The goal of the process is either agreement from all participants, or agreement from most participants with the relative few who still do not agree being willing not to insist on their objection and stand in the way of a decision. Often, particularly in a smaller group, a vote isn’t needed to establish that that point has been reached. A vote has been taken if other rules, such as of a larger organization, require a vote.
Obviously, this is a model that can be abused if used to browbeat or wear down those holding a minority opinion. Competent leadership of the process is crucial, as is mutual trust among all participating. And the bigger the group, the more difficult it is to make the process work well, in my experience.
Thanks. And, may I ask, did these consensus-based processes result in legally-binding decisions(*)?
(*) As opposed to stuff like what flavour of donuts to put in the coffee room.
My experience with this form of decision-making is mostly in church contexts, not in political contexts, so nothing with force of law, except to the extent that decisions of a church council are binding. I’ve seen it used with things like whether to discontinue a longstanding ministry of the congregation, in which many members of the congregation were invested but that no longer served the purpose it once had. (Flavors of doughnuts are not things church councils, at least in my experience, spend any time on.)
At the first church I pastored, they had an old electronic organ that actually caught fire during a service. Fortunately, some quick thinking men put it out before there was any serious damage to the building. Destroyed the organ, though. So we set out to find another organ, something to replace the old one. At the time the old electronic organs were giving way to digital organs. The organist actually found a very decent organ, well within our price range. But, we had to bring the purchase to a vote. The salesperson set up the instrument and allowed us to use it for a couple of Sundays. No one seemed to have any problem with it, so we called a special meeting of the voters to approve it. At the meeting, there was no objection. The only vote we heard was "aye." No "nays" at the vote. You would think we had a consensus. But right after the meeting, you guessed it, there were a group that complained to high heaven how the vote was rammed through. Actually, the whole process took about a month from the time the old organ caught fire, the gathering of information, and two weeks of using it on loan. The vote was according to the constitutional requirements. And we rammed it through.
So had the complainants been present during the vote, but remained silent for some reason?
Oh yes, they were present. As I said there were no nyes. They immediately started complaining in the parking lot right after the meeting was formally adjourned.
I think the distinction between elections for rulers and participation in referendums or propositions cannot be over-emphasised, because there is a critical distinction between representative and direct democracy, the former assuming that decision-making is best left to professional politicians, who, aided by expert administrators, better appreciate the consequences of policy decisions for the polity in general, and the latter assuming members of the general public are more competent and more virtuous than professional politicians when it comes to making the detailed choices. Experience suggests that direct democracy is distinctly inferior to representative democracy on democratic as well as technocratic grounds. Indeed, as the emergence of fascistic populist parties and politicians in many places demonstrate, the element of direct democracy in representative democracies, the electoral process, can subvert the claimed virtues of the latter. When that happens the democratic and constitutional game is up!
I think the distinction between elections for rulers and participation in referendums or propositions cannot be over-emphasised, because there is a critical distinction between representative and direct democracy, the former assuming that decision-making is best left to professional politicians, who, aided by expert administrators, better appreciate the consequences of policy decisions for the polity in general, and the latter assuming members of the general public are more competent and more virtuous than professional politicians when it comes to making the detailed choices. Experience suggests that direct democracy is distinctly inferior to representative democracy on democratic as well as technocratic grounds.
I understand what you're saying. The old burkean "Your representative owes you his judgement etc". However...
Indeed, as the emergence of fascistic populist parties and politicians in many places demonstrate, the element of direct democracy in representative democracies, the electoral process, can subvert the claimed virtues of the latter. When that happens the democratic and constitutional game is up!
How is direct democracy implicated in the rise of fascistic populist parties and politicians? To take the most notorious example right now, Donald Trump and his minions obviously did not come to power via referenda, but through getting themselves elected via the procedures of representative democracy.
My first reaction is that populism accuses the representatives of being "enemies of the people", that they are there to enact the "will of the people" rather than using their judgement in a Burkean way. Hence the clamour for referenda.
Is this one of those "horseshoe" things where populists of the left and right converge? That "will of the people" stuff descends from Rousseau via Robespierre and twentieth-century totalitarians... if you oppose it this just shows that you are mistaken and must be "forced to be free"...
Stetson: How is direct democracy implicated in the rise of fascistic populist parties and politicians?
Ever since Plato and Aristotle (in particular) a tension between governmental competence (technocracy) and constitutional forms: monarchic, aristocratic and democratic rule, and so on, has been recognised. For decent rule to take place monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats, have to recognise certain realities to construct credible policies in pursuit of their various objectives. For that to be realised in modern democracies it requires disciplined electorates who trust in the leaders of their parties to defend their interests, and the competence of central bureaucracies to help them deliver good and improving public services and private goods. General elections offer the citizenry an opportunity to decide which party can be best trusted to run the business, which is a kind of plebiscite: a moment of direct democracy when the people speak. That point, in answer to Stetson's question, is where the equilibrium of power exercised by the governed, the bureaucracy and political leaders is at its most vulnerable.
Problems arise, mostly associated with economic factors, that make it increasingly difficult for the political elite of party leaders and leading civil servants to deliver, thereby weakening the trust between voters and the administrative class. As a result voters become atomised and available for mobilisation by new parties, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but no-nothing populist parties offering simple solutions to complex problems have arisen that threaten liberal democratic norms and rationality in decision-making. In the case of the UK, the fear is not what happens when Reform becomes the government, but when it fails, as it surely would, even more comprehensively than discredited Conservative and Labour Parties, together with the Liberals and SNP. What then? Can Liberal Democracy survive the absence of party systems based on a Centre-Left and Centre-Right economic cleavage, underpinned by deferential voters ?
Well, it's not like other countries haven't had the experience of having to rebuild democracy. Having to rebuild after 1945 doesn't seem to have harmed Germany.
@Lamb Chopped I can't help but wonder how neurodivergent people in a Vietnamese context handle those norms. I don't mean that it would automatically be worse, I'm more curious as to whether the neurodiversity would manifest differently in such a context. It's also interesting to note how a culture built around not asking directly seems to crop up throughout a whole swathe of countries around East-Southeast-South Asia - it's not like eg India and Vietnam are particularly similar in other ways. I know this has been an issue with eg Indians joining tech firms in the US.
It's hard for me to say about the neurodiversity--I just don't have the language well enough to be able to observe for myself, and the culture as a whole doesn't seem to be there yet when it comes to such issues. I mean, we're scrambling for super basic needs a lot of the time, and to my knowledge, Mr Lamb is the only trained professional counselor in our state who speaks Vietnamese.
The "not asking directly" thing is huge in Asian cultures--I grew up in a city where my best friends as a child were successively Japanese, Filipino, and Korean, so I was pretty well-prepared for marrying a Vietnamese! I think the biggest hurdle for Westerners to get over is the judgemental thing--you know, "Why can't they just ask directly for what they want?" Or in physical terms, "Why doesn't X ever look me in the eye?" Because that's aggressive and rude in their culture, that's why. The whole system is built around avoiding unnecessary confrontation, and particularly with a person who is higher status, or to whom you feel indebted for some reason. So people who chat all the time will revert to finding a mediator when a touchy subject comes up, such as "My son wants to marry your daughter"--this is the purpose of the mediator; a family can say a direct "No" to the mediator where they could never do that to the other family face to face.
Similarly, "Do you want to buy my car?" will never get a straight, truthful answer if you ask directly; you'll get a bunch of compliments ("Oh, what a lovely color") and oblique remarks ("I think we might have to put a new roof on the house this summer"). Or worse, you may succeed in pushing them into saying "yes" when they really wanted to say "no"--and then they'll resent you forever, or even end the friendship. That's happened more than once with churches that offered baptism to the families they sponsored to America--and the sense of obligation coupled with the inability to say a direct "no" to someone's face, means that the family gets baptized and then vanishes forever. And the church is left wondering what went wrong, because it never occurs to them that the family couldn't say no. After all, they "owe" you... (and Asian cultures tend to have a whole mental ledger going on, where they keep track of who owes who what, and try to keep their relationships balanced as much as they can. I'm not talking about money, but rather things like favors and help. You never want to have someone massively indebted to you, as they will resent that, and will go to extremes to try to balance the emotional books--often by giving you gifts they can't afford.)
But back to the mediator thing. In that kind of culture, what you need to do with a delicate question is to find a mutual friend or relative and say to him/her, "I wonder if X might want to get baptized" (assuming, of course, that you've seen signs of interest already). The mutual friend knows his/her role, and will go to X and say, "Y is wondering whether you might want to be baptized." To which X says "Oh, definitely," or "Absolutely not" without shilly-shallying around.
Then the mutual friend / mediator goes back to you and says "I do/don't think X wants to do that." And you understand that this is not just a statement of the mediator's personal opinion, it's actually a report on what X decided when asked.
Now, if the answer is agreeable to both parties, at this point you can stop using the mediator and start speaking directly ("When would you like to set the date for?"). Or if there are further delicate negotiations (such as stuff about the wedding, its costs, date, etc.), well, you keep the mediator, but you also start talking directly--maybe in a meeting with the mediator present to facilitate things. But you always start with a mediator, just in case the answer is unfavorable. At least you'll know the truth, and you won't destroy your relationship, either.
You might be interested to know that the Vietnamese language itself reflects this dynamic--if you want to say "Yes," you say, "Da phai" ("yes-yes"), and if you want to say "No," you say "Phai khong"--literally, "yes-no." The first yes is there for politeness, and they assume you know that and don't take it seriously. It's a polite noise, nothing more.
And if you get a Vietnamese speaker who doesn't understand what you just said to them in English, they will normally say "Da" (Yes) which sounds exactly like English "yeah"--but what it actually means is "I'm listening to you and paying attention, though I haven't got a clue what you just said." And then the English speaker goes away thinking he has an agreement, while the Vietnamese person is still waiting for the actual discussion to start. (The clue is the confused look on the Vietnamese speaker's face. Well, that and the fact that they will say "Da" to every single thing you say, even if it contradicts the last thing you said a minute ago.)
"Lamb Chopped" This reminds me very much of a conversation with a late friend, who was a cultural anthropologist, who said, 'You know, it's not enough to learn the language." If you know the language, making a cultural mistake is a bigger insult, as it implies you should know better.
Pomona: Well, it's not like other countries haven't had the experience of having to rebuild democracy. Having to rebuild after 1945 doesn't seem to have harmed Germany.
Remember that the 'democratic' Germany which emerged after WWII was not territorially the Germany that was defeated in 1945, but occupied West Germany from which fascist and Communist parties were banned. East Germany, however, was effectively part of a one-party Communist state in an extended Soviet empire, and was not exposed to de-Natzification and the propagation of democratic norms like its Western counterpart. Post German re-unification, former East Germany has become the heartland of Alternative für Deutschland, at best a populist quasi-fascist threat to a weakening German political establishment.
Looking at Europe more generally, the democracy which emerged in the non-Soviet west after 1945 benefitted from the banning and discrediting of fascist parties, which greatly enhanced the power of the Catholic centre: Christian Democracy, particularly in West Germany and Italy. France was a more complicated case, but the emergence of the Gaullists on the centre-right owed much to Catholic support for democratic values. On the left, the Communists were banned in West Germany, pursued their own peculiar path in Italy, and were hindered in France by a Soviet foreign policy that favoured the Gaullists. Thus, the consequences both domestically and internationally of WWII favoured democratic parties on both left and right, underpinned by a USA promoting economic revival in Western Europe as a counter to what was seen as a Soviet threat. The emergence of the European Union was seen as consolidating that outcome, but its extension into the former Soviet empire has compromised its democratic mission. Furthermore, the decline of religion and the industrial working class based on heavy industries has weakened the social bases of Christian Democracy and Social Democratic parties and the credibility of their leaders. In Britain, too, the weakening of the Conservative Party reflects a decline in the Church of England and Scotland on the right, and industrial change on hollowing out the working class movement on the left. Thus, the foundation of trust that linked voters to their political leaders post-1945 has become significantly weaker, and is reflected in greater electoral volatility and reduced participation in the electoral process.
Democracy, it seems to me, does not arise from individuals holding democratic values but social groups possessing interests that they recognise as being best protected and promoted through a bargaining process that we have come to describe as liberal-democratic. The holding of democratic values is not prior to the establishment of democratic institutions but a consequence of their capacity to deliver, whether that is stuff or the right to belong to an authoritarian religious sect. If the bases of post-1945 liberal democracy are being eroded then what are its chances of survival?
It's hard for me to say about the neurodiversity--I just don't have the language well enough to be able to observe for myself, and the culture as a whole doesn't seem to be there yet when it comes to such issues. I mean, we're scrambling for super basic needs a lot of the time, and to my knowledge, Mr Lamb is the only trained professional counselor in our state who speaks Vietnamese.
The "not asking directly" thing is huge in Asian cultures--I grew up in a city where my best friends as a child were successively Japanese, Filipino, and Korean, so I was pretty well-prepared for marrying a Vietnamese! I think the biggest hurdle for Westerners to get over is the judgemental thing--you know, "Why can't they just ask directly for what they want?" Or in physical terms, "Why doesn't X ever look me in the eye?" Because that's aggressive and rude in their culture, that's why. The whole system is built around avoiding unnecessary confrontation, and particularly with a person who is higher status, or to whom you feel indebted for some reason. So people who chat all the time will revert to finding a mediator when a touchy subject comes up, such as "My son wants to marry your daughter"--this is the purpose of the mediator; a family can say a direct "No" to the mediator where they could never do that to the other family face to face.
Similarly, "Do you want to buy my car?" will never get a straight, truthful answer if you ask directly; you'll get a bunch of compliments ("Oh, what a lovely color") and oblique remarks ("I think we might have to put a new roof on the house this summer"). Or worse, you may succeed in pushing them into saying "yes" when they really wanted to say "no"--and then they'll resent you forever, or even end the friendship. That's happened more than once with churches that offered baptism to the families they sponsored to America--and the sense of obligation coupled with the inability to say a direct "no" to someone's face, means that the family gets baptized and then vanishes forever. And the church is left wondering what went wrong, because it never occurs to them that the family couldn't say no. After all, they "owe" you... (and Asian cultures tend to have a whole mental ledger going on, where they keep track of who owes who what, and try to keep their relationships balanced as much as they can. I'm not talking about money, but rather things like favors and help. You never want to have someone massively indebted to you, as they will resent that, and will go to extremes to try to balance the emotional books--often by giving you gifts they can't afford.)
But back to the mediator thing. In that kind of culture, what you need to do with a delicate question is to find a mutual friend or relative and say to him/her, "I wonder if X might want to get baptized" (assuming, of course, that you've seen signs of interest already). The mutual friend knows his/her role, and will go to X and say, "Y is wondering whether you might want to be baptized." To which X says "Oh, definitely," or "Absolutely not" without shilly-shallying around.
Then the mutual friend / mediator goes back to you and says "I do/don't think X wants to do that." And you understand that this is not just a statement of the mediator's personal opinion, it's actually a report on what X decided when asked.
Now, if the answer is agreeable to both parties, at this point you can stop using the mediator and start speaking directly ("When would you like to set the date for?"). Or if there are further delicate negotiations (such as stuff about the wedding, its costs, date, etc.), well, you keep the mediator, but you also start talking directly--maybe in a meeting with the mediator present to facilitate things. But you always start with a mediator, just in case the answer is unfavorable. At least you'll know the truth, and you won't destroy your relationship, either.
You might be interested to know that the Vietnamese language itself reflects this dynamic--if you want to say "Yes," you say, "Da phai" ("yes-yes"), and if you want to say "No," you say "Phai khong"--literally, "yes-no." The first yes is there for politeness, and they assume you know that and don't take it seriously. It's a polite noise, nothing more.
And if you get a Vietnamese speaker who doesn't understand what you just said to them in English, they will normally say "Da" (Yes) which sounds exactly like English "yeah"--but what it actually means is "I'm listening to you and paying attention, though I haven't got a clue what you just said." And then the English speaker goes away thinking he has an agreement, while the Vietnamese person is still waiting for the actual discussion to start. (The clue is the confused look on the Vietnamese speaker's face. Well, that and the fact that they will say "Da" to every single thing you say, even if it contradicts the last thing you said a minute ago.)
This sounds very like the approach taken to dealing with requests from the monarch, particularly in relation to the awarding of honours. If the King wants to knight you, you can't say no, so discrete enquiries are made in advance as to whether the intended recipient would be agreeable.
Stetson: How is direct democracy implicated in the rise of fascistic populist parties and politicians?
Ever since Plato and Aristotle (in particular) a tension between governmental competence (technocracy) and constitutional forms: monarchic, aristocratic and democratic rule, and so on, has been recognised. For decent rule to take place monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats, have to recognise certain realities to construct credible policies in pursuit of their various objectives. For that to be realised in modern democracies it requires disciplined electorates who trust in the leaders of their parties to defend their interests, and the competence of central bureaucracies to help them deliver good and improving public services and private goods. General elections offer the citizenry an opportunity to decide which party can be best trusted to run the business, which is a kind of plebiscite: a moment of direct democracy when the people speak. That point, in answer to Stetson's question, is where the equilibrium of power exercised by the governed, the bureaucracy and political leaders is at its most vulnerable.
Problems arise, mostly associated with economic factors, that make it increasingly difficult for the political elite of party leaders and leading civil servants to deliver, thereby weakening the trust between voters and the administrative class. As a result voters become atomised and available for mobilisation by new parties, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but no-nothing populist parties offering simple solutions to complex problems have arisen that threaten liberal democratic norms and rationality in decision-making. In the case of the UK, the fear is not what happens when Reform becomes the government, but when it fails, as it surely would, even more comprehensively than discredited Conservative and Labour Parties, together with the Liberals and SNP. What then? Can Liberal Democracy survive the absence of party systems based on a Centre-Left and Centre-Right economic cleavage, underpinned by deferential voters ?
Right. But I thought you were using "direct democracy" to mean referenda. But I guess you weren't, because in the above post, you use the term to describe general elections.
But if I refuse to show up for the ceremony and avoid using the honorific titles, what does the King have besides a few pieces of paper refering to me as a knight?
But if I refuse to show up for the ceremony and avoid using the honorific titles, what does the King have besides a few pieces of paper refering to me as a knight?
Of course you can say no. It's just that it's a Bit Awkward and obviously many would willingly be slowly eaten alive by rabid hamsters rather than be a Bit Awkward. Although as @Alan29 points out there is a proud and extensive Awkward Squad.
When I was a member of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA)--a student organization of decent size at least when I was there, multi-million dollar annual budget--including being on the board we handled everything by consensus. That was on the macro (all-OSCA decisions) and the micro (each house could vote on the small issues like whether they would have fairtrade bananas only as a rule).
It generally worked pretty well because usually once all the information was known the group did mostly agree. The rare times it didn't? Well there's a particular house that spent days and days (of meals) discussing a couple famous topics (like those bananas) because they could not possibly agree. I can't remember whether anyone left the coop over it ,but there was definitely real talk of people leaving the coop over the final banana decision, they were so full of feelings.
Another it worked imperfectly was when people would bring out gossip (and inaccurate gossip at that, I was one of the people gossipped about) to affect a decision. "Gwai shouldn't be the discussion leader because they once skipped a cleaning shift." There was something else nasty they said about me too.
The way we did it, everyone got taught about the consensus process, discussion happened at meals, when everyone could come, and it was scheduled so that if you did have to miss a meal you could choose a proxy.
To answer @stetson 's question, yes our decisions, on the All-OSCA level had legal force.
To address what @KarlLB brought up, because the process was explained beforehand, I think it was probably relatively inclusive. Also, we used a weighted stack, which means that people who hadn't talked got priority over those who had. Similarly, All-OSCA and some houses also weighted their stack to make sure various minorities (mostly racial) got to speak proportionately as they found otherwise minorities got to speak much less.
I was also in OSCA, different co-op than @Gwai , but around the same time. And I have one kind of privilege that's noteworthy that I'll bring up, which is the privilege of having enough spare time to show up for discussions and elections.
And I remember having this exact conversation with another student. Perhaps growing up in Appalachia with a general "personal responsibility" culture, it seemed reasonable to me that if you cared enough about an issue, you made sure that you showed up for that particular discussion. And if you couldn't, sometimes you couldn't make it, that was life. And it also seemed to me that most of the matters being discussed weren't all that important. Admittedly I was a generally low-maintenance guy who picked co-ops because they were less expensive than standard campus dining, and I was willing to put in the four hours a week of "sweat equity" in cooking or cleaning that went along with that.
But I did have a brief discussion where another student seemed bothered by the way I thought, that maybe people shouldn't be expected to have to sacrifice from their own time to show up for meetings, or some people can't always manage their schedules accordingly, or have that much control over their lives. I think at my end, such management was seen as a matter of, yep, "personal responsibility." And having grown up with a majorly disabled parent, the gall of anyone at this land of proverbial milk and honey to complain about their limitations was...a bit much. But I think my interlocutor had a point.
It is privilege to have the spare time to invest in political conversation, and there can certainly be a selection bias in elections toward folks who have the leisure time for that.
There's more to this conversation, I can see the branching discussions and quibbles forming in my head, but I also now have to get myself lunch and start dealing with some household responsibilities. See how that happens?
...
Democracy, it seems to me, does not arise from individuals holding democratic values but social groups possessing interests that they recognise as being best protected and promoted through a bargaining process that we have come to describe as liberal-democratic. The holding of democratic values is not prior to the establishment of democratic institutions but a consequence of their capacity to deliver, whether that is stuff or the right to belong to an authoritarian religious sect. If the bases of post-1945 liberal democracy are being eroded then what are its chances of survival?
It occurs to me that in Western societies with free-market capitalist economies, it's possible to conceive of democracy (or the benefits of democracy) as being consumerised. Is there anything in the democracy store that we want to buy? On what will we spend our vote? Is buyer's remorse going to increasingly prevail after every referendum and election?
It occurs to me that in Western societies with free-market capitalist economies, it's possible to conceive of democracy (or the benefits of democracy) as being consumerised. Is there anything in the democracy store that we want to buy? On what will we spend our vote? Is buyer's remorse going to increasingly prevail after every referendum and election?
Furthermore, what of regions that simply aren't allowed into the store? Who don't even know where it is?
Also, some citizens would rather see themselves as producers than consumers, but even the freedom to produce in a high industrial society requires investment from higher ups who may or may not decide that you're worthy. Independence is a luxury that everyone is supposed to aspire to but few can really afford. And nobody wants to admit to dependency, at least in the USA.
And this ties into the sense that here, thinking on my consensus example, there are voters who just plain don't care, or feel invested in the process, figuratively or literally. And I think that is a separate problem than simple ignorance, though it can run together as "not invested" means "won't see any point in learning."
@Kwesi surely the Overton Window shifting so far right that the Tories are just too far-right for most of the Church of England to support is a different issue to Tories weakening due to fewer people attending church? Also, was the Kirk ever a particular Tory stronghold? I doubt very much that the behaviour of Church of Scotland members have influenced the Tories at all.
East Germany provided abortion and contraceptive access for women while West Germany did not - suggesting that East Germany was somehow more Nazified (despite uh being Soviet?) than West Germany is a huge reach and huge over-simplification of post-45 German politics. Operation Paperclip is not exactly a triumph of de-Nazification.
I think there's something going on in the USA too where the church as an institution is getting weaker even as the Republican movement that they fed is taking over.
I think there's something going on in the USA too where the church as an institution is getting weaker even as the Republican movement that they fed is taking over.
I would not say "the church" is feeding the Republican movement. A certain, increasingly heretical (IMHO) group of people who claim to be Christian has fed the Republican movement, but that is not the whole church. Unfortunately, the progressive wing by its overall silence allowed it to happen.
Now, however, the progressives are speaking up. The election of Pope Leo is one step. Did you hear of the Archbishop of Miami, Right Rev Winski, leading his Bike Club (A motorcycle club), the Columbus Crusaders, to the Everglades Alcatraz to appeal to the spiritual needs of the detainees.
It is not just the RC people that are speaking up. There have been other religious groups showing up at protest rallies across America. People are beginning to hear a more positive message from the church.
I think there's something going on in the USA too where the church as an institution is getting weaker even as the Republican movement that they fed is taking over.
I would not say "the church" is feeding the Republican movement. A certain, increasingly heretical (IMHO) group of people who claim to be Christian has fed the Republican movement, but that is not the whole church. Unfortunately, the progressive wing by its overall silence allowed it to happen.
Now, however, the progressives are speaking up. The election of Pope Leo is one step. Did you hear of the Archbishop of Miami, Right Rev Winski, leading his Bike Club (A motorcycle club), the Columbus Crusaders, to the Everglades Alcatraz to appeal to the spiritual needs of the detainees.
It is not just the RC people that are speaking up. There have been other religious groups showing up at protest rallies across America. People are beginning to hear a more positive message from the church.
We're not silent. It's just that the conservative church in America is more powerful. And that's just numbers.
I've been in progressive churches for 20 years. We've been at this for a long time. We just don't make as much press or get as much attention. But we haven't been silent.
And I do think the church - across the board - as a social institution has been weakening since before I was born; and it hasn't really managed to buck that trend in spite of all of its kicking and screaming.
And I do think the church - across the board - as a social institution has been weakening since before I was born; and it hasn't really managed to buck that trend in spite of all of its kicking and screaming.
Same as many -- most? -- other social institutions.
Totally agree with @Bullfrog -- I've been involved with progressive churches for decades. They have been out there with their little rallies and press releases and at times direct action all along. But they are almost never heard. Many non-Christians in the US don't even know progressive Christians exist.
And the RC archbishop of Los Angeles has as far as I know done nothing but declared a day of prayer and called for unity. He's a member of Opus Dei, so my expectations were never high.
Originally posted by Pomona: Also, was the Kirk ever a particular Tory stronghold?
In the late C19th / early C20th, very much so. The Free Church was the stronghold of the Liberal Party, and the C of S was Tory.
In fact, during an oral history interview I did once, I asked my interviewee which way she had voted as a young woman and she replied "I was Free Church" - she and I both knew that meant Liberal. The rise of the Labour party put an end to the Liberal RC / Tory CofS split, and the coming together of the United Frees and C of S in 1929 muddied the water, but elements lingered on I'd say into the 1950s / 1960s.
And I do think the church - across the board - as a social institution has been weakening since before I was born; and it hasn't really managed to buck that trend in spite of all of its kicking and screaming.
Same as many -- most? -- other social institutions.
Yep! Bowling Alone has been a thing for a long time, I think. We're all too "busy."
A lot of people say it's a church thing but I don't think it's just churches. And what has survived as "church" is mutating...
Oh, here's a big think! Pardon the essay, and it's a big sloppy caricatured mess, so if anyone thinks I'm pointing fingers at them, not my intention. I'm just trying to suss a big social shift. And I'm somewhat inspired by a book I read called Uneasy in Babylon, which was about how the Southern Baptist Convention was taken over by fundamentalists and weaponized in the culture war I kinda grew up on the wrong side of. Aaaanyway...
In the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of Christian institutions panicked because, against expectations, the big postwar influx of members collapsed. A seminary prof of mine blamed it on the social lurch of the 1960s. Another older gentleman I knew blamed it on a lot of wartime conversions that didn't stick. I've also read a theory that there was a brief period when going to church was a social duty for the wartime generation and...historically, that's actually really weird.
Anyway, membership was going down...or returning to normal...and churches who liked the church-state combine were freaking out. And so they had to adapt. I might conjecture that a lot of Christian organizations sold out to individualism in the following years, narrowed it down to a few basic teachings, and built this personalized-fundamentalism in my parents' generation. And...it worked, for a while, got butts in pews and got people to convert and feel heavily invested...
But now we're seeing the fruits of that graft and they're all so idiosyncratic and wedded to their own personal, heavily politicized "me first" salvation that it's turning to straight up theological narcissism, perhaps properly called idolatry.
Again, I know conservatives who have better sense, and I know liberals who don't. I do think this is a more conservative screw up, and will hear people lambaste big liberal screw ups (Lord knows I've witnessed them.) But I do think there's something about fear and modern "bowling alone" American culture leading to theological narcissism and the kind of mass apostasy we're seeing now with Trumpism. Honestly, it's an insult to more proper fundamentalists.
1. The Christian Denomination most associated with the Tories was the Episcopal Church of Scotland because it supported the Stuarts against a Hanoverian/ Whig-Presbyterian political and social establishment. Until at least the middle of the eighteenth century to be a Tory was to be a traitor.
2. In the course of the eighteenth century the exceptionally narrow unreformed political and ecclesiastical establishment produced splits within the dominant presbyterian culture, that led to (a) what became the United Presbyterians during the 18th Century, who favoured the disestablishment and core of the Liberal Party in the 19th Century; (b) the Free Presbyterians, who left the established Kirk in 1843 over the right of congregations rather than feudal superiors to appoint ministers. Critically, however, they favoured the principle of establishment, suitably reformed, which distinguished them from the United Presbyterians. While biased towards the Liberal Party their establishmentarianism made them susceptible to Tory overtures; (c) the Established Kirk, supportive of Whiggery. From 1832-1885 these three factions had almost total dominance over urban politics, where elections were mostly contests between them rather than with the Tories. Underpinning the ecclesiastical dimentsion wa
It occurs to me that in Western societies with free-market capitalist economies, it's possible to conceive of democracy (or the benefits of democracy) as being consumerised. Is there anything in the democracy store that we want to buy? On what will we spend our vote? Is buyer's remorse going to increasingly prevail after every referendum and election?
Furthermore, what of regions that simply aren't allowed into the store? Who don't even know where it is?
Also, some citizens would rather see themselves as producers than consumers, but even the freedom to produce in a high industrial society requires investment from higher ups who may or may not decide that you're worthy. Independence is a luxury that everyone is supposed to aspire to but few can really afford. And nobody wants to admit to dependency, at least in the USA.
And this ties into the sense that here, thinking on my consensus example, there are voters who just plain don't care, or feel invested in the process, figuratively or literally. And I think that is a separate problem than simple ignorance, though it can run together as "not invested" means "won't see any point in learning."
In capitalism, the point of investment is to produce a return. And traditional understandings of democracy embody the principle of rule by the people, for the good of the people. (At least, for those people allowed to have a say.) In this context, it's possible to envisage the return on a nation's investment, in its citizens and other resources, as an increase of the prosperity of the nation.
Conversely, in a consumerist understanding of democracy, the return on an individual's "investment" (ie by participating in a nation's democratic process) would be understood primarily to accrue to the individual. An individual might choose between a range of different political propositions on the basis of whichever tax regime maximises their personal financial situation. But if those options are perceived as being too alike, or for those people without any prospect of getting a foot on the financial ladder, or those people who rate other issues as being more important, the criteria could be whatever policies, issues (or even just promises and attitudes) matter to them, and "benefit" them personally, in the broad sense of upholding their personal values. (For the political parties offering them, these kind of benefits can be cheaper to produce - or at least the costs are less apparent in the short term.)
... So, does that make me part of the problem? Or was it my right, as one of the designated decision makers, to employ whatever criterion I wished?
Is it okay to vote in a referendum without knowing anything about the issue, but just to punish the petitioning side for pushing the referendum in the first place?
It depends what kind of capitalist democracy you want to live in.
Pomona Also, was the Kirk ever a particular Tory stronghold? I doubt very much that the behaviour of Church of Scotland members have influenced the Tories at all.
A very good question Pomona, though the answer is somewhat complicated. Please bear with me.
Basically you are correct. As a consequence of the formation of the British state that emerged in 1707, the presbyterian Church of Scotland, "The Kirk", became the established church, which exposed the protestant episcopal church to persecution. Scottish Episcopalians held the view that their status and predicament could only be resolved through the restoration of a Jacobite monarchy, which, as inevitable Tories, not only put them at odds with a pro-Hanoverian Whig-dominated presbyterian Scottish establishment, but rendered them traitors to the state. In my opinion the deep contemporary hostility to the Tories in Scotland dates back to that time.
The Whig hegemony, however, was not socially progressive, and supported a pre-1832 political system which was more reactionary than that which prevailed in unreformed England, so that pressures for political reform were particularly widespread in Scotland, paving the way for the Liberal domination in Scottish politics in the mid-nineteenth century. The Whig-Liberal coalition, mostly centred on three religious factions within Presbyterianism: (1) What became the United Presbyterians, who favoured a separation of church and state, and formed the vanguard of a gradually emerging Liberal party; (2) The mainstream Kirk, which favoured the ecclesiastical status quo, and incorporated the old Whigs as well as others; and (3) The Free Churchmen who left the established church in large numbers over the rights of congregations to choose ministers rather than feudal superiors, but favoured the principle of establishment. All these factions operated with the Liberal spectrum, leaving the small number of urban Tories to side with a Liberal faction rather than putting up candidates themselves. It was, nevertheless, not too great an exaggeration to claim: "I am a Liberal because I'm a [presbyterian] Scotsman"- but that didn't mean they could be very conservatively-minded!
1885-6, however, marks an important point in our discussion, when statecraft persuaded Gladstone to opt for Irish Home Rule because electoral reform had created around 80 seats for the Irish Nationalists, an essentially Catholic party, out of 100 in the province, who threatened to cause serious problems in parliament and elsewhere unless accommodated. For Scottish Presbyterians that was a problem because it threatened their co-religionists in the north of Ireland, who, although Liberals were strongly opposed to Home Rule. At the same time, however, they shared a common theology and ecclesiastical structure, and a distrusts of the episcopalian Tories. Also, in a more secular context, they favoured free trade, the basic doctrine uniting the Liberal tribe. Consequently, following the lead of Chamberlain, an English nonconformist, many of them joined an anti-Gladstonian faction, the Liberal Unionists, insisting that they remained faithful to the Liberal creed. Subsequently, the Tories/Conservatives and Liberal Unionists formed electoral pacts, and just before WWI formed a single party, the Unionists.
Shortly after Irish Independence, however, the English Unionists resumed a formal Conservative identity, but in Scotland and Northern Ireland they retained their Unionist label. Northern Irish Unionists never became Conservatives, and in Scotland it was not possible to vote Conservative until after Edward Heath became Conservative (and Unionist) leader following the 1964 general election. It seemed, therefore, that while in England Liberal Unionism was little more than a vehicle through which Liberals passed to the Conservatives, the concept and culture of Unionism could not be subsumed into Conservatism in Northern Ireland, and in Scotland Unionism's survival into the 1960s pointed to the importance of a national variance in the nature and social narrative of right-wing politics north of the English Border.
Reflecting on what I wrote, perhaps I should have argued that since 1945, and certainly since the 1950s, in both Scotland and England there has been a sharp decline in church-going in relation both to the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, which have had consequences for their role in cementing the culture of and support for the centre-right coalition of Conservatives and Liberals in both countries. My post, however, was trying to make a general point that secularisation in Europe was having an important impact on social atomisation and weakening the capacity of political centre-right parties to mobilise support for and trust in party leaders. I would also want to make similar comments on the consequences of de-industrialisation for the capacity of social democratic parties to mobilise action based on the working class solidarity evident in post-war reconstruction. At the same time I didn't want to write as much as this!
Originally posted by Kwesi: 1885-6, however, marks an important point in our discussion, when statecraft persuaded Gladstone to opt for Irish Home Rule because electoral reform had created around 80 seats for the Irish Nationalists, an essentially Catholic party, out of 100 in the province, who threatened to cause serious problems in parliament and elsewhere unless accommodated. For Scottish Presbyterians that was a problem because it threatened their co-religionists in the north of Ireland, who, although Liberals were strongly opposed to Home Rule.
It was less of a problem in the Highlands, where the Crofters' Party was generally supportive of Irish Home Rule. In 1881, the Irish Land League raised £1000 to support the Crofters' fight against evictions in Skye and elsewhere in the Highlands. Fraser-McIntosh was the only Crofters' M.P. to oppose Scottish Home Rule.
North East Quine It was less of a problem in the Highlands, where the Crofters' Party was generally supportive of Irish Home Rule. In 1881, the Irish Land League raised £1000 to support the Crofters' fight against evictions in Skye and elsewhere in the Highlands. Fraser-McIntosh was the only Crofters' M.P. to oppose Scottish Home Rule.
I agree that sectarian considerations may have been of "less of a problem" amongst the crofters, but, as you demonstrate in the case Fraser-McIntosh, Home Rule was not helpful in mobilising support for their central cause. Whether "lesser" or "greater" Home Rule was still a problem.
The problem for the Liberals in the Highlands, where the face of Liberalism was the enclosing Duke of Sutherland, was the enfranchisement of small tenant farmers coupled with the secret ballot that had created a non-Liberal class-based poor peasant party: the Crofters. The crofters, themselves, were religiously divided but their economic condition minimised such considerations. Amongst the newly-enfranchised industrial skilled workers of 1885, however, sectarian considerations greatly inhibited the development of socialist parties, a feature which was to characterise political allegiances in the central belt for more than a generation after virtual adult suffrage in 1918.
As for the matter of Scottish Home Rule, its adoption by the Liberals arose from its decision to pursue a policy of Home Rule All Round to justify Irish Home Rule, rather than to placate Home rule sentiment in Scotland and elsewhere. One of the ironies in Scotland was that while the Irish-Catholic voters were nationalist regarding Ireland, they were less so in relation to Scotland because they found the prospect of presbyterian rule from Edinburgh less attractive that rule from Westminster. It was only with the secularisation of Scottish society that Scottish nationalism as independence from the United Kingdom could gain serious traction because both presbyterians and catholics for different reasons preferred the union.
Originally posted by Pomona: Also, was the Kirk ever a particular Tory stronghold?
In the late C19th / early C20th, very much so. The Free Church was the stronghold of the Liberal Party, and the C of S was Tory.
In fact, during an oral history interview I did once, I asked my interviewee which way she had voted as a young woman and she replied "I was Free Church" - she and I both knew that meant Liberal. The rise of the Labour party put an end to the Liberal RC / Tory CofS split, and the coming together of the United Frees and C of S in 1929 muddied the water, but elements lingered on I'd say into the 1950s / 1960s.
Thank you for the info - where were Catholics in Scotland, politically? I knew something of the Liberal history of areas with a strong Free Church influence.
Pomonawhere were Catholics in Scotland, politically?
Most Catholics in Scotland from the middle of the nineteenth were immigrants of Irish decent living in the industrial central belt. Most of them were poorly educated, bottom of the social heap, and almost certainly did not qualify for the franchise before 1918. Politically their allegiance was to the nationalist cause in Ireland, whose leaders normally urged them to support Gladstonian Liberalism on the British mainland. Following Irish independence, however, they switched their allegiance to the Labour Party for class reasons, and was largely responsible for its electoral breakthrough in the 1920s, most notably on Clydeside and in Lanarkshire, where circumstances made Labour effectively a Catholic party, though not ideologically. For most of the century after 1918 Catholics of Irish decent formed the most loyal part of the Labour Party and electoral coalition until late twentieth century secularisation led many de-religionised Catholics to desert to the SNP.
There were, of course, traditional Scottish Catholics, as North East Quinepointed out, concentrated in the Highlands and Islands, whose traditional support for the Jacobites made them by definition Tories, but those in crofting communities in the nineteenth century identified with Gladstonian Liberalism, the Crofters, and even Labour in the Western Isles.
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Oh yes, they were present. As I said there were no nyes. They immediately started complaining in the parking lot right after the meeting was formally adjourned.
I understand what you're saying. The old burkean "Your representative owes you his judgement etc". However...
How is direct democracy implicated in the rise of fascistic populist parties and politicians? To take the most notorious example right now, Donald Trump and his minions obviously did not come to power via referenda, but through getting themselves elected via the procedures of representative democracy.
Is this one of those "horseshoe" things where populists of the left and right converge? That "will of the people" stuff descends from Rousseau via Robespierre and twentieth-century totalitarians... if you oppose it this just shows that you are mistaken and must be "forced to be free"...
Ever since Plato and Aristotle (in particular) a tension between governmental competence (technocracy) and constitutional forms: monarchic, aristocratic and democratic rule, and so on, has been recognised. For decent rule to take place monarchs, aristocrats, and democrats, have to recognise certain realities to construct credible policies in pursuit of their various objectives. For that to be realised in modern democracies it requires disciplined electorates who trust in the leaders of their parties to defend their interests, and the competence of central bureaucracies to help them deliver good and improving public services and private goods. General elections offer the citizenry an opportunity to decide which party can be best trusted to run the business, which is a kind of plebiscite: a moment of direct democracy when the people speak. That point, in answer to Stetson's question, is where the equilibrium of power exercised by the governed, the bureaucracy and political leaders is at its most vulnerable.
Problems arise, mostly associated with economic factors, that make it increasingly difficult for the political elite of party leaders and leading civil servants to deliver, thereby weakening the trust between voters and the administrative class. As a result voters become atomised and available for mobilisation by new parties, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but no-nothing populist parties offering simple solutions to complex problems have arisen that threaten liberal democratic norms and rationality in decision-making. In the case of the UK, the fear is not what happens when Reform becomes the government, but when it fails, as it surely would, even more comprehensively than discredited Conservative and Labour Parties, together with the Liberals and SNP. What then? Can Liberal Democracy survive the absence of party systems based on a Centre-Left and Centre-Right economic cleavage, underpinned by deferential voters ?
@Lamb Chopped I can't help but wonder how neurodivergent people in a Vietnamese context handle those norms. I don't mean that it would automatically be worse, I'm more curious as to whether the neurodiversity would manifest differently in such a context. It's also interesting to note how a culture built around not asking directly seems to crop up throughout a whole swathe of countries around East-Southeast-South Asia - it's not like eg India and Vietnam are particularly similar in other ways. I know this has been an issue with eg Indians joining tech firms in the US.
The "not asking directly" thing is huge in Asian cultures--I grew up in a city where my best friends as a child were successively Japanese, Filipino, and Korean, so I was pretty well-prepared for marrying a Vietnamese! I think the biggest hurdle for Westerners to get over is the judgemental thing--you know, "Why can't they just ask directly for what they want?" Or in physical terms, "Why doesn't X ever look me in the eye?" Because that's aggressive and rude in their culture, that's why. The whole system is built around avoiding unnecessary confrontation, and particularly with a person who is higher status, or to whom you feel indebted for some reason. So people who chat all the time will revert to finding a mediator when a touchy subject comes up, such as "My son wants to marry your daughter"--this is the purpose of the mediator; a family can say a direct "No" to the mediator where they could never do that to the other family face to face.
Similarly, "Do you want to buy my car?" will never get a straight, truthful answer if you ask directly; you'll get a bunch of compliments ("Oh, what a lovely color") and oblique remarks ("I think we might have to put a new roof on the house this summer"). Or worse, you may succeed in pushing them into saying "yes" when they really wanted to say "no"--and then they'll resent you forever, or even end the friendship. That's happened more than once with churches that offered baptism to the families they sponsored to America--and the sense of obligation coupled with the inability to say a direct "no" to someone's face, means that the family gets baptized and then vanishes forever. And the church is left wondering what went wrong, because it never occurs to them that the family couldn't say no. After all, they "owe" you... (and Asian cultures tend to have a whole mental ledger going on, where they keep track of who owes who what, and try to keep their relationships balanced as much as they can. I'm not talking about money, but rather things like favors and help. You never want to have someone massively indebted to you, as they will resent that, and will go to extremes to try to balance the emotional books--often by giving you gifts they can't afford.)
But back to the mediator thing. In that kind of culture, what you need to do with a delicate question is to find a mutual friend or relative and say to him/her, "I wonder if X might want to get baptized" (assuming, of course, that you've seen signs of interest already). The mutual friend knows his/her role, and will go to X and say, "Y is wondering whether you might want to be baptized." To which X says "Oh, definitely," or "Absolutely not" without shilly-shallying around.
Then the mutual friend / mediator goes back to you and says "I do/don't think X wants to do that." And you understand that this is not just a statement of the mediator's personal opinion, it's actually a report on what X decided when asked.
Now, if the answer is agreeable to both parties, at this point you can stop using the mediator and start speaking directly ("When would you like to set the date for?"). Or if there are further delicate negotiations (such as stuff about the wedding, its costs, date, etc.), well, you keep the mediator, but you also start talking directly--maybe in a meeting with the mediator present to facilitate things. But you always start with a mediator, just in case the answer is unfavorable. At least you'll know the truth, and you won't destroy your relationship, either.
You might be interested to know that the Vietnamese language itself reflects this dynamic--if you want to say "Yes," you say, "Da phai" ("yes-yes"), and if you want to say "No," you say "Phai khong"--literally, "yes-no." The first yes is there for politeness, and they assume you know that and don't take it seriously. It's a polite noise, nothing more.
And if you get a Vietnamese speaker who doesn't understand what you just said to them in English, they will normally say "Da" (Yes) which sounds exactly like English "yeah"--but what it actually means is "I'm listening to you and paying attention, though I haven't got a clue what you just said." And then the English speaker goes away thinking he has an agreement, while the Vietnamese person is still waiting for the actual discussion to start. (The clue is the confused look on the Vietnamese speaker's face. Well, that and the fact that they will say "Da" to every single thing you say, even if it contradicts the last thing you said a minute ago.)
Remember that the 'democratic' Germany which emerged after WWII was not territorially the Germany that was defeated in 1945, but occupied West Germany from which fascist and Communist parties were banned. East Germany, however, was effectively part of a one-party Communist state in an extended Soviet empire, and was not exposed to de-Natzification and the propagation of democratic norms like its Western counterpart. Post German re-unification, former East Germany has become the heartland of Alternative für Deutschland, at best a populist quasi-fascist threat to a weakening German political establishment.
Looking at Europe more generally, the democracy which emerged in the non-Soviet west after 1945 benefitted from the banning and discrediting of fascist parties, which greatly enhanced the power of the Catholic centre: Christian Democracy, particularly in West Germany and Italy. France was a more complicated case, but the emergence of the Gaullists on the centre-right owed much to Catholic support for democratic values. On the left, the Communists were banned in West Germany, pursued their own peculiar path in Italy, and were hindered in France by a Soviet foreign policy that favoured the Gaullists. Thus, the consequences both domestically and internationally of WWII favoured democratic parties on both left and right, underpinned by a USA promoting economic revival in Western Europe as a counter to what was seen as a Soviet threat. The emergence of the European Union was seen as consolidating that outcome, but its extension into the former Soviet empire has compromised its democratic mission. Furthermore, the decline of religion and the industrial working class based on heavy industries has weakened the social bases of Christian Democracy and Social Democratic parties and the credibility of their leaders. In Britain, too, the weakening of the Conservative Party reflects a decline in the Church of England and Scotland on the right, and industrial change on hollowing out the working class movement on the left. Thus, the foundation of trust that linked voters to their political leaders post-1945 has become significantly weaker, and is reflected in greater electoral volatility and reduced participation in the electoral process.
Democracy, it seems to me, does not arise from individuals holding democratic values but social groups possessing interests that they recognise as being best protected and promoted through a bargaining process that we have come to describe as liberal-democratic. The holding of democratic values is not prior to the establishment of democratic institutions but a consequence of their capacity to deliver, whether that is stuff or the right to belong to an authoritarian religious sect. If the bases of post-1945 liberal democracy are being eroded then what are its chances of survival?
This sounds very like the approach taken to dealing with requests from the monarch, particularly in relation to the awarding of honours. If the King wants to knight you, you can't say no, so discrete enquiries are made in advance as to whether the intended recipient would be agreeable.
Right. But I thought you were using "direct democracy" to mean referenda. But I guess you weren't, because in the above post, you use the term to describe general elections.
But if I refuse to show up for the ceremony and avoid using the honorific titles, what does the King have besides a few pieces of paper refering to me as a knight?
Of course you can say no. It's just that it's a Bit Awkward and obviously many would willingly be slowly eaten alive by rabid hamsters rather than be a Bit Awkward. Although as @Alan29 points out there is a proud and extensive Awkward Squad.
It generally worked pretty well because usually once all the information was known the group did mostly agree. The rare times it didn't? Well there's a particular house that spent days and days (of meals) discussing a couple famous topics (like those bananas) because they could not possibly agree. I can't remember whether anyone left the coop over it ,but there was definitely real talk of people leaving the coop over the final banana decision, they were so full of feelings.
Another it worked imperfectly was when people would bring out gossip (and inaccurate gossip at that, I was one of the people gossipped about) to affect a decision. "Gwai shouldn't be the discussion leader because they once skipped a cleaning shift." There was something else nasty they said about me too.
The way we did it, everyone got taught about the consensus process, discussion happened at meals, when everyone could come, and it was scheduled so that if you did have to miss a meal you could choose a proxy.
To answer @stetson 's question, yes our decisions, on the All-OSCA level had legal force.
To address what @KarlLB brought up, because the process was explained beforehand, I think it was probably relatively inclusive. Also, we used a weighted stack, which means that people who hadn't talked got priority over those who had. Similarly, All-OSCA and some houses also weighted their stack to make sure various minorities (mostly racial) got to speak proportionately as they found otherwise minorities got to speak much less.
And I remember having this exact conversation with another student. Perhaps growing up in Appalachia with a general "personal responsibility" culture, it seemed reasonable to me that if you cared enough about an issue, you made sure that you showed up for that particular discussion. And if you couldn't, sometimes you couldn't make it, that was life. And it also seemed to me that most of the matters being discussed weren't all that important. Admittedly I was a generally low-maintenance guy who picked co-ops because they were less expensive than standard campus dining, and I was willing to put in the four hours a week of "sweat equity" in cooking or cleaning that went along with that.
But I did have a brief discussion where another student seemed bothered by the way I thought, that maybe people shouldn't be expected to have to sacrifice from their own time to show up for meetings, or some people can't always manage their schedules accordingly, or have that much control over their lives. I think at my end, such management was seen as a matter of, yep, "personal responsibility." And having grown up with a majorly disabled parent, the gall of anyone at this land of proverbial milk and honey to complain about their limitations was...a bit much. But I think my interlocutor had a point.
It is privilege to have the spare time to invest in political conversation, and there can certainly be a selection bias in elections toward folks who have the leisure time for that.
There's more to this conversation, I can see the branching discussions and quibbles forming in my head, but I also now have to get myself lunch and start dealing with some household responsibilities. See how that happens?
Also, some citizens would rather see themselves as producers than consumers, but even the freedom to produce in a high industrial society requires investment from higher ups who may or may not decide that you're worthy. Independence is a luxury that everyone is supposed to aspire to but few can really afford. And nobody wants to admit to dependency, at least in the USA.
And this ties into the sense that here, thinking on my consensus example, there are voters who just plain don't care, or feel invested in the process, figuratively or literally. And I think that is a separate problem than simple ignorance, though it can run together as "not invested" means "won't see any point in learning."
East Germany provided abortion and contraceptive access for women while West Germany did not - suggesting that East Germany was somehow more Nazified (despite uh being Soviet?) than West Germany is a huge reach and huge over-simplification of post-45 German politics. Operation Paperclip is not exactly a triumph of de-Nazification.
I would not say "the church" is feeding the Republican movement. A certain, increasingly heretical (IMHO) group of people who claim to be Christian has fed the Republican movement, but that is not the whole church. Unfortunately, the progressive wing by its overall silence allowed it to happen.
Now, however, the progressives are speaking up. The election of Pope Leo is one step. Did you hear of the Archbishop of Miami, Right Rev Winski, leading his Bike Club (A motorcycle club), the Columbus Crusaders, to the Everglades Alcatraz to appeal to the spiritual needs of the detainees.
It is not just the RC people that are speaking up. There have been other religious groups showing up at protest rallies across America. People are beginning to hear a more positive message from the church.
We're not silent. It's just that the conservative church in America is more powerful. And that's just numbers.
I've been in progressive churches for 20 years. We've been at this for a long time. We just don't make as much press or get as much attention. But we haven't been silent.
And I do think the church - across the board - as a social institution has been weakening since before I was born; and it hasn't really managed to buck that trend in spite of all of its kicking and screaming.
Same as many -- most? -- other social institutions.
Totally agree with @Bullfrog -- I've been involved with progressive churches for decades. They have been out there with their little rallies and press releases and at times direct action all along. But they are almost never heard. Many non-Christians in the US don't even know progressive Christians exist.
And the RC archbishop of Los Angeles has as far as I know done nothing but declared a day of prayer and called for unity. He's a member of Opus Dei, so my expectations were never high.
Also, was the Kirk ever a particular Tory stronghold?
In the late C19th / early C20th, very much so. The Free Church was the stronghold of the Liberal Party, and the C of S was Tory.
In fact, during an oral history interview I did once, I asked my interviewee which way she had voted as a young woman and she replied "I was Free Church" - she and I both knew that meant Liberal. The rise of the Labour party put an end to the Liberal RC / Tory CofS split, and the coming together of the United Frees and C of S in 1929 muddied the water, but elements lingered on I'd say into the 1950s / 1960s.
Yep! Bowling Alone has been a thing for a long time, I think. We're all too "busy."
A lot of people say it's a church thing but I don't think it's just churches. And what has survived as "church" is mutating...
Oh, here's a big think! Pardon the essay, and it's a big sloppy caricatured mess, so if anyone thinks I'm pointing fingers at them, not my intention. I'm just trying to suss a big social shift. And I'm somewhat inspired by a book I read called Uneasy in Babylon, which was about how the Southern Baptist Convention was taken over by fundamentalists and weaponized in the culture war I kinda grew up on the wrong side of. Aaaanyway...
In the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of Christian institutions panicked because, against expectations, the big postwar influx of members collapsed. A seminary prof of mine blamed it on the social lurch of the 1960s. Another older gentleman I knew blamed it on a lot of wartime conversions that didn't stick. I've also read a theory that there was a brief period when going to church was a social duty for the wartime generation and...historically, that's actually really weird.
Anyway, membership was going down...or returning to normal...and churches who liked the church-state combine were freaking out. And so they had to adapt. I might conjecture that a lot of Christian organizations sold out to individualism in the following years, narrowed it down to a few basic teachings, and built this personalized-fundamentalism in my parents' generation. And...it worked, for a while, got butts in pews and got people to convert and feel heavily invested...
But now we're seeing the fruits of that graft and they're all so idiosyncratic and wedded to their own personal, heavily politicized "me first" salvation that it's turning to straight up theological narcissism, perhaps properly called idolatry.
Again, I know conservatives who have better sense, and I know liberals who don't. I do think this is a more conservative screw up, and will hear people lambaste big liberal screw ups (Lord knows I've witnessed them.) But I do think there's something about fear and modern "bowling alone" American culture leading to theological narcissism and the kind of mass apostasy we're seeing now with Trumpism. Honestly, it's an insult to more proper fundamentalists.
A Scottish footnote;
1. The Christian Denomination most associated with the Tories was the Episcopal Church of Scotland because it supported the Stuarts against a Hanoverian/ Whig-Presbyterian political and social establishment. Until at least the middle of the eighteenth century to be a Tory was to be a traitor.
2. In the course of the eighteenth century the exceptionally narrow unreformed political and ecclesiastical establishment produced splits within the dominant presbyterian culture, that led to (a) what became the United Presbyterians during the 18th Century, who favoured the disestablishment and core of the Liberal Party in the 19th Century; (b) the Free Presbyterians, who left the established Kirk in 1843 over the right of congregations rather than feudal superiors to appoint ministers. Critically, however, they favoured the principle of establishment, suitably reformed, which distinguished them from the United Presbyterians. While biased towards the Liberal Party their establishmentarianism made them susceptible to Tory overtures; (c) the Established Kirk, supportive of Whiggery. From 1832-1885 these three factions had almost total dominance over urban politics, where elections were mostly contests between them rather than with the Tories. Underpinning the ecclesiastical dimentsion wa
Conversely, in a consumerist understanding of democracy, the return on an individual's "investment" (ie by participating in a nation's democratic process) would be understood primarily to accrue to the individual. An individual might choose between a range of different political propositions on the basis of whichever tax regime maximises their personal financial situation. But if those options are perceived as being too alike, or for those people without any prospect of getting a foot on the financial ladder, or those people who rate other issues as being more important, the criteria could be whatever policies, issues (or even just promises and attitudes) matter to them, and "benefit" them personally, in the broad sense of upholding their personal values. (For the political parties offering them, these kind of benefits can be cheaper to produce - or at least the costs are less apparent in the short term.)
It depends what kind of capitalist democracy you want to live in.
A very good question Pomona, though the answer is somewhat complicated. Please bear with me.
Basically you are correct. As a consequence of the formation of the British state that emerged in 1707, the presbyterian Church of Scotland, "The Kirk", became the established church, which exposed the protestant episcopal church to persecution. Scottish Episcopalians held the view that their status and predicament could only be resolved through the restoration of a Jacobite monarchy, which, as inevitable Tories, not only put them at odds with a pro-Hanoverian Whig-dominated presbyterian Scottish establishment, but rendered them traitors to the state. In my opinion the deep contemporary hostility to the Tories in Scotland dates back to that time.
The Whig hegemony, however, was not socially progressive, and supported a pre-1832 political system which was more reactionary than that which prevailed in unreformed England, so that pressures for political reform were particularly widespread in Scotland, paving the way for the Liberal domination in Scottish politics in the mid-nineteenth century. The Whig-Liberal coalition, mostly centred on three religious factions within Presbyterianism: (1) What became the United Presbyterians, who favoured a separation of church and state, and formed the vanguard of a gradually emerging Liberal party; (2) The mainstream Kirk, which favoured the ecclesiastical status quo, and incorporated the old Whigs as well as others; and (3) The Free Churchmen who left the established church in large numbers over the rights of congregations to choose ministers rather than feudal superiors, but favoured the principle of establishment. All these factions operated with the Liberal spectrum, leaving the small number of urban Tories to side with a Liberal faction rather than putting up candidates themselves. It was, nevertheless, not too great an exaggeration to claim: "I am a Liberal because I'm a [presbyterian] Scotsman"- but that didn't mean they could be very conservatively-minded!
1885-6, however, marks an important point in our discussion, when statecraft persuaded Gladstone to opt for Irish Home Rule because electoral reform had created around 80 seats for the Irish Nationalists, an essentially Catholic party, out of 100 in the province, who threatened to cause serious problems in parliament and elsewhere unless accommodated. For Scottish Presbyterians that was a problem because it threatened their co-religionists in the north of Ireland, who, although Liberals were strongly opposed to Home Rule. At the same time, however, they shared a common theology and ecclesiastical structure, and a distrusts of the episcopalian Tories. Also, in a more secular context, they favoured free trade, the basic doctrine uniting the Liberal tribe. Consequently, following the lead of Chamberlain, an English nonconformist, many of them joined an anti-Gladstonian faction, the Liberal Unionists, insisting that they remained faithful to the Liberal creed. Subsequently, the Tories/Conservatives and Liberal Unionists formed electoral pacts, and just before WWI formed a single party, the Unionists.
Shortly after Irish Independence, however, the English Unionists resumed a formal Conservative identity, but in Scotland and Northern Ireland they retained their Unionist label. Northern Irish Unionists never became Conservatives, and in Scotland it was not possible to vote Conservative until after Edward Heath became Conservative (and Unionist) leader following the 1964 general election. It seemed, therefore, that while in England Liberal Unionism was little more than a vehicle through which Liberals passed to the Conservatives, the concept and culture of Unionism could not be subsumed into Conservatism in Northern Ireland, and in Scotland Unionism's survival into the 1960s pointed to the importance of a national variance in the nature and social narrative of right-wing politics north of the English Border.
Reflecting on what I wrote, perhaps I should have argued that since 1945, and certainly since the 1950s, in both Scotland and England there has been a sharp decline in church-going in relation both to the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, which have had consequences for their role in cementing the culture of and support for the centre-right coalition of Conservatives and Liberals in both countries. My post, however, was trying to make a general point that secularisation in Europe was having an important impact on social atomisation and weakening the capacity of political centre-right parties to mobilise support for and trust in party leaders. I would also want to make similar comments on the consequences of de-industrialisation for the capacity of social democratic parties to mobilise action based on the working class solidarity evident in post-war reconstruction. At the same time I didn't want to write as much as this!
1885-6, however, marks an important point in our discussion, when statecraft persuaded Gladstone to opt for Irish Home Rule because electoral reform had created around 80 seats for the Irish Nationalists, an essentially Catholic party, out of 100 in the province, who threatened to cause serious problems in parliament and elsewhere unless accommodated. For Scottish Presbyterians that was a problem because it threatened their co-religionists in the north of Ireland, who, although Liberals were strongly opposed to Home Rule.
It was less of a problem in the Highlands, where the Crofters' Party was generally supportive of Irish Home Rule. In 1881, the Irish Land League raised £1000 to support the Crofters' fight against evictions in Skye and elsewhere in the Highlands. Fraser-McIntosh was the only Crofters' M.P. to oppose Scottish Home Rule.
I agree that sectarian considerations may have been of "less of a problem" amongst the crofters, but, as you demonstrate in the case Fraser-McIntosh, Home Rule was not helpful in mobilising support for their central cause. Whether "lesser" or "greater" Home Rule was still a problem.
The problem for the Liberals in the Highlands, where the face of Liberalism was the enclosing Duke of Sutherland, was the enfranchisement of small tenant farmers coupled with the secret ballot that had created a non-Liberal class-based poor peasant party: the Crofters. The crofters, themselves, were religiously divided but their economic condition minimised such considerations. Amongst the newly-enfranchised industrial skilled workers of 1885, however, sectarian considerations greatly inhibited the development of socialist parties, a feature which was to characterise political allegiances in the central belt for more than a generation after virtual adult suffrage in 1918.
As for the matter of Scottish Home Rule, its adoption by the Liberals arose from its decision to pursue a policy of Home Rule All Round to justify Irish Home Rule, rather than to placate Home rule sentiment in Scotland and elsewhere. One of the ironies in Scotland was that while the Irish-Catholic voters were nationalist regarding Ireland, they were less so in relation to Scotland because they found the prospect of presbyterian rule from Edinburgh less attractive that rule from Westminster. It was only with the secularisation of Scottish society that Scottish nationalism as independence from the United Kingdom could gain serious traction because both presbyterians and catholics for different reasons preferred the union.
Thank you for the info - where were Catholics in Scotland, politically? I knew something of the Liberal history of areas with a strong Free Church influence.
Most Catholics in Scotland from the middle of the nineteenth were immigrants of Irish decent living in the industrial central belt. Most of them were poorly educated, bottom of the social heap, and almost certainly did not qualify for the franchise before 1918. Politically their allegiance was to the nationalist cause in Ireland, whose leaders normally urged them to support Gladstonian Liberalism on the British mainland. Following Irish independence, however, they switched their allegiance to the Labour Party for class reasons, and was largely responsible for its electoral breakthrough in the 1920s, most notably on Clydeside and in Lanarkshire, where circumstances made Labour effectively a Catholic party, though not ideologically. For most of the century after 1918 Catholics of Irish decent formed the most loyal part of the Labour Party and electoral coalition until late twentieth century secularisation led many de-religionised Catholics to desert to the SNP.
There were, of course, traditional Scottish Catholics, as North East Quinepointed out, concentrated in the Highlands and Islands, whose traditional support for the Jacobites made them by definition Tories, but those in crofting communities in the nineteenth century identified with Gladstonian Liberalism, the Crofters, and even Labour in the Western Isles.