January 5, 2004
TIME'S ARROW:
Gaining ground: Why do some cultures produce much more human achievement than others produce? An agnostic and libertarian scholar set out to answer that question—and found that Christianity underlies much of history's creative greatness. For Charles Murray, it isn't the first time that research has guided him to a controversial destination (Susan Olasky, 1/10/04, World)
The Murray thesis that Christianity underlies much of human accomplishment instead of stifling it is about as politically incorrect as anything is these days.But there's more: Mr. Murray says it is harder for an agnostic or an atheist than a Christian to find purpose, because "devotion to a human cause, whether social justice, the environment, the search for truth, or an abstract humanism, is by its nature less compelling than devotion to God. Here, Christianity has its most potent advantage. The incentives of forgiveness of sin and eternal life are just about as powerful as incentives get. The nonbeliever has to make do with comparatively tepid alternatives." Sounds like Mr. Murray is a Christian, yes? No. He calls himself an agnostic, even though he agrees that if there is not a grand purpose knit into creation by God, all the other things to which we devote our lives are just ways of passing time and trying to find significance. [...]
WORLD: In the 1988 article "What's So Bad About Being Poor?" you conduct a 'thought experiment' about raising your children in an impoverished Thai village. You note that you would like the local priest to teach your children Buddhism. But in your most recent book, Human Accomplishment, you note that Buddhism is weak in giving people a purpose because it teaches nonattachment and that it contributes to the cultural decline of the last century. Have your ideas about the benefits of Buddhist training changed?
CM: Not at all. Buddhism's virtues include creating a wonderful social milieu, which is what I loved about Thailand. If you want to find authentic kindness and generosity widely practiced, you cannot do better than to live in a devoutly Buddhist culture. The point I made in Human Accomplishment is that Buddhism is not good for generating a single-minded, intense focus on achieving great things in this life, and that gets in the way of scientific and artistic accomplishment.
As Thomas Cahill says, this is one of the Gifts of the Jews, the notion that life is a progress, a journey towards something, rather than static or circular as the Eastern religions had believed. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 5, 2004 4:07 PM
OJ -
I'll give credit where it is due: I never would have read Gifts of the Jews without your recommendation. It was a very good read.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at January 5, 2004 4:45 PMI haven't read it; I hope it was more accurate than his ridiculous book about the Irish.
I used to buy Christmas cards from him. I wish he'd stuck to what he knew.
As for innovation, I recommend reading Singer's Oxford History of Technology. After you've done that, get back to me about who innovated the most.
(Hint: not Christians)
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 5, 2004 8:21 PMI don't think enough credit is given to Gutenberg having the good judgment to (re)invent the printing press in a locale where writing was alphabetic rather than pictographic.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 5, 2004 8:35 PMI can understand how Christianity may have been necessary for the achievements made by the founding fathers and those who followed (as well as in other Western nations, even if not in the same was as the US). But I can't for the life of me see how anyone can claim that Christianity was a sufficient condition.
Certainly, it was the combination of skepticism, enlightment and belief in (the Christian?) God---as well as British political evolution and thought---that resulted in that unique and amazing convergence, on American soil, of the group of socio-political nonpareils we call the founding fathers; and which led to the founding of a great country, which recognized the goodness of the Almighty but also the abuses that can be done in God's name when formal religion mixes with politics.
While I understand the polemical motivation, to declare that the achievement was solely the result of Christianity cannot be substantiated.
Why isn't it enough to say that Christianity was necessary while acknowledging that it was insufficient? Isn't it, at the very least, closer to the truth?
Posted by: Barry Meislin at January 6, 2004 2:12 AMIt wasn't solely responsible but is sufficient and is necessary in a way that the other influences were not.
Posted by: oj at January 6, 2004 7:52 AMYou are predictably kneejerk on this topic, Harry.
Posted by: jefferson park at January 6, 2004 11:05 AMWhat Barry said.
Well, try reading Singer, Jefferson. It we take innovation to mean the physical conditions of life, almost all of what we use either predated Christianity or dates after 1600, when the prime motivator of innovation was not Christianity but skepticism.
The period of Christianity's greatest ascendancy was also the period of the least innovation, whether taken to mean in the daily mode of life or in philosophy, broadly construed.
In fact, it is easy to show that Christianity impeded innovation by, among other things, murdering or otherwise silencing the innovators.
If we are talking about political innovation, and if we consider the American experiment the ne plus ultra, then the Founders drew as much from Classical paganism and from modern rationalism as they did from Christianity.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 6, 2004 2:52 PM