Chapter 3, “The Global and the Local,” is the most densely theological of the book, yet I suspect it is also the heart of Cavanaugh’s attempt to provide a Christian vision that runs counter to consumerism: “[C]ulture and economics are not autonomous spheres with no mutual effect. Economic relationships do not operate on value-neutral laws, but are rather carriers of specific convictions about the nature of the human person” (59). Globalization is a false catholicity; it purports to offer a universal world of multicultural communication and exchange, but it actually tends to flatten out local cultures into a world of McDonalds and Disneys, even as it also works to dismember communities into atomistic individuals. Here, he returns to his concern with the “hypermobility of capital” which can abandon its people easily, thus creating a situation that makes labor unions fairly impossible, as well as negotiations for better working environments, higher wages, and more ownership in the means of production. Cavanaugh is equally suspicious of the claims of religious pluralism and multiculturalism. Both doctrines, he believes, really perpetuate a post-modernist version of persons and reality that is still radically individualistic. We can consume surface-level, multi-cultural experiences without necessarily changing anything about ourselves and our patterns of First World consumption. The global village is a comforting fiction. In response to this, Cavanaugh looks to Jesus Christ as the “concrete universal: “Only in the Incarnation can an individual be universal and the universal be individual” (76), and only in the mission of Christ can we truly discover ourselves, for Christian discipleship teaches us to lay ourselves aside for others: “The true identity of each unique human person is thus founded on the overcoming of an illusory self-sufficiency” (83). This practice is deeply Trinitarian, for we enter into an exchange of mutual giving and receiving. But this Christian exchange is always realized in local places over time. Only then can we truly be and model what God intends for Creation.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed; Economics and Christian Desire: Review Part 2
Cavanaugh offers an insightful critique of consumerism, which he charges as being driven not by ownership of things but by consumption of things: “Consumerism is not so much about having more as it is about having something else; that’s why it is not simply buying but shopping that is the heart of consumerism” (35). Strangely then, consumerism is a kind of parody of the Christian call to be detached from things and, in giving things away, to become attached to others. Cavanaugh believes the problem is that currently we as consumers are disconnected from almost every stage of the making of things, including being separated from those who make them. Most of us, he believes, are not comfortable with the plight of exhausted and desperate workers in overseas sweatshops, but we are unable to know exactly where and under what conditions our clothing, our toys, or our electronic devices are produced, and since many of these might also be produced in conditions that are somewhat better than starvation in the fields, we are left mostly with a vague ennui and free-floating guilt. What’s worse for us is that increasingly we are even detached from the things we consume, so that marketers must produce simultaneously an “organized creation of dissatisfaction” and yet also invest the products we purchase with positive emotional associations. “Products are made in the factory, but brands are made in the mind,” as one marketer observed (45). What, then, are Christians to do? Cavanaugh, writing in the tradition of Antony of Egypt, Clement of Alexandria, and Thomas Aquinas, suggests that we return to the pursuit of God as our chief desire. To be the Body of Christ is to identify with the “least of these.” We must take practical steps to overcoming our detachment by giving to others in a way that supports a sustainable life for them. We must also make our homes places where food is prepared, musical instruments are played, and people are engaged in making things.
Chapter 3, “The Global and the Local,” is the most densely theological of the book, yet I suspect it is also the heart of Cavanaugh’s attempt to provide a Christian vision that runs counter to consumerism: “[C]ulture and economics are not autonomous spheres with no mutual effect. Economic relationships do not operate on value-neutral laws, but are rather carriers of specific convictions about the nature of the human person” (59). Globalization is a false catholicity; it purports to offer a universal world of multicultural communication and exchange, but it actually tends to flatten out local cultures into a world of McDonalds and Disneys, even as it also works to dismember communities into atomistic individuals. Here, he returns to his concern with the “hypermobility of capital” which can abandon its people easily, thus creating a situation that makes labor unions fairly impossible, as well as negotiations for better working environments, higher wages, and more ownership in the means of production. Cavanaugh is equally suspicious of the claims of religious pluralism and multiculturalism. Both doctrines, he believes, really perpetuate a post-modernist version of persons and reality that is still radically individualistic. We can consume surface-level, multi-cultural experiences without necessarily changing anything about ourselves and our patterns of First World consumption. The global village is a comforting fiction. In response to this, Cavanaugh looks to Jesus Christ as the “concrete universal: “Only in the Incarnation can an individual be universal and the universal be individual” (76), and only in the mission of Christ can we truly discover ourselves, for Christian discipleship teaches us to lay ourselves aside for others: “The true identity of each unique human person is thus founded on the overcoming of an illusory self-sufficiency” (83). This practice is deeply Trinitarian, for we enter into an exchange of mutual giving and receiving. But this Christian exchange is always realized in local places over time. Only then can we truly be and model what God intends for Creation.
Chapter 3, “The Global and the Local,” is the most densely theological of the book, yet I suspect it is also the heart of Cavanaugh’s attempt to provide a Christian vision that runs counter to consumerism: “[C]ulture and economics are not autonomous spheres with no mutual effect. Economic relationships do not operate on value-neutral laws, but are rather carriers of specific convictions about the nature of the human person” (59). Globalization is a false catholicity; it purports to offer a universal world of multicultural communication and exchange, but it actually tends to flatten out local cultures into a world of McDonalds and Disneys, even as it also works to dismember communities into atomistic individuals. Here, he returns to his concern with the “hypermobility of capital” which can abandon its people easily, thus creating a situation that makes labor unions fairly impossible, as well as negotiations for better working environments, higher wages, and more ownership in the means of production. Cavanaugh is equally suspicious of the claims of religious pluralism and multiculturalism. Both doctrines, he believes, really perpetuate a post-modernist version of persons and reality that is still radically individualistic. We can consume surface-level, multi-cultural experiences without necessarily changing anything about ourselves and our patterns of First World consumption. The global village is a comforting fiction. In response to this, Cavanaugh looks to Jesus Christ as the “concrete universal: “Only in the Incarnation can an individual be universal and the universal be individual” (76), and only in the mission of Christ can we truly discover ourselves, for Christian discipleship teaches us to lay ourselves aside for others: “The true identity of each unique human person is thus founded on the overcoming of an illusory self-sufficiency” (83). This practice is deeply Trinitarian, for we enter into an exchange of mutual giving and receiving. But this Christian exchange is always realized in local places over time. Only then can we truly be and model what God intends for Creation.
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