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I want to be as charitable as possible to Bishop Barron, especially considering my ecclesiastical obligations in obedience to my Archbishop. Since I have been asked publicaly by @Bellasbane_ to read his column for today, I will reply here and I’m afraid my reply is critical.
Here is the tweet and linked article I am responding to: https://twitter.com/bishopbarron/status/1308447422377537537
Let us begin with basics. No matter what Jordan Peterson and others unfamiliar with both Marxist and Marxian thought and postmodernism may think, Marxism is a hallmark theory of modernism, not postmodernism. Marxists have fought with postmodernists more than with anyone else.
The importance of Bishop Barron’s postmodernism thesis for his column takes most of the air out of the balloon, so to speak. Nietzsche is also a clear case of someone who is not a postmodernist but he is not as clear a case as Marx. In Foucault, things are a bit messier.
I could supply a primer on how different the question of truth in Modernism and especially “scientific Marxism” is compared to Lyotard and Derrida’s postmodernism, but I do not need to do that to support the simple refutation of Bishop Barron’s false depiction of postmodernism.
Bishop Barron is right, however, that today’s activist movements do have a new postmodern element present that was not as present earlier, but he simply gets it badly wrong that this new postmodernism is Marxist. The Marxists were there in the 50s and 60s and earlier.
Today, there is a clash between Marxists and postmodernists. I described this in close detail concerning BLM here: https://link.medium.com/Z9RTJbCVZ9
When it comes to the alliance between Marxism and Catholics and Christians and religious people, Bishop Barron seems to have left out entirely figures like Taylor (see: The Agony of Economic Man) in the Canadian NDP, MacIntyre (see: Marxism and Christianity), and...
...all of the Latin American work in Liberation Theology from its precursors in Camara and Freire in Brazil to Medellin and Puebla its American version in Cone’s Black Liberation Theology to its present in, mostly famously, Cornel West and many Catholic social justice advocates.
Bishop Barron’s popularized omissions here do a severe injustice to the explicitly religious tradition of social activism. In the Americas and I could add many more outside of the Americas, but will leave it here in the present.
What this shows is (1) Bishop Barron’s premise that the difference between social activism of the 60s and today is the newly arrived presence of a Marxist postmodernism is a false non starter and (2) not only is his key premise false, but his historical context is Swiss cheese.
The “Neo Marxist Postmodernism” accusation is a favourite of Jordan Peterson and so I cannot help but assume that perhaps Bishop Barron accepted that very bad idea from Peterson. But he should correct it and I would gladly supply a more worked out critique and reconstruction.
None of my critical remarks, however, entirely blunt what I read as Bishop Barron’s key concern which seems to be how non and even anti-religious concerns for justice can work alongside religious concerns for justice.
This is a serious question and I agree that it seems more important today than it was in the past. I would also suggest that questions of justice are not passed down as only religious question for Christians. Plato and Aristotle gave us a great wealth of ideas on the matter.
I understand Bishop Barron’s pastoral concern for how the faithful can fight for justice in times when the very meaning of justice can seem to be up for dispute, but I do not think giving a simplistic scapegoat in postmodernism is the right approach only because it is not true.
And we must admit that even postmodernism has fruitfully interfaced with religious thought in, for instance, Jean Luc Marion. I am even open to the possibility that the postmodern turn could ally itself with religion better than the older Marxism did. But surely they all can.
None of this is me taking a firm side other than Bishop Barron’s side. His moral and pastoral concern is justified but, beyond this basic concern, his diagnosis and analysis is, on my understanding, erroneous enough to say that, proportionally, it is untrue and not value added.
I submit my own claims here to your public scrutiny and contest action and thank Bishop Barron for doing that same and ask that my replies be taken in a spirit of humility and obedience. Thanks to @Bellasbane_ for bringing it to my attention.
FINIS
FINIS
*contestation
Forgive all typos and most unintended stupidities.
I hold myself responsible for all intended stupidity and ask for your correction.
Forgive all typos and most unintended stupidities.
I hold myself responsible for all intended stupidity and ask for your correction.
Here, in postscript, are some readings that I have made reference to, for those rightly looking to inspect my receipts.
Charles Taylor, “The Agony of Economic Man,” *Essays on the Left: Essays in Honour of T. C. Douglas,* edited by Laurier LaPierre. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971. 221-235.
…https://humanitiesofeducation.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/the-agony-of-economic-man-charles-taylor.pdf
…https://humanitiesofeducation.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/the-agony-of-economic-man-charles-taylor.pdf
Marxism and Christianity by Alasdair MacIntyre https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268013585/marxism-and-christianity/
A Theology of Liberation by Gustavo Gutierrez (originally written in Spanish) which above all indicates the presence of Catholic action by Paulo Freire and also articulates a vision influential to Medellin and Puebla.
https://www.orbisbooks.com/a-theology-of-liberation.html
https://www.orbisbooks.com/a-theology-of-liberation.html
A Black Theology of Liberation by James Cone with the foreword written by the Roman Catholic Paulo Freire.
https://www.orbisbooks.com/a-black-theology-of-liberation.html
https://www.orbisbooks.com/a-black-theology-of-liberation.html
I end with a source that was influential to Freire and others in the Americas from Europe: Emmanuel Mounier. Perhaps more than others, he speaks at length on how Catholic personalists can and cannot work with Marxists and liberals: “What is Personalism?”
…https://humanitiesofeducation.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/what-is-personalism.pdf
…https://humanitiesofeducation.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/what-is-personalism.pdf
It occurs to me that my review of Jordan Peterson’s book on the heels of his interview with Bishop Barron in @CNAlive may also be worth sharing here for more context: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/book-review-jordan-petersons-12-rules-for-life-78542
