Get the sick bag, it’s Tony Blair
Tony Blair gets more sickening every day. Individualism, financial crisis, profit, communal good, deeper level, materialistic, my generation, urk urk urk.
The danger is clear: that pursuit of pleasure becomes an end in itself. It is here that faith can step in, can show us a proper sense of duty to others, responsibility for the world around us, and can lead us to, as the Holy Father calls it, caritas in veritate.
Ew? Ew ew ew ew EW!
What the hell does he mean ‘the Holy Father’? He’s not my fucking Holy Father! He may be Tony Blair’s Holy Father but he’s not mine, so he’s not ‘the.’ The arrogance of them – thinking there is such a thing as ‘the Holy Father’ and we’re all obliged to call it that. The me no the, Tony! Keep your holy pater to yourself.
And if you can’t manage to develop a proper sense of duty to others yourself without help from ‘faith’ then there’s something wrong with you – so go improve yourself instead of nagging everyone about your poxy ‘faith.’
The recent Papal Encyclical is a remarkable document in many respects…It puts God’s Truth at the centre of it. In one passage, it describes humanism devoid of faith as “inhuman humanism”: “Without God, man neither knows which way to go, nor even understands who he is.”
That’s nice – he approves a description of atheists as inhuman and then tells us we don’t know where to go or who we are because we don’t believe in his ‘God.’ Odd how nostalgic I feel for Alastair Campbell.
I don’t like how these guys pass around God like a used condom.
The RCC shits me. I opted out years ago. I, and the rest of society that isn’t a
suckercatlick are not bound by or need take notice of the contemptible shite that spews from Rome. Tony Blair’s brain has rotted me thinks.Look on the bright side – the more TB blethers on like this, the more people will ignore him. He has quickly become one of the most ignorable ‘world figures’, which is saying something.
Ugh! What exactly is wrong with pursuing pleasure as an end in itself? Why else would you pursue it? I can, of course, see reasons to pursue pleasure only within constraints, not ruthlessly. If we all pursue pleasure, or anything else, ruthlessly, it will be counter-productive and we’ll end up with a Hobbesian war of all against all. But that’s a different point. These morally-sick RC types are incapable of understanding that it’s the ruthless pursuit that’s bad, rather than pleasure. In itself, pleasure is good.
Oh well, that’s why we call it the Cult of Misery.
From the article: “This is an extract from a speech given to the Communion and Liberation meeting in Rimini, Italy, last week.”
Catholic talks jargon to some church gang, but his words sound cheesy extracted and reprinted in a major newspaper.
I’m shocked, shocked.
That deserves an extra-special shout out, Ben. In my lingo (and when we’re being very nasty and uncharitable indeed), that’s called a “messy, pass-around popper bottom.”
It is just disgusting what a simpering fool Tony Blair has proved to be. “We don’t do God?” As Ophelia noted, oh, for the days of Campbell.
Russell weighed in with an important point – what’s wrong with pleasure qua pleasure? Nothing. I hope my last snarky comment didn’t imply otherwise. I just can’t stand these modern day Cotton Mathers with their stupid insistence on presenting themselves as Chaste Examples. Most fanatical Christians I’ve known have been the dirtiest, kinkiest bastards you could ever hope to know. More power to ’em, but how sad they flagellate themselves over it. How infinitely more sad they’d like to flagellate the rest of us for their “sins.”
Since God is eerily silent, and never says anything explicitly, you can replace him with “What the Church Tells You” in the sentences above, without losing any meaning. Our lives are meaningless without What the Church Tells You. And who we are is set in place by What the Church Tells You.
He uses the term “man”. That’s probably more revealing than he means it to be. There aren’t any women involved in What the Church Tells You. Which is a big part of why anything having to do with women’s rights tends to be sinful according to What the Church Tells You.
“…pursuit of pleasure becomes an end in itself.”
That is a pregnant phrase and I really don’t know how it can be a danger unless the pursuit injures other people, oneself or the physical environment in which case the issue is not the “pursuit of pleasure” but the impacts of one’s actions.
It sounds like malarkey even if one agrees with it. :)
“The danger is clear: that pursuit of pleasure becomes an end in itself…”
As distinct, I presume, from it becoming a means to an end. So what goal would the pursuit of pleasure (as means) lead us to? If I am pursuing pleasure then on this basis the pleasure once attained is merely a step on the way to something further, which CANNOT be pleasure, because that is already attained.
The further goal, beyond (or if you will, above) pleasure-as-means is beyond mere understanding, and can only be found in the answer to a further question, namely what on Earth has Blair been smoking?
“It is here that faith can step in, can show us a proper sense of duty to others, responsibility for the world around us, and can lead us to, as the Holy Father calls it, caritas in veritate.” [Charity in truth.]
Distinguishing between that and its double antithesis, namely ‘uncharity in bullshit’, takes some pretty advanced training, and is not for everyone. So I’m out of here.
Blair can afford not to pursue pleasure as an end in itself because he is rich and connected enough that pleasure will appear to him to be something that life simply delivers to you. Indeed he will have to work to encounter effort and suffering. But those of us who aren’t ex-prime ministers have a slightly different life experience.
His retreat into religious obscurantism and desperation to impose his beliefs on others disguised by a cloyingly bogus piety (you can hear the crisis behind the certainty) might look like religion serving its usual role as the source of self-forgiveness for the worst villains but is in fact just a continuation of his foreign and domestic policy by other means.
Once people believe in markets they’ll believe in anything.
Ophelia, have you read Brown’s latest tosh? In spite of all the chances he has to be reasonable, he still makes a twat of himself. The man deserves some form of recognition. I’m not great at dismantling arguments, but I still saw through his bull……
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/sep/10/religion-christianity
See, this is just one of the many things I love about Ophelia. Her headlines warn you properly. I had the bag ready, and no harm done…
(Or, at least, none to the rug. As to my breakfast, well…)
Now in the newspaper, you might have to read between the lines. I mean, sure, they’d probably mention ‘Blair’ and possibly some word with a root close to that of ‘moral’ and/or ‘God’, and you might well get the idea, probably get the bag anyway…
But then, there’s no guarantee even of that, is there? Might have tacked that damned bit of airheaded assholery of his onto the tail end of his commenting on economic figures or some damned thing, and I’d have been getting the steam cleaner out yet *again*…
Anyway, me, I’m not so much pursuing pleasure as an end in itself, anyway. It’s not so much I’m against it, as I’m setting my sights a little lower these days…
Yes, tomorrow, I plan just to have a day without reading any sanctimonious halfwits’ bad sermons in praise of their cloying magical daddy figure…
(/I mean, there’s a recession on, and all… So I’m shooting not so much for ‘pleasure’ as more ‘affordable non-misery, non-vomiting variety’, really…)
Mmm, yes, but as ChrisPer points out, he *was* preaching to the converted.
Perhaps the reporting by the Independent was really to point out to the rest of us just how empty the words are…
I was wondering what Blair would say about providing pleasure to others, and doing so just for the sake of pleasing them. Is that wrong too? Or would that be part of your duties to others? But in the latter case, wouldn’t that mean that pleasure would be perfectly fine as a goal in and of itself?
The last paragraph you quote is nonsense too. It’s not as if religion has the answers to who you are or where you should go either.
A retired educationalist friend of mine has long had a nice wee expression:
“The older we get, the more like ourselves we become”
Seems to me that His Holiness the Tony is a perfect illustration of that in action.
All else aside, it does take a certain chutzpah for the man who led Britain for what, 10 of the last 12 years to decide only now that perhaps the relentless pursuit of maximum short-term profit is a bad thing. Who’s been running the show?!
And what on earth is he on about when he says that technology gives ” young people access to experiences good and bad on a scale my generation never knew and my father’s generation would find fantastical.” His father’s generation, and his grandfather’s generation, had plenty access to truly horrific experiences on a scale which, thankfully, I would probably find fantastical. Two world wars, for instance.
The danger is clear: that pursuit of faith becomes an end in itself. It is here that common-sense can step in, can show us a proper sense of duty to others, responsibility for the world around us, and can lead us to, as the Law calls it, ‘stop buggering little boys’.
Also the RCC has fought liberation theology “tooth and nail”.
“Blair can afford not to pursue pleasure as an end in itself because he is rich and connected enough that pleasure will appear to him to be something that life simply delivers to you.”
Brilliant!
Non-religious people of all eras, starting with the Ionian philosphers, repeatedly and thoroughly debunked the false conflation of religiosity with morality and humaneness.
I’ve come to the conclusion that one can be either religious or humane. Organized religions essentially pressure humans to deny whatever is best in themselves as proof of faith. And when Blair acted as Bush’s poodle, he didn’t even act according to his own externally acquired and imposed morality, a morality that keeps people in a state of perpetual immaturity.
The perceived pursuit of pleasure has been used to stigmatize women even more than men. A woman delighting in pleasure of any kind from the intellectual to the carnal (as a primary motive and not “for the warrior’s pleasure”) is yet another case of furniture moving.
It’s indicative that women who take pleasure in lovemaking are still considered “sluts” in many sub/cultures, with concrete repercussions — from being declared unfit parents to stoning. Of course, the reality is that sex workers rarely take pleasure in the act, since it’s dangerous work that requires focus and concentration.
I’m completely bamboozled as to why a recent convert to catholicism should see fit to go around the world preaching about the recent Pope Benedict Papal Encyclical. Is he planning on hijacking the formers job, or what?
http://www.vatican.va/…/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html –
Crikey, he is still on about this “faith” thing. I suppose, once a protestant, always a protestant, mentality still prevails.
It fits, Marie-Therese. Blair as a Catholic Presbyterian. Should focus his mind wonderfully.
Athena’s point about pleasure ( ~ carnality ~ lust = sin) is also well made, and can be seen if we clear up any ambiguity in Blair’s statement by substituting the word ‘happiness’ for ‘pleasure’, to make his proposition read: ‘The danger is clear: that pursuit of happiness becomes an end in itself.’
Not even the Pope would agree with him there. Not even on one of His Holiness’ less than holy days. Because of course to a devout Catholic, the ultimate happiness is ‘being at one with Christ’ or some such formulation.
Such mystical bliss cannot be defined in terms of suffering, even though the latter is well established in theology as a means of reaching it.
AJMilne: “See, this is just one of the many things I love about Ophelia. Her headlines warn you properly. I had the bag ready, and no harm done…”
Agreed! Although, to be fair, these days, the name “Tony Blair” is warning enough.
Quote: “it describes humanism devoid of faith as ‘inhuman humanism'”.
What a truly admirable document that must be, then: one that labels anyone without faith as “inhuman”!
And (some) religious people wonder why we get angry!