Lifting Up the Poor

...Do you hear, let them be well used...

...They agree on public assistance for those who work but do not earn enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty...

...Bane believes that an emphasis on desert not only distorts the Christian message of unconditional love but can lead in practice to cruelty and deprivation...

...Mead believes with equal conviction that unconditionality not only is a distortion of Jesus' ministry but also demeans and diminishes those who receive without condition...

...That is why placing Scripture within a centuries-old tradition of discernment and dialogue with-in the church can act as a check on individual prejudices...

...It also involves indirect effects of an enveloping media environment and the sheer quantity, insipidity, and sensationalism of messages that pander to feeling, elevate the pursuit of pleasure over the mastery of knowledge, and treat people as objects or obstacles to the fulfillment of one's desires...

...They agree that our society should make a decent and human provision for those who can-not work...

...Use them after your own honor and dignity...

...Though the violent con-tent of gangsta rap and heavy metal music may provide an outlet for adolescent rebellion, it can also provide some troubled teens with the inspiration—even a blueprint—for violence...

...THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA W a s h i n g t o n, D. C.where do the ideas of desert and conditionality fit into the Christian narrative...

...What the contributors to Kid Stuff bring to bear on Postman's thesis is the weight of empirical evidence and social experience that has accumulated since his influential, but highly speculative, essay was published...

...Who articulates the more authentically Christian view, Hamlet or Polonius...

...As both Bane and Mead recognize, these theological differences have secular counterparts and can be expressed in philosophical rather than religious terms...

...Mead cites Paul's admonition, "If any one will not work, let him not eat," as an authentic expresT SCHWADRON Commonweal 2 3 February 27, 2004 sion of the Christian willingness to combine mercy and forgiveness with stringent moral requirements...

...It features three rounds of ex-changes between Mary Jo Bane, a liberal welfare-policy scholar, public official, and serious Catholic, and Lawrence Mead, an equally serious Protestant and a conservative scholar well known for his advocacy of reciprocity and paternalism as the core of his recommended new approach to welfare policy...

...Bane's stance focuses on human needs as the basis of entitlement to social goods, while Mead emphasizes desert (or as he puts it, "deservingness...

...Theology is still queen of the sciences, and we must get it right...

...In fact, if your kid is a hard-core heavy-metal fan, you may want to pull the plug on the amps, says contributor Peter Christenson...

...By creating a direct channel between children and the market, moreover, the media circumvent parental authority...

...Such notions are not entirely new...

...According to their desert Lifting Up the Poor A Dialogue on Religion, Poverty, and IN elIare 11a Iv Bane and Iv (rrru e ;Ah iul William A. Gaiston HAMLET: Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed...

...To the extent that Catholic social thought rests on a Scripture-based interpretation of Jesus' life and ministry, it teaches that he had a "special place in his heart for the poor and vulnerable" and "did not make God's love, forgiveness, and healing contingent on good behavior but extended it graciously and generously to sinners, to outcasts, and to enemies...

...Two features of these exchanges are especially striking...

...As a Jew, I am hors de combat...

...Sometimes the promotion of the human good—as individuals themselves understand their good—requires an element of conditionality backed by incentives and even coercion...

...Weakness of will is more than a philosophical topic...

...Yet neither are kids immune to violent or sexually explicit images and messages...

...Catholics, she says, emphasize sustenance and community, even at the expense of autonomy...

...1 '.slihenrl' or 'honorarium` ,muilrl he jiacl ,!inc...

...I BOOB-TUBE BABIES Commonweal 2 5 February 27, 2004...

...The grounds for her reversal—which many welfare recipients have articulated—are that they "needed the push of a work requirement to overcome their own lack of initiative in finding jobs or training experiences that later turned out to be valuable to them...

...How can two scholars who differ so profoundly on fundamentals agree so significantly on public policy...

...Bane also acknowledges the deep link between the core principle of Catholic social thought—the dignity of the human person—and work as a contribution to the common good...

...But I cannot help wondering: if we are all sinners, and if divine forgiveness and grace are in the deepest sense unmerited, then Commonweal 2 4 February 27, 2004 to the full rigor of Paul's admonition...

...In the first place, Bane and Mead agree that theological premises do not directly yield policy conclusions...

...Despite her commitment to generosity and unconditional aid, Bane has come to accept a substantial portion of Mead's flintier moral psychology...

...Each of these principles plays a legitimate role in deKid Stuff Nlarketing Sep and Violence to ;America's Children Lrllte l Ir7, I)iunt' Ktrteitclt trrurl Joseph P. iteritti It's Not the Media The broth about Pop Culture's Influence on Children ktnt'n tittrnht'nu,er Barbara Dafoe Whitehead n the movie Freaky Friday, Jamie Lee Curtis plays a hopelessly uncool mother who, in an early scene, drops her moody teenage daughter off at school with this cheery parting advice: "Make good choices, honey...

...Their shared respect for the truth value of solid social science also constrains disagreement that might otherwise have flowed from divergent principles...

...Repeatedly citing Jesus' conduct at the Pool of Bethesda, Mead retorts that to sacrifice the goal of autonomy for the poor is to distort the teachings of the gospel in a manner that reinforces contemporary liberal prejudices in favor of structural or "sociological" explanations of poverty...

...Still, as Kay Hymowitz argues, baby-boom parents hardly put up much of a fight...

...Bane and Mead are too well informed and too honest to deny findings emerging from the implementation of welfare policies on which they disagreed prior to the re-form's enactment...

...As for graphic and violent depictions of sex, the few available studies suggest similar desensitizing effects...

...By cent social life, and for the foreseeable acknowledging non-conduct-based en- future, we will be seeking an elusive, titlements to certain basic needs, he shows ever-shifting balance between them...

...This is why he declares, ringingly, that "politics is secondary...

...Lunch will be provided...

...What the scholastic tradition calls "practical syllogisms" require intermediate premises drawn from reason, experience, and the nature of political and social life, and these premises can work to mute higher-order theological disagreements...

...Indeed, she argues, "there is al-ways the danger of selecting Scripture texts to suit one's own purposes, and dueling with proof-texts is not a particularly edifying activity...

...Meinrad Archabbey For further information, contact Leslie Tentler, 202-319-5484, or tentler@cua.edu...

...desert differentiates...

...HAMLET : God's bodkin, man, much better...

...sumerist values of instant gratification and individual choice...

...For his part, Mead does not adhere CONFESSION: Historical, Theological and Pastoral Reflections on Changes in the Sacr ent of Penance A symposium presented by the Center for American Catholic Studies to be held in the auditorium of the Life Cycle Institute at The Catholic University of America Friday, March 19, 2004 10 .a.m.—3 . Panelists: James O'Toole, Boston College Joseph Chinnici, O.EM., Franciscan School of Theology Catherine Dooley, O.P., Catholic University Kurt Stasiak, O.S.B., School of Theology, St...

...Third, and most tellingly: When the policy chips are down, neither is able to remain fully faithful to initial theological positions...

...The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty...

...In particular, the volume considers the body of research evidence on the observed effects of television, popular music, video games, and the Internet on youthful behavior...

...From this perspective, work requirements are justified not only from the standpoint of the community, but from that of the individual as well...

...POLONIUS: My lord, I will use them according to their desert...

...and Protestant traditions...

...Need reflects bare existence, while desert is based on conduct...

...it is a practical reality...

...And who, other than a parent, puts a television set next to the crib...

...The second striking feature of these exchanges is how deeply the participants disagree theologically and how much their disagreement reveals about differences between aspects of the Catholic -Ilr°ra, I"m not asAiii...

...Here, the conclusion on the halms of the popular media is qualified: most kids don't go on crime sprees or engage in casual sex as a result of media exposure, the contributors say...

...The problem, therefore, is not simply one of direct effects on behavior...

...Second, and relatedly, the facts matter...

...This monopoly included when and how children gained access to adult "secrets," especially sexual secrets...

...Much of their analysis focuses on the encompassing nature of the media environment—the penetration of cable television, Internet, and video into children's households, even their nurseries...

...Jnr a 'handout...

...Jesus did not have a preference for the poor, was willing to make demands on them as well as on the rich, and affirmed obedience to the law as the necessary (although not sufficient) condition for salvation...

...From 1993 to 1995, he served under President Bill Clinton as deputy assistant for domestic policy...

...Mead disagrees with Bane's theology on both methodological and substantive grounds...

...This sensibility contributes to a Catholic social teaching that is rooted in "tradition, reason, and experience as well as Scripture...

...These theological differences have consequences for what Bane calls mid-level principles...

...Remarkably, Bane who re-signed in protest from the Clinton ad-ministration when the president signed the 1996 welfare reform act, now accepts the work provision at its heart...

...I infer that it would be very difficult for sustainable social policy to rest exclusively on either the openhandedness of need-based entitlements or the rigor of conduct-based deservingness...

...She accepts Mead's characterization of Jesus' ministry to the poor as directed to the three goals of sustenance, community, and autonomy...

...Heavy metal music is strongly associated with a cluster of bad behaviors, including drinking, drugs, casual sex, Satanic beliefs, and conflict with parents...

...Later on, Mead quotes Bane's description of a "compassionate, inclusive, peaceful Jesus—who loved, healed, and forgave indiscriminately" and comments: "The Jesus I see in the Gospels is a more dynamic and demanding figure...the Catholic conception misses the element of challenge in the life of following Jesus...

...For example, in his 1982 book, The Disappearance of Childhood, the late Neil Post-man argued that the rise of a television culture broke the adult monopoly on knowledge that had existed in a book culture...

...This shift of moral authority from parent to child, with its jaunty rationalization that kids will "make good choices" on their own, is the overarching theme of Kid Stuff...

...The text suggests three answers...

...To return to the task at hand: the clarity and depth of these disagreements give the entire exchange an air of paradox...

...Downtrodden individuals who sincerely want to work and take responsibility for their lives may nonetheless be unable to do so on their own...

...On the impact of media violence, the subject of more than eighty studies since 1975, the research consistently points to increases in aggressive feelings and behavior among kids who are exposed to such messages and images through television, video games, and movies...

...Who-ever controlled the clicker controlled access to those secrets, whether the per-son was two or fifty-two...

...Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2) he Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the editors of a contemplated series of dialogues on religion and public life, E. J. Dionne Jr., Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Kayla Drogosz, are to be congratulated for bringing out this book...

...The first (noted by participants) is how little they disagree on matters of policy...

...Several contributors, including critics Todd Gitlin, Kay Hymowitz, and Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn, look at the larger, if harder-to-measure, impact of the popular media on child rearing itself...

...Bane repeatedly invokes what she calls the "Catholic sensibility," which she describes as a "stance toward the world that is at its best hopeful rather than despairing, trusting rather than suspicious, more generous than prudent, more communitarian than individualistic...

...And he argues that a close reading of the New Testament offers little warrant for what Bane offers as the Catholic view...

...that the spirit of generosity is strong enough to coexist with (perhaps even to override) Calvinist predilections...

...More-over, as several researchers note, a heavy diet of violent images and messages numbs kids to the social and moral con-sequences of violent actions...

...In classic Protestant fashion, he stresses direct encounter between the individual reader and the Bible...

...In his opening statement alone, I counted no fewer than 174 references to the New Testament...

...In it, contributors from diverse disciplines make the cumulatively compelling case that the popular media has undercut the moral and social authority of parents, teachers, and childrearing institutions in the civil society, leaving children to fend for themselves in a world governed by conWilliam A. Galston is professor in the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs, director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, and founding director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement...

...Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whip-ping...

...Need equalizes...

...Just as remarkably, Mead agrees with Bane (at least "in principle") that a decent society will make provision for certain basic needs—food, shelter, health care—without regard to individual conduct...

...Twenty-five percent of children under two have TVs in their bedrooms, according to a recent Kaiser Foundation study...

...Resenting or resisting their obligations to serve as authority figures, protectors, and guides for their children, American parents have bought into "an ethos of child empowerment" that puts the responsibility for "good choices" on children themselves...