Material Prosperity Breeds Civility and Law? Or Visa Versa?
Posted on 14 April 2010
Part of an ongoing conversation:
"What I did say though, was that man’s social conditions change and evolve into at least better material circumstances due to the increasing demands of maintaining a rising capital base and the needs of a growing diversification of labor network."
This is exactly where we disagree. I let my sense of humor escape its kennel, and so I spoke sarcastically when I should have spoken soberly. Forgive me, let us put my glib comment to one side, and actually address the issue:
I propose a radically different reading of history from yours. I propose that Christ introduced a view of man so remarkably different from that known in the ancient world, or in the East, as to be without compare or parallel. The change wrought in the moral sentiments of Christendom was so significant and widespread that you and every other scion of Christian philosophy have not even any awareness of it.
The Greeks with their infanticide, divorce, and slavery, held men to be innately unequal. Barbarians were fit only for servitude. The Romans, even worse, held it to be noble to condemn gladiators to fight to death for the amusement of idle crowds. Lavish executions by slow torture were commonplace. The idea of killing a man quickly, painlessly, even offering him a blindfold and cigarette so that he will not die without dignity is as alien to the ancient mind as non-Euclidean geometry. It is literally something from another universe.
The Indians with their caste system and the Chinese with their Confucianism and Legalism held the same view of man. Rulers rule. Servants serve. Slaves slave. Women bear children, which, when unwanted, are killed.
Imagine the scene of Jesus, a man of a conquered people, standing in chains before Pilot, the epitome of Roman power, law, and dignity. In the eyes of the ancient world, by the philosophy of the greatest and noblest sages of East and West, that scene would look like a clown confronting a demigod, with Jesus, the slave, in the role of the slapstick clown, someone whose role was to be hit with a pie or blown up by dynamite, and Pilot, speaking with the divine authority of Caesar, as the voice of heaven. The idea that the slapstick clown, whose mission in life was to die in torment for the amusement of the mob, was somehow greater than the voice of Caesar was inconceivable, radical, paradoxical, and backward by every ancient standard.
The Jewish notion that God was good is radically different from the Greek notion — in Greek myth, after all, Cyclopes is the child of Neptune, and the gods are not always on the side of humanity — just ask Ulysses. The Jewish notion that creation is GOOD is a radical defiance of the Greek notion that the world arose from chaos without purpose.
The adoption of the Christian world-view is what led to notions like the separation of church and state, the subordination of kings to the laws they make, the equality of men in the eyes of God, and so on. Without these ideas, the additional ideas of the security of property and the equality of slaves and women could not have surfaced. They are not natural ideas; they are not even rational ideas; they are mystical ideas having roots nowhere but Christendom.
The industrial revolution, the rising capital base, the specialization of labor, the rule of law and all other things you name or might name as sources of the increased felicity of man are products of nothing but Christendom.
Why did the industrial revolution happen in Europe, and nowhere else?
Why did modern science arise in the so called Dark Ages, and not earlier?
Why did the modern university system, with the notions of free inquiry and academic freedom, arise in Christian countries, and no where else?
Why did no one, no one, no one except the Christians ever free slaves, and why does slavery reappear within a few years in any land where Christians powers once ruled and now have withdrawn?
Why is Monogamy the rule, rather than the exception, in Christian lands, and why does the ruthless exploitation of women reappear within a few years in any land where Christians powers once ruled and now have withdrawn? — We have God Damned HONOR KILLINGS happening in the United Kingdom these days. Is that just a coincidence or happenstance that this arose just when England moved sharply and clearly away from Christianity?
I humbly submit that you are conflating cause and effect. The cause of the improvement of man is the rise of highminded moral sentiments informing the laws and customs of man, producing such minor side effects as respect for reason, rights, and property, and which do not long last in the absence of the underlying moral sentiments.
"Twentieth Century Man has spilled a volume of blood that would have awed, or perhaps even made blanche, even Ghengis Khan, Atilla the Hun, or the ancient Aztecs."
This blood was spilled by National Socialists seeking material wealth, who turned away from Christianity and bowed to ancient gods of blood and soil; and this blood was spilled by International Socialists seeking material wealth, who turned away from Christianity and bowed to the Marxist goddess of Historical Necessity whom our ancestors called that strumpet Fortune.
The blood of all the children slain in abortion mills was shed in direct contradiction to Church teaching on the matter, and in a fashion that shocks the conscience of every honest Christian.
"As mankind’s civilization advances materially, some forms of evil are effectively priced out of the market."
This claim is not merely atrociously false, it is an insult to every person killed in the cruel and pointless world wars and genocides of the Twentieth Century. For shame! How dare you say such a stupid and callous thing! Are you still deceived by the pompous Victorian optimism of HG Wells? The rise of education and wealth among the Mohammedans after the Second World War is what gives them the means to carry on the Global Terror War you so studiously avoid believing exists, or believe is due to us, and not due to the utterly unambiguous stated goals and policies of its public spokesmen.
Pardon my anger. Let us, I pray you, neither of us dare to claim that the material advancement of man has lead us away from barbarism and bloodshed — no man surviving the Twentieth Century can speak of such things without weeping.
One would think that materialism would go out of style…that ‘dead’ idea is not dead yet?
Is it possible or even worth the effort to make some sense out of this LJ nowadays?
The Borges entry looked promising, but that was 7 entries ago and it’s been replaced by a bewildering variety of comments on matters economic, historical, cultural, and religious, where it has become next to impossible for me, at least, to figure out who is responding to whom, especilly when Mary Catelli, montecristo, or Our Esteemed Host are involved. Who for example is OEH addressing in the lead in to his fascinating entry on the Copts? Durned if I can figger it out.
For about the last year I’ve headed straight to johncwright LJ for interesting Web dicussions with few diasppointments. Lately the symptoms of tachycardia and labored breathing kick in seconds after I open the page. I mean, WTF?
Re: Is it possible or even worth the effort to make some sense out of this LJ nowadays?
Nope, not having any trouble.
Re: Is it possible or even worth the effort to make some sense out of this LJ nowadays?
Mr. Wright’s (and any Live Journal poster for that matter) Journal page is not a commodity. Each poster posts on topics that are of interest to him. Who is he addressing on the Coptics? Anyone who may be interested, presumably himself first. I have been reading with great interest his entries since I first read his Golden Age trilogy more than a year ago. I have not seen any real change.
As for the make-up of the discussions it would be instructive to know that Mr. Wright’s readership consists primarily of Catholics and Christians in general, Libertarians and Objectivists (although I think I may be the only one in that last camp, but regardless he is quite versed in that philosophy as well, and on occasion may draw a point from it). Mr. Wright used to be a libertarian and is now a Catholic as he himself has stated numerous times. It would illuminate understanding of the discussions to be quite familiar with all three viewpoints.
Maybe he is going into fields you are not equipped to understand at this time? Not his fault. For myself, I find them fun to read, and very interesting.
Re: Is it possible or even worth the effort to make some sense out of this LJ nowadays?
I think we’ve had a few lurker Objectivists pop up, but I may be confusing them with trolls who want a response and will claim whatever will get it.
Re: Is it possible or even worth the effort to make some sense out of this LJ nowadays?
I am addressing the ideas. It does not matter to me from whose mouth they came. I am no respecter of persons. Hence, when someone writes in with an idea I’d like to discuss, I simply say “a reader said” and move on to the discussion. In that sense I am impersonal.
Re: Is it possible or even worth the effort to make some sense out of this LJ nowadays?
I thought the lead in for the entry on the Copts quite clear, since Mr. Wright said he was reading about them in preparation for his next novel.
While the entries on specific bits of fiction can be fun, sometimes there’s not a lot to say on it.
On the other side of the scale, you can’t write good science fiction without it being about people, and to write convincingly about people, you need to be able to write about economics, history, culture, and religion. In addition, of course, to being able tow write about science, possible science, or fictional science.
These discussions serve a purpose and I quite enjoy them, even if I don’t have a terrible amount of time to participate.
I get it
Thanks, Mr. Wright, for making the case so clearly. I’m grateful you can put these concepts together so that I can understand them and explain them more effectively. It’s invigorating to see Christianity defended well.
I actually think that Jesus was a great synthesist, who combined the ideas of Judaic religion, Hellenistic philosophy and mystery-cults, and possibly some aspects of eastern philosophies and religions, to produce the teachings that after his death were labeled “Christianity” — which then had the beneficent effects you describe. And yes, that does mean that, even though I don’t think he was the Son of God, I do think he was one of the wisest and most intelligent men who ever lived.
Then, on the only evidence that we have that he taught anything, he was also a flipping lunatic. We are, after all, talking about a man who went about forgiving sins. Not sins against him, personally. Sins in general.
Not to mention all that stuff about, ‘Before Abraham came to be, I AM.’ The Sanhedrin didn’t want him executed because he was wise and intelligent; they wanted him executed because, according to their lights, he was the most gobsmackingly scandalous blasphemer in Jewish history. (And a flipping lunatic.)
Your opinion on Glastonbury?
That His great-uncle Joseph of Arimathea brought Him with him when he (Joseph) was going on the voyages trading for tin and such like?:
http://www.greatdreams.com/jesus2.htm
I am familiar with the views you express, having heard them in the context of “Well, what *was* He doing between the ages of twelve and thirty?”
For some, the idea that the story as related in the Gospels is all there is (He lived at home and was obedient to His parents) is too dull and they have to fill in with journeys to Egypt, Britain, Tibet, Japan…
No disrepect to yourself, but Christ as 1st century Rudolph Steiner? Um – not my cup of tea!
Hehe, the fun thing is, we sort of agree…but backwards.
I think that what you’re seeing is the elements of truth in the other philosophies being expressed in the True faith.
Kinda like the three blind men and the elephant.
And yes, that does mean that, even though I don’t think he was the Son of God, I do think he was one of the wisest and most intelligent men who ever lived.
As a defense to the many responses below: being smart and wise doesn’t mean you’re SANE! *Girl Genius Mad Science Laugh goes here*