If were thinking: "wasn't it something to do with subprime loans, too much liquidity and a dysfunctional rating system?" then read on...
He starts off with
A nation whose people can't say "Merry Christmas" is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.And then offers the following explanation...
What really went missing through the subprime mortgage years were the three Rs: responsibility, restraint and remorse. They are the ballast that stabilizes two better-known Rs from the world of free markets: risk and reward.Wow. That has to be the stupidest thing I have ever read in the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, and frankly, there has been a lot of competition. Of course, now that the Journal is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, we should hardly be surprised that the opinion pages sound like Fox news.Responsibility and restraint are moral sentiments. Remorse is a product of conscience. None of these grow on trees. Each must be learned, taught, passed down. And so we come back to the disappearance of "Merry Christmas."
It has been my view that the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America has been dangerous. That danger flashed red in the fall into subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers, who after all are just people. Northerners and atheists who vilify Southern evangelicals are throwing out nurturers of useful virtue with the bathwater of obnoxious political opinions.
The point for a healthy society of commerce and politics is not that religion saves, but that it keeps most of the players inside the chalk lines. We are erasing the chalk lines.
Feel free: Banish Merry Christmas. Get ready for Mad Max.
But the tired old argument that the only reason people behave well is because they are religious has been shown time and time again to be completely wrong. For example, see this article in the Times of London.
This may be the stupidest comment you've ever read in the WSJ but it's also the stupidest comment you've ever made on your blog.
ReplyDeleteYour words: "But the tired old argument that the only reason people behave well is because they are religious has been shown time and time again to be completely wrong."
That was your biased interpretation. He said nothing of the sort. His words were "The point for a healthy society of commerce and politics is not that religion saves, but that it keeps most of the players inside the chalk lines."
In other words, religion provides a moral framework within which people tend to behave ethically. It does not guarantee ethical behavior but it encourages it. It also does not deny that atheists can be ethical.
If you continue to feel this way about southern evangelicals, I hope some day your car breaks down on a dark road in North Carolina late at night. A car stops to help you. A heavy-set man gets out and walks toward you. He looks like he might be dangerous. But he's not. He's on his way back from prayer meeting and he'll do anything he can to help you get your problem fixed. In short, your odds of getting help are far better with someone of faith than with someone without.
Thanks for the comment.
ReplyDeleteMy point was that I don't think religion has anything to do with the current mess.
The Wall Street Journal was way out of line for trying to tie religion to the current crisis. A case in point: the WSJ ignores the fact that there are plenty of banks in the south that have gone bad (but perhaps these are run by northern heathens?).
It is just my opinion that people do good or bad regardless of religion. It's a matter of not confusing correlation with causality.
In your example, I would argue that the guy who helps someone on a dark road is just a good guy, regardless whether he was coming from a prayer meeting or a night playing poker with his buddies. To suggest that he would rob me if he hadn't gotten religion seems very patronizing.