The Anglican Left

A couple of days ago, I applied for membership of the Anglican Left mailing list. I'm very exited and I hope that I don't get turned down. Their website has been my favourite online resource for a while and I'm really glad that there are such folks out there. I must remember not to post any random thought on it though, as I have no idea who will be reading it. Anyway, here's the welcome quote to their site:

"You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slums. . . It is folly - it is madness - to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children." - Bishop Frank Weston at the 1923 Anglo-Catholic Congress


(Whew, I'm kinda edgy these days, sorry about this! I need a lighter tone to this blog. Fortunately, I think I still have a couple of lighter, funny things up my sleeve and -of course- there's always ice cream, friends, my clarinet and Naked Pastor to bring a huge smile to my face!)

The picture is an allusion to Late Capitalism's race to the bottom. The Fat guys basically says: "We must tighten the belt yet further, it's so good that I get to be me"

Passing Through Wealth

Last winter, I read an ethnography of the French upper class' way of life. One thing that struck me is that the people interviewed all had this same ethos of passing through their family's wealth. They were born into it, but they did not feel like it belonged to them. Ironically, they were quite humble about the whole thing. They saw it as their responsibility to transmit that heritage.

Then I reflected about how the Catholic Church, in France at least, functions a bit along the same lines. It's wealth does not belong to anyone, members of the church just pass through it and perpetuate it. The colleges at Cambridge and Oxford seem to have this ethos too. Instiututional wealth is something that you inherit and that you pass on. You don't feel like you own it.

Although of course, in material terms they do own it, and they preserve this capital through the help of exploitative structures. But they're humble about it. They're grateful for it. They feel bound by duty to preserve it.

So, in a way, the upper class can be regarded as a parody of the land of Israel. There is nothing wrong with this ethos of preserving a common heritage. Just that this heritage is the broader land in which we live, and that the heirs are all the children of God.

As a political scientist doing research on the future of our "welfare state" heritage in the West, I'm mightily challenged by this as well...

Born on a 20th of July

I was born of the anniversary of a plot that failed. I'd been reading about the life of a girl my age who was killed for distributing a pamphlet in Munich University all those years ago. It's not like that pamphlet achieved a great deal either. Others accepted to feel responsible for the welfare of their neighbours and it was a drop in the bucket. These are the heroes we uphold. They didn't prevent, or stop, the machinery of whatever the hell is going on. When I ask people around me what they think we can do about crises happening right now, they say that we can pray.

A post on civilian courage

If indifference is not an option, I wonder what is:

1. Demonstrate on the street?
2. Press for democratic reforms so the government becomes more responsive?
3. Get as much public attention as possible?
4. Go there to try to stop the madness?
5. Support well-respected organisations that will be a pacifying presence?
6. Ensure we have access to excellent and timely information?
7. Educate people so that crises do not occur again?
8. Send letters to the people in power and to people who might influence them?
9. Network and get to know people in power beforehand so we have access to them?
10. Rethink the United Nations system?
11. Spread opinions into the mainstream?
12. Do research about the roots of indifference and "compassion fatigue" in the West?
13. Keep relevant discourses (i.e. human rights) in political debates and in the public sphere.

This reminds me of my time working for a non governmental organisation in 2002. I left because I wanted to go back to academia. I wanted more knowledge, deeper analysis, and a more holistic vision. I must admit that I've really lost touch with the ground in the past few years.

Surely they would have moved heaven and earth to intervene...

"And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against the Jews that H*tler's armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies. If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth to intervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction. They would have bombed the railways leading to Birkenau, just the railways, just once."

Elie Wiesel, The perils of indifference.

Quote of the day

"If you're not pissed off, you haven't been paying attention"
Read on a T-shirt at Glastonbury Festival

Painting by Heinrich Hofmann, "Christ and the Rich Young Ruler". Click for larger picture.