> Well, you're not exactly typical of Six County Catholics, Jason! At
> least not the ones I know (and I know quite a few of them). But the
> fact that you were shown anti-abortion videos at all is exactly the
> kind of indoctrination I'm talking about - in the other countries I
> mentioned, the majority of teenagers aren't shown these videos,
> because in those countries the majority of teenagers don't go to
> Catholic schools. Can I prove that there is a link between the fact
> that they are showed those videos (and other such propaganda) here,
> and the high rate of anti-abortionism even among the political left -
> no I can't. But it would be counterintuititve to think that there
> wasn't a link.
Perphas not and I'm not an actual bona fide Catholic, though I would qualify as one if I was still in the North under the rules of the official sectarian headcount.
I don't deny that it's one-sided to have been shown such videos but I think you're underestimating the doctine of free will. Are you a Protestant, perchance? I jest, but seriously, people are not automatons. By all means get the Church out of the schools. You'd have my full support, no matter how meaningless that might be, on such a campaign. Despite this I still think the following is true: "Say what you like about the Catholic church's involvement in education, but bear in mind that it was the only option seriously open to children from poorer Catholic families. It provided a decent education for working class children of what was effectively, up until the 1970s at least, a suppressed caste in a society openly hostile not only to their political aspirations, but oftentimes even their corporeal existence. No matter what the priests and nuns may have thought (and may still think, for all I care), Catholic education was a means to an end - it should not be raised up to the status of being an end in its own right." Obviously a Northern issue.
Anyway, though certainly not in the majority by any stretch of the imagination I'm not sure I'm as atypical as you might imagine. (On the other hand, I am always disturbed/amazed/amused by young people 'crossing themselves' when you pass a chirch in a taxi on the Falls Road.)
Last year Polly Toynebee wrote: "In Northern Ireland, where most schools are breeding grounds for religious sectarianism, the few nondenominational schools are hugely oversubscribed - but sectarian politicians prevent more opening for fear of losing their tribes."
This simplistic reading irritated me enough to respond: "Well I for one am not convinced by that argument. During my time at school I was not, as the more paranoid elements of Northern Irish society would have you believe, taught to hate Protestants, nor was I taught armed insurrectionism or any of the other fearful shibboleths of unionist consciousness. What my education created was an atheist and, hopefully, a critical thinker. Mainly, though, it seemed to create solicitors, quantity surveyors and other members of minor professions. The 'New Catholic middle classes', as it is now fashionable to refer to. Of course, by the time I was attending there were only a handful of the befrocked perfidious quasi-sacredotal interlopers remaining on the teaching staff and I was never taught by any of them. Today, there are none - even the headmaster is a 'civilian', as it were. Doubtlessly the religious separatism practised in the north of Ireland has destructive consequences, but any sectarianism that is bred in schools is likely a result of the lack of inter-community socialisation and not lessons about the optimal distance between one's eyes given by tribal leaders. Such narrowed experience probably plays a part in the subsequent reinforcing of the idiotic ethno-religious dimension which Northern Irish politics has taken on, but Northern Irish schools are also segregated in other ways: often by gender, by class, by academic ability and so on."
Obviously this doesn't directly correlate to the South and I was making the point that the growth of "faith schooling" in Britain has very little to do with faith and an awful lot to do with the desire for selection, however my main point in, er, presenting you with a reading of the texts is that I think that today's much commented-upon growth in fundamentalist and fundamentalist-lite thinking is overstated and the conclusions drawn about it are often specious.
> I'm not sure there's really a difference, in practical terms.
What I mean is that I think their direct political influence is severly waning - Bishop Bob phones up Terry the TD and say 'We'll have none of that, now Terry!" That kind of thing.
That a majority of Irish people, I would guess, still hold (some) conservative views on personal morality (or whatever one might like to call it) is regrettable and largely the work of the priest-ridden society of the past. But with those priests no longer respected, how long before this changes? Of course, I don't want to be deterministic - or predestinationist, if you like - about it and do think pressure needs to be applied to get people to change their minds. But I do think there is an opening.
In fact, far from strict morality being a vote-winner, among the chattering classes here in in sunny old south Dublin all I can see as far as politics goes is obsession about stamp duty, whinging about the (admittedly dreadful) health "service", vague environmentalism, fights over car clamping and a good deal of local NIMBYism. I can't speak for other areas of the country, or even other areas of Dublin as I have been living in a bubble consisting of Dun Laoghaire and Belfast for the last nine months.
More broadly, I do think that Ireland has been transformed. My family are from Dublin and there is no comparison between the town of my childhood and now. Crass economic materialism and a nation of shoppers is a lot better than a nation of weeping statue-infatuated peasants and does, in my opinion, offer an opening for the presentation of a positive vision of humanist materialism.
> Well, that was my point. The Church's teachings on abortion are
> pervasive enough in this country that their morality has been
> indoctrinated even into people who wouldn't consider themselves
> religious.
See above.
I know someone who'd agree with you. He was a Christian fundamentalist and green activist that I met at a building show recently. I didn't know he was a fundamentalist until I mentioned that Ireland's approach to abortion was backward and stupid. Of course, he delighted in this whereas you (and I) would lament it. For my money, I don't think people have thought much about it in a long time.
Forinstance, a pro-choice friend of mine (also educated by men in skirts in the North) is not in favour the woman's right to choose. How can this be? Simple, he thinks it should be a discussion between the parents. Pro-choice lite. To me that indicates a failure to have considered the issue properly, or at least a cop-out.
> Activists on both sides have been pretty quiet lately, admittedly .
> That is starting to change on the pro side though - the email I sent
> you off-list referenced a new pro-choice activist group which just
> formed this year and is determined to revive 1980s style radicalism on
> it. You can bet the antis will follow suit eventually.
Well, good. A fight about this might just bring the politics back into politics. As for the antis, I think they're more active than the pros, albeit in a weird closed-off kind of way.
What do you think the chances are of a bit of what Doug Henwood would call "elite discourse" on the issue? There must be a few PD, urban Fianna Fáil or Green voting Irish Times readers who still have some kind of vestigial liberalism luking, deus absconditus-like, in their (hell-bound) souls. Or in their wallets.
I recall a withering review of an 80s feminist activist's (among other things) autobiography in the Irish Political Review last year but I'm not able to put my hand on it right now - not that the IPR constitues elite discourse, but the woman in question was most certainly a member of the elite.
> That wasn't my suggestion.
But without faith whither religious morality? It withers, hopefully.
It would be in exercise in absurd over-intellectulisation to describe people as Bonhoefferites, but in some regard they are - at least insfofar as their relationship with the man who lives in the clouds is dictated by their own interpretation of what it means to be good rather than observence of the latest fun-packed epilistory of Benedict XVI or his Irish legation. That self-identified Catholics should profess a personal relationship with god, albeit one that usually consists solely of vague belief and total non-observance, is staggering. Even among those who enjoy nosebagging wafers and having dirty great thumprints impressed on thier brows, meaningful religious belief appears to me to be rare.
Your sins have been forgiven, The Bishop of Babel.