devoted career, a calling, to learn everything that they can that enhances the children's well-being and development, and to make the (admittedly costly) mental and emotional effort to implement those things even when inconvenient and personally undesirable (e.g. sleeplessness, etc). And they should be honored for that, at least as much as we honor doctors for their difficult years of medical school and internship. And if society gave proper attention to this, more women would find the "career" of motherhood / primary child caregiver more emotionally and psychologically satisfying. (Though not all, and I accept this.)

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