Berry & the Demise of Culture: New Atlantis

This article by Patrick J. Deneen from the New Atlantis reviews Wendell Berry's ongoing critique of our culture and it's demise under the weight of uncontrolled technologies (and might we say economies?) Berry is always worth reading. An excerpt:

The last thing we will consider is altering our own behavior—because, surely, someone else is at fault. The Oil Companies, the Saudis, Dick Cheney—anyone but me. As has been described by Jason Peters, editor of a fine volume on Berry, it’s like heavy traffic. Heavy traffic is always other people. When you say “traffic was terrible,” you’re never talking about yourself.

Wendell Berry asks us to understand how we are a cause of the terrible traffic we complain about. His basic argument is that we must become more thoughtful about what we are doing. We must seek to understand the ways in which we are ourselves complicit in bad work, and seek to avoid that complicity where possible and, better still, to do good work instead. He does not advise withdrawal from the world, but full and active engagement in it. He fully acknowledges that we are technological creatures: to survive and thrive we must use nature. But again, “we must know both how to use and how to care for what we use.”

I don't think our culture has much of a future the "way it is going," though history is full of surprises and God's ways are mysterious. I wouldn't bank much on the future, though, in the sense of there looms a world of virtue and character in which my grandparents would be comfortable. I'm already out of step. Cultural transmission and safekeeping are most effective when a generation deeply cares about past, present and future, about ancestors, the living family, and the unborn. This is the culture of what's new, how does it make me feel, and the one night stand. I just saw The More the Merrier on television last week and I remarked that the entire ending situation, its tension, drama, and momentous decision would be incomprehensible to too many young people today (and plenty of Boomers). When sex is just a sport, marriage is a game.

So: past, present and future--ancestors, the living family, and the unborn. So is it now three strikes, or was one of those a foul tip? Regardless, Christians have no choice but to do the right things day in and day out, be out of step, win, lose but always faithful. And there are still young people who are keeping the fire alive.

Comments

[Bob]

Well, it wasn't me.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

Ken Myers interviewed Deneen in a recent Mars Hill Audio journal (volume 91).

[Stuart Koehl]

I'd be more impressed if the same thing had not been written at every time of technological upheaval. Culture changed, yes. But it did not end. Sorry.

I know you guys are moralists, and it's your job and all, but moralists have a terrible track record when it comes both to predicting the downfall of cultures and society, and in ascribing responsibility for the collapse. Most of the time, cultures do not succumb to moral decadence, but to external invasion, civil war or natural catastrophe.

Now, ex post facto it is easy to ascribe blame for any of those to the corruption of the culture, but it is seldom true upon anything beyond the most superficial examination. The Roman Empire did not collapse because of moral decadence (a decadence that Gibbon, by the way, ascribed to the pernicious influence of Christianity--so the sword has two edges). Neither did the feudal kingdoms of the early Renaissance, nor the agrarian states of the early 19th century (where the argument can be made that the rise of industrial society actually caused moral reform).

Students ask me often what history is. Sometimes I give a long, involved answer about the interpretation of the past in light of present concerns, but more often I tell them, "History is just one damned thing after another". Because it is. And though things change, they seldom result in total collapse, and I see nothing to indicate that this society will be any different. The end, when and if it comes, will come as it usually does--either we'll be overthrown by some external enemy, thrown into chaos by irreconcilable political differences turned violent, or thwacked upside the head by an asteroid or megavolcano or earthquake or something. But blaming technology is just too easy. Sorry.

[Aleksei]

Thank God somebody said it.

[labrialumn]

Curious how God chose historical narrative to teach us if the pomo critique of history and thus tradition, were true.

While I disagree with Wendell Berry's trust of government, and with his view that it is technology which is in a large way, the problem, I still think I'd like to be Wendel Berry when I grow up.

[Rob G]

Please note that it is UNCONTROLLED technology (and markets) that Berry is on about, not technology or the market per se. And as far as I can tell, Berry puts about as much trust in big gummint as he does in big bizness -- zero. I'm with him in both regards.

Likewise, Berry's distrust of technology is linked to his distrust of both of the "bigs" above. The dangers of the alliance between corporate capitalism and technological "progress" has been a theme in the writings of Southern conservatives (and some Northern ones) since the 30s. When you throw big government into the mix, you exacerbate the problem, as Big G and Big B will inevitably scratch one another's backs, if not other parts of the anatomy.

As far as corruption of culture goes, it seems to me rather wrongheaded to make the argument that since moral issues were not the primary cause of the failure of previous cultures, they therefore have no bearing at all. Likewise, it does not follow that since moral issues were (arguably) not related to previous cultural collapses, they are not related to our current cultural woes. Finally, this view does not seem to me to take into consideration a Christian view of history -- that it has a telos, and that God deals with nations as nations, and that His dealing with nations is, in fact, based on morality.

[W.E.D. Godbold]

I think Deneen/Berry has a good point in recognizing that homogenized, one-size-fits-all industrial technology (such as in farming and fishing) turned out to be destructive in the long term though it was very productive in the short term. We know a lot more about topsoil and sustainable aquaculture than we used to. Of course, we can use our new knowledge and better technologies to fix the problems we plunged into. Technology wasn't the problem exactly, it was the ignorant misuse (while assuming we knew enough) that did it. China is going to be in a seriously bad way (well, it's in a bad way now and it's going to be worse) in farming because of the topsoil problem.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Please note that it is UNCONTROLLED technology (and markets) that Berry is on about, not technology or the market per se. <<<

When you find such a creature, let me know. In the meanwhile, I will keep it in the same box with the manticores, jackalopes and other mythical beings.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>As far as corruption of culture goes, it seems to me rather wrongheaded to make the argument that since moral issues were not the primary cause of the failure of previous cultures, they therefore have no bearing at all.<<<

Find me an historical correlation, and I might give the notion some consideration. In the meanwhile, consider that many great civilizations reached their apogee precisely in periods which we might consider morally decadent. Rome was still rising under Nero and the Julio-Claudians, reached its peak under the Antonines. All the bad things one says about Rome were present in abundance during those periods.

Great Britain rose to power during the Georgian era, one of the most morally corrupt (in all its aspects) the English have ever known--makes what goes on in London today look tame indeed. There was moral reform in the Victorian era, which just happened to coincide with the flowering of the industrial revolution. So did technology and free markets--which characterized Victorian England--cause moral decay or reduce it?

On the other hand, it was during the late Victorian period, when moral reformation was almost totally complete, that Britain began to enter a period of decadence that continued through the two World Wars and ended only with the rise of Margaret Thatcher (only to see all that flushed down the toilet by Tony Blair).

As I said, the rise and fall of civilizations is a complex phenomenon, and each one is to a great extent sui generis. But blaming the moral climate does give the O temora O mores crowd a useful hammer with which to bang all the familiar nails.

[Rob G]

"When you find such a creature, let me know."

Of course, no technology (or market) is completely uncontrolled. That's not the point. The point is the measure and quality of the control. See Catholic social teaching, preferably that of the Popes, and the US bishops prior to the 60s for more on this.

"In the meanwhile, consider that many great civilizations reached their apogee precisely in periods which we might consider morally decadent."

Richard Weaver and others have spoken of this phenomenon. There is such a thing as an efflorescence produced by decay.

"blaming the moral climate does give the O temora O mores crowd a useful hammer with which to bang all the familiar nails."

I'd say, rather, that discounting the moral climate gives the "ever onward, ever upward!" crowd reasons to stick to their myth of progress.

[labrialumn]

The thing about an apogee is that it is the peak altitude in the coast phase, after the rocket motors have already burned out.

Perhaps the analogy is valid.

Clinton got the credit for the Reagan surplus. Technology continues to improve decades after the necessary theistic base to science was disposed of (operating on the base-less philosophy of logical positivism) Writers have spoken of "cultural capital" People save and pay off their debts and their grandchildren get to spend that, continue on in fiat money, and only some time later is that exposed as a fraud and the economy collapses.

I've heard Os Guinness quote someone saying something like "Faith begat Prosperity and the daughter ate up the mother."

[Ethan C.]

>>While I disagree with Wendell Berry's trust of government...<<

Are you saying that you *do* trust government? Because if there's one thing that Wendell Berry doesn't trust, it's government.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The thing about an apogee is that it is the peak altitude in the coast phase, after the rocket motors have already burned out.<<<

Unless you power end-to-end, which you can do for depressed trajectories.

But in the case of the cultures I mentioned, they actually took off during periods of what we would call "moral decay", reached their apogees during periods of moral reform, and then began to decline as that reform became institutionalized. The Great Britain that won an empire in the Seven Years War and established hegemony over Europe in the Napoleonic Wars was a very different place from Queen Victoria's Empire. She came to the throne just as the industrial revolution was beginning to roll in ernest, and it was precisely because of the social demands made by industrialization that England HAD to reform morally. Let's say the job was complete by the 1880s-90s. England is fully industrialized, the British have become paragons of bourgeois morality, and the Empire is beginning its long slide into irrelevance. That's hard to explain through the paradigm of moral decay = societal decline. It's also hard to say that technology caused social decay, when in this case at least, it seems clear that technology contributed to moral revival. As I said, it's a complex subject, and reductionism never works well in these cases.

[labrialumn]

The revival in England was due to the workings of God's Holy Spirit, chiefly through John Wesley and his associates. Otherwise, it is posited, England would have had the equivalent of the French Revolution.

Go back a little bit further in England and you find the Protectorate and then the bloodless revolution of 1688. What is -that- time period was the real boost phase?

[Ethan C.]

Stuart, while you're lobbing accusations of oversimplification, it seems to me that you're committing a bit of that yourself.

For starters, it seems to me that Berry and Deneen mean something wider than you do when they say "technology". The steam engine is a technology; but so is the asset -backed security, the bundled mortgage investment instrument, and the adjustable rate mortgage, the very things that have brought us to what I know you believe to be the brink of a horrifying depression. And before we argue about whether depressions can destroy culture, let me merely wave in the direction of 1930's Germany.

As Berry and Deneen state, it isn't technology per se that endangers our cultural survival, it's the failure to control that technology. It's the willingness to abdicate our responsibility for preserving culture due to the illusion that our technology in itself protects us from destruction. While technological progress may not cause moral atrophy, it can certainly disguise it.

It's letting the pill replace sexual restraint, or the welfare system replace frugality, or (to enter your home court) the newest weaponry replace sound strategy.

In biblical terms, it's putting our trust in horses and chariots (the cutting-edge military technology of the day) rather than fidelity to the natural laws that uphold culture.

It's also forgetting that technology only allows us to do more of whatever it is we desire to do. So when our desires are noble, technology can enable greater nobility. When our desires are base, technology empowers our baseness.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that eras of technological growth don't necessarily coincide with cultural collapse. Technology is not inherently destructive of culture. A strong culture can generally absorb technological change with little danger.

But if a culture is already suffering from cultural weakness, technology can hasten its demise by empowering its worse angels (perhaps the effect of the cotton gin on southern slave-owning culture is a good example).

Berry's critique is not that we are technological, but that we have turned our technologies loose to do what they will without thought to their proper uses. We have allowed our technological strength to stand-in for the cultural strengths that have historically preserved civilizations from collapse. We have used our new tools to serve our worse cultural instincts (short-sightedness, selfishness, laziness) rather than our better ones.

And this, he argues, cannot last.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The steam engine is a technology; but so is the asset -backed security, the bundled mortgage investment instrument, and the adjustable rate mortgage, the very things that have brought us to what I know you believe to be the brink of a horrifying depression.<<<

Sorry, but to use the term technology in such an imprecise manner is to render it meaningless. And, of course, you are also wrong about the economics of our current situation, but that is neither here nor there.

>>>As Berry and Deneen state, it isn't technology per se that endangers our cultural survival, it's the failure to control that technology. It's the willingness to abdicate our responsibility for preserving culture due to the illusion that our technology in itself protects us from destruction. While technological progress may not cause moral atrophy, it can certainly disguise it.<<<

That's just silly. In the first place, just what do you mean by culture, and how do you get everyone to sign on to your definition? Then, who do you get to enforce your decisions concerning how best to protect "culture" from "technology"?

>>>It's letting the pill replace sexual restraint<<<

Oh, yeah--mankind was an exemplar of chastity before the pill.

>>>the welfare system replace frugality, or (to enter your home court) the newest weaponry replace sound strategy<<<

Oh, yeah--people were frugal before welfare. But wait--wasn't welfare something that Christians thought was a good idea, because frugality (I suppose you actually mean charity) wasn't looking out for the material needs of the poor?

Now, on weapons and strategy, you are a bit closer to the mark. But there are some things that sound strategy cannot transcend. In the real world, Ewoks armed with rocks and sticks do not defeat imperial storm troopers armed with blasters. In other words, strategy counts, but it can't overcome massive disparities in capabilities. Ask the Zulu, or Fuzzy Wuzzy. In fact, faced with such disparities, good strategy would dictate that one avoid war altogether.

>>>In biblical terms, it's putting our trust in horses and chariots (the cutting-edge military technology of the day) rather than fidelity to the natural laws that uphold culture.<<<

But, as Tiglath-pileser might have said, you can get more with natural law and a thousand chariots, than with natural law alone.

>>>Technology is not inherently destructive of culture. A strong culture can generally absorb technological change with little danger.<<<

Again, define your terms. Any truly radical advance in technology has always had some impact on culture. Take, for example, the car. It brought about a dramatic change in sexual mores in the 1920s, perhaps even greater than the pill. It also enabled the physical and social mobility that allowed families to scatter across the country in pursuit of work and a better standard of living. It took perhaps 30 years for this to have a real effect, but it was radical. And it changed the culture.

>>>Berry's critique is not that we are technological, but that we have turned our technologies loose to do what they will without thought to their proper uses. <<<

Again, who is going to decide? Every see the science/history series "Connections" (the first series was the best)? It demonstrates, if nothing else, that nobody knows or understands the proper use of technologies, or can foresee the direction in which they will go. So there is the ultimate problem of being able to foresee the implications of a technology developed in response to one set of problems, and how it may be used fifty or one hundred years down the road. You can't tell. So forget about technology, and work directly on issues of faith and morality independent of technology. Technology is transient--it changes, sometimes rapidly. Morality is transcendent, so moral arguments should not have to depend on technology one way or the other.

In the end, technology is morally neutral. It can be used for good, or it can be used for evil. That choice is one that lies with each individual person, or as Solzhenitsyn put it, the battle line between good and evil runs through the human heart.

[Rob G]

"So forget about technology, and work directly on issues of faith and morality independent of technology."

Sorry, can't be done. The two are not separable, and believing that they are is precisely what Berry and other such commentators are talking about. (You can say the same thing about economics, by the way).

"Technology is transient--it changes, sometimes rapidly. Morality is transcendent, so moral arguments should not have to depend on technology one way or the other."

Sheesh, talk about oversimplification. Are you really saying that technology and its applications have no moral component? Tell that to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the thalidomide babies, or the victims of Agent Orange, or...need I go on?

[NTBH]

"Tell that to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki"

Uhh, nuclear energy?

"or the thalidomide babies"

People suffering from lesions due to leprosy

"or the victims of Agent Orange"

Once again, the technology was designed initially to be a herbicide, while it would have eventually been found to be carcinogenic, the way in which it was used is which caused the evil. The emphasis should not be placed at all on the technology, but rather on the applications.
And if it wasn't for Agent Orange, R.E.M. would have never written Orange Crush ;)

[Rob G]

"The emphasis should not be placed at all on the technology, but rather on the applications."

And I, and Berry, and several popes (among many others) would argue that the potential for bad applications should be considered in the R&D process. Ever read 'Frankenstein'?

[NTBH]

Okay, I concede the Frankenstein point. Unfortunately I was not thinking of bioethical issues in respect to this post. Obviously any technology that ignores the Creator/ created divide is an abomination.

Forgive me.

[NTBH]

This actually illustrates why I have lurked for years, and never posted before today. I should reconsider my decision.

Forgive me.

[Rob G]

"This actually illustrates why I have lurked for years, and never posted before today. I should reconsider my decision."

Nonsense. The more the merrier. And everyone was a novice here at one time or another.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Tell that to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the thalidomide babies, or the victims of Agent Orange, or...need I go on?<<<

Well, there is nothing inherently evil about busting atoms, is there? I mean, we use it to generate electricity, to propel ships, and someday maybe to travel to the planets. We also use nuclear fission as a way to create radioisotopes for medical use. We also use it as a weapon, because, brought down to the bare minimum, a weapon is simply a tool, a means of transferring energy from one object to another--only in this case, the object is frequently a human being. And, without going into the whole morality of nuclear weapons thing again, let's just say that the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably saved a great many more Japanese lives than they took, that more Japanese were killed by 20-lb gasoline bombs, and that nuclear weapons have done something previously unknown in human history--prevented a major war on European soil for more than 60 years.

Thalidomide actually has a number of legitimate medical uses today. Just don't take it when you are pregnant. There's no moral dimension to thalidomide.

As for Agent Orange, not only is there no moral dimension there, there isn't even a medical one. No correlation whatsoever has been found between any disease and Agent Orange; troops directly involved in loading aircraft and helicopters as part of Operation Ranch Hand actually have statistically lower incidences of cancer than men who served in Vietnam in places not sprayed with the substance.

>>>And I, and Berry, and several popes (among many others) would argue that the potential for bad applications should be considered in the R&D process. Ever read 'Frankenstein'?<<<

Interesting concept, in theory. Most technologies, however, do not have such a clear-cut ethical dimension at the time they are developed, for the simple reason that, when they are developed, most people haven't get the slightest idea of how a given technology can be applied. Usually, people go off looking for one thing, and end up with something used in a totally different application.

That's why I recommended you watch James Burke's original "Connections" television series.

[Rob G]

"Interesting concept, in theory. Most technologies, however, do not have such a clear-cut ethical dimension at the time they are developed, for the simple reason that, when they are developed, most people haven't get the slightest idea of how a given technology can be applied."

I don't think anyone's arguing that the ethical dimension of a given technology need be clear cut. But if a potential ethical issue arises, it should be considered. Drug companies test new medicines before releasing them. Household chemicals are tested for potential harm to humans before marketing. Are these not ethical considerations? If so, how much more do we need to look at larger and more potentially dangerous technologies?

[Steve Nicoloso]

That's why I recommended you watch James Burke's original "Connections" television series.

Although I doubt Rob is ignorant of the complex strings that inhere to the evolution of technology, I DO want to second the recommendation of the original "Connections" series, and I do mean the original. Connections 2 just sucked... too clever by half or something like that...

Berry's argument, and the agrarian argument in general, against technology is not against technology qua technology. Anybody who appreciates 21st century oral hygeine has gotten beyond that point. For that matter, even the Amish don't reject technology out of hand, but rightly see its use as being a question of prudential judgement (tho' I'm not sure they'd use those terms). The question about technology, at least technology which doesn't deface or destroy the human person, is not whether a particular device or technique is inherently wrong, but how such a device or technique changes its user, esp. insofar as those changes might tend (in the limit) to deface or destroy the human person.

[NTHB]

Wow, Stuart Koehl actually supported the same arguments that I made. Maybe I need to reconsider my reconsideration of posting.

[Rob G]

"Berry's argument, and the agrarian argument in general, against technology is not against technology qua technology. Anybody who appreciates 21st century oral hygeine has gotten beyond that point."

Correct, as is plain to anyone who's read Berry and/or the other agrarians, and their fellow critics of modernism. When they are portrayed as Luddites it's generally by people who haven't actually read them.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> I DO want to second the recommendation of the original "Connections" series, and I do mean the original. Connections 2 just sucked... too clever by half or something like that...<<<

No doubt about that--though, remember, in Connection I, Burke's overarching thesis was about information technology, and how computers would allow the government to gather more and more data on our lives, to the point where the state would be omnipotent.

It turned out not to be so, for reasons that Burke must have appreciated:

1. The development of complex programming languages that made applications development accessible to more people.
2. The development of operating systems with graphic user interfaces, that made computers themselves accessible to non-experts.
3. Moore's Law, which has allowed each of us to have on his desktop a computer an order of magnitude more powerful than most of those used by governments (anybody remember mainframes?) when Connections first aired.
4. Development and commercialization of the internet and introduction of the World Wide Web.

Because computing power and networking became available to the masses, while government could continue to amass information on individuals, it also no longer had a monopoly on information itself. Even in its most primitive form, the Web was an essential element in the fall of communism, and later in the color revolutions of Eastern Europe.

None of this was foreseen in the late 1970s, which might as well have been the stone age as far as IT is concerned.

So, if one was to look at computer technology back then, how could one have determined what its moral implications might be, and how would one control them? The simple answer is, one could not.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>> Drug companies test new medicines before releasing them. Household chemicals are tested for potential harm to humans before marketing. Are these not ethical considerations? <<<

It is not so much an ethical consideration as a straight commercial one. A company that puts a bad drug on the market opens itself up to massive legal liability. Worse still, it loses it reputation among consumers, who will be loathe to trust the company the next time it brings out a new drug. With the cost of development so high, no drug company can afford NOT to test. That this testing is also ethical merely points out how the market imposes morality upon those who participate in it. Legal sanctions are not nearly as effective as commercial ones--since all business is essentially grounded in trust in the good faith of the parties, screwing someone over is the kiss of death, executed immediately, no reprieve.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>The question about technology, at least technology which doesn't deface or destroy the human person, is not whether a particular device or technique is inherently wrong, but how such a device or technique changes its user, esp. insofar as those changes might tend (in the limit) to deface or destroy the human person.<<<

The question then becomes, who decides? Obviously, if you do not wish to leave this up to personal discretion, then some form of compulsion is required. Who will you put in charge, and what sanctions will you use to impose your will?

This question was addressed by Jerry Pournelle in his Co-Dominium series of stories and novels. It postulates a time in the near future when the United States and Russia have essentially taken over the world, imposing a transnational government (the Co-Dominium), with its own administrative, judicial, law enforcement and military forces (think of it as the EU on steroids). To maintain the equilibrium that keeps Earth from destroying itself in a spasm of nationalistic violence, the Co-Dominium's Bureau of Technology suppresses all new technology that might have military applications. Since it turns out that ALL technologies have military applications, BuTec ends up controlling every aspect of technological development, exiling or disappearing scientists and inventors who don't take their hints. As a result, all technological progress comes to a halt. Engineers don't know how to do anything new, and are reduced to the status of technicians working from a cookbook.

Of course, it is impossible to suppress human ingenuity, and so, out on the fringes of human-colonized space, little labs and workshops spring up, and soon there is a thriving black market in useful (but forbidden) technologies.

[Steve Nicoloso]

So, if one was to look at computer technology back then, how could one have determined what its moral implications might be, and how would one control them? The simple answer is, one could not.

Of course, one could not. That reminds me of a story: I remember a little ol' lady in an adult Sunday School class/jive session, and how she was just bent out of shape over this Adult Book Store on Route 10 (Randolph, NJ), and how isn't it just awful that folks (men) go in there, and how we oughta take photos of them or something. And I said, it surely is awful that folks go in there, but we ought bear in mind that for every one man with the moral courage (however misdirected) to actually enter such a place, there are literally thousands who, through the power of "IT", peruse the same smorgasbord from the privacy of their own dens. See Douthat's Is Pornography Adultery? just in case you doubt that the technologies (oh, well, let's be pedantic: applications) do in fact change us. Does that mean the computers are bad? Hypertext transfer protocol?? Java??? No. It just means what it means: Technological accoutrements can, especially for the underexamined life, have unintended consequences, and often, especially for the unexamined life, detrimental and potentially soul-destroying.

I think what Berry and Deneen and host of other sane voices are telling us really amounts to: Don't live the unexamined life. That may be obvious to those long practiced at self-examination, but how many of those kind of people are really out there?

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I think what Berry and Deneen and host of other sane voices are telling us really amounts to: Don't live the unexamined life. That may be obvious to those long practiced at self-examination, but how many of those kind of people are really out there?<<<

There is always the temptation to examine the lives of those too stupid or obtuse to examine themselves, and this I fear far more than the incidental moral hazards of technology for the unwary.

[Ethan C.]

>>I think what Berry and Deneen and host of other sane voices are telling us really amounts to: Don't live the unexamined life. That may be obvious to those long practiced at self-examination, but how many of those kind of people are really out there?<<

Precisely. This is what I was trying to get at in my post. It is not the existence or development of new technologies that Berry, Deneen, and others criticize, but their unexamined and unrestrained application.

This is why I chose to use the current financial crisis as an example. Contra Stuart, a new technique is just as much a new technology as a new machine is. Just as currency itself is a technology, so are the multifarious tools employed by the financial industry.

We've seen a great many new techniques emerge within the financial industry in recent decades. It isn't necessarily the case that these technologies are inherently evil; the trouble has come from the application of those techniques in a thoughtless and misguided manner.

Stuart has made his opinion clear elsewhere that he believes that the current financial crisis threatens, if no corrective action is taken, to plunge the global order into chaos. If he is correct in this, I take it as a vindication of Deneen's position that thoughtless application of technology can cause the collapse of culture and civilization.

[Ethan C.]

NTHB: I welcome you wholeheartedly to the conversation. Let no fear drive you away. And there's no great need to beg for forgiveness (unless, of course, it is followed with "Forgive me, but...").

Of course, the real test is the first time you say something that Stuart *disagrees* with. Then ensues the trial by fire. :)

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Contra Stuart, a new technique is just as much a new technology as a new machine is<<<

Nice try, but no. Not every intellectual property is a technology. Unless you use a very archaic definition, technology is "the science of the mechanical and industrial arts".

[Rob G]

"Legal sanctions are not nearly as effective as commercial ones--since all business is essentially grounded in trust in the good faith of the parties, screwing someone over is the kiss of death, executed immediately, no reprieve."

This is by no means a universal law. Remember, I grew up in Pittsburgh, which at one time was one of the most polluted cities in the nation. It was not the market that cleaned it up. It was threatened legal action against the polluters. Of course the market adjusts to the legalities, but I have little doubt that the market alone would have taken decades to clean up the mess, if it did it at all.

"There is always the temptation to examine the lives of those too stupid or obtuse to examine themselves, and this I fear far more than the incidental moral hazards of technology for the unwary."

No offense Stuart, but this unreflective rah-rah pitch for unexamined technology and amoral market forces -- ever onward, ever upward! there are no limits to growth! -- is what drove me from the ranks of the neocons. You know that I'm not a Catholic, but the Popes seem to make a hell of a lot more sense on this stuff than do Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and Francis Fukuyama.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>This is by no means a universal law. Remember, I grew up in Pittsburgh, which at one time was one of the most polluted cities in the nation. It was not the market that cleaned it up.<<<

It was the closing of the steel mills, made economically unviable by the combination of exhorbitant union demands, complacent management and international competition.

>>>No offense Stuart, but this unreflective rah-rah pitch for unexamined technology and amoral market forces -- ever onward, ever upward! there are no limits to growth! -- is what drove me from the ranks of the neocons. <<<

I was never neo. This is me, absolutely right from the beginning. Here's the thing, Rob--if you want to be part of the "be fruitful and multiply" crowd, you sort of have to believe there is no limit to human ingenuity, because without it, Malthus is right.

>>>You know that I'm not a Catholic, but the Popes seem to make a hell of a lot more sense on this stuff than do Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and Francis Fukuyama.<<<

It's interesting that you could put Max, Bill and Frank in the same boat, since they hardly agree with each other on most subjects. But then, this has always been the problem with the label "neo-conservative" (aside from the fact that Frank Fukuyama was never accounted one of them by anybody I know): it's basically shorthand for "people on the right with whom I disagree" (except when used by Pat Buchanan, in which case it means "nefarious Jews in the pay if Israel). The label has no intellectual coherence, but it is politically convenient.

[Judy K. Warner]

>>>There is always the temptation to examine the lives of those too stupid or obtuse to examine themselves, and this I fear far more than the incidental moral hazards of technology for the unwary.<<<

The lives of the stupid, the obtuse and all the rest of us have been examined by God, and he's told us pretty plainly what we can't do. At least, some things are plain; others need to be interpreted. You don't have to be brilliant to know that we shouldn't kill human embryos, no matter how advanced stem cell research gets; that animals and people are on different moral planes and are separate, no matter how useful a human-animal chimaera might be; that we shouldn't watch pornography on the internet; that we shouldn't abort Down children no matter how well ultrasound and genetic testing work; etc. I wouldn't object to using the law to prohibit these things.

I agree that you can't know in advance what any technology will lead to. We can only prohibit resulting actions, not the technologies themselves, unless they are inherently immoral, like birth control methods that cause abortions.

Even though I am sure Stuart will point out that past times were just as immoral as the present day, I note that most of the examples I have given have to do with biological technology, which hardly existed until very recently. We have the unhappy congruence of the loss of faith -- and the weight of the Judeo-Christian tradition even for those who had no faith -- with the development of technology that enables new kinds of immorality that happen to be very tempting in a society that values convenience so highly.

[Rob G]

"It was the closing of the steel mills, made economically unviable by the combination of exhorbitant union demands, complacent management and international competition."

Nope. The clean-up began before all that happened.

"I was never neo. This is me, absolutely right from the beginning.'

Behold, if it walketh like a duck, and talketh like a duck...

Fukuyama may not qualify as a neo himself technically, but the rest of the crew sure seems to like his thought.

"Neo-con" (just like paleo-con, trad-con or whatever) is of course shorthand. But there are certain points of view that they espouse that ID them. Hence, while it's a broad label, it's not incoherent.

"if you want to be part of the 'be fruitful and multiply' crowd, you sort of have to believe there is no limit to human ingenuity, because without it, Malthus is right."

That's like saying either Marx was right or Mises was right. Fact is, both were right about some things, and both were wrong about some things. On these types of issues there is no clear black and white. To argue otherwise is to veer dangerously close to being an ideologue.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>Even though I am sure Stuart will point out that past times were just as immoral as the present day, I note that most of the examples I have given have to do with biological technology, which hardly existed until very recently.<<<

The main problem with biotechnology and bioethics is most people just don't understand the former and therefore are not likely to consider the latter. They have trouble distinguishing between embryonic and adult stem cell therapies, have little idea what cloning involves, don't know how in vitro fertilization works. When they are informed, they usually make morally correct decisions regarding each. This is borne out in polls, where respondents overwhelmingly support stem cell research (particularly if the question is leading, such as "Do you support stem cell research that could lead to cures for [your medical condition here]?), while at the same time rejecting by equally overwhelming margins the cloning of human beings. They support the idea of in vitro fertilization for couples wanting to have children, but they reject the idea of disposing of frozen embryos. In other words, they have trouble connecting cause and effect, mainly because they aren't well informed about science, and logic is a much ignored subject in school these days.

When a concerted effort is made to inform people about a particular biomedical technology or procedure, then people do make the right choices. The sea change in attitudes towards abortion correlates to the widespread use of MRI and ultrasound imagery, which dispels in a conclusive manner the notion that a fetus is just a clump of cells. People look at the monitor, and suddenly the confront a baby. Best anti-abortion propaganda ever.

There is also the problem of deliberate misinformation propagated by people who have a vested interest in a particular process or technology. Not by accident were people told that a fetus is just a lump of cells. Not for nothing were the (very hypothetical) benefits of embryonic stem cell therapies oversold, and the morally dubious source of the stem cells played down; or conversely, that the (actual) benefits of adult stem cell therapies are ignored.

It's not the technologies themselves, or people's perverse desire to make immoral choices, so much as it is the people being kept in darkness by those who benefit from the dark.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>That's like saying either Marx was right or Mises was right. Fact is, both were right about some things, and both were wrong about some things. <<<

Name three things about which Marx was right. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't even right handed. Mises, on the other hand, was far more right than wrong.

[Rob G]

At very least Marx was accurate about unfettered capitalism tending towards the accumulation of wealth and power by the few. This is obviously true of socialism as well, except with a different "few," which is why I tend to follow Chesterton, Belloc, Berry, and others along those lines in being suspicious of both big business and big government.

Mises was right in a lot of ways, but wrong in believing that the market works in an amoral fashion. Wilhelm Roepke, I believe, is the corrective here.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>At very least Marx was accurate about unfettered capitalism tending towards the accumulation of wealth and power by the few.<<<

Really? And the empirical data proving this can be found. . .where?

>>>Mises was right in a lot of ways, but wrong in believing that the market works in an amoral fashion.<<<

Adam Smith was closer to the truth when he wrote that the market ONLY works when it is guided by moral principles. In an amoral market, there can be no social trust to undergird transactions. In an amoral market, the actors squander the good will needed for the market to generate the social trust it needs to function. In the end, markets run on trust, not fear of the law (if the only way to enforce a contract was through litigation, the costs of doing business would be prohibitive). So, market economies actually foster morality and moral behavior; command economies, even highly regulated economies, foster immorality, corruption and distrust.

Don't believe me? I'll take you on tours of a few exemplary countries.

[Rob G]

"Really? And the empirical data proving this can be found. . .where?"

How about the very fact that we need anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws?

True about Smith, but the morality has to precede the market, correct? The market does not 'create' its own morality, but merely fosters the morality, for better or worse, that's already present there in some sense.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>How about the very fact that we need anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws?<<<

There is no convincing economic evidence that these laws have ever actually managed to make a market more competitive. That aside, in order to prove that "unfettered capitalism" does anything at all requires one to provide an example of "unfettered capitalism", a beast which has never existed. So, in essence, both you and Marx argue against a straw man.

>>>True about Smith, but the morality has to precede the market, correct?<<<

It is probably not that simple. More likely, both occur concurrently and are mutually reinforcing. Most of the time, economic liberty precedes political liberty, and political liberty is an absolute requirement for a moral ordering of society. I know I am going to catch it for that, but I believe it is true, if, by morality, you mean people of their own volition doing that which is right. Without political liberty, you can compel people to behave in a moral manner, but, as the early Church taught, "true belief cannot be compelled". Therefore, once the bonds of compulsion are eased, the society will degenerate into chaos.

My visits to Eastern Europe were instructive in this regard. Coming off half a century of communism, these countries have very low degrees of social trust. People there tend to view all economic transactions as zero-sum games, therefore everyone is on the make; bribery is endemic, and cheating on contracts is fairly common.

The governments of places like Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have implemented draconian anti-corruption laws, but these have had either minimal effect, or have been counterproductive (e.g., in order to avoid even giving the appearance of impropriety, government purchasing agents never meet with industry before drafting a requirement or placing an order, so that they either over-specify or ask for what is not available, leading to much higher costs).

What is affecting real change in attitudes and behavior is exposure to the more mature markets of Europe and the U.S., where bribery, kickbacks and fraud are just unacceptable behavior. That a number of Eastern European companies have been shut out of lucrative contracts and markets because of their shady dealings has had more of an effect than a few high-profile show trials. Most Eastern European businessmen know that the odds of being caught by law enforcement are slim (and in any case, police and judges can be bought); but on the other hand, the collective action of the market against unethical practices has a more salutary impact.

So, in practice, there is a preexistent moral code (natural law, if you like), which teaches certain precepts like don't steal, don't lie, don't covet. it so happens that these are precisely what is needed for success in a free market, where most business is done on a verbal handshake basis. This kind of behavior builds trust, trust begets a willingness to do things like extend credit or to trade in good faith. Conversely, failure to abide by those commandments undermines trust, and thus inhibits the development of a free market. Instead, transactions are marked by force, corruption, and cronyism. Free markets require free flow of information, as well as the participation of the citizenry in political decisions that affect the market (which is essentially to say all political decisions).

In the classic process, the emergence of a free market causes the rise of a middle class, with middle class morality (Judeao-Christian ethics are essentially bourgeois, which is why elites hate them). The middle class insists on a voice in the political process, and once it has it, it begins to impose its ethics on the rest of society, to the point where moral reform and free market reform tend to go hand-in-hand.

[Rob G]

"There is no convincing economic evidence that these laws have ever actually managed to make a market more competitive."

I'm not sure the point of such laws is to make the market more competitive, but to prevent the cornering of a given market by one person or corporation, which would remove true competition altogether.

'in order to prove that "unfettered capitalism" does anything at all requires one to provide an example of "unfettered capitalism", a beast which has never existed.'

Neither has a 'pure' Marxism existed, yet that doesn't stop its critics from using the ideal for the purpose of the critique, nor its adherents from using it as a defense. For practical purposes what we might refer to then is an "under-fettered capitalism."

"once the bonds of compulsion are eased, the society will degenerate into chaos."

True enough. Yet I find it interesting that you don't think that this observation applies to markets.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I'm not sure the point of such laws is to make the market more competitive, but to prevent the cornering of a given market by one person or corporation, which would remove true competition altogether.<<<

That's the same thing, viewed from the other end of the telescope. If someone has cornered the market, then the market is not competitive--though, I note, there is a fundamental difference between a state-awarded or sponsored monopoly, which distorts market forces; and a naturally occurring one due to the innate technical or competitive superiority of a particular company, which does not. In the latter case--and there are historical examples, a company can charge a lower price simply because it has a better manufacturing process with lower costs. Alternatively, a company may simply deliver a product so much better than the alternatives that it captures a huge market share. In such cases, anti-trust prosecution has the effect of actually raising costs to consumers by depriving them of the most economical product. It doesn't boost weak competitors, it merely weakens strong ones, distorting the market in its turn.

A lot has been written by nobel-caliber economists on this subject, and the consensus in the field is anti-trust regulation is at best neutral and at worst harmful to the efficient functioning of the market.

>>>Neither has a 'pure' Marxism existed, yet that doesn't stop its critics from using the ideal for the purpose of the critique, nor its adherents from using it as a defense. For practical purposes what we might refer to then is an "under-fettered capitalism."<<<

Yeah, but we've come close enough to pure Marxism that we know we don't ever want to see the real thing. The logical inconsistencies of Marxism, to say nothing of its moral shortcomings, are sufficiently manifest in the theoretical works of Marx and Engels that we may demonstrate effectively enough how bad these systems are. After all, Marx and Engels were developing a comprehensive, "scientific" system, which can the be subjected to comprehensive, "scientific" proofs.

This has also been done. The main defect of Marxism is it doesn't work, and no matter how many people you kill trying, it still won't work.

>>>True enough. Yet I find it interesting that you don't think that this observation applies to markets.<<<

Markets have voluntary bonds, which are self-enforcing and frequently draconian. Break the rules in a free market, and nobody will play with you anymore. On the other hand, in a regulated market, one player--the government--may break, change, bend or ignore the rules as it pleases. Because the state has a monopoly on force, there is nothing anyone else can do about it.

We see this in the current financial crisis, the roots of which go back to Congress changing--indeed, breaking--the rules of prudent investment by forcing banks to make questionable loans and then suppressing risk by allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee the shaky loans with government money. Had the Community Reinvestment Act not been in place as a tool with which to strongarm the banks into making bad loans, had the GSEs not been present to repackage the loans into guaranteed securities, then none of this would have happened in the first place.

On the one hand, you can make the case that there was too much government interference in the market, since the erection of the GSEs is the root of all evil. On the other hand, given the reality of the GSEs, the refusal of the Democrats to place them under effective regulatory oversight (in order to ensure the giveaways under the CRA) made disaster inevitable.

[Rob G]

"Markets have voluntary bonds, which are self-enforcing and frequently draconian. Break the rules in a free market, and nobody will play with you anymore."

And if no one knows of the rule-breaking because of collusion between the players? Ever hear of price fixing?

On the other hand, in a regulated market, one player--the government--may break, change, bend or ignore the rules as it pleases."

So there's no need whatsoever for regulation, and it does absolutely no good?

I'll just stop here, as we've simply gone in a big circle, coming at long last to that famous tactic of yours, the "Koehlian radical black and white either/or," which solves nothing but does require an additional five posts (at least) to parse.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>And if no one knows of the rule-breaking because of collusion between the players? Ever hear of price fixing?<<<

Such collusion is difficult to keep secret (old Sicilian proverb: two can keep a secret when one of them is dead), and even when they are they tend to be counterproductive: not only do alternative suppliers emerge to fill unmet needs, but once the collusion becomes apparent it brings down the wrath of competitors and customers alike. Basically, in truly free markets, abusive monopolies cannot exist--though what I would call meritocratic monopolies can--until someone builds a better mousetrap.

>>.So there's no need whatsoever for regulation, and it does absolutely no good?<<<

Pretty much, yes. Usually government regulators degenerate into time-serving bureaucracies like every other part of government. Does the FDA really do a good job at regulating the safety of food and drugs, or does it merely give a false sense of security at best and inhibit innovation at worst?

It might do some good to read the C.M, Kornbluth novella "The Syndic", a story about how the world would run if government collapsed and the mob was forced to take over. Spoiler Alert: the mob does a better job.