Politics of Cultural Radicalism

They are three distinct monsters, or we might describe it as a three-headed dragon: the Culture of Death, the expansive State, and the mega-technocratic-finance-economy.

The Culture of Death is the direct liberal assault upon innocent life, the integrity of marriage, religious liberty, and the dignity of the person as spousally en-bodied: abortion, pornography, mandatory contraception, sterilization, embryo destruction, gay rights and the litany goes on. If only it were a single issue!

The expansive State is inexorably expanding to take control of all areas of human life: education, health care, sexuality and family life. Systemically, the ascending network of local communities is being deconstructed by an omniscient, omnipotent State. In the liberal synthesis, this State is the implementer of the Culture of Death as it systematically marginalizes and privatizes communities, especially the Church, resistant to its totalitarianism.

Meanwhile, multinational capitalism grows with its own impersonal, expansive, technocratic logic: it fuels and is fueled by consumerism and greed; it disrupts the bonds of community associated with family, faith and locale; it inordinately privileges educated, professional elites (the 20%); it benefits from an impure union with the expansive liberal-fascist State; and it encourages the Culture of Death.

The Democratic Party is the political enabler of this dragon. It unapologetically supports the Culture of Death and the expansive State. It attempts to humanize and soften some of the injustices that flow from international, finance capitalism by a more generous safety net, stricter regulation, and higher taxes on the most affluent. But it essentially supports and is supported by the empire of big business and finance.

The Republican Party, traditionally the vehicle of capitalists, has largely become an alliance of those who oppose the Culture of Death (cultural or moral conservatives) and the expansive State (Tea Party). But it remains true to its roots and is naively uncritical of unregulated, large-scale capitalism. Indeed, it is unabashedly and enthusiastically supportive of capitalism, with all its warts, fiercely resisting even the relatively minor adjustments (higher capital gains tax) supported by the Democrats.

About half of American Catholics, informed by the New Deal traditions prior to the Cultural Revolution of the 60s,remain stuck in that earlier political paradigm by which the Democratic Party was fiercely defensive of the working class and Church’s social doctrine and implicitly supportive of the Catholic ethic of life and love. But a cultural radicalism faithful to the Catholic reality of this century must resist the three-headed Dragon, and its political embodiment in the Democratic Party, even if it is less than satisfied with the Republicans and their naïve embrace of unrestrained finance capitalism. At every level, we are challenged to develop a politics of communion which supports: family life, smaller and more local communities of value and action, and those who are most innocent and powerless. At the same time, on the macro level, we must wrestle with the twin dragons, State and Corporation, so that they serve, in good subsidiarity and solidarity, the smaller communities of human dignity.