rain and the rhinoceros

In his brilliant work The Two Churches: Catholicism and Capitalism in the World System Michael Budde argues that Catholic anticommunism in the twentieth century was instrumental in bringing about U.S. Catholic nationalism. Despite their differences both liberal and conservative Catholics in America shared core values and beliefs that were passionately in opposition to communism. Catholic anticommunism was reinforced by American anticommunism. In a very real sense, “the bulwark of both true Americanism and authentic Catholicism” was anticommunism. As Budde states, “Communism, to the Catholic leadership of the 1950s, represented both the oppression visited on Catholics behind the Iron Curtain and a threat to the prosperity and freedom the Church had come to enjoy in the United States” (79). As many scholars have pointed out, the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 represented “the fully Americanized status of Catholics” (80).

In the 1980s two major pastoral letters issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response and Economic Justice For All: Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy , do offer a critique of the policies of the U.S. government and American society. As Budde points out, however, these letters should be read from the perspective of U.S. Catholic Nationalism which limited the impact of the letters and “guided the ‘prophetic’ movements of the Catholic hierarchy” (87). Interestingly, as Budde points out, although both letters include a theological evaluation of the issues at hand drawing heavily from scripture and the Christian theological tradition, when it comes to application and consideration of public policy there is a distinct epistemological shift that employs natural law language. In other words, the theological language of the first sections are “translated” into more “neutral” language so that the letters can appeal more to “all people of good will” as opposed to only Christians. Many conservatives criticized the two pastoral letters for being unpatriotic and naive on issues of economics, but Budde argues that in fact the pastorals “gave the bishops yet another opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism, their political acumen, and their belief in a capitalist world economy. U.S. Catholic Nationalism, rather than being undermined, stands affirmed and as definitive of the U.S. Catholic mainstream” (89).

Budde provides four reasons why this is the case: 1) the bishops assume from the outset that the U.S. is a force for good in the world. There is no effort to question U.S. economic or political imperialism. 2) there is no structural analysis of U.S. power and prosperity. “Rather than examine capitalism, the bishops seek to hide behind an economic agnosticism that is ‘pragmatic’ in nature” (89). 3) the bishops give a “nonconflictive, functionalist picture of U.S. society, focusing on questions of the “common good” without addressing questions of class-divisions and contradictory interests. 4) in the epistemological shift or translation of biblical/theological reflection into natural law discourse potential conflict with secular power is minimized. The sections are so poorly integrated that the biblical/theological reflections of the first section “look like religious gloss on an essentially nonreligious document” (92).

Budde concludes that the documents heavy reliance on natural law is the bishops’ attempt to speak to the problems of secular society. It is thought that theological discourse is too “sectarian” and cannot be used to appeal to a pluralistic society. Budde writes, “In weighing the tasks - dialogue with the faithful or dialogue with secular power - the bishops have chosen the latter as more important. Dialogue with the faithful on matters of economic justice, were it done seriously and without regard to secular opinion, would open the Church to renewed charges of ’separateness’ or ‘un-American-ness.’ Dialogue with secular power, particularly on terms amenable to that power, enhances the respectability and American-ness of U.S. Catholic spokesmen - another step ahead in the history of U.S. Catholic Nationalism” (93).

I’ve mentioned this movie before, but P.T. Anderson’s new film There Will Be Blood is really a masterpiece.

I love this quote from the movie:

Ladies and gentlemen? Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for visiting with us this evening. Now, I’ve traveled across half our state to be here and to see about this land. Now, I daresay some of you might have heard some of the more extravagant rumors about what my plans are; I just thought you’d like to hear it from me. This is the face. There’s no great mystery. I’m an oilman, ladies and gentlemen. I have numerous concerns spread across this state. I have many wells flowing at many thousand barrels per day. I like to think of myself as an oilman. As an oilman, I hope that you’ll forgive just good old fashioned plain-speaking. Now, this work that we do is very much a family enterprise- I work side by side with my wonderful son, H.W.- I think one or two of you might have met him already. And I encourage my men to bring their families, as well. Of course it makes for an ever so much more rewarding life for them. Family means children. Children means education. So wherever we set up camp, education is a necessity, and we’re just so happy to take care of that. So let’s build a wonderful school in Little Boston. These children are the future that we strive for and so they should have the very best of things. Now something else, and please don’t be insulted if I speak about this - bread. Let’s talk about bread. Now to my mind, its an abomination to consider that any man, woman or child in this magnificent country of ours should have to look upon a loaf of bread as a luxury. We’re going to dig water wells here. Water wells means irrigation, irrigation means cultivation. We’re going to raise crops here where before it just simply was impossible. You’re going to have more grain than you’ll know what to do with. Bread will be coming right out of your ears, ma’am. New roads. Agriculture. Employment, education. These are just a few of the things we can offer you, and I assure you ladies and gentlemen, that if we do find oil here, and I think there’s a very good chance that we will, this community of yours will not only survive, it will flourish.

Daniel Plainview pitching his oil company to the people of Little Boston in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film There Will Be Blood.

It is common in American liberal culture to find an appreciation for “the great world religions.” The “enlightened” of our culture (i.e. those disciplined by our university system) realize that to progress as a society, to achieve the world peace for which we all seek, we must learn to “appreciate” the diversity of cultures and religions of our world. This is perhaps most evident in the American desire to travel the world. In order to become “well-rounded” we must travel to see and experience other cultures. Almost all American universities offer “travel abroad” programs in order to expose us to the diversity of life on earth, so that we can become better human beings. Sadly, the selling point of many times church “mission trips” is the chance to travel the world and experience other cultures.
Of course, in some ways globalization offers us the “experience” of other cultures right in our own neighborhood. For instance, we experience what appears to us as Latin America every time we eat at Taco Bell. Or, in urban areas we have access to “authentic” cultures -we can visit China town, etc. and experience a form of China.

So, it seems that, provided we have money, globalization has given us access to the world. “We have,” to recall the old song, “the whole world in our hands.”
And so we do Yoga Thursdays, we eat sushi on Fridays, and buy Amish furniture on the internet on the weekends. Of course, those who have the most money have the ability to travel and experience the real of what Taco Bell attempts to simulate for us. There is a deep sense in which Taco Bell does not offer us enough and so we must travel.

Recently my wife astutely commented to me, “Why do rich people always have Buddhas all over their homes?” Of course, it is not all that uncommon to have a Buddha statue placed near an Eastern Orthodox icon, for instance.

Global capitalism offers us nothing less than the freedom to consume the world. It is often said that the problem with global capitalism is that this “freedom” is only offered to those of us with “capital.” There is, of course, much to truth to this. However, with the expansion of the free market to all the ends of the earth, more and more people (even the poor) have access to other cultures, in the form of a Taco Bell or a Starbucks.

Global capitalism gives us the freedom to consume the particular and then if we are savvy we find ways to commodify, to project, our digested experience onto the world. Global capitalism thus marks the obliteration, the flattening out, the annihilation of the particular, the local, the cultural. In its place it creates a new universal language that is built on an ethic of consumption that drives out old forms for new forms.

Global capitalism is nothing less than an all out war against all particularity. Thus it is the new universal; it is the new global God.

Last week my wife and I went out to see my favorite director, Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film, There Will Be Blood. I have to say I think this my favorite of his films so far and it is profoundly relevant as it exposes the disastrous human costs of capitalism epitomized in the oil rush.

I have been openly critical of some of my friends choices to go to Alberta in order to “cash in” on the great Canadian oil rush. In my criticisms I am not attempting to place myself on some higher moral ground, for I am well aware that I am complicit in the current human destruction of the earth. However, I still strongly discourage my friends to resist the desire to pay off university debt by means of exploiting the earth’s resources. It is my hope that St. Stephen’s University would become a place that fosters the kind of growth in students that would render active participation in economic exploitation, war, and environmental degradation unintelligible.

Recently, an environmental group called Environmental Defense reported that “Canada’s massive oil sands are the most destructive project on earth.”
According to a Reuter’s article the report noted that “excavation of the oil sands in the western province of Alberta — home to the richest petroleum deposits outside the Middle East — is producing vast amounts of greenhouse gases and poisoning local water supplies.” According to the article “The Alberta provincial government says it has issued leases for 4,264 oil sands projects covering 25,065 square miles . New projects costing more than C$100 billion are on the books for the oil sands region and production is expected to triple to 3 million barrels a day by 2015.”

For an excellent theological account of the problems with capitalism (including creative capitalism!) check out this article by Daniel Bell Jr. entitled “What is Wrong with Capitalism? The Problem with the Problem with Capitalism.”

In a recent comment Matt pointed me to a blog post by theologian and pastor Greg Boyd in which he endorses Bono’s Product (RED) campaign. In his post Boyd asserts, “It seems to me that the One Campaign, which includes Product (RED), is one of the most beautiful and powerful Kingdom movements being carried out right now.” Boyd suggests that God is using Bono to show the church what it ought to be doing. According to Boyd, “Our job is to manifest God’s love by using our God-given time, talent and resources to serve the world. See a need and meet it with your gifts.” I’m sure most everyone is familiar with the Product (RED) campaign, but if you’re not familiar with it you can watch Bono and Bill Gates talk about it here and you can watch one of their awful commercials aired during the Super Bowl here. I’ve also written on this particular issue before and have argued that Bono actually hurts poor children here. And, if you’re looking for laugh about this particular topic watch this.

In a nut shell, Product (RED) is a campaign put on by Bono and sponsored by major transnational corporations to help people in Africa who are living in poverty and dying of HIV/AIDS. The idea is that if you buy specific products that are (RED) products from major corporations like Reebok, GAP, Apple, and more recently Dell Computers, then a portion of the money from your purchase will go to Africa to help dying people. So, it is what the corporate cats call creative capitalism. Essentially, it is a way to get Americans to help some poor people by exploiting what Americans already do best: buy and consume. It is a method of helping others that does not demand any sacrifice. It is a way to make everyone “happy.” Americans get what they want: more stuff; corporations get what they want: more consumers; and the poor people dying of AIDS in Africa get what they want: health and wealth. Everyone gets what they want, right? Of course, it would be naïve to think that these major transnational corporations are actually concerned about the poor. But you see that is the whole point of the thing, it is a way to “do justice” while maintaining our own self-interest. In some ways it is just another way for Americans to shut out the reality of poverty (which reveals to us the reality of our own inevitable death) from our lives. We don’t want to see poor people, so we do what both liberals and conservatives in America have always done: try to find some way out of actually loving and caring for the poor.

What Boyd loves about Bono’s campaign is that he “didn’t rely on government to address these issues. He just did it.” In the context of Boyd’s anarchist-leaning theology this is seen as something good, for Bono didn’t capitulate to the secular “sword,” that is government. However, as Slavoj Zizek correctly points out, “Today it is the great capitalists - Bill Gates, corporate polluters, fox hunters – who ‘resist’ the state.” And, indeed, global capitalism wields one hell of a bloody sword. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for Christian resistance to the state, but not if this means grabbing a hold of the market to change the world. Boyd’s insistence that the church must detach itself from secular politics ought to apply to the global capitalist market as well, for similar reasons related to his concern about Christian allegiance. I’m sorry but I fail to see how the theological and moral issues raised in supporting global capitalist techniques of “ending poverty” fundamentally differ from supporting nation-state techniques.

If you watched this year’s Super Bowl then you probably remember seeing this commercial. Yet another illustration of why I despise Bono’s humanitarian work. 

One of our great faculty members in the Department of Theology at St. Thomas, William T. Cavanaugh, was recently interviewed by The Other Journal. Check out the interview here.  

Soon after the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989, John Paul II published his encyclical Centesimus Annus in which he poses the following question:”Can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of communism, should capitalism be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society?” JPII explains that the “answer is complex.” 

If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy,” ”market economy” or simply “free economy”. But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative. 

The rest of the encyclical affirms the priority of the person over profit and the spiritual and physical pitfalls of consumerism. JPII also expresses the Church’s solidarity in the liberation of the poor in this encyclical. I think there is much to be praised in the document and it certainly has to be read in its historical context. However, I can’t help but feel troubled by JPII’s affirmation of capitalism, even though it is a guarded one. In my opinion, JPII doesn’t really provide a theological basis for his account of capitalism other than an appeal to history.  The Catholic social tradition has always affirmed the right to private property, but I have always found the theological basis for such a position tenuous at best. Of course, the Catholic social tradition emphasizes that this is not an “absolute right” and that the use of material goods is always subordinated to the fact that they are common goods that must be shared.I want to hear your thoughts on the matter. Is capitalism the model economic system? If so, on what theological basis?