Summing it up...

The original purpose of this blog was an exposition on how our society can transition to a more sustainable future.  As the quarter progressed, I felt more drawn to look at current events through the lens of what we were learning, regardless of how it related to this cultural shift. 

Particularly, I was drawn to issues of contention. Lance Armstrong and Wall Street. Obama and Romney. Trickle-down economics and the role of Walmart in sustainability.

As I look closer, however, I realize that many of these issues were illuminating of how change is stymied in our culture. Much of how our culture views these issues and people are often a reflection of a non-theistic religious fervor.  What I mean is that cultural issues of contention elicit a non-rational response, akin to “faith” which is often different from the observed reality.

Let me give a few examples.

Capitalism, instead of an socio-historical exercise in trial and error becomes an article of faith, with belief in infinite growth and the supremacy of markets being necessary tenants.

Lance Armstrong was a hero. A self made man, he represented to many a personification of the religion of the American dream. A belief is that if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything you put your mind to.

Yet, after his fall from grace, he has become a scapegoat of our own morally corrupt win-at-all-costs mentality.  Much like Wall Street investors, who despite their vilification, are a reflection of a consumptive and overleveraged society that we all inhabit.

In a different vein, climate change is another example of how we can reduce science to religion.  I come from a conservative region of a red state, and am often asked if I “believe” in global warming. Though climate change is a well supported synthesis of empirical observations, the language used in debate reduces it to a subjective article of faith.  Isn’t this strange? Does anyone ever ask you if you “believe” in plate tectonics? Or, if you have faith in Einstein’s theory of special relativity?

The interesting thing is that non-conservatives, even those who are culturally less religious, do this as well. I would consider myself liberal, or at least progressive. My recent blog post about Walmart’s efforts to be more green was helpful in illuminating that I, like many in the environmental movement, have been used to categorizing Walmart as an unredeemable evil of our society. 

Yet this certainty has been recently troubled by a closer examination of what Walmart is actually doing with its ambitious green initiatives. Could it be that I have it all wrong? How does my mental model, a “religious” conviction that Walmart is “evil” stand up to the fact that they are doing real environmental good?

Likewise, I am troubled by much environmentalism and progressive culture which seeks to scapegoat and blame Republicanism, Walmart and the 1% for our societal ills. Too often, it seems that we adopt the language of fundamentalism and seek to “scold” people into doing right. Even worse, our unspoken self-righteousness makes our ideas, however reasonable, untenable to those we want to affect.  

Take income inequality, an issue that I explored to some length in my blog “Horse and Sparrow Economics.” One of my classmates, Arlene Raub had a prescient and insightful blog about the relative wealth of Americans compared to the rest of the world. While we rightly protest wealth accumulation of the 1% of this nation, we nonetheless,  live in a world where 80% live on less than $10 a day. We are still the 1% of the world.  Likewise, I don’t think our calls for our oppressors to relent will hold water until we recognize our own role in the oppression of others.

As a person of faith, I am not here to disparage faith or subjective world views.  People are not rational, neither am I, and that is what makes life interesting. 

Rather, I feel that many of our deeply held social and political beliefs can take a form that is not unlike organized religion. Like organized religion, its not entirely rational, and it can take good or bad forms.

Gandhi said that we must be the change that we want to see in the world. Similarly our ideas will have true power when recognize that we are part of the problem and, in humility, change ourselves first.  That is the essence of true "religion" and the only then can we be credible change agents in a beautiful and damaged world worthy of redemption.