I've been asked, via email and personal conversations, about the decrease in blogging activity. The short answer is, I've been working my through a required reading list, several, in fact, and for different purposes. (For one thing, I'm several issues behind in Faith and Philosophy. I have to leave it at that.

Also, I've been involved elsewhere in on-line discussions on topics such as Arizona SB 1070. That one was a knock-about of pure fun, revealing to me that opponents of the bill either haven't read it, or just know things that, as far as I'm concerned, just can't be known. There is a third possibility: they just have an ethnic chip on their shoulder and everything is an attempt to do no more than to knock off that chip.

One with whom I discussed the matter was just certain that he and his father, despite being citizens, were in jeopardy under the law. He couldn't say how, though. I mean, presently Arizona law simply permits law enforcement to check immigration status if there is reasonable doubt about that status. The new law would have required a check of immigration status if there were reasonable doubt. I asked several times precisely how he and his father were in danger under a requirement that they were not under a permission. Nothing. Then there was this silly assertion:

And last time I checked, a valid driver's license is not proof of citizenship.

And that was from someone who says he read the law carefully, the same law which stipulates that a valid driver's license (among other forms of identification) is acceptable as sufficient evidence that the bearer is not in the country illegally. I asked him about that, too. I'm still waiting for answers to both questions.

But mostly, I've been catching up on some reading and attending to family-related and house-hold matters. I intend to resume normal blogging, including the return of Wisdom Sunday, in about a month or so.

Curtis Schweitzer wonders what I think about this story and presents an argument in favor of a mixed economy over a fully capitalist one. The story amounts to this:

On Thursday (Sept 18, at 11am) the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S. To the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.

If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.

Well, what I think is this. It does present an argument in favor of a mixed economy as opposed to a "fully" capitalist one. But it does so only on the hypothesis that fully capitalist economies have no means of preventing, coping with or withstanding the effects of bank runs.

What a bank run is

A bank run occurs when a large number of bank customers withdraw their deposits because they believe the bank is, or might become, insolvent. (I here overlook the question of how depositors come to believe the bank is in danger of insolvency.) As the run progresses, it acquires a momentum of its own, in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. As more people withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of insolvency naturally increases, which encourages further withdrawals. This can destabilize the bank to the point where it, indeed, faces bankruptcy.

How we had this run

The run in question here, and which has Curtis's interest, began, or was noticed, with a draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S. to the extent of $550 billion being drawn of these accounts in the matter of an hour or two. We are not told in the video to which Curtis links, what proportion of total money market deposit accounts in represented by the $550 billion, so, to be quite technical, we really don't know that it was a crisis. Clearly the Federal Reserve thought it was a crisis; I suppose we can assume the Fed knew what proportion of total money market deposits was represented by the $550 billion. (I personally avoid making favorable assumptions about the Fed. I'm not a fan. But I digress.)

We are not told who was drawing out this money, or why. But it does have the ear-mark of a run: a sudden and apparently significant withdrawal of deposits. But the video clip here includes neither an explanation of how this draw-down signaled a danger, nor an explanation of what a money market deposit account is. (Never fear: I know what a money market account is. For our purposes let's just say it is a deposit account at a bank, and therefore the sort of account significant withdrawals from which would constitute a run.) Apparently the draw-down constituted a danger because, we are to believe, despite knowing neither the banks in danger or their financial solvency, the banks did not have the reserves to cover the funds being pulled from these money market accounts.

Nevertheless, the behavior of depositors does constitute a run, so in all fairness we'll grant that single proposition.

How banks become susceptible to runs

But how can this happen? If one deposits one's money in a bank, that money should be there when one wants to withdraw it. By logical extension, if five hundred people deposit money in a bank, then all that money should be there even if all five hundred depositors arrive to withdraw all of their deposits. How, then, do banks face risk of insolvency just by virtue of having all deposits withdrawn?

It's something like this. Most banks practice a type of banking called fractional-reserve banking. Under this type of operation, banks retain only a fraction of their demand deposits as cash. What is not retained as cash is invested in securities and loans. So, if all the people who bank where you do all got together with their passbooks and totaled up the amount you all have deposited, including money market, savings, checking accounts, and (what the heck) IRA's, that amount might come to, say, $100 million -- chump change. But, let's say, your bank has taken half of that amount (i.e., $50 million) and loaned out half of that (i.e., $25 million) and, with the other half (i.e., $25 million), it has purchased stocks, shares of mutual funds and so forth. Of the $100 million dollars you and your fellow-depositors have placed with the bank, there is only $50 million in the bank. You can easily see that there is no way the bank could handle a sudden withdrawal of all its deposits. On any day your bank could only cough up half of what has been deposited with it. So, no bank has enough reserves on hand to cope with more than a fraction of deposits being taken out at once. (This is one reason for those pesky charges you pay for early withdrawal on some of your accounts.)

How banks can protect themselves from runs

Banks can employ several techniques to prevent, or cope with, bank runs. Individual banks may, independently of the rest of the economy:

1. temporarily suspend withdrawals (unless stupidly prohibited by law), called suspension of convertibility (in many cases the mere threat of suspension can prevent a run, which means the threat need not be carried out at all);

2. impose upon themselves a reserve ratio requirement, the higher the better, which limits the proportion of deposits which are lent out, making it less likely for a bank run to start, as more reserves will be available to satisfy the demands of depositors;

3. practice full-reserve banking, in which case the reserve ratio is set to 100%, eliminating the risk of a run because maturities of deposits and loans will be matched, avoiding vulnerability to runs.

Collectively, banks may:

4. utilize a central bank as a lender of last resort, guaranteeing to make short-term loans to banks, to ensure that, if they remain economically viable, they will always have enough liquidity to honor their deposits;

5. employ deposit insurance systems to insure each depositor up to a certain amount, so that depositors' savings will be protected even if the bank fails, removing the incentive to withdraw one's deposits simply because others are withdrawing theirs (however, depositors may still be motivated by fears they will lack immediate access to deposits during a bank reorganization).

How this run was managed

In general this run was handled utilizing a combination of the aforementioned strategies, specifically, 1, 4, and 5. In this case the Treasury, with its "pumping" of $105 billion into the system and guarantee of $250,000 per account acted as lender (or loan shark) of last resort, rather than the Fed. One wonders how this maneuver demonstrates the superiority of a mixed economy over a fully capitalist one. We have to assume that a fully capitalist system would be without ability to engage a lender of last resort, or even, given free enterprise, a plethora of lenders of last resort. (No point looking to the Great Depression as demonstration of the inability of a fully capitalist economy to handle bank runs. Our mixed economy goes back to The Progressive Era which began in the 19th century. And, if not then, certainly with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.)

So, our Lord and Savior Big Government, saved us all -- the whole world, in fact -- from world-wide economic collapse. Or, did it?

On the averted economic collapse

"If they had not done that, their estimation is that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”

It isn't enough to tell us where money was pulled out of. Unless the people doing all of this withdrawing were stuffing the money in mattresses or holes in the dirt, then it was simply moving from one segment of the economy to another; it wasn't being pulled out of the economy simply by virtue of being pulled from money market deposit accounts. The Fed may have known that money was leaving these money market deposit accounts, but did not, ostensibly, seek to ascertain where the money was going when it left those accounts. It is possible that a great number of banks might have failed as a result of insufficient reserves to cover all those withdrawals. That is one of the costs of foolishness and poor risk assessment. But the economy isn't just the banks. And, contrary, to the Congressman's assertion, you can indeed have an economy without banks. It simply depends upon the nature of the banks in question. What you can't have, without the sort of banking system we have, especially with our fiat – or credit – money system, is just the sort of economy the Congressman undoubtedly wants: a mixed economy, which is a government-dominated economy. This mixed economy might have collapsed. But cooler heads could quite possibly have led a shift to a fully capitalist economy, which is a truly, and fully, free economy.

Conclusion

This argument in favor of a mixed economy rests upon the saving -- if it truly was that -- of a mixed economy. It's looks like a sound argument: "See," it asserts, "we need a mixed economy as evidenced by the ability of a mixed economy to save itself." But it begs the question: it assumes that a fully capitalist economy would not have its own methods. Frankly, the bankers in a fully capitalist economy would be more highly motivated to create systems for avoiding, or coping, with runs -- perhaps even 100% reserve banking. For one thing, without the government stealing, or just creating, money and credit out of thin air, their bearing of the entire burden of risk would make the risk assessments very highly conservative. Moreover, without the politically correct loan requirements imposed upon lenders, at gun-point, lenders would probably not be as over-extended as their government requires them to be. But, again, I digress.

This argument also fails as an argument for a mixed economy because we don't really know if the economy was saved, or was even in danger of collapse. Those two claims have certainly been made. But, of course, the government is going to make such claims: its power rests upon a mixed economy. Ever see the movie Dragonheart? Dennis Quiad, a dragon-slayer-for-hire, and Sean Connery, a dragon, form a partnership, and the two begin defrauding local villages with staged dragon-slayings. The dragon attacks a village, Quaid offers to kill him for a fee, and pretends to spear the dragon, who then falls into a nearby lake and swims out of sight underwater.

That’s the government in a mixed economy: causing problems left and right, with its demands for politically expedient, rather than economic, decisions, and then rushing in like that lunatic, Teddy Roosevelt, charging up San Juan Hill to save the day.

One final note about "fully" capitalist economy: When you hear people refer to credit as "the life-blood" of capitalism you know you don't live in a capitalist economy. The life-blood of capitalism is capital.

Curtis Schweitzer responds to this post:

[E]ven granting that fiat currency is a proposition that uses language to define value..., doesn't this mean that the overall system is itself a kind of experiment? .... In other words, if in a fiat currency system, language constructs economic reality, then can't we "test" such a belief from a rational standpoint by seeing how well it works in whatever "reality" it is we're disputing? If rationalism and science aren't valid ontologies, but the deconstructionist post-modernist framework is, shouldn't we be able to define our own reality in words? And if we've been doing that with money, doesn't that strengthen, rather than weaken, the argument that the current economic crisis is evidence...that post-modernism simply doesn't explain reality (whatever we take that to mean) sufficiently?

In fact, no the overall system itself is not a kind of experiment; it's a kind of fraud. Frauds don't set out to test; they set out to get something of value in exchange for nothing of value. Besides, to be precise, you can't have an experiment of something you didn't set out to to test. The fiat money system was not set up as a test of anything. And there is no point in testing the belief that in a fiat money system language constructs economic reality: we know this to be the case from the simple observation that we trade worthless pieces of paper back and forth in exchange for goods and services. The case is prima facie. Moreover, imperative-mood sentences are not subject to verification or falsification. When the government commands us to exchange these worthless pieces of paper, there is nothing to test, except what happens if we refuse to comply. "You shall exchange this note for x amount of goods and services," is not a proposition; it has no truth-value. It is not an empirical claim; there is no probablility to calculate.

I think the post-modernist will likely look at the situation and see the role of the government here as one of strong-poet. The government, as strong-poet, says of worthless pieces of paper, "This is money" and the worthless pieces of paper are treated like money. The economic crisis, your argument that it's a test notwithstanding, is still discussed in terms of how much (in pieces of worthless paper) has been lost, and by whom.

You want to say, in reply to post-modernist assertions that reality is language-constructed, that it is falsified by the market's failure. I think a post-modernist would say that claiming that reality is a construct is not the same as saying the construct will "work". The post-modernist does not assert that it is, or would be, a great idea with limitless salutary benefits, if we constructed reality with language; he asserts that we do so, whether it's a good idea, or a successful one.

(The problem with seeing the present crisis as a falsification of post-modernism is that looking at it that way diverts our attention from the real failure. Post-modernism is small potatoes compared to the real problem. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

The post-modernist claim is not that we should be able to define our own reality in words; neither is it that these constructs are successful. The claim is simply that we do. Not only that, but in order to have a test against reality there must be a reality to test against. You have not overcome post-modernism: you're begging the question. In asserting that post-modernism has been submitted to a test which it has failed, you have begun by assuming the falsity of post-modernist claims. You have been assuming throughout that reality is not language-constructed.

But more importantly, especially as it regards the post-modernist preoccupation with coercion, the claim is not that we've been constructing reality with words by the fiat money system. The claim is that the government has done. And the market failure is irrelevant because, again, we continue to discuss the crisis in terms of money lost -- fiat money lost.

The fact is, post-modernism will fall not because it will be, or has been, empirically weighed in the balance and found wanting. Post-modernism is a speculative and interpretive act of the mind, not a set of testable empirical claims. Post-modernism should be rejected because of its internal contradictions. It is untenable on its own terms.

The real failure is not the failure of post-modernist claims about the nature of reality. The real failure is the failure of command economics. Our economy is a failure for the same reason the Soviet economy was a failure: government interference in the market obscures price, which makes calculation difficult, if not impossible. Because price cannot properly be taken into account capital is mis-allocated. Interest is the price of borrowed money. Artificially low interest rates tell entrepreneurs there is much money to borrow; it also tells them consumers are saving more, putting off consumption today with the idea of consuming later on down the road. But what will they be consuming down the road? In fact, it doesn't really matter: that artificially low interest rate is lying to the entrepreneur. People aren't saving, they're spending like crazy. There isn't a lot of money to borrow; it looks that way only because the rate was lowered. And why was the rate lowered? To "spur" the economy, which means to "spur" market participants. Spur them to do what? Spend, of course, but on what? And why?

The 'why' is the easy part: to achieve full employment. Now to the 'what'.

Enter the government. The government has all sorts of objectives, depending upon the administration. But we can use a recent example: housing. The government wants to increase home-ownership. To do this it needs people who want to own homes (as opposed to renting or leasing). It also needs people to build homes. Builders don't build for free, so the people who want homes will need money for those homes, which they don't have because they're poor. And because they're poor they won't be seeking home loans which with to pay builders to build these homes. Also, because they are poor, they are settling for renting or leasing. But we don't want them renting and leasing; we want them owning.

If the government is going to increase home-ownership it must increase the amount of money available for borrowing, specifically, for new homes. It can lower the interest rate, and artificially increase the amount of available money. But banks aren't going to lend to high-risk (i.e., poor) creditors (and if they do, they will do so at a higher interest rate, given the risk involved), so that newly-available money will go to the less-risky (i.e., the rich and upper-middle class), unless, of course, the government can somehow motivate (i.e., coerce) banks into loaning that money to someone else, like the poor. Now, how might they do that?

We know how the government really works. It commands businesses to do various things, not in pursuit of commercial ends, but in pursuit of political ends. The government commanded banks to loan money by requiring them to make a certain percentage of loans to certain percentages of certain classes of people.

We have had yet another test of the command economy. It doesn't work. And what is our government's response? More command economics. Preoccupation with post-modernism diverts attention from this important fact.

Besides, post-modernism is an attack on modernism. I'm a Christian, working intellectually on the basis of Christian pre-suppositions. I'm not a modernist; so post-modernism can attack away. Modernism needs a bucket of cold water thrown at its face.

Indeed, one could say that our current market system, which has never been laissez-faire, is a product of modernism. And since that is what a post-modernist would say, I don't think we have here a test of post-modernism. Post-modernism doesn't assert that we can define reality for ourselves successfully; it claims, simply, that we do. We create interpretations of reality and then pursuade (or coerce) others into accepting these interpretations of reality. Furthermore, postmodernism asserts these acts of creation and pursuasion are acts of the will, not of the mind.

When it comes to our "free" market, and the undeniably coercive role our government plays in the market, I'll give post-modernism that argument.

Reader JK asks, regarding this posting, "Why is 'the government'...repeatedly blamed? From what I've read and what I've been told, it's the market players who merrily took part in a reality renaming game. The government is not innocent of course: It deregulated the market in the first place."

In brief, government gets repeatedly blamed because it is a major player in the market, and, for some of us, improperly so. The question is what specific role it played in the present mess. With specific reference to the housing bubble and its burst, I think there is some merit to claims The Community Reinvestment Act played a role in that it requires (or can be, and has been interpreted to require) lending instutitions to make loans to sometimes-risky borrowers with the idea of increasing home-ownership among the poor. I'm getting ahead of myself, however.

But even if that isn't the case, that doesn't take the government out of the picture. There is still the role played in the housing bubble by Fannie Mae.

Mortgages originate in institutions such as banks. Fannie Mae purchased mortgages from originators and then either held the mortgages or packaged them together as securities, called mortgage-backed securities (or agency debt) and sold those mortgage-backed securities on credit markets. A great number of these mortgage-backed securities were purchased by money market funds, and felt safe in doing so because the seller was, well, Fannie Mae.

In a real free-market economy with a sound monetary system (as opposed to our quasi-mercantilist economy, with its fiat money system ), all funds loaned to borrowers would have been saved by savers somewhere else in the economy. To save is to defer consumption from the present to the future. Since money loaned to borrowers is money saved by savers, when money is borrowed, savers require an interest payment for their sacrifice. Borrowers take on the obligation to pay interest because they value the opportunity to fund present consumption more highly. Interest is a sort of rental payment on the borrowed funds, if you will.

In these sorts of credit transactions, there is a risk that the borrower may not have sufficient income to fund his debt obligations. This risk of default must be borne by someone. Generally, it is borne by some combination of the two parties in the transaction, the saver (lender) and the borrowers. The borrower can put up collateral, or the lender can charge a higher interest rate to compensate for the risk. (The higher interest rate may induce the would-be borrower not to borrow, in which case the saver runs no risk. Or, he may take on the higher interest rate and exercise more due diligence than he might otherwise have done.) Private lenders that are risking their own capital have a natural caution about the level of risk that they are willing to assume.

But Fannie Mae isn't a private lender. Fannie is a financial intermediary: It borrows from some and lends to others; but it's regulatory status(there's your government involvement) gives it a number of special privileges which private firms operating in the credit markets do not have. In a free market, financial intermediation is a good. Intermediaries perform the valuable service of bridging potential buyers and sellers. (It's like a financial hook-up service, helping people find each other for a really good time.)

As a government-sponsored-enterprise, Fannie Mae is not a free-market intermediary. So, unlike private transactions, in which risk is shared by the parties to the transaction, Fannie Mae just transferred the default risk (beyond their capital reserves) to the taxpayer through an implied government (i.e., taxpayer!) guarantee.

But that’s not all, of course. On credit markets, agency debt is quite attractive, more attractive than debt issued by private corporations. (Private corporations don't have a government guarantee, implied or otherwise.) Because it transferred some of the default risk to third parties, Fannie was, demonstrably, less cautious in evaluating the default risk of borrowers than a private firm, risking its own capital, would have been. Furthermore, government-sponsored-enterprise securities are accorded preferential treatment in the calculation of bank reserves, so they can be purchased in many cases where private mortgage-backed securities, or other forms of debt, can not. And finally, the government-sponsored-enterprise are exempt from federal and state income taxes.

Now, when Fannie Mae purchased these risky mortgages, it sent (false!) signals to more and more lenders that there was a market for these sorts of loans, and, further down the line, to more and more builders, who, naturally, responded to this (false) demand by building houses. The markets did what markets do: they responded to a perceived demand. Home prices went up because that's what demand does to price. But this demand was created by Fannie Mae's purchasing, retaining, or guaranteeing more than 70 percent of the mortgage market. Fannie Mae's avowed goal, under Franklin Raines, was to increase home ownership. When you're in the business of purchasing, retaining, or guaranteeing mortgages, you have to have mortgages to purchase, retain, or guarantee. And that means you must somehow induce lenders to lend money they might not otherwise have done. In consequence, builders build houses they might not otherwise have done.

This is where legislation such as the Community Reinvestment Act comes into play. CRA required banks, among other things, to have a certain percentage of their loans to minorities, just like that, apart from assessment of risk. (The CRA required financial institutions to serve communities by extension of credit.) (See also and compare the Wikipedia article on CRA, accessed 17 December 2008.) Periodically, and especially in cases where one financial institution wanted to purchase another, the purchasing institution would have to demonstrate compliance with this provision of CRA. Additionally, such institutions have been opened to charges of racism by pillars of the national community like Jesse Jackson. In order to conduct business (as businesses rather than philanthropic organizations) some lending institutions have given what can justly be described as shake-down money to racial -- but certainly not special -- interests. For example, Chase Manhattan and J.P. Morgan donated hundred of thousands of dollars to ACORN at about the same time they were to apply for permission to merge and needed to comply with CRA regulations. (Michelle Minton, "The Community Reinvestment Act’s Harmful Legacy, How It Hampers Access to Credit," Competitive Enterprise Institute, No. 132, March 20, 2008, accessed 17 December 2008.)

Conveniently, the market, which has had terms dictated to it, is now blamed for a mess which it would hardly, operating on it own, have gotten itself into by some of its players making bad loans. When one is instructed to ignore risk, the risk doesn't just go away. Your notion, that "the market players...merrily took part in a reality renaming game," is incorrect (emphasis added). There was no merriment to it. The market did exactly what the market does when it is forced to make decisions which fly in the face of risk: it found ways to mitigate risks it was forced (by our benevolent government) to take on. Reality, to any extent to which is was renamed, was renamed by the government. The market simply responded to its perception of this reality.

On top of that, we should, as Robert Murphy argues, consider the role that the Fed played in creating the housing boom. (See also this, clarifying, post.) Briefly, Murphy argues that the Fed, created the necessary and sufficient causes of the housing boom by virtue of Greenspan allowing "the monetary base to grow quite rapidly precisely when the housing boom shifted into high gear, and precisely when interest rates collapsed."

As an Austrian (in economics) I just happen to think that the credit expansion period (or "boom" period, if you will) produced an unsustainable misallocation of resources based on an incorrect interest rate, in this case a misallocation of all those resources associated with the housing market. The "bust" is nothing more than the (rather catastrophic) end to an artificially created bubble (a government-activity created bubble ). The market didn't self-organize to expand the credit availability. It could not have done.

Clearly, that does not absolve private players of any wrong-doing. But the private players, if you listen to some, are limited to unscrupulous lenders, who, we must believe, tied people up and made them sign loans they wouldn't have done but for this coercion. There were, ostensibly, no unscrupulous borrowers, no people who lied about or inflated incomes, resulting in inaccurate risk-assessment by lenders (to the extent that they were able to take risk into account and who, as lenders, don't have as much to gain by mis-assessing risk as borrowers do in giving false reports of financial strength).

Finally, regarding JK's assertion that government "deregulated" the market -- he must surely be joking. Granted, Glass-Steagal was repealed, but one should be able to list much more in the way of "deregulation". "Regulation" involves, at some point, legislative acts of Congress. So when I hear someone assert "deregulation" I want to hear all of the legislative acts which amount to this "deregulation". I also look for a physical decrease in the number of pages in the Federal Register.

The only "deregulatory" acts I can of are: The Depository Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (which forced all banks to abide by the Fed's rules; allowed banks to merge; removed the power of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors under the Glass-Steagall Act and Regulation Q to set the interest rates of savings accounts; raised the deposit insurance of US banks and credit unions from $40,000 to $100,000; allowed credit unions and savings and loans to offer checkable deposits; allowed institutions to charge any interest rates they chose -- yeah, a lot of deregulation there); Reigle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 (which, repealing the Bank Holding Company Act, allows interstate mergers between adequately capitalized and managed banks, subject to concentration limits, state laws and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) evaluations, other restrictions which prohibited bank holding companies from owning non-financial institutions having been repealed in 1999 by Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act but still prohibiting financial holding companies in the United States from owning non-financial corporations in contrast to Japan and continental Europe where this arrangement is common -- oh, yeah, big time deregulation); and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 (which allows banks to engage in previously prohibited activities such as lending, depositing, issuing insurance, and financial advising -- just awful). Oh, my goodness gracious! Will these heinous acts of deregulation never cease? I can see how it could be argued that these acts made the crisis possible: they allowed too much freedom of contract. Perhaps -- but these are not necessary and sufficient causes, only contributing factors which, but for the actions of the Fed under Greenspan (as Murphy argues in the above-linked article), would have had negligible effects.

Let me pause to take note of the fact that these horrendous acts of gross deregulation took place before Bush started running the economy, uh, I mean, country -- before he started running the country.

But even with all this putative deregulation, as of 2007, the last full year for which data are available, the Federal Register contained seventy-three thousand pages (that's 73,000 pages) of detailed government regulations. This is an increase of more than ten thousand pages since 1978, the very years during which our system, was supposedly "tilted in favor of business deregulation and against new rules" (according to the New York Times). Go figure. If that's degulation, then I suppose a man who gets his hair trimmed can justly be called bald.

One might argue that surely the market shares some of the blame, even if deregulation is a net good. In point of fact I don't think the market is to blame in the same sense in which the government is to blame. The market isn't because the market didn't do anything wrong; certain players in the market may have done (e.g., unscrupulous lenders, lying borrowers, or ignorant borrowers, who can't tell whether they can afford a loan, weak borrowers, who can't say no to an unscrupulous lender), but not the market. The entire government is to blame because the entire government makes, executes, and adjudicates the laws which forces the market to operate politically, rather than economically.

The government is repeatedly blamed because it repeatedly did -- and does -- things for which it is blame-worthy. (Then it conveniently points the finger at the market, which many people are all too ready to accuse in the first place.) The government is like that kid we all knew in high school, you know the one. He could start a food fight in the cafeteria then quietly, and cleanly, walk out, and on his way out the door look at a teacher, point to a random student and say, "He started it." I was once a victim of that student, on the last day of school, my senior year, no less. There are times when I still think he needs his butt kicked -- better late than never.

Some of us feel the same way about the un-federal government. It's time for it to receive its come-uppance and be forced to get the heck out of the market. The government is not comprised of dis-interested bystanders and has no business, therefore, regulating the market. There is no reason, now, for supposing that anyone in government can make the market work better than those whose daily task it is, and don't perform the task to curry favor with dis-informed, mal-educated, prehensile voters.

As I mentioned in this posting, my friend Curtis Schweitzer thinks the present economic crisis is evidence that the post-modernist claim, that reality is construct of language, is false. He writes (here):

The current economic crisis...is...the greatest argument against the idea that "reality" is merely a construct of language. After all, there has perhaps never been a greater and more expensive attempt to change reality through language than the unending insistence that subprime loans be given AAA status. Whether we meant to or not, we put postmodernism up to experiment.The results, I think, are fairly obvious.

I share his antipathy towards post-modernism, but I can't join him here. I don't think we have had a test of post-modernism here. If anything, a friutful post-modern critique is quite possible.

It is quite true that saying, "Everyone is special" is a way of saying no one is special. To call someone "special" is to compare them to some set of attributes, the possession of which is what makes them "special". Clearly those who do not possess this set of attributes are not special. The assertion that everyone is special really is a denial of the propostion that there is an objective set of criteria by which the judgement is made. Everyone is special because everyone can be compared to any set of arbitrarily selected attributes (values) and be found to possess that arbitrary set of attributes.

This is the heart of post-modernism, which is an assault on philosophy itself, especially the role which values play in philosophy. In describing reality, philosophy employs values. For example, in the Republic, is a long dialogue on the ideal state, how it should be founded, organized and ruled. The idea is that this ideal society should last forever. But note the arbitrary assignment of value to living in any city at all, ideal or not, to living in no city. That city-life is superior to any alternatives is simply assumed. All of the philosophy which is brought to bear, and which flows out of the dialogue, has this assumption in play. (There are other assumptions, other values assigned and employed, of course; and they are all equally arbitrary.) In the city-life versus non-city-life dyad, why is city-life to be valued over non-city-life? If we say that city-life is better for men, we find that we are, again, employing arbitrary values.

If we understand all values as arbitrarily selected and then employed, then (1) no one is special and (2) because no one is special all values are equal (what Neitzsche called the revaluation of all values, in e.g., The Will to Power).

This talk of value is quite relevant when we turn to discussion of the economy. On a post-modern view, there simply is no reason for not viewing all loans equally. There are quite a few places to go with this, but for the sake of time and space, let's just go straight to money, especially since we are talking about value. Money is what was borrowed; money is what is being lost. But let's think about the nature of this money. When we do, I think we can see how a postmodernist could assert that all this talk about an economy is a construct. That is to say, economic reality is a construct of language.

This money which has been loaned and is being lost is fabricated, almost out of nothing. The government takes perfectly good paper, and perfectly good ink, and turns it into worthless garbage. It then forces us, at gun-point, really, to accept this worthless garbage as legal tender for all debts public and private. Why? Because there is some fixed commodity (like gold, silver, latinum)? No. Because the government says so. The government arbitrarily assigns to pieces of paper a certain value; and this, despite the fact that these pieces of paper are made out of the same amount of paper and ink. We trade these pieces of paper for goods and services. But there is nothing behind them of value. We can trade these worthless pieces of paper for other pieces of paper, or for goods and services. But we cannot redeem them for gold or silver. And even if there were, that also would be an arbitrarily assigned value. Why should you and I accept gold in exchange for goods and services. Why not iron? We could say that, gold, being rarer and harder to come by than iron has a greater value. But it doesn't have a greater value per se. We give it value, by accepting it in exchange for goods and services.

So when we buy, say, a computer for some amount of money, say $700.00 (700 units of nothing) the one from whom we purchase this computer must accept this paper. Why? Because he, the one giving up his computer attaches value to this money? No. His unfederal government tells him he must. Fortunately, some of the bitterness is removed because he knows he can take that $700.00 (700 units of nothing) and trade it for goods and services he wants.

Now, if this government can, by simple fiat, command us to accept worthless paper as legal tender, then it really does stand to reason that, since loans are loans of worthless paper (even though, in "reality" no paper trades hands) the same government which can arbitrarily assign value to pieces of paper can assign value to loans. Think of it: The unfederal government can take pieces of paper all costing the same amount to print (say, $1.00 -- 1 unit of nothing) and assign different values to them. Nothing logically prevents that same government from arbitrarily assigning equal value to different loans. The face value of a loan is measured in terms of money, worthless pieces of paper to which worth has been arbitrarily assigned. So these loans are of arbitrary face value. If a piece of paper can be assigned a value of $20.00 dollars (20 units of nothing), then anything can be assigned any value, a house, a boat, whatever. What, then, is anything "worth"?

The concept of worth is a construct; and it is very much a construct of language. The entire economy rests upon the propositional assignment of value to pieces of paper: "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private." (A proposition whose truth value rests upon nothing more than the government's say-so, backed up with a club.) And every economic transaction rests upon that assertion because every economic transaction involves (at least in theory) the trading back and forth of these pieces of paper we have been commanded (there's your use of language) to trade them back and forth.

We'll just pass over the fact that this same unfederal government can, at its whim have printed up more of these pieces of paper, thus devaluing the pieces of paper already floating around the market, which in turn, because people want the same "value" for these pieces of paper, moves them to raise their prices. However, do let me pause here to point out that this operation of the government, among many, many others should be all the evidence needed to support the claim that ours is not a free market economy. In a free market economy the participants decide what to value, what to accept as tender for debts. The participants decide what to exchange, and for what goods and services. Real money originates in barter, not in the formation of governments and legislation by those governments. But I digress.

So, if the money being loaned has an arbitrary value, then the loans have arbitrary values. Money can be printed up by fiat, thus devaluing those loans; or, the government can, by the same fiat, command that loans of differing values be treated equally. This doesn't demonstrate that, as Curtis puts it, "The current economic crisis...is...the greatest argument against the idea that 'reality' is merely a construct of language." A post-modernist can, I think, justly say that economic reality really is a construct of language, and, by virtue of that, so is the current economic crisis.

Curtis asserts, "[T]here has perhaps never been a greater and more expensive attempt to change reality through language than the unending insistence that subprime loans be given AAA status." In actual point of fact, this reality was virtually created out of whole cloth, and through language, by the same entity which changed reality through language. In "reality" all loans, AAA or not, have the same "value" -- nothing, since that value is in terms of worthless pieces of paper. We haven't, as Curtis puts it, "[P]ut postmodernism up to experiment" and found it failing. The post-modernist can justly claim that language is exactly what he says it is: a means of coercion.

We have not put post-modernism to the test. Much of our economy results from the fiat power of the unfederal government, a non-player in the market, dictating value to market players and altering value with impunity. That coercion lines up nicely with the post-modern critique, I think.

What we have put to the test -- yet again -- is mercantilism, which is practiced by both parties and requires the use of force by government. I think the post-modernist is entitled to point to the way our economy works and say, "Q.E.D."

Note: I still think post-modernists are wrong. But I think the present crisis is not a demonstration of that.

Hugo asks, about this posting:

I understand symbols and rituals and have no problems with them.But in the end when it really matters in reality it is really just wine and bread right?And nobody should really be hurt for misunderstanding or even misusing such symbols, right?

Really?

He also includes these links (here, here, and here) as if to ask me to give account for the response of Roman Catholics ( including death threats) to one Webster Cook for lying to a priest and stealing a communion wafer from a Roman Catholic Church. Hugo may like to employ the euphemisms “misunderstanding” and “misusing”, but lying and stealing is what happened here.

I’m not sure why Hugo asks me about all this. It’s not as if I need to be called to account here. I’m a Reformed catholic, not a Roman catholic. Perhaps that’s it: Hugo wants to know that I agree with him that Roman Catholic response to Webster Cook is over the top.

No, Hugo, I’m not going to agree with you. It is true that I believe that bread and wine do not cease to be bread and wine. The fact is Roman Catholics believe that the essence of the elements change, even though the accidents remain unchanged. I respectfully disagree with them. But the key word there is respectfully. I have no sympathy for Webster Cook because I certainly would not have done what he did.

Atheists are rather amusing in many ways. In some ways there are just downright bothersome. (I know the feeling is mutual.) They are bothersome because in many ways they employ a double standard. When an atheist believes something like, say, evolution, if you question it, criticize it, argue against it, then they fee themselves entitled (before, during or after responding with a cogent argument) to speak to and of you as derisively, as spitefully and as hatefully as they please (but, thankfully, no death threats). They can call into question your intelligence, your education (even if they are the ones who educated you), and your mental health (because your beliefs are delusional).

If, on the other hand, you have certain beliefs which they do not share and, in fact, find “irrational” they are entitled to speak to or of you as derisively, as spitefully and as hatefully as they please. You deserve it. If you believe that some little piece of dried bread is the flesh of Jesus Christ not only are they entitled to disagree with you, but they feel no compunction about calling it a “god-****ed cracker”, especially if you have the audacity to act like you believe it’s the flesh of Christ.

They are entitled to act consistently with their beliefs, while you are not. They believe a piece of dried bread is a cracker; they can act like it. You believe a piece of dried bread is the body of Jesus Christ; you better not act like it.

Not only that. If someone goes into your church and acts like he believes what you believe; if he lies to a priest by receiving a host (which the priest gave only on the supposition that Cook would partake of it); if he steals that “god-****ed cracker” – they will cry, “Foul!” if you object in any strenuous terms by, for example, calling this lying and stealing a “hate” crime, or (if it really happened) making death threats. That’ll really get you on their radar. And the acts to which you object (i.e., lying and stealing) will be euphemistically referred to as “misunderstanding” and “misusing”, all the better to make you look even more unreasonable and “irrational” than you do. “All this fuss over a ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘misuse’ of a symbol?”

None of this is to say that I think Webster Cook should be harmed in any way for his lying and stealing – not “misunderstanding” and “misusing”. He shouldn’t be, not for any reasons which an atheist could give which I would find persuasive, but because I think that the One who told us to turn the other cheek when slapped would Himself do the same. But neither do I have any sympathy for Webster Cook. If he objects to the vitriol to which he’s been subjected he has only himself to blame. No one, so far as I know, dragged his ass to that church. No one, so far as I know, dragged his ass up to the altar. The priest, so far as I know, didn’t shove the “god-****ed cracker” into his mouth. The “god****ed cracker” was given to him because the priest thought he wanted to eat the god****ed thing. He should have done so. If nothing else he should have showed some respect for others’ property.

This raises another double standard which atheists employ. What an atheist values we all must value. Whatever an atheist does not value, we are not entitled to value. (If we insist one doing so, however, we shant be permitted actually to act like it; or we shall be permitted to do so only within boundaries he will set up for us.) If an atheist values the person of a lying thief over a “god****ed cracker” we’d better do so also. But if we attach a certain value to a “god****ed cracker” and an atheist (or anyone else) does not and even “desecrates” that god****ed cracker we’d better keep our god****ed mouths shut.

Of course, they are justified in all this because a human is more valuable than a “god****ed cracker”. Really? A couple of bucks worth of chemicals is worth more than a cracker, another couple of bucks of some other chemicals? Chemicals, in reality, are just chemicals, right? No one should really he hurt for misusing, or threatening to misuse chemicals should they?

Really?

Now that my brain is no longer simmering over low heat I offer further reply to my anonymous reader. (Note: I don’t label postings such as this “Duty to Reply” for nothing. Every critic gets a reply, so far as I am physically able to give one.)

He reminds me that I “never tried to refute the fact that if Christians are moral because of their belief in God then [I am] stating that 99.9% of the world is not moral because they don't believe in [MY] variation of God” (here). On one hand there is nothing to refute: I don’t believe that Christians are moral because of our belief in God and the rest of the world immoral because of their unbelief. This would logically require me to believe that the Christian who murders, steals, cheats, or commits adultery is moral, despite his actions, on the grounds of the presence in his heart of belief in God. It would also logically require me to believe that the non-Christian who does not murder, steal, cheat or commit adultery is, despite his actions, immoral on the grounds of the absence in his heart of belief in God. These are not positions that I hold. I conceded in “Amoral Man” that non-Christians act in ways which I credit as moral. But I also admitted that I credit those actions as moral on the basis of a Christian view of what constitutes moral acts, something which he believes is illegitimate for me to do. In other words, I judge Christians and non-Christians by the same moral standard. And the moral standard in Christian thought is not whether someone believes in the Christian God, although one of the requirements of Christian ethics is the honoring of God.

My friend continues to reply to me as if my argument in “Amoral Man” were that Christians (or theists in general) are morally superior to non-Christians (but particularly non-theists) simply by virtue of being Christians. In fact, I offered no such argument; nor would I have done. What I argued was that a non-theistic view of reality leaves no room for ethics. Not only would I not be the first person to make that argument, if I were still a non-theist I would not be the only non-theist to make that argument. As I also pointed out in “Amoral Man” many non-theists recognize this, among whom are Steven Weinberg and William Provine. This is not to say that the issue is thereby resolved. Rather it is to clarify that the precise point I was arguing is not novel, nor fringe.

On the other hand, so what if I do believe that Christians are moral because of our belief in God and the rest of the world immoral because of their unbelief?

I have found it very interesting throughout our exchanges that he believes there are things I ought to believe and, conversely, things I ought not believe. Indeed, some of my beliefs make me arrogant, so there is a moral component in his epistemology, as there is in mine also. In this case, as I understand him, I ought not believe that Christians are moral because of their belief in God and that the rest of the world is not moral because of their unbelief. Moreover, I am morally out of line for believing Christians morally superior to others just for believing in our variation of God.

Apparently I have an obligation, a moral obligation, not to believe that. I am not informed, however, how I come to have this obligation, this duty. He has been very consistent about insisting I have duties while being short on explaining how I’ve come to have these duties. He objects to me holding him accountable to my variation of God. So be it. I object to his holding me accountable to his variation of morals.

In response to my assertion (here) that “[I]n order for the atheist to be credited as living a moral life when he doesn't kill, he must have a duty not to kill, not simply a lack of desire to kill, or the simple fact of not having killed” my anonymous reader writes:

An atheist DOES have a duty not to kill. The only difference is that his duty is not based on a book that glorifies incest, murder, maimin [sic] and genocide.His duty is to his fellow man. His duty is to his society and to his species.

In my original posting I briefly discussed the subject of duty. I asked how anyone comes to have duties, on a non-theistic view. I asked to whom these duties are owed and how we come to have these duties to them. We are now informed that the atheist has duties to his fellow man, his society, and his species. We are informed that while the atheist has duties, what separates him from the Christian is that his duties aren’t “based on a book that glorifies incest, murder, maiming and genocide.” (I guess those things are immoral, and are related to some of the duties each of us has to his fellow man, his society and to his species. But I think he should be prevailed upon to demonstrate that these things are wrong, before he claims superiority for his system on the basis of this distinction between his system and mine.)

Besides, I asked, in the original posting, how one comes to have these duties? He doesn’t tell us. I suppose we have these duties just because he says so.

Neither are we told on what these duties are based. We are not informed how it is that my fellow men, my society or my entire species come to have rights against me that I act, or do not act, in certain ways. How is it that my fellow men, my society and my species even have the right to exist – much less to have rights against me? Who do they think they are? God? You see, if we don’t have the right even to exist, then I don’t see how we have the right to anything which makes our continued existence possible. “Thou shalt not murder” may be, as he put it in one of his earliest comments, nothing more than preservation of the species, but has the species any right to be preserved? If so, how does it come to have this right?

Here are some duties beyond preserving the species which he thinks people have:

1. Duties not to abuse children, not to divorce, not to murder, not to rape, not to produce guns, as evidenced by his listing these as moral failures (here).
2. Apparently, God (if he exists) has a duty, if he is all loving, all mighty and all present, not to punish people for all eternity just for not following his petty rules and regulations (here) – as evidenced by his complaint that God does so, and is “petty” in doing so.
3. A duty not to be so hateful of one’s fellow man as to clearly feel that atheists belong to a lesser class of men (here).
4. A duty not to be arrogant (here).
5. God has a duty to be compassionate (also here).
6. A duty not to be “a menace to society and mankind” (here).
7. A duty to meet a moral standard that is based on facts and not fiction (here).
8. A duty to live my life valuing the worth of this life rather than trying to impress some entity so as to get a pleasant afterlife instead of eternal damnation in hell (here).
9. A duty not to “start killing multiple members of [one’s] own kind for reasons that are clearly anti-productive and anti survival of the species” – in other words, a duty to be productive and promote the survival of the species (here).
10. A duty to aid one’s fellow man (here).
11. And, of course, a duty not to render decisions about who is moral based on whether they believe in my version of God (here).

Elsewhere he comments:

The simple fact is that a "true moral" Christian is no more -- or less -- "moral" than a raping pedophile. (here)

Certainly, the Christian is not more moral than a pedophile simply by virtue of being a Christian. He can only be more moral than a pedophile if (a) pedophilia is immoral (he doesn’t explain how this is so), and (b) the Christian is not a pedophile. On the other hand, if the Christian is an adulterer then he isn’t more moral than a pedophile, unless one wants to say that something about the predatory nature of pedophilia makes it a worse evil, since adultery is at least consensual. What I would argue is that my friend has no grounds for asserting that pedophilia is immoral.

Even if that were not the case, what I argued in “Amoral Man” was not that the Christian is more moral (I didn’t even argue that the Christian was moral at all), only that a non-theistic worldview denies reality to moral notions. It may be, as he asserts, that the Christian is no more, or less, moral than a pedophile. But this is true of the atheist as well, which is what I argued in “Amoral Man.”

Allow me to illustrate the problem as I have long seen it. A non-theistic worldview asserts materialism as the ultimate reality; everything is ultimately just material. The situation, as I see it, is similar to one in a universe in which all is fundamentally water. A man who is fundamentally water performs an act which is also fundamentally water and in attempting to distinguish his water-act from some other water-act in order to establish whether his water-act is right or wrong he applies a moral standard which is also fundamentally water. By this means water applies water to distinguish water from water. How does a standard which is ultimately water get applied by a man who is also ultimately water in determining the moral status of an act which is also ultimately water?

He might accuse me of reification here. But the worldview itself, being ultimately materialistic, automatically reifies everything without any help from me.

Finally, he asks (here),

Why is it so hard to understand that morals aren't something that Christians can claim sole ownership?

I think it is quite telling that in responding to a claim that his worldview is ultimately amoral he has chosen to do little else than recast my argument into something it has never been and, while he’s at it, accuse me of some wrong-doing. It’s his time to waste, of course, but I can’t help wondering: If he objects so much to being told his worldview is fundamentally amoral, why not just offer logical rejoinder which explains how his worldview is not fundamentally amoral? Arbitrarily asserting duties (e.g., to one’s fellow man, his society, his species) doesn’t explain how water generates moral standards for judging the actions of water. Accusing me of wrong doing doesn’t explain how water generates moral standards for judging the actions of water.

My question to him about how I come to have any duties to my fellow men, my society and my species has gone unanswered throughout our exchanges. It remains so.

I opened myself up to the charge of arrogance because in the course of a discussion (here) I made the claim: “Jesus knows who are or are not His own. I will leave that verdict in His hands.” Ironically, I opened myself up to this accusation by attempting to exculpate myself with respect to a prior charge: that I set myself up as the arbiter of who is a “true” Christian. It was that charge to which I had written in response: “Jesus knows who are or are not His own. I will leave that verdict in His hands.”

I’m arrogant because, among other things (I’m sure), in making that statement I make several assumptions which demonstrate this arrogance:

1. I assume that Jesus existed.
2. I assume that Jesus is the son of God.
3. I assume that he is a member of the Trinity.
4. I assume that the Christian God is the true one.
5. What's more, I assume that my particular sub-branch of a sub-sect has the true faith, the true way, the true connection to the one true God. (This one, by the way, happens not to be true.)

I had thought about writing a response, but during the course of outlining it, I happened to recall a Buddhist koan, which goes, if I recall it correctly, like this:

QUESTION: What is the ultimate expression of silence?
ANSWER: I will not express it at this time.

While meditating on the meaning of that koan I hit upon the idea that an argument against a charge of arrogance is probably self-defeating. After all, it’s easy enough to see how the charge can seem reasonable from his perspective. I am a finite person. I did not live when Jesus is supposed to have lived. I cannot possibly have had time to verify all of the claims of the Bible. My finitude makes it impossible for me to have more than a best-guess regarding the life-system to which I hold. On his view, I don’t have an epistemic right, if you will, to the certainty with which I hold to my faith. Obviously, of course, his perspective relies upon a few assumptions as well, which could open him up to the charge as well. But arguing tu quoque would resolve nothing: at best we’re both open to the charge of arrogance. What’s really wanted is a defense resulting, if you will, in acquittal. But, like I said, such a maneuver might be self-defeating. Besides, it is not impossible that I’m arrogant.

There is another possibility. I've noticed that my critic has assumptions of his own, to which he holds with such certainty that he freely comments in a condescending, superior and belittling tone. (No doubt he thinks I’ve earned it for supposedly asserting the superiority of Christian morality to his own atheistic morality. So be it.) That other possibility is this: he, and others like him, are the arrogant ones. As St. Paul might say, God is not far from any man (see Acts 17.27) and therefore those who claim not to know him have no excuse for doing so (Romans 1.19-20). On this view, I humbly submit to the testimony of the Scriptures, not thinking myself able to refute them. He and others, however, have determined that they know more than St. Paul. (Maybe they do, but it’s a bold claim.) They have taken it upon themselves to declare themselves smart enough, and knowledgable enough, to have determined that, for example, there is no God, or (despite being equally as ignorant about the ancient past as I) that Jesus did not exist, or (despite being equally as ignorant of the Divine Nature as I) that the Divine Nature is not triune nor Jesus a member of the (arguably) triune Divine Nature. I realize that in saying so, I assume (again) the truth of the Christian faith; that can’t be helped. But he also, in responding to me, has assumed throughout the truth of his own life-system. (I don’t begrudge him that: it can’t be helped.) I, however, am the arrogant one. So be it.

The realization that offering a defense against the charge of arrogance would be self-defeating induced me to devise a koan of my own:

QUESTION: What is the ultimate, indefeasible vindication from a charge of arrogance?
ANSWER: Behold, a white horse.

Oh. Wow, man.

Amoral Man – Post Script III

My anonymous reader would like to know what made me so afraid that I “started to need the crutch of religion to be able to face the world.”

Well, the simple fact is I just can’t think of any fear I ever had before becoming a theist, and then a Christian (after contemplating Judaism and Islam), the object of which simply disappeared when I picked up that crutch. I, quite frankly, cannot recall entertaining the thought, “I’m so terrified of such-and-such. Let me take up this crutch and all will be well.”

No fear motivated by commitment to Christ. What motivated me was a conviction that Christianity is true.

My anonymous reader next complains that I “clearly feel that atheists are a lesser sort of man”. Apparently, the only motivation one can possibly have for thinking that atheists are amoral is some conviction that they are of less value than theists.

The simple fact of the matter is I don’t think atheists are a lesser sort of man. I think atheists are amoral, which – as I’ve said previously – is not the same as thinking they are immoral. I’ve also said that atheists do things which I think are moral, but that my judgment that this is so rests upon the Christian worldview, which the atheist believes is false. And if my judgment that an atheist’s behavior is ethical rests upon the premises of a false worldview, then my judgment may also be false. So what possible difference can it make what I think about whether an atheist is acting ethically in a given situation? I’m talking about the only sort of morality their naturalistic assumptions admit of. And what is quite interesting is that some atheists themselves also will say this. It must be wrong only when a theist says that atheism has no ultimate foundation for ethics. All men, even atheists, still bear God’s image; that doesn’t change because a particular man, or group of them, denies God. However, that fact does not entail the notion that there is something objectionable about asserting that someone’s worldview leaves no ultimate foundation for ethics – or, in other words, that the worldview is ultimately amoral.

This man (I’m assuming the reader is male) must be a profiler. In the course of an exchange in the comments to the original posting, I asked certain rhetorical questions. He claims to know that the “way” I asked these rhetorical questions in the comments to the original posting, indicates that “[I] have a chip on [my] shoulder concerning atheists.” Now, so far as I know, to have a chip on one’s shoulder is to be in a state of mind in which one dares another, inviting a fist fight, or some other kind of fight. According to The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Third Edition, 2002), “In the past, a young boy would place a wood chip on his shoulder and dare anyone to knock it off as a way of showing how tough he was.” I think the context will demonstrate that my rhetorical questions indicate I was taken aback by my opponent’s seeming suggestion that certain American purveyors of pornography produced pornography as a direct consequence of their active pursuit of a life in accordance with Judeo-Christian ethics. The purpose of my rhetorical questions was to communicate doubt about this apparent assertion. I still maintain that doubt.

Amoral Man – Post Script II

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. -- Psalm 1.1-2

Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your statutes; and I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law and keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies and not to dishonest gain. Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, and revive me in Your ways. Establish Your word to Your servant as that which produces reverence for You. Turn away my reproach which I dread, for Your ordinances are good. Behold, I long for Your precepts. Revive me through Your righteousness. -- Psalm 119.33-40

My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge. -- Isaiah 5.13

Pursuant to a discussion in the comments under this posting, with an (aforementioned) anonymous reader, I made the statement that many Christians have adopted various forms of antinomianism. He responds with a quote from wikipedia to the effect that antinomianism is little more than name calling (because, since few groups "explicitly" call themselves antinomian, the charge of "antinomian" is leveled by some sects against "competing" sects) and the accusation that I believe that "those [who] don't follow the Christian moral code aren't TRUE Christians or don't belong to a true Christian sub-sub-sub-sect."

I will agree that few groups explicitly identify themselves as antinomian and that the charge is usually made by one group of Christians involved in dog-fights with other groups. I wasn't in a dog-fight with another Christian; I was talking to a non-Christian. I also didn't specify any sect or sub-sect as being explicitly antinomian. And the record in the comments will reflect that I was light-years from even hinting that Christians who don't follow the Christian code are not true Christians. (Furthermore, when I wish to discuss differences with Christians of other persuasions, I generally do so by name – whether name of individual, theological school of thought, or denomination. I also generally have these conversations with members of those groups and not third parties.)

First, I said that many Christians have adopted various forms of antinomianism. What I should really have said, perhaps, is that many individual Christians (as opposed to entire sects) have adopted, whether consciously or not, interpretive and hermeneutical frame-works which nullify various, and selective, provisions of the moral law. They may not explicitly be antinomian; I’ll grant that. But I do believe they can properly be said to be practically antinomian, that is – to greater or lesser extents – antinomian in practice.

Take, for example, the case of a Christian woman reported by a Christian counselor, who gave the following justification for her decision to leave her husband for another man with whom she was already romantically involved. In Ephesians 4.24, St. Paul says, “Put on the new man.” Well, there you have it! God says, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “I hate divorce.” But she doesn’t have to obey the commandment because St. Paul is giving her permission to “put on the new man”. (Sorry men, but since St. Paul did not say anything about putting on the new woman, no divorce and remarriage for you.)

This woman isn’t alone. Several years ago a well-known contemporary Christian music artist divorced her husband to marry another man (who, as I recall, divorced his wife in order to marry her!). When interviewed by a Christian magazine, the woman I have in mind agreed that divorce is prohibited by the Christian moral code (with some exceptions), but she had the Holy Spirit’s special permission to divorce her husband to marry another.

Some Christians, having imbibed Western individualism, have come to believe that no one – and I do mean no one – can judge their behavior except for God. And this despite the fact that Jesus Christ authorizes church leadership to exercise discipline. (See, e.g., Matt. 18.15-17.) Besides, anyone whose church disciplines him can, and usually will, simply move his church membership. Here again, in the refusal to be disciplined, the moral law is nullified. And anyone who talks meaningfully of church discipline is called a legalist, as if the assertion that, yes, we may not be saved by law-keeping, but we are still obligated to the moral law (and to the “general equity” of the judicial laws) is an assertion that we are saved by law-keeping. Tell someone that you’ve just excommunicated a man (after tens of attempts at other means) for adultery and abandonment of his wife and children and you’ll get called a legalistic, unloving, unchristian, Pharisee. What can be said except that these people, who have adopted interpretive frame-works which effectively nullify portions of the moral law, have thereby adopted some form of antinomianism? The antinomianism may be unintended, but that makes it no less antinomian.

Then there are those who run rough-shod over the point in John 8.1-11 and decide that since no one is without sin, no one can judge. And when they do this, they set this passage against those portions of Scripture (yes, even in the New Testament) which teach how to exercise proper judgment. (See, e.g., Matt. 7.1-5) There was a real, good, legal reason why the woman taken in adultery could not be stoned in punishment for her sin. It wasn’t that her accusers were not morally perfect. It’s that the process they were following was illegal. That’s right: stoning her to death in that circumstance would have been illegal. But you wouldn’t know that from the way John 8.1-11 gets thrown around as a covering for sins. “Hey,” they say, “unless you are without sin, you can’t throw stones at me; you can’t pass any judgment on my behavior. And you’re not without sins, so shut up.” Little do they realize that if this had been Jesus’ teaching in John 8.1-11 then he could not possibly have meant what is recorded in Matthew 18.15-17. Why bother with the testimony of two or three witnesses if none of the witnesses are sinless? Only those without sin could treat anyone like a publican and a sinner.

There is no provision in the moral law which cannot be nullified in the foregoing manners. This is a form of antinomianism. It is not explicit; and it is selective. But it is there nonetheless. And my saying so is not just a charge against a competing sect. I didn’t identify any sect, for one thing. For another thing, I happen to think that this is something which affects, to greater and lesser extents, all Christian sects. I did not even exclude my own sect from the “charge”. Finally, the adoption of this selective and practical antinomianism need not be intentional. I frankly think a great many Christians have been confused by the aforementioned dog-fights, have heard many propositions bandied about and have personal theologies which really are hodge-podges of various schools of thought. The lady who wanted to “put on the new man”; the Christian music artist to whom the Holy Spirit gave permission to divorce her husband – these were probably doing precisely what someone else taught them to do. The simple fact of the matter is that while I believe many Christians have adopted (by something like osmosis, maybe) interpretive frame-works which nullify various portions of the moral law, I don’t know of any who have thoroughly denied the moral law. I believe most people are doing the best they can do, in accordance with what they have been taught. The problem is with what they have been taught, as well as what they have observed of Christian leaders over the years.

Second, I make what I believe to be a proper distinction between what a Christian is required to believe and how a Christian is required to act. I may sometimes make decisions about who is a true Christian on the basis of the former, but I don't do so on the basis of the latter. In other words, those Christians who are practical and selective antinomians do not for that reason fail to be true Christians. They do, however, fail to be obedient Christians; and church discipline always assumes that the people being disciplined are true Christians. No exercise of discipline is for not being a true Christian. Discipline is for specific violations of the requirements of faith and practice. No finding of guilt is a finding that the accused is not a true Christian. Finding of guilt can only be guilt either of teaching heresy (matters of faith) or of being contumacious in the commission of sins (matters of practice). It cannot be otherwise.

The quote in the wikipedia article notwithstanding, many Christians are practical and selective antinomians.

"Amoral" is not "immoral" and "Judeo-Christian" is not "better behaved"


As part of a discussion in the comments under this posting, with an anonymous reader, I made the assertion that while a Christian may fail to live up to his code, he at least knows what he's failed to live up to. The reader asks, “You don't truly want to imply that no one else but Christians have standards that they want to, try to, live up to, now do you?”

Well, not only do I not wish to imply this, in the original posting I asserted out-right that atheists live in accordance with some sort of standards. I grant that the above-mentioned assertion could be understood as implying what the anonymous reader asks about, but I didn’t see any need to qualify the assertion given that I’d already considered non-theistic moral standards in the original posting.

But the issue (and I explained this in the original posting) isn’t whether an atheist lives in accordance with some standard. What I asserted in that posting was that the standards which govern an atheist’s ethical life are rooted in his own autonomous notions of morality. I don’t think people who live in accordance with their own autonomous notions of morality can be credited with living a moral life. How could he? His moral principle comes from within himself. He isn’t meeting a standard. He is the standard.

In an effort to overcome this point he says, among other things, that “Thou shalt not kill is nothing more than preservation of the species.” Well, that may be. But it doesn’t tell us that not killing is a moral good unless it is a moral good that the species survive. My anonymous reader probably wants to survive. Or perhaps he just wants, as a human, to see his species survive. If that be the case then, as I said, his moral principle comes from within himself and is nothing more than his desire to survive projected upon the whole species. The species ought to survive. Or maybe the species just wants to survive, and the moral principle, “Thou shalt not kill” serves that desire.

Anticipating just this sort of thing, I discussed (in para. 12 of the original posting) briefly Kant’s view, which I happen to agree with, that in order to count as a moral act an act must proceed from a duty, not a desire. The desire to survive entails no duties.

Even if this were not the case, surely a duty not to kill is not the only duty following from the “preservation of the species”. In order to be preserved, there must be reproduction in the species, so perhaps laws outlawing homosexual behavior are proper after all. If everybody were gay the species would die out. Sure they were born that way, but the equipment still works for purposes of procreation and they should be required to use it for that purpose. (Or maybe we could just require that gays marry and father/mother children and get a little same-sex action on the side.) Polygamy – but only by males, of course – should also be permitted, especially in those cases in which there happen to be more females than males. Besides, if there are people out there who must resist the urge to kill for the sake of the preservation of the species, then everybody should be required to resist whatever urges the indulgence of which do not serve to preserve the species.

However flippant that all may seem, the point remains that I don’t think we can get a duty not to kill from the concept of the self-preservation of the species.

My anonymous reader seems to suggest that the fact that we don’t see snakes turn into serial killers and kill lots of other snakes tells us something about how we should act. “How often,” he says, “do you see a snake turn into a serial killer and kill lots of other snakes? Is a snake therefore a…Christian?” Well, I grew up in Texas; so the only snakes I saw close enough to observe were garters, and I never did see one garter kill another. All the other snakes I saw were the kind I didn’t want to get close enough to observe – at all. (Reminds me of this joke. Tanto and the Lone Ranger were out one day…. Actually, never mind.)

The fact that snakes are not Christians must mean that one does not need to be a Christian in order to believe that it is wrong to kill, I suppose. It certainly tells us that one does not need to be a Christian in order not to kill, a point I might understand his making if I had asserted, whether explicitly or implicitly, that only Christians do not kill, or that only theists believe it is wrong to kill. Not only did I not do so, I explained why, even though an atheist may not kill, his not doing so isn’t moral behavior: his not doing so proceeds from his own autonomous notions of morality. He doesn’t kill for reasons that seem good to him. If he doesn’t kill because he acknowledges some universally applicable moral code as obligatory, then he does so because has personally judged this code to be universally applicable.

Now, I wonder: if the non-murderous behavior of snakes is to tell us something about the moral status of killing, what are we to make of the behavior of the female praying mantis? I shudder to consider the possibilities.

My anonymous reader also informs me that, “[A]theists aren't immoral nor are they amoral. The moral code(s) they live by are ‘partly’ the same ones of Judeo-Christians, and Muslims, Taoists, Wiccans, Druids, etc... not because those religions are right but because some moral codes are universal.” Well, perhaps some moral codes are universal. But his assertion that this is the case tells us very little. It does not, for example, tell us how we become obligated to any moral code, even a universal one. It does not tell us how we may enquire into the content of these universal codes. Some moral codes may be universal, but that alone does not tell us that “Thou shalt not kill” is part of the content of any universal code to which we may be obligated. (What’s more, he has not decided simply that this universally applicable moral code is obligatory for him, but also that it is universally applicable and obligatory for all other humans, whether they have judged it so or not. But I digress.) I asked, in the original posting (para. 22) how we may know that it is wrong to murder:

Do you know it's wrong to murder in the same way that you know George Bush is President of the United States, or that it is (or is not) snowing outside (where you live) right now? Is the proposition, "It is wrong to murder" true by definition in the same way as "2+2=4"? It is difficult to see how it could be.

Apparently we know because snakes don’t kill their own kind. (But praying mantises do.)

I was also provided with links intended to show me that morals have nothing to do with Judeo-Christian religions (here and here). The links are to on-line profiles of two porn stars, one a Jew, the other a Christian (specifically, Roman Catholic). Since the links are intended to point to the behavior of the two performers, the point is clearly that people within the Judeo-Christian sphere are not paragons of moral virtue. And this would be an important point if my argument in “Amoral Man” was an argument that Judeo-Christians are better behaved than non-Judeo-Christians. To be fair, his provision of these links was in response to two questions I asked about the Christian credentials of two adult magazine publishers (i.e., Hugh Hefner and Bob Guccione). By asking the questions (which, I admit, were poorly phrased and confused the issue), I was aiming at the notion that Judeo-Christians involved in porn were pursuing the standards of the Judeo-Christian ethic. I assert that regardless the Christian credentials of Bob Guccione and Jenna Jamison, they aren’t pursuing the requirements of the Judeo-Christian ethic in the areas of sexuality and objectification of women.

In a subsequent comment, the same reader writes:

1. The US is the most Judeo-Christian-theocratic nation on earth.

2. The US has the largest numbers of serial-killers per capita

3. Logic dictates that chances therefor are that the large majority of serial killers belong to one Judeo-Christian sect/cult or the other.

4. Most of them will have been considered by their friends, collegues,etc... as well behaved and good theist Americans.

5. Facts show all of the above to be true.

If the morals of theists, especially Judeo-Christian ones, are so much better then the ones of the 'amoral' atheists then how to you explain the above?For that matter how to you explain the fact that atheists aren't represented in the US jail population in the same percentages then they are in the general population? Let alone why they are not even much more numerous if they are amoral.

Really, just how could I hope to explain, given “facts” 1 through 5? I will first stipulate to each of them. I believe they are all arguable (except perhaps for item 2), but even if they are not, they don’t, even if true, affect my argument (i.e., that atheists are amoral). First, I didn’t assert that Judeo-Christian morals are “better” than the morals of “amoral” atheists. The apples belonging to a man who has apples are not “better” than the apples of a man who has no apples. My reader seems to think that I equate amoral with immoral, having apples as having good apples and not having apples as having rotten apples. I don’t. I explained why I believe atheists are amoral (not immoral). He offers nothing in response. Apparently it’s just wrong (morally wrong?) to say so, no matter what one’s reasons might be.

Second, let’s say that the large majority of serial killers do belong to one Judeo-Christian cult or other. Let’s say also that I have argued the superiority of the Judeo-Christian ethic. This fact about the population of serial killers tells us nothing about the superiority of the ethical system in question. For one thing, there is only a problem with serial killing (among others) if the Judeo-Christian ethic is applicable and, therefore, murder is wrong. For another thing, that people violate the prohibitions entailed in an ethical system tells us nothing about the applicability or superiority of that ethical system.

The serial-killer Christian would be a violator of the Judeo-Christian ethic on that point, not a follower of it, when he kills. Think of it this way. If we have a law specifying a speed limit on highways, and people violate that law, it doesn’t tell us that there is a problem in our system of laws, unless, perhaps, that system has no provision for dealing with offenders. My anonymous friend seems to think that an ethical system, in addition to being comprised of positive and negative duties (i.e., Thou shalt and Thou shalt not, respectively), must also somehow guarantee obedience to these duties. And therefore the inferiority (or just the absence of superiority) of the Judeo-Christian ethic is demonstrated by the fact that people following that ethic violate that ethic. But that isn’t the case. The Judeo-Christian who serially-murders isn’t obeying; he’s disobeying. And that tells us nothing about the Judeo-Christian ethic itself. If there is a superiority in the Judeo-Christian ethic, that superiority is properly demonstrated by the obedience given to it, not any disobedience. Arguing against the supposed superiority of the Judeo-Christian ethic on the basis that people, even some Judeo-Christians, disobey it is to say that we can determine which ethical system is the best on the basis of how many obey it, or don’t disobey it.

Now, what ought we to learn about the Judeo-Christian ethic from the fact that not as many atheists are serial killers as Judeo-Christians? Apparently we are to learn that the Judeo-Christian ethic is not superior. Well, that is very interesting. From the fact that atheists obey the Judeo-Christian ethic (it’s the standard which he employs in setting up this problem) we are to learn that the Judeo-Christian ethic is not superior. My argument that atheists are amoral, in addition to not being an argument that they are immoral, is also not an argument that Christians, as a class, are more moral than atheists. The man with the apples, above, may choose not to eat his apples; and the Judeo-Christian may choose to disregard the system of ethics entailed in his worldview. That doesn't make the atheist moral; it just makes the Judeo-Christian immoral, as judged in terms of his own ethical system.

For one thing the Christian who will agree that atheists are, or can be moral is judging the atheist’s behavior by the Christian ethical system. When I was an atheist I found that offensive: for the Christian to judge me as morally good presupposed the truth of his entire life-system (not just the ethical provisions), a system which I rejected. (Though I do have to confess to having had a certain respect for elements of the Judeo-Christian ethic and its influence upon Western civilization – much like Oriana Fallaci had.) Who was the Christian to tell me I was or was not a good person?

For another thing, no argument about the supposed superiority of the Judeo-Christian ethic is an argument that, as a rule, the actions of all (or even just most) Judeo-Christians are morally superiority to the actions of non-Judeo-Christians. That would transform the discussion of ethics from what we ought to do to what we in fact do. The same ethical system that commands the Judeo-Christian to do or not to do also judges him when he fails to do or not to do. If the Judeo-Christian ethic fails just because a Judeo-Christian fails to meet the standard then no Judeo-Christian can be said to have missed the standard: the standard, remember, is supposedly invalidated by someone’s failure to meet it!

My anonymous reader may be correct. There may be a great many Judeo-Christians in our prisons. But remember that, on his own admission, it was our Judeo-Christian-theocratic system which weighed those Judeo-Christians on the Judeo-Christian balance, found them wanting in respect of conformity to that standard, and put them in prison in the first place.

OBITER DICTUM:

Having stipulated to items 1 through 5, above, for purposes of clarity regarding my position, I want now to offer some brief consideration on what it means to be a Christian. When he asserts that the United States are the most Judeo-Christian-theocratic in the world, I have to agree, of course. But I agree only to the extent that it can be said that we have not as fully jettisoned our orthodox Christian heritage to the same extent as it appears European nations have done.

But the fact is, not everyone who says, “I am a Christian” means the same thing by the word Christian. (NB: I didn’t say that not everyone who says he is a Christian is a Christian, or a “true” Christian.) For example when I say that I am a Christian I mean, among other things, that I receive the Apostles’ and Nicene (381) creeds as statements of the catholic faith; in other words I identify myself as an “orthodox” Christian, as contrasted with, say, a “liberal” or “neo-orthodox” Christian.

When someone like Oriana Fallaci called herself a “Christian” atheist, she did not mean by “Christian” what orthodox, liberal or even neo-orthodox Christians mean by the term (see also here). When someone like Robert Jensen calls himself a Christian (a true Christian, in fact), he does not mean by the term (as he himself explains) what orthodox, liberal or neo-orthodox Christians mean by the term. What people like Fallaci and Jensen mean when they call themselves Christians is simply nothing more than that they recognize a certain cultural value to Christianity apart from theological-philosophical elements. (In a sense, I suppose I would rather have Fallaci and Jensen inside the tent with me, pissing out – sort of – than outside the tent, pissing in. [Apologies to Winston Churchill.] But I digress.)

But there is something Fallaci, Jensen and others do which some Christians in the orthodox, liberal and neo-orthodox sense also do: they select which parts of the body of doctrine, including the ethical elements, they will apply to themselves and others. What this means is that caution must be exercised when styling the United States as “Judeo-Christian-theocratic” because while they may in some sense be Judeo-Christian, they are not confessionally and explicitly so. (That last point is important because my anonymous reader informs me that people are not what they do not explicitly call themselves. But more about that in a subsequent posting.) They are so in the sense that elements of the Judeo-Christian worldview provide much of the cultural motif; and that is about it.