[lbo-talk] Catholicism, was Re: blacks about as morally conservative as Republicans

[Carrol Cox]

One of the things that Engels got right was his denial that ideas have a
history of their own. To ascribe any concrete social idea to another
idea (opposition to abortion to belief in the Trinity) must assume (a)
that ideas have a history of their own, independently of social
relations and (b) that there is an automatic or necessary relationship
between ideas and actions. This obstructs analysis and practice. The
Church denounces abortion on grounds of conflict with dogma. Church
members believe they believe that dogma, but that does not tell us how
they interpret that dogma. They may also claim/believe that the dogma
they believe conflicts with abortion. And of course many will then both
oppose abortion for others and refrain from it ghemselvesd: BUT THAT
RELATION IS NOT A NECESSARY ONE! First, it is obvious that _some_ Church
members do _not_ oppose abortion. It has also always been obvious that
_some_ Church members do not accept all the dogmas of the Church but do
not leave the Church; they simply keep quiet about tyheir 'disbelief.'
The proportion of believers whose belief contains these conflicts (among
beliefs and between beliefs and action, beliefs and political judgment,
etc) varies greatly from time to time and from place to place.

What this amounts to is social explanation  cannot rest on identifying
beliefs (religius, moral, what have you) but rather must try to e xplain
the social relations which are the context for the acceptance or
non-acceptance of beleif _and_ the ways in which beliefs is translated
into action.

A useful analysis of the relationship between principles (belief) and
jusgment/action is to be found in Elizabeth Bennet's analysis, after
reading Darcy's letter, of her fromer judgment of Wickham, her
conclusion being that she should not have needed the information
provided in that letter to reach a negative judgment had she applied her
own principles to what she _did_ know, but that various factors
prevented her from making a principled judgment. It happens all the
time. of 

Carrol