Jay Hanson wrote:
> (snip)
>
> If the Harvey Cox thesis is correct, if the Market has become the
> post-modern deity, and worship of the so-called free market has become the
> predominant religion of our time, then the United States has surely fallen
> into a severe and chronic violation of the Constitutional principle of
> separation of church and state. One of our challenges should be to call a
> halt to blind and officially sanctioned faith in the Market God.
Harvey Cox is speaking in terms of Ultimate Concern and its working out through
the practical but in the Market's case there is no church because there is no
competitive alternative except for the now defeated Communism. To claim
that the market is the church is like claiming that the Puritan's church was a
hospital since their marital practices "cured" syphilis through taboo. Or
that their church was validated by the disappearance of disease in their
communities while the natives died all around them from the germs they carried
as a natural part of their biology. It certainly made no difference in the
lives of the natives, by their becoming Christians, as to whether they lived or
died by the Puritan germs. 98% died either way. But the Market as God
seems absolutely reasonable in the theological doctrines and climes where Cox
lives. It could be much of the same as with the Puritans.
I tend to like what Lord Russell said about Religion and Science even though he
was a bit biased:
"Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we
forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of very
great importance. Theology,. on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that
we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a
kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the
presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish
to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not good either
to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we
have found indubitable answers to them. To teach how to live without
certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief
thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it."
>Bertrand Russell, "A History of Western Philosophy.
I suspect that Cox was claiming the Market as Idolatry. "That shalt have
nothing that is less than truly Ultimate before the Ultimate Bottom Line." On
the other hand Russell would say that the Market's need for psychological
security has caused it to claim the validity of all kinds of credos that are in
truth nothing more than fairy tales and a "dogmatic belief that we have
knowledge where in fact we have ignorance."
Since the Market as well as the study of Economics has such an effect on our
lives in spite of our wishes, I am reminded of an earlier section in which
Russell claims that an "individual facing the terror of cosmic loneliness" is
forced to study and become an amateur philosopher:
>"To understand an age or a nation, we must understand
>its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must
>ourselves be in some degree philosophers."
It seems that today's situation demands that we all become "in some degree"
economists and sophisticated about the political implications of both the
Market and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat simply in order, not to face
Russell's Cosmic Loneliness, but the likelihood of financial ruin. (See
Sunday's NYTimes Front Page on the effects of the "Welfare Reform" on the
elderly poor forced to go through another age of childrearing.) It makes one
envy the poor economist/philosopher who is only required to have only one job,
and be good at it, rather than the rest of us being required to work two or
more ( i.e. Arts and Economics) just to survive. Makes one long for the days
of benevolent Chiefs chosen carefully by the Clan Mothers.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
