Friday, December 8, 2023

Contra Vallier on integralism

Over at The Josias, I critique Kevin Vallier’s new book All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism.

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83 comments:

  1. BrandonDecember 8, 2023 at 1:06 PM

    One problem I regularly have with Vallier's arguments is how inconsistent his characterization of integralism tends to be; he regularly forgets, for instance, that integralism as a philosophical position attributes a distinct end to the state and therefore holds that the state cannot act in a manner directly inconsistent with its own end. This puts all sorts of limits on what an integralist state would be able to do (e.g., there are large parts of natural law and canon law that the state has no viable means for enforcing at all), which Vallier simply ignores whenever convenient for his arguments. This is in part, I think, the reason for his weird idea that integralists are aiming at some kind of surveillance-based theocratic totalitarianism, despite the fact that no integralist could consistently want a state to have that much direct power over matters of the Church, and could not consistently hold that the Church could 'direct the state' (as Vallier likes to say) to such an unlimited extent, without regard for the ends of justice and peaceable order.

    But at the same time, when it comes to implementation, he has a tendency to forget that liberalism is not a direct opposite of integralism -- there are features of liberal societies that, in whole or in part, fit very well with things an integralist might want to do. Citizens have major political power in a liberal regime, and it is an explicit part of a genuinely liberal regime that they are free if they wish to exercise that political and civic power on integralist principles; churches in a liberal regime already have political rights and powers, and although they are deliberately generic and shared with other associations, they are for all that real; in liberal regimes, churches and religious associations often have special accommodations, to avoid infractions of religious freedom, or because of some longstanding traditions or customs, or because of a concordat with the Holy See guaranteeing certain particular rights for historical reasons. It rarely if ever seems to occur to him that an obvious road for the integralist is systematically and on Catholic principles to protect, emphasize, and make more explicit these already existing powers, and that doing so is something people are already entitled to do in genuinely liberal societies. I think you have correctly captured this in discussing his failure to recognize a moderate form of integralism.

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    1. MPDecember 10, 2023 at 8:06 AM

      Perhaps one of the problems is that when they associate Integralism with Early Modern Spain, as described by English Protestants. Consideration of, for example, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would lead to understanding that Integralists have many more options to choose from.

      Also, as far as the way to that implementation is concerned, it seems that importance of strategy, resources and popularity is too often overestimated, while importance of just showing up, demonstrating confidence and not giving up (and Providence) is often underestimated.

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    2. BrandonDecember 10, 2023 at 8:25 PM

      As to thinking about Spain in particular, that could well be. Also, as you note in another comment below, there is a tendency to compare an image of integralism in the worst possible form that can be imagined to an image of liberalism in a highly idealized form; I think that's very human, but it muddles the argument.

      Your second point is particularly interesting in this context, because arguably that was the very strategy that eventually led to many of the early successes of liberalism, which had a great deal of social inertia to overcome before it could become widespread. Serious politics is a game of endurance and presence, and many of liberalism's own achievements are due to having played that game very well.

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    3. StardustyPsycheDecember 11, 2023 at 8:36 PM

      Brandon,
      "there is a tendency to compare an image of integralism in the worst possible form that can be imagined to an image of liberalism in a highly idealized form; I think that's very human, but it muddles the argument."

      You seem to be suggesting that there is some sort idealized form of Catholic integralism.

      I realize that many readers of this site are not American citizens, but the site owner is.

      A state religion is anathema to bedrock American principles.

      The first amendment, adopted shortly after the original articles of our constitution, guarantees not only that government will not establish a religion, but that no law can be made to prohibit the freedom of religion.

      If one religion defines what is legally blasphemy then the rights of others to freely practice their own religions are violated.

      But, before the bill of rights was enacted the founders had already written to keep religion separate from government.
      "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States"

      I was shocked that a man claiming to be a conservative American would take a stand that even remotely alluded to any sort of desirability to something so blatantly un-American as a Catholic integration with government to even the slightest degree.

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    4. BrandonDecember 12, 2023 at 12:28 PM

      You seem to be suggesting that there is some sort idealized form of Catholic integralism.

      Yet again you show your incompetence in logic, because this does not follow, and indeed would not even be relevant to the point.

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    5. AnonymousDecember 12, 2023 at 5:16 PM

      A state religion is anathema to bedrock American principles.

      The first amendment, adopted shortly after the original articles of our constitution,

      Incompetence indeed.

      Most of the STATES had state religions at the time the Constitution was adopted. The First Amendment merely blocks the federal Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of a religion. It leaves the states alone.

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    6. DNWDecember 14, 2023 at 11:04 AM

      " Incompetence indeed.

      Most of the STATES had state religions at the time the Constitution was adopted. The First Amendment merely blocks the federal Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of a religion. It leaves the states alone."

      Haha. Yeah, nice catch. What was it 1828 or '36 or something in Mass. before all established religions had disappeared in the U.S.?

      Ok. Looked it up. Was off by a few years.

      I'm also embarassed to say that I'm going to have to look up when the establishment clause was incorporated.

      Guessing, 1906?

      Holy ... ah ... Moses.

      1947, and indirectly through the 14th !!!

      Had completely forgotten.

      And Pierce v. Society of Sisters was in 1925, not even the tens as I was also vaguely thinking and relating it to.

      Your case versus whatshisname should be titled "Knowledge of Facts V Empty Rhetoric".

      On appeal from the court of public opinion.

      Ruling in favor of Facts.

      [You can cook up your own syllabus]

      I suppose that in principle, StardustyPsyche could have looked it up before opening his yap, in an honest effort to get himself onto solid ground.

      But then, in order to do that, StardustyPsyche have to know enough to even know what to look for.

      And StardustyPsyche manifestly does not.

      Does not stop him from pretending, though.

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    7. StardustyPsycheDecember 15, 2023 at 9:02 AM

      "Most of the STATES had state religions at the time the Constitution was adopted."
      Nobody is perfect. There were a number of defects in the states that got corrected by federal action.

      At some point I trust the reader to understand, for example, a "state religion" in this context does not mean a religion in a state of the USA, rather, the "state" meaning the government as a whole. Manifestly, that trust was misplaced in your case.

      OBTW, guys, in your scholarly meanderings through various dates you seemed to have missed the clause in the US constitution that makes all state constitutions subservient to the US constitution. So, if states had laws in place at the time of the adoption of the US constitution then those laws became null and void if they conflicted with the US constitution.

      It was Thomas Jefferson who clarified the meaning of the establishment clause when he wrote reassurances that there is a wall of separation between church and state.

      Catholic "integralism" is just a whitewashed term for Catholic fascism, Catholic theocracy, which is anathema to the United States of America, in any form, to any degree, so-called "soft" or otherwise.

      Somehow "soft fascism" is now something to be made excuses for and yearned for, and considered as somehow a decent aspiration.

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  2. The Great Thurible of DarknessDecember 8, 2023 at 2:55 PM

    The distinctions you're drawing here (and which you claim Vallier unjustly ignores) are completely spurious when it comes to evaluating the truth and/or desirability of Catholic integralism. It's no defense of the Roman paterfamilias, for example, to say that while a Roman father *may* beat his wife, rape his slaves, or leave his newborn children to die of exposure, this is not a major issue, because a paterfamilias "can argue that whether [he] ought in fact to do any of them is a matter of prudential judgment," and besides, there are soft and moderate and hard paterfamialists who take different views on if and when these rights should be actively asserted. The fact that those actions are within the range of prudential judgment *at all* is an argument against the idea, just as the fact that an integralist Catholic state could "teach the Catholic faith in its public education system... punish blasphemy and schism... [or] assist the Church in the suppression of heresy," is an argument against that idea, whether any individual integralist thinks it would "prudent" for any given state to do so.

    But in a way, that's all beside the point. While liberalism may be passing away, the nation-state is not, and the nation-state is a natural rival to the power ambitions of the Catholic Church. The passing of liberalism will not be an opportunity to maybe sneak in a little integralism (prudentially, of course) into whatever new ideology takes its place; it will be one more episode in the Church's long history of compromising with secular power in hopes of getting a piece of the pie. And, as has always happened in our post-Reformation world, the result will be (at best) some useful idiots with ecclesiastical titles, degrees in canon law, and PhDs in medieval philosophy imagining themselves equal partners in a fascistic state that is obviously exploiting their credulity and craven quest for power for its own ends.

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    1. BrandonDecember 8, 2023 at 8:11 PM

      The distinctions you're drawing here (and which you claim Vallier unjustly ignores) are completely spurious when it comes to evaluating the truth and/or desirability of Catholic integralism.

      You are, I think, misreading Ed's point; 'prudential matter' in this context means 'a matter in which rightness or wrongness doesn't fall out of obligation but out of appropriateness to actual circumstances', not, 'this may be done prudently'. In any case, the above claim is simply wrong; considerations of prudence are not in any way spurious when the question is the relation of integralism to liberalism, which is precisely the issue under discussion. Defenses of liberalism require exactly the same 'may'; this is a regular part of defense of political liberals against totalitarians like yourself who go about arguing that nothing should be trusted to prudence. Liberalism by definition trusts a great deal to prudence -- the individual prudence of citizens in the exercise of freedoms, prudence in constructing procedures and institutions to minimize damage from abuses, prudence in educating citizens in the best uses of their freedoms, prudence as to exactly what boundaries there should be. Recognition of the importance of such prudential judgment is an essential part of any development of liberalism as a political philosophy. Thus liberals like Vallier can't fall back on the idea that nothing should be left to prudence, and in refusing to allow integralism the same leeway that he has to allow liberalism on this point, Vallier is effectively trying to rig the argument.

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    2. AnonymousDecember 9, 2023 at 10:01 AM

      I think maybe the point is that an Intg. regime allows for extreme violence...

      It seems to me that violence almost follows per se nota from the principles of Intg. You have a set of people (Orthodox Christians) who are in schism and putting forward a view (let's say universalism based in Isaac of Ninevah's conception of God's love) that is heretical. They won't stop when warned by the magisterium of the Catholic Church. So? What then?

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    3. Mister GeoconDecember 9, 2023 at 3:17 PM

      That's kind of a silly question, if you think about it. There are more ways to deal with a universalist heresy besides "Kill them all."

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    4. BrandonDecember 9, 2023 at 3:56 PM

      I think maybe the point is that an Intg. regime allows for extreme violence...

      This doesn't help much, because we are talking at the level of general political framework, and liberalism also allows for extreme violence at the level of general political framework; a very large number of historical liberal regimes are built on the explicit affirmation of a right to revolution, for instance, and early forms (now primarily only represented by the Americans and the Swiss) explicitly insisted on the importance of an armed populace as a protection for liberal principles, which naturally allows an extraordinary amount of room for extreme violence (and has indeed occasionally led to it, although much less often than some scaremongers have suggested it would).

      So? What then?

      'What then?' is exactly the point; integralism as such just doesn't tell us because it just identifies general structure. In the same way, liberalism as such doesn't tell you how to handle Communist subversion in a Cold War; that's not something that falls directly out of the general political framework, but depends on a whole lot of other things, like the actual institutions and processes and statutes and customs in place. Integralism explicitly affirms a natural law doctrine of toleration -- i.e., something's being wrong is not sufficient on its own to determine whether you should outlaw it or even penalize it, because if you cannot enforce anything against it without yourself acting unjustly or in a way that harms the peaceful order of society, you have to tolerate it as an unavoidable evil. That's a matter that has to be assessed in terms of the actual structure and circumstances of the society, and cannot be assessed purely on the general framework alone. Likewise, liberalism on its own doesn't tell us that we can't penalize people for things like blasphemy -- many liberal regimes have in fact had such penalties; that depends on more than just the minimal conditions for being a liberal regime.

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    5. AsmodeusDecember 10, 2023 at 1:03 AM

      For an apostate such as I it sounds troubling.

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    6. MPDecember 10, 2023 at 3:11 AM

      I'd say that "I think maybe the point is that an Intg. regime allows for extreme violence..." illustrates a common feature of the ways in which anti-Integralists argue: lack of comparisons.

      So, we should ask: compared with what? With liberal democracy? Is liberal democracy so completely non-violent? Um, no. For example, the only two times when nuclear weapons were used, they were used by a liberal democracy. And recently, when people in that same liberal democracy disagreed about the election, was the disagreement solved with days and weeks of talking and listening? No, there was violence, and very clearly at least some of it was from the government's side. So, liberal democracy is quite capable of violence, perhaps even "extreme violence", whatever that means.

      In fact, "And is it better under liberal democracy?" is a pretty good answer to most objections to Integralism. For example, some claim that political power will corrupt the priests. But now the priests have little political power, and those same people in other contexts point to the various scandals. Which of course, illustrate that having no political power is not much of an insurance against corruption. Apparently, it is not the power that corrupts.

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    7. AnonymousDecember 11, 2023 at 2:54 AM

      IMO, liberal democracies don't have any moral leg to stand on on the "extreme violence" front given the widespread legalization of abortion throughout the western world.

      The fact that supporters of liberalism often don't even consider their governments extreme violence towards the unborn as extreme violence worthy of consideration in these discussions is no less damning.

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    8. AnonymousDecember 11, 2023 at 10:53 AM

      It seems that the main argument from above is:

      'When other Christians continue to advocate for their views the Catholic integrelist must make a decision on what to do, since the other Christian groups are threatening the souls of others. But to threaten the soul of another is the highest form of threat. Responses are proportionate. So, a reasonable response would be to kill the other Christians if they do not cease to stop advocating for their views.'

      Pater Edmund has said that he would be ok with beating heretics in the street. This is just the next logical step. The fact that this seems plausible from an integrelist view makes me worry...

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    9. BrandonDecember 12, 2023 at 12:49 PM

      It seems that the main argument from above is

      Literally nobody in this thread seems to have made any such argument, or even said anything that logically requires what you suggest, even the critics, so I don't know why you think this argument follows from anything that has been said.

      Pater Edmund has said that he would be ok with beating heretics in the street. This is just the next logical step. The fact that this seems plausible from an integrelist view makes me worry...

      No, it is one man's opinion, and killing people is not even the logical next step from it; as several people have pointed out in this very thread, the basic principles of integralism don't even have any particular tendency in this direction. One might as well claim that liberalism in general is worrying because you can find supporters of it who would be OK with beating racists and neo-Nazis in the streets (it's relevant to the context to ask whether you have criticized any of these liberals recently for what you claim would be 'the next logical stop' of murdering anyone who professes views that they deem illiberal? Surely it should make you worry that "this seems plausible from a liberal view".). In reality, such particular actions do not follow from general principles and frameworks, and none of this is actually to the point, because none of what you are attributing to integralism is required by integralist principles in general, just as liberalism in general is not responsible for every opinion of one of its supporters.

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  3. AnonymousDecember 8, 2023 at 3:29 PM

    The union of church and state that once was the natural order in Europe, is the reason that religious belief has mostly died there, while it still flourishes in this country.

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    1. AnonymousDecember 16, 2023 at 8:38 PM

      2001 called- it wants its talking points back. Disaffiliation in the US over the past 20 years has been enormous.

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  4. DNWDecember 8, 2023 at 5:11 PM

    " ... from the integralist point of view, if we are going to play the proof-text game, a scriptural text that might with greater justice characterize the mindset of Christian liberals like Vallier would be the cry of Christ’s persecutors in John 19:15: “We have no king but Caesar!”

    I don't know what "Christian liberals like Vallier" think. In fact, I had never heard of him and figured that the whole Integralism thing had died with Maritain.

    Though on checking my premise, I see that 'Integral Humanism' is not to be confused with Integralism, though there seems to be a diagnostic overlap.

    Nonetheless, mere "liberalism" in its modern progressive form can probably one-up the "Christian liberal", as there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control.

    You can find that principle nonchalantly advanced in any number of progressive essays on the "evolved" principles of [American] Constitutional Law.

    "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State", might as well be the motto of the progressive would-be social justice engineers.

    By any means necessary, and all that...

    "Liberals have used the law as a moral teacher, even as they decry its use to uphold traditional morality. One suspects that the reason they disfavor laws upholding religious belief is not that they think such laws don’t work, but rather that they know that they can work.

    Though acknowledging the point, Vallier explicitly declines to pursue it in any depth (pp. 90-91). This is a very odd lacuna ...

    Yeah, isn't it.

    But all the same, I'll bet five bucks you were using the term "odd", ironically.

    Reminds me again of Rawls, in "A Theory of Justice", Chapter 17, page 92, revised edition where he briefly acknowledges the potential problems for his scheme if the unequal distribution of talent is ignored and "caste" systems are allowed to form. [ Presumably thrrough what is now called assortative selection.]

    " ...In addition, it is possible to adopt eugenic policies, more or less explicit ...

    The pursuit of reasonable policies in this regard is something earlier generations owe to later ones ...

    "But I shall not pursue this thought further"

    Naturally!

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    1. BreadrollDecember 9, 2023 at 1:12 PM

      It can get confusing because afaik Maritain was never a supporter of political Catholic Integralism, but he was a supporter until 1926 of the Action Française and Integral Nationalism, which was a secular political movement in favour of restoring a modernised version of absolute monarchy in France.

      Around the same time agnostic monarchists like Charles Maurras put forward various arguments for promoting the more authoritarian versions of Catholicism for secular political ends, inspired by Auguste Comte who also did that in the name of Positivism.

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    2. StardustyPsycheDecember 10, 2023 at 8:57 AM

      "there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control."
      How absurd.

      Progressives don't want to micromanage or uber regulate your life. Where did you get that idea, Newsmax, Alex Jones, some maga nutcase in congress?

      The google machine provides this definition:
      "Catholic Integralism is a political interpretation of Catholic social teaching. It argues that the Catholic faith should be the basis of public law and policy in civil society.
      Catholic Integralism rejects the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life. Integralists believe that governments must secure the earthly and heavenly common good. "

      How repulsive, truly nauseating. How is this even a topic of consideration in the USA? Our system of laws is secular and always has been.

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    3. DNWDecember 10, 2023 at 6:46 PM

      "there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control."

      How absurd.

      Progressives don't want to micromanage or uber regulate your life.

      Where did you get that idea, Newsmax, Alex Jones, some maga nutcase in congress?"

      No.
      Wickard v Filburn.
      The Affordable Care Act purchase mandate
      National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, No. 21A244.
      Sara Conly
      Daniel Lazare
      and on and on and on ... just in the United States.

      Have not even mentioned the s--t bags in the UK.

      So, you are more out of your depth than usual on this. Just ... bugger off.

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    4. StardustyPsycheDecember 11, 2023 at 6:51 AM

      "Sara Conly
      Daniel Lazare"
      Who? Never heard of them, don't hear any progressives talking about them.

      "Wickard v Filburn."
      A supreme court case from 1942?

      That is your supposed evidence against progressives? Your paranoia must be fed by something, perhaps just your own fearful fantasies of persecution, perhaps kooky right wing media, perhaps the after effects of sustained drug use, dunno where your bizarre paranoia comes from.

      "and on and on and on ..."
      Indeed, on an on with your weird citations as though some supreme court case from the WWII era somehow evidences "there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control."

      Integralism is religious fascism.

      Think, Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea.

      How is the idea of aspiring to a state religion with blasphemy laws even a topic of socially acceptable conversation?

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    5. DNWDecember 11, 2023 at 9:31 AM

      " 'Wickard v Filburn.'

      A supreme court case from 1942"

      "as though some supreme court case from the WWII era somehow evidences "there is no aspect of human life or exchange ..."

      Progressivism, The New Deal, court packing, the Judicial Revolution, landmark case, expansion of the commerce clause to fit ends oriented results, principle that congress may limit the growing of a normal food crop for personal use on private land on the basis of the supposed aggregate effect that the act of nonparticipation in the scheme may have on centralized economic planning outcomes.

      Like I said, you are more out of your depth than usual.

      " ' Sara Conly
      Daniel Lazare"
      Who? Never heard of them, don't hear any progressives talking about them."

      Like I said, you are out of your depth, more than usual.

      "How is the idea of aspiring to a state religion with blasphemy laws even a topic of socially acceptable conversation?"

      This is a blog run by a professional philososopher. Such topics are handled by routinely by professionals; O Ye of low verbal intelligence. Though you may not want to try it at home, as you might injure yourself.

      If you do wish to risk what philosophers and normal Americans accustomed to free speech handle in everyday fashion, just make sure not to stand in front of a mirror, and lock away the steak knives first.

      You know, [ and you obviously don't ] you truly do lack any sense of irony. You fit right in with the stolid, chanting, neuro divergent anti-free speech, and social justice and equity freaks and pimps on campus or in Congress: exemplifying the very tendencies you deny.

      You "people" ( if 'people' is not too presumptive an appellation considering your subjective hallucinated reality and dog and pony identifiers) are like giant potatoes with looping recordings playing inside. I suppose that that is to be expected from a wholly determined - whatever it is that you supposedly are.

      Oh and no disrespect to Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head by comparing him (or her) to Rashida Tlaib. The phyisognomic similarity is purely, or largely, or possibly somewhat, coincidental. Or not, since this is all subjective, or not.

      Anyway, what's next, "Congress Shall" , or "Congress May make laws abridging" ...

      Or are you just engaging in a little Victorian pearl clutching at the indelicacy of the topic?*

      If I did not know better, I might think that you were whelped as one of those stolid P.O.S. left-communitarian types from the UK or the one of the Commonwealth countries; one with an ancestor who went around poking bodkins through the paneling of Catholic manor houses.

      Thanks for the laugh, though.

      *
      https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/69fecc61-a484-4f64-a124-ea7f9283da63
      Q1

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    6. StardustyPsycheDecember 11, 2023 at 8:02 PM

      "Progressivism, The New Deal,"
      Oh, that is what you are equating with
      "there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control."

      The paranoia is strong with this one.

      Ah, for the good old days of 1930, before social security, unemployment insurance, minimum wage, fair labor practices, and, well, you know, really horrible stuff like that, stuff that obviously shows "there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control."

      Yup, the unfettered capitalism of those deeply missed yesteryears had made America into a shining city on the hill of prosperity and freedom, but...then...the evil progressives came to power with their wicked ideas of providing at least a meager pension for the aged, protecting the right of workers to organize, and the monstrous freedom decimating horror of a minimum wage.

      Yes, my paranoid friend, I see your point, indeed, every social security check issued only more tightly locks you into your gulag of wretched freedomless existence.

      You are to be pitied indeed.

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    7. DNWDecember 12, 2023 at 4:34 AM

      Oh, that is what you are equating ...

      Obviously you are so far out to sea on this one, so far from any familiar landfall that you have no hope of getting you bearings, even with the Internet at your disposal.

      You could not address any of the limited number of instances I had provided directly. And you cannot absorb and ramp up in time to respond cogently.

      So you try and deflect.

      Not knowing what else to do, you decided to impute irrelevance to the first legal case I listed by characterizing it as , " some supreme court case from the WWII era [which] somehow evidences ..."

      In response to that I provided a brief if telegraphic description of the contextual development leading to the ruling itself.

      You could not manage to process even the first two elements of that response before going into emotional overload and exposing yourself once again for the histrionic troll you are.

      Because of this, and your irremediable ignorance, I'm done with you on this topic too.

      You have a bad character and are fundamentally dishonest, Stardusty. Of course you will shrug and say that you are predestined and overdetermined to be what you are.

      We may well shrug too, as at that point you are reduced to thingness, and cease to be relevant yourself as anything but an occasional annoyance.

      But, in the unlikely case any other reader wishes to be brought up to speed, I'll briefly recap the precis, but this time reading it backwards as one does to make understanding a rectangular cadastral survey description, easier.

      Wickard V Filburn ruled that the FDR administration had the power to limit the growing of foodstuffs on private land for personal use under the authority of the [interstate] commerce clause of the Constitution of the United States. This, despite the fact that there was no commerce much less interstate commerce involved.

      I won't go into the "aggregate effect" justification and the rationalizations involved, but this case was and stands as a landmark case affecting the individual citizen's ability to to economically direct his life in a lawful manner in his own state on private property because of a purported indirect effect which a failure to purchase some commodity at market was imagined to have on a Federal administrative directive.

      The decision was written by Robert Jackson, an FDR crony who Roosevelt had previously appointed as Attorney General, and had sicced on Andrew Mellon a former, famous, and hugely successful Treasury Secretary under Republican administrations. This latter was done through improper pressure on the Internal Revenue Bureau to come up with something on Mellon in order to discredit him as Roosevelt's own policies were perceived as doing little to nothing to improve the economy.

      Jackson was part of a number of Roosevelt appointments he had managed to get on the Supreme Court after threatening to pack the court in order to prevent the court from striking down his administrative and Congressional overreaches.

      Readers will note that Roosevelt and his progressive crew were the first according to his own son Elliot, to use the Internal Revenue in order to attack political targets in a form of what we now call "lawfare", i.e., the use of the legal system to seek civil and criminal convictions against ideological adversaries and destroy their lives.

      Lyndon Johnson a corrupt Congressman , privileged by FDR, followed suit, as Kennedy had also done, when he became president, with his use of the IRS to attack ideological opponents.

      By the time Republican Richard Nixon had picked up the torch, it had already been used by four Democrat presidents.

      If they cannot compete within the rules, they will break them.

      "By any means necessary [ to get what it wants]" seems to be the motto of the miscreant progressive. They proudly shout it often enough.

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    8. StardustyPsycheDecember 13, 2023 at 7:12 AM

      "Because of this, and your irremediable ignorance, I'm done with you on this topic too."
      Of course you are unable to defend your statement that "there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control."

      Your weak attempt is to cite the new deal!

      When you get called on how preposterous it is that somehow the new deal means "there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control." you write another pointless disjointed paranoid screed and slither off.

      Yes, regulations are required in the richest, most productive, most powerful, most complex nation that has ever existed. No you do not get to do absolutely anything you want. No, libertarianism is not practical.

      Most people know that. That is why the president you are yammering on about, FDR, was elected 4 times!

      Libertarians are a fringe party with virtually no support because they have no practical answers on how to manage our enormous economy and society.

      ""By any means necessary [ to get what it wants]" seems to be the motto of the miscreant progressive. They proudly shout it often enough."
      More paranoid gibberish. Who shouts that? Which politicians? Which presidents? Which candidates?

      You clearly inhabit a paranoid fantasy world where your imagined progressives are conspiring toward "there is no aspect of human life or exchange over which the progressive does not claim sovereign centralized directive and distributive control." "By any means necessary"

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    9. BreadrollDecember 13, 2023 at 4:12 PM

      I think you see these tendencies developed most logically in Hegelianism and Marxism; progessivism needs to have an end goal to make the idea of progress meaningful; reason and understanding of the direction of the dialectic demonstrate that this goal must be the creation of the perfect society, in Marxist terms this might be a society without alienation in which each individual has maximum personal autonomy at the same time as enjoying perfect solidarity with every other individual in the society.

      In the meantime, until this society has been created, coercion and authority must be exercised by those who have a deeper and fuller understanding of how emancipation via the dialectic (this is removal of all causes of alienation) must be coming about. They need this authority to be able to control and educate the ignorant in the best use of their freedom, to protect the ignorant from themselves at least.

      The general theory is something like this, imo there is a lot of truth in the Hegelian/Marxist arguments, that something like this must be the rational end point of secular liberal politics. The less space there is for transcendence in the society, the more force their arguments seem to acquire.

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    10. AnonymousDecember 13, 2023 at 11:18 PM

      In the meantime, until this society has been created, coercion and authority must be exercised by those who have a deeper and fuller understanding of how emancipation via the dialectic (this is removal of all causes of alienation) must be coming about....

      The general theory is something like this, imo there is a lot of truth in the Hegelian/Marxist arguments,

      I would grant the possibility of there being SOME truth there, if only I could grant that there is any basis at all for the notion that the root cause lies in "alienation" and that the solution can be achieved by the mechanisms urged by the marxist. However, because there is no rational basis for that notion (Marx's arguments on that score are puerile except where he merely skips over argument altogether and simply asserts things), I can only say that marxist methods in the hands of a liberal progresive has even less intelligibility than the little that real marxism has: progressivism without any meaningful end goal at all.

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    11. StardustyPsycheDecember 14, 2023 at 7:12 AM

      Breadroll,
      "progessivism needs to have an end goal to make the idea of progress meaningful; reason and understanding of the direction of the dialectic demonstrate that this goal must be the creation of the perfect society,"
      No it doesn't.

      Reason and understanding leads to realizing there is no such thing as a perfect society. Human beings are intrinsically incapable of created a perfect society.

      Just look at the topic of this OP, the nauseating concept of Catholic fascism, whitewashed as "integralism". Still, after all the horrors of the Catholic fascist regimes of the past, and the great lengths our founders went to keeping religion out of government, some Catholics manifestly yearn for an "integration" of church and state.

      Perhaps to avoid the most vociferous condemnations of such a putrid concept, watered down euphemisms are employed, a sort of soft fascism is imagined, described in the whitewashed terms of soft bigotry.

      Here are some ways we could live up to the ideals in our constitution.
      1.Remove the word "god" from our money.
      2.Remove the word "god" from our pledge of allegiance.
      3.End the practice of organized prayer in government bodies.

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    12. DNWDecember 15, 2023 at 9:41 AM

      Anonymous at
      December 13, 2023 at 11:18 PM writes in part,

      " ... possibility of ... SOME truth there, if only I could grant that there is any basis at all for the notion that the root cause lies in "alienation" and that the solution can be achieved by the mechanisms urged by the marxist."

      So, I was thinking through the readings in my old and worn to tatters copy of Tucker's Marx Engels Reader.

      And I began to realize that although I had apparently assumed that Marx himself [according to the received wisdom] formally conceived of the alienation he was addressing, as being largely an artifact of the capitalist system's commodification of his life product, and hence himself, others, nature, and his own species being, that the difficulty with this, and its psychological falseness with regard to the origins of alienation, were just ignored by him. Or he was somehow unaware.

      Yet at the same time the EPM writings make clear that the son of a b1£{h HAD to be aware that that was the longstanding psychological condition of some humans and that it was was not the unique outgrowth of modern manufacturing processes, specialization, and the private ownership of tools and property.

      Marx was familiar with ancient philosophy, obviously. He knew who the Skeptics were, the Cynics and others besides the subjects of his schooldays dissertation.

      "Not to be born is, beyond all estimation, best; but when a man has seen the light of day, this is next best by far, that with utmost speed he should go back from where he came "

      And then I noticed this from the handy dandy demon's archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/petrovic/1965/review.htm

      Socialism is the way some effed up people of a thoroughly secular variety, hope to escape from their feelings of alienation, frustration, inadequacy, envy, resentment, and the intolerable burden that comes from them being stuck being themselves.

      Even if it does not get quite to the point of them always advocating full blown communism, the thrust of their aim is apparent in their incessant babble about acceptance, inclusion, affirmation, solidarity, and, drumroll Mr, Rawls, "comittment to a shared fate".


      Delete
  5. AnonymousDecember 8, 2023 at 9:06 PM

    Rawls, 2nd. Chp. 17, P. 91

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  6. AnonymousDecember 9, 2023 at 2:02 AM

    Are you all convinced that Catholicism is so true that nobody can reasonably doubt it ? Is it a necessary prerequisite for integralism ?

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousDecember 9, 2023 at 2:04 PM

      Certainly that's a necessary prerequisite for hard integralism, but for a moderate integralist, such a concern would factor into the prudential judgement on any particular issue.

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    2. DictatortotDecember 9, 2023 at 3:09 PM

      Not necessarily. But if "nobody could reasonably doubt it" is the standard, then no temporal order (including liberalism) could reasonably demand anything of any citizen.

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    3. BrandonDecember 9, 2023 at 4:02 PM

      There's no regime possible, whether liberal or non-liberal, that has as a necessary prerequisite that its principles are true beyond all reasonable doubt.

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    4. AnonymousDecember 9, 2023 at 8:00 PM

      Yes.

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  7. Tim FinlayDecember 9, 2023 at 5:28 AM

    Ed, you say in the main post, "No integralist favors forcing people to convert." Catholics have in the past forced people, on pain of death, to convert. [Of course, Catholics are not the only Christian denomination to have done this.] Do integralists concede that this should not have been done? Or is your "no integralist" limited to weak and moderate integralists? In other words, would strong integralists maintain that this could conceivably be done in the future as it was in the past? If Catholics have officially denounced prior forced conversions of pagans and Jews as wrong, that would be good in my opinion and I would love to know the source.

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    1. BenDecember 10, 2023 at 2:55 AM

      Here are a couple of papal quotes in this regard from the era before Vatican II:

      Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter ‘Immortale Dei’ (1885) 36: ‘The Church is wont to take earnest heed that no one shall be forced to embrace the Catholic faith against his will, for, as St. Augustine wisely reminds us, "Man cannot believe otherwise than of his own will."’

      Pius XII, Encyclical ‘Mystici Corporis’ (1943) 104: ‘Though We desire this unceasing prayer to rise to God from the whole Mystical Body in common, that all the straying sheep may hasten to enter the one fold of Jesus Christ, yet We recognize that this must be done of their own free will; for no one believes unless he wills to believe. (cf. St Augustine, ‘Tractates on John’s Gospel’ XXVI, 2) Hence they are most certainly not genuine Christians (St Augustine, ibid.) who against their belief are forced to go into a church, to approach the altar and to receive the Sacraments; for the "faith without which it is impossible to please God" (Heb 11:6) is an entirely free "submission of intellect and will." (Vatican I, “Dei Filius” (1870)) Therefore, whenever it happens, despite the constant teaching of this Apostolic See, (cf. Leo XIII, ‘Immortale Dei’) that anyone is compelled to embrace the Catholic faith against his will, Our sense of duty demands that We condemn the act.’

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    2. Tim FinlayDecember 10, 2023 at 11:18 AM

      That is very helpful, Ben. Thank you for those quotes.

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    3. AnonymousDecember 10, 2023 at 12:40 PM

      But what about someone baptized at birth but who later apostasized after deeming the faith false ?

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    4. BenDecember 11, 2023 at 4:35 AM

      Regarding 'someone baptized at birth but who later apostasizes after deeming the faith false' - the principle stated by Leo XIII and Pius XII that belief must of its nature be an act of the free will leads to exactly the same conclusion as for the unbaptized: the apostate must not be physically coerced to return to Catholic belief.

      Vatican II, of course, spells the whole matter out in great detail in 'Dignitatis Humanae', based not on prudential calculations but on first principles. Catholic doctrine is committed to the inadmissibility of physically coercing anyone's belief, now and for the future.

      It is true that the Church claims rights over her members thus she does not claim over non-members, as Ed states in his article. So Canon Law even now states: 'The Church has its own inherent right to constrain with penal sanctions Christ’s faithful who commit offences.' (Canon 1311.1) The primary penal sanction for apostasy and heresy is excommunication. (Canon 1364.1) However, physical coercion (as opposed to spiritual sanction) for apostates and heretics is now clearly excluded, as a matter of principle.

      Admittedly, in past times there was not the clarity on this point that we now have (unlike regarding physical coercion of the unbaptised to convert, the legitimacy of which was always officially excluded). And so we had the treatment of heretics associated with the Inquisition. (Note, heretics and apostates, by definition, are baptized.) However, the doctrine is now developed and clarified, and there is no going back.


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    5. AnonymousDecember 11, 2023 at 8:49 AM

      Lucky me.

      Delete
    6. BenDecember 12, 2023 at 2:53 AM

      Your point being?

      Delete
    7. AnonymousDecember 12, 2023 at 5:35 PM

      However, physical coercion (as opposed to spiritual sanction) for apostates and heretics is now clearly excluded, as a matter of principle.

      Ben, I believe that Thomas Pink's reading of Dignitatis Humanae explicitly rejects this view. He argues that the prohibition in it is entirely contingent, and the Church could reverse itself on that prohibition in new conditions in the future, i.e. it's not a matter of principle.

      And there are other readings of that document which also rejects that view, besides Pink's. The document clearly does leave room for state action where necessary for public order, in addition to stating in blanket terms "it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ."

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    8. Edward FeserDecember 14, 2023 at 8:50 AM

      Hi Tim, yes, no one should ever have been forced to convert.

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    9. BenDecember 16, 2023 at 4:21 AM

      @Anonymous
      I agree that 'Dignitatis Humanae' allows for state restrictions of religious liberty where necessary for public order, e.g. the protection of the rights of others. Virtually any political regime does the same.

      But difficult to see how 'what is necessary for public order' could be stretched to permit coercing apostates back to the faith, especially in view of the Church teaching that faith is and must be a free act; and that those who are forced into a church and to the sacraments are not true Christians anyway.

      I'm not extensively familiar with Pink's position - had a look at one of his articles just now. But if he (or anyone) includes full-on coercion of belief of ex-Catholics ('Return to Catholic belief or face prison!') as possibly justifiable (don't know that he actually says any such thing), he would run into the same opposition to clear Catholic teaching on the freedom of the act of faith.

      And I agree that the teaching on the duty of societies toward the true religion remains intact after Vatican II: states should really acknowledge Catholicism as true, as the evidence shows in the end beyond reasonable doubt. So in an ideal political situation, Catholicism would be the state religion, either constitutionally or at least de facto. But this doesn't imply or suggest forcing any citizens to become or remain Catholic.

      Even now there are several countries that have Catholicism as the constitutionally recognized state religion (some mini-states, plus Costa Rica - see Wikipedia) without any such coercion being dreamt of.

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  8. Paul D. Van PeltDecember 9, 2023 at 6:02 AM

    A friend worked at CIIS for awhile before leaving the USA. Integral studies are interesting.

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  9. AnonymousDecember 9, 2023 at 6:44 AM

    I know little about integralism or the writers you discuss, but reading your essay makes me wonder why the moderate integralist us would not take the actions Vallier charges Vermeule with advocating. Is it just that in certain circumstances it would be counterproductive to do so, I suppose meaning roughly that it would reduce the overall influence of the Church? Is the moderate integralist position that the Church should take as many of those actions as it can get away with under particular circumstances or does the integralist recognize a principled reason not to do at least some of them?

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  10. Paul D. Van PeltDecember 9, 2023 at 10:40 AM

    Clearly, I was using integral in the wrong sense. My bad. Apologies.

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    Replies
    1. Miguel CervantesDecember 9, 2023 at 11:33 PM

      Vermeule’s model of persons who “exploit their providential ties to political incumbents with very different views, in order to protect their own views and the community who shares them” while not opting out of the political sys-tem or society, still has no one true religion which society should recognise. This would therefore not be integral-ism of any kind, even “soft”. Deneen’s local communities or Vermeule’s local political structures professing different religions while opposing liberalism don’t constitute anything per se beyond that opposition. As soon as liberalism is gone, they will fight like cats and dogs, and before that happens, their strategy instills relativism - fatal for Christian viability. It is also a national-scale version of the Russian/Chinese/ Islamist-sponsored “multipolarity” versus liberal Atlanticism non-sense. Unfortunately, as Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland proved, anti-wokers are logically capable of tearing each other to pieces.

      Aquinas did not advocate a society professing a vague theism as a fall-back position from social recognition of the Church. This is why he said that it was proper for the priests of pagan antiquity to be subject to society, because paganism’s ends were secular. He never envisioned or credited the pagan philosophy with realising a theistic state; the last thing Aristotle’s prime mover could do was give society commands to obey (post). Nor did Aquinas de-scribe the ends of society as religious, properly, even though it was subject to the religious ends of its members’ joint profession of Christ. Society is not personal – it doesn’t have a mind or a soul – it is a development of nature per se, but a contingent activity of persons in concrete. That is why it is unfortunate that Vermeule alluded (note 13) to de Maistre’s theory of Providence based on Malbranche’s mad occasionalism and destruction of nature and human agency.

      Contrary to Vermeule’s essay, society does not need another ideology. Ideologies concern secularist societies. The society presumably in question here is one that at least strives to recognise Christ and the religious ends which are beyond society itself, by recognising the Church (which is not civil society but another society). Since we are dis-cussing the modern world which was born in, and later in conflict with, the scholastic social principles of Suarez and Bellarmine, we ought to work on strategies for making them triumph within political systems.

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    2. SacredKnowingDecember 13, 2023 at 9:31 PM

      @Miguel Cervantes

      That occasionalism implies pantheism never made a lick of sense.

      The key idea of occasionalism is that God is the grand scheduler, meaning that He's responsible for synchronizing objective noumena with mental phenomena such that they follow law-like correlations, thereby solving the mind-body problem. But if it is the case that the grand scheduler somehow morphs into the universe (pantheism), then there's nobody around to synchronize objective noumena with mental phenomena, taking us back to step one.

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    3. Miguel CervantesDecember 14, 2023 at 11:08 PM

      By the same token, Pantheism never made sense either. Occasionalism is a particular vice of conservative and romanticist thinkers who obsess about "religion". It explains why all civil society becomes the voice of God, "revelation", etc. Burke, de Maistre, Kirk, Scruton. They can't get away from it. For them, God is in everything that is not dogmatic or absolute, yet He does not speak, as Christians understand it. These ideas would bury Christianity.

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  11. DNWDecember 9, 2023 at 3:18 PM

    As might be expected in my case, any mention of the terms and conditions of particular associative arrangements, immediately leads me to ask what the basic assumptions in the formation of the social arrangements are, and how they are founded in the first place.

    His having migrated away from libertarianism, I assume Edward Feser has in addition distanced himself from the versions of classical liberalism and contract theory. And he was something of an expert in them.

    And yes, the social contract (or some would say compact) theory is somewhat ahistorical it must be admitted: but, with glaring and obvious exceptions both ancient and modern.

    Let's then deliberately place aside for the moment both the a priori one humanity universalism of Catholic social theory, and the Marxist a posteriori economic tar baby theory of "society"; wherein if you once touch it (engage in an economic transaction) you are stuck with it as part of your "society".

    And leaving intellectual room for contract theory based on real historical examples of deliberate and genuine contractual social formations, let's assume after placing these organic society mental ligatures aside, that some empty space on the planet could be found by believing traditionalist Catholics wherein they could initially set up a polity composed entirely of "true believers".

    We would not have to adopt their own view of human destiny in order to see that they had in fact constructed one of those near legendary social contract societies.

    What objection could an outsider, especially one who rejected the classical foundation and principles of natural rights, make against the establishment and preservation of an integralist sociopolitical scheme in that polity ?

    Now Catholics themselves, especially of the Pope Frankie sort, might object that the whole premise is flawed, and that Catholics are not allowed to shake the dust of the uncongenial and obnoxious off their feet, and start anew with an exclusive contract based system of interpersonal association and participation, leaving the perverted, the morally demented, the behaviorally incontinent and so forth, behind to wallow in their own effluvium.

    But we who are on the outside don't care what Frankie thinks of what his nominally fellow Catholics are doing. We are only concerned with whether the internal dynamic once established presents some type of indefensible proposition or consequences going forward. Because this hypothetical yet possible society has been founded with no one but like-minded Catholics within it, and the question has been narrowed to whether any integralist polity whatsoever is in principle acceptable, and if not, then on what principle is it not?

    Now I know that the whole idea behind integralism is based on the assumption of one humanity and the supposed inherent and supernaturally equal value of each hominid. But we are not concerned with internecine squabbles in this case.

    We are only interested in determining if once this social arrangement is well and truly established on a contractual basis, there could be any objection from the outside regarding the institution of integralist types of programs.

    The main objection that I see arising, is that people in general, despite rejecting the natural law foundation of human rights, seem to have adopted the idea that what Americans call freedom of association, means their freedom to associate with and participate in the lives of others, whether those others will it or no.

    "If you build it they will come" was a famous movie line.

    They might not be invited, they might consciously intend to exploit, subvert and wring dry, but they will not only come to escape the messes which they have themselves generated, they will claim a "right" to do so, and to then revise your lifeways in order to more comfortably accommodate their pathologies.

    And this seems to me to be as much an implementation problem for the integralist even under near ideal conditions as implementing programmatic integralism in an already pluricultural state.

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  12. AnonymousDecember 9, 2023 at 5:10 PM

    WCB

    The problem with things like Catholic integralism is, once such things get seriously started, one never knows how it will mutate. For example, Marx probably did not envision the outragous actions of Lenin and Stalin. Nobody forsaw the horrors of making Hitler a dictator with the Enabling Act. Conservatism in the U.S. has become MAGA extremism. The problems of the Papacy in Italy resulted in the RCC being stripped of direct political power in the aftermath of making Italy a unified nation. The Syllabus Of Errors makes for sobering reading. And of course rejection of claimed RCC privledges in Germany's Kulturkampf. The RCC wanted control of Germany's education system. Nobody but the Catholics wanted that. The majority of the U.S. Supreme court are now conservative Catholics and their antics have made the Supreme Court rather unpopular among a majority of Americans. A small taste of integralism one could argue.

    WCB

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    1. AnonymousDecember 11, 2023 at 2:51 PM

      Correct, WCB. And the problem with liberal democracies is that they permit widespread murder of their own children, prefer to kill their sick and elderly rather than take care of them, and mutilate kids genitals under the guise of "therapy."

      The slope is indeed slippery in all directions, it seems.

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    2. AnonymousDecember 12, 2023 at 10:24 AM

      Anonymous 2.51PM

      You list a number of supposed features of some liberal democracies in a most tendentious manner. One of your items is false even given your probably supernaturalistic world view - which liberal democracy or democracies prefer to kill their sick and elderly rather than take care of them pray tell?
      In any case, the citizens in a liberal democracy can modify or remove the 'defects' that you list so tendentiously , whereas in a Catholic integralist system we would he stuck with all manner of moralistic and religious nonsense which we would be stuck with, absent the inevitable social revolution to sweep it all away.

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    3. DNWDecember 12, 2023 at 8:02 PM

      "A" Anon observes, " ... the problem with liberal democracies is that they permit widespread murder of their own children, prefer to kill their sick and elderly rather than take care of them, and mutilate kids genitals under the guise of "therapy." "

      "B" Anon retorts, " One of your items is false ... which liberal democracy or democracies prefer to kill their sick and elderly rather than take care of them pray tell?

      Are the Netherlands and Canada "liberal democracies " ?

      " ... if a patient is no longer capable of giving assent, a doctor need not take a literal interpretation of an advance directive if the circumstances do not match the eventual scenario.

      In response to the court, Jacob Kohnstamm, the chair of the euthanasia review committee, said his body needed to update its code for doctors involved in euthanasia.

      The new code says that in cases where a patient has advanced dementia, “it is not necessary for the doctor to agree with the patient the time or manner in which euthanasia will be given”.

      Kohnstamm said: “Doctors now have less to worry about putting their necks in a noose with euthanasia. They need less fear of justice. Or for the review committee. ...

      This month the Dutch government said it would change the regulations to permit doctors to euthanise terminally ill children aged between one and 12, after months of debate within the ruling coalition government.

      The health minister, Hugo de Jonge, said a change in regulations was necessary to help “a small group of terminally ill children who agonise with no hope and unbearable suffering”.       The Guardian, Nov 2020.

      " Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

      Retired corporal Christine Gauthier said the department even offered to provide the equipment
      Murray Brewster · CBC News · Posted: Dec 01, 2022 9:12 PM EST | Last Updated: December 1, 2022

      "Testifying in French, she said she has been fighting for a home wheelchair ramp for five years ....

      "I sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and that they [Veterans Affairs] offered me MAID [medical assistance in dying] and would supply equipment," said Gauthier.       " CBC

      Apparently it was only half a dozen cases and only one employee. So, it's all good.

      But "B" Anonymous isn't done yet. He has a final shot at "A" Anonymous for mentioning, that these liberal polities:
      - "permit widespread murder of their own children"

      - "prefer to kill their sick and elderly rather than take care of them.."

      - "and mutilate kids genitals"


      In response, "B" shrugs and says,
      "In any case, the citizens in a liberal democracy can modify or remove the 'defects' that you list"

      That's, " 'defects' " (as in "defects", if you care to call the that), in scare quotes.

      Would anyone have any reason to trust anyone like that with the political status of peer, a fellow, and a moral equal deserving of a shared say in a mutual political life?

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    4. TonyDecember 13, 2023 at 11:08 PM

      DNW, you gotta stop bringing facts to a mud-slinging emoti-fest. It ain't kosher.

      Delete
  13. AnonymousDecember 12, 2023 at 5:17 AM

    My issue is that as much as middle integralists push back against both extremes (mostly hard), I see no way of establishing an integralism that isn't defacto hard integralism. We might quibble in the abstract about any one issue but the prior history of Christendom is a kind of hard integralism is what came about. It benefits the secular ruling class to integrate closely with the Church and it benefits the Church to be integrated. In the abstract, of course we can have the beautiful medium but I find it ridiculous to believe that will always be the case. Perhaps some kind of democracy would fix that but democracy might not even be truly capable of integralism so idk. So while Vallier is, intellectually speaking, incorrect on the necessity of hard integralism, he does recognize that it is hard integralism that needs to be dealt with far more than any other kind.

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    1. TonyDecember 12, 2023 at 5:51 PM

      Opposed to the historical backdrop, the Church has come to realize the validity of an equal but opposed political principle to that of solidarity: subsidiarity. The Church (now) teaches that even though there might be "goods" that the state can achieve by concerted (mandated, in soft or hard forms) efforts, e.g. achieving efficiencies of scale, some decision-making ought to be left to lower communities such as families (and to individuals), and the supposed goods that could have been achieved by large-scale mandate are (sometimes) less essential to human flourishing than the practical subsidiarity also required for human flourishing.

      So, there is perfectly valid ground to hypothesize that a new integral regime - if following Catholic teaching - would NOT be like the historical examples.

      In addition to the principle of subsidiarity now touted by the Church generating a moderating influence, the kind of totalitarian hard integralism that Vallier suggests would violate Catholic principles on other grounds as well. For example, Dignitatis Humanae points out the principle that we are obliged to use appropriate means of leading men toward the truth, such as persuasion by well-reasoned argument, and propagandist methods would violate that principle.

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    2. AnonymousDecember 13, 2023 at 11:46 AM

      "So, there is perfectly valid ground to hypothesize that a new integral regime - if following Catholic teaching - would NOT be like the historical examples." But one could also do the hard integralism of coercion while also claiming fidelity to Catholic teaching. They would point to document X, historical precedent Y, and Saint Z to show how their methods are in total fidelity with the Church. It might go against (modern) subsidiarity but it seems much more likely that medieval solidarity and modern subsidiarity are political realities of the Church rather than teachings etched in stone. "Dignitatis Humanae points out the principle that we are obliged to use appropriate means of leading men toward the truth, such as persuasion by well-reasoned argument, and propagandist methods would violate that principle" doesn't do anything because a hard integralists could just say "well these are appropriate means." Fundamentally, it's the secular ruler and the Church that will determine the means and there's great incentive for "hard integralism." To come about.

      I grant you that one can hold to middle integralism with some optimism but I think hard integralism isn't the strawmen people like to think it is. Being the historical reality (more or less) of integralism prior to modernity seems proof of concept enough. I'm not even suggesting it's "bad" (I don't think the medieval Church and states were sinning doing what they did) per se but rather that it's something people need to reckon with.

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    3. TonyDecember 13, 2023 at 11:07 PM

      Anon, so far as I can see, what you seem to be suggesting is that even if hard integralism really isn't the proper interpretation of Church doctrine, if any integralism were established, it would turn into hard integralism IN SPITE of Church doctrine as recently brought forth.

      I grant that there might be some argument to show this, but I don't grant that you have provided such an argument. All you have suggested is that among integralists there would be some proponents of hard integralism. You haven't suggested a reason why they would inherently win out over moderate and soft integralists, only that they would put forward claims that hard integralism is acceptable under Church doctrine. There is no guarantee or necessity that their attempt to push for hard integralism would overshadow the other integralists who are against a totalitarian hard integralism, nor that the Church itself would be entirely powerless to step in and say "well, no, subsidiarity, Dignitatis Humanae, and other recent teachings prove that a totalitarian hard integralism is not OK."

      but I think hard integralism isn't the strawmen people like to think it is. Being the historical reality (more or less) of integralism prior to modernity seems proof of concept enough.

      I am not sure that the historical reality is that simple. I doubt, for example, the realities on the ground from 325 AD to, say, 1000 AD, really represented hard integralism as depicted in Feser's article, at least not in any uniform sense. If I am right, then there WERE periods (and places) of integralism softer than hard integralism, and periods of harder than "soft integralism", and periods of variation. Which would imply that, so far as history goes, it is proof of concept that you really can have any of the versions.

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    4. AnonymousDecember 14, 2023 at 11:12 AM

      No, I'm suggesting that hard integralism isn't necessarily against Church teaching. Modern Church teaching on subsidiarity doesn't magically wave away the historical precedent or teachings of prior Churchmen. The recent teachings on the subject must be reckoned with but I see no reason why they necessarily prohibit hard integralism without also condemning the tradition (in a broad sense).

      My point wasn't ever that hard integralists would always win out (I think my initial post was a little unrefined) but rather than hard integralism is a position that warrants actual consideration and isn't something that would never come about. And yeah, I didn't really try to write an argument because it's the combox of a post lol. But the argument would go roughly go along the lines of that when one considers it from the perspective of the elites (both in the Church and in the ruling class) the benefits of hard integralism outweigh the benefits of middle integralism. The state would get more cache with the Church, greater respect from the people, perhaps more funding/ aid from the global Church, a greater voice in matters of the Church. The Church would get pride of place in the secular world, would have their dissidents punished (not only in ecclesiastical affairs but in political/ secular realms as well. That would encourage orthodoxy among the rank and file), would encourage attendance/ support of the Church. Of course, one side would have more power over the other in each individual situation. There's complexity and layers but taken as a whole, I don't find it preposterous to see hard integralism as something that would come about. Again, none of this NEED BE the case (nor need be desirable) but it's not something to wave away either. That's all I meant to say, even if was worded poorly.

      Lastly, I think your account of history is remarkably naïve. Anything prior to the modern period, perhaps 1700's onward, is a kind of hard integralism and not of any other kind. Perhaps middle integralism could be found but by and large, coercion and force were the Law. In history anything can be found so I'm not discounting middle integralism (it is philosophically sound) but merely saying that hard integralism is just as sound. Modern Church teaching doesn't change that unless we're going to start saying the Church erred in times past and only the glorious mid 20th century put us on the right track.

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    5. TonyDecember 14, 2023 at 8:28 PM

      Lastly, I think your account of history is remarkably naïve. Anything prior to the modern period, perhaps 1700's onward, is a kind of hard integralism and not of any other kind.

      I think your historical lens needs to take in a broader scope: Catholicism came to be "in" a country or region in ALL SORTS OF DIFFERENT WAYS over the centuries, from the (variously soft and hard) persecution of the Romans at different periods, to places (Persia, India, Ethiopia, Scotland) that weren't under Roman rule, to northern Germanic tribal areas, to Scandinavian areas, and Lithuania, etc. In all that variation, the government didn't always adopt Catholicism with the same gusto, nor always impose the same degree of constraints on those who didn't want to convert, or those who were wishy-washy. There were probably 50 or a 100 different degrees of hardness of various hard integralist regimes in there, and there is a high probability that some of the regimes, for some periods, were not hard at all.

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    6. Miguel CervantesDecember 16, 2023 at 11:00 PM

      Your list of non-imperial countries doesn't really concern the issue at hand as they all sponsored non-Catholic Christianity. From the time of Theodosius the Great till the defeat of Baroque Catholic modernity in the late seventeenth century, there was only one model of social recognition of the Catholic Church in the West.

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    7. TonyDecember 17, 2023 at 10:52 PM

      While I often agree with Miguel's overall theses, I sometimes I don't agree with his interpretations of certain historical conditions. But here I have to say that this is probably the most unhistorical "historical" comment of his I have read. Even within the Roman empire and its (multiple) versions of later successor regimes, there were lots of different degrees of hardness or softness of de facto integralism, e.g. depending on the local barons, earls, dukes, princes, cantons, etc. And (as was my core point) outside of the formerly Roman region, other forms of integralist regimes were in play. Even starting the reckoning at Theodosius is telling: before him, the various local regimes of power within the empire allowed or didn't allow Arians to push heresy, which means that the integralism simply wasn't uniform.

      As for sponsoring non-Catholic Christianity: I was speaking of the periods in which the only Christianity on tap was the original kind.

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    8. Miguel CervantesDecember 18, 2023 at 10:51 PM

      I'm not sure why Tony is confused about this subject. If integralism is to mean anything, it means civil recognition of the Church as God's only religion, and there can't have been integralism in the Roman Empire before Theodosius the Great. Toleration of the Church could exist in North Korea under a friendly or unfriendly Kim, but it would not be integralism.

      As for Christianity outside the empire, we don't know much of what happened after those Apostles who journeyed there (according to tradition) died, but was is certain is that all these native Churches were heterodox when Catholic Church, the original on tap kind, found them. Therefore, they aren't part of the discussion, properly speaking.

      After Theodosius, there was only one model until the end of the Christian West, that of social recognition of the one Church of Christ. How much repression, if any, of other religions does not affect this formula, which does not change until the social absolutism that triumphed in the late seventeenth century, in the regimes now defended by Conservatism. Principles are what matters in this topic.

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    9. TonyDecember 21, 2023 at 6:43 AM

      that of social recognition of the one Church of Christ.

      Correct, to this extent: the integralism meant social recognition of the one Church of Christ. That's what Catholic integralism means.

      there was only one model until the end of the Christian West, that of social recognition of the one Church of Christ.

      Balderdash. You are trying to define your way into your conclusion, your attempt denies the distinctions between hard and soft integralism as if they didn't exist or matter. There were de facto different degrees or kinds of integralism in play over the 15 centuries: times when a pope could effectively depose a king for religious reasons, times when he could not. And a thousand other ways in which it varied.

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    10. Miguel CervantesDecember 21, 2023 at 11:50 PM

      To answer your question, for the posted article, “An integralist political order would be one that is distinctively Catholic”. As for “soft, hard and moderate” integralism, the article says that for the moderate integralist, in “some historical and cultural contexts, getting the state to favor the Church might be the best policy, in others it might be a very bad policy, and in yet others it might not be clear what the best approach is”. This was not, however, a position for the Christian West between Theodosius and the end of Baroque hegemony. Even though constrained by what is possible, the approach in the Christian West was that it was always better to recognise and favour the Church. When this West met “uncontacted peoples”, social recognition of the Church was the first thing on the agenda. There was no acceptable “fall-back” position. One definition fits all, I’m afraid, until the entry of Renaissance and Enlightenment ideas into Catholic societies, which the Church is choking on as we speak, and will inevitably spit out, since we know it cannot die.

      Whether or not the papacy could depose princes in practice never made any difference to its prerogative of being the final interpreter of what was right morally for society. The Spanish Bishop Hosius of Cordoba, the engineer of Nicea, made Emperor Constantius II aware, in AD 353, “Intrude not yourself into Ecclesiastical matters… but learn them from us”. Whether or not a prince becomes illegitimate by violating natural or divine law is, in the final court, an ecclesiastical decision.

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    11. TonyDecember 22, 2023 at 12:17 PM

      When this West met “uncontacted peoples”, social recognition of the Church was the first thing on the agenda. There was no acceptable “fall-back” position. One definition fits all, I’m afraid,

      Again, you smother all distinction, and then define your way into the conclusion. The "social recognition of the Church" wasn't identical in its details. In various places that resulted in many different aspects of favor for the Church: in Ireland, in Germany, in Scandinavia, in Poland, in Ethiopia, etc.

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    12. Miguel CervantesDecember 22, 2023 at 5:35 PM

      Social recognition of the Church as God's true Church. One definition fits all, from Theodosius to the end of Baroque hegemony.
      (Ethiopia wasn't Catholic, unfortunately)

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  14. AnonymousDecember 13, 2023 at 9:13 PM

    Catholic Integralism is inherently antisemitic. That's the biggest problem with it. It has no place for Jews.

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  15. AnonymousDecember 15, 2023 at 4:07 PM

    WCB

    The biggest power grab of medieval Europe was Boniface VIII's Unum Sanctum. There could no salvation out side the Catholic Church. The pope was the spiritual leader of the church. And as such, the pope outranked kings and emporers, Europe's secular order. Integrelism in full glory. Of course, kings and European rulers had no intention of accepting this bull and it unleashed centuries of resistance to papal over reach.

    WCB

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    1. Miguel CervantesDecember 16, 2023 at 10:56 PM

      The Popes never outranked secular leaders in the secular order, only in spiritual matters. Unam Sanctam made this clear. Only some French monarchs and German emperors had issues with this, led by specious theories as they were.

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    2. AnonymousDecember 18, 2023 at 5:54 AM

      It really just depends on what you mean by "outranked". The text of Unam Sanctam goes:

      "Therefore, both are in the power of the Church, namely, the spiritual sword and the material. But indeed, the latter is to be exercised on behalf of the Church; and truly, the former is to be exercised by the Church. The former is of the priest; the latter is by the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.

      However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: ‘There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God‘ [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other."

      It's not really claiming secular power, strictly speaking, but it's clearly speaking about how it's authority is superior to secular authority. That's a kind of outranking and invites the assumption of secular decision making (especially if you favor a kind of hard integralism). So yeah, I don't think your interpretation is incorrect but I don't find it necessary to hold. Unam Sanctam isn't a well written document, in my opinion, and permits vastly different interpretations on it's own. The prior and later history of the Church inform how we're supposed to read it, but on it's own I don't recommend citing it lol. It's also super short which doesn't help.

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  16. Miguel CervantesDecember 18, 2023 at 10:34 PM

    No matter. It should be trumpeted, as a symbol of the Church's definitive condemnation of civil absolutism, which has has so much success in France and Germany, that logically holds itself to be a religious authority. If civil society is not a religion, and only indirectly subject to the Church, it must recognise that the Pope is the final arbiter of moral and religious issues in every country of the world. Boniface said it in a nutshell. All power is ordained of God, including civil power, but if civil authority does not recognise the unique authority of the Church in doctrine and morals, and in the interpretation of natural law, its own authority is questionable, most of all in the Christian West, where all civil power was conditional.

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    1. TonyDecember 22, 2023 at 12:04 PM

      Miguel, how would you integrate that with Leo XIII saying of the two powers - civil and Church - that each is supreme within its own sphere? (Immortale Dei).

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    2. Miguel CervantesDecember 22, 2023 at 5:37 PM

      Immortale Dei says the same thing. How does it not?

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  17. AnonymousDecember 23, 2023 at 2:43 PM

    the Pope is the final arbiter of moral and religious issues in every country of the world.

    Each is supreme in its own sphere.

    These are not the same thing.

    Nor do they say contradictory things. But they do say things in tension, and that tension has to be solved in every society in which the Church operates. The tension is manifest by noting that many "moral issues" are also civil issues, which are the civil government's sphere.

    To solve the tension by saying "if the pope issues a dictum on moral matters, the state must conform" is apparently to say that the Church is supreme even over the state's sphere. And this Leo denied.

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  18. Miguel CervantesDecember 23, 2023 at 10:32 PM

    Leo did not deny that the Church is supreme in moral issues in a civil environment also.

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