egb_hibs
Private Member
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2002
Apparently because May gave up crisps for lent she will be insufficiently committed to seeing people as economic units in the capitalist machine of a U.K. freed from the Romanist EU. I think that's he gist of it.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/mrs-may-is-our-first-catholic-prime-minister-zmbgdqjz3
The PM’s outlook on life is informed by traditional Anglo-Catholic beliefs that pose a risk to our post-Brexit future
"Theresa May’s decision to give up her favourite crisps for Lent may not have been headline news. I suspect, however, that it’s at least as important as anything else we’ve discovered in the past ten days [...]
Now, of course, growing up in a household steeped in Catholic spirituality is one thing. Carrying that through to one’s life and work quite another. But I believe the best way of considering the prime minister’s approach to office, in the round, is to see it through the prism of Catholic thought and practice.
Particularly Catholic social thought. There is a coherent and distinguished political tradition, pioneered by, but not unique to, Catholic intellectuals which attempts to steer between the twin dangers of excessive individualism and oppressive statism. It has its roots in the philosophy of Aquinas, borrows from the work of Aristotle and was revived for the industrial age by Pope Leo XIII with his encyclical De Rerum Novarum (Of Revolutionary Things) in 1891.
Catholic social thought places emphasis on the cultivation of virtue rather than the exercise of liberty or the accumulation of prosperity as mankind’s goal. In economic terms it thinks of the common good, with individuals given the chance to find dignity in the exercise of skill, as the guiding principle rather than profits or abstract equality targets. And it is particularly concerned about the dignity of work and workers. It celebrates vocation, believes in worker participation in industrial decision-making and sees firms as institutions which exist to serve society and imbue individual lives with purpose rather than just maximising shareholder value.
It is striking how much of the prime minister’s rhetoric and policy reflects these beliefs. In interviews, including most strikingly in the New Statesman last month, she refers repeatedly to the common good. Her flirtation with workers on boards, interest in corporate governance reform and laceration of capitalists who plunder firms rather than protect workers is all of a piece. [...]
Paradoxically, it is precisely Mrs May’s conservatism — her ethic of service, attachment to traditions and unease with globalisation’s wrenching pace of change — that makes her so attractive to Labour voters outside the major cities. But it also exposes the government to a longer-term risk. Britain’s path to preeminence in the past followed our break with Catholicism and embrace of the Reformation. We pursued a global, maritime, buccaneering, individualistic, liberal destiny — the spirit of our capitalism was infused with a very Protestant ethic. Now that we are once more freeing ourselves from a conformist Continent to make our own way in the world the question of whether we need to be more radical to maximise opportunities or more cautious to reassure and protect is central to our politics. I can see the case for both. Which may not be very crusading. But I suspect it makes me genuinely Anglican."
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/mrs-may-is-our-first-catholic-prime-minister-zmbgdqjz3
The PM’s outlook on life is informed by traditional Anglo-Catholic beliefs that pose a risk to our post-Brexit future
"Theresa May’s decision to give up her favourite crisps for Lent may not have been headline news. I suspect, however, that it’s at least as important as anything else we’ve discovered in the past ten days [...]
Now, of course, growing up in a household steeped in Catholic spirituality is one thing. Carrying that through to one’s life and work quite another. But I believe the best way of considering the prime minister’s approach to office, in the round, is to see it through the prism of Catholic thought and practice.
Particularly Catholic social thought. There is a coherent and distinguished political tradition, pioneered by, but not unique to, Catholic intellectuals which attempts to steer between the twin dangers of excessive individualism and oppressive statism. It has its roots in the philosophy of Aquinas, borrows from the work of Aristotle and was revived for the industrial age by Pope Leo XIII with his encyclical De Rerum Novarum (Of Revolutionary Things) in 1891.
Catholic social thought places emphasis on the cultivation of virtue rather than the exercise of liberty or the accumulation of prosperity as mankind’s goal. In economic terms it thinks of the common good, with individuals given the chance to find dignity in the exercise of skill, as the guiding principle rather than profits or abstract equality targets. And it is particularly concerned about the dignity of work and workers. It celebrates vocation, believes in worker participation in industrial decision-making and sees firms as institutions which exist to serve society and imbue individual lives with purpose rather than just maximising shareholder value.
It is striking how much of the prime minister’s rhetoric and policy reflects these beliefs. In interviews, including most strikingly in the New Statesman last month, she refers repeatedly to the common good. Her flirtation with workers on boards, interest in corporate governance reform and laceration of capitalists who plunder firms rather than protect workers is all of a piece. [...]
Paradoxically, it is precisely Mrs May’s conservatism — her ethic of service, attachment to traditions and unease with globalisation’s wrenching pace of change — that makes her so attractive to Labour voters outside the major cities. But it also exposes the government to a longer-term risk. Britain’s path to preeminence in the past followed our break with Catholicism and embrace of the Reformation. We pursued a global, maritime, buccaneering, individualistic, liberal destiny — the spirit of our capitalism was infused with a very Protestant ethic. Now that we are once more freeing ourselves from a conformist Continent to make our own way in the world the question of whether we need to be more radical to maximise opportunities or more cautious to reassure and protect is central to our politics. I can see the case for both. Which may not be very crusading. But I suspect it makes me genuinely Anglican."
To an English person it's all quite mental.