INSIDE THE LIBERAL HEAD
Or do you say “progressive”? Anyway, I keep wishing I could tease apart the thought processes which occur in the heads of the ‘practicing Catholics’ who don’t seem to line up with what the Churches. I was pleased to hear Hunter College Professor Alice von Hildebrand on EWTN a few night ago offer that to her mind much faulty thinking is not thinking at all, but rather the superficial parading of slogans. I’ve observed some of that.
In addition to slogans, I see a proliferation of predudices. Not the kind of predudices which easily come to mind, such as those against skin color, ethnic background or corporal attractiveness for instance, but rather stealth pre-judgements against gun owners, big families, the working class, or Christians who take their religion seriously, who are assumed to be asses.
I haven’t heard the term ‘kneejerk reaction’ much lately, but it seems an apt description of how those too lazy to think reach their conclusions. When cops do it, it is called profiling. When commentators do it, it is called circular filing, summarily consigning certain points of view to the intellectual waste basket. Like, those who pray the Rosary are denizens of a lower, unenlightened spiritual domain compared to, say, those who spend their time reading reviews of the latest books on trendy theologies.
Besides sloganeering, stealth preducies and circular filing, there is horizon shrinking. This is a kind of Know-nothingism which excludes from discourse all options except those preferred, because that is what they say, such as that the only way to control AIDS is to use condoms, lots and lots of condoms, or the only way to deal with the regulations of the Church is to blow off the rules, lots and lots of the rules.
