The Long Post

I'm still working on the long post that's an attempt to explain everything. It's coming soon, I hope.

Fordism

Walter Russell Mead has an interesting post I don't think would be understood at 222 N. 17th Street.

Fordism was once a term of abuse hurled at the factory system by Marxist critics who, rightly, deplored the alienation and anomie that mass production for mass consumption entailed. Has the Fordist factory system and the big box consumerism that goes with it now become our ideal, the highest form of social life our minds can conceive? Social critics also denounced our school system, justifiably, as a mediocre, conformity inducing, alienating, time wasting system that trained kids to sit still, follow directions and move with the herd. The blue model built big-box schools where the children of factory workers could get the standardized social and intellectual training necessary to enable most of them to graduate into the big-box Ford plant and shop in the big-box store. Maybe that was a huge social advance at one time, but is that something to aspire to or be proud of today? Don’t we want to teach our children to do something smarter than move in large groups by the clock and the bell, follow directions and always color between the lines? 

That's a good description of what the archdiocese's employees are aiming for. I think they have three categories for schools. Category 1 are the good schools. They are good copies of public schools. Category 2 are the adequate schools. They are adequate copies of public schools. Category 3 are the schools that must be closed by any means necessary.

The Inquirer

Sunday's Inquirer had an article by David O'Reilly headlined "Chaput Emerging as Warrior-Bishop." I think it was a message to the archbishop to let him know that he was on probation. If he was too vocally Catholic the Inquirer was going to have to come after him. There were quotes from tame Catholics, Michael Sean Winters, Steve Krueger ("national director of Catholic Democrats" which the Inquirer says is a "liberal advocacy group for the poor") and Stephen Schneck. I feel bad for poor Leonard Swidler, a reliable tame Catholic for the Inquirer for so many years, and now forgotten by the paper he was always willing to serve. I thought it odd that Mr. O'Reilly said that the archbishop is "unlike anyone Philadelphia has seen since the mighty Cardinal Dennis Dougherty [sic] reigned more than 60 years ago." I'm surprised that Mr. O'Reilly had nothing bad to say about Cardinal Krol, who the Inquirer was always ready to insult when he was alive. He was too Catholic for the Inquirer, too.

The tone was not nearly as condescending and hostile as the Inquirer can be, and always was with Cardinal Krol. I am afraid that Archbishop Chaput is not going to take direction, and in the future it will be no more Mr. Nice Guy from Mr. O'Reilly.

What's this about?

          People have different reactions to the school closing campaign of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, but I'm interested here in talking to people with two specific reactions: the people who think that it's not a good thing, but also think it wouldn't be done if it wasn't necessary, and the people who have enough information to know that it isn't necessary, but don't know why it's being done. 

          The best argument the school-closers have is that no group of Catholics would ever start a mass school destroying campaign if it wasn't absolutely necessary, so it must be necessary. 

          I want to explain why the people behind the school closing campaign are doing what they're  doing, even though it's not necessary, and even though it is of no benefit to the Catholic faith.

          Here's what's hard about doing this:

          ·  It’s complicated.

          ·  Nobody should take my word for it. I should have to prove it. I can’t just say it and expect people to believe me.

          ·  I’m not a good enough writer to prove it quickly.  I am going to have to write a lot to have a chance to get my point across. Whether you read it or not is up to you.

         I have no inside information. I don’t know these people. I only read what they write. The only sources of information I have are available to anyone.  Here are their motives.

          1.  People want to be big shots. This program made the nameless people behind this plan big shots in their world. Anybody who caused so much unhappiness and disruption to so many people must be important.

          2.  They’re embarrassed by Catholicism. By Catholicism I mean the religion that the Pope teaches. The old school Cardinal Krol/Baltimore Catechism/Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament religion.  They’ve got a different, more talky, much more vague religion.  James Hitchcock wrote a book about their religion called “The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism.”

          3.  There’s a class war aspect to this, too. They don’t like it that people who live in places they’d never live, or think about living, still have schools that they love.  

         So that’s what I’m going to try to show. The first post is going to be long.