FORGET Microsoft, Boeing, KFC, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Nike and Philip Morris. All Johnny-come-latelies and also-rans. And while George Lucas deserves some credit for turning his silly Star Wars into a multi-billion-dollar franchise - covering every-thing from video games to action figures - he's the rankest of amateurs when compared with the greatest entrepreneur in history. Ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause for the founder of the very first and still the mightiest of all global corporations: St Peter, first CEO of the Roman Catholic Church.
Technically he's not really fallacious as he doesn't advance an argument. Just some vitriol pointlessly directed towards one of his favourite targets. The entire opinion column continues in this vein:
This brings us back to George Lucas and his Star Wars action figures. Once again, we’re looking at knock-offs from the Catholic original. The church has been marketing its superhero for millennia, with action figures in every church, and a wide range of other goodies – rosaries, candles, Virgin Mary statues, miracles, St Christopher medals.
Wow. What a genius, coming up with such a clever metaphor all on his own. I suppose I ought to explain why Phil's analogy is poor. Well, Yoda could lift an X-Wing out of a murky swamp with no hands and his eyes closed, and don't get me started on how badass Darth Vader's "force grip" is. Though Jesus is cool and all, what with his water into wine power, he's not comparable (he doesn't even come with a light-sabre).
For an atheist, Adams is more obsessed with religion than most of the religious people I know. And if you are going to have a go at religions, I'd say there are more worthy targets than the Catholic Church. Most Catholics are fellow lefties for crying out loud Phil!
Update - Yoda and Jesus would have been best mates.
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Technorati Tagged - Fallacy, Skepticism, Impugning Motives, False Analogy.
9 comments:
I'm not sure whether this is really is a false analogy, Theo. The 'church-as-corporation' idea has been around for a long time.
In "Voltaire's Bastards", historian and philosopher, John Ralston Saul, advances a similar, albeit more thoughtful, argument to Adams.
I believe Bertrand Russel also refers to the Catholic Church, in "The History of Western Philosophy", in a similar fashion as well.
And they were/are all wrong...
Or you could look up "corporations" on wikipedia, were you will find evidence that a lot of early corporations actually modelled their operation on how the Catholic Church conducted their 'business'....
Well, the etymology of corporation is via Christianity, and it literally means a body of people. Historically, calling a church a corporation is literally true; an uninteresting tautology. But if this is where we're going, why just stop with the Catholic Church? Why not sports clubs, schools and the Red Cross? They are all groups of people. Why not our government? Hell, you could arguably say it's fair enough to describe a herd of goats as a corporation. It doesn't mean it's apt or helpful, but you could.
However, Adams isn't using corporation in this historic and literal sense, but in a contemporary and figurative one. This makes it easy to cynically snipe away (one of his trademarks), implying that the Catholic Church is completely self interested. Eg: The early popes proved themselves better at pyramid selling than the pharaohs, organising the religious counterpart to Tupperware parties and Amway… And as with fast food, faith could be very profitable.
I know many god botherers of that variety and I can safely say they are some of the most giving and selfless people I've ever been lucky enough to know. Not very "corporate like" and completely uninterested in "profiteering".
One final point, the federal government's new IR laws are applied to trading corporations. Many private schools are supposedly going to be classified as trading corporations so they'll be in the federal jurisdiction. You're not agreeing with the Howard government, surely? Say it ain't so Ben!
My point was that comparing the Catholic Church to a corporation is a valid analogy for several reasons (apart from the historical and semantic association you have mentioned). Note that this does not necessarily mean that either a corporation or the Catholic Church is ‘bad’.
For example, corporations are abstract entities (like the Catholic Church). Also, they both have a highly hierarchical power structure – pope and the cardinals (or CEO and the board of directors) at top with a lot of power; alter boy (or coffee boy) at the bottom with almost none. And of course I could go on, but I would probably start sounding like a Marxist.
Your slippery slope argument is fallacious, Theo. Furthermore, whether Adams uses this analogy for cynical purposes or not is irrelevant.
Also irrelevant is your argument by anecdote: ‘I know many god botherers of that variety and I can safely say they are some of the most giving and selfless people I've ever been lucky enough to know. Not very " corporate like " and completely uninterested in "profiteering".’
Belonging to an entity analogous to a to corporation does not necessarily make one’s actions selfish or ‘corporate like’. By the same token, I sure most of the people who work in corporations are not sociopaths either, but that does not preclude members of either group from being motivated by self-interest.
WRT to your final point, I am not agreeing to anything. An entity that is analogous to corporation does not necessarily mean that it is a corporation in the legal sense, as Crown law understands it (well not yet anyway – see below). The reason the states have taken the federal government to the High Court over the new IR laws is that the states believe that these laws are unconstitutional.
The reason for this is that when the constitution was drawn up, after federation the states would retain the power to legislate over industrial relations (and healthcare and education, for example), while they would abrogate to the federal government their powers associated with defence, taxation, foreign affairs etc.
To enact the new IR laws, the federal government is relying on its corporations power (i.e. its ability to legislate over corporations) to overrule the states’ own IR regimes by contending that any employer is in fact a corporation, and therefore able to be regulated under this section of the constitution.
The states are obviously horrified by this prospect for two reasons. Firstly, it represents a massive extension of federal power at the cost of the states’ rights; and secondly, it uses the corporations power in a way that was never intended by the drafters of the constitution. Furthermore, if the states fail in the High Court, it essentially spells the end of the federalism in Australia as it means that the federal government’s power is now unlimited i.e. they are free to interpret the constitution in all sorts of creative ways to overrule the states. This would pretty much render the states impotent and reduce them to being mere appendages of the federal government.
Whether or not this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen. However for a conservative government that is supposedly ideologically opposed to ‘big, centralised government’, they certainly have put themselves in a bizarre situation, which is the one thing that leads me to be suspicious about their motives.
Ben, had a chuckle at your spelling of "altar boy" ("alter" boy). It works at so many different levels..
Alter boy is an altar boy going through puberty...
Alter boy is an altar boy who is transformed by a numinous experience.
Alter boy is a new superhero - formerly a mild mannered altar boy who gains mysterious powers from a radioactively contaminated baptismal font.
As I pointed out, which you seem to have missed, he doesn’t really make a false analogy, in that he hasn’t advanced an argument. He merely makes cynical, unhelpful commentary, as usual.
I’m not sure where I make a slippery slope argument: “We shouldn’t do X, because if we do it will inevitably lead to Y”?
My anecdote was merely to point out that in the two organisations I’ve worked in, one a corporation – and the other, a Catholic school, I know which tends to be populated with the least self-interested and giving people. And I’d put money on that being consistent across the board. Perhaps I’m mistaken, perhaps I’m a liar, but I suspect you’d agree. In particular the difference in attitude of “middle management”. There are no Uncle Festers in my Catholic school. (NB – the Uncle Fester remark is a private joke between Ben and myself.)
Adams, has unequivocally implied that the Catholic Church is “Making a quick buck out of Eternity”. That’s his title. I guess I just assumed “making a quick buck” generally involves a dodgy scam. And I guess I assume that most religious types actually believe in god and think they are doing the right thing by promoting their religion. I.e, not a dodgy scam. Some clearly are, but given Catholics don’t have to pay for membership (anymore) and Catholic Schools offer the cheapest private education, I’d say, as I have already said, there are far better targets for Adams’ vitriol (eg Scientology).
Religions may well be mistaken, and more often than not, specific religious beliefs and practices are bizarre and wrong. But as opposed to corporations, they (on average, not counting the “Benny Hinns” of the world) are not motivated by money making.
Okay, I have marking to get stuck into.
Alter schmalter - one day Bill Gates will get off his extremely rich ass and make MS Word's spell cheque moor context sensitive.
Besides it was midnight...
And I was tired...
And Jeff, I really like 'Alter Boy' - I think I will adopt him as my new nic on those internet dating sites that I never ever visit :-)
LOL, just re-read my post from last night - many spelling mistakes, a few words left out, and even an example of 'RAS syndrome' (redundant acronym syndrome syndrome).
As someone who is supposedly well educated (and in the presence of two educators) I feel suitably ashamed :-)
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