-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The current Archbishop of Chicago, Francis George (left), recognizes the “difficulty of public discussion … is that the political is the highest level of public discourse.” In explaining the Catholic Church’s concern with the HHS mandate regarding contraception. His Eminence said the first question to ask is: “Is it true or false?”
The product of reason is truth. British philosopher, John Stuart Mill, defined logic “as the science which treats of the operations of the human understanding in the pursuit of truth.”
George told members of the Union League Club of Chicago that offering birth control is “operating with evil,” and that:
the Church may otherwise sell its hospitals, pay penalties, or in a last resort, close them altogether, rather than offer birth control.
In George’s argument, he commits the logical fallacy of ad baculum, the Appeal to Fear. It is a well known tactic when your conclusions cannot be reached through logical reasoning. The use of the Appeal to Fear tactic is an admission by George that his conclusions are not sound.
As an example of an Appeal to Reason, Eleanor Schwarz, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said:
When we keep it within the purely health-and-science realm, we understand it saves people’s lives. All available contraceptives are much safer for women’s health than an undesired pregnancy.
George’s primary concern is obviously not women’s health. His primary concern is his church’s health and well-being. Contraception lowers birth rates and fewer babies means fewer potential Catholics. George does not trust women to make the pregnancy decision for themselves.
And, if you read his wikipedia description then you wonder why anyone would show up in an assemblage to listen to this fat head Irish Catolic unless they were assembled in a prison.
I can understand how those who were brainwashed at birth, and at baptism, are warped and will stay in the flock, but I cannot believe that single creature on earth would join this flock after reading the diatribe by this fathead George guy.
Nal,
My question for you are:
Do you consider “The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism” economic, philosophical or both? How do you reconcile social negative outcomes created by this idea in implementation with the concept of virtue? Also, what do you mean by “sound”; internally consistent, having true premises, or free from flaw, defect, decay, error, fallacy, or misapprehension?
I consider small “o” objectivism to be a critical component of both the scientific method and critical thinking, but I find big “O” Objectivism to be fatally flawed because of the often anti-social outcomes when it is applied to real world situations. I’m also curious because I found “The Virtue of Selfishness” to be little more than weak rationalization to justify her economics.
Nal,
Can you elaborate a little more….I am interested……
It is connected to Ayn Rand’s Philosophy of Objectivism. It involves conforming one’s thoughts and ideas to reality instead of the other way around. I’m not interested in Rand’s economic stuff, but Objectivism is looking pretty sound.
Nal,
“Maybe some reasoning. In he’s implying all reasoning, this would imply that logic is inherently emotional. Not sure I can accept that.”
I have to agree.
Probably 98 percent of your reasoning is unconscious – what your brain is doing behind the scenes. Reason is inherently emotional. You can’t even choose a goal, much less form a plan and carry it out, without a sense that it will satisfy you, not disgust you. Fear and anxiety will affect your plans and your actions. You act differently, and plan differently, out of hope and joy than out of fear and anxiety.
Emotions can influence reason just as reason can influence emotions, but the idea that reason in inherently emotional ignores Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. While Gardner’s work has many flaws, some studies – such as the recent study concerning the differences in brain structure between those self-identifying as conservative or liberal – suggest that it is a theory of psychology worth exploring. Especially if you consider studies done of patients with region specific brain damage who exhibit measurable changes to specific kinds of thought processes. It’s Lakoff’s wording in absolutes that’s troublesome.
Probably 98 percent of your reasoning is
unconsciousunaware – what your brain is doing behind the scenes.Reason is inherently emotional.You can’t even choose a goal, much less form a plan and carry it out, without a sense that it will satisfy you, not disgust you. Fear and anxietywillmay affect your plans and your actions.That’s a statement I would accept without reservation. But the idea that all reason is emotional strikes me as wrong. Some certain percentage of people are incapable of non-emotional thought. These people, for whatever reason, cannot cultivate a sense of detachment. I can’t think off hand of any psychological disorders that fit close enough to be a good example, but some forms of neurosis and psychosis surely fits the bill. Say pathological fears. Someone can logically and rationally know a mouse cannot harm them, but if they suffer from musophobia, it can cause debilitating that overrides their reason. If either of our resident psych professionals have a better example, I’d love to hear it. Some certain percentage of people are incapable of emotional thought. For these people, reason works fine, but emotions are either absent or stunted (psychopaths and sociopaths for example) or confused (like the various manifestation in the spectrum of behavior called autism which can range from severely crippling to those who really can’t read others emotions but are otherwise highly functional). A good friend of mine has a son with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s highly functional. Very logical and quite gifted in some areas, but sometimes the emotional states of others are simply lost to him. She’s told me several stories where he’s genuinely been confused by people being upset or angry or sad about something that somebody without Asperger’s would have no trouble understanding at all.
Thanks for your reply…. It’s basically figuring out what one believes and why…. And how to resolve the differences….. Mike S probably has a better graphics on it than I…..
What do you mean by the philosophy of reason…..
AY,
Hadn’t heard of him until your comment, but it looks interesting.
I’m more interested in the Philosophy of Reason.
Nal,
What are your thoughts and or feelings about Albert Ellis and REBT? Just curious after this posting….
Lakoff:
Instead of “unconscious,” I think a better description would be “unaware.” An unconscious mind doesn’t do much reasoning.
Reason integrates perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions. There has to be a certain amount of automatic pilot involved in this process, awareness has to filter out the mundane.
Maybe some reasoning. In he’s implying all reasoning, this would imply that logic is inherently emotional. Not sure I can accept that.
Malisha 1, April 21, 2012 at 8:07 pm
Re: Holocaust Museum Exhibit on Nazi Propaganda.
===========================================
You may be surprised to learn that the NAZI propagandists learned their best from a well known American propagandist whom they practically worshiped (as do current American propagandists).
Re: Holocaust Museum Exhibit on Nazi Propaganda. That exhibit is a very cogent, well thought out, well presented expose on how fear was used (on the German people, on the European non-Jews under occupation) to get most people behind the Nazi program of extermination of the Jews of Europe. They did not use any particular facts in their propaganda. They emphasized the IDEAS (not facts, ideas) that all German problems and deprivations were direct results of the per-se-evil Jews’ insanely satanic machinations to destroy Germany and even to destroy the Aryan people as a race. All of it was total bullshit and there was not a drop of evidence to support anything. What was sold to the gullible (and angry, because deprived and often abused) public was as simple as “BAD JEW BAD JEW” and “JEW DEVIL DEVIL JEW” and “JEW THIEF” and “JEW RAPIST” and “JEW CRIMINAL” and blah blah blah. This, however, while described by me in such simplistic terms that it doesn’t even come through, is brought out by that exhibit in the most skillful imaginable way. The depictions shown are NOT RECREATIONS! THey are the posters, the speeches, and the actual primary documents from the 1930s and 1940s in Europe.
An ordinary German of ordinary intelligence — not a horrible person or a dumb punk or anything — could easily go for the Nazi story, the way it was presented, based on ordinary fears that any ordinary person has, especially in tough times. You’re hungry and you don’t have enough to eat? Feel helpless? HERE: See why this has happened to you? Because of devil Jew, that’s why. You’re worried because you can’t pay rent? Feel scared? HERE: It’s because the Jews took away your wealth.
In about 1989, 1990, I met a woman who was a naturalized American citizen, and a social worker with a master’s degree, living in the Washington, DC area. She had a good job, good reputation, etc. She was involved in a divorce from her husband who was an American, born here. I never met the man. She met me at first because she had friends who were Mormons who introduced her to me; she did not know I was Jewish. She said, one day: “The Jews have caused all these divorces; if it were not for the Jews, this would never have happened to me or my children.” I was just flabbergasted, but since I knew her through very good friends who were very good people, I felt comfortable asking her to explain her theory. Here goes: Jews buy up property. But they can’t buy up single family houses, which are decent places to live. They are buying up all the apartment houses, which house 20, 30, 40, up to 100 families each. But married couples with children, who make decent livings, do not want to live in these apartments, so the Jews end up with empty properties without tenants because people who can afford better leave after maybe a year, and then the apartments have to be filled with ne’er-doer wells who cannot pay the rent and have to be evicted. So the Jews promote divorces among good Christians and even among Muslims, breaking up a financially stable home so they have to sell their house and then, from one house for a family, you get two apartments, one for the mother and another for the father. Thus, each marriage the Jews break up results in double profits to them!
I sat there dumbstruck. I mean speechless, and you can tell from this blog that it doesn’t happen to me very often. FInally I squeaked out a question: “But how do they break up the marriages?”
“Oh I don’t know!” she replied.
I repeat, she had a masters degree in social work from a respectable university. She was normal; she appeared perfectly normal to everyone, something I could never hope to achieve. If she was a little deprived and afraid (say she couldn’t FIND an apartment to move into at the time of her divorce, or say she lost her job), how hard would it have been for her to conclude that the evil satanic Jews had starved her children?
Fear makes a person lose their rational thinking ability.
Nal is not afraid to take on serious, useful subjects:
It is incumbent on us to keep up with current declarations of the “cognitive department”, by reading current researchers:
(Toxic Bridge, quoting Lakoff). Another current scientist points out that all we sense (see, feel, hear, taste, and smell) goes FIRST through our amygdala before the 2% conscious cognitive elements of our brain ever get a go at it:
(ibid, quoting LeDoux). One of our modern illusions, myths, delusions, or whatever one chooses to call it, is that we are in control because of our sentient, conscious mental faculties, whether they be secular or of the cloth.
wedge issues for an election year
oral contraceptives have been around for fifty years
Malisha “, if you can, go see the PROPAGANDA exhibit at the US Holocaust Museum in DC. “. Please explain what you are talking about. Thanks.
Puzzling,
I’m a huge advocate for birth control and I think the morning after pill should be over-the-counter for those younger than 17 (although it does worry me), but birth control pills should not be sold over-the-counter. That type of contraception does require a physician’s care. There are health risks involved with this type of contraception especially if you smoke or are subject to blood clots. I’m long past child-bearing, but my daughter and daughter-in-law assure me that those risks still exist. This position is based on science, NOT a political agenda. If my teenage granddaughter was sexually active, I would fully support her going on the pill, but under a physician’s care. Have you considered those issues?
jbrown I dont understand your statement…this article thats being discussed is about catholics,and the fools who run the catholic religion, why would you fillin lutheran or buddist as a substitute, here in the St Louis area most of our Catholic hospitals really arn’t any more, and the few that are still owned by religious organizations, 2 I believe, are if you read their charism it puts them in the crossfire of the Vaticans latest hate mongering.
“The head of the Chicago Anti-Defamation League is calling the bishop’s words on Hitler, Stalin and Obama way over the top. He wants the bishop to apologize.” The Roman Catholic Church is well acquainted with fascism! The Roman Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII was complicit in supporting fascism in Europe be it Mussolini, Hitler or Pavelic of Croatia. Pope Pius XII was a racist and anti-Semitic which were contributing factors of the resultant NAZI and the Ustasa (Croatian) Holocausts killing millions of Europeans. After WWII, the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII direction was instrumental in establishing “Ratlines” from Italy and Spain for thousands of NAZI and Croatian War Criminals to escape to South America, funded in a large part by the American Roman Catholic Church. Notable War Criminals such as Franz Stangl, Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Eduard Roschmann and Walter Rauff escaped justice by use of the Roman Catholic Church ratlines to South America. There is the unanswered question of the stolen gold taken from the victims of the Holocausts and nations defeated by NAZI Germany, which the Vatican has yet to reveal. For example, there is clear evidence that the Yugoslavian gold stolen by the Croatian fascists was secreted to the Vatican bank.
jbrown: You do not believe that this Cardinal wants his flock to out populate the rival religions in the U.S., Europe, the World? This jibberish that he expels is popular in Ireland where the Catolics wish to outpopulate the Protees but if you go to Italy you wont hear one priest peep about these birth control pietudes. And please dont be offended by me referring to the Cardinal’s directing his diatribe to his flock. A Catholic can leave his flock too. Then the “you” wont mean “me”. At last count they were flocking away.
And that is why the Cardinal is reduced to this jabbering.
I am offended by “Talking Dogs” reference to “you Catholics” and “the Irish” and Ireland. Substitute some other faith and some other country and you will see what I mean.