For the Commonwealth
Aquinas: The Treatise on Law Qu. 90. The Essence of Law
2. Is the law always directed towards the Common Good? A: Every part is ordered to the whole as the imperfect to the perfect. The individual is part of a perfect whole that is the community. Therefore, law must concern itself in particular with the happiness of the community.
I have heard all too many reckless souls accuse Aquinas of being a proponent of Communism. Their remarks are premised on quotations such as this one. But this would be a rather unfortunate rendering of what he had to say. These individuals, all proponents of the most aggressive equalitarianism, are apparently little aware of the fact that the Angelic Doctor knew all too well the flaws of man and the reality of natural inequalities that function as social underpinnings within a world that’s far from being a Utopia.
While many may wish to toss Aquinas to the wind, I think we, particularly those of us in America, would do well to consider his insight on matters such as these. For there was a time when America understood the idea of a commonwealth. There was a time when America understood the idea of a nation. To be quite frank, there was once a time when America knew what America was! But as with many great things, much of this has fallen to the wayside.
For American to regain a sense of identity would require us to embrace a common heritage, common traditions, a common religion, and common values. It would force us to realize, and accept, that while the promises of “you can do anything you want so long as you put your mind to it and give it 110 percent” are nothing more than empty platitudes, they can most certainly do what they do best. And who other than themselves and those near and dear to them would know what this is and how this is to be done.
But it is here where the individual and the collective come into conflict. It is here where we find a tension between what is good for the one and what is good for the many. This has been the one of the great trials of our times. Thankfully, we are not left to wander on our own. Those brave souls and great minds having come before us faced the same questions, and they dealt with them in ways that we shouldn’t take for granted.
Saints and sinners attempted to find that place of balance and harmony between these two extremes. On the one hand, they fervently defended the divine right of private property. On the other hand, they wished for the owner to feel a familial commitment to those around him. They saw man’s desire to pursue happiness as a majestic goal to be achieved. But they never mistook liberty for license. It was a balancing act, to say the least, but one they did fairly well. The result of their efforts bringing them to the notion of a commonwealth, that place where the one and the many find a place and a purpose, both in and outside of themselves.
It is quite unfortunate that we have forgotten this concept. The cult of radical diversity, led by the Diversicrat ayatollahs, is tearing this country apart at the seams. Laissez faire tolerance of moral deviancy is eating away at a culture that, while not perfect, embraced a social an economic equilibrium unlike most anything we see today. We have gained shadows and phantasms at the expense of justice, solidarity, and liberty.
It is long overdue for the products of all things new to reconsider the wisdom of many things old. In doing so, we may once again find that place of balance and harmony where the one and the many find their rightful place. Otherwise, will continue down this reckles road that leads to everywhere and nowhere, not recognizing it for what it is. The very road that has been traveled by all great civilizations that once were but are no more.
Not 100 percent with this.
But Aquinas seems to be mentioned by a few in connection with democracy.
Catholic encyclopedia New Advent mentions a ‘Christian democracy’ in connection with Leo XIII’s Graves de Communi, 1901.
To my knowledge, Leo XIII hammered on socialism, and communism. New Advent stated that Leo XIII drew on Aquinas for Rerum Novarum.
Any thing you wish to add would be more than helpful, seeing as my knowledge of encyclicals is only slight. Thanks much.
Bubba
January 15, 2009 at 1:08 am
I remember one comment of yours that the word liberal had a good ring to it also. I’m rather convinced that the word has much more to do with Christian charity, i.e. liberality than with the libertine non-ethic a lot of people think.
Seeing as my info does need updating, I have seen the Scholastics and Bellarmine mentioned in connection with democracy.
But I’m looking to avoid the errors made by Thomas Woods, and the mises crew. I almost fell for a lot of the libertarian thing, which sounds almost too much like social darwinism, and plato’s republic gives me the willies also.
You’re the one layman I know that has decent knowledge of the encyclicals.
Your input on these things would be more than helpful.
Bubba
January 15, 2009 at 1:33 am
St.Robert Bellarmine argued for mixed government “Because of the corruption of human nature we judge a monarchy blended from aristocracy and democracy better at this time.”
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote “For this is the best form of polity, being partly kingdom, since there is one at the head of all; partly aristocracy, in so far as a number of persons are set in authority; partly democracy, that is, government by the people, in so far as the rulers can be chosen from the people, and the people have the right to choose their rulers.”
The word “commonwealth” denotes “the wellbeing of the whole society”. That would mean royalty, aristocracy, commons, serfs etc. Sir Thomas Symth, in accord with Plato and Aristotle, defined ALL commonwealths as mixed government; that is what a republic is, a commonwealth. The term “commonwealth” and “republic” underwent a change of definition under Machiavelli.
Democracy is not a commonwealth for it is the domination of the society by only one segment of the population, the poor. Democracy is also unjust because nature does not fit the poor to rule. Usually when Democracy rules, it kills off the higher classes. This in itself makes it unjust.
The state is the mirror of the family. As the family is in a tripartite form, so is the state. Most of all Catholic and Orthodox nations had monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. The Republic of Venice and the Republic of England where all instituted under Catholic leadership and guidance.
For the definition of a commonwealth, please see
http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Classical_definition_of_republic
WLindsayWheeler
January 15, 2009 at 10:49 am
There is a major flaw in the subtitle of the Olivet Young Americans for Freedom blogsite both in the title of the blog and in the subtitle.
Your political science does not exhibit harmony between stated goals and titles. Throughout, it shows illogicity exemplified in a very unsophisticated and shallow political science.
First the Title; “Olivet Young Americans for Freedom”. “Freedom” is the Masonic, Enlightenment slogan. What is that doing on a “Catholic” run or influenced website? The right hand knows not what the left hand is doing? If you are “Traditional”, It is about “Order” and not about “Freedom”. Traditional political science is about Order and not “Freedom”. Freedom is an amorphous term that can hide subversive ideas in it anti-thetical to Catholic and Orthodox teachings/political science. Catholic and Orthodox political science is built on the Natural Organic Theory of the State, which is that all societies are composed of Royalty, Aristocracy, commons, and serfs/peasants.
Second, in the subtitle, “Students standing for traditional values, the faith of our fathers, and our constitutional republic” there is an oxymoron and a disharmony between Catholicism and Americanism. If one is a true blue Catholic, Americanism must be rejected totally. Furthermore, if you state “for traditional values” where you use the word “traditional” you can’t be for America’s “constitutional republic” for America never was a republic in the Traditional sense of the term. America is a psuedo-republic, a faux republic, but not a true republic.
Do Catholics uphold and support psuedo things? Are we into false reality? Do we uphold lies? Or expose lies?
The American revolution was the continuation of the English Civil War, of the Great Revolution of 1686; it was called purposely the Presbyterian War! Do Catholics have common footing with leveling radical Protestants that started and fomented the American revolution? or with the Masons?
Americanism is a heresy and everything about her is a Novus Ordo. What does “Tradition” have to do with a “Novus Ordo”?
I think you need to think hard about what you want to defend and what you propose and who you are and is it harmonious? Does it all fit? “Freedom” is a Masonic code word and organizations that use that word are Masonic. What is logical fits, what is illogical must be thrown out and discarded. You are using terms and titles that are incompatible with one another. Either you are for the Novus Ordo, or for the Old Order. Either you are for “America” and its psuedo-republic or for hierarchy, your seige Lord, the Queen of England, for tradition, and for traditional society, the Old Order. But you can’t mix and match.
Are you Jeremiah Bannister for the Old Order—Or are you for the Novus Ordo?
WLindsayWheeler
January 15, 2009 at 11:37 am
A. Go screw yourself.
B. Young Americans for Freedom is a student organization. The school would not permit us to use it on account of their affiliation with VDare, American Renaissance, and the BNP. So we used Olivet rather rather than Olivet College.
C. Catholic Social Teaching has no qualms with freedom, if by freedom we mean the kind of liberty that is not to be confused with license. You being ignorant of Catholic Social Teaching accounts for your blunder.
D. I am pretty sure that I have a post on that site decrying the heresy of Americanism. If not, it would be on Xanga. At any rate, having a bond with one’s homeland is a far cry from the Americanism condemned by the Church.
E. The republican form of government assured to us by our Constitution may not live up to the pure, historical form, but this is what we were (at least Constitutionally) supposed to be.
F. I have commented extensively on this very site about my views of the Federal Fathers, the influence of Freemasonry, their Newtonianism, their Unitarianism, and the Enlightenment underpinnings of their political philosophy. I don’t know how to make my position any more clear.
G. I was a Protestant when I started the site. It wasn’t until after the site had been active for some time that I converted. The visual aspect of the site changed very little, but the content most certainly did. My keeping certain things up was partially an oversight on my part, or maybe a reluctancy to dictate what was a student group comprised mostly of Protestants.
H. I attend Latin Mass. I consider myself a traditionalist, though not a sedevacantist. I have difficulties with the Novus Ordo liturgy, but believe it is nevertheless a valid Mass. I am at odds with neo-Catholic theology and political philosophy, as should be obvious. Nevertheless, I do not believe that being a traditionalist requires one to subscribe to your political views.
I. Let me reiterate A. Go screw yourself.
Paleocrat
January 15, 2009 at 11:52 am
I think you misconstrue the “Novus Ordo” part. I do NOT mean Novus Ordo mass. I mean “Novus Ordo” as in the backside of the US One Dollar Bill, “Novus Ordo Secularum”. My comments are about the re-ordering of society according to “new modes and orders”—a phrase used by Machiavelli.
You seem to forget that there were three sets of Americans at the time of the Revolution—Those that fought for the Revolution, those that sat on the sidelines, and….and…those that fought for their King and country—the Loyalists! Are not and were not the Loyalists Americans? Why do you think the winners of the revolution are fathers worthy of remembrance and not the Loyalists?
The Loyalists were defending the Old Order. This was my question. Are you for the Novus Ordo of the American masonic revolutionaries or are you for the Old Order defended by the Loyalists.
It seems that the Loyalists and their positions are forgotten. I forget what you told me about your last name, “Bannister” is Scottish, is it?
Isn’t our homeland—Europe? Is not your homeland Scotland or at the very least the British Isles? Is that not our homeland? Are we not Indo-Europeans inhabiting the American continent? And if our homeland is really Europe or the British Isles, is not our loyalty to our racial forefathers of Europe? This is what it means to be of the Old Order; to uphold the Old Country, its customs and traditions and society.
WLindsayWheeler
January 15, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Yes, I most certainly misconstrued your statements. But when talking to a traditionalist Catholic and you choose the phrase “Novus Ordo,” you may wish to be more specific. Then again, I should have been more observant.
My political, economic, and cultural philosophies are based upon Scripture and Tradition as interpreted by the Catholic Church, most notably expounded through Her encyclicals, catechisms, and social theorists. This being said, I have no qualms with a Monarchy as you have described it. Then again, I believe, with Aquinas, that a monarch could go under any designation, so long as his position is functionally identical or close enough as to raise little concern.
I have little interest in returning to a feudal system, per se. I am a Distributist. I wish to see a return to the Guild State, local in nature. Still, this does not eliminate what Pesch would refer to as the National Economy. Finding the balance between localism, regionalism, and nationalism is the task at hand.
Where do you get the idea that I have forgotten that only 1/3 of the country were Revolutionaries? If you read the thread “Catholic Revolutionaries and Armed Resistance.” I deal with this very issue.
I am an American hybrid, mostly Scottish and Irish. Bannister, Rowe, Ferguson, and McPherson. This makes racialism and those cultures that may be more strictly identified with those races a tad difficult for folks like me.
What I do know is that I was born here. My father, his father, and his father’s father were born here. I had family members on both sides of the War between the States. So how we came to be where we are, what ties my ancestors may have had to a given race or culture, and the degree of relevance this has upon my current philosophy is rather murky and relatively insignificant. An unfortunate fact, but a hard and cold one nevertheless.
In sum: I am an American. This is my country. There are good things and bad things about our system. Our history is riddled with problems. Prevailing philosophies are repugnant to minds like mine. But this is my country. My soil, my blood, and my Church are here. This is home. And trying to influence it through the implementation of Catholic Social Teaching to every aspect of human life (including the ideal of fathering a large family) is my goal. This is the dominion of King Christ. And this is all I aim for.
Paleocrat
January 15, 2009 at 2:22 pm
You should comment on the new site. http://thepaleocrat.com. I will post my last comment on that site. I am doing this to encourage people to begin going there to discuss various blogs.
Paleocrat
January 15, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Here is the URL to this particular post on the new site. Please submit any further comments there. Thank you for your cooperation in helping us promote our new site.
http://web.me.com/paleocrat/Paleocrat_Tribune/Tribune_Blog/Entries/2009/1/13_Aquinas_and_the_Commonwealth.html
Paleocrat
January 15, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Bubba,
I will answer both of your questions, but would prefer to do them on the new site. It will help get people accustomed to visiting the new site rather than this one.
The site is http://thepaleocrat.com.
The thread for this particular blog doesn’t include comments posted here, but we can refer back to this for context.
The thread’s new location: http://web.me.com/paleocrat/Paleocrat_Tribune/Tribune_Blog/Entries/2009/1/13_Aquinas_and_the_Commonwealth.html
Paleocrat
January 15, 2009 at 8:37 pm
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