07.03.09
Ideology and Dogma
Martin Wolf begins his March 8, 2009 Financial Times article, “Seeds of its own destruction,” with the intriguing opening line: “Another ideological god has failed.” Wolf’s thesis, for those of you who’ve not read the article, is that the Anglo-American led economic liberalization of the past 30 years contained the seeds of the financial meltdown (i.e., the current recession) that we’ve been witness to and ‘victim’ of since December 2007. Reduced to simple terms the liberalization practiced over the last 30 years basically says, the free market knows best, government should have as small or non-existent a footprint as possible with respect to the operation of a country’s economy.
I’m not an economist, so that’s as far as I’ll go. Sufficed to say, I commend Wolf’s article as a well-argued, cogent and clear explication of the causes of the recession and resulting economic dislocations the world is experiencing.
But the thing I find most intriguing about the article was the juxtaposition of the two terms: “ideological” and “god”. So I’ve been thinking about the two concepts: ideology and dogma. They seem to me connotatively similar, though ideology is used primarily in economic and political contexts whilst dogma is more generally applied in a religious one.
A question I’ve been turning over in my mind is whether one lesson that current events hold for Christian practice is to beware ideas and beliefs become too hardened into dogmatic stances with unanticipated consequences. A quote attributed to Deepak Chopra that I recently came across plays into my ruminations as well, not that I buy his idea. Chopra is reputed to have declaimed, “Religion is confining and imprisoning and toxic because it is based on ideology and dogma. But spirituality is redeeming and universal.”
Chris said,
July 4, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Last year I went to see the play 1776. It was a great reminder of the power of conviction. John Adams was one of my favorite characters as he though disliked was a thorn in the flesh, agitating, cojouling . It was Lincoln who stood in the storm of criticism on the principle of equality, it was Gandhi whose conviction unraveled the British empire, it was Churchill who kept the faith over Chamberlain, etc.
The tragedy is that today we do not have grand debates, but policy is made in backrooms. The recent cap & tax vote of last week is an example of how things are now done. I hope and pray that we will have a vigorous debate regarding the healthcare issue this summer. My historical sense is that grand compromises have not yielded great fruit. So on this, 4th, let us enter into healthy exchanges, attacking the ideas, while honoring the persons.
Karl Lawrence said,
July 4, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Couldn’t agree more with the sentiment about healthy, vigorous debate on the substance of ideas which maintaining respect for individuals with whom we may disagree. In the political realm (and, sadly, even in the religious) too often the quest for power has resulted in such polarization that coming together on issues vital to the country’s well-being becomes well-nigh impossible.
Chris said,
July 5, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Karl,
One of your many admirable traits is your willingness to engage on a truth journey independent of ideology. God given truth is eternal, not relative, and transcends our human containers. This takes much courage these days in our post-modern culture. Although I admire the non-stove pipe era, I find that many are not comfortable outside the echo chamber. So this discomfort has adopted a “can we all get along” mentality that ignore the merits and the quality of the argument, and instead use an emotional filter to determine worthiness. So empty words of hope, served with syrup becomes the new pied piper siren of the gullible. I pray that we are given better spiritual eyesight as we traverse this era heavy on perception, but light on reality.
Your research will be quite helpful in providing appropriate guard rails along this truth path.