#1 : Discussing the dangers of ist’s and ism’s (part 1)

 #1 : Discussing the dangers of ist’s and ism’s (part 1)

What am I? A Capitalist? A Socialist? A Dirty Commie? An Anarchist? A Republican? A Nationalist? A Globalist?  A Distributist?

I suppose, I would if asked label myself a Distributist, but if I wanted to be specific, it would be Catholic, but if you wanted to know my politics it would be Subsidiaritarian Monarchist, with a couple of other ists and isms thrown in. I am not criticising being any of these or any ist or ism, what I am dealing with here is the danger of being a zealous monolithic identitarian.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being proud of your identity, there is when you refuse to look upon anyone outside it as heathen or heretic. You need to be open to having your ideology challenged, if it cannot defend your position, then you need to be open to change. It is also true that, in a political or economic sense there is no one answer or rather no perfect solution.

Anyone who knows anything about medicine knows that overtime bugs build up resistance to antibiotics, so too with political solutions. What works today, may not be as effective or even work a few years later. You need to be open to trying new solutions and new medicines realising that it cannot be a one for all solution because… another fact in medical science is “One Mans medicine is another man’s poison”. Society needs to open leaving people, who may not conform (within reason) be free to do their won thing and govern themselves in the best way they see fit.

Too often in the past and current day, people use their identity as a battering ram and have a blind zealotry to their ideology. I will paraphrase CS Lewis here, too many spend so long defending God and delving into the scientific and philosophical reasons for God, that they forget all about God and become identified with the argument not the source. They attack any dissenting voice, even valid arguments and critiques as Blasphemy worth of burning the heretic at the stake…

I find, if you leave yourself open to being challenged, you can, if honestly engaged grow stronger in your beliefs, not weaker. I have yet to find a valid argument against Catholic teaching, or an argument against the Catholic Church on Theological or stated Moral grounds. I do find issues with how the Corporate Church engages with the world and how it has not lived up to it’s own teaching. I find massive issue with princes of the Church, protecting themselves and their confreres over and at the expense of the flock who they are supposed to led and protect.

I will deal with reasons for my beliefs in later posts. I will go into examples of what I began to discuss here and deal with, what I hope is an honest look at ideologies that would be in opposition to my own. I will praise where I feel praise is deserved, and call out where I feel it needs to be. Even where I find something wrong, I will try and dig deeper as to why this came to be. One example would be the Anti-Clericalism in Republic Spain before and during the Civil War. It was very obviously a despicable policy, but it had its roots in some corrupt clergy that helped the powers in Spain oppress the poor. In other words, One Group had a few who used their identity to bludgeon their opposition collectively even the innocent and in response another group attacked them with their new ideology who used it to bludgeon their opposition collectively even the innocent.