"Church Leader Rues the Price of Libertarian Philosophies"

[studiodekadent]

From The Australian

See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...5006784,00.html

"Church Leader Rues the Price of Libertarian Philosophies"

by Jill Rowbotham

REBUKING "a nation whose love affair with personal freedom has borne unpleasant fruit", the Anglican archbishop of Sydney yesterday condemned its culture as "resource-rich and relationship-poor".

Addressing the annual diocesan synod, or parliament, the Most Reverend Peter Jensen also targeted the leading political parties, which had "embraced the economic freedom which they see as essential to our prosperity".

"They do not see that economic freedom trumps the social conservatism - or better, the Biblical principles - which sustains our values," he said.

"Worse, within all parties there remain some attached to the old, failed libertarian philosophies of the past decades, which have delivered to us gambling without end, abortion without limit, alcohol without discipline, sex without love, work without shared time off, families without children, children without parenting, suburbs without community, divorce without accountability, men without women, women without men, and speech without constraint."

Dr Jensen said "the generation which embraced the libertarian choice of personal freedom in preference to lasting relationships" had forgotten "that human beings may declare themselves to be free, but that we cannot declare ourselves to be good".

"We see a nation which has manifestly failed its indigenous people in recent decades through a sort of libertarian paternalism," he said.

"We may be grateful for recent government action on abuses, but what are the human values which will enable us to think of the long-term future?

"Supremely, our national problems are spiritual. Supremely, our nation needs the message of God's word."

The archbishop conceded the Sydney church's "mission" to convert 10 per cent of the population in the decade from 2002 had made "no general breakthrough yet".

He said 5000 adult members had been added to the church since 2002, the clergy had increased by 18 per cent and donations at the plate had risen from about $38million to $56million - all causes for rejoicing.

But he said the "easier things" had been done. Now it was time to use his new plan, Connect 09, to put the Bible in every Sydney household in 2009.

He said the Catholic church's World Youth Day next year would "raise the level of awareness of Jesus in the community and increase a sense of interest in him. We must be prepared to build on that."

Part of the problem, he said, was dated buildings, some "merely museums to a lost form of religion", and what was required was a place that felt like home: "If that requires a drum kit in the corner and power cords all over the floor, so be it."

MY REBUTTAL/RANT TO THE ABOVE

"The Horror File Resurrected"

by Andrew Russell

The Philosopher Ayn Rand once had a folder filled with newspaper clippings that utterly appalled her, entitled "The Horror File." I recently encountered a newspaper article that fits right into that file. Jill Rowbotham's article in The Australian, entitled "Church Leader Rues the Price of Libertarian Philosophies" conveys the views of the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, the Most Reverend Peter Jensen. These views are, for lack of a better word, utterly appalling.

Its strange that Jensen has actually taken a stand on something, since the Anglican Church has never been an ideologically consistent Church . They claim to be both Catholic and Protestant. They claim to be open to both faith and reason. They claim to be a comprehensive worldview yet open to the spiritual journeys of individuals. They claim to be sensible yet are the embodiment of the logical fallacy of "via media" (i.e. moderation in everything is good). But then again one can hardly consider a faith whose origin was in the need for a King's divorce to be sincere. Regardless, Jensen has taken a stand, and this stand is so wonderfully clear that it allows me to declare that Jensen (I cannot say that the entire Anglican Communion shares his views because it is decentralized) is an enemy of liberty. Not only that but, unsurprisingly, he is a misanthrope, a hater of modernity, a raving mystic and hence I cannot refrain from pronouncing the proper judgement. Peter Jensen is, by any rational standard, either supremely idiotic or blackly evil.

Jensen describes Australia as having a "love affair with personal freedom," obviously implying that to him personal freedom is a bad thing. The goes on to moan that Australia's problems are "spiritual" and other massively irrational points. Allow me to explain. For one, he condemns how both major parties have allegedly "embraced the economic freedom which they see as essential to our prosperity." For one, both major parties advocate a mixed economy, although yes both have conceded that freedom (i.e. capitalism) is the ultimate source of wealth. However it is a stretch to say they have "embraced" capitalism overall. What is more disturbing is the implication that Jensen does not see that economic freedom is essential to our prosperity! Anyone with even slight familiarity with economics knows that it is overwhelmingly the conclusion of economic science that markets are essential for prosperity (even academics have settled on a "mostly-market" economy). The only alternative to economic freedom is socialism, and its an empirical fact that socialism fails miserably, cannot be as efficient as capitalism, cannot fix this by replicating market prices, and ends in mass murder. It is an empirical fact that markets work, that even the poorest under a market system is better off in absolute terms, that they unleash human creative potential and that they cannot be matched. I find it hard to believe that Jensen made this mistake innocently.

What Jensen does get right about capitalism is that "economic freedom trumps social conservatism." Capitalism, in the classical liberal sense of the term (i.e. our usage), is the most dynamic system ever seen. It renders many traditions useless. And what traditions does Jensen want to defend from Capitalism? "The biblical principles- which sustains our values." It is correct that biblical principles are incompatible with Capitalism. Regardless of the conservatives, and those unfortunately apologistic members of the libertarian community who insist otherwise, Capitalism is premised on "there is nothing inherently wrong with self-interest." The bible on the other hand pours scorn over self-interest, saying it is improper to live ones life for oneself (ultimately), and that humans exist to serve God. The bible declares self-interest inherently evil. The bible declares one's moral duty is to others, that men must "love one another" as Christ loved all men (allegedly, this implies we must love unconditionally, universally and unceasingly, i.e we must devalue love by giving it to everyone). In other words, the self can only be a means to the service of god and the service of others. In Jensen's world, individuals are slaves.

What is the list of sins that Jensen ascribes to libertarian philosophies? "Gambling without end" (as if Gambling, in and of itself, is evil (if Jensen intended the "without end" to mean "beyond a certain point" then he should have specified that point)), "abortion without limit" (what limit? blank out. If Jensen is pro-life, he is in favor of the life of the fetus, over the life of the mother), "alcohol without discipline" (umm, didnt he ever read the parts in libertarian philosophy about individual responsibility? They are there too, if he cared to look), "sex without love" (from someone who considers "love without sex" to be a beautiful, pure emotion of the spirit, detatched from the physical, I wouldnt take any moral advice), "families without children" (so women have a duty to breed? for whose sake? blank out), "divorce without accountability" (you mean like Henry the Eighth?), "men without women" and "women without men" (so being in a heterosexual couple is a duty? Blank out the evidence in favor of a significant biological component in sexuality) and "speech without constraint" (there goes a fundamental right of the human being, a vital engine of encouraging debate and discussion and reason, and the values of the enlightenment). If this is not bad enough, Jensen accuses the "homelands" policy on indigenous Australians (which is a product of postmodernist collectivism rather than libertarianism and has been condemned by libertarians for decades, see for example Helen Hughes of the CIS) as being "libertarian paternalism," which as a concept is a bleedingly obvious contradiction in terms.

Additionally, of "the generation which embraced libertarian choice of personal freedom in preference to lasting relationships" (oh, so we cannot as individuals choose to engage in lasting relationships?), he declares they are guilty of forgetting that "human beings may declare themselves to be free, but that we cannot declare ourselves to be good." Of course we cannot, in Jensen's worldview, because according to Jensen (and all consistent Christians), all humanity is morally evil, owing to that black stain on our souls called "Original Sin," which says we are guilty of a crime committed by an alleged ancestor called "Adam," who despite at the time of committing said crime, did not have any knowlege of good and evil (said knowlege was only acquired after Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowlege of good and evil). In other words, we are guilty of something we did not do, this moral status is genetically inherited, and the original perpetrator of said crime against God had no mens rea in the first place! In Christian theology, all of humanity is put on trial for a crime, a trial in which we are in advance declared guilty, and a trial that violates every basic tenet of Anglo-Australian-American Jurisprudence! Ayn Rand was in no way overstating it when she branded Original Sin a "slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms."

Finally, Jensen's denunciation of Australia as "relationship poor" owing to its libertarianism is nothing less than a restatement of the Marxist thesis that the economic base determines society, and the Clive-Hamiltonian thesis that economic growth takes us away from "the true sources of joy" (obstensibly 'enriching social bonds'). There is nothing new, and nothing that hasn't been rebutted, about this argument. Economic progress, such as labor-saving devices, free up time to spend with friends and family, not the other way around. In simpler times, the mere struggle to survive was backbreaking and exhausting. There was no free time at all. Jensen must be utterly delusional about social history.

I can only conclude this by calling on all libertarians, not just those of my philosophical persuasion (Objectivist) but all who stand for the enlightenment values of life, liberty, property, individual happiness on this earth, reason, and free and open debate in the marketplace of ideas (in other words, Enlightenment Modernists) to intellectually and (if neccesary) morally repudiate Jensen's premodern antienlightenment misanthropy with full force. Although it is very difficult to declare Jensen intellectually dishonest a priori, his position as expressed certainly places upon him a heavy burden to prove his own intellectual honesty. If he cannot prove it, then he must be recognized as the evader he is and fully morally denounced by all who cherish the political and philosophical heritage of the enlightenment. Peter Jensen's "biblical principles" are truly toxic, anathema to all we hold dear, and the moral cannibalism they represent cannot be bargained with.

Edited September 19, 2007 by studiodekadent