Interesting Times

[f4f3]

I took an afternoon off today to go off and do some professional development. Given my perilous position as a consultant, I don't get paid for time off, and consequently take such things seriously
This afternoon's session was at Oran Mor, just round the corner from home, and I thought, "hell, at least I can stay on afterwards and get pished, even if the session is crap."

It turned out not to be crap:

Professor Barry Schwartz turned out to be a very savvy chappie. I'd read and enjoyed his paper on "The Tyranny of Choice", and agree with many of his conclusions that once you go beyond a certain level of choice it becomes a burden rather than an opportunity, but I hadn't had time to do much more than skim his new work on Practical Wisdom and, for want of a better word, the remoralisation of the professions. I can't say I agreed with everything that he said, but it certainly made sure that I'll be searching this out again, for the first time in 25 year.

There was much chat afterwards in Oran Mor's beer garden, then Marie and I went and got pished. So it all worked out fine, then.

Comments

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you came back and said more about this here. I thought your Communism post was in part a response to this debate but that didn't seem like the right place to respond.

I'm pretty sure we've just reached the point where we see stuff fundamentally differently and we should just say 'okay, that's fine' and stop.

So I'm really not trying to change your mind and get you to see things my way, really not.

But I do think it's more complicated than you say.

Yes, I agree that there is a system effect. It's not sufficient to say 'some Christians enact doctrine in a way that's valuable and some in a way that's harmful'. Some of this is a numbers game - if 90% of priests, say, do the former then you probably have a system that's primarily causing harm, and vice versa. (Actually I don't think we can gauge that.) Some of it is an open systems thing - in a culture that is grasping for certainties, for example, or starving, Christianity (or any other religion) will land differently from a prosperous first-world country that's been through the Enlightenment.

But some of it is beyond additive synthesis. Justin (http://twitter.com/justinbrett) tweeted from Synod that '80% of primary healthcare in developing countries provided by Christian organisations'. Assuming its truth - which I don't know - that is a statement that is subject to more than one interpretation. For me to use it in an argument that 'Christianity is a force for good in the world' would be insufficient. We don't know the conditions under which this takes place and we can't therefore deconstruct it. We just don't know.

I don't think your argument is sufficient to generalise either. Some instances of the Christian church use religion as a tool of social or political oppression. Others use it to help people lead very rich spiritual lives and be of social service. Even if you could calculate the numbers - and we can't - we can't gauge the effect.

If we look back at Christianity and the world, in a hundred years, we might find ourselves saying that the conservative social policies of the RC church led to massive overpopulation, spread of AIDS, retardation of emanciation and high social cost. Or we might say that the Church's leadership on environmental issues in the US - led by Rick Warren, who is in general not the sort of person for whom I'd expect to have very much time - made a qualitative difference to our approach to climate change.

I just don't think we can judge a whole system from our experience of it, ever.

Would you be okay for me to turn this conversation into a post, if I email it to you first so that you can edit as you see fit?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

No problem at all with the posting - I will respond to this, of course. Not because either of us is trying to convert the other (to which part of me instantly responds, "Why the hell not?") but for the pleasure of extending the dialogue.