The Socio-Political Model
The Socio-Political Model
Légitimism1
The reason I am neither Democrat nor Republican is that my politics do not run Left/Right. They run obtusely as North/South. My sliding scale is Truth (North) versus Un-Truth (South), or we could say Being (Truth) versus Non-Being (Un-Truth). The horizontal Left/Right scale can slide back and forth at distinct levels up and down the vertical Truth/Un-Truth scale. Left and Right are not better or worse because they are Left or Right but are so based on where they are on the vertical line. Either can be True; either can be Un-True.
The French call the vertical scale "Légitimism." Légitimism means ordering society according to three levels:
1st) the order of truth in Natural Law in which all people are called to participate.
2nd) the order of religious truth, to which all religiously minded are called to participate.
3rd) the order of Catholic truth, in which all Catholics are called to participate.
In Légitimism, the foundational question is "are we living according to Truth," not "what rights should we have." For the Légitimiste, true freedom and the "pursuit of happiness" can be found only by living in Truth, not in libertarian individualism (American Right) or authoritarian social engineering (American Left). Therefore, the Catholic Légitimiste subjugates the civil religion to his Catholicism, not his Catholicism to the civil religion.
Some will pose the highly anticipated question - what is Truth? Remember who first asked that of Our Lord. To the Catholic Légitimiste, the question from all sides (Right and Left) comes across as one voice in unison, that of a modern-day Pontius Pilate following his own civil religion.
Before this affront, we stand silent. Not because we do not have an answer but because we are called to imitate our Master.
I am reminded of St. John of the Cross' familiar saying (paraphrased) that "God had only one word to speak to us - Jesus - after which he had no more to say." In the more concise spirit of John of the Cross, Jesus is the Word. It seems that in God's economy, he prefers to sum up whole concepts, entire Forms, concisely in people. The Word was made flesh. The Person of Jesus is the Word.
Further down the line, in the solely human domain, we have Mary as the archetype of the beauty of family in which The Word abides.
For me, further down the line, we have Joan as the archetype of Légitimism, i.e., the divine order reflecting my socio-political beliefs to which, as Plato would have us, we must be conformed to be genuinely happy and complete.
Thus, if one demanded that I "summarize in three words everything you believe in and everything that effects your world view and political orientation," I would say: "Truth, Beauty, Goodness," Which could be translated into the personages of:
"Jesus, Mary, Joan."