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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

Reading Strauss in the light of Peter Costello's Christian ethics « Previous | |Next »
July 18, 2004

Those conservative who are pro the war in Iraq and terrorism are saying that the Muslims are attacking us--ie., Anglo-Americans-- for what we are, for our heritage and for what we think. It is not for what we do--occupying eg., Iraq.

This conservative political rhetoric informs us that the radical Islamists are offended by the Western world’s democratic freedoms, civil liberties, inter-mingling of genders, and separation of church and state. They hate us. That is why their target us with their bombs.

Now conservatives are known for their defence of the traditional principles, institutions and values of the contemporary West. And yet their defence of the revealed religion of Judaic-Christianity stands at odds with their celebration of market liberalism and commerce. Has not commerce been substituted for faith and revealed religion? Does not Costello's appeal to Christian morality appear to be an old-fashioned, pre-modern morality (the Ten Commandments) from the perspective of commerce in modernity?

One response to this line of questioning has been the exoteric and the esoteric distinction. They say one thing and mean another. The exoteric creed is the official, public doctrine, the creed which attracts the acolyte in the first place and brings him into the movement as a rank-and-file member. The esoteric creed is the unknown, hidden agenda that is known to the inner circle.

The distinction is widely used with the Washington neocons. Their official exoteric story is that the Iraq war was driven by the historical necessity of responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US. The neoconservative vision is based on two tenets: one is building "democracy" not only in the Middle East, but throughout the entire world; the other is establishing what they call the "benevolent global hegemony" of a rising American Imperium, an "empire of liberty."

And the neocon's esoteric story? This is where it gets a bit confusing and messy here. Some say it has to do with the old Trotsky idea of permanent revolution and the cult of power. Others say it is the Abu Ghraib Prison photos.

At this point Leo Strauss is introduced to make sense of it. However, let us put that way of talking about Leo Strauss to one side, and come at it another way that is also informed by Strauss.

Liberal modernity commands a duty to obey the rule of law, seperates church and state, subordinates religion to the state and celebrates Adam Smith's commercial way of life. What do contemporary religious conservatives who are alss economic liberals say here? Peter Costello, the federal Treasurer, says:


"Unfortunately today we see the legacy of our Judeo-Christian traditions fraying all around us. It is almost as if the capital deposit has been drawn down for such regular maintenance that the capital is running out. The maintenance demands are unending. But we are not building up the capital required to service it.
We despair of the moral decay in our community. Drug barons compete for the distribution rights to sell drugs to our children. We see moral decay in much of the rap music which glorifies violence or suicide or exploitation of other people. My partial view of hell is where people pursue their own insatiable gratification at the expense of and to the destruction of others."


What do we do?

Instead of placing reason and revelation into opposition Costello would say that liberal modernity needs self-restraint. Religion can help to provide to prevent relativism, moral decay and nihilism. Costello says:


"...I do want to suggest that a recovery of faith would go a long way to answering this challenge. And a government cannot, should not, get into that endeavour. If our church leaders could so engage people as to lead them to faith we should be much richer and stronger for it...And this is the point I would like to make. There are many that have not, in their hearts, acquiesced to the kind of decay which is apparent around us. They do not believe it is right. They earnestly pray for the expansion of faith and yearn for higher standards...Their inner faith keeps them going. And they join with other citizens who share the blessings that heritage brought to our country, something for which we can all give thanks. And in doing so we determine that we will not take these blessing for granted. We will not become complacent. We will each to our own ability nurture the values which were so important in bringing us to where we are today and which we need so badly to take us on."

The passions are subordinated by reason with the help of revealed religion.

The problem with all this is that it leaves out any consideration of the political regime and the rivalry of political opinions regarding justice and the common good. What is missing is any conssideration of political philosophy as distinct from the utilitarian economist's reduction of these opinions to naked self-seeking interests and ceaseless striving to make money. The economists make the Australian regime a clever economic growth machine rather than a political community.

Where do we look for the foundations for the Australian regime? Presumably in the Constitution of our founders? The Constitution, with its checks and balances and divisions of powers is the founding of the Australian regime. So how do conservatives interpret this document and its background texts? Does not the constitution have a central and respected place in the teaching of political things?

Did not the Constitutional founders create a nation and was not the Constitution dedicated to the principles of a low utilitarian liberalism? It certainly was not a Lockean liberalism based on natural right constitutionalism.

Is Costello saying that liberalism is not solid? That it needs the revelation of Christianity to give it's political reason solidity?

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:25 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (3)
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