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80 Self-Appropriation and Liberation: Philosophizing in the Light of Catonsville James L. Marsh Our apologies good friends for the fracture of good order the burning of paper instead of children the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house We could not so help us God do otherwise For we are sick at heart our hearts give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children and for thinking of that other Child of whom the poet Luke speaks.1 These words, of course, are from The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, written by Daniel Berrigan. The words are uttered by the character Daniel Berrigan in the trial of himself and eight others, who entered the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, removed hundreds of draft files, poured blood on them, and burned them with homemade napalm. It was an act of nonviolent , civil disobedience that called into question not only the Vietnam War but also the growing identification of the Catholic, Christian religious consciousness with the secular, war-making state and economy. The Catholic Church in the 1960s moved from being a marginalized, ghetto church to being mainstream American, fully part of the secular city. And there was much joy and celebration and self-congratulation among American Catholics about this phenomenon. Is it not great to be part of and to participate in the American Dream in the greatest, most powerful nation in the world? And Catholic universities followed suit in the great celebration. For many thousands of Catholics, Christians, and other religious people, and I include myself here, Catonsville made all of this problematic. A big question mark emerged about the celebration. What if the American Marsh-Ch06.indd 80 Marsh-Ch06.indd 80 2/2/2012 2:03:02 PM 2/2/2012 2:03:02 PM Self-Appropriation and Liberation 81 Dream is in fact, to a significant extent, a nightmare? What if the price of human affluence is more and more men and women coming home in body bags? What kind of unhappiness lurks behind the superficial happiness promised by Madison Avenue, and what kind of ugliness lurks behind the pleasing, commodified images of Hollywood? Is there a danger of Catholics and Christians, even those who are liberal, being too uncritically proAmerican in a way that implicitly or explicitly violates their moral and religious consciences? Summing up all of these questions into one, the main question that emerges from the play for me is this: “How do we live as human beings, citizens, philosophers, and Christians of conscience in the midst of the most virulent empire in history?” And to add a few evidential indicators on that point, we might note the more than twenty million people a year who die in the Third World due to structurally induced starvation , the three billion out of six billion on the planet who are forced to live on less than two dollars a day, the 1.2 billion who live on less than 1 dollar a day, and the virtually worldwide extent of the American empire under President Bush.2 What previous imperialists like Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, or Hitler could only dream about is within our reach. Many in the United States celebrate this state of affairs enthusiastically, but we as philosophers by our very calling should keep our distance and be more critical. Is this situation something to be celebrated or mourned, praised or condemned, supported or resisted? Is this global domination compatible with our philosophical, Christian consciences or incompatible? Berrigan, from a prophetic, religious, and biblical perspective, argues incompatibility, and that is his challenge to us. His play is prophetic in a couple of ways: first, about the injustice of the Vietnam war, and second, about the kind of country the United States was more and more turning into—more militaristic, more consumerist, exploitative, and imperialistic. And how can we deny that, almost forty years later, we have become, or are several further steps along the way to becoming, precisely the kind of nation he was warning us against? Two wars in the Golf, the self-contradictory terroristic war against terrorism in Afghanistan, and the problematic intervention in Kosovo are indications of this point. The United States and the US-led empire have within their grasp worldwide domination, hegemony, and exploitation. Berrigan’s play from above, from a prophetic religious viewpoint, challenges us as human beings, philosophers, and Christians to philosophize in its light...

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