Obviously, monetarily at least, most of us are doing pretty well in the New Ireland over the last 10 years. Yet in the mad adult Treasure Hunt a lot of us are further away from personal and spiritual fulfillment. I think we possibly have not found an adequate replacement for the role the catholic church has played in the life of the country?. And we need a morally acceptable replacement fast. Even Forums Like this, aren't they as much a place to 'connect' and communicate with people about everyday problems. It used to be a lot easier to get this advice in person, from a neighbour, friend or colleague. I feel genuine pity for a lot people in the urban area's where tin pot housing developments have left them in communities without spirit and soul and of course The Bad old Church is no longer a weekly meeting place. There is an nation wide apathy to things that once outraged the nation. Where's this country's Moral Compass or do we need one in the great Celtic Jungle?.
Apologies if on the wrong thread or the Wrong Website!!!
I'm not frequent enough poster to be allowed post a reply on 'Letting OFF Steam' Yet the admin people Put it in there without a giving me a right of reply- I wish they'd have just deleted it. Here's the reply I wanted to post unless of course the admin people get it first and call it 'Spam'....
REPLY
I appreciate the comments and differing points of view. I just wanted to clarify a couple of things because I wrote that piece in a bit of a hurry yesterday. When the word morality is used people assume you are on some sort of crusade or sticking up for the church or Hankering for the supposed good old days. I most certainly am not. Morality for me is simply the ability to differentiate between Right/Wrong. A lot of the time this is personal process but I think a lot of the decisions we face in the new world are collective ones many of which we haven't faced before. Traditionally help to form these kind of decisions came From the Church/Government. It's seems to me we increasingly don't trust these options, which leaves a lot of people in a quandry a about certain decisions.
Some of the horrible examples you cite as to what went on in Ireland while true, Were not morally acceptable then or now, Which is why many of the examples were covered up for years. Turning a Blind eye is not morally acceptting something it's merely sitting on the fence avoiding or fearing to make a decision.
Reflecting on my points about 'connecting' and 'needing an alternative etc they are wide of the mark as some of you have mentioned. I hadn't thought about it in the ways some of you have mentioned. But I suppose through debate comes balanced knowledge sometimes. THe real thing about connecting I guess is that it's easier nowadays not to connect with people as much, because we're not as dependant on each other as we used to be on a day to day basis and also through the technology at our disposal.
Thanks for your time
Drapier
Well Drapier - you got to look at this way - We are the nouveau riche of Europe - the flashiest boy racers on the block - like an 18 year old boy just out of single sex education ,with a new set of wheels ,money in your backpocket and an all out aspiration and desire to discover and wallow in joys of sex ,drugs and rock and roll! . The fact that you have to grow up and face reality at the some stage and that maybe there is something more to life than the afore mentioned sins of the flesh really hasnt appeared on our radar screens yet - we're simply having too much fun in our new found material wealth. Im sure it will change gradually like we all do , when after being released from our parents grip we get our taste of freedom, go mad etc etc - yet after a while , it varies from person to person , we find the need to for somthing more - for some its a career or vocation , others a partner ,marriage children family .As we have to pay our own bills take on responsibilities our perceptions change. We are no longer massively impressed by the record number of pints can be downed in an hour ,how many traffic cones we can fit into the apartment we start giving out about antisocial behaviour , the appearance of young wans wearing next to nothing , that nobody has any manners anymore until things come full circle when you're sitting in your favourite chair , spouting verbal abuse at the TV ,lecturing to anybody within earshot how the country is going to hell in a handbasket and then its hits you - you have become your grumpy Father - all you're missing are the tartan slippers , a tumbler of whiskey and a tendency to drift off during the most important and complicated part of the film plot!
Anyway back to your main point I feel the country is going through a protracted bout of late adolesence / early adulthood . We have left behind the "security" and "passe" thinking of the guardians of our earlier self , the state and the church. Like all young adults we revel in the freedom that money and wealth gives us - we are self absorbed and opinionated to the point of distraction and give off the impression that we know exactly where we are going and we are in control - yet under the surface we are also desperately scratching around for something to hold on to while we are trying to make our mind up where to go - thats the thing about freedom -its all about choices and decisions can be difficult, particularly when you have rejected the previous road maps and are too stubborn ,proud or just plain blinded to ask for directions. thats where I think we are the moment - wealth and prosperity , believe it or not , can be quite destructive and the upheaval caused distressing - if there is one thing humanity in general prizes above all others -its certainty - certainty that my house will still be standing tomorrow , that the money in my bank account is safe,certainty that I will always be better than the uneducated poor chap on the other side of the tracks, and most importantly that the belief system that I have been conditioned into and have conditioned myself to accept is still valid today - in essence that I still count in the fast moving fast changing society of today.
For me , Morality ,like Beauty, is in the eye of the beholder . Right throughout our history our concept of right and wrong, good and bad , mores and taboos have constantly changed and will always be to a degree in a every changing state of flux as each new generation reassesses the belief system of the one before,either tweaking it , taking a chainsaw to the whole edifice or strangely, reimposing one that has gone out of fashion a few generations before. At this particular point in our history I think we have taken the chainsaw option to a lot of deadwood and are slowly but surely coming up with a new frame as , without question , the last 15-20 years has been a period of massive social and economic change ,unparalled in my opinion, since the concept of "Ireland" "Irishness" and the "Irish Nation" came into being back in the 16th/17th centuries. 1916 and war of independence pale in comparison , leaving aside all the grandiose and "commie" talk in the proclamation - all we really ended up doing was changing the name over the door. We were still a **** poor rural agarian subistence based society of the mainland of Europe - but at least it was our own **** poor rural agarian subsistence based society and values that went with it.
The Catholic Church, of course, looms large over any discussion about "morality" in this country. Well over 90% of us are or were fundementalist, practising, a la carte, lapsed or just got off the whole damn programme , Catholics. I as a born again agnostic/atheist - (depends how depressed I am) would count myself in the latter category - yet I cannot ignore the Churchs input into the whole "morality" of the nation. Now , by the church , I mean the whole fecking lot of yous I have just described in the above sentences , not just the clergy and politboro in Rome. As other posters have reflected on here - how did the Catholic church grab such a hold over the nation collective mores or more pointedly ,why did we, the people of Ireland sign our rights to decide what was wrong and right over to the clergy?
Well I kinda found the answer to that a decade and more ago when after a summer working in Germany I went interrailing around the then newly opened up Eastern Euope for a couple of months. I remember visiting monasteries in Romania , Bulgaria and Macedonia and being absolutely astounded at the number of people visiting these places ,even on weekdays and these monasteries were deep in mountain forests and very inacessable places. Even as an atheist I still feel a profound sense of awe when Im a great Cathedral or place of worship and to this day these monasteries were some of the most beautiful places I have ever visted in my life (if you get a chance to go these countries ,forget the concrete condo jungle on coastline or the sky resorts - these are the real treasures of these countries) . The sense of history in frescos and ornaments was palpable.
Not long after visiting one of these in Bulgaria I was in the Press Club in Sofia - (the one place where in the early 90's where you could be assured a good drink and great company) and I was chatting to a Bulgarian journalist, Christos, I think he was a stringer for AP or Reuters and we got into a conversation about the monasteries and he proceeded to tell me of how important these places were to the Bulgarian sense of identity and how they kept this identity alive during the long years of Ottoman occupation. In essence The Orthodox chuch became the repository of Bulgarian national identity.
Now - transfer that thought back to Ireland. Its a valid comparsion. After Cromwells victory and succeeding plantations and imposition of the Penal Laws the Catholic church, as the one organisation not completely dismantled or defeated during this time , it became the repository of the memories and myths of old Gaelic Ireland and through its network of hedge schools and colleges in Catholic France and Spain kept the flame alive and was the incubator of what became the push for a seperate Independent Ireland from 1800's onwards. When the free state became independent in the 1920's its not suprising that we became a triumphalist Catholic state for Catholic people and that the North became a more severe protestant mirror image of the same. What has been happening in Ireland , probably since the late 60's but has massively accelerated in last 15 is the untangling of the knot between Catholicism and Irish identity and that it is possible to be one without the other.
"Spiritual" cults and organisations of faith pretty much reflect the mores, taboos and beliefs of their members in the particular region where they were founded , or as in Irelands case , the pagan religions that monotheism supplanted on its arrival - the reason the judaic-christian- islamic faiths are so successful is that they are very good at adapting and fitting in with their host societies prime beliefs - all they really ask is that you stop making sacrifices to the Sun and give lots of love to the Big Dude in the Sky - all the rest of the rules and regulations are up for grabs.
Here in Ireland it meant that the church toned down all that nonsense that This post will be deleted if not edited immediately came out with about criticisms of materialism and the primacy of private property and focused instead on our enduring hangups and physicological disorders relating to sex and all matters to do with it, our attitudes to homosexuality, gender driven issues , sexually deviant behaviour ,child abuse etc etc etc. Even if the Catholic church disappeared tomorrow morning all those issues will still be with us.I believe there is something far deeper there that even prosperity and money won't solve.
It is telling that we are ,in general, bored to death and couldn't give a rats ass about all the tribunals going on into fiduciary and political malfeasance that have plagued this country over the last 30 years. We only get on our high horses when we see a headline about how much it is costing and our primal materialist jealousy kicks in when we see how many bananas the law profession are getting. the conclusions and findings - we'd rather watch the Football. All the rules and laws that we put into place into make our country a better place for the common good - they're just annoying roadblocks when they get in our way when we are doing our own thing - I could have filled 2 garda notebooks on fines and penalties on my way in this morning just observing fellow cyclists disregard for the rules of road. It all adds up , you know , all these little "white" discretions.
But nothing gets our attention like SEX in what ever shape or form. Nothing like sexual crimes to get the blood flowing - nothing like it to get the mob going in the pub calling for death , castration or if possible worse. Nothing like sexual affairs to get the neighbours tut tuting or put the ratings up for a Soap Opera (its shocking , scandalous, disgusting , criminal - show me more- show me more - show me more!). Maybe its just me - but we seem to have (in common with our fellow Anglophones it must be said) a Weekend Binge drinkers attitude to the whole thing - we're either at one end of moral spectrum( piously giving out about the sexualisation of society) or the other (playboy on every shelf, surveys saying the whole country is on the point of collapse due to sexual exhaustion - if you're not getting it least 15 times a week,in as many positions and locations - you're a loser dude!)
Like binge drinking there will consquences for all of this further down the line - maybe this schizo attitude to sexuality is being borne out in the increase of domestic violence, sexual assaults , increased sexual activity among the teen generations etc etc - I dont know
Im Done .Im definitely rambling and I've got to go meet my friendly turf accountant to negotiate exactly how manty sq foot of shirt he is going to be in possession of when my weekend accumulator collapses with Harrington on the last 3 holes on Sunday.
Have a good one
Ed