A Battle About Words with Words By: Msgr. George Higgins

   On Saturdays the New York Times in a special section called “Arts and Ideas” runs an extended review -- part essay, part interview with the author -- of a book which for one reason or another merits special coverage. The March 31 essay-interview featured an offbeat book, “The Dictionary of Dangerous Words,” compiled by Digby Anderson, director of a London public-policy organization called the Social Affairs Institute.

    In the Times essay, occasioned by a lecture given by the author at the Manhattan Institute in New York City, Anderson comes through as a cumudgeonly cultural-political conservative who thinks the changed meaning of some 200 familiar words analyzed by 50 contributors to his anthology reflects a loosening of standards, a weakening of moral fiber, an evasion of personal responsibility, a love of government regulation and a tendency to cover up unpleasant realities.

   Anderson's cultural-political conservatism is shared by the director of the Manhattan Institute, who, when he introduced Anderson at his New York lecture, complained that “many words have been hijacked by the political left to advance their agenda.” Anderson is especially offended by the damage allegedly done by the “left” to the word “compassion.” In the past, he says, this word meant an emotion of fellow-feeling toward others and the acts of generosity prompted by such an emotion. Today, he charges, the word has been depersonalized -- now implying support of the welfare state and manifested through the payment of taxes “so that what to some appears the acceptance of a tax burden is turned into the practice of socially applauded virtue.”

   Neither Anderson nor his host at the Manhattan Institute identified those on the “left” who, in their view, brought us to such a sorry pass. It is clear to me, however, that the people Anderson and the director of the Manhattan Institute are criticizing do not take their lead from Catholic social teaching. I think any fair reading of Catholic social teaching supports the notion -- so abhorrent to Anderson -- that paying fair taxes is indeed a virtue and one that should be “socially applauded.”

   There is obviously room for honest disagreement about the definition of fair taxes. My own definition is reflected in the 1986 U.S. bishops' pastoral on Catholic social teaching and the U.S. economy, “Economic Justice for All.” The pertinent section of the pastoral can be summarized briefly as follows:

   “The tax system should be continually evaluated in terms of its impact on the poor. This evaluation should be guided by three principles.
   --First, the tax system should raise adequate revenues to pay for the public needs of society, especially to meet the basic needs of the poor.
   --Second, it should be structured according to the principle of progressivity so that those with relatively greater financial resources pay a higher rate of taxation.
   --Third, families below the official poverty line should not be required to pay income taxes.”

   This is a balanced summary of traditional Catholic social teaching on the role of government in the area of fiscal policy. Anderson and the director of the Manhattan Institute may or may not agree with the bishops on this subject, but I hope that they will not charge that the bishops are “leftists” who have hijacked the word “compassion” to advance their own political agenda.

   For better or for worse, that's the kind of rhetoric that politicians on both sides of the aisle tend to indulge in for partisan purposes, but not what one would expect to emanate from academic think tanks such as the Manhattan Institute in New York and Anderson's counterpart organization in London.

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A Battle About Words with Words

By Msgr. George G. Higgins

The Yardstick

April 23, 2001