Rudd in the Monthly

I have just finished Aussie PM Kevin Rudd's essay on the financial crisis in The Monthly. In it, he mounts a strident attack on 'free-market fundamentalism' which he blames for our current woes - positioning himself as a pragmatic 'social democrat' in the meantime. It is interesting to see such an ideological turn from an Aussie politician - usually we steer clear of that stuff. It is a rather turgid read I have to say - but he lays the challenge out there to neo-liberals: how has your ideology done anything but expose us to this terrible danger?

I have never been fully persuaded that by the small govt mantra of the neo-liberal/Reaganite. I can understand some apects of it, but my theological appraisal of human nature (that we are unusually evil AND stupid) means that I don't trust the free market to produce just outcomes anymore than I trust government not to become corrupt and self-serving. Neo-liberalism has its own utopian vision - a dream of unfettered market forces aligning to produce prosperity and security for all. This is just as dangerous as the utopian vision of the socialist of course, with a completely planned and fixed economy. The trouble with neo-liberalism is that it hopes that a human vice - namely, greed - will produce much virtue.

The Pauline account of the role of the state focuses on justice - the restraint and punishment of the wicked (Rom 13). That is, in its own way, minimal - a 'small' government. Does it square with Rudd's view of the role of the state? -

Government is not the intrinsic evil that neo-liberals have argued it is. Government, properly constituted and properly directed, is for the common good, embracing both individual freedom and fairness, a project designed for the many, not just the few.

Well, I think so: here is a vision for the adminstration of justice - with the government taking its proper role of serving the people and not itself. The state is after all 'God's servant to do you good'. The language of 'fairness' echoes a kind of Rawlsian philosophy of justice, perhaps - and that could be debated, certainly. Rudd here speaks of 'the creative agency of government' - a phrase that could alarm neo-liberals and Reaganites, but which, in the current circumstances is prbably justified.



As Sarkozy says: Le laissez-faire, c'est fini.

Churchman - Equality

Oh, and in other news, I notice the second in my 'The Christian Revolution' series has been published in the latest edition of the Churchman 122/3 "The Christian Revolution: 2. Equality".

A Taylorean Glossary for Theologians III

By the way, you really must check out The Immanent Frame.

Social Imaginary Taylor uses this term in his latest work The Secular Age, but also in Modern Social Imagineries. He means by it to indicate something of the way people imagine their social existence. It is crucially an act of imagination rather than an intellectual scheme: it involves the myths and stories and legends that we tell about our common life and identity, and so on. As Taylor puts it, he means how people 'fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations'. (MSI, p. 23)This term, then, can include the way ordinary people think about their common identity as well as a more elitist, theoretical account.

Of course, it is a complex business to describe a social imaginary, because it is a complex idea! It 'incorporates a sense of the normal expectations we have of each other, the kind of common understanding that enables to carry out the collective practices that make up our social life.' (MSI, p. 24) And yet, this term is crucial for Taylor's project: because it is 'social imaginaries', modern and less modern, that he is largely in the business of describing. It is part of his intellectual bravery that he is willing to embark on such a risky strategy, because it is so obviously open to challenge at every point of the description.

Jeffrey Stout asks three good questions

It's been a hard couple of weeks!

Stout challenges MacIntyre, Hauerwas and Milbank - who have harboured such resentment against modern secular democracy. He asks three good questions (Democracy and Tradition, p. 104):

is it not possible to discern the workings of the Holy Spirit, and thus some reflections of God's redemptive activity, in modern democratic aspirations?

is there nothing in the political life of modern democracies, or in the lives of those who are struggling for just and decent arrangements within them, that a loving God would bless?

if the plenitude of God's triune inner life shones forth in all of creation, cannot theology discren some such light in democratic political community?

Well indeed. I would add a fourth question: is it not the case that modern democratic community is the child of Christendom, even if it is somewhat of a prodigal?

Jeffrey Stout and Piety

Jeffrey Stout is a very interesting figure in the American political philosophy and ethics scene. For one, he is a liberal who takes theologians and theology seriously. In particular, he addresses the work of Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre as 'new traditionalists', and even adds to this company John Milbank. Stout is a finder of common ground, a man who mediates between seemingly intractable positions.

In his 2004 book Democracy and Tradition, Stout traces some interesting themes. Often, democracy is accused of 'impiety' by traditionalists: it emphasises self-reliance rather than observance of the conventions of the community and the spirit of place. Yet, in his reading of Emerson and Whitman, Stout finds that piety is in fact reconfigured rather than abandoned. He would contend then, that democracy is spiritual and pious, if not religious.

More on this anon.

The Meaning of Conservatism - Roger Scruton

Prague Castle, seat of Wenceslas andmore latterly, Vaclav Havel.

Roger Scruton's major early book was his The Meaning of Conservatism: a pre-Thatcher era defence of the intellectual grounds for a conservative approach to political, social, national and family life.

He targets especially the social contractarian liberals for their sheer voluntarism. The family itself is a naturally occuring unit in which authority is to be found without it needing to be imposed from outside. Likewise, the society is not a voluntary association of free individuals who may withdraw at any time: it is 'naturally' occuring, having its origins beyond human choosing. And authority appears within it, of course. Why should we have to provide a theoretical justification for it, as liberals try to do? Such a justification always appears artificial. Power is always already there in these 'natural' affiliations, by means of a 'transcendent bond' which exists outside the realm of individual choices.

As with all political philosophers, he wants to say something about the self (even if, like Rorty, you want to say 'there is no self!' you still want to say it):
There is, to put it bluntly, something deeply self-deceived in the idea of a fulfilled human being whose style of life is entirely of his own devising; The cult of 'authenticity' - emphasizing the truth that the individual self is in some sense an artifact - espouses the self-contradictory position that it is by himself that he is made. This myth of self as causa sui is one to which few people now subscribe....I shall argue that, once we have rejected the cult of 'authenticity' we shall be forced to abandon the attempt to erode whatever is 'established', whatever has a versted power to overcome opposition, which is the first principle of liberal as of socialist thought... p. 38

Rorty: America is an experiment

Yes, you Americans: the whole American idea ain't nothin' but a great experiment and y'all are its lab rats. Richard Rorty says so:

Both Jefferson and Dewey described America as an 'experiment'. If the experiment fails, our descendants may learn something important. But they will not learn a philosophical truth, any more than they will learn a religious one. They will simply get some hints about what to watch out for when setting up their next experiment. Even if nothing else survives from the age of the democratic revolutions, perhaps our descendants will remember the social institutions can be viewed as experiments in cooperation rather than as attempts to embody a universal and ahistorical order. It is hard to believe that this memory would not be worth having...

So, what hints do you think the next generation ought to get from the American experiment? Here's some:

1- don't say anything about arms in your constitution!
2- state religion actually makes religion more boring, not less.
3- Texas oughta be its own country.

Got any others? Don't go being rude now...

I find myself agreeing with Philip Ruddock!

A Bill of (so-called) Rights would be a spectacularly BAD idea for Australia, just as it would be for the UK.

I hate to agree with Ruddock, but... there you go.

Charles Taylor on the space for religon in the modern state

Just received Charles Taylor's Modern Social Imagineries. An intriguing passage jumped out at first browse:

We can now see the space for religion in the modern state, for God can figure strongly in the political identity. It can be that we see ourselves as fulfilling God's will in setting up a polity that maximally follows his precepts, as many Americans have done...Or our national identity can refer to God, if we see ourselves as defined partly by our unique piety and faithfulness.

Taylor goes on to say that this reference to God cna degenerate so that piety fades and only chauvanism remains (examples abound), 'but this identity presence can also nourish a living faith'.

This is the new space for God in the secular world. ... in the public world, the disapperance of an ontic dependence on something higher can be replaced by a strong presence of God in our political identity. p. 193

We may live in a less enchanted universe, but God's will can be very present to us as 'the inescapable source for our power to impart order to our lives, both individually and socially.'

Richard Rorty - the priority of democracy to philosophy

Richard Rorty is a more than somewhat provocative thinker. In an essay entitled 'The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy' he puts forward the pragmatic argument that, as his title suggests, what really should concern us is the forging of democratic agreements on which some progress can be achieved, rather than speculating on unsolveable philosophical issues. Liberal democracy should give up pretending that it is founded on a grand metaphysical principles like 'rights' etc and instead realise that it is merely the best working solution to the problem of political community. So, he writes:

The philosophical tradition has assumed that there are certain topics (for example, 'what is God's will?' 'What is man?'...) on which everyone has, or should have, views and that these toics are prior in the order of justification to those at issue in political deliberation. This assumption goes along with the asumption that hman beings have a natural center that philosophical inquiry can locate and illuminate. By contrast, the view that human beings are centerless networks of beliefs and desires and that their vocabularies and opinions are determined by historical circumstance allows for the possibility that there may not be enough overlap between two such networds to make possibile agrement about political topics, or even profitable discussion of such topics.

Truth, in the Platonic sense is 'simply not relevant to democratic politics'. Neither is a notion of the self: even a very loose and postmodern one. You just don't need to bother yourself with it! Now, you gotta like that for straight shooting!

He goes on:

The encouragement of light-mindedness about traditional philosophical topics serves the same purposes as does the encouragement of light-mindedness about traditional theological toics. Like the rise of large market economies, the increase in literacy, the proliferation of artistic genres, and the insouciant pluralism of contemporary culture, such philosophical superficiality and light-mindedness helps along the disenchantment of the world. It helps make the world's inhabitants more pragmatic, more tolerant, more liberal, more receptive to the appeal of instrumental rationality.

Well, what a relief!

Safety and the City

In the Scriptures, the promise of protection is necessary foil to the promise of provision. As soon as man steps outside the Garden, he is unsafe. Abel was not safe from the jealousy of his brother; Cain in his turn was not safe from the possibility of vengeance as a wanderer on the earth and needed protection. It is this wandering nomad, in fear for his life because of his own bloodguilt, who becomes the founder of the city of Enoch, named after his son (Gen 4:17). Though civilization shows the evidence of human flourishing – the beginnings of farming and tool-making and music – it is also begun out of fear of reprisal. The city is as much fortress as it is forum. Far from bringing anarchy, the turn of humankind away from God (and the revelation of their wickedness, 6:5) results in a collaboration amongst human beings that is ambivalent. The mission of mankind to fill the earth, renewed in 5:1, is hampered by the rather sullen insistence of people that they ought to collect together for fear of the murderous intentions of other beings.

Yet, it is too simplistic to read the Tower of Babel as merely a tale of pride gone wrong. The desire which drives the massive collective exercise of its construction (using bricks!) is not merely arrogance. The proposed city is to have a ‘tower with its top in the heavens’, granting a heavenly perspective on the earth; and it will be the occasion of the making of name for themselves (Gen 11:4). But there is also a note of fear in the motivation given: ‘otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth’. What was so unappealing about being scattered in this way?

Globalisation - is God in it? How?

Described as the ‘emerging and homogenizing culture that tends to impact individuals and societies in all parts of the world,’[1] there is little dispute over that fact that globalisation is occurring – just as to whether it is desirable or not. ‘Globalisation’ describes, for example, the product of the felt ‘shrinking’ of the world as a result of developments in technology, the increased ability of multi-national corporations to reach every corner of the earth with their products, and the mass migration and intermingling of people groups in megacities. In the opinion of Max L. Stackhouse ‘the larger reality is that the whole world is becoming one place, an inclusive field of spaces, peoples and activities.’[2] Positive accounts of globalisation view it as producing a feeling that the world is becoming unified – it is available to be explored and experienced quickly and without much effort. The freeing of markets allows for consumers and sellers to transcend national boundaries. ‘God is in globalisation’, writes Stackhouse;[3] in fact, he suggests that it is a side effect of the missionary genius of Christianity. Could it be that the epoch of globalisation represents a gathering of the nations in unity on a scale about which the Bible only prophesies? Is this finally a genuine achievement of human fraternity and catholicity - a salvation of humanity, perhaps?


[1] Kurien, “Globalization: An Economist's Perspective,” p. 197.
[2] Max L. Stackhouse, “Public Theology and Political Economy in the Globalising Era,” in Public Theology for the 21st Century: Essays in Honour of Duncan B. Forrester, ed. Duncan B. Forrester, William Storrar, and Andrew Morton (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2004), p. 179.
[3] Ibid. I mean of course he is if you believe in providence: but, is it a blessing or a curse? A Babel or a Pentecost?