nous_corpus: Jean Meslier

David (

nous_corpus) wrote,
@ 2007-02-25 00:50:00

Current mood:

perplexed

Jean Meslier
Speaking of blowing it all up, I was just reading about an 18th Century French priest names Jean Meslier. He served his tiny parish with quiety humility for 40 years, every year donating all of the residual income left from his abtemious lifestyle to charity. After he passed away, he left three copies of his "testament," to his congregation. The testament was a stunning denunciation of not only Catholicism, but Christianity and even all organized religion. He apologized for serving as a priest, and could only explain that he was forced into it by his parents.

It's hard to imagine what it could have been like for Meslier, serving an institution he abhorred for so long, spreading myths that he knew to be false, and being able to confide in no one other than his folio sheets. Was he filled with self-loathing? Or had he reconciled himself to being an insignificant figure in a immense absurdity?

Despite attempts at supression, his testament reached Voltaire and many of the other philosophes, influencing and buttressing their attacks on the Catholic church.

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pylduck
2007-02-25 02:22 pm UTC (link)

Wow. The irony of it all is that this (to me as an outsider) seems to be the story of Catholicism -- surrender yourself to the institution even if, especially if, you think it is a fraud. Only by making yourself and your individuality disappear will you make yourself right with God.

For Catholic camp last month, we had to do a bunch of readings. And the conversion narratives we read pointed to this paradox of some people retroactively being canonized and thought of generally as uber-Catholics actually leading very conflicted lives and doing things that are no-no's in Catholicism (like having sex and children out of wedlock) even while they were thinking of themselves post-conversion as Catholics.

Organized religion really is just a creepy mind-fuck.

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nous_corpus
2007-02-25 05:02 pm UTC (link)

Ha! Saltbox said you posted about Catholic camp earlier, so I'll need to go back and read those entries.

My personal favorite Catholic hypocrite is Alexander the VI, the "fighting pope." He slaughtered his way to regaining a lot of territory in the papal states, placed his illegitimate in church sinecures, and liquidated anyone who stood in his way.

It's so blissfully easy being an atheist.

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stylishbastard
2007-02-25 11:10 pm UTC (link)

It's so blissfully easy being an atheist.

Yeah, that's kindof why I'm more interested to hear from people who are engaged with reconciling these institutionalised belief systems with modern life. I get bored very easily with people who think they're winning some kind of revolution by criticising Catholicism. There are more compelling battles.
If you're not conflicted to some extent (to an extreme, in the case of the person in that story), you're not trying hard enough. That's my view.

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nous_corpus
2007-02-26 05:38 pm UTC (link)

I don't think that debates about the metaphysics of theology are very interesting at this point in the historical development of contemporary economically developed society. Most self-reflective and well-educated persons are either deists (i.e., believing in basic higher power, but not any specific doctrinal version of God), atheists, or agnostics. Of course one can be a deist and still find value in the historical and communal bonds of religion.

My area of conflict is with technological progress generally. Where is it leading us? How is it improving the lot of the least well-off? Why isn't it reducing our labor and increasing our leisure time? Why is it increasing, rather than mitigating inequality? "Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul." (Rabaleis)

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stylishbastard
2007-02-26 06:00 pm UTC (link)

Most self-reflective and well-educated persons are either deists, atheists, or agnostics

That's an awfully broad brushstroke.

I don't think we'd get too far in anything if we were to disallow the leaps of faith that can seem silly to outsiders. Leaps of faith are fine with me so long as in practical terms they expand the boundaries of the possible.

My area of conflict is with technological progress generally. Where is it leading us?

I don't think we're being led anywhere we can't get out of. Nothing is that inexorable, including progress.

Why isn't it reducing our labor and increasing our leisure time?

Isn't it? Depends how you look at it I suppose. Bentham would probably be cool with things as they are going. I kindof am too.
I think it's all to the good that you and I and others take part in a bit of Western middle class liberal hand wringing. However, just because people are more aware of global issues, this does not mean we've all somehow spiralled down and things are getting worse. Knowledge is a good thing. It's something to start from. The more people have that the better.

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wertscmeltz

nous_corpus
2007-02-26 07:02 pm UTC (link)

I suppose I'm fine with allowing people leaps of faith, so long as they don't attempt to impose them upon everyone else and don't act with intolerance towards other people's choices. For example, I'm pretty sick of the religious right in the US trying to impose a very specific, absurdly literalistic interpretation of the Bible upon everyone. Despite claims to the contrary, the US was not founded as a Christian country, because many of the founding fathers were deists and did not embrace any particular doctrinal form of the Christian religion. I wouldn't be surprised if many of them thought the stories surrounding Jesus were a bit ridiculous.

But, regardless of historical accuracy, I think those claims are beside the point now anyway. Whether they like it or not, the US is now a multicultural, mulitethnic, multireligious state. As such, we need to show equal support for different religious and areligious beliefs. I pretty much defer to the great John Rawls in this area.

As to the labor question, I haven't researched it exhaustively, but the labor statistics appear to indicate that people are working just as many hours as they did forty years ago, despite a massive increase in labor productivity. Where does all that productivity go? To increasing the bottom-line, of course. And that's the natural market consequence of leaving the market to its own devices. If we care about making sure that workers also benefit from productivity gains, we need to make sure that the government provides for it.

Are things getting worse? I'd say so. Climate change is a looming disaster, and the biggest culprit's response has been to bury its head in the sand. Hundreds of species go extinct every year. The forces of religious intolerance have joined up with corporate thieves to hijack the governance of the world's most powerful country. People cite religion to prevent two men who love each other from getting married, but ignore the parts about donating to the poor and loving everyone unconditionally. Meanwhile, the middle class is more concerned with buying the latest plasma screen tv than wondering why so many people in developing countries are dying from easily preventable diseases.

TV has destroyed people's attention spans. The majority of people in industrialized countries are getting dumber every year. Their efforts to understand, to be compassionate, have disappeared. They are easily manipulated by the simplistic sloganeering of the corporate hegemony.

From my perspective, the world is a pretty iniquitous place, and, thanks to Bush his the minions of darkness, it's getting worse fast.

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Re: wertscmeltz

stylishbastard
2007-02-26 07:21 pm UTC (link)

Whether they like it or not, the US is now a multicultural, mulitethnic, multireligious state. As such, we need to show equal support for different religious and areligious beliefs. I pretty much defer to the great John Rawls in this area.

Yes, but as I was saying in my previous comment...the very fact that the US is such a state means that it is easier for people to become upset with irregularities and prejudices and so on. It might have seemed more harmonious in the past, but that's because that status quo was (ostensibly) taken for granted as right and proper. I am comforted by the fact that these things are on the agenda, that people DO get angry about them. That's something.

As to the labor question, I haven't researched it exhaustively, but the labor statistics appear to indicate that people are working just as many hours as they did forty years ago, despite a massive increase in labor productivity. Where does all that productivity go?

What people do you mean? People in the US? I know I'd rather be poor today than poor forty years ago, if only because I feel that (in my society at least - I am from the UK) there is greater scope for that situation to change. I suspect the same is true of the US.

Are things getting worse? I'd say so. Climate change is a looming disaster, and the biggest culprit's response has been to bury its head in the sand. Hundreds of species go extinct every year. The forces of religious intolerance have joined up with corporate thieves to hijack the governance of the world's most powerful country.

Yeeees...but there are also people, people who are as honourable and kind as you or I or anyone else who voted for Bush. That's what I'd say the liberal American left (such as it is) has to think about rather than invoking the evil empire rhetoric. I have no idea about climate change. I think we'll pull something together eventually. India and China will presumably see the need to do that before we will.

People cite religion to prevent two men who love each other from getting married, but ignore the parts about donating to the poor and loving everyone unconditionally.

I'm optimistic that it'll be a non-issue within fifty years, which is nothing in historical terms.

Meanwhile, the middle class is more concerned with buying the latest plasma screen tv than wondering why so many people in developing countries are dying from easily preventable diseases. TV has destroyed people's attention spans. The majority of people in industrialized countries are getting dumber every year. Their efforts to understand, to be compassionate, have disappeared. They are easily manipulated by the simplistic sloganeering of the corporate hegemony

It sounds like you think there was some golden age, when people were wiser and kinder. I don't know when that would have been. I don't think people cared any more in the past, in fact I think they more than likely cared less, as they were less subject to detailed news from abroad. Not only that, news from abroad did not impact on their own life. It sure does now.

I think the sloganeering of the left is at least as destructive as the sloganeering of corporate hegemons because it is coated in victimhood, doomed-self righteousness and an unproductive dismissal of the evil empire. I don't want to argue with you, but I dislike all the 'minions of darkness' stuff. I don't see how it helps any.

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Re: wertscmeltz

nous_corpus
2007-02-26 07:37 pm UTC (link)

I'm probably being too negative, but it's hard not to when you've had to suffer through Bush as your president. Just imagine what it's like to be humiliated, ashamed, and infuriated on a daily basis for six years. As much as lefties in the UK dislike Blair, he's still infinitely better than the reactionary simpleton who's ostensibly at the helm in the US.

But your overall point is well-taken. Name-calling and villifying doesn't do us a lot of good, in a pragmatic sense. And it's not like things were necessarily all the great in the past. But at least I think there was a point in time when we were headed in the right direction. We realized that racism, environmental destruction, and growing inequality were pernicious influences that we needed to combat vigorously. Bush, on the other hand, represents a morally bad influence has been disasterous on every issue that any intellectually honest person could possibly care about.

Having traveled extensively in the UK, I can also say that the middle and working classes are far better informed, better educated, and more aware of things going on in the world and in their country than their counterparts in the US. I think you have greater room for optimism than we do.

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