Part of the problem here is that the Church's ability to control sexual behaviour is declining faster than its ability to block access to protection. The former requires nothing more than a general enlightenment of society. The latter requires both a general enlightenment of society and that the holdouts in the existing power structures are purged.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Part of the problem here is that the Church's ability to control sexual behaviour is declining faster than its ability to block access to protection.
It's an empirical question though. In societies with large Catholic populations, is it actually difficult to get access to birth control. Statistics I've seen before on abortion would indicate otherwise. (I think Guttmacher Institute.) In Catholic Latin America, even where abortion is illegal, abortion rates are higher than in many less Catholic countries where it is legal, which means that we have no evidence that access is difficult even if where nominally prohibited. Also, where, in Africa, Ireland, or anywhere, is it difficult to get access to condoms today? This would seem to indicate that the Church's ability to block access to protection is a bit overblown.
it's the cultural problems at large regarding sex that explain the variation in the data, not the Church
What cultural problems at large are you referring to? The Church was THE authority on sexual behaviour in society. The state entirely delegated its Authority on moral matters to the Church even providing in the Constitution that: "Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Article 44.1.2: The State recognises the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church as the guardian of the Faith professed by the great majority of the citizens
The Church thus spoke for and was regarded as the authority regulating the morals of all Catholics whether they were practising or not. The state enacted laws implementing Catholic moral theology such as the prohibition on contraception on all citizens - Protestants and Atheists included.
By you own logic it is not only higher use of birth control and reduced sexual monogamy which are attributable to the reducing influence of the Church, but also the reducing rate of new cases of sexual in secularised child care institutations abuse being reported. notes from no w here
It is certainly true that in Ireland the Church has institutional advantages in contesting power that it doesn't have in most other Western countries, including other predominantly Catholic countries. And that laws reflect such power given the Church. But does actual behavior reflect that power. By your own admission it does not, which means, as marketing researchers learn in school, there is a big difference between what people say and what they do. I argue that causality can only be attributed honestly to what people do, not what they say, and that means that the Church reflects society much more than it leads it, at least as far as sexual behavior or misbehavior is concerned.
By you own logic it is not only higher use of birth control and reduced sexual monogamy which are attributable to the reducing influence of the Church, but also the reducing rate of new cases of sexual in secularised child care institutations abuse being reported.
No, I argue that neither use of birth control, nor sexual monogamy, nor incidences of abuse, can be attributed to the Church, positive or negative. Even the case of Ireland, which is pretty unique even among Catholic countries in the modern era, that's not the Church but the state that chose to solve it's problem of developing policy-making institutions by providing an explicit role for the church to do that. The fact that other equally Catholic societies found other ways of solving institutional problems for contesting power in other ways shows that what you are attributing to the Church is what you should instead be attributing to Irishness. It's Ireland that explains the variation in the data, not Catholicism. (Which argues for changing Irish political institutions to something more secular but not for any advocacy regarding the church in other countries such as the US, Germany, or even Nigeria, for example.)
shows that what you are attributing to the Church is what you should instead be attributing to Irishness
Ah so the Irish are intrinsically more inclined to abuse children and cover it up? Some would regard that as a borderline racist thesis especially as the pattern of abuse and cover-up was so similar in other Catholic countries/institutions.
You appear to regard the RC Church as something of a Deus ex Machina and not the dominant and defining influence on sexual practices (not just opinions) in Ireland. notes from no w here
Instead, it seems that Church teaching on sexual morality might instead be an aggravating factor, instead of a causal factor. Anglo culture is known, I think much more than Catholicism, for its sexually repressive character. Bill Clinton's misdeeds barely raised eyebrows in Catholic France, Brazil, and Argentina, for example. (And, more perversely, although the same abuse scandals in the Church have apparently been occurring in Europe just as in the Anglo world, people are only just getting around to worrying about it now, almost two decades after the story first broke in the US.)
So it also seems plausible that Catholic influence on sexual behavior and the politics around it may have different effects in different societies. And the fact that Anglo culture, due to recent English and American imperial successes, is the dominant one in the world (the Anglo discourse on rights and laws is the default elite discourse in most of the non-Anglo world too), it seems entirely plausible that the cultural contradictions between Catholicism's traditional Roman outlook of law-as-ideals and the Anglo outlook of rule-of-law, or law-as-rules, could be problematic even globally, though whose responsibility it is to change seems unclear.
The Church is unable to remove the needs - they're hardwired - but it doesn't really need to. All it needs to do is make people feel bad about having them and acting on them.
People who feel bad about themselves express that through masochism, or though authoritarian and abusive sadism - which is exactly the kind of acting out we've seen in Ireland, in Germany, in the US, and in Africa.
Sexual morality is not the issue, and never has been. The issue is power through psychological manipulation.
The Church discovered - or rather reinvented - the use of sexual and other ethical double-binds for mass political psychological control. But it was only able to enforce its brand of religious totalitarianism while it had exclusive control over the narrative space.
The fact that monogamy is waning and birth control is increasing are proof that the Church has lost its narrative monopoly - not that it has given it up voluntarily.
People mostly don't understand the distinction between process and content, which is why 'religious' leaders find manipulation so straightforward.
The Church lost its hold in the West because it was pushed out by competing narratives, not because the processes it used to try to legitimise its narratives were ever fully deconstructed. That was effective as far as it went, but individuals remain vulnerable.
Disagreeing with religion, Dawkins style, isn't enough, because content and belief are a cover story for psychological process, and arguing with the content isn't a very effective form of attack.
The next stage of secularisation will be wider awareness of process. Once that starts happening - and it's beginning already in other areas - social and political institutions that derive their power from psychological manipulation will have a tough time surviving.
It's going to be a very interesting century.
However, you're still assuming, a priori, that the Church is the principal and not the agent in this story. Your narrative puts the Church in the role of being the one trying to manipulate repression and psychological conflicts for the ends of power, when it seems just as likely that the Church is merely the tool of other political actors toward that end. In fact, the main scholarship of the left on this topic, in the works of people such as Foucault and Hannah Arendt among others, would put the church in the role of victim/tool of totalitarian tendencies of the modern capitalist, law-based state toward the ends you describe.
With your rhetorical skills, you can derive why you're wrong about the entire direction of your objections. Align culture with our nature.
