Midterm 2 Flashcards
Definitions of Conscience:
“A personal, self-conscious activity, integrating reason, emotion, and will in self-committed decisions about right and wrong, good and evil”
Erroneous Conscience
Prudence: seeing rightly
“The truth precedes the good”: you must have an accurate sense of the situation if you are going to make sound moral judgements
Doing good actions requires a truthful grasp of the way things are around us (this takes us to Natural Law, which deals with the way things are)
According to Natural Law tradition, even amidst our sin, humans have access through the use of reason to the world as it is
But it takes time and education to flourish it
Vincible Ignorance
Ignorance is vincible; it could be/have been conquered.
We are blameworthy for our erroneous conscience when our ignorance is vincible
Example: If I did not stop at a stop sign because I didn’t know I needed to stop, since I was not paying attention to the road signs.
Invincible Ignorance
Ignorance is invincible; it could not have been conquered.
Actions are not blameworthy, since there is no way I could have known better.
Example: if I did not stop at a stop sign because I didn’t know I had to stop, since the sign was knocked over by the wind the night before.
Prudence (and conscience)
Aquinas calls prudence “right reason in action”
It does not merely consist of making good/right practical decisions, but acting well on those decisions. Decisions need corresponding action, and both are equally important.
Right/Wrong vs. Good/Bad
and
Objective vs. Subjective Morality
(Conscience and Character)
There is a difference between judging an action that is right/wrong and an action that is good/bad
Objective Morality: Right/Wrong
Subjective Morality: Good/Bad
We can apply an action to character
Sometimes, in the case of an erroneous conscience, an action can be objectively wrong, but that does not necessarily mean that they, or that person, is bad.
Example: starving one’s self is wrong because it is not oriented toward the good because it harmful to you as a person, however, this does not necessarily mean a
We are dealing with a restriction of freedom (freedom and knowledge are required for an act to be a moral act)
When somebody has limited freedom, who is not seeing accurately (e.g. alcoholic, anorexic), they are not entirely responsible for their actions
They are not morally culpable because there is such limited freedom to act
There may be a lack of virtue, but not necessarily a vice.
Seeing poorly can lead to acting poorly.
3 Kinds of Justice
- Commutative
- Distributive
- Social (Contributive)
Commutative Justice
About the relationship between individual members.
Individual Parties
- Among individuals or specific groups; identifiable parties
- Regards what we owe other persons or what they owe us
- It is about exchange, reciprocity, honouring agreements/contracts/promises
Example: fair payment by an employer, and on the employee doing the work - Commutative justice requires honesty in a relationship
- Offenses: Lying, Cheating, Biasy, Gossip, Slander
- Courtesy within the public sphere
- We are not isolated individuals in isolated relationships; we are situated in social contexts
- Example: my relationship with Lana is not separate from my relationship with others
Distributive Justice
About the relationships between individual members and their communities
Community → Members
- How a community or society distributes goods justly
- How are the goods distributed amongst a community?
- Is each person given a fair share of the common goods? Of the basic goods a part of the common good?
- Example: If a school’s funding is determined by the property taxes where it is located, it is a lack of distributive justice
- Fair share does not always mean a mathematically equal share
- Distributed to individual members
Social Justice (Contributive Justice)
How individual members contribute to the Common Good
Members → Community
- How individuals feed into the common good
- Responsibilities of citizens
- Example: Jury Duty, Volunteering, Voting
- What are the frameworks, structures and institutions that lead to injustice or ground our community in common good?
Justice as a Virtue
To speak about justice as a virtue gets us away from simply talking about legal justice. We need more than a legal understanding of justice.
Justice is a matter of seeing rightly; it is an exercise of the moral imagination (injustice is a failure of accurate perception).
Seeing rightly is seeing the human person as relational, rather than as an isolated unit (so that means the good life is a life in community; communities are inseparable)
Justice is grounded in Natural Law and Inner Worldly activities.
We are setting ourselves up for a distinctively Christian understanding. When Christians talk about persons as relational, we can think about how God is relational (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). When addressing Common Good, it takes Christians to solidarity.
Common Good
The sum total of social conditions which allow people either as groups or as individuals to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily
Common Good deals with the question: What allows for equality, full agency and participation?
The Common Good is not just the base-level platform for the personal good, rather, it is part of/constitutive of my personal good, and the personal good of all individuals goes together
Common Good is not accepted by the libertarian
Some people say there is no such thing as the common good, but the Catholic tradition (taking its lead from Aristotle and Aquinas) is focused with the common good
Aristotle: ordering a society toward the good of all of its members, talks about politics as a kind of art
Aquinas: takes up politics and the common good
Ius ad bellum (if a war can be just and when it is just)
- Right Intention: the consequences of the war must be outweighed by the good it intends to achieve
- Just Cause the aims must be for a just cause (e.g. restoring peace)
- Proportionality: measured response; excessive force must not be used
- Legitimate Authority: only legitimate authorities can wage war
- Probability of Success: success of war at restoring peace must be probable, so that the war is not an unnecessary waste of damage
- Last Resort: going to war must be the last resort, and used only after any and all peaceful alternatives have been tried (have we exhausted all of the means?)
Ius in bello (justly fighting in war)
- Right Intention (in the grand scheme): the aim of the people engaging in conflict must be restoring peace and justice
- Non Combatant Immunity: innocent civilians may not be the object of a direct attack and must be avoided
- Proportionality: measured response; excessive force must not be used
Sin
a violation of the inherent relationship between God and humanity
Is sin a useful term? (contrast Christian belief with common belief)
Christianity: humans are intrinsically faithful to God, and can only find happiness and fulfillment in Him
Common belief held by the majority: humans choose to accept God into our lives, and participating in a relationship with Him is something we must deliberately pursue
The language of “sin” applies only to the former, as “sin” does not simply describe a law violation, but a violation of the inherent relationship between God and humanity
Thus “sin” is a useless term since only a small number of people perceive the relationship between faith and human nature in that way
Sin is Contrary to Nature
Sin is not just a violation of external laws, but a violation of myself and my integrity
Sin is “contrary to nature” because it works against our own inherent self-interest, opposing our inclinations for that which is good for us
Sin is a violation against ourselves; who we are and who we are meant to be
Example: sexual sins are focused on our biological drives, and any violation is viewed to be contrary to nature (any misuse of those faculties and organs is against nature)
However, this narrowed nature forgets the third dimension (the personal dimension that humans have by being rational; being rational is being relational). For example, we must also talk about sexual persons, not just sexual acts
Sin is Contrary to Reason
Sin is “contrary to reason” because it is irrational to pursue actions and lives which restricts our freedom and bring disorder to our lives
The Language of Sin
Sin in Scripture
Sin is
- Hamartia (Greek): missing the mark; error
- Anomia (Paul): lawlessness; transgression of the law
- Connection of sin with the law
- Iniquity (uncleanliness) and guilt
- Universality of Sin
The Hebrew Bible gives us stories of how sin enters the world; it was not willed by God as part of original creation but enters the world as a result of human freedom and is related to the hardships and Earth that humans face, and it is universal:
How does God deal with sin?
- Through the covenant, God elects a people to see what He is doing with sin
- So sin is always understood with fidelity to the Covenant and the law
- But the law is not the final object of Israel’s fidelity, it is actually the person of God
- It could be said that any form of sin is idolatry
Transgression and Debt
- Trespassing “Our Father”: cancel our debts as we cancel the debts against us
- Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; sin is a condition, the word has turned against God
- Paul talks about the reign of sin, and sin as having a dominion, sin enters the world
The Language of Sin
Sin in the Tradition
- Seriousness of sin
- Sin was viewed as relational; it hurts the community
- It damages the whole body, not just an individual relationship with God
- Reconciliation with not just God, but whole body of the Church
- There was a clearer notion of who sin affects
- In the Manualist tradition, sin was act-centred
- The moral life is avoidance of sin, sin violates virtue
Is there a loss of the sense of sin today?
- Many feel there is a loss of the sense of sin in Christian community
- However, we can see ways in which we are actually viewing that our perceptions of sin are progressive, and were delusions in the past
- Our views with regards to sin have repositioned with regards to Ecology, Effects of the Church in Colonization on Indigenous peoples, Gender Identity
- Thus, there is a REPOSITIONING, rather than a LOSS
Categories of Sin
- Social
- Mortal
- Venial
- Original
Social Sin
Social sin expands beyond the narrow sense of sin as an individual behaviour by dealing with how sin is embedded in our relations with others on a much larger scale. Social sin is “manifested in structures, policies, and practices that privilege the prosperous at the expense of the poor”
Particular groups of people are unjustly oppressed by the structures of society, from which other groups of people prosper.
Social sin consists of ignoring the principle axiom of universal benevolence by neglecting to recognize the interests of others in society as a means of fulfilling and focusing on our own self-interests.
Mortal Sin
Mortal sins are actions, habits and ways of being that bring death to our relationship with God, death to relationships with others and death to our own souls and spirits.
Mortal sins are destructive evils because they are damaging to human goods and corrupt relationships and opt against God.
They are serious evils deliberately embraced and acted from full knowledge
When actions that are mortally sinful express who a person wants to be, they accurately represent a person’s character.
Criteria
(1) Grave matter
(2) Full knowledge and participation
(3) Full consent
Distinction between form and matter
Matter: the basic material
Form: what gives something shape
- Matter alone cannot tell you what something is, we need the form and the matter
- A grave matter has the potential to be a sin, but we must know the form of the sin (three font principle; intention and circumstances)
Fundamental Option: within each human there is a fundamental orientation toward God; and we can assist this orientation or not, so there is a negative fundamental option which entails choosing against God
Venial Sin
Venial sins are acts that “fall short of the good, and indeed are wrong” but the magnitude of their wrongness measures quite low.
They are described as small failures acted from non-malicious intentions. We do not intend to represent our character through these actions, rather, they consist more in human weakness (e.g. inclinations, ignorance, etc.).
If there is grave matter but limited knowledge or lack of consent, an act may simply be a venial sin
Habit (vice) tends to make sinning easier.
Original Sin
Original sin deals with the impartial world we are born into that is “unscathed by evil” as well as our inherent human weakness, both of which bound humans to sin
This is why babies are baptized; we exist into a world that is sinful.
The Bible presents sin as a universal human condition that qualifies our freedom, a pervasive and tragic fact of our creaturely existence.
It is a distortion of our lens on the world and leads to human rivalry (we set each other up as rivals/competitors)
The beginning to human history in the Hebrew Bible depicts the inherent sinful nature of humans through the story of Adam and Eve, whom were given a perfect paradise from God, though nonetheless disobeyed Him
Upon their violation of their relationship with God, Adam and Eve represent the nature of humans as both imperfect and subject to God.
Criteria for a Mortal Sin
Criteria
(1) Grave matter
(2) Full knowledge and participation
(3) Full consent
Distinction between form and matter
Matter: the basic material
Form: what gives something shape
- Matter alone cannot tell you what something is, we need the form and the matter
- A grave matter has the potential to be a sin, but we must know the form of the sin (three font principle; intention and circumstances)
How is faith both natural (a basic human activity) and supernatural?
For Christians, faith is both natural and supernatural because “the message and the messenger” are inseparable
To accept the proclamation to which Jesus Christ testifies is to accept Jesus Christ. For Christians, what they believe in and who they believe in are one; Christian faith is Christ. To lead a Christian life is to live a life in Christ.
Kinds of Cooperation
Concurrence in an evil act
(1) Material Cooperation
(2) Formal Cooperation
Material Cooperation
When you are participating in the act, but not in the intention
Formal Cooperation
When you concur in both the act and the intention
Formal cooperation is always morally wrong. It entails full knowledge, consent, and intention.
Conversion
Authenticity & Self-Transcendence
- Bernard Lonergan talks about conversion, but first, he talks about human authenticity.
- To be authentic: entering into the process of self-transcendence
- We are removed from being enclosed in and on ourselves, and expand beyond our horizons
- Self-transcendence is the ongoing dynamism of the human being.
Conversion
experience –> acts of intelligence, understanding, judgement, decision, responsibility
- This is the basic structure of how humans are conscious, rational beings in the nature of the world
- We can lack knowledge, understand wrongly, make poor judgements and make the wrong decisions
It is a recurring dynamism of progressive development of the human persons towards authenticity
Intellectual Conversion
Not about perfect knowledge and having all the right answers, but more of a process. Intellectual integrity; not running away from our own questions.
Moral Conversion
A change in the person that involves adopting new moral standards
Religious Conversion
Elevates and expands how one is human and how one can be an excellent human
Christian Virtues
Faith, Hope, Charity
“Infused” → they are gifts
- They are supernatural gifts from God that raise up the human being
- The perfect, elevate and enrich the cardinal virtues
They bring a new horizon to and expand the cardinal virtues
- They make you more human, not less human
- Example: a person who is overly courageous could be “more human”
Faith
free act of human commitment and trust
What does Christianity give us in terms of social ethics?
Foundational Biblical Themes/Narratives (Scripture)
What kind of things does scripture give us with regards to how we ought to live?
- Direct Rules (e.g. 10 Commandments)
- Teachings, sayings, reactions, instructions (e.g. 1 Corinthians)
- Jubilee: a special recurring event or anniversary (e.g. Sabbath Day)
Deuteronomy (24:17-22): duties to resident aliens and orphans of injustice
Isaiah (58:6-9): duties to share with and heal the poor and victims of injustice (hungry, homeless, naked)
Luke (4:17-19): duties bring “good news” to the poor; let the oppressed go free
1 Corinthians (11:18-22): on divisions in the Church
- Old Testament: failure of social justice is a failure of the Covenant with Israel
- New Testament: Jesus proclaimed for social justice (Reign of God → liberty)
- Social justice is the heart of the moral life
- Jesus himself does not talk a lot about sex, but talks a lot about money (though he does not say wealth is evil) and about neighbours (who is my neighbour? How ought I to treat my neighbour?)
What does Christianity give us in terms of social ethics?
Historical Development of Magisterial Teaching (Tradition) (moral communities and religious hierarchies)
John Chrysostom (4th-5th c C.E.) What we do here in the church requires a pure heart, not special garments; what we do outside requires great dedication. For God does not want golden vessels but golden hearts. Of what use is it to weigh down Christ’s table with golden cups, when he himself is dying of hunger? First, fill him when he is hungry; then use the means you have left to adorn his table. Will you have a golden cup made but not gift a cup of water?
Basil of Caesarea (4th c C.E.)
To the hungry belongs the bread that you keep. To the naked belongs the clothing that you store in your closet. To the barefoot belongs the footwear that rots in your house. To the needy belongs the cash that you hide away. In short, you could have provided assistance to all those whom you treated unjustly.
St. Antony of Egypt (4th c C.E.)
Francis of Assisi
Focus on the poor and poverty
Leo XIII (d. 1903) Rejects socialism (e.g. there are property rights) Right is not absolute Advocates for cooperation over class struggles There is a right to unionize
Principles of CST
Dignity of the Person and Human Life Principle of the Common Good Universal Destination of Goods Participation Principle of Subsidiarity Principle of Solidarity Family at the Heart of Society Dignity of Work and Rights of Workers Preferential Option for the Poor
What does Catholic Social Teaching gives us in terms of social ethics?
(1) A Worldview: Christian Humanism
A vision of the human that comes out of the person of Jesus and the notion of God
Seeing the big picture, who God is, that there is a God
Following these claims about God, is anthropology (they are claims about humans, and who/what humans are)
(2) A Consistent Life Ethic
CST as it has been taught consistently provides a unified life ethic
We can concretely choose what we dedicate our time to, but we cannot ignore certain parts of the Catholic teaching
(3) Principles, not Policies
Catholic social teaching does not tell you which party to vote for; it is not partism or ideological
There is a wide middle that it embraces
It rejects communism and complete capitalism, but does not offer a blueprint, it requires further dialogue and being informed, engaged and acting credentially
(4) Story, Ritual, Practice
CST and the whole ethic that it conveys is not simply carried in teachings and propositions, but in story, ritual and practice and it informs our moral imaginations
What would Jesus do? What would the people who are good and that I respect do?
The Practice of Eating: Scripture
We have stories and providence of food…
Jesus (e.g. table fellowship, the Last Supper, the fish and bread miracle)
Apostolic Practice (e.g. Paul encourages Peter to eat with the gentiles)
Laws (e.g. kosher laws)
Creation
God’s provision (e.g. God is the provider of food)
Exodus (e.g. leave no parts to waste)
Eschatological dimension to food (e.g. redemption and God’s final action; “give us this day, our daily bread”)
The Practice of Eating: Tradition
We mark time with food and with the abstinence of food
Feasting (e.g. Easter, Christmas) and Fasting (e.g. Lent)
Communion of the Saints (e.g. the idea that we do not eat alone or only with earthly people; cooking extra food)
Eucharist (one of our major understandings of how Christians practice food)
The Practice of Eating: Natural Law
Natural Law (seek the good, avoid evil) brings us to the cardinal virtues and virtuous eating
The Practice of Eating: Experience
Body image (e.g. how does the media shape our self-image and attitudes toward food, and what I do/do not put into my body) Gender (e.g. how are food practices gendered?)
Key Words in the Pope Francis’ Encyclical “Laudato si’”
Care Poor Beauty Education Cardinal Virtues: Temperance, Justice, Fortitude, Prudence (you cannot find the words themselves, but instead can find Pope Francis drawing on them)
Violence in (early) Christianity
The earliest Christians were pacifists
For centuries, they were not permitted to belong to the Roman Army (part of that is because of idolatry in the Roman Empire)
After Constantine and into the Middle Ages, there was an increased endorsement of just war and then later, Holy war
How did Jesus deal with violence?
Instead of passivity or violence, choose Non-Violent Resistance
Matthew 5:38-42: “Turn the other cheek”: resistance (not submissive, but defiant)
Roman soldiers could order people on the street to carry their bags for 1 mile, and Jesus instructs to carry it for 2 miles
When someone demands your shirt, give them everything you’re wearing
Jesus’ “Third-Way”
Non-Violent Resistance
Seize the moral initiative
Find a creative alternative to violence
Assert your own humanity and dignity as a person
Meet force with ridicule or humour
Break the cycle of humiliation
Refuse to submit or to accept the inferior position
Expose the injustice of the system
Take control of the power dynamic
Shame the oppressor into repentance
Stand your ground
Force the Powers to make decisions for which they are not prepared
Recognize your own power
Be willing to suffer rather than to retaliate
Cause the oppressor to see you in a new light
Deprive the oppressor of a situation where a show of force is effective
Be willing to undergo the penalty for breaking unjust laws
Die to fear of the old order and its rule
Peace in Christianity
Peace is the aim of Christianity
- Winright explains that the liturgy of the Church highlights peace
- Winright explains that during liturgy, Christians “nurture the virtues” of the kingdom of peace, and liturgy forms us individually, as a congregation and as a Christian community as beings that manifest our lives in peace
- However, he notes that all of this requires that we do not just go through the motions of liturgy, but that we actively participate and engage with the liturgy. We must comprehend and understand the meaning of each action, and be active recipients at Mass.
Winright explains that the liturgy of the Church highlights peace through:
Gathering together in celebration
Sharing Eucharist in communion with each other
Exchanging our wishes for peace with each other: “Peace be with you”
The songs and hymns about peace: “Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace”
Call outs and responses that emphasize glory to God and peace to His people
Scripture Readings: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on Earth”
Intercessions in which we pray for our Christian brothers and sisters, near and far, usually wishing peace to others
At the end of this sharing in peaceful wishes for each other and for all of God’s people, we are instructed to carry on with serving God in this way (i.e. in peace) outside of Mass and in our daily lives: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”
Just War Theory in Christianity
Winwright says that there is a case to be made for just war, but the Christian life is non-violent, and restrictive to views on just war theory.
Is just war theory simply a checklist, where we can test our view according to checked off boxes?
It is a problem for Winwright when just-war theory is a cost-benefit analysis; non-violence is not simply a checklist
Just like the moral life cannot be checklists, neither can just war theory
We must think about virtue, love for our enemy, not just the checklist
In history, there are few or no just war theories
Christians must be agnostic about the state and the power that we give to the state
The Roots of Violence
How does violence arise in society and how do we look at violence?
Rene Girard: Mimetic Theory and the Scapegoat Mechanism
Mimetic Theory
Rene Girard: Mimetic Theory and the Scapegoat Mechanism
About the way that humans desire (e.g. how do humans learn to desire?; what do humans learn to desire?)
- Mimesis: “Imitation”
- Many, such as Freud, believe that desire is linear (me and the object)
- Girard says that desire is in fact triangular, because my desire is always formed by others; what I desire is formed and influenced by what others desire
- I like the shows, food, sports, etc. that I do because others desire them
- We are always caught up in the networks of desire
- Many things are not inherently desirable
- Desire of the other feeds my desire, we all start to desire the same things, and these objects are limited; there is a scarcity of resources
- Because of competition for and rivalry over the same things (e.g. land, social status), societies will start to increase the level of rivalry and competition
- It build up within communities and societies
- Without some kind of mechanism to release that tension, societies will destroy themselves and spill into violence of all against all (everyone against everyone)
Since antiquity, society has built up a way to deal with this tension…
Scapegoat Mechanism
Rene Girard: Mimetic Theory and the Scapegoat Mechanism
Since antiquity, society has built up a way to deal with this tension…
- People redirect that rivalry, competition and anger on one scapegoat
- The scapegoat comes from Leviticus, and Jewish practice (the goat is symbolically laid on with the sins of the people, and sent to the dessert to dine, and it atones for sin and releases the tension within the people)
- Scapegoat becomes one, common enemy
- A group is unified by what they share in common (hatred of the enemy)
- The tendency toward the victim
Sacrifice / Religion
Rene Girard: Mimetic Theory and the Scapegoat Mechanism
- Jesus was the ultimate scapegoat, he sacrificed himself as a scapegoat for human sin and violence
- He suffered, rather than retaliated because he did not buy into the violent and oppressing mechanisms that society uses to deal with tension
- He exposed the oppression of the unnatural system
- He is recognized as innocent at the end
The Bible and the Unveiling of Violence
Rene Girard: Mimetic Theory and the Scapegoat Mechanism
- The victims that society has chosen are innocent
- Once the victim is recognized as innocent, the mechanism fails
- That is the unveiling insight (in Greek, that is the “apocalypse”)
- The unveiling of human violence and how we use violence to keep the peace
- God of both the OT and NT have nothing to do with that scapegoating and sacrifice
Rene Girard: Mimetic Theory and the Scapegoat Mechanism
There is the way of the system, or there is the way of Jesus.
The Western world is in a crisis because it cannot get rid of that insight in which we recognize the victim as innocent, but at the same time, we do not know how to deal with our tension.
Concluding Thesis: The Myth of Redemptive Violence
- Jesus exposes and cuts short the system of redemptive violence that we buy into
- It is not the Christian way to buy into this redemptive violence
- How desire operates within our communities, and how communities operate from the scapegoat
William Cavanaugh: The Myth of Religious Violence
He does not deny that violence exists as a result of religion, but he addresses the way that people pin religion as bad and violent
- Religion does not operate on violence in any less way that the flag, nationalism, the state, etc.
Ideologies as a whole
- The secular world often acts just as a religion does when it comes to violence
- We cannot say that “others kill for religion, and we kill for rational reasons” (80% of the US military is Christian, but most are not killing for religion, rather, they are killing for the liberal nation state)
- Problem: the state gets a free pass when it comes to violence, while religion is blamed and coined an issue (the problem is idolatry)
Example: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden to “Declare Justice”
- Christians must be attuned to the causes of violence
What happened to arrive at this point? What can we do for this to not happen again? What wider patterns of scapegoat and victimization are at play? What patterns of oppression? - Christians are called to self-reflection
What are the causes of violence in me? - Christians should be attuned to rhetoric
What is our language doing? How is it excluding?
Migration in Scripture
Leviticus 1993
Deuteronomy reminds us not to alienate orphans of injustice, and reminds us of the Hebrew slaves in Exodus
Migrants in Scripture: Abraham, Jacob, Book of Migrants, Jesus/Mary/Joseph
Migration in Tradition
Pope Pius XI: Esul Familia
There is a right to migrate because the right of the person and dignity precedes the right of the state and its right over the human. The person precedes the state.
CST
Social Sin
Any response to migration cannot just deal with how we accept migrants, but we must also deal with the push factors which pushed them away from their home
Given the right to migrate, people have a right to protections, to seek asylum, to be with their families, and the right of the state to regulate borders (compassionately, fairly, justly)
“Common sense” understanding of racism
“Person A (usually, but not always, white) consciously, deliberately, and intentionally does something negative to Person B (usually, but not always, black or Latino) because of the color of his or her skin”
Massingale argues that this common-sense understanding is inadequate the underlying anxieties and dynamics of race. Race needs to be understood as “a cultural phenomenon” and “an ethos”
What is Culture?
Culture is the set of meanings and values that underlie institutions, policies, customs.
Culture is often unspoken (see Chanelle’s iceberg graphic, and see Massingale’s example of living in Italy but not really being “in” the culture)
1. Culture is SHARED not a private event 2. Culture is LEARNED transmitted implicitly and explicitly 3. Culture is FORMATIVE provides a context that shapes our identities 4. Culture is EXPRESSED SYMBOLICALLY expressed through visible signs
Massingale uses the image of “soul” to talk about culture
“Soul” of African American Culture
The “soul”of African American culture includes the experience and expectation of prejudice and discrimination; struggle in daily life and society
“The struggle to be considered human” (21)
“The experience of racial prejudice, discrimination, rejection, and hostility - both subtle and overt - based upon the simple fact of our physical blackness” (19)
“The struggle to be recognized as human in racist America”
“Soul” of White Culture
The “soul” of white culture includes assumptions about white culture as normative, “standard,” so not having to think about race. This is often referred to as “white privilege.”
In North America, “white” denotes an unquestioned norm
Often associated with power and privilege and represents dominant narratives
It is marked by invisibility and standardization
Unconscious Racism and its Invisibility
Although obviously explicit racism continues to be an issue, Massingale is concerned about unconscious racism—“tacit understandings” and stereotypes that condition thoughts and values even before we make decisions or respond consciously.
What is particularly problematic about racism as a cultural phenomenon is its invisibility, or the idea that “I’m/We’re not racist: it’s just the way things are.”
Racism and Sin
Massingale’s discussion of racism connects to the category of social sin in contemporary Catholic theology and teaching:
A history of personal and communal sin is projected on to institutions, and on to individual and collective consciousness, producing bias
We may not be responsible for the historical oppressions that led to the social sin of racism, but we are responsible for trying to understand how each of us as individuals and how our communities are involved in racism— often at the unconscious level of culture, not explicit acts of racism.
Catholic moral theology also offers the call to conversion
Lonergan speaks of conversion on 3 levels:
- Intellectual
- Moral
- Religious
Conversion is not momentary, but an on-going work, faltering, sometimes backsliding, hopefully moving forward.
All three levels of conversion are involved in turning away from racism.
3 Levels of Conversion and Racism
- Religious Conversion
Hearing the words of Scripture, taking to heart the example of Jesus regarding hospitality, being open to the purifying work of the Holy Spirit - Intellectual Conversion
Learning about the historical roots and continuing reality of racism, and being in relationship with those victimized by racism - Moral Conversion
Committing oneself to educating others and advocating against racism
