Meals From The Marketplace

            Time magazine had it partially right when it named “the protester” its person of the year.  The image of an Arab woman on the issue’s cover suggested an emphasis on the Arab spring movements that have toppled several autocratic regimes and threaten several others.

            But closer to home, indeed, at home, the protesters of note were, and are, the Occupiers of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  The Arab spring movement will change the face of the Middle East, hopefully for the better (much on that score remains to be seen).  But the Occupy Wall Street movement might save America from the march toward plutocracy that it has been on for the last thirty years.

            Properly understood, the Occupy movement is aimed at reining in the excesses of rampant greed in a corporate-dominated capitalist system that has lost its bearings.

            That sentence is a mouthful, but it is an accurate statement of the purpose of the Occupy movement, and with a little historical perspective, it will make sense. 

            As everyone knows, the United States emerged as a nation after rebelling against British colonial rule.  In forming their new union, the founders drew heavily on the writing and thinking of the Age of Enlightenment that had swept Europe in the preceding century.  That movement was based on the pursuit of intellectualism and was embodied by the goal of egalitarianism.

            In drafting the Declaration of Independence and the country’s Constitution, the founders sought to effectuate what many European countries were struggling (against reigning monarchies) to achieve: a democratic form of government in which the citizens were in control and decided the rules by which their society would be governed. 

            The new American society was to be bound by a basic concept, encapsulated in the Bill of Rights’ Due Process Clause, which was best expressed as “fundamental fairness.”

            But when the founders put the finishing touches to the Constitution, the fledgling country was an agrarian society.  Commerce was largely limited to bartering for goods and services.  Money was of less value than property and property was primarily of value for what it could produce.

            In fact, the Industrial Revolution did not reach America’s shores until the nineteenth century was well underway.  It had its beginnings with the War of 1812, but didn’t really start to change the economic landscape of the country until later in the century.  And even then, the basic economy of the country was still a mix of agriculture (principally in the south and midwest) and the commercial (in the northeast). 

            Seen in this historical light, capitalism must be understood to have been little more than an irrelevancy in the founders’ minds as they constructed the form their new country would take.  And corporations, if they were thought of at all, were hardly intended to be recognized and protected in the founding documents of the new country.

            But the country did ultimately move from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, and with that change came the proliferation of corporations.  The principal purpose of the corporate structure was to allow businesses to exist in which the owners were shielded from personal liability.  This protection allowed for innovation. 

            Innovation in an industrial society is good, because it promotes progress.  And progress is good, because it allows the citizens of the society to live better, fuller, richer lives.  But without the corporate shield from liability, many businesses would avoid the risks of innovation, thereby thwarting, rather than promoting, progress.

            And so, as the nation became more focused on its industrial economy, capitalism became the economic model it adopted.  Simply stated, capitalism is the best way to recognize the value and benefits of corporations.  It rewards innovation by allowing the owners of the businesses to keep their profits.  It allows the most successful of the innovators to expand and thereby increase the amount of progress they create.

            But unchecked capitalism also has its downside.  Corporations exist for the sole purpose of producing profits.  They promote, in that sense, the unfettered greed that in individuals is usually mitigated by the other side of humanity’s nature (its “soul,” if you will).  Corporations are soulless.  They only want to maximize their profitability, and without controls on the way businesses conduct themselves, the drive for profits can be all consuming.

            The Occupy Wall Street movement seeks to curtail the ravenous lust for profits that have produced the gross income disparity that exists in the country today.  In essence, the equilibrium that a well-functioning capitalist system requires has been lost, as evidenced by the growth of mega-corporations that award multi-million dollar bonuses to their top executives while paying their workers no more in inflation-adjusted dollars than those same workers would have made decades ago.

            The United States has become a nation of haves and have-nots, which is the very antithesis of what the founders envisioned.  The middle class, which used to be the country’s great strength, is shrinking.  A recent government report indicated that as many as sixty percent of America’s population barely gets by or lives in poverty.  That kind of report isn’t too different from what might be found in some third world countries.

            And so, to speak of the ninety-nine percent and the one percent is not far-fetched.  The ninety-nine percent are struggling to maintain the lifestyle they have, while the one percent are getting ever wealthier.

            It’s simple math when you get right down to it — simple math built on simple history.  The Occupy Wall Street movement wants equity.  It wants a system that honors hard work and gives everyone a chance to succeed.  It wants what the one percent refuses to let them have: the ability to live a better life than their parents lived and to provide for their children a better life than they have, which, simplistic though it may be, is the embodiment of the American dream. 

            That dream has been increasingly difficult to realize for the last thirty years, and America’s current brand of capitalism is largely to blame.

            Unfettered capitalism is not guaranteed by the Constitution.  Fundamental fairness is.

            But those travails pale when compared with the wonderful spirit which pervades our interactions at this time of the year.  What is it that causes all of us to be just a little friendlier, a little more in touch with our better instincts?  For Christians, I suppose the answer is likely to revolve around a reverence for the occasion of the birth of Jesus, “the light of the world,” as he is described in the Gospel of John.

            But this feeling of goodness is not limited to the many followers of Christ.  In fact, it seems so infectious as to know no religious bounds.  And so I think the sense of joyfulness which we all feel during the holidays must be as much a testament to some kind of spiritual link that binds us together. 

            In presenting this admittedly abstract thesis, I’m not confessing to a belief in Gnostic mysticism or even to some kind of pantheistic theology.  I readily admit that I have very little understanding of ecclesiastical matters, notwithstanding my fascination with them.

            But I cannot deny what I feel, and what I perceive others feel as well, and I am left with the unavoidable conclusion that, despite our inherent selfish nature, there is, in this strange species of ours, a will, a need, a burning desire to care for each other.  We are, in this sense, kindred spirits, seeking a union with our fellows by which we can somehow feel more complete.

            We are all unique, each of us special in our own way, and in our individuality we can make our way in the world.  But few of us long to be alone, and if we do, we are, I would submit, cheating ourselves of the bond of human relationships and of social intercourse.

            For we are joined by the ability all of us have to feel, to feel the pain of the loss of a parent or a child and to feel the joy of the birth of a child or the marriage of a young couple.

            In his marvelous personal reflection on the meaning of his Armenian ethnicity, Michael Arlen, in “Passage to Ararat,” identified the genesis of this quest for union with our human comrades by stating that “we were all kin to begin with.”

            Maybe that fact is what we become more in touch with at this time of the year, and it may well emanate from a power greater than we can know.  No matter the source, it happens every year.  And it feels good, doesn’t it?

            Peace, love, and the joys of the season to all.

            There are probably a lot of reasons why I wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney for president, but his religion is not one of them.  In fact, while I think the Mormon faith is loaded with strange beliefs (which might be putting it mildly, depending on your perspective), I don’t think Romney’s apparent acceptance of those beliefs should in any way enter into political discourse. And, unless he makes an issue of them, his religious beliefs shouldn’t be a consideration in the minds of voters.

            As with every citizen in America, Mitt Romney is entitled to believe or not believe whatever he chooses, and he should neither be praised nor condemned for the choice of religion he makes and abides by.

            It’s a simple point, to be sure, but it is also one that the founders of the nation felt strongly enough about to make one of the first tenets of the Bill of Rights.  Freedom of religion is, if you will, sacred in the United States.  That freedom, along with the freedom to speak and to write whatever one chooses, is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution, and it certainly should protect a presidential candidate from disqualification based on a particular religious identification.

            Newt Gingrich is hardly my favorite of the Republican contenders, but his conversion to Catholicism would also never be a reason I would deny him my vote.  I’m not a big fan of the Catholic faith either, but Mr. Gingrich, so long as he keeps his religious beliefs to himself, is no more disqualified from the nation’s highest office for that reason than is Mr. Romney.

            I’d like to be able to say the same thing about Rick Perry, who says he is a devout Christian (denomination unspecified).  But unlike Mr. Romney, who does nothing more than acknowledge his religion, Mr. Perry wants his religion to be regarded as an asset, as if he is more qualified to be the nation’s president because he has a particular religious faith.

            That perspective is a reason (among many others, I should hasten to add) why I would never vote for Rick Perry for president.  When a political candidate makes his or her religion a campaign issue, he or she has crossed the line from freedom of religion to establishment of religion (that other religion clause the Founders had the good sense to include in the First Amendment).

            Of course, Mr. Perry isn’t the first to wear his religion like a medal, not by a long shot, and he certainly won’t be the last.  Politicians have been claiming to be guided by their relationship with God for as long as leaders have been chosen by elections. 

            And in claiming to be so guided, some have often gone so far as to suggest, if not declare, that God had actually spoken to them.  Most recently, George W. Bush essentially made such a claim in his first term, as he led the country to the ill-devised war in Iraq that is just now finally coming to an end.

            It’s all poppy-cock of course, or, to use a more polite, but no less derogatory word, it’s demagoguery.  God doesn’t speak to anyone in the sense that these politicians would have us believe.  He, or She, if you prefer, only “speaks” by providing a believer the ability to think through an issue with the guidance of religious beliefs and teaching.  That is the extent of human dialogues with God, as anyone who is honest about the subject will readily admit. 

            And yet, politicians like Mr. Perry and Mr. Bush (and countless others of both political parties) would have the rest of us believe that they have their own direct line of communication established with the Almighty.  I’d rather vote for a self-proclaimed sinner than someone spouting that kind of nonsense.

            My vision of the utopian United States, on this point at least, would be to have candidates for political office decline to state their religious preferences or beliefs without fear of voter rejection or political attack for taking such a stance.  In fact, I’d love to live in a country where candidates for political office knew that to make mention of their own religious views would be the same kind of disqualification in the eyes of the voters that failing to claim a religion is now.

            Would the country be worse off as a result?  Only if you believe that religious faith is a pre-requisite to public service.  And, of course, if we just give that thought a moment of serious reflection, we must acknowledge that it most certainly isn’t.

            Believers and non-believers alike are fully capable of formulating good and bad policies for the country.  The most devout believers will just as likely disagree on all manner of public policy initiatives as they will agree.  Ditto the most committed non-believers.  Nothing regarding religious affiliation or spiritual belief dictates whether one is or is not suited to be a public servant, nor should it.

            So, why then, if we can all agree with this basic point, do we insist that our politicians lay claim to some specific religious faith?  Why, indeed, are we even so parochial as to insist that those politicians have a faith that is traditionally Judeo-Christian?  (It’s on this point that Mr. Romney gets in trouble, as his religion is not accepted as truly Christian by those who claim to know what “truly Christian” denotes.)

            As a non-believer (but happily willing to be convinced otherwise), I shudder in contemplation of the arrogance of those who claim to know the value of religious faith and thereby demand it in their candidates. 

            Submitted (Herman-Cain-style): For every true believer who would make a great leader, there are a thousand who would be disasters at the job.  And, to be completely fair, for every committed non-believer who would make a great leader, there are also a thousand who would muck it up royally.

            Religion is irrelevant to public service.  When we realize that fact as a nation, we’ll have finally grown up.

            “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

-John 3:16

            “Bah, humbug!”

-E. Scrooge, Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”

            The Holy Trinity is among the most bewildering of all the religious doctrines that human beings have ever conceived.  It supposes a God-head in three parts, specifically denominated the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit in most Protestant denominations). 

            The idea is that Jesus, the Son of God, was also God incarnate, conceived (literally through the womb of the Virgin Mary) by the creator God (the Father) as His gift to offer salvation for humanity.  Thus, early Christians worshipped a dualistic God, which seemed somewhat heretical in terms of Judaic teachings, which stressed monotheism over the competing polytheistic religions of the day.

            For reasons that those far more versed in the history and sanctity of the religion may be able to explain, the early Christians determined to broaden this view of God even further.  And so, in the years following the establishment of a society of Christ-worshippers (probably in the third, fourth and fifth centuries), the concept of a Holy Trinity took root.  It envisions a God that has the three forms of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, although any further definition of these forms has always been as amorphous as the very idea of God itself must inevitably be.

            Still, for Christians throughout the world (saving only those—principally the Unitarians—who reject the concept) the picture exists of a Michelangelo-type “older” God, typically with a long grey beard, sitting next to a younger Jesus at the head of a table of attending angels, archangels and other celestial types.  The Holy Ghost is rarely shown in these depictions, since it is “wholly” spiritual, and thereby, presumably, incapable of being envisioned at all.

            Ironically, the celebration of the birth of Christ has developed into a trinity of its own.  Call this one the “Unholy Trinity.”  Like the three-in-one Christian God, in which each form is but a part of the whole, never entirely separate from the other, yet distinctly recognizable (or at least definable), the celebration of Christmas has also assumed a three-in-one identity in which each form is also distinctly recognizable.

            Yet, as with the Holy Trinity, each form of Christmas tends to meld into the others, with the result that the whole is something less than the sum of its parts: unholy, as it were.  And so we have the following distinct and yet wholly joined ways that Christmas is observed in the United States:

            o Religious Christmas – The birth of Jesus is one of the great Biblical stories, complete with melodrama (no room at the inn, birth in a manger), spectacle (witnessed by shepherds who saw a great star over the site, visited by three kings who brought gifts for the new-born child) and joy (the redemption of God’s promise to the long-suffering children of Israel).

            In Religious Christmas, the words from the Gospel of John are recalled and cherished.  God’s greatest gift is recognized in the birthday of his son, but not in the sense of human birthdays, which celebrate the joys of parenthood and childhood and life.  Christ’s birth is celebrated in Religious Christmas for the hope it provides humanity for deliverance from the sins of life and for the promise of life everlasting in the company of God Himself.

            o Secular Christmas – The sense of hope that Religious Christmas provides promotes the general feeling of good will that is the hallmark of Secular Christmas. Greeting cards that speak of peace and joy and that wish all the best to friends and family are part of Secular Christmas.  “Merry Christmas,” said in greeting as a substitute for “Hello,” speaks to the sense of optimism that pervades all but the grumpiest of Scrooges.

            Secular Christmas also includes the parties and dinners that saturate the season.  The holiday, joyous and uplifting as it is, naturally promotes fellowship and conviviality, and these, in turn, suggest, indeed dictate, social occasions. 

            But note the lack of anything truly religious in these celebrations.  The frivolity of an office party, the casual bonhomie of a “Merry Christmas” and those occasionally interesting, more often mildly annoying, “here’s-our-year-in-review” Christmas letters have little to do with the essence of Religious Christmas, even though they are meant to commemorate the same event.

            o Commercial Christmas – The economic side of Christmas is nothing less than awesome, especially in a later-stage capitalist society such as exists in the U.S. today.  Gift-giving is more than a ritual (as in a ceremonious reminder of a deeper spiritualism).  It is a requirement of the season.  Gifts are expected, partly in return for those given, partly because our economy is built around them, and partly as a natural outgrowth of Secular Christmas.

            The American economy is dependent on Commercial Christmas, even though it has little to do with the birth of the babe in the manger.  Oh, retailers will claim there is a link.  The wise men, they will remind us, brought gifts to the newborn, and from that point they will stress that Christmas is for children (which is a sales pitch that few parents can ignore). 

            But in truth, Commercial Christmas is largely about many things that Religious Christmas is not: greed (retailers aren’t giving their merchandise away), selfishness (children aren’t taught “’tis better to give than to receive”) and decadence (how many toys does any child really need?)  In Commercial Christmas, Christ’s birth has been desecrated, first by being lost, and then by being forgotten.

            And yet Commercial Christmas is but a logical outgrowth of the original Christmas story.  It is no less a part of our culture now than the greeting cards that celebrate His birth, while at the same time promoting the greed-laden, corporation-controlled economic system that ignores His birth.

            A cynic might think God would be laughing at our foolish abuse of His greatest gift.  But, hey, it’s Christmas, and far be it for me to detract from the joys of the day.

            And so, with the bustle of the season now fully upon us, “Merry Christmas,” in whichever form you choose to celebrate it.