self-serving propganda versus the search for truth--a quote referring to Pam Bondi, the USA's supposedly chief enforcer of justice

[John Raymaker]

"Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before Congress this week.

She lied, disrespectd legislators, and refused to answer basic questions about special treatment for Ghislaine Maxwell, redactions in the Epstein Files, and Donald Trump's involvement in these heinous crimes.

It is absolutely disgusting to see our nation's top lawyer so willingly protect pedophiles, hijack the Justice Department to serve MAGA, and ignore victims who are pleading for the truth to come out."    My question: how can Lonergan's achievement help the world today?  John

[David Bibby]

Dear John,

You ask, "how can Lonergan's achievement help the world today?"

I think the answer lies in the exploration of interior consciousness. The fundamental problem today is not simply one of information, competing narratives, or party positions. It concerns the quality of consciousness at work in public life.

Lonergan helps by clarifying the difference between intelligence and judgement. He shows that judgement is not the immediate extension of insight, but a reflective act that asks whether the available evidence is sufficient. Without that reflective pause, intelligence easily collapses into self-serving narrative or hasty condemnation.

The issue, then, is not primarily a what, but a how. It is about how we attend, how we understand, how we reflect, how we judge.

I would describe the public cultivation of this reflective authenticity as a "people's philosophy". It does not require everyone to read Insight. Rather, it would mean a cultural reinforcement of the question, "Is the evidence sufficient?" and an emphasis on the epistemic responsibility that attaches to us all to judge in accordance with the norms already operative in our own interior desire to know.

Perhaps the most urgent task today is not to win arguments but to recover the conditions under which truth can be responsibly affirmed at all. In that respect, Lonergan’s achievement remains profoundly contemporary. As he himself observed:

“Never has adequately differentiated consciousness been more difficult to achieve. Never has the need to speak effectively to undifferentiated consciousness been greater.” (Method in Theology, ch. 3, §10.4)

Best wishes,

David

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[John Raymaker]

Thanks, David, for your well-considered observations on the state of self-serving public discourse personified in a Bondi, a Trump, a Putin and not a few other heads of state today. Lonergan has helped mankind find a new way but Lonergan followers need to find their own way to "deliver" in the age of AI. AI is part of the problem to the extent it is used by many today to make less-than-adequate decisions on the dilemmas confronting humanity in an age of environmemtal threats. This is what motivated bishop Pierre and I to write Attentive, Intelligent, Ratikonal Responsible. Our book is an effort to include and highlight economic policies. Lonergan two books on economics are efforts to foster the common good as part of a viable solution for world peace. But when a Bondi or a Trump shortcircuit the process we--especially the poor on the planet--cannot adequately address our challenging planetary problems. The influence of Descartes and Kant on philosophy remains part of the problem as Lonergan himself noted repeatedly in Insight and other writings. Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV have been aware of the great challenges we face today. When a Bondi does what she does, we are confronted with the dangers of actual and looming disasters,   John   

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[David Bibby]

Dear John,

Thanks for your response, and I think you made a significant contribution to the Lonergan economics debate with Pierre with your AIRR text.

Your observation about AI underscores the point: new technological capacities increase the scale and speed of decision-making, but they do not eliminate the need for reflective judgement. If anything, they make its cultivation more urgent.

In the same vein, when we consider situations such as the one you mention (re Bondi), the pattern may not be confined to major officials. It is a structure of consciousness in which we all participate. Each of us, in our own sphere, faces the same temptation to let insight slide into assertion without the full discipline of reflective judgement. The scale differs; the structure does not.

A “people’s philosophy”, in that sense, would not aim to settle disputes, but to strengthen the habits of attentiveness, reflection, and responsibility that make genuine judgement possible.

Best wishes,

David

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