Support for racial justice protests: virtue signaling?

A new Gallup poll says two-thirds of Americans support the racial justice protests. A slight majority of all Americans said they have had their views changed. (That's good news IF they needed changing, but sad news THAT they did.) Almost three-quarters of Asian-Americans said this, perhaps influenced by Trump and other white wingnuts talking about "Kung flu" and other stupidities. "Only 36 percent" of Republicans said they had their minds changed either a lot (14%) or little (22%), also glass half full/half empty news. Asians have participated in protests as much as Blacks, while Hispanics have only participated a little more than Whites.

On the other hand, per Atlantic, a lot of this self-confessed mind-changing may be some mix of social conformity and virtue signaling. Jennifer Richeson says the thought that we're continuing to move forward is like riding a "Whiggish elevator." White non-wingnuts get to feel good about themselves, while Blacks in the protest get some new theoretical bit of hope to grasp. In turn, maybe that's part of why Hispanics haven't jumped in more.

I'm not saying it's all guaranteed to be virtue signaling about America, the land of progress, or naivete on similar grounds. Let's hope a fair chunk is real. And that the support is based on hope that turns out to be real.

Benedict mashes up Rand and Steinbeck?

In what, per the NY Times, sounds interesting at least, Pope Benedict XVI has released his third encyclical, this one on the world economy.

The encyclical, “Charity in Truth” in English, was reportedly delayed while the Vatican took stock of the severity of the current global recession, while still being finished in time for the upcoming G8 summit in Italy.

Oh, that Ayn Rand-John Steinbeck mashup?

“There are paragraphs that sound like Ayn Rand, next to paragraphs that sound like ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’ That’s quite intentional,” Vincent J. Miller, a theologian at the University of Dayton, a Catholic institution in Ohio, said in a telephone interview.

“He’ll wax poetically about the virtuous capitalist, but then he’ll give you this very clear analysis of the ways in which global capital and the shareholder system cause managers to focus on short term good at the expense of the community, of workers, of the environment.”

Also, in what has already raised objections from conservative American Catholics like Michael Novak, Benedict says that due to the global nature of the crisis, more international regulations are needed, and places like the UN need to empower poorer countries more.

From the encyclical itself, Benedict has an answer to the Novaks of retrenchant conservative Catholicism, and any success theology Protestants who might be reading as well:

I am aware of the ways in which charity has been and continues to be misconstrued and emptied of meaning, with the consequent risk of being misinterpreted, detached from ethical living and, in any event, undervalued. In the social, juridical, cultural, political and economic fields — the contexts, in other words, that are most exposed to this danger — it is easily dismissed as irrelevant for interpreting and giving direction to moral responsibility.

That said, the call for changes appears reflected in the title. And, a quick scan of the encyclical shows a lot of Steinbeck and not much Rand.

To see if you agree, read the whole story, which then links to the encyclical.

Needed – a 21st-century Studs Terkel?

UNT professor Walton Muyumba doesn’t quite say that, nor does one the of people he references, Walter Benn Michaels.

But, in talking about the recent death of John Updike, he does note the need for novelists who don’t engage in identity issues.

I take that a step further, in light of his column, and say we need a new Studs Terkel with more skepticism, a bit less optimism, and a 21-century take on economic and class issues.