We Hold These Truths:Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition by John Courtney Murray, S. J.

It has been a long time since I have written anything here, partly because I have been having out-of-town company, and partly because I have been busy with other things, but mostly because I have been very unwise in my choice of books. It is not that I should not have been reading these particular books, but that I have been reading them at the same time, because two of them, the Big Book that I wrote about before, and this book by Fr. Murray, are political, philosophical, and discuss situations and authors whose work is unfamiliar to me. And the third book I'm reading is a long novel wherein there is a great deal of pedagogical material dispersed within the narrative.

However, I have finally finished We Hold These Truths, and am very glad to be able to say so. I thought several times that I would just quit, and move on to something else, but I was really interested in learning what I could from the book. It was published in 1960, and that means both that some of the situations that he is discussing are very different than they were then, and that his solutions seem well-nigh impossible at this point.

Sometimes it is downright disheartening, one of the saddest passages being this one:

In America we have been rescued from the disaster of ideological parties. They are a disaster because, where such parties exist, power becomes a special kind off prize. The struggle for power is a partisan struggle for the means whereby the opposing ideology may be destroyed. It has been remarked that only in a disintegrating society does politics become a controversy over ends; it should be simply a controversy over means to ends already agreed on with sufficient unanimity.

Before I go any further, I would like to say that I am ill-qualified to comment on most of this book. Political theory is definitely not my area of interest or expertise. I am, in fact, usually disinclined to pay any attention to it at all.

Part One, The American Proposition comprises almost half the book, and discusses how we can reach consensus in a pluralistic society. Fr. Murray says that when he asks groups of people this question, they generally respond that we can't. It always amazes me that while I was in grade school (remember this was 1960) being taught about our government, and living in what seemed to be a very patriotic world, the foundations of our country must have already been getting very weak.

Fr. Murray describes public consensus as:

"a set of ideas, widely held by the community . . . that certain uses of power are 'wrong' that is contrary to the established interest and value system of the community." It is "essentially a body of doctrine which has attained wide, if not general, acceptance." This body of doctrine contains "principles," "tenets," "rules," "standards" and "criteria" of judgment on individual cases or situations.

The quotes come from Power without Property by Professor Adolf. A. Berle.

Fr. Murray also points out that public consensus has a growing end, and that those who seek it are locked in a never-ending argument.

This definition is found within a larger discussion concerning how those in power (in this case big business) can often be controlled by public consensus. The quote is from Prof. Berle.

"Observing the American scene you note that as power goes, the present concentration has in recent years been (on the whole) relatively free from the excesses which often make concentrated power odious. Certainly this was not because historical chance located American economic power in a collection of saints. Checks (not 'balances') appeared in the form of periodic political interventions demanded by American public opinion. To explain this it becomes necessary to import a political conception--the 'public consensus' . . . So, it seems the ultimate protection of individuals lies not in the play of economic forces in free markets, but in a set of value judgments so widely accepted and deeply held in the United States that public opinion can energize political action when needed to prevent power from violating these values."  

There is a long section on the First Amendment which discusses its importance to consensus in a pluralistic society, and a problem of interpretation that arises from the amendment as to whether it requires faith or is simply an instrument of peace. In other words, must we believe that Church and State must always and everywhere be separate, or do we only agree to abide by this law because it is the only way to keep peace in a pluralistic society? He says that many Protestants would subscribe to the former, but that the latter would be the Catholic point of view, and explains why he believes this is so.

Part Two is titled Four Unfinished Arguments which arguments are:

Is It Justice?: The School Question Today - This section deals with the question of whether or not the government should support religious schools. Almost 60 years later, we're in about the same place.

Should There Be a Law?: The Question of Censorship - In what circumstances is it the government's business to impose censorship?

Is it Basket Weaving?: The Question of Christianity and Human Values - This section has to do with the City of God and the City of Man, and asks if there is any real value to merely human achievements, e.g. the works of classical antiquity. Also, there is the question of whether there is such a thing as mere human achievement, or does the inspiration for these achievements come from elsewhere.

The basket weaving in the title comes from this passage:

The old monk wove a basket one day; the next day he unwove it. The basket itself did not matter; but the weaving and unweaving of it served as a means of spending an interval, necessary to the frail human spirit, between periods of performance of the only tasks that did matter, the contemplation of heavenly things.

This is found in the description of the thinking of those who think that human works have no intrinsic value.

Are There Two or One?: The Question of the Future of Freedom - Is there only one authority that we must obey, i.e. the civil authority, or is there another, i.e. the Church, or a Natural Law that is present in all men?

Part Three is titled The Uses of Doctrine, and consists of four sections.

Doctrine and Policy in Communist Imperialism: the Problem of Security and Risk is to me one of the most interesting parts of the book. Fr. Murray discusses the Cold War and what kind of danger we were, and were not in from the Soviet Union. It is the first time I've ever read anything that discussed what the Cold War looked like from the Soviet point-of-view, and how nuclear weapons were, and were not consistent with their goals.

The Uses of a Doctrine on the Uses of Force: War as a Moral Problem discusses when the use of force is just and required, and when and how it is not.

The Doctrine is Dead: the Problem of the Moral Vacuum deals with the demise of Natural Law.

The Doctrine Lives: the Eternal Return of Natural Law discusses just that.

I would like to close with another quote from Fr. Murray, and some thoughts of my own about it.

The fact today is not simply that we hold different views but that we have become different types of men, with different styles of interior life. We are therefore uneasy in one another's presence. We are not, in fact, present to one another at all; we are absent from one another. That is, I am not transparent to the other, nor he to me; our mutual experience is that of an opaqueness. And this reciprocal opaqueness is the root of an hostility that is overcome only with an effort, if at all.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how we can overcome the hostility on even a small scale, well, I think that most of us can only overcome it one-on-one. But, something else that this passage made me think about was, how earlier in our history, I would guess up until World War II, people were still pretty much divided in many ways by their cultural heritage. There were still a lot of areas that were Irish, or Italian, or any number of different ethnic identities, but while they may have dressed, eaten, prayed, and worked differently, most of them had a common idea about what it meant to be an American.

Since then, our cultures have to a great extent merged. There has been a great deal of intermarriage. I know very few people now who are 100% Irish, or Italian, or German. We eat the same things; we eat each other's foods. We live in the same neighborhoods, and work in the same offices. And yet, there is this vast schism of ideology. I find it a bit ironic and extremely sad.

As I've said before about other books, if you are interested in this sort of thing, you will find this book worth your while, even though to a great extent its time has passed. And yet, there are eternal verities within its pages.

AMDG

Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters by William and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh

I really didn't plan to read two biographies in a row, but when I realized that's what I was doing I thought that Jane Austen ought to cleanse my palette after Graham Greene. She certainly led a very different life and had a very different outlook on life.

The first biography of Jane Austen's life, Memoir of Jane Austen was written in 1869-70, by (James) Edward Austen-Leigh, the son of her oldest brother, James with help from his sisters Anna, and Caroline. All three knew her well. Edward was about 20 when she died, Anna, 24, and Caroline, 12.

By 1913 when Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters was written, newer sources of information were available, especially Letters of Jane Austen, edited by Edward Lord Brabourne, the son of Jane's niece and dear friend, Fanny Knight. Fanny was the daughter of Jane's brother Edward who was adopted by the Knight family. William, and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh, the son, and nephew respectively of the author of the Memoir used the previous work, the letters, and other resources to write a more complete narrative of Jane's life.

The book begins with a long chapter on the Austen and Leigh (Jane's mother was a Leigh) family genealogies beginning with one John Austen who died in 1620, 155 years before Jane was born. It was so confusing that I made myself a family tree, but then I found there was one in the back of the book, which I was constantly consulting while reading. The second and third paragraphs of this post might give you some idea of how hard it is to straighten out the family relationships. There are about 10 first names that are used over and over again, and sometimes their last names change.

Most of the letters in the book were written to her sister, and closest friend, Cassandra. Because of this there are long periods of time when there are no letters because they only wrote when one or the other was away from home. Thankfully, this was more often than I would have thought from reading articles and short biographies in Jane's novels that describe her life as quiet and circumscribed. I suppose in some ways it was, but they had a large family, and friends in many different places, and were frequently traveling to visit one or the other, and later in life they lived in Bath where they stayed fairly busy.

Another reason why there are few letters is that Cassandra destroyed most of those that were written. Anything personal or that may have had unpleasant news was destroyed, so the remaining letters are mostly newsy accounts of where Jane had been and who she had been with. There are also a few letters to other family members. My favorites are the letters to her nieces, Fanny, Anna, and Caroline.

From all accounts Jane seems to have been universally (almost) loved. She is frequently described as being very even-tempered, and pleasant. A niece says:

She was singularly free from the habit . . . of looking out for people's foibles for her own amusement, or the entertainment of her hearers . . . I do not suppose she ever in her life said a sharp thing.

Of course, (almost) every account we have in this book comes from a family member. The one dissenting opinion comes from the mother of (competing?) authoress Mary Russell Mitford, who told her daughter that Jane was, "the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers." But then, the author tells us that Jane was only about 10 when Mrs. Mitford knew her.

Some of Jane's letters are a bit enigmatic. They are often so tongue-in-cheek (I think.), teasing, or coy that I don't know what to make of them. I suspect the problem is that she is writing to a sister who always knows when she is playing and when she is being sincere, and we do not. She is sometimes pretty snarky about people in a way that belies the above quote, but then, she was talking to her sister.

Often while reading the book, I was reminded of passages from Jane's novels. In one of her early letters she speaks of a woman whom she describes as being always present and never wanted. (I wish I could quote that accurately, but I have looked, and looked and can't find it.) Then years later, she speaks of the same woman in a much more charitable way, and it reminds me of Emma being so rude to Mrs. Bates, and being brought to task by Mr. Knightley.

The family often wrote and performed plays, although they must not have caused the type of scandal found in Mansfield Park, and the family's years in Bath, and a trip to Lyme are evocative of Persuasion. There is a letter written to tell Cassandra about the house they have rented in Bath which says:

I have a very nice chest of drawers and a closet full of shelves--so full indeed that there is nothing else in it, and it should therefore be called a cupboard rather than a closet, I suppose.

Shades of Lady Catherine de Bourgh!

The picture in the upper righthand corner is one I found online. I usually take a picture of my own book, but I didn't think that a picture of a plain green book would be very interesting. This one has the added interest of a sketch drawn of Jane by her sister Cassandra, although the original was black and white. The picture of Jane Austen below is found in the front of the book. It is a mystery picture because there is a question as to whether it is our Jane Austen, or a cousin.

A Dr. Newman wrote to a friend saying:

I have another picture that I wish to go to your neighbor, Morland Rice [James Edward Austen-Leigh's grandson]. It is a portrait of Jane Austen the novelist, by Zoffany. The picture was given to my stepmother by her friend Colonel Austen of Kippington, Kent, because she was a great admirer of her works.

There appears to be a lot of controversy about the painting. You can read more about it here.

If you would like to read this book, you can have my copy if you ask in the next week or so, or you can get it online free here.

AMDG

That Big Book between the Bookends

If you have been paying any attention to the picture of the books I am currently reading on the sidebar, you will have noticed that there is a big book there that doesn't seem to budge. It is the first book that started reading for this blog, and I am still only a bit more than halfway through. It is good, but not an easy read, and not worth picking up unless you can devote a good bit of uninterrupted time to it.

But I will persevere!

AMDG

A Sort of Life by Graham Greene

I purchased A Sort of Life from Amazon while I was writing this post for a series on Maclin Horton's blog, Light on Dark Water. I read or re-read five or six novels to prepare for writing the post, and I had planned to read this short biography of Graham's early life, but I ran out of time, and I never got back to it. Greene's novels, especially his four so-called Catholic novels, have as deep a Catholic sensibility as any I have ever read, but although he apparently continued to believe, he most emphatically did not live his faith in his later life which by some accounts was rather sordid. So, I have really wondered if I wanted to read an autobiography. However, when I opened this one, I found that it only covered the first 36 years of his life, so I thought I would give it a try.

What I found was that from the time he started school, Greene's life was fairly miserable. His father was the head of the school he attended and his home was in the same building as the school, but the conditions in the dorm were bleak. From what I've read about English boarding schools, they don't seem to have been unusual, but Greene could not adjust himself to constant noise and crudeness of the boys. Because I know from other reading that there is evidence that his sexuality was perverse, I wondered if something had happened at school to cause this, but he specifically says that the dorms were completely chaste.

One story concerning his time at school was very interesting to me. There were two boys who constantly bullied him and made his life miserable. Later during the war, he met up with one of them, and the man kept talking about what great times they had had together, and how inseparable the three of them had been. He wanted to get together socially to talk about old times. I wonder about this great discrepancy in perceptions and what the real truth of the matter was. Did Greene's mental illness color the way he reacted to the other boys, or had this man just forgotten how bad their behavior was? Maybe a bit of both?

It is probable that much of Greene's misery wasn't caused by the people around him, but from something deep within himself. He talks of his entire life as an attempt to escape from boredom. He was beset by many fears: birds, bats, moth, fire, and ". . . a witch who would lurk at night on the nursery landing by the linen cupboard." He made several unsuccessful and undiscovered suicide attempts, and had a serious breakdown when he was about 16, at which time he ran away and when found, refused to returned to school. At this point, he was put under the care of a psychiatrist with whom he lived for a while, and was eventually diagnosed as manic-depressive. Although he found the therapy very helpful, he later, in an attempt to escape the ever-present boredom, played Russian Roulette with a pistol he had found in his older brother's drawer--six times.

He says little about his wife Vivien in this book, probably because by the time he wrote it they were estranged, but he does talk about how their engagement caused him to investigate the Catholic Church. He says that he did not have any intention of converting, but was only trying to learn something about the faith; however, the more he learned from the priest, the more convinced he became that what he was hearing was true.

I would not recommend this book to anyone who is not really interested in Green for some reason. It is very dark, and has a hopeless feel to it.

AMDG