General Napier's Cultural Relativism

[danieldwilliam]

On the subject of the Pope I am cross.

 

I understand more, thanks to F4F3, the Truth that the Catholic Church might (or might not) be working to; that sinners are to be loved and not punished. Perhaps you can’t judge one culture by the standards of another and perhaps cultures are self-referential.

 

However, it feels like a whitewash to me. It feels like a convenient excuse for the Church to not effectively protect people in it’s care and to avoid scandal, loss of face and monetary loss and the organisational disruption of having to sack lots of your middle management. Oh, that and the fact that before these people started touching children, they were apparently touched by God.

 

Where I get to, where I usually get to with self-referential cultures is General Charles Napier on suttee

 

“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours”

 

Anyone who has ever read any Nazi jurisprudence will know that they could justify the most brutul and flagrant abuses of humanity in a neatly self-referential system, where orders flowed from the top, from a man who had a meta-physical link with a Great Thing. Didn’t stop us hanging the bastards in 1948.

Comments

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Actually, I found the religious view worryingly easy to express, given my much trumpetted agnosticism (not the time or place, but I have VIEWS about religion, views about god, and the twain rarely meet).

Have you heard of Godwin's law? I almost invoked it on you last night - roughly, it translates as he who first mentions the Nazis loses ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law ).

It's worth mentioning that we also are ruled by someone anointed by God, viz. Liz Battenburg von Cuckoo Clock. So long as our supreme ruler (without whom no law can be passed) is held to have a divine right to govern, we're all sitting in a green house.

Whoever made the point that it's too soon to judge how the church is cleaning its stables had a point - an organisation that's 2,000 years old won't change course quickly or easily. On the other hand, if they want to operate outside Vatican City, then anyone committing a crime should be dealt with according to law, and anyone concealing a crime should also be prosecuted.

So you, me and General Napier are all in agreement...

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I heard you muttering darkly about Godwin’s law.

I would distinguish myself on the grounds that I was not comparing the Catholic Church to Nazi Germany but comparing our reactions to two organisations / philosophies / belief systems that claim a self divined divine right that makes them somehow separate from the rest of jurisprudence. My reference, therefore, being to Western jurisprudence’s reaction to alien juridictions, me lud.

Also, I would plead the special defence of appropriate comparison.

I see your green house. I suspect the difference is that if pressed at axe point Her Maj would not insist on the point that she ruled anything by divine right. This is surmise on my part. As she is largely symbolic I suspect we won’t find out, tho’ I have high hopes that her son may provide some sport along that line.