Jackson Pollock and Historical Perspective

In the second of my two recent posts (here and here) about reaching an objective judgement about the quality of works of art  (and in particular, music) I proposed some criteria for reaching such a judgement.

I also mentioned that Jackson Pollock's name had been mentioned in this regard, and now I want to return to that, and as a result propose one further criterion.

I do not like Pollock's work. I find it does not move me; I am not sure what it is trying to do, and therefore cannot evaluate how well it does it. I question whether it really demonstrates any skill, or any insight. So, in my judgement, it does not meet many of the criteria I proposed. However, I also recognise that all of that is a subjective perspective, and at least in part based on my ignorance. Others clearly think it is art of stature.

I compare my reaction to Pollock with my reaction to Mondrian. At first glance, I had a similar view of Mondrian's work; but the more I see of it, (particularly originals - his work does not reproduce well, I find) the more I question that. I think he really is onto something, though I would struggle to say what.

But again, I recognise that is a subjective view. And there is (a large) part of me that wonders if most modern art has lost its way, and is pulling a fast one, as it were. And that too is a subjective view.

So I am prepared to hold fire, and not have a strong opinion (well, I do on Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, but the less said about them, the better). Nor do I find there are many cultural or artistic critics in whom I have sufficient confidence to accept their judgements pro or contra. 

The same is true of some modern music: serialism does nothing for me, for example. But that may be a failing in me, not least due to a lack of education and understanding.

But the most important additional criterion, I think, is the judgment of time. Artistic judgements are subject to fashion. Even Shakespeare was out of vogue for a period, and during the Restoration there was a marked trend to improve his plays to conform to current tastes. But over time that shakes down: the genius of Beethoven or Van Gogh is clearer with historical perspective.

So I am happy to remain agnostic about Pollock and Mondrian, and let our descendants be the judges. But that does not, I think, detract from my central thesis that one can make objective statements about the quality of art. It just suggests that education, understanding and perspective may all be necessary in order to do so.

The Rush to Judgement

Pondering further on my recent posts about Fundamental Attribution Error and Projection,  I find that the phrase The Rush to Judgement keeps recurring in my mind.

It seems that we cannot help this: that our minds make judgements all the time, and frequently outside the operation of our will or even our conscious awareness.

But our will and awareness do have a role to play. We may not be able to stop our minds from indulging in Fundamental Attribution Error, or Projection, at least in the short term, though I suspect with a bit of mental discipline, awareness and practice, we could reduce them dramatically over the longer term.  However, I do believe that we can take responsibility for what happens next: that is what we do with them.

One of the first things must be to choose to attend to them, and to evaluate them.  A fundamental evaluation is whether we are judging actions or people.

The first of these, judging actions, we may be required to do. If an untruth or an injustice is propagated, it may be our duty to oppose it.  Even here, however, we should proceed with prudence: our judgements are not infallible, and there are many occasions when it is better to keep silence than to speak.

But the second case is the more dangerous: when we rush to judge people: to ascribe motivation to their  behaviour, and moral qualities to them.  This is surely where the injunction Judge Not! comes into play.  We are clearly forbidden from judging their moral worth (the state of their soul). That is God's prerogative, and we have no competence or rights in that regard.

The trickier area is judging their moral competence.  That is to say, if somebody repeatedly tells untruths, or commits injustice, or proclaims ignorance as truth,  we may need, for our own protection, to note that fact.  If they are doing so in  public arena, to the harm of others, we may also need to address it publicly: first with them directly, if that is possible and practical, and secondly, on occasion, by public refutation.  But here, I think, is where we have to be careful.  I think that our public criticism should normally be limited to refuting each error, rather than labelling the person.

There are various, significant, risks underlying this distinction   One is that our judgement may be inaccurate, partial, or just plain wrong: as noted above, we are not infallible.  A second is that once we have proclaimed something publicly, we are more committed to it, and will tend to protect that judgement (both internally in our heads, and externally in the world) even should new evidence become apparent, or the person change his or her behaviour. A third is that such name-callling is less likely to provoke a metanoia in others (which we may claim is our intention) than to provoke a defensive reaction in which they dig into their position, and attack us. That is, of course, very satisfying, as it proves (to us at least) that our judgement was correct and they were beneath contempt…. and so it cycles on.

What was it Our Lord said about calling our brother a fool?

The Betrayal of Children

The scandal emerging from Rochdale raises many difficult questions.  On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, there was a chilling description by one of the abused children of the attitude of the social workers who should have been protecting her.  Her parents were told that she was a prostitute, that that was a lifestyle choice, and that as she was nearly 16, they would not intervene.

According to the BBC’s website:

“The report also shows some officials believed vulnerable girls as young as 10 - who were being groomed for sexual abuse - were "making their own choices".One of the girl's parents said they were simply told their teenage daughter was hanging out with a bad crowd, it [the report] says.”

There are so many shocking aspects to this, but the one that I want to focus on is the culture of that makes it possible for social workers, police or anyone else to condone the abuse of children (as all under age sex is, with or without consent) on the grounds that the children had ‘chosen it.’

Such a dreadful opinion is only possible because the whole cultural milieu is corrupt.  There is no real sense of the intrinsic harm that children can do to themselves by ‘poor choices’ at this age - indeed, ‘poor choices’ is too judgmental; they are just ‘lifestyle choices.’

What’s worrying is how widespread this idiocy is - and how even Catholic schools have welcomed Connexions, who are steeped in exactly the same philosophy.

This is the philosophy that considers it ‘appropriate’ to give contraception to under-age girls without parental knowledge or consent; that then arranges their abortions, again without parental knowledge or consent.  This is the philosophy that makes people from other cultures look on white adolescent girls as so much trash to be abused at will.  This is the philosophy that abandons girls as young as 10 to exploitation in the name of choice.

It represents complete moral bankruptcy, and an abdication of our responsibility as adults to make wise choices on behalf of children, to protect them, and to educate them to make wise and good choices.

And we invite it into our schools, give it access to our kids, in complete confidence...

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, 

Sancta Dei Genetrix. 

Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus, 

sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, 

Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. 

Amen.

Yet More on NDC and Life

I have just caught up with Joseph Shaw's philosophy blog, where there is a very interesting post about a discussion between philosophers and Catholic NDC counsellors.

I won't summarise it here, as I think summarising anything a living philosopher writes is a risky proposition!

The Non-Judgemental Fallacy

The much vaunted 'virtue' of being Non-Judgemental is of course fallacious and self-contradictory. To adopt a non-judgemental approach (say to counselling) is to make a judgement that such an approach is appropriate, is likely to be helpful, is probably better than a judgemental approach.

Further, it is nearly always, in practice, a pretence. People are happy being non-judgemental about the issues they do not feel strongly about. But if someone were proposing murder, re-introducing slavery, setting up racially discriminating schools, canonising Hitler... would a non-judgemental approach be sustained? I suspect not. So what one really says in adopting a non-judemental approach is that in this case, by my values, the stakes are not very high.

Moreover it rests on unproven, and potentially flawed premises: that the free and autonomous choice of an individual is the best in any situation. But who can say that a woman considering aborting her child (for example) is acting free from external pressures? Or even that she is, in the truest sense, 'of sound mind' when she is in shock at discovering she is unexpectedly pregnant? There is plenty of research on the impact of such shocks on people's ability to think clearly. And even if she is free from any pressure, and of completely sound mind, if her decision involves taking the life of someone else, how can one, morally, refrain from passing a judgement on that decision, and (in most circumstances) communicating that judgement to her. Such silence is complicit and a failure of charity.

Finally, it is probably a lie. It implies that all outcomes are of equal merit; and that an individual has the right - and indeed the ability - to take decisions individually regardless of the impact on others.

The Christian approach has always been different. Of course we listen with charity to people in distress. We may well help them to express and think about their crisis through questions and paraphrasing, and the other tools of the skilled listener. We strive not to judge them, their motivations or the state of their soul. But we do make judgements on actions, proposed and real, and those judgements are based not on our preferences and prejudices, but on the teachings of Christ and His Church. And in most cases, if we are in conversation about such issues, we have a moral duty to help the other party understand those judgements.

Non-judgemental

Following a link from James Preece's blog to a thought-provoking piece by Theodore Dalrymple, and then another link from there, I came upon another Dalrymple piece, The Rush from Judgement. For all those who think that being non-judgemental is the ultimate virtue, I think this is essential reading. Being Non-judgemental is appropriate in some very specific situations. But fundamentally, as Dalrymple puts it (after some powerful testimonies from his experience as a doctor), "It is the judgment that, in the words of a bitter Argentinean tango, "todo es igual, nada es mejor": everything is the same, nothing is better. This is as barbaric and untruthful a doctrine as has yet emerged from the fertile mind of man."

Banging on about non-directive counselling...

So there I was, at the level crossing, about to cross the high speed line. There was a lady standing there, and I asked if she was crossing too.

'Oh, I'm waiting while the white light goes on,' she said.

Sure enough, by the trackside, there was a sign: Do not cross while white light is showing.

As an accredited non-directive counsellor, I could not, of course, tell her directly that her dialect use of the word while (by which she meant until, since she came from the Nottinghamshire/Lincolnshire border where that usage is common) was different from the meaning intended by the signwriter.

Instead, I asked her questions to help her clarify her options, and in particular her understanding of the word while. But as an autonomous individual, she made her own choice to stick with her understanding of while. And as she walked in front of the 3.15 to Paddington, I reflected on the ethical way in which I had handled the conversation.

Or to put it another way, there is a time and a place (arguably) for non-directive counselling, but when somebody's life is at stake due to ignorance (for example) that is neither the time nor the place.

More on non-directional counselling

I ended my last post with three questions about Life's use of non- directional counselling: could they? Should they? And what does it do to them if they do?

Could they?

The idea of non- directive counselling is that the counsellor should use open questions and active listening to help the client to clarify his thinking and understanding and to reach his own conclusions, leading to positive (from the client's point of view) actions and outcomes. When skilfully practiced, with a client who has a well-formed conscience, it can be a beneficial approach.

It is actually extremely hard to do when the counsellor has a strong point of view on the topic under discussion. Even if the counsellor manages to refrain from leading or prejudicial questions, there is a host of ways (from the intake of breath, the raised eyebrow or the smile to the tone of voice, intonation patterns used in questions etc) in which the counsellor may inadvertently confer positive or negative judgements on what the client says.

With good training and regular practice, of course, some people will become skilled in this; but when the stakes are as high, the beliefs as strong, and the passions as involved as they are in discussing the issue of abortion, I suspect that total impartiality at every level is rarely achieved. And if it is, what does that do to the counsellor? (I will come back to that question below.)

Should they?

This strikes me as much more contentious. I imagine that the reasons for Life adopting this approach are several:
If they explicitly offered pro-life counselling, they would not be reaching women who need help and support
Non-directional counselling is respectable in academic, counselling and political circles
It may well be that on occasions a non-directional approach helps women with well-formed consciences to reach the correct decision: that is, not to have an abortion.

However, one is driven to ask, what is their objective in offering counselling?

Is it in the hope of persuading women not to have abortions, albeit through a non-directional approach? And if that is the case, does not that place at least an implicit lie at the heart of their work in this arena? And does that not also make the likelihood of a truly non- directional approach much less?

Or is it for some other reason? In which case, how are they being true to their pro-life mission? And does not that place a lie at the heart of their relationship with those who support them as a pro-life organisation?

So it seems to me that there is here an issue of organisational integrity that cannot easily be resolved.

I should add that if the women with whom they are engaging were likely to have well- formed consciences, then the approach might be defensible, at least on pragmatic grounds. William Coulson was for a long time the right hand man of Carl Rogers, the famed and acclaimed prophet of non- directional counselling. A Catholic, Coulson eventually recanted from his work with Rogers, recognising the enormous damage it had done, not least in Catholic circles. Coulson's point was that if someone lacked a well-formed conscience, then to throw him entirely onto his own resources when addressing serious and difficult issues was inhumane. He will inevitably fall back on the standards of the world (or, I would add, the flesh or the devil...)

In our current culture, the average woman is subjected to so much propaganda normalising abortion, and selfish decision making (autonomy, independence, liberation, self fulfilment etc) that to deny her any other perspective is a likely to lead in a particular direction. So how non- directive is that in fact?

My third question is, what does it do to committed pro- life people to be taught to practice, and then repeatedly to practice, non- directional counselling about this issue?

My concerns are that it attacks their own integrity, and that it will also expose them to great distress as women leave their meetings and go off to abort their children; the counsellor will always be wondering, at some level, could or should I have done more to help that woman and save that baby's life?

I do not wish to denigrate Life, an organisation for which my wife and I have both worked for many years, and which does a huge amount of good work. But I do believe that this is too important an issue to be left unaddressed.

Non-directive Abortion Counselling

On this morning's Sunday programme (radio 4 UK) there was an item on moves to require women seeking an abortion to receive counselling from someone other than an abortion provider prior to making the decision to abort their baby.

Needless to say, Marie Stopes were on to say how the fact that they have both a financial and a philosophical interest in abortions in no way meant their counselling was partial... I found this scarcely credible.

There was also a spokesman from Life. She made the point that many women who come to Life for post- abortion counselling tell the same story: they go to someone like Marie Stopes looking for a place to talk, and find that before they know it they are on the abortion treadmill.

However her next point I found more troubling: Life offer non-directive pregnancy counselling.

I have a few problems with this, given that they are an avowedly pro-life organisation:
Could they?
Should they?
And if they do, what does that do to their counsellors?

Corrupting the majority for the sake of the minority...

James Preece has posted a link to Patricia Wocial's TV appearance about sex education in school. Patricia is very sensible, and many of the comments very supportive.

But I think it instructive to look at those with opposed views. For example:

It's all well and good for Patricia to be saying that loving parents should teach their lovely children about lovely sex. But what about kids without parents? What about kids who have parents who are unwilling to talk about the subject, or are not exactly 'experts', to put it nicely.

This is the argument that is repeatedly used, and has some face-validity. However to design progammes for everyone based on the minority is potentially very problematic. In fact it seems to me to be a main driver of our current problems with teenage promiscuity (leading to STDs, abortions and other tragedies) and marital breakdown.

The argument goes that in a few cases something terrible happens (eg a girl gets pregnant because she didn't know that's how babies are made); therefore we must minimise that risk by teaching EVERYONE all there is to know about how babies are made.

Or some marriages really do break down irretrievably. Therefore we must avoid moralising or stigmatising, and make it as easy and acceptable as possible for people to divorce.

In both cases, the small minority argument drives a policy that exacerbates the problem - so we now have a huge number of promiscuous teenagers (as opposed to the very small numbers before all this 'enlightened' practice was introduced) and catastrophic rates of marriage and relationship breakdown.

Immaturity

One of the classic signs of immaturity, in my experience, is people listening for offence, interpreting what they hear as offensive, and then reacting to what was not, in fact, said.

One should I suppose, expect no more of the children in the Secular Humanist movement, but it still saddens (but no longer surprises) me when the ever-wonderful BBC does the same.

So the Holy Father warns against the dangers of an aggressive atheism that denies the dignity of man, citing the Nazis as an example, and the BBC headline read something like Pope links atheists and Nazis. I say read, as it seems it has now been removed (which is why I can't quote it verbatim - I was too busy with other stuff last night to write this post immediately). They are now (gleefully?) reporting that the Holy Father's atheism and Nazis remark has sparked a row.

I'm not sure it has. All that has happened is that the British Humanist Association's knee has jerked in the predictable spasm.

They said:

The notion that it was the atheism of Nazis that led to their extremist and hateful views or that it somehow fuels intolerance in Britain today is a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God

And I say, if the cap fits wear it.

Clearly the Holy Father was specific in what he was saying, and they are generalising it with the sole intent of taking offence and thus having a righteous position from which to attack the Holy Father.

Note, in passing, how judgemental these non-judgementalists are, how intolerant these proclaimers of tolerance...

The Pope's British Divisions

I've just been listening to The Pope's British Divisions - which Catholic Voices rated as superb, though my view is somewhat different.

Idiocies

There are countless idiocies in the programme.

For example, a young person saying that the Pope's 'views are still quite out of date' on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage, and another saying the great thing about Catholicism is that you can pick and choose what you believe.

More alarmingly, the Director of Youth Services of Nottingham Diocese, Fr Joe Wheat, thinks it is 'Brilliant' and 'Fantastic' that if you ask 50 young people what Catholicism means, you will get 50 different answers; and that if young people are 'grappling and struggling' with some aspects of Church teaching, the worst thing you can do is tell them that some beliefs are required if one is to consider oneself Catholic. The particular idiocy here is that the young people are not 'grappling and struggling' with Church teaching: they have simply swallowed the secular view hook line and sinker and rejected the Truth (which has almost certainly never been explained to them by Fr Wheat or anyone else - because he doesn't want to 'make value judgements about people's Catholicism').

Another idiocy is perpetrated by Sir Stephen Wall. He recalls how when he worked for +Murphy O'Conner, Cardinal Sodano would ask + MO'C to get the Tablet to correct some of its errors. He likens that to Mobutu or some other dictator asking the British Government to censor the BBC. This is a seriously idiotic analogy. The Tablet describes itself as a Catholic paper, and it is one of the responsibilities of the hierarchy to control who uses that label and how they use it, to protect the Faithful and the Faith. Failure in this area is a continuing source of scandal.

Communion Not a Time of Judgement
At one stage they are discussing the Soho Gay and Lesbian Masses (of particular interest, perhaps, to the reporter, Mark Dowd).

Here is what Archbishop Nicholls had to say when asked if he expected those who come to Holy Communion at the Mass to live in chastity:

No priest makes the moment of Communion a moment of judgement. I trust in people as they come forward, that they do so with a good conscience, and they do so knowing that this public gesture by which they receive the Body and Blood of Christ is reflected in their heart, in their desire to live in union with Him. So that is never a point for judgement, and anybody from the outside who is trying to cast a judgement on the people who come forward to communion really ought to learn to hold their tongue.

It seems to me that there are several problems with this.

Holy Communion is a moment of judgement: St Paul is quite clear about this. That is not to say that we should judge people coming forward for communion, but it does mean that the Archbishop should ensure that the 'good conscience' in which he 'trusts people to come forward' is a conscience correctly formed in accordance with the Truth.

And where that is manifestly not the case - as the interviews with the attendees at the Mass make clear (even the Priest in charge says 'we're not here to campaign for Church teaching' - which presumably means he's not there to proclaim the Truth...) - I believe he has a responsibility to do something about it.

So he misunderstands us when we question the grave scandal caused by those openly dissenting having their own Mass. We are not judging them - they are proclaiming their dissent quite openly; no, our 'judging' if such it be, is aimed at the decision to sanction such a thing, as we fear it emperils the souls of those who take part, as they are denied proper pastoral care, and it also does great harm to others, as it risks teaching a falsehood, viz that the Church accepts practicing homosexuality as a valid lifestyle choice.


Blackfen

Susan Reynolds' 'heart was broken' by the introduction of one Latin Mass (out of 4 at the weekend) at Blackfen. My heart bleeds for her... Why do we never hear of the heartbreak caused to so many when at the drop of a hat ALL Latin Masses were outlawed and replaced by an infantilised and banal English liturgy?

Fr Finigan put his case well, though I would have put it differently, I think, and the indomitable Mac managed to get the Holy Father's point that Truth is not subject to a majority vote onto the radio.

And so it went on.

It seemed balanced, in some ways - a bit of tradition, a bit of liberalism and so on. But I was left feeling dissatisfied with it as a programme and I'm not sure why. Perhaps because although two sides of a faultline were given a reasonable airing, neither was really examined or interrogated in depth.

There is much more that could be said about this, but I really ought to get on with my work. However, there is a good review at The Sensible Bond should you wish to read more.

It's obvious

Chlamydia (along with all other STDs) is on the rise in the UK.

The solution: it's obvious. More screening - every time you 'change partner.' (NB Two points of interest here; one is that we hear this so often: 'the policy isn't working -I know, let's do more of it!'; the second is that the universal solution to all our sexual troubles, the condom, does not get a look-in in this discussion.... could there be a reason for that?...)

Avoiding unhealthy 'lifestyle choices' is, curiously, never mentioned in this context (compare that with smoking, obesity, alcohol- related illness etc etc) Could it be that our political, media and medical lords and masters (and their mistresses) are so wedded to a life of promiscuity that the alternative is unthinkable? Or is it that they behave differently, but think we plebs are so contemptible that we are unable to behave responsibly? Or are they simply governed by the fear of saying something that would open them to criticism, charges of moralising, and ridicule?

Sex Education - what’s it really about?

This is the question that is rarely asked. But it should be, because in the answer to it lies the unease (to say the least) many of us feel about the government's dictatorial approach to the subject.

What it is not about is fairly easy to see: it is not about teaching kids how to have babies. Oddly enough, humans are pretty good at that. Nor is it about teaching kids the context within which sex is healthy, life affirming, life giving and ever more joyful: that is in a lifelong marriage, open to chiildren.

So what is it about? Looking at what it entails, as currently practiced, only one sensible conclusion can be reached: it is about normalising promiscuity and deviance (because we must take a non-judgemental approach), and trying (ineffectively) to limit the damage caused thereby.

That is why the collusion of the CES (an official agency of the Catholic Church, which knows the truth about human love and sexuality) with the government on this issue is such a scandal; and it is why all parents should take seriously their responsibility to educate their children properly in this field and remove them form the line of fire if necessary - whether or not they are 'allowed' to do so.

Non Judgemental or plain dishonest? (again)....

I will refrain from commment on the outrageous CES as this has been well covered by Fr Finigan, John Smeaton, and many others.

However, it is worth addressing the great non-judgemental canard yet again, as the government has singled out for praise a 'Catholic' school that takes a non-judgemental approach to Sex Ed (including many anti-Catholic propositions).

I have blogged about this before here.

However, it is worth reiterating that to be non-judgemental about an action is to declare that we implicitly approve of it, or at least don't think it terribly wrong.

Just consider these options:

The government has announced a non-judgemental approach to smoking... to obesity... to murder... to teenage knife crime... to tax dodging... to drink driving... because, as we know, just saying No doesn't work...