I watched Conclave last night and very much enjoyed it.
There was a lot to consider. The Robert Harris book on which it is based must be good. I suspect I will not have time to read it.
One section stood out for me. It was a homily by the supposed Dean of the Conclave, played by Ralph Fiennes, who said this when addressing the Cardinals before voting began ((I found the transcript on the web quickly enough):
Let me speak from the heart for a moment.
St Paul said, ‘Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.'
To work together, and to, er… to grow together, we must be tolerant.
No one person or… or faction seeking to dominate another.
And speaking to the Ephesians, who were of course a mixture of Jews and gentiles, Paul reminds us that God's gift to the church…is its variety.
It is this variety, this diversity of people and views which gives our church its strength.
And over the course of many years in the service of our Mother the Church, let me tell you, there is one sin, which I have come to fear above all others.
Certainty.
Certainty is the great enemy of unity.
Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.
Even Christ was not certain at the end.
“My God, My God, why are you forsaken me? “
He cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross.
Our faith is a living thing, precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt.
If there was only certainty…and no doubt…there would be no mystery…and therefore no need… for faith.
Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts.
And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness, and who carries on.
Ignore any religious connotation here. The context could just as easily be political. And I agree with what was said. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.
Certainty is what makes 'isms' dangerous. That is why I am not a socialist or a capitalist. Neither is an answer when both the state and private sector are needed.
Certainty pretends there are unambiguous answers when there are only better or worse ones, and they need to be worked out.
Certainty permits and enables prejudice.
Certainty denies the need for thought.
Certainty is the precursor of conflict.
Because I think those things, I find it hard when I am accused of intolerance. The only thing I am intolerant of is the denial of the need to find workable answers to the problems we face when seeking to live in communities of differing people, and that denial is worth being intolerant of.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Certainly is the enemy of tolerance.
When we are certain that everything Trump does is irrational and evil then we add to intolerance and make it more difficult to find solutions.
Whilst it is so so difficult to find rationality and positives in what Trump is doing I think we should try.
Why?
We should be tolerant of everything but intolerance (Karl Popper) (for which also read abuse)
Trump: convicted criminal with respect sex offences and fraud. Covid: advised US citizens to try bleach, instigated a rebellion (cos Donny lost and election)……..the list is very long, the man is very evil and I am certain that the only fit place for Trump is prison.
Put yourself in the position of the person being groped/assaulted by Trump.
Put yourself in the position of the families of US policemen dead or injured by the insurrection he instigated
Put yourself in the position of the people he accused (based on nothing) of committing murder in New York.
Yes.
I’m in no way an apologist for Trump; I hoped I wouldn’t have to say that. 🙁
A broken clock is right twice a day. If we can find some rationale for his actions then we can try to come to a solution. I am not suggesting appeasement; that is inappropriate when dealing with a bully. Perhaps there is no rationale. But if we are certain from the outset that nothing can be done then we won’t look for a solution or, at least, an amelioration.
We cannot tolerate intolerance
That is the pathway to fascism
Indeed Neoliberal certainty masks the fact that government is a price setter and can also be like the licenced banks an abnormal inflation creator!
https://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/A-Framework-for-the-Analysis-of-the-Price-Level-and-Inflation.pdf
This is why the Starmer led government far from being intelligent and unifying is compulsive-obsessive in regard to implementing the Neoliberal death cult (damaging and destroying people and the planet).
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is absurd” – Voltaire.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where a government minister who ever expressed the complexity and doubt relating to a policy would be straight out the door.
And that is one of the things that has to change
Yes, it must…. but how? The only media organisation that is possibly capable (institutionally) is the BBC …. but that seems highly unlikely at this point.
@greed
Immanuel Kant coined the term “radical evil.” It was the privileging of one’s own interest over that of others, effectively reducing those around you to objects to be manipulated and used for your own ends. But Hannah Arendt, who also used the term “radical evil,” saw that it was worse than merely treating others as objects. Radical evil, she wrote, rendered vast numbers of people superfluous. They possessed no value at all. They were, once they could not be utilized by the powerful, discarded as human refuse.
Agreed
In the film, the Dean also said words to the effect that “The ones who are dangerous are the ones who do want to be leader”. I do not know whether it would work to drag kicking and screaming somebody who is unwilling to become leader. However, I think most would agree that we should not have somebody who wants to be leader for the wrong reasons, which often seems to be the case, sadly.
We did have an opportunity recently (2017 & 2019) to elect a PM in this country, who genuinely did NOT want to be PM or even leader of his party.
We rejected the possibility.
His own party mounted a coup against his leadership and a smear campaign against him personally to ensure his (and their) defeat.
And so we got Johnson, Truss, Sunak, and then Starmer.
They all desperately DID want to be PM (well, Johnson wanted to be World King but he made do with being PM).
So if we get Fa***e, and Reform, we know who to blame.
Necessity is the mother of invention, lie down with dogs you’ll get fleas, never elect someone who wants to be elected, they want to be elected for a reason………… All these platitudes. There are atm two things certain in life, death and taxes, will there always be those things? Death yes, taxes not necessarily. Now Richard you talk about doubt, the kids of today want certainty, it takes a lifetime to realise that what your saying is true and some people don’t have the wherewithal even then, yesterday earlier you talked about why the kids of today might want a strong leader, well here in this article is the reason, the young of today don’t have the guidance from good people, the confidence of knowing right from wrong, the knowledge of how to judge, the time to know why the strength comes from within. You were educated well top 5% or 10% maybe even top 2%, you’re a smart man, you can say and be eloquent.
Not all of us are that smart eh?
So, what do you want me to do?
A better question might be what do you want to be certain about.
I suggest that most of us on the blog wish to create a better world, thats a good Certainty as its broad brush.
Now how we go about it however is something we dont need to be certain about, as a ‘for example’ I am completely won over by Richards ‘Taxing Wealth’ report so don’t support wealth taxes any longer.
I also know that for obvious reasons we approach issues in different ways BUT because the OUTCOME is similar we dont need to get so het up about how we get there
There is more to come on this…
“Certainty is what makes ‘isms’ dangerous.”
Would that also include liberalism too?
What does being liberal even mean? The word is used in so many ways it is hard to giuve it meaning.
I think that you might have just hit the proverbial nail on the head with that comment Richard: often these terms are used to mean different things (sometimes significantly) by different people so much so that concrete definitions (if ever they actually existed) no longer appear to exist. However, if “Certainty is what makes ‘isms’ dangerous” then this must also include liberalism (and a number of other terms) too. Unshakeable certainty in anything can be ludicrous to the point of being harmful.
Agreed
I don’t have any certainty about why Trump does what he does, whether he is evil or v damaged.
But I am certain that he is a felon, a fraud, a liar and a misogynist who is unfit for public office because the evidence is out there.
I will never know WHY he does the unlawful things he does, but I think it IS possible to know why he is so successful at getting people to back him, finance him and vote for him, and that the fault lies with those who previously wielded power, politically and financially.
I am also certain it is possible to obstruct that process but that the most important oppprtunities have already been missed.
But sorry. I haven’t a clue what to do now. I’m an ignorant Limey!
The Lens is good today.
https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/will-the-ratings-agencies-react-to?
I must read it…
Hmmmm…………now then Richard………..you and your bloody interesting posts!!! Stop it!! I thought you were a busy man this month!!
This is what John Gray in 1986 said about Liberalism (pp.4-5, The New Leviathans, 2023):
‘Common to all variants of the liberal tradition is a definite conception, distinctly modern in character, of man and society……….
1. It is individualist, in that it asserts the moral primacy of the individual against the claims of social collectivity;
2. It is egalitarian, inasmuch as it confers on all men the same moral status and denies the relevance to legal or political order of differences of moral worth among human beings;
3. It is universalist, affirming the moral unity of the human species and according a secondary importance to specific historical associations and cultural forms;
4. It is meliorist, in its affirmation of the corrigibility and improvability of all social institutions and political arrangements.
It is this conception of man and society which gives liberalism a definite identity which transcends its vast internal variety and complexity.’
Taking Gray at his word, all I see is a world view similar to the fortunes of the Dodo – a flightless bird that was simply over come by greed and short sightedness and did not stand a chance. Within liberalism then, there are the seeds of it own demise……………no man is an island yet Gray’s first assertion is plainly with ‘the person’. There is a religiosity about this idea – man as ‘God’? Liberalism ascribing a God-like wisdom to a man? When does ‘the man’ become ‘the men’? If at all?
Simplicius The Thinker and his topic of ‘radical evil’ is instructive. Thank you. Liberalism is too rational maybe to deal with that which is irrational, since its assumption (Gray’s assertion no. 2) of rationalism on behalf of all men – even the men of radical evil – is its undoing?
What I am struck by folks is the term ‘Neo-liberal’. This source of our woes is I think, mis-labelled? In fact, this ideological curse of our times has NOTHING to do with liberalism at all maybe.
We need to think of a new name for Neo-liberalism in my view. For one thing, it is anti-social for sure; a second thing is that it negates others based on the spurious qualities of the negator.
Should we re-name it?
Yes, to what?
And I am still mightily busy. But final deliveries on two of my three big projects have now been made, and the last should be done later this week. There will be tidying up still, but I am getting there. It’s been heavy going.
Neither a socialist nor capitalist, I guess you believe in bothism then! I lean that way. But both are being undermined by techno feudalism according to Yanis Varoufakis
I believe in the mixed economy – making things work. Almost none of our politicians do. Myths suit them too well, it seems.
I happened to have gone to see Conclave in a theater yesterday. I agree that the Dean’s speech on certainty is a real showstopper. I also agree with the reader who recommended Stephanie Kelton’s The Lens (https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/will-the-ratings-agencies-react-to) today.
Scepticism is a necessary component of the scientific method. Take no one’s word for it. Don’t even trust yourself. Don’t believe the dogma. Make your own hypothesis based on observations, and then test it rigorously. Find out what works in practice. Discard beautiful theories in the face of ugly facts. And then do it again. And again.
Modern economics often sees to me to be more of a dogmatic belief system, venerating received wisdom, rather than a social science. Where are the rational economic operators? What is r*? How do we even measure GDP, what does it include and exclude and why? And then politicians try to hoodwink the public by pretending to have an easy answer to every question, that their announcement of policy positions is somehow equivalent to delivery of results (30 new hospitals, stop the boats, smash the gangs, blah blah blah), and they are in control of events.
Much to agree with