I found this piece a fascinating and simple one.
There may be less room for the distance depicted between the two identities as time goes on with the quality and quantity of information in the web world about us and our identity(ies).
Still, this is well worth a read.
As a Priest (Episcopal) and Organizational Psychologist I have been asked (a lot) lately what I think about the President being the commencement speaker at Notre Dame. The question is a lively one and deserves an answer. So here is what I think.
The current controversy over President Obama’s up-coming commencement speech at Notre Dame reminds me of the Umberto Eco’s “The Holy War: Mac vs. DOS.” In this 1994 piece Eco argued that DOS was a Protestant system,” It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can achieve salvation.” The MAC system is “It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory; it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach — if not the kingdom of Heaven — the moment in which their document is printed.” He allows that Windows may have made the DOS system a bit more of an Anglican enterprise and surely a lot has happened to both of these operating systems since the mid-90’s. Still, one can see the utility of what Eco is describing at least up until and following Linux and the new breed of Operating Systems like Visopsys, Haiku and Android.
Which brings me back to the Catholic Church and the President which also brings me back to the fuzzy logic of thinking clearly about religion. Before I have readers thinking that I am channeling Nuevo-Atheists Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins, let me explain by way of an example. Almost 30 years ago in the hallway of my dorm, a good friend and classmate and I argued about whether one could be a Catholic and not take what the Pope said as binding. I will spare you the adolescent and ill-conceived parts of our arguments and simply say that the question remains a very good one. Can one, and in this instance, can an institution, claiming Catholic identity have a difference of opinion with the Pope and the Magisterium, the teaching authority, of the Roman Catholic Church, and still rightfully identified as Catholic? Or is the very notion that such things are simply differences of opinion a misunderstanding of the nature of Catholic identity. Is not Catholic identity essentially and fundamentally found in the obedience to official teaching and practices?
The Notre Dame invitation argues in one direction. The public comments by former St Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke at the Catholic Prayer Breakfast argue in the other. To be clear about my own point of view, if I was the deciding authority, well I am a middle path guy, an Anglican, so I would like to think that you can take position number 1 (Notre Dame’s official position) and position number 2 (Archbishop Burkes’) and come up with a version 1.5. But if I am going to be honest about my own Church’s thrashing out of our own messy business, we are currently experiencing some system wide problems with schisms, lawsuits and loss of membership; so maybe 1.5 ends up being neither a better system nor even a functional one.
Notre Dames’ position is that Obama is being invited as a historic figure, the first Black to be President and that his invitation provides an opportunity for lively debate on important issues of Catholic teaching. Which brings me back to Operating Systems. I would like to take Professor Eco’s ideas and well, reverse them. Mac, it seems to me is now the New Protestantism. Sure there are fundamentals to the OS but the iPhone Apps store allows for infinite choices up to and including a “build you own” option using “iPhone Dev Center.” Like current forms of American Protestant Christianity and especially those non-denominational and emergent forms, the direction and shape of the faith is constantly under development and the MacOS is now a computer, phone, tunes and soon to be “other” kind of platform. Think Starbucks in the lobby of a big box church, Christian investment strategies and live streaming of Rob Bell sermons. My own Anglican tradition has, I am afraid, become the new Windows, maybe even Vista, appearing to be the best of both worlds and yet frequently shutting down or hogging so much energy simply to run, that it has little left for actually doing any work.
So I would offer that Linux has now become the better metaphor for Roman Catholicism. Linux is describes as having “an underlying source code (that) can be used, freely modified, and redistributed by anyone under the terms of the GNU GPL.” Roman Catholicism is a system that is being developed (think Nigerian chanting, Chinese rosaries and the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal i.e., the Monks who Play Punk) and yet a system that has strong practices and a particular kernel as its foundation. It has its own underlying teachings and practices that can be freely adapted and shared as long as they remain within the boundaries (under the terms of) established by the Magisterium. Roman Catholicism has become an open system from the main truths outward. It is a fixed system when it comes to the core truths contain within.
So whatever one makes of the happenings this week at Notre Dame, one thing is clear. At least from the point of view of those whose responsibility it is to keep the faithful faithful, this is a violation of the user agreement and should not be allowed.
And as much as I am a middle path guy, I do not see how this is debatable.
Recently I was in California giving an ethics workshop – “Bad Apples or Bad Trees?” – to a group of investment professionals. From what I can tell, interest in this topic has spiked recently. I know this because – in my usual way of preparing for such a workshop – I have burdened friends, family, students and colleagues with monologues rehearsing my views and making my case. This way, I hope that having their best thinking keeps me from putting my worst thinking out to people who come to my workshops with a sincere desire to get the “ethics thing” right.
The more I talk about this, the more people want to talk about this. And by this, I mean whether things go wrong because of individual unethical choices or because the whole system is toxic or dysfunctional.
I have a fairly simple answer to this system vs. individual, the apple or the tree question. I will get to my answer in a bit. But first, let’s review the approach taken to the biggest story of our time, the current meltdown of the U.S. economy. In particular, let’s ask ourselves whose fault this mess is, who is to blame.
Read through stories about the crisis and you get the following individuals offered as culprits: Alan Greenspan, George Bush, the person who sold the loan, the person who bought it, Hank Paulson, John McCain, Barack Obama; you can add your own I am sure. Systems that get tagged for being corrupt or dysfunctional are the banking industry, the Fed, the Republicans, the Democrats, investors, sellers of loans, free marketers, foreigners. Again you can add others I am sure. Suffice it to say, there is plenty of blame to go around.
Still, blaming doesn’t get us beyond the questions of how we can make sense of what has happened and how can we change things so that we do not end up in this same mess again?
So what about apples and trees?
Start with thinking about the last apple you purchased. There was a time when the primary concern when buying an apple was whether it was bruised or not. You picked it up, looked at it, felt around a bit and then if it passed the test, you put it in your basket and continued along with your shopping.
These days you are less likely to find bruised apples and more likely to wonder about what chemicals and what genetic tweaks brought you the near-perfect specimen you are holding in your hand. In the first approach the apple’s acceptability is pretty straightforward, rotten or ripe that’s the gist of the purchase decision. In the second, you need a degree in bio-chem or agronomy to know what you are really buying. Tougher decision process, much more to consider.
What about the tree? I am a little out of my league here, still I would bet that – except for a few “Tree Whisperer” types – very few orchard managers would claim that they are simply allowing the tree to unfold its natural essence. Pesticide, fertilizer, genetic improvements and other plant technologies are involved; and because they are involved, outcomes and mutations which up that outstrip the ability of current technology to respond to them; stronger pests, climate shifts, new strains of disease. Again, things are more complicated. Again, a lot more to consider when making a choice.
Just to give this picture one more layer of texture, think about this: China supplies more than half of the world’s apples. China produces 15 percent more by quantity than it did three years ago, even factoring in a drop in production last year because of bad weather. China has brought the price of apples down.
China also does a less than stellar job on keeping poisonous things away from babies, with tainted milk being the latest example. This may not seem to be a direct answer to the apple vs. tree question, but in fact it is. The question now becomes, when discussing apples, what are we really talking about? Chemicals? Global economics? A tasty fruit? What?
So here’s what I answer when asked whether I think it is individuals or systems, apples or trees. I say that’s not really a very useful question anymore. Yes, it is an attention grabber, but it does not help us much when we are trying to sort out what to do when facing real problems or when we are trying to avoid having problems at all.
That question continues to treat moral dilemmas as things to understand and moral failures as things to be punished. It is the fulfillment of what has been identified as the triumph of analysis over solutions. This is not a knock on analysis, rather it is an acknowledgment that such analysis – when it comes to the individual vs. system question – is too often based on the application of established ways of thinking to what are for all intents and purposes completely new realities.
The conversation about safety and health issues of the individual apple shifts dramatically when you add plant life science and global economic influences. It is safe to say that three years out there will be new dynamics, technologies or economic shifts that will change the conversation even more. And so it is with the economy, global terrorism, being a good parent or giving one’s employer or clients fair value for the amount they pay us. Things have shifted and more often than not, the way we try to work on them has not.
So what then is one to do about doing the right thing, being a moral person, family, organization or nation?
My simple answer is this: Pay attention. Not to the latest Obama or McCain campaign rants. Not to Paris Hilton or Toby Keith. Not to brighter teeth or fresher breath. Pay attention not to what is being said but what is really going on.
That we are in a mess is irrefutable. What will happen next is still unclear. So in the mean time do as little to escape reality and as much as possible to engage it. Paying attention is no magic bullet, but then magic bullets got us into this mess in the first place.
And, dare I say again, pay attention, careful attention.
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