The Idolatry Trap

Just a brief thought for the day.  A couple weeks ago in class, Oliver O’Donovan said, “The more you make the government responsible for everything, the more you call on the government to fix everything.”  This profound remark has stuck with me since, and will probably continue to haunt me for a long time.  

In this statement, he was playing on the two meanings of the word “responsible”: “guilty” and “in charge of.”  In other words, the more you try to make the government responsible for everything in the sense of blaming them for everything, the more you implicitly make them responsible for everything in the sense of being in charge of it all, and so invite them to own up to that responsibility and take it upon themselves to fix everything.  

This exposes the danger of the attitude on the far right and particularly among Christian conservatives and libertarians that the best way to fight the idolatry of statism is to almost obsessively decry the state’s sins, demonize the state, and try to prove that all of society’s ills (or at least a large chunk of them) are the state’s fault.  In the end, if O’Donovan is right, this attitude shares the left’s idolatry of the state even while claiming to oppose it.  

The left looks at society, sees a bunch of problems and says, “Aha!  The problem is that the state isn’t doing enough about this--they’re responsible for this injustice--they should fix it by getting more involved”  The right looks at society, sees a bunch of problems and says, “Aha!  The problem is that the state is doing too much about this--they’re responsible for this injustice--they should fix it by getting less involved!”  Now, the problem is that, whatever the goals of the latter stance, it has still functionally made the state an idol, by building it up in its mind into this huge all-powerful entity, which must be obsessed about and engaged with every day.  It is still calling upon the state to fix whatever problems it sees in society, and thus still making the state a saviour--although one that saves by self-denial, and so I suppose a more Christian saviour.  

Wouldn’t the truly anti-statist stance be one that focuses responsibility for the ills of society on the whole society, rather than on this abstract entity that has achieved quasi-mythical status, “the government”?  Or even better, one that focuses responsibility on the Church, which is called upon to bear the sins of society and purge them?

Neutral vs. Neutralized Technology

March 28, 2010

Class with Oliver O’Donovan last week was unusually enlightening even by the high standards of that class.  Deep insights and great quotes poured from the sage professor in a sparkling effusion, and I couldn’t take notes fast enough (especially as I had to use pen and paper).  Some of the most interesting thoughts came on the question of how we should view technology from an ethical standpoint--is technology neutral?  (The texts for the class were two fantastic essays on technology by the Canadian philosopher George Grant).  

It is a standard platitude among--well, among most anybody in mainstream Western thought, but particularly among conservatives, including, more often than not, Christian conservatives--that “technology is a neutral tool; it isn’t good or evil in itself, it depends on how you use it.”  The problem with that seeming truism is that the two halves of the statement are not saying the same thing.

It is a truism that any technology is not good or evil in itself, for indeed, only actions, not objects, are good or evil.  But it does not follow from this that the object or technology is a neutral tool--that is to say, that we can use it however we would like, for good or evil, that it does not incline, by its nature, toward certain good or evil uses.

Take, for instance, a large nuclear warhead.  In itself, it is neither good nor evil.  I could build one simply to put in my backyard as a piece of decoration.  It might be imprudent and wasteful, but not necessarily evil...certainly, the weapon in itself wouldn’t be evil.  But this would be basically because I had decided not to use the weapon, since sticking it in my backyard would hardly constitute a use.  It would be impossible to use this piece of technology, at all sensibly, in a way that was not evil.  So, a large nuclear weapon is not simply a neutral tool like a hammer--it is a tool that works for certain purposes, and that cannot be morally used for those purposes.  

This is an extreme example, but it proves the point--all technologies that we develop are inclined to work in certain ways, and to force us to use them in certain ways rather than others, if they are to be at all useful.  If they are significant enough, they will begin to mold our lives in certain new and fundamental ways, and these will not be “neutral”--they will have, perhaps, certain features that we could call “good,” and others that will certainly be “evil” and lamentable. 

The computer, of course, is a preeminent example (and is the one that Grant himself chooses).  The computer has of course had a profound impact on how we live our lives--we are as much subject to it as it is subject to us.  It is certainly not a mere tool in our hands, for us to do with as we will, like the hammer (if even the hammer is that).  And while this impact has been good in certain ways, in other ways it has been terrible--according to O’Donovan, especially on the university.  The computer’s predisposition to record what is measurable and quantifiable has meant that its adoption by the educational system has driven the educational system to focus on precisely what are the least significant features of education--those that are measurable and quantifiable.  The result, according to O’Donovan, is that the university, historically understood, is now in its death throes.  This is not a “neutral” development.  For some, it might be a good development.  For those with more sense, it is almost certainly an evil development.  The email, too, as O’Donovan discussed, is a tremendously convenient innovation, yet one with an almost limitless capacity for harm, posing entirely novel temptations and risks for our society.  Technology, then, is not neutral; it is quite perilous.  

A blithe confidence in technology, then, a careless indifference to the way it shapes our lives in directions that we may not wish to go, is not a responsible ethical posture for Christians.  Does this mean that we must be Amish and flee technology?  Does this mean that if we foresee the risks of the computer, of email, of mechanized agriculture, etc., that we must simply slam on the brakes and retreat from these non-neutral developments?  

No, because, though they may not be neutral, that does not mean they cannot be neutralized, in O’Donovan’s terminology.  If we do not naively imagine that the computer is a neutral tool, and we embrace it as a society with open eyes, well aware of the changes we are facing and the risks we are incurring, then we will be in a position to make careful moral judgments and establish social disciplines and limitations to neutralize the harm that might be caused by a careless use of the new technology.  For instance, we might seek to consciously establish social conventions regulating the use of email, or make decisions within communities and institutions what sort of dialogues and functions could be legitimately carried out by email.  We might seek to develop computer technology in directions that would counteract its tendency to promote institutional homogeneity (as has in fact now begun to happen with the tools the internet has provided).  

This posture, however, would require three things that we are not necessarily willing to do as a society: 1) establish limitations on the ways that new technologies can be used--e.g., the kind of internet censorship that everyone acts like is a short step from Stalin; 2) be willing to say an absolute “no” to certain kinds of technology--just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should do it (e.g., a lot of the issues surrounding genetic engineering); 3) be willing to slow down the pace of technological growth.  As it stands now, we are simply innovating far faster than we as a society can digest what new technologies mean, craft appropriate responses, and cultivate the moral discipline to use them properly.  All sides of the political spectrum seem to presuppose that unhampered innovation is the way to go, and that the solution to all our problems is more and faster innovation.  But, if we are not going to be destroyed by our own creations, we must be willing to focus less of our energies on developing new technologies, and more on learning how to wisely use the ones we have.  

This posture, recommended by O’Donovan, seems to me to be the clearest and most intelligent an approach to the ethics of technology that I have yet heard.  Commonsensical, really, and avoiding the unnecessary radicalism of an Amish approach, yet, when you get down to it, still very radical in its own way; perhaps too radical for our inebriated technological society to ever hear.  

American Exceptionally-Grateful-ism?

March 1, 2010 

A recent blog post by Doug Wilson claimed that while he has recently written against American exceptionalism, this does not mean he is against American gratitude; indeed, we Americans should be grateful for living in a uniquely blessed nation.  While I appreciate his opposition to the idea of American exceptionalism, something many Christians unreflectively embrace, I must confess that I am still a bit skeptical.  One source of my skepticism is that saying you oppose the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t mean you actually do.  I know plenty of people who would say, “Oh no, I don’t think America is better than everyone else...I just think that we aren’t involved in all those wicked things that other empires have done, and I think that we’re called to use our power to bring peace and justice throughout the world.”  Right...pardon me for being unconvinced.

Second, I’m a little leery of this idea of gratitude he has in mind. 

There’s a responsible kind of gratitude and a naive kind of gratitude.  If a kid is grateful to his parents because they buy him all kinds of junk food, then that gratitude is not necessarily a good thing--it would be better if was, to a certain extent, ungrateful, because he didn’t want to keep eating junk food.  More seriously, if the Emperor Nero had leaned back at one of his banquets and thanked the Roman gods for bringing him such wonderful luxury, we would not count that gratitude a virtue but a culpable naivete about the fact that this luxury was made possible by the suffering he had inflicted on thousands of others.  Wilson says, “Liberals are ungrateful whiners....They are surrounded by unbelievable blessings, greater than any people in the history of the world have known, and they avoid the grace of gratitude by complaining about the pollution, the fact that we stole it from the Indians, the additives in the bread, and the fact that it is all propped up by CIA assassinations overseas.”  I raise my hand timidly-- “But, shouldn’t we be upset that we murdered thousands of Indians to get this land?  Shouldn’t we be disturbed that there are strange chemicals in our food?  Shouldn’t we have some nagging discomfort, if not moral outrage, about the fact that it is all propped up by CIA assassinations overseas?”  I’m looking for some follow-up qualification from Wilson, along the lines of, “These are all important concerns, but we must remember at the same time to be grateful for the genuinely good things God has given us,” but he never gives it.

Finally, Wilson seems to think that we are exceptional in one respect--our Founding Fathers knew better than to think we were exceptional, and so they enshrined safeguards of limited government in our Constitution.  “The founders knew that we were in no way unique, and that really was unique.”  In other words, America isn’t exceptional, we just have an exceptional Constitution.  And although Wilson does not major on this theme, his comments got me realizing that this idea is quite pervasive in our circles.  “Yes, yes,” we say, “we’re happy to admit that America has got zillions of problems, and shouldn’t pretend to be ‘God’s chosen people,’ but it’s an established fact that we do have the best political system in the world, cuz we had such smart founders.  It’s only because we ignored our Constitution that we have problems.”  

Well, maybe.  But one nice thing about studying political thought at a British university is that you quickly find out that they are aware of quite a number of problems in the American constituion, as have been other European political thinkers for the last couple centuries.  O’Donovan happens to think that in one crucial respect--the separation of the legislative from the executive--the American constitution is fatally flawed.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that he thinks that the British system then is perfect.  No--it has serious flaws too, and could be well served to borrow certain elements from the U.S.  This seems to me an eminently sensible position: all constitutions have their pros and cons, most have fairly serious flaws, and even the best is only good for some nations, not for all. 

Until we’re willing to grant this, and stop kidding ourselves that our Constitution is the envy of the world, we’re going to keep falling into subtle forms of American exceptionalism, and imagining that we figured out how to curb government power.  After all, it is manifestly clear that we have failed to do so, and it’s worth asking whether that’s just because we ignored the Founders, or because the Founders got it wrong too.  

Three Little Nuggets from O'Donovan

Quotes from class yesterday:

"The Roman Catholic Church is an ocean-going liner that takes a large space to turn around."

"People blame Margaret Thatcher, but all that Margaret Thatcher was was the person sitting on the see-saw when it finally went off-balance."

"Conservatism in Europe and North America are very different things.  In North America, conservatives are always redneck country boys crying 'foul' from a position of impotence."  

Conservative Totalitarianism

February 13, 2009

Oliver O'Donovan suggested in class yesterday that Burkean conservatism was, to a large extent, responsible for the development of the totalitarian nationalist state.  Not, of course, that Burke caused the totalitarian nationalist state (O'Donovan is rightly skeptical of all claims of historical causality), but the lines of development and logical connections are certainly clear.  By renouncing universal abstract claims about the nature of rights and the state, and focusing attention on the historically contingent character of individual states, which ought to reflect the national characters of their own people, and create institutions suitable thereto, Burke's conservatism paved the way for an understanding of the State as embodying the personality, the soul, of the nation.  What feature of national life, then, lay outside the legitimate scope of the State?  

A jarring narrative, but a persuasive one.  Perhaps then the recent mutation of conservatism into fiercely patriotic nationalism is not such a mutation after all.