We must offend, and other quick takes: 7QT XIX, seriatim.

radi­tion­al­ist social media crit­ic Kevin M. Tier­ney, in a pub­lic Face­book post (here) is attack­ing Catholic apol­o­gists again. This time, he claims that they are “worth­less hacks.” How nice. Such salvos are not new with him; Dave Arm­strong took him to task in June (although the link is no longer avail­able when he (Tier­ney) said that apol­o­gists do noth­ing oth­er than rehash tired old “talk­ing points”—as though the defense of the Church and its teach­ings amounts to noth­ing more than a polit­i­cal cam­paign. How sil­ly.

As near as I can tell, when­ev­er Mr. Tier­ney is not rail­ing against apol­o­gists in this way, or defend­ing the Tri­den­tine Mass (I have no prob­lem with the lat­ter), he seems to spend a large part of his day polic­ing blogs and Face­book pages for defi­cien­cies of “tone.” He even gave up blog­ging, in grand style, over a (long-since delet­ed) Face­book post that used the word “bull­shit” to describe a sto­ry in Life Site News insin­u­at­ing that Pope Fran­cis has a pro-gay agen­da. The arti­cle itself did not seem to both­er Mr. Tier­ney; but the word “bull­shit” to describe it so unset­tled him that he said, “I quit!”

So it strikes me as iron­ic that he would describe “most” Catholic apol­o­gists (what does “most” mean here? 51%? 75%? 99%?) as “worth­less hacks.” I mean, my good­ness, the tone! Now, this remark was in the com­ment sec­tion of a post that was meant to defend Mark Shea against some crit­i­cism he has received from Frank Beck­with, Edward Fes­er, and [Dave Arm­strong. Mr. Arm­strong and the oth­ers accused Mr. Shea of using “sophis­ti­cal polemics” in his dis­cus­sion of water­board­ing. I have no inter­est in enter­ing that debate, or tak­ing sides, here. I men­tion it only because it hap­pens to be the con­text of Mr. Tier­ney’s remarks: When that judi­cious man said that Catholic apol­o­gists are “worth­less hacks,” the spe­cif­ic apol­o­gists under dis­cus­sion were Messrs. B., F., and A.

Worth­less hacks? Frank Beck­with? Edward Fes­er? Seri­ous­ly? This strikes me as the kind of com­ment that can only be made by some­one who is deeply igno­rant of Catholic apolo­get­ics. Frank Beck­with does not need me to defend him. Edward Fes­er does not need me to defend him. Nor do the many apol­o­gists whose work is its own defense. I speak of Bryan Cross, Joe Hes­chmey­er, Jason Stell­man, Patrick Madrid, Jim­my Akin, Tim Sta­ples, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Scott Hahn, Brant Pitre, Peter Kreeft, “Catholic Nick,” Andrew Pres­lar, Tay­lor Mar­shall, Jere­my Tate, Joshua Lim, and yes, Mark Shea too. You may not agree with every­thing they say or the way they say it; you don’t have to. But hacks? Worth­less? I’m sor­ry, but that’s an inex­cus­ably dumb and igno­rant thing to say.

Per­haps Mr. Tier­ney should show Karl Keat­ing and Jim­my Akin how it’s real­ly done.

No. Any­one who makes such com­ments has no cred­i­bil­i­ty when he tries to tells us why words such as “liars or moral idiots” and “grotesque mis­sion creep” are defen­si­ble when used to rebuke those who defend water­board­ing, but the word “bull­shit” to describe an arti­cle imply­ing that Pope Fran­cis has a pro-gay agen­da is a sign of how mean and nasty blog­gers are.

2.

I will pick up on this theme below, but for now a few side remarks regard­ing the blog.

You might see a few (very minor) addi­tions and changes over the next few weeks. I am adding a bunch of links and resource mate­r­i­al to the side­bar, which will take some time and is a work in progress.

Also, if you try to make a com­ment and notice any­thing amiss, send me an e‑mail to let me know. An anti-spam plu­g­in I was using was inter­fer­ing with users’ abil­i­ty to sub­mit com­ments last week, so I replaced it and made some oth­er mod­i­fi­ca­tions. I hope that all will be well now.

One quirk to keep in mind: If you try to sub­mit a com­ment, and noth­ing shows up after the page refresh­es, your com­ment has not been lost; it has mere­ly gone to mod­er­a­tion. I will find it and get it approved. Com­ment mod­er­a­tion is off (even, as I cross myself, on this post), so your com­ment should appear right away. Word­Press, how­ev­er, can be tem­pera­men­tal for rea­sons of its own. Be patient if you do not see your com­ment right away.

3.

Over the next week or two, I need to spend some time clear­ing book reviews off my desk for Catholic Fic­tion. There will be a brief lag in my post­ing here until those are writ­ten and off my con­science. Then I will return and pick up where I left off.

Among the things that I plan to work on this year are these.

1. A review of John Calv­in’s chap­ter about the Mass in Insti­tutes of the Chris­t­ian Reli­gion. This series is now in progress.

2. A review of a new anti-Catholic book that was just pub­lished last year. By Gregg R. Alli­son, the book is enti­tled Roman Catholic The­ol­o­gy and Prac­tice, and it comes high­ly rec­om­mend­ed by our old pal Kevin Failoni from the com­box of Out of His Mind. If Mr. Failoni rec­om­mends it, one antic­i­pates that it will be a real whop­per. We’ll see what Mr. Alli­son has to say.

3. I start­ed a series last year which was intend­ed to review some of Dr.* James White’s debates with Catholic apol­o­gists. The series is meant to walk through the debates from start to fin­ish and eval­u­ate the argu­ments on each side. I only man­aged to get one post in the series writ­ten (a debate on sola scrip­tura with Ger­ry Matat­ics), so look for me to pick up where I left off there.

4. I promise, promise, promise that I will final­ly begin still anoth­er series of posts on books that explore what it means to be human. I men­tioned that last year around this time, and it end­ed up being one of my failed res­o­lu­tions.

Last­ly, you might notice that some of my old posts end up dis­ap­pear­ing and then com­ing back. This is because I am read­ing through them and mak­ing some exten­sive changes. Whether any­one will ever read the updat­ed ver­sions, I can­not say; but my OCD per­fec­tion­ism does not allow me to let them rest in peace.

4.

Not all argu­ments are of equal mer­it. Peo­ple don’t like to be told this, but it’s true.

There are (allow me to be frank) a great num­ber of stu­pid and shal­low argu­ments out there. We shall nev­er be able to dis­tin­guish the good from the bad if we are not per­mit­ted to call bull­shit, bull­shit. If that offends, so be it. To tell the truth, I’m offend­ed by lazy think­ing, by illog­ic, and by unrea­son, and by fear­mon­ger­ing, and irre­spon­si­ble insin­u­a­tions.

But if you’re going to call dumb argu­ments dumb, just make sure your own have mer­it. There is a dif­fer­ence between say­ing, “You should­n’t use that tone” and say­ing “This is sophistry” or “Don’t attribute ill motives to peo­ple because they dis­agree with you.”

One must make dis­tinc­tions.

5.

John Irv­ing has it right. (I’m para­phras­ing here.) “If you’re going to be a writer, in this or any soci­ety, you’re going to have to decide very quick­ly which prin­ci­ples you’re will­ing to stand by, and which you will allow oth­ers to talk you out of. And it does­n’t hurt to devel­op a rather thick skin.”

It is easy to demand a thick skin of oth­ers, when you are tak­ing them to task, when you think that their ideas are just plain sil­ly and wrong, and damn it, you’re going to be the one to tell them so. It is much more dif­fi­cult to have a thick skin your­self, when the shoe is on the oth­er foot.

6.

In Can­to 28 of Dan­te’s Infer­no, the poet shows us Mohammed in the eighth cir­cle of Hell.

A cask by los­ing cen­tre-piece or cant
Was nev­er shat­tered so, as I saw one
Rent from the chin to where one
breaketh wind.
Between his legs were hang­ing down his entrails;
His heart was vis­i­ble, and the dis­mal sack
That maketh excre­ment of what is eat­en.
While I was all absorbed in see­ing him,
He looked at me, and opened with his hands
His bosom, say­ing: “See now how I rend me;
How muti­lat­ed, see, is Mahomet;
In front of me doth Ali weep­ing go,
Cleft in the face from fore­lock unto chin;
And all the oth­ers whom thou here behold­est,
Dis­sem­i­na­tors of scan­dal and of schism
While liv­ing were, and there­fore are cleft thus.
A dev­il is behind here, who doth cleave us
Thus cru­el­ly, unto the fal­chion’s edge
Putting again each one of all this ream,
When we have gone around the dole­ful road;
By rea­son that our wounds are closed again
Ere any one in front of him repass.

“How muti­lat­ed, see, is Mahomet.” Well, yes, what goes around comes around. Those who try to rend oth­ers will in the end rend them­selves.

I also find it fas­ci­nat­ing that, in the same cir­cle of Hell as Mohammed, Dante places schis­mat­ics. Dante wrote the Com­me­dia sev­er­al hun­dred years before Luther and Calvin. I think I know where he would have put them. I think that this is one form that poet­ic license can take.

7.

Does this offend? Per­haps, before we say how bad­ly we have been offend­ed, we should con­sid­er how bad­ly God has been offend­ed by us. Every day I offend the right­eous­ness of God.

Ours is a cul­ture of offense, full of gen­tle vio­lets who love to take offense—or of bul­lies who love to pre­tend to have tak­en offense. Satire—or direct, harsh words of any kind—can get one lec­tured on Face­book. Or unfriend­ed and blocked! Or it can get you killed. Let us have a a sense of pro­por­tion here.

What should we do? Give in to cow­ardice, or self-cen­sor­ship, in order not to offend—to retain peace in your life, or to retain your life alto­geth­er? Tom McDon­ald of God and the Machine reflects on these ques­tions in a recent blog post. Jour­nal­ists, he says, are “noto­ri­ous cow­ards.” He con­tin­ues:

I don’t care much when peo­ple offend my beliefs, but I do judge them and hold them in low regard, and Mus­lims are invit­ed to do so with me. The anti-Catholic and anti-Chris­t­ian car­toons of Char­lie Heb­do say some­thing about the car­toon­ists who drew them, but noth­ing at all about my faith.

That is right. We must be will­ing to give offense, and be a sign of offense. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true in a cul­ture that is all wrought up about rel­a­tivism and “being nice” at the same time it is hell-bent on impos­ing what George Orwell called “smelly lit­tle ortho­dox­ies.” Not all opin­ions, not all actions, should be treat­ed with equal respect. Some deserve our scorn. For exam­ple, I have deep con­tempt for anti-Catholi­cism, and I have not suf­fered anti-Catholic fools well on this blog. I have deep con­tempt for poor argu­men­ta­tion and faulty log­ic, because I believe that it is our God-giv­en rea­son that leads us to truth, and truth mat­ters. I have deep contempt—this is much more serious—for those who go around saw­ing heads off because some­one prac­tices anoth­er faith. If we are not will­ing to give offense, and in some con­texts lose our lives for it, then we may as well aban­don the pur­suit of truth—and freedom—altogether.

If, in this age, our words do not bite and slap and kick, then we are doing it wrong. Flan­nery O’Con­nor said it: “You have to push as hard as the age that push­es against you.” A world that wants to be lulled to sleep needs to be shout­ed awake. And it’s okay to be out­raged by error and write with pas­sion. I’d rather read a writer who’s angry than a writer who’s in a coma. I like cur­mud­geons. Jerome has his place.

Of course there is no excuse for delib­er­ate, or gra­tu­itous, rude­ness. There is no excuse to offend for its own sake, to lump peo­ple into cat­e­gories because they dis­agree with you. There is a place for civil­i­ty. But there is also a place for shout­ing from the rooftops and say­ing, “Damn it, this is mad­ness, and I will not take it, and I will do every­thing I can to call it out.” Even if you’re killed for it. Jesus called the Phar­isees a “brood of vipers.” Jesus over­turned the tables of the mon­ey­chang­ers and asked, “How can you escape the damna­tion of Hell?” Was that nice? Christ is a mod­el for how to give offense.

So I feel no need to apol­o­gize for how I write. Nor should Mark Shea, nor should Sim­cha Fish­er. And so on. I could not care less about “tone.” I care about rea­son and about truth. The only thing we should be called to defend is our log­ic, and whether what we say is so.

In the ser­vice of rea­son and truth, as Tom McDon­ald says, “I choose to offend.”