Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Does Voting Make You Evil?

It's election day, and everyone is an armchair theologian, separating the sheep from the goats. I learned four years ago just how virulently, and even proudly, some self-styled Catholic apologists indulge in slander and hate at this time, and also that they believe it is justified and defensible. Um, no, sorry.

Anyway, vote or don't vote as you wish, and here is another perspective on the matter.


7 comments:

TheReluctantWidow said...

That was an interesting article. Thanks for posting it. I have to say that as an American, I take the right to vote very seriously even if my choices of candidates are less than ideal. I particularly liked some of the comments that pointed out that not voting at all is most likely a vote in and of itself but no one really knows your meaning. I also thought the quote from JPII was particularly apt. Yes, it would be wonderful if there was a candidate that perfectly embraced the Catholic position of life and justice but that's not really ever going to happen in our culture. So I hold my nose and vote for the one that offends my beliefs the least.

J Dave G said...

I used to read quite a few "self-styled Catholic apologists" but no more.

But truthfully, I am here to ask you a question about singing, if you don't mind the tangent.

I'm just an barely passable amateur tenor in the church choir. I was discussing a moving piece we did with another parishoner after mass last week. He asked "How do those highly professional singers do it? How do they sing these incredibly moving pieces and maintain such exquisite control over every nuance?" I said, "I don't know, but I know someone who does."

I only check in rarely here Pentimento. It's always beautiful here.

(but whew, your reCaptcha stuff is the hardest I've ever encountered)

Pentimento said...

Happy to see you, J Dave G. Sorry about the Captcha. Other people have mentioned that too.

I'd rather talk about singing than politics any day. I've written a couple of pieces that might or might not address your question, here:

http://pentiment.blogspot.com/2009/02/tears-and-singer.html

and here:

http://pentiment.blogspot.com/2009/03/cradle-for-sorrow.html

My teacher used to say that a singer has to have a warm heart and a cool head. But I have to confess that I actually did cry in a gig I had a couple of years ago. The circumstances are a little too complicated to write about in a comment, so maybe I'll write a short post about it for the blog. I told the concert series manager afterward that I should have left that piece out of the program, but he disagreed.

J Dave G said...

Thank you. Very interesting articles. I'll pass them along.

alfonso said...

People mature when they stop thinking politics are going to solve their problems. (Nicolás Gómez Dávila. Colombian writer)

Pentimento said...

I have to agree with that, Alfonso.

Anonymous said...

Russell Kirk never took elections too seriously. In this he concurred with Gore Vidal, who said he quit voting after 1964, when he voted for the "peace candidate," Lyndon Johnson. Changing a culture is a far greater challenge than electing someone to high office. St. Benedict, ora pro nobis.