News From France
June 12th 2007 01:29
News reports from Europe always provide a reality check. The French TV news this morning had as its lead item the exam questions on the matriculation philosophy paper. “Can all our desires be fulfilled?” and “Should all prisoners of conscience be set free?”
They seem like cloud castle-type questions for adolescents. You have to say, though, that many, perhaps all, of our current political questions stem from these basic philosophical issues. Think stem cells and David Hicks respectively. The Promethean urge constantly to forge new technologies in the belief that we can realize all our desires appears to be at the base of the rhetoric used by the proponents of human embryo experimentation. Likewise the super-libertarian arguments about “Daddy’s little terrorist” (as Mick Molloy would have it) are riddled with unexamined philosophical presuppositions. The legal arguments have more merit. (We are after all fighting precisely for the rule of law – habeas corpus and all that.) They rarely get a run, though.
The German news yesterday had a report about the German Evangelical Church (Lutherans to us) embarking upon a Kirchentag in Cologne in the footsteps of Pope Benedict. A much smaller crowd - though quite respectable number - wrapped in orange scarves, gathered to sing Ein Feste Burg. It caused me to reflect upon the civic dimensions of large Church gatherings.
Which brings me back to stems cells. I wonder whether all those Catholic politicians who voted for the destruction of human life will want to sit close to the Cardinal when the Pope comes. The other question is whether or not they’ll be allowed. Perhaps they’ll just have to receive communion with the hoi polloi.
Do you recall John Paul II wagging his finger at the Sandinista Jesuit, Ernesto Cardenal? Pope Benedict wagging his avuncular finger at Morris Iemma in the communion line would be a picture worth a thousand words. You never know. We do live in interesting times.
They seem like cloud castle-type questions for adolescents. You have to say, though, that many, perhaps all, of our current political questions stem from these basic philosophical issues. Think stem cells and David Hicks respectively. The Promethean urge constantly to forge new technologies in the belief that we can realize all our desires appears to be at the base of the rhetoric used by the proponents of human embryo experimentation. Likewise the super-libertarian arguments about “Daddy’s little terrorist” (as Mick Molloy would have it) are riddled with unexamined philosophical presuppositions. The legal arguments have more merit. (We are after all fighting precisely for the rule of law – habeas corpus and all that.) They rarely get a run, though.
The German news yesterday had a report about the German Evangelical Church (Lutherans to us) embarking upon a Kirchentag in Cologne in the footsteps of Pope Benedict. A much smaller crowd - though quite respectable number - wrapped in orange scarves, gathered to sing Ein Feste Burg. It caused me to reflect upon the civic dimensions of large Church gatherings.
Which brings me back to stems cells. I wonder whether all those Catholic politicians who voted for the destruction of human life will want to sit close to the Cardinal when the Pope comes. The other question is whether or not they’ll be allowed. Perhaps they’ll just have to receive communion with the hoi polloi.
Do you recall John Paul II wagging his finger at the Sandinista Jesuit, Ernesto Cardenal? Pope Benedict wagging his avuncular finger at Morris Iemma in the communion line would be a picture worth a thousand words. You never know. We do live in interesting times.
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