Hijacking words: Urban Dictionary: Communitarianism

Having at one time been an editor of academic texts I am interested in words and meaning, and especially in the way words are sometimes used to obscure and confuse meaning rather than to communicate meaning. Words can sometimes be "hijacked" or "skunked". They are hijacked when their meaning is twisted or perverted to mean something else. They are "skunked" when they are used by so many people to mean so many different things that you can never be sure what a person means by them unless they give a definition every time they use it. One example is "liberal" and "liberalism", and that these words have been skunked can be clearly seen in the two preceding posts.

"Communitarian" and "communitarianism", on the other hand, have apparently been hijacked, at least by some people. I've blogged about this before here and here.

Communitarianism is a fairly new word, but the concept was developed by Catholic anarchists like Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin and Ammon Hennessy to distinguish Christian anthropology from modernist secular anthropologies like individualism and collectivism. Even though there wasn't a specific word for it, the concept has been around at least as long as Christianity has, and I've described it, with quotations from Orthodox theologians, in Love is the measure: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker | Khanya.

I didn't realise how bad it had got, however, until I read this: Urban Dictionary: Communitarianism:

Communitarianism

buy communitarianism mugs, tshirts and magnets

n. The belief that a society is greater than the sum of its parts, and that the members of an organization ought to work toward improving the organization. Often accused to be 'communist' or 'fascist'.

Communitarianism is perceived to be evil because it opposes the individualistic doctrine of our society.

I find it difficult to see how anyone could take such a "definition" seriously. For a start, "accused to be" is illiterate. The correct English idiom is "accused of being", and "accused to be" is a solecism. Anyone who writes English that badly is not competent to write dictionary definitions.

The next problem is that we are not told the identity of those who make these accusations, nor are we told the identity of those who "perceive it to be evil", nor are we told which society is meant by "our" society. But I think it is safe to assume that those who make the accusations and perceive communitarianism in this way are as ignorant as the writer of the definition.

My attention was drawn to this in a blog post by James Highham, whose blog I read fairly regularly, and find interesting, though I don't always agree with everything he says, and in this instance, of course, I emphatically disagree.

nourishing obscurity : Four Great Lies:

The Fourth Lie – the “third way” – is an attempt to bring people in by the back door to the dark side of the duality and it utilizes the First Lie to good effect. Thus we get “communitarianism”, perverting the concept of local community and having a vast number of federalist controlled local communities, each under the influence and rubber stamping power of a Common Purpose graduate. Leading beyond authority, i.e. assuming powers which are not yours to assume and being answerable only to the oligarchy in the centre.

The thought of Dorothy Day being part of an "oligarchy at the centre" really is too much.

Who is Glenn Beck?

I'd never heard of Glenn Beck until I began reading about him in blog posts by other people who had never heard of him until they read about him in e-mails or blog posts from other people who may have heard of him. But from what I've heard, he had been preaching a new gospel about some kind of false Christ.

Jim Forest, in the Netherlands, writes On Pilgrimage: Thank you, Glenn Beck:

I live a sheltered life, that is to say I watch very little TV. Until yesterday I had never heard of Glenn Beck. But when a friend in Kentucky sent me an e-mail asking if I was aware that Dorothy Day had been mentioned on Glenn Beck’s weekly TV show, I got curious. Via YouTube, I quickly discovered that Glenn Beck is more than willing to accuse anyone he doesn’t agree with of being a socialist, a communist, a marxist or a nazi, or even all four.

And Matt Stone, from Australia, writes Glenn Beck and Social Justice - Glocal Christianity:

Glenn Beck, an American radio and television host that I'd never heard of till this week, has set off a firestorm of web commentary after denouncing social justice as a 'perversion of the gospel'. Well, what do I say to that? I'm lost for words.

It seems that Glenn Beck has mentioned Dorothy Day as a Marxist and someone Marxists knew, but whom he had never heard of. I suspect, however, that more Christians have heard of Dorothy Day than have ever heard of Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck also mentioned a book about Dorothy Day, which happens to have been written by Jim Forest, and that was why someone tipped Jim Forest off about the existence of Glenn Beck, hence his blog post. So it seems a suitable opportunity to mention the book and put it on my "to read" list: Love Is the Measure: A Biography of Dorothy Day by Jim Forest

Jim Forest is an Orthodox Christian, and bosser-up of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. Dorothy Day was an American Roman Catholic who cared for the poor and homeless, and along with Peter Maurin and Amon Hennessy founded the Catholic Worker movement and developed the philosophy of Communitarianism, which is similar to that expounded in the UK by G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc. So I'm sure Jim Forest's biography of her is well worth reading.