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Post by Noelfitz on Mar 3, 2009 3:25:46 GMT
Could it be that the decline in the Church lead to a decline in the idea of sin and moral responsibility? Thus bankers and others lost a sense of right and wrong and as a consequence, due to immoral actions, the financial framework of the country collapsed?
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 1, 2010 14:45:16 GMT
This piece on the Irish crisis by Theodore Dalrymple may be relevant - full link at bottom of page. I'm not sure I entirely agree with Dalrymple but haven't time for a full discussion now. What do the rest of you think? EXTRACT ...The Irish are right to think that the crisis is more than economic, that it is existential; but they are wrong to think that it is specifically or mainly Irish. It is, in fact, a crisis of western man who cannot control his appetites, who wants today what only the labour of the future can supply, or supply honestly. Western man is, in effect, a child. In my own country, for example, there has been a decisive shift in attitude to debt within my lifetime. The British people are now among the most incontinent and childish in the management of their own affairs of any people in the world, which is why they are so deeply indebted for what are, essentially, trifles. It is within my memory that people took pride in not buying what they could not afford; they feared debt as if it were a disease. The idea of repudiating debts, of simply walking away from them, was totally alien to them. They would not behave in this fashion, not because it was illegal, but because their self-respect would not allow them to do so. How can you hold your head up after you had indulged in an elaborate form of theft? What had effected this change? I suspect that the decline of religion, both as a system of belief and a system of social control, has something to do with it. (Is it really a coincidence that the Irish crisis has struck at precisely the same time as the total evaporation of Catholicism’s influence in Ireland?) I say this as someone without religious belief. But where there is no belief that life has transcendent purpose, that there is in effect more to life than this life itself, it is hardly surprising that people – that is to say, many people - take as their philosophy ‘Apres nous, le deluge.’ The problem is that the deluge may not be apres nous... END OF EXTRACT www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/76985/sec_id/76985
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Post by assisi on Dec 1, 2010 22:37:13 GMT
This piece on the Irish crisis by Theodore Dalrymple may be relevant - full link at bottom of page. I'm not sure I entirely agree with Dalrymple but haven't time for a full discussion now. What do the rest of you think? EXTRACT ...The Irish are right to think that the crisis is more than economic, that it is existential; but they are wrong to think that it is specifically or mainly Irish. It is, in fact, a crisis of western man who cannot control his appetites, who wants today what only the labour of the future can supply, or supply honestly. Western man is, in effect, a child. In my own country, for example, there has been a decisive shift in attitude to debt within my lifetime. The British people are now among the most incontinent and childish in the management of their own affairs of any people in the world, which is why they are so deeply indebted for what are, essentially, trifles. It is within my memory that people took pride in not buying what they could not afford; they feared debt as if it were a disease. The idea of repudiating debts, of simply walking away from them, was totally alien to them. They would not behave in this fashion, not because it was illegal, but because their self-respect would not allow them to do so. How can you hold your head up after you had indulged in an elaborate form of theft? What had effected this change? I suspect that the decline of religion, both as a system of belief and a system of social control, has something to do with it. (Is it really a coincidence that the Irish crisis has struck at precisely the same time as the total evaporation of Catholicism’s influence in Ireland?) I say this as someone without religious belief. But where there is no belief that life has transcendent purpose, that there is in effect more to life than this life itself, it is hardly surprising that people – that is to say, many people - take as their philosophy ‘Apres nous, le deluge.’ The problem is that the deluge may not be apres nous... END OF EXTRACT www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/76985/sec_id/76985As stated the financial meltdown is not particular to Ireland, it appears to be a western phenomenon, from the USA to the EU countries. It is caused by the culture of consumerism that the western countries have been buying into for decades, if not centuries. Catholicism/Christianity is essentially incompatible with the 'love of money' and pursuit of pleasure that are at the heart of this culture. It is no wonder Religion becomes one of the major casualties of this culture. Other institutions have suffered too, the extended family, the respect for old age, respect for authority. A consumer culture does not want a religious population or older relatives preaching values such as temperance, patience, debt avoidance, loyalty, sacrifice and avoidance of excess. The ideal customer is individualistic, free from responsibilities, ready to travel, eat out, party, have many relationships, have their own house, car......the idea of personal or financial sacrifice is anathema to a consumer society, hence the general antipathy to those forces like the Church. One other interesting reference is to the fact that 'there is no belief that life has transcendent purpose...'. I have seen it argued before that the most long lasting cultures have a transcendent element to them. Not only our own Christian belief in God anf the afterlife but past cultures where there was belief in the Gods or belief that their rulers were divine beings. The inference is that cultures based solely on man made systems are doomed to relatively early failure.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 6, 2010 14:45:20 GMT
To play the Devil's Advocate: One reason why Western countries moved to consumerism is that the older style of "producerist" capitalism required acceptance of widespread poverty to an extent that was intolerable and not sustainable in a democracy. (One reason why many nineteenth-century liberals resisted universal suffrage was that they believed the working classes lacked the capacity for deferred gratification required to make the economy work.) One of the more unattractive aspects of the Irish Catholic Action literature from the mid-twentieth century discussed by Maurice Curtis is its widespread exhortations to the poor to be content with their poverty and set an example of poverty, chastity and obedience, especially when these exhortations came from people who were not in such a position themselves. How do we avoid both Scylla and Charybdis?
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