MetaCatholic

This is weird. I reckoned the most significant post I made today was this one. According to my stats no-one (or possibly one person only) has visited it. Did I just choose a boring title? Oh, the mysteries of blogging. (If it doesn’t get at least one visit after this anguished plea I may have to adopt an extreme strategy which will include advising Lingamish to avert his eyes from some strong language.

Today’s chattering class news from the Westminster politico-media village was that Tony Blair thought Gordon Brown would lose the next election. A spokesperson for Blair has denied this. I wonder though, how many people will believe the denial. Either they will want Blair to have said this, or believe that it sounds all too plausible, or simply follow the basic political rule: “Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied.”

Thinking about this I recalled a recent post on Windows Vista. Responding to this comment: “Microsoft, of course, has fumbled the launch of Windows Vista” Paul Thurrott points out:

I do not agree that Microsoft has “fumbled” the launch of Windows Vista, however. That is all perception that was driven by the media. Windows Vista has sold at a rate higher than its predecessor, and it has done so without any mathematical gymnastics: After one year on the market, 10 percent of the installed base was running Vista. That’s higher than was the case with XP. So much for perception.

There is the same issue of perception trumping reality, and it is one that crops up everywhere. Consider the ways in which the debate over recent days about Expelled has fuelled the (already common) perception that religion and science are enemies. Those of us who feel compelled to make the opposite case sometimes feel as if we are pissing into the wind.

No doubt the modern media world has intensified this phenomenon. Once something becomes the established story, it is hard to shift perception, whether by denial, argument or the production of facts. I suspect this is similar to what military strategists mean by “the initiative”. When you feel things are running your way they start running your way even more strongly. Somehow your own mistakes cease to mater as much, and your enemies mistakes are magnified. You are running the show and they are reacting.

Historically, I find myself wondering if this wasn’t also the case with the rise of Christianity. The really big persecutions, the Decian and Valerian in the mid third century, and the Great Persecution at the start of the fourth, are perhaps reactions to the growing sense that pagan Rome is on its way down, and the initiative is with the Great Church.

If this is so, then I suspect that the challenges to the Church today are far deeper and more devastating than we are generally prepared to think. Remember this is not about truth and reality, this is about perception. Where is “the initiative” in today’s world, and who has it? I suggest it is with those who trumpet the free untrammelled individual, and see State and Church alike as potential enemies of that freedom to live an unconstrained and fulfilled life.

I’m afraid I must resist being tagged by John Hobbins. I’m far too stupid to have heard of some of these people. I think the list is far too biased in favour of political scientists. I think that by being biased in terms of being active in public life, the list ignores some of the real intellectuals who drive those in public life. (What no Alisdair MacIntyre?!) I simply don’t think some of the people on the list are intellectuals. Dawkins is a very clever man and a polemicist, Chomsky a pseudo-intellectual whose reputation rests on linguistic obfuscation, and a predilection for being outrageously stupid in his support for totalitarian regimes wherever they are to be found. So, sorry, John, I don’t like this list, and I’m not showing up my ignorance by playing the game.

Sometimes you can’t help feeling a book title says more than it intends to.

De la difficulté d’évoquer Dieu dans un monde qui pense ne pas en avoir besoin