Fareed Zakaria has a fascinating take on trends in American innovation:
American culture is open and innovative. But it was powerfully shaped and enhanced by a series of government policies. Silicon Valley did not arise in a vacuum. It grew in the 1950s in a state that had created the world’s best public-education system (from kindergarten through Ph.D. programs), a superb infrastructure, and a business-friendly environment that attracted defense and engineering industries. Today California builds prisons, but not college campuses. In 1976 it spent 18 percent of its budget on education; that figure now is about 10 percent. The state is permanently bankrupt, saved only by massive, continual borrowing. Are these the foundations for future scientific achievement?
At the heart of the argument is the understanding that innovation and economic growth are driven by the development and application of knowledge. Zakaria just takes this assumption for granted in his article, but it is a profound point. Education, open migration, and state-supported research are the best foundation for a dynamic economy and society. There is an increasing volume of work pointing to the importance of higher education in Africa for these reasons, but the same truths apply at home.
Maybe, maybe not. Reihan Salaam argues that it depends on China’s openness to immigration:
As China emerges as an economic and cultural superpower… notions of Third World solidarity, always skin deep, seem to have vanished. It is thus hard to imagine China welcoming millions of hard-working Nigerians and Bangladeshis with open arms. This could change over the next couple of decades as China’s labor shortage grows acute. I wouldn’t bet on it.
If China remains culturally closed, the Chinese Century will never come to pass. Instead, the United States–a country that has struggled with race and racism for centuries, and in the process has become more culturally open and resilient–will dominate this century as it did the last.
This gave me a good chuckle. Because it’s so true…
(Just returned from a wonderful brief trip to Oxford, where Lita went through her fully fanfared degree ceremony in the Sheldonian. Check the photos on Facebook.)
E-mail in particular and online writing in general have their well-known flaws and limitations, but they have also served as cleansing agents for prose, much as journalistic writing did early in the 20th century. That is, while they may disinhibit inappropriate declarations, they also inhibit dull, abstract wordiness.
Ross Douthat can always be counted on to provide an insightful and thoroughly Catholic insight into vexing moral and religious issues. His review of Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God is no different. After lauding Armstrong’s book for most of the review, he ends with putting finger on the weakness of what he calls ‘liberal religion’:
Liberal religion tends to be parasitic on more dogmatic forms of faith, which create and sustain the practices that the liberal believer picks and chooses from, reads symbolically and reinterprets for a more enlightened age. Such spiritual dilettant ism has its charms, but it lacks the sturdy appeal of Western monotheism, which has always offered not only myth and ritual and symbolism (the pagans had those bases covered), but also scandalously literal claims — that the Jews really are God’s chosen people; that Christ really did rise from the dead; and that however much the author of the universe may surpass our understanding, we can live in hope that he loves the world enough to save it, and us, from the annihilating power of death.
Such literalism can be taken too far, and “The Case for God” argues, convincingly, that it needs to coexist with more mythic, mystic and philosophical forms of faith. Most people, though, are not mystics and philosophers, and they are hungry for myths that are not only resonant but true. Apophatic religion may be the most rigorous way to go in search of an elusive God. But for most believers, it will remain a poor substitute for the idea that God has come in search of us.
I am not unsympathetic to Douthat’s take. Armstrong’s analysis often seems spot on, but her conclusions are consistently unsatisfactory. She is known for arguing for a theology of compassion, which seems sensible to me but woefully insufficient in addressing humanity’s spiritual thirst. She praises the good found in all religions, but fails to commit her heart to any at all.
I find myself agreeing with Douthat’s characterization of liberal religion as ‘parasitic’ on its ancient forms, but his nostalgia for old-fashioned dogma strikes me as the wrong place to look for ‘true religion’. True religion may show itself in forms of ritual and symbol, but its essence is the tremendous unifying power it brings to society. I think that the ’sturdy appeal of Western monotheism’ is more than outward forms, it is the belief that divine revelation can guide us to a path of shared redemption.
3% of the world’s population are international migrants, and all signs point to a half-century of greater mobility. Check out this videographic from the Economist, which illustrates current patterns of movement.
The data is from the UN Human Development Report 2009, which frames migration as an expression of freedom that conduces to development. It’s well worth reading, at least in part.
…That’s the question asked by Lisa Miller of Newsweek, as she is watching a video documentary of debates between literary critic (and vocal atheist) Christopher Hitchens and Idaho paster Douglas Wilson.
There are other voices out there, and other, possibly more productive ways to frame a conversation about the benefits and potential dangers of religious faith. In 2003 the historian and poet Jennifer Hecht wrote Doubt: A History, an exhaustive survey of atheism… Hecht is as much of an atheist as Hitchens and Harris, she says, but she approaches questions about the usefulness of religion with an appreciation of what she calls “paradox and mystery and cosmic crunch.” “The more I learn, the more complicated things get, the more sympathy I have with religion,” she told me one recent morning by phone. …
We need urgently to talk about these things: ethics, progress, education, science, democracy, tolerance, and justice—and to understand the reasons why religion can (but does not always) hamper their flourishing. This new conversation won’t be sexy, but let’s face it: neither is two white men in a pub sparring over God.
A recent study by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago finds that global patterns of religious change are not easy to explain:
“With more modernization in general and with more education in particular, religious beliefs and behaviors across countries do tend to decline,” the report states, and then promptly warns that these correlations are “moderate” and “many are not statistically significant.” Conclusion? “The relationship is neither overwhelming nor uniform across countries.”
Modernization is, of course, linked to scientific knowledge and progress.
…But the report also points out that “the difference between them and those in nonscientific occupations is not especially large,” and in fact most of them remain religious, with large proportions believing in God, identifying with a religion, praying and attending services.
“In sum,” the report says, “the proposition that science leads people in general and scientists in particular away from religion is only weakly supported by the available evidence.”
What makes larger populations more susceptible to religious change? There are clearly social factors that incline people towards or away from religion. I think this is a fascinating area of research that continues to elude the tools of talented researchers.
My preferred (untested) theory is that there are temporal windows in history when younger generations are inclined to wholly abandoning tradition, without knowing what alternatives they want to embrace. The result, I think, is often a religious ferment. A threshold of conservatism is breached and people seek out alternative beliefs and patterns of community. To the extent that these ‘openings’ produce meaningful and sustainable alternatives, they may produce more widespread social transformation. But more often than not they are simply stillborn, and the past is partly reincarnated. And the cycle repeats with incremental changes.
In general, I’m in favour of religious leaders speaking truth to power, but I wonder how we are supposed to take this statement from African bishops:
“Many Catholics in high office have fallen woefully short in their performance in office,” the bishops wrote in an unusually direct document wrapping up a month-long synod, or meeting, at the Vatican on the issues facing the church in Africa. “The synod calls on such people to repent, or quit the public arena and stop causing havoc to the people and giving the Catholic Church a bad name.”
I mean, why just Catholic leaders? The consequences of tyranny are far more serious than just dragging the name of the Church in the mud; no one really thinks any less of the Church because Mugabe is (apparently) a Catholic.
