“There are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered prayers.” Saint Teresa of Avila
Can’t blame U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Barrett for being born Amy Coney. Nor would I fault my fellow New Orleans native for having Irish Catholic parents who, like mine, sent her to St. Mary’s Dominican High School. Back then it was cool. We were both in the same boat. And far as I know, we still are, that is if you’re in the habit of comparing educated middle class white females wielding our kinda funny Louisiana convent French accent. Women’s tuition is typically tubular. What I mean is, it’s wampum well spent.
Sod it, hatched on the same patch of swamp, Amy n’ me should be two peas in a pod. However, I’m not ashamed to say gun control and reproductive rights are where we part ways. These were fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the Seventies and Eighties, for girls, rich or poor, growing up in The Big Easy. Matters of… deep breath… life and death.
"A child is a sponge, able to absorb the plethora of Playboy and Cosmopolitan's iconic chronicles accumulating on the coffee table." 'Old School' is Ilsa Monique's hilarious account of growing up in New Orleans..https://t.co/BTUzLHVxbn@IlsaCarter1@BenPantrey @Des_The_Dog
But in order to begin a coherent conversation on either issue, one must comprehend this. Paired like a couple of chromosomes, the right to bear arms or avail of an abortion are inexorably intertwined.
The Honorable Amy once penned a unanimous opinion affirming the summary judgement against a claimant in the case Smith vs. The Illinois Department of Transportation, finding while egregious, it was not racial discrimination when a supervisor dismissed an employee for what was later stipulated “poor performance” as, and I quote, being a “stupid ass nigger.” Because they were both black. Thus, perhaps she’ll pardon my French when, with Malthusian enthusiasm, I need point out that, unlike me, Barrett is a breeder.
The greedy GOP plucked this pro-lifer directly out of her indoctrination by a secretive charismatic Christian cult called People of Praise and would have you, me and Barrett herself believe the proceedings around Roe vs. Wade were about her unqualified opinion. One based on a bizarre Czar-like wish to not squish the least little fish. A sweeping generalization to keep inconsequential caviar in its crevice, no matter how marred things get. So, you see, as women we are now all set. In a bind. Because profoundly blinded by nothing more than good faith, the Sturgeon General’s brand of justice finds it sound.
This is not my first rodeo. I’ve a habit of being in the right place at the wrong time. Managing marketing and advising on regulations in several sovereign nations for a British boss at a bank based in Hong Kong during a currency crisis and the Handover of our S.A.R. to the P. R. C.. Watching an IPO window slam shut on a tech boom not sparing the white knuckles of a thousand plus entrepreneurs, including Connecticut fat cats, four Finns in Malaysia and more than a couple of Kiwis that like a Trojan camel we tried to pass through the eye of a needle. Not tired, I got hired to launch Tokyo ops for one of the U.S. firms which then perished in their entirety when the Twin Towers fell. Sometimes you might as well call it a day.
Only to sit spitting nails, like an old spy in from the cold, wearing a crusty trusty power suit at a hedge fund desk high up in the Empire State Building. Swearing my federal tax dollars were squandered by an incompetent Army Corps of Engineers, while Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath sinks New Orleans’ natural defenses into the drink. Five years on, an unfettered BP blast on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig heaved 200 million gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Left every last bivalve bereft.
Thing is, for all the money in a world I can’t unsee as my oyster, I wouldn’t trade this front row seat watching Ireland’s Celtic Tiger tumble, jigging in The George the very night same sex marriage legalized. Seeing medical cannabis and safe abortion made less murky than a transubstantiation of the Magdalene Laundries into this tip top corporate tax haven. And learning how to ask for the Ban Jax.
Where me and homegirl differ, is before we had graduation under our Prince of Wales plaid chastity belts, God didn’t see fit to show Amy how it felt to be raped at gunpoint and escape.
Hence, the power of Christ has yet to compel the now anointed Coney concerning exceptionally unsexy circumstances. Those surrounding the sort of nonconsensual contortions likely to lead to a swelling belly aborted.
Maybe I don’t have a womb with a wide-angle view at high tide, but my bet is Barrett’s not tangled in a “long game” as Margaret Talbot’s New Yorker article subtly suggests. At best she’s a half-baked Trump tumor deposited on the Supreme Court, but what if she’s been groomed Brothers Grimm style? The Manchurian Candidate meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers? She’s one of seven who, come hell or Haitian high water is spawning seven more into a scenario not of her own making. Ingenue actress? Goodbye RBG and Hello All About Eve? Or anchor baby for the alt-right?
What I ask political strategists who bask in what few filthy cards they’ve slipped up their starched sleeve is a burning question. At what point did conservative Christians earn what they’d always yearned for? Carte blanche to pull up to the Republican bumper, and dive in like Flynn to the D.C. dumpster. When did The Religious Right become your Rumpelstiltskin?
Knowing the ropes on the lesser navigated, one could almost say, fallopian-like, canals of Venice, I’ll venture vetting Casanova’s confessions is yet an even better trip. I for one am not impervious to stumbling on stuff our nuns neglected having Amy, blessed vessel that she is, translate directly from the French. Simply for shits n’ giggles mightn’t they have wiggled something cunning like Sade in to Sophomore English Lit? Not the sublime Nigerian-born British chanteuse…but the felonious philosopher of freedom. An equally smooth operator. I’ll explain.
Couple hundred years before we were in high school, if memory serves, the year 1787 saw yes, a libertine, one of Fibonacci proportions, imprisoned in the Bastille. During his two-week incarceration, minus a lick of obscenity, the Marquis de Sade managed to nail a novella he named Justine or the Misfortunes of Virtue. Seems his fictitious femme fatale was willing to bend over. Take one for the team. Don’t know about Amy. Wouldn’t blame her for being game, but, as for me, I’m not. Not anymore. Are you?
There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
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As summer gave way to a season of mist and mellow fruitfulness in September Covid-19 returned with a vengeance, but by now there was considerable disagreement over elusive facts.
The main go-to-man among Irish scientists for the Irish media has been Trinity Professor of Immunology Luke O’Neill. On June 22nd he claimed that Ireland would have had 28,000 deaths if there hadn’t been a lockdown.
The piece earned praise on Twitter from Irish Times journalist Ronan McGreevy.
This is a brilliant blog post which should be ready by every journalist covering Covid-19. It takes aim at several ubiquitous experts who have made wildly inaccurate predictions and who have not been held to account for those predictions. https://t.co/1QgEahaxfH
Andrea Reynell, meanwhile, looked for new ways of socialising during The New Abnormal; although having to order a meal made the idea of going out for a drink less appealing.
It is easy for some premises that already served food. But it is a bit of a pain knowing that you’re spending more than you want, all for the sake of a socially-distanced drink.
Divers on Dublin Bay.
That month we receive the first in a series of articles from underwater photographer Daniel Mc Auley. The first acquainted us with the hidden world below Dublin Bay.
The silt and sandy bottom around Dublin Bay is in a state of constant motion, drawn by the strong tidal flows moving down the east coast of the country. These massive sand banks are also easily disturbed by strong southerly or easterly winds, leading to dramatic drops in visibility when a strong wind blows. Unlike the deep water off the west coast, Dublin Bay is a relatively shallow body of water with a primarily sandy bottom.
Coral Garden Dalkey Island, Dublin Bay. Image (c) Dan Mc Auley
Another new contributor Neil Burns wrote movingly following his work in addiction services:
Heroin addicts tend to mate for life. Like dilapidated swans – twisted in a deadly alliance they dance and embrace towards a finality of breath. Like a sculpture in a Giorgio de Chirico painting. It is an ersatz marriage of sorts, sharing needles – inveigling that sharp, finite pain. Into the vein. The arm. The thigh. Leaving rack-marks like horse gallops that tear up the grass on a racecourse. Puckered, indeed, punctured skin. Delving into the life’s blood. The blood’s life which is cherished. Next to Godliness. Spike island. Feel like Jesus’ son was The Velvet Underground’s lyric. Warm blanket to insulate against the world’s harshness. Being judged. Much of it in the head and coveted paranoia.
f you have already worked out that whoever lives inside your phone when you say ‘Hey Siri’ or ‘Hey Google’ can read emails out to you, find the nearest movie theatre, or reserve a restaurant table, then Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already in your life.
Image: Luke Fitzherbert
Next, Luke Fitzherbert despaired at Lebanon’s rotten leadership after a massive explosion that rocked Beirut:
The impact of the explosion is hard to understate. Its sound and force stretched for miles, releasing a huge mushroom cloud that killed close to two hundred people, and scarred thousands both physically and mentally; destroyed countless homes, and leaving once vibrant streets desolate. The immediate aftermath was dystopian: “It was like a movie. People moving slowly, covered in blood, glass shattered everywhere. Leaving a whole city riddled with PTSD,” recalled one witness.
And in the wake of Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court David Langwallner reckoned it was game over for American democracy.
My name is Gemma Dunleavy and I’m a yapper. I’d talk the handle off a cup. I also write and play music. I see myself as a storyteller first, then a musician. It’s where I feel my true gift is, my natural comfort is in meandering through my memories, picking out the best details to paint the clearest picture in the heads of those listening.
Also in music coverage Brian Mooney was keeping the conversation going after the tragic loss of his wife to cancer:
six months now. A year of firsts. A lot of lessons learnt. A new wisdom.
And I feel quite stupid and not quite intelligent enough. Exposed, as my better half who I was always so proud to be beside has gone away.
I have to build now. My friends are close and music has kept the conversation going…
Gasping for a hit, Carl made himself a fresh cup of coffee. But big-nosed and bat-eared, when he tried to slam it, the steaming brown liquid dribbled down his chin to piddle over his pink tie and white shirt. His accountant’s uniform.
Also in fiction, Yona Shiryan Caffrey brought a portrayal of cocooning widows in rural Israel in Tina.
…. Myriad music still marks her mind, her memory,
Music of mending and meaning, naming and being—
Music of mackerel meandering, matter and mass,
Metaphysical music marching from moment to minute
As well as a number of works from Mischa Willett, along with the irrepressible Kevin Higgins, who wondered at the longevity of Henry Kissinger:
For its birthday, a baby gets Spina bifida
A Bengali family have all their arms sawn off.
Fifty bodies topple into the sea off Indonesia
but none of them are Henry Kissinger
Each time Henry Kissinger again fails to die
Say it to me if you have something to confess
I was born on the wrong side of the tracks like Ginsberg and Kerouac Bob Dylan, Key West (2020)
Notwithstanding my loathing for fundamentalisms of all strands, I have always preached from a gospel of love, or at least a form of reason that leads to moderation in the Public Intellectual Series.
Ideas about religion and the existence of God based on reason, such as that articulated by Thomas Aquinas, must yield to the facts as these emerge. The ideas contained in natural philosophy – with its harmony of the spheres – available to a medieval monk has been superseded by the discoveries of the Enlightenment that brought the hitherto unknown field of science. Yet, this yielded quantum physics that permits a layer of uncertainty, wherein the nature of an object may shift depending on one’s perspective.
The ‘uncertainty principle’ seems to have been anticipated by the Ancient Greeks, as Albert Camus explains in his essay ‘Helen’s Exile’ (1948):
Greek thought always took refuge behind the conception of limits. It never carried anything to extremes, neither the sacred, nor reason, because it negated nothing, neither the sacred nor reason. It took everything into consideration, balancing shadow with light.
This he contrasted with ‘Our Europe’ which:
off in the pursuit of totality, is the child of disproportion. She negates beauty, as she negates whatever she does not glorify. And through all her diverse ways, she glorifies but one thing, which is the future rule of reason.
We may find, therefore, an excess of reason breeding dogmatism that gives rise to unreason, or even scientism. Thus, the subtlety of the Greek mind, now reflected in the thinking of Jurgen Habermas, permits a space for religion in the public sphere, but certainly not the rule of religion, or a single moral vision.
An awareness of the limitation of reason, or really any one individual’s capacity to reason in a divinely inspired way is not, however, to dismiss the true nature of objective facts in a given situation. As Karl Popper (‘On the Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance’ (1962)) points out:
belief in the possibility of a rule of law, of justice, and of freedom, can hardly survive the acceptance of an epistemology which teaches that there are no objective facts; not merely in this particular case, but in any other case; and that the judge cannot have made a factual mistake because he can no more be wrong about the facts than he can be right.
Therefore, dogmatism of all kinds – especially couched in religious terms – should be excluded, but we must also accept facts insofar as we are capable of ascertaining these, using the intellectual tools inherent in science and history that have served public intellectuals through the ages.
Extremism of Our Times
Where divine revelation is treated by true believers as factual is truly dangerous. Thus moral philosopher Professor John Finnis assumes the existence of one God ‘the Almighty’ to be self-evident, leading to a fixed moral view that does not allow for diversity, or even mild eccentricity, within our private lives.
In recent writings, Finnis illustrates a dominant extremism of our time. Marriage is for him exclusively between a man and a woman. Therefore, gay marriage is not a good. Furthermore, marriage involves sexual congress, which has as its aim the production of children. Not sex for the sake of having sex, but only for conception. Thus, Finnis considers homosexual congress and sex outside marriage as intrinsically shameful, immoral and harmful.
Some argue that he derives such normative conclusions about homosexual relationships from factual premises of heterosexual physical contact. Moreover, in the civilised world, many of the practices Finnis sanctions are considered by homosexual and heterosexual couples both within and outside of marriage as part of normal sexual congress and behaviour.
The issue highlights how sexuality has warped contemporary Christianity, negating more important issues around the real suffering of human beings in this world, a concern that Pope Francis is at least beginning to address. In his latest encyclical Fratelli Tutti (‘All Brothers, 2020) Francis condemns, ‘a concept of popular and national unity influenced by various ideologies … creating new forms of selfishness and a loss of the social sense under the guise of defending national interests.’
Shaming Culture
The advent of shaming culture as opposed to a justice culture, involves the demonisation of others and is a reversion to social primitivism, akin to burning witches at the stake, or René Girard’s idea of the reconciliatory victim or scapegoat. It is allied to a rise in Populist hysteria and religious mania.
The leading contemporary Jewish philosopher in the U.K., Jonathan Sacks, in a balanced way seeks to exonerate religious belief from its critics. In God’s Name (2016) is a defence of religion in terms of the values it produces. Sacks rails against extremism, a theme he revisits in Morality (2020), where he outlines positive religious values, including a focus on dignity, associative levels of responsibility, community and a sense of public service and the common good.
Jonathan Sacks
Christian jihadism encompasses such forays as the invasion of South America by Spanish Conquistadors and the Crusades, leading to mass slaughter and the destruction of indigenous civilizations. In modern times the Blairite justification, couched in Christian terms, for the war on Iraq was also used to mask narrow self-interest in oil.
Sacks equates altruistic evil with the thinking within the neoconservative group, wherein we are considered good and those outside our group are evil. This leads to the arrogant assumption that we are doing it for ‘their’ own good, killing multitudes will pave the way for democracy.
Crusades, whether modern or ancient, are invariably cloaked in the garment of religious ideology, but are really about resources and the ruthless pursuit of self-interest. They also still permit mass murder. The connection between religion and unbridled capitalism has long been evident, and is, alas, woven into the fabric of institutionalised religion.
All of these examples are truisms historically about the search of the Church and its believers or fellow travellers for gold and money – the Kingdom of Mammon, as opposed to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Both Christopher Hitchens, and indeed Richard Dawkins, have written extensively about the new forms of religious extremes we are witnessing, with the finger of blame primarily being pointed at Islam. That religion of course provides graphic examples of brutal beheadings, mass executions, stoning to death for adultery, planes hitting the Twin Towers, as well as the murder of journalists. All of this is unconscionable, but much of the rage can be traced to neo-imperialism in the Middle East, culminating in the invasion of Iraq. Christopher Hitchens’s greatest intellectual error was to support the Bush-Blair invasion of Iraq.
Power Vacuum
So what is the root cause of Islamic extremism and Evangelical and Catholic extremism?
Blame is rightly attached to the misguided and illegal wars in Iraq, and going all the way back to the 1920s, the creation of client regimes in the Middle East. The unintended consequences of the occupation of Iraq led to a power vacuum in Syria, which gave an opportunity to well organized religiously inspired militants.
This, however, was the culmination of long-term trends within Islam, wherein successive generations had been radicalized by preachers who exploited a loss of identity in the face of Western consumerism, segregation and enduring poverty.
In Marxist terms, religious fundamentalism can be traced to growing disparities of wealth and structural inequality, as well as a lack of opportunities to gain a rounded education, with all too great an emphasis on technical or scientific education for economic advancement, as opposed to a broad liberal education that inculcates critical thinking.
Primarily, however, this extremism speaks of a need to belong to a cause, leading to belief in something ethereal, no matter how ludicrous. Belief in an afterlife defines people’s existences and justifies, as far as they are concerned, even self-immolation.
But the secularist response in France especially – under the aggressive application of laïcité – to ban or regulate the wearing of the burka or nijab, upheld in the European Court of Human Rights in the SAS case, only appears to inflame the issue. This is really little more than a sideshow to a wider collapse in values.
A Group of Women Wearing Burkas. Afghanistan women wait outside a USAID-supported health care clinic, Afghanistan, 2003.
As the wheels come off the economic system as we know it, and where people are searching for words and expressions to convey their understanding of the withering of societal bonds, extremist Christianity has stepped into the void to provide solace.
In the United States, at least, we are seeing an unholy synergy developing between Evangelical Christians and right-wing Catholicism. Far-right demagogues, led by Trump, have articulated a view that ‘our’ country is being overrun by immigrants and that the dominant ethnic group must ‘take back control’ from a phantom intellectual Marxism, liberal elites, or straight socialism – all emanating from the decadence of the mixed race cosmopolis.
This a descent into the racist abyss, where those we disagree with are scapegoated and targeted. It is a product of a dangerous dualistic mode of thinking, which Sacks identifies with a need to define God in relation to the Satan residing in others. This is the demonisation of those we disagree with, which is also evident in social media vilification.
Real Suffering
The suffering expressed through religion is the genuine sigh of oppressed creatures. In Marxist terms, the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
In a world of poverty, of diminishing resources and human degradation the appeal of an afterlife is obvious. What the Christian far-right in the United States and elsewhere offer is the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, which involves a veneer of protection against the unbelievers. This leads to isolation of the righteous few in gated communities, segregating the chosen people from the disaster they have inflicted on others.
The pandemic has led to the recrudescence of a millenarian ethos and sense of doom that is creating a society not dissimilar to that found in Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, enforced against men and women alike.
The philandering Donald Trump is merely a front man for larger interests, who control the puppet on the chain. He dances to the beat of the dark money of the Republican Party, appointing the Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court was his parting gift.
End of Days
Another hallmark of the present distorted religious influence of the neoliberal world order is the denial of climate change, and the employment of post-truth reasoning – the denial of objective facts underpinning the rule of law as Karl Popper saw it – to justify this.
The Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli, in his simple and illuminating Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, closes his account, with a reflection on how centuries of discoveries affect an understanding of ourselves. While generally positive, one stark passage stands out for its relevance to the challenge of addressing climate change.
I believe our species will not last long. It does not seem to be made of the stuff that has allowed the turtle, for example, to continue to exist more or less unchanged for hundreds of millions of years; for hundreds of times longer, that is, than we have even been in existence. We belong to a short-lived genus of species. All of our cousins are already extinct. What’s more, we do damage. The brutal climate and environmental changes which we have triggered are unlikely to spare us. For the Earth they may turn out to be a small irrelevant blip, but I do not think that we will outlast them unscathed – especially since public and political opinion prefers to ignore the dangers which we are running, hiding our heads in the sand. We are perhaps the only species on Earth to be conscious of the inevitability of our individual mortality. I fear soon we shall also have to become the only species that will knowingly watch the coming of its own collective demise, or at least the demise of its civilisation.
Carlo Rovelli
This exemplifies the difference between a man of science and objective facts, and those of a fundamentalist bent that place mankind atop the pyramid of Creation.
More terrifying than where Ravelli places us in the grand scheme is the end of days preacher who cannot countenance that we may indeed be just an irrelevant blip on this Earth, but instead sees the Earth as something created for us to plunder and exploit.
Cognisant of this threat, Noam Chomsky recently claimed that the Republican Party is the ‘most dangerous organization in world history’ He has deliberately corrected many interviewers who mistakenly stated that in fact he said it was the most dangerous organization in the world today.
Chomsky also mentioned in a BBC Newsnight interview that there has to be connection between the denial of science, and active attempts to undermine it, with the belief of nearly 40% of the American public that the Second Coming will occur by 2050.
Why would a deluded mind bother saving life and civilization, when it is prophesised that it will all be over soon? Christian End of Day’s logic, or lack thereof, is not so prevalent in agnostic Europe at present, but the breakdown of the social order through the austerity shock doctrine, and now the coup de grâce of the pandemic, leaves the continent exposed to those same forces, which may be articulated in an equally millenarian scientism that sees human beings as vectors of disease.
Loss of Meaning
In a 2004 essay Václav Havel foresaw much of what we now find in a piece called ‘What Communism Still Teaches Us,’ describing ‘supposed laws of the market and other invisible hands that direct our lives.’ There remains an abject lack of humanism in neoliberal politics and society, comparable in certain ways to Communist totalitarianism, not least in the brainwashing of the young through solipsistic social media.
With the loss of religious forms, however, many living in modern technocratic societies experience a loss of meaning, and even a moral void. The social structure of religions fostered close relationships and inculcated a sense of community, as well as charity, the protection of human dignity and a commitment to public service. The Bible injuncts kindness towards strangers, and to do unto others as you would wish them to do to you, which also derives from Aristotelian philosophy.
To rectify contemporary problem such as poverty and environmentaldegradation, undoubtedly we need to shift from a conception of ‘I’ to ‘we’ as Sacks argues.
In The Godless Gospel, Julian Baggini also calls for a form of religion shorn of hatred for our age, where we develop personal and social goods through deeds not pious words. Through this we may realise our best intentions and develop empathy and compassion, a commitment to personal humility and an obligation and commitment to the truth. Above all we should try and do as little harm as possible he asserts.
All of these are good values that Christianity may teach to those of a secular persuasion lacking in moral clarity.
Thus from a secular perspective, Jürgen Habermas understood how religion engenders social integration, and is the basis for communicative action. As far back as 1978 he argued, from an agnostic perspective, for the necessity of religious ideas to humanise society. Those of faith must learn to communicate reasonably, which means the renunciation of violence and extremism. We must learn to talk and communicate our differences, agreeing on facts to ground the rule of law.
Pope Francis
Pope Francis’s experiences in the barrios of Buenos Aires appears to have shaped an empathy towards those afflicted with extreme poverty and subjected to degradation. He preaches tolerance, engagement and social and economic justice. This has largely been stripped of the condemnation of sexuality and sexual expression evident in his predecessor John Paul II.
Let us hope the liberation theology that is intrinsic in Francis’s message is not tainted by the dark money of the Vatican, and he does not go the way of John Paul I, or ‘God’s Banker’ Roberto Calvi, found hanging from Blackfriars bridge in 1982, just outside the site of my Chambers.
Christian socialism is a potentially vital force if it reflects the values of what Philip Pullman calls that great man Jesus, but not the values, as he equally presents, of that scoundrel Jesus Christ. This latter is a distortion of New Testament values, dedicated to the accumulation of capital, a lack of compassion and political manipulation.
If inequality grows any further – amid ever-greater accumulations of wealth – then neoliberalism may well give way to neo-feudalism. Viewed in this regard it is easier to understand the potential for an alliance between church and capital in subjugating the masses. The Book of Genesis sanctions man’s dominion over the earth which has led to a scorched earth approach towards environmental regulations that will ultimately impoverish us all. For too long Christianity has married the exchange of goods with the exchange of gods.
Scopes Trial
In parts of American Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is accorded equal weight and validity as Creationism in schools. Children are taught that the world was created by God the Almighty in the space of seven days.
It’s been a long time coming. In the Scopes Trial of 1925 – where a High School teacher was put on trial for teaching Darwinism – the legendary American attorney Darrow anticipated what happens when a society abandons reason altogether.
Can’t you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? In addition, tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. Soon you may ban books and newspapers. Then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!
In a period of declining belief in a broad liberal education, and where the art-repeneur has taken over from true artists, there is a desperation for something to cling on to, whether Creationism, neoliberalism or even scientism. We are living in an age of pervasive ignorance, which can be traced to our putative higher educational institutions, where students are taught to believe and comply. Or as Foucault would have it, punishment is becoming internalized through control vectors.
Lost in all of this is the message of Christian socialists such as Pope Francis, Sacks, and even their ideological fellow-traveller Habermas. This is a form of Christian decency that reflects the needs of human beings battling for survival in an increasingly hostile environment, where adequate nutrition, shelter, health care, education, housing and even dignity are denied.
Thus organised religions appear to be experiencing an existential battle between the neoliberals and Christian socialists. Exclusionary family values that are a hallmark of religious neoliberalism conceal a corporate existence and controlled sexuality. Its tenets are designed to diminish any radicalisation among the young.
But let us hope a new-found empathy with the Wretched of the Earth can emerge, in Catholicism at least under Pope Francis, and perhaps other Protestant more tolerant faiths. This would reflect the moderation and human decency of public intellectuals in this series such as Jürgen Habermas, Albert Camus, George Orwell and Edmund Burke, all of whom in their own ways rejected the moral absolutes that lead to human degradation.
No Time to be Making Enemies
On his deathbeds the great Enlightenment intellectual Voltaire (1694-1778) was asked by a priest in attendance to renounce the devil. Voltaire considered this advice, but approaching the pearly gates he decided against doing so: ‘This is no time,’ he said, ‘to be making new enemies.’
At this stage in our history it is important to be open to all belief systems, including Christianity in spite of its diabolical history. Christianity, and other religions, must confront a dark past, but can provide moral guidance in the face of a culturally dominant neoliberal cost-benefit analysis of life. Dogmatic secularist should concede that there are lessons to be drawn from religions. These may help generate a genuine brotherhood and sisterhood among human beings to confront the real evil in this world.
The day that they killed him, someone said to me, “Son
The age of the Antichrist has just only begun”
Air Force One coming in through the gate
Johnson sworn in at 2:38
Let me know when you decide to thrown in the towel
It is what it is, and it’s murder most foul
What’s new, pussycat?
What’d I say?
I said the soul of a nation been torn away
And it’s beginning to go into a slow decay
And that it’s 36 hours past Judgment Day
As I have previously argued, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the death knell on a long liberal tradition of American judges, including William O. Douglas, the Irish-American William Brennan, and Harry Blackmun. More recently we have had John Paul Stevens, and perhaps David Souter, who went on a voyage from straight conservatism to moderate liberalism, can be added to that list.
This sad passing should be of grave concern to the world, as the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court is more important than any President. It has finally been subsumed by the dangerous ideologies of neoliberalism, religious fundamentalism and hatred and exclusion of the other.
At one level, abortion is the canary in mine shaft, which may be distracting from other equally important issues. America has had to contend with threats to the seminal judgment of Roe v. Wade before, when Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor as the first female judge of the Supreme Court. She appeared to be an ardent anti-abortionist, but flipped to some extent in Planned Parenthood v Casey (1993). I don’t think Trump has made the same mistake – much to my chagrin – with Amy Coney Barrett.
Let us be clear. The appointment of a woman simply because she is a woman is not a cause for celebration. It is another Populist gesture from a Trump Presidency designed to deflect from criticism of her judicial philosophy. She is deeply conservative and an adherent of an historical and literalist approach to the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, which is aligned with deep-seated religious and political fundamentalism.
As an ardent Catholic boasting seven children, of whom two are adopted, it is fair to surmise that she may have reservations about contraception. Her support of the ownership, possession and use of handguns – even for non-violent felons in Kanter v Barr (2019) – is conditioned by an historical approach to interpreting the Constitution. This she has inherited from the recently deceased Supreme Court judge Anthony J. Scalia – affectionately known to liberals as Tony the Phoney – under whom she clerked. ‘His judicial philosophy is mine too,’ she said.
Scalia with President Reagan in 1986.
Justice Harry Blackmun, (the author of the majority decision in Roe v Wade) realised this might happen in Planned Parenthood (1973); the light flickering at the end of his moving judgment. That light is now extinguished.
Of significant concern to all non-nationals, she also voted as circuit court federal judge for Trump’s hard line legislation on Green Cards, and will no doubt also expand the protection of religious rights, conditioned by historicism and literalism. Gay rights groups have also been very troubled by her views. Such ‘deviant’ preferences were contrary to public morality in 1789 after all, as was the presence of inferior races.
We have entered a dark era dominated by the religious right, involving literal and historical interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. A return to eighteenth century values is upon us, including the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament, neglecting to remember that Thomas Jefferson was a deist, if that. Let’s not forget that the United States required a Civil War to end the ‘peculiar institution’ of slavery that was not even mentioned in that document, apart from in the three-fifths clause that represented a African-American slaves as three-fifths of a white person for electoral purposes, in order to maintain a balance between slave and non-slave owning states.
Originalism
So what is the evangelical Christian conditioning of her mentors?
Old Originalism or Original Intent dates from the 1980’s scholarship of Robert Bork, and is linked to the intention of the Founding Fathers, or a subtle shift to meet objections; the ratifiers of the Constitution.
New Originalism (if it can be termed thus) or Original Meaning Originalism or Original Public Meaning focuses on the original public meaning of the Constitution. Which includes the unmistakable whiteness of the signatories. This leaves a measure of indeterminacy and thus discretion to future generations, but is really a sleight of hand designed to conceal much of the above.
A further distinction has been drawn between Original Meaning and Original Expected Application. The argument is that whereas Original Expected Application binds us to the intention of the Founding Fathers, Original Meaning gives us a text which we show attention and fidelity to, and which provides a blueprint for future generations
In essence, the original version of Originalism (now termed inter alia Old Originalism) contended that in order to interpret the Constitution, judges should search for the intention of the Founding Fathers. The view was a rejection of what was perceived as the judicial activism of the Warren and Burger courts, and was initiated by Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese, who argued for ‘Original Intention’ to put decisions back on the proper path of reflecting the views of the Founding Fathers, and respecting ‘democratic’ principles.
Thus, it is important to stress that from the outset Originalism is associated with neoliberal or even neoconservative political principles, not a middle ground Burkean conservative approach.
There has also been a subtle nuancing from Original Intent to Original Understanding or Original Meaning, to deal with the objection that it was the ratifiers’, not the framers’ intention, that was important, but even at the time there were powerful intellectual objections.
It has been repeatedly argued that we cannot access the mental states of the Founding Fathers or ratifiers. They might have had conflicting mental states, and their intentions are simply unknowable. Further, and crucially, it seems to me, the Founding Fathers or ratifiers had no particular foresight as to the state affairs and social circumstances that would emerge after they had departed, while the Constitution was presumably designed to cope with the exigencies of new circumstances.
Founding Fathers, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
Original Meaning Originalism
Jefferson Powell has added a further criticism, which is that the Founding Fathers themselves did not believe that looking to their intention was an appropriate approach, and that it was the public words of the text that were binding.
There is another powerful and all-pervasive intellectual objection to Original Intent, which is a dominant theme of this article: even if we are certain of the precise intentions of the Founding Fathers and ratifiers, and even if we knew they intended to bind us to their settled historical meaning, why should we care?
Why, in substance, should we be bound by the dead hand of history?
In reaction to these criticisms the Original Intent movement shifted its position. Spurred on by Justice Scalia and members of Reagan’s Justice Department, the movement began to argue it was not the intention of the Founding Fathers or ratifiers that was important, but the publicly shared meanings of the text. Or at least those shared in 1789.
The New Originalism (or ‘Original Meaning Originalism’) has as its core idea that the meaning of the constitution is the original public meaning of the document, or its conventional semantic meaning, including the meaning as changed by amendments. Such theorists then began to look at dictionaries and documents of public record to ascertain what citizen views were on constitutional matters at the time. They believed that such sources would discipline courts from engaging in judicial activism.
A Constitution Falls to be Interpreted by Successive Generations.
Barnett has argued that the text legitimates the use of the State’s coercive power, and legitimates judicial activism. That ultimately it defers to a theory of popular sovereignty in that the people gave their permission to that written text (which in this jurisdiction they extend frequently by referendum), with the government acting as agents of the people. This is correct, but it is the will of the chosen few, interpreted through the prism of Old Testament values and emergent racism.
Jack Balkin, a moderate liberal, defines Original Meaning as a commitment to the fidelity of the text and the principles of the text, which must mean different things to each successive generation; as words themselves shift in meaning over time, and the nuances of the abstract terms and vague clauses of a constitutional text shift and change.
He argues for a form of redemptive constitutionalism through the passage of history, where the open-ended language of the constitution delegates the application of terms to future interpreters, arguing that,
The whole purpose of a constitutions cannot be simply to forestall political judgements by later generations on important issues of justice, to preserve past practices of social custom or judgements of political morality, or to freeze existing assessments of rights in time. When we view these open ended rights provisions together with the more rule-like structural features of constitutions, we can see that they serve a somewhat different goal. They are designed to channel and discipline future political judgements not forestall it.
Balkin asks the question: what do abstract provisions in the constitutional text do? Are they designed only to limit future generations, or are they also designed to delegate the articulation and implementation of important constitutional principles?
Balkin later expands on the constraints on political judgement imposed by the text, but cautions against freezing political judgments at a fixed position in time. He contends that the constitution is an aspirational document and that the position of those such as Justice Scalia – who claim we are constrained by the original intent of framers or enacters – is a ‘narrative of decline.’ A “decline” has lately turned into a slide.
In contrast, Balkin argues that principles existing and embedded in the Constitution can be re-interpreted by successive generations to confront contemporary issues. Thus he argues that the class clause in the constitution can protect the right of homosexuals, even if no one at the time of the enactment approved of homosexuality.
Barret’s views on gays, immigrants and abortion suggest she thinks otherwise.
Dworkin
The late Ronald Dworkin, has written eloquently, about historicism, particularly in response to the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and the publication of Bork’s Tempting of America. In assessing the legal intentions of the framers Dworkin argues:
They intended to commit the nation to abstract principles of political morality about speech and punishment and equality, for example. They also had a variety of more concrete convictions about the correct application of these abstract principles to particular issues. If contemporary judges think their concrete convictions were in conflict with their abstract ones, because they did not reach the correct conclusions about the effect of their own principles, then the judges have a choice to make. It is unhelpful to tell them to follow the framers’ intentions. They need to know what legal intentions – at how general a level of abstraction – and why. So Bork and others who support the original understanding thesis must supply an independent normative theory – a particular political conception of constitutional democracy – to answer that need. That normative theory must justify not only a general attitude of deference, but also what I shall call an interpretative schema: a particular account of how different levels of the framers’ convictions and expectations contribute to concrete judicial decisions.
Ronald Dworkin
Dworkin elaborates that the farmers’ intent can be viewed on levels of generality and that we must seek to ‘disentangle the principle they enacted from their convictions about its proper application in order to discover the political content of their decisions.’
He expands on that by saying that Bork uses the framers’ intent inconsistently, and at different levels of generality; in a reductive fashion and in a very strict sense for the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eight Amendment (to permit capital punishment); but in a broader sense for the principle of equality (to meet the future but then uncontemplated need of outlawing racial desegregation).
Dworkin concludes that:
There is nothing abstruse or even unfamiliar in the notion that the Constitution lays down abstract principles whose dimensions and application are inherently controversial, that judges have the responsibility to interpret these abstract principles in a way that fits, dignifies and improves our political history.
Justice Brennan
On retirement Justice William J. Brennan argued against Original Intent on a number of grounds. He noted that the ‘proponents of this facile historicism justify it as a depoliticization of the judiciary,’ but ‘the political underpinning of such a choice should not escape notice,’ and that a ‘position that upholds constitutional claims only if they were within the specific contemplation of the framers in effect establishes a presumption of resolving textual ambiguity against the claim of constitutional right.’
Brennan further argues, apropos the U.S. Constitution, but of equal application to the Irish Constitution, a constitution is not just a majoritarian document, but embodies substantive value choices that are placed beyond the legislature. Contemporary courts should abide by this duty in modern circumstances.
End of Days
What Amy Coney Barret’s appointment means is that the liberal academic, political and legal agenda has lost the argument, and the Bible Belt is in the box seat. It is game over in the U.S. Supreme Court, and the interpretation of texts will now be literal and historical.
Expect decisions that are pro-gun ownership, anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-health care and above all a reinstitution of Christian evangelical rights. People of colour and migrants will be excluded as unworthy to the clean and pure. It is an exclusionary and intellectually baseless approach, but it is running America and most of the rest of us by extension.
Above the duty of the court is to keep the chosen few happy and rich. A quote from Orson Welles’s ‘The Third Man’ captures the sentiment:
If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax – the only way you can save money nowadays.
People are seen as insignificant dots, and objects of exploitation for the elect.
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg signals the death knell of the tradition of liberal American judges from William O’ Douglas, to the Irish-American William Brennan, and Harry Blackmun. In recent times we have had Stephens, and perhaps Souter, who went on a voyage of passage from conservatism to moderate liberalism. Such warning signs ripple across the pond as America sneezes and Britain catches a cold. Or rather all catch Covid-19, and Trump appoints Amy Coney Barrett before the election.
And it is abortion that at one level is the defining issue or rather the side-tracking defining issue. America has been down this road before when Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor to be the first female Supreme Court judge, as an ardent anti-abortionist, only for her to endorse to a limited degree the fundamental right to procreative autonomy in Planned Parenthood v Casey (1993). I do not think Trump has made the same mistake, much to my chagrin.
Let us be clear: the appointment of a woman because she is a woman is not a cause for unique celebration. It is a Populist gesture to deflect criticism from her judicial philosophy. She is in fact a deeply conservative alt-right human being, whatever about her personal qualities.
Populism joins religious fundamentalism with a veneration of unregulated free markets in American. Top it off with a clean cut corporate fascism and you have a signature hemlock cocktail.
An ardent Catholic with seven children (two adopted), contraception not I suspect being permitted; a supporter of the ownership, possession and use of handguns even for non-violent felons (see Kanter v Barr (2019)), something she has inherited from the recently deceased Supreme Court Judge Anthony J. Scalia. She clerked affectionately for the guy we like to call Tony the Phoney.
It now gives hardline conservatives an in-built majority of 6-3 to overturn the case of Roe v Wade (1973). Thus the case which established the right to abortion in America is imperilled and a neoconservative appointed to the bench. Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v. Wade foresaw this calling it in Planned Parenthood (1973) the light flickering at the end of his moving judgment. That light is now soon to be extinguished.
Of significant concern to Irish and U.K. nationals, even allowing for special relationships, she also voted as a circuit court federal judge for Trump’s hard line legislation on Green Cards and will no doubt also support the expansion in the protection of religious rights, which the Supreme Court has hitherto been agnostic on.
Gay rights groups have been very troubled by her views. She has gone on record and is appointed to dismantle even the remnants of Obamacare, narrowly endorsed by the Supreme Court in truncated form. Hard right-wing Republicans see health care as an entitlement not a right.
Trump’s greatest legacy according to the Senate majority leader is the stacking of the Federal courts with 217 hard line conservatives and now three in rapid succession to the Supreme Court. The conservatives understand that the three recent appointments will dictate policy for perhaps forty years and are unlikely to be impeached. So the Thermidorian Reaction has seized control, irrespective of the outcome of the forthcoming Presidential election.
To understand the ascension of such a person to me is to understand the stranglehold that the alt-right now exerts over U.S. politics. The conservative hard rightist is the new norm. Politics has shifted to the extent that even modest liberalism is equated with the dread spectre of socialism, and Trump in the recent debate with Biden can sanction and endorse alt-right fascism and thuggery without restraint, thus encouraging disparate sympathisers throughout the planet and in the U.K..
In terms of judicial philosophy, following her mentor Scalia, she is a strict constructionist textualist and an adherent of original intent, thus handgun use, even by felons, is acceptable as if we were still in 1776.
No doubt she will also be well placed if rushed through quickly by November 5th under unorthodox emergency procedures on a carefully engineered Senatorial confirmation with limited scrutiny to oversee any electoral problems her mentor Trump has; or for that matter if he loses to assist in his probable declaration of a state of national emergency; followed by the Federal invocation of martial law to extinguish American democracy.
Her appointment signals not just the dying of the light, but, quite frankly, game over for American democracy, and perhaps global democratic values. This is a power grab that will take generations to undo.
