C
chicago
Guest
I’m going to join the CIO because everybody I see I owe!
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rlg94086
Guest
:ehh: Was sagst du?
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mvinca
Guest
The difference being that here, in America, everyone has the ability to make it, so it has nothing to do with your chosenness.
I do agree with the points however that making it is often more than just providing for your family and focuses on material things and that the focus should be improved.
C
chicago
Guest
Yet the underlying mentality is the same (and really does derive from our Protestant roots), if only secularized.
It would be helpful if the culture were more based upon the family and community as well as the inherant dignity of each and every one, no matter how “small” rather than individualistic.
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mvinca
Guest
But it was the predestined path that made the concept conflict with Catholicism. Otherwise, I don’t see the conflict. I only see hard work as a virtue that happens to be rewarded in the capitalistic society.
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rlg94086
Guest
Well, maybe you should join the CUO, since everyone you see you owe…
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Jeffrey
Guest
Co-signed! ( I agree with you ).
C
chicago
Guest
You aren’t familiar with the old union, are you? The Congress of Industrial Organizations was a splinter group of the AFL which later remerged with the American Federation of Labor to jointly become the AFL-CIO.Well, maybe you should join the CUO, since everyone you see you owe…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Industrial_Organizations
The line I previously cited is an old jingle from many decades ago which served to promote joining their union during hard times in this country.
C
chicago
Guest
The problem is in the application. People try to “prove” their chosenness by becoming “accomplished” to “move up the ladder”. If they can do that, then they are perceived as being “blessed” (or theologically, one of the chosen). So we glorify work and progress and anything which seems to advance this goal.
For example, it is this mentality which led to the obcession with time that exists in some European cultures (and to a certain degree our own American one), whereas in other cultures more influences by a traditionally Catholic sensibilities, there is often a greater sense of leisure and balance, and they are less enslaved to the clock.
The flip side is that if, for whatever reason, you haven’t “made it”, you are essentially judged as someone inherantly flawed. You are (by theological analogy) one of the damned. “There must be something wrong with you!”
Because of this, there is a complementary failure to value the intrinsic worth of the human person for WHO he is rather than what he can produce. The concept of family, gift of self, and common good is also lessened in light of the focus on the individual and his sole advancement.
While there are certainly things of worth in this Protestant worldview, it is ultimately faulty and incomplete (and in some ways at war) without the light of Catholicism. Alas, all of us (as Americans) are infected by it.
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rlg94086
Guest
Though I didn’t know the jingle, I knew what the CIO was and got the CIO-“see I owe” connection. I just didn’t know how it related to the statement of mine that you quoted.
C
chicago
Guest
What you had articulated in a previous post (from which the post I was replying to was a reply of yours to my comments upon) almost sounded similar to old union language about a wage which offered enough to pay for a family’s well being by putting “carpeting on the floor and pictures on the wall.” Since you stated that we merely disagreed about the approach, I figured I’d throw the old union ad out there as a subtle rhetorical bait to make a statement about just wages.
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rlg94086
Guest
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mvinca
Guest
This is the jump in logic I don’t understand. Usually people are working hard for their family, not their self. I don’t see a greater focus on the individual based on this concept. Even if we accept the premise that we are focusing on what one can produce, how does this lessen the concept of family, seeing as that is what the person is producing for in a selfless manner?**
C
chicago
Guest
M
mvinca
Guest
Fair enough. At this point I think our disagreement lies with you saying the current attitude in America is like the Calvinistic attitude you describe, while I disagree. I don’t think (majority of) people are saying the poor “aren’t worth it.” They just feel there are more efficient ways to help them.
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rlg94086
Guest
I don’t think people think that way. An individual’s worth has nothing to do with the wage they earn. The worth the market/our society of the job they do is the primary factor.
Also, there is nothing wrong with basing a pay within a job on how hard someone works. Certainly, a person who gets more done in their given field - cleans more toilets, sells more houses, performs more and/or better surgeries - should be paid more than one in the same field who does less.
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josephdavid
Guest
If this is the case then why does our government give huge tax breaks to the wealthy and pay for these tax cuts by cutting the programs that benifit the majority which is the middle class and especially the poor.
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rlg94086
Guest
You must be confusing minimum wage with tax policy. They have little or nothing to do with each other…
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josephdavid
Guest
I am making a parallel example of justifying who is worth more.
I see Republicans put more value of a child in a womb but not outside of the womb. Put more value based on their tax breaks and program cuts, that wealth is more valuble.
Democrats say a child in the womb is lesser than a person outside of the womb.
Either way our government and perhaps society as a whole is not showing a continuous ethic towards life.
C
chicago
Guest
And, yet, I beleive that a truly Catholic view takes a different tact, recognizing “just wages” as a response to the inherant dignity of man and his work rather than simply “letting the market decide”.
While I don’t disagree with this in and of itself, I would say that there needs to be a certain basic base off of which we’re working. Which gets us back to the whole idea of “why a minimum wage”.
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