The Faith of a Polymath and other matters

Sir: Just as Paul Monk read Roberto Mangabeira Unger’s The Religion of the Future word for word, so did I read Mr Monk’s analysis of the book (December 2015) word for word—twice; and, at the end of even the second reading, I was no wiser and no better informed.

Mr Monk tells us that Unger is a polymath, which means, I suppose, that he is terribly clever; so clever, in fact, that his book is, surely, one exclusively for the new Gnostics. If one so versed as Mr Monk in critical thinking skills struggled with the opacity of the gospel according to Unger, what hope have the rest of us?

The only comfort we can derive from the intellectual disparity is to be found in Matthew 11:25, where Jesus praised the Father for revealing things to “little ones” and hiding them from the “wise and prudent”. Perhaps it takes a polymath to come up with the idea of a religion in which there is no god and no life beyond the grave, but for us “little ones” religion is only a means to an end. If there is no prescribed destination, why make the journey? I have trouble picturing a triangle bounded by no intersecting lines, but I accept that a polymath might take it in his stride.

Polymaths, by definition, occupy Olympian intellectual peaks and it may be that Unger’s view from this lofty eminence was obscured by cloud and he failed to notice that the Western world is awash with new religions. We have Consumerism, Hedonism, Secular Humanism and the one presently enjoying an enlightenment which has its roots in a schism in the scientific disciplines, Climate Science. I am sure there are others.

Perhaps these don’t satisfy the rigorous standards one would expect to find in a religion designed by a polymath, so Unger has had to write a theology of his own but has hidden its truths from all and sundry, from Mr Monk right down to me.

I fell at the first hurdle when I could not find why Unger thought we needed a new religion. It seems that the only thing wrong with the “old” religions is that they are, well, old. Unger’s treatment of the “Semitic religions”, whatever it might say about his understanding of Judaism and Islam, betrays a lack of understanding of Christianity which he sees as “struggling with the world” and, according to Mr Monk’s analysis, “seeking to console humanity for the flaws in its condition and redeem it in the name of a higher order of things”. Well, I have been a Christian for a great many years, and that’s news to me. I recommend Mr Unger have a look at Aquinas. He might be surprised—that is, if a polymath is capable of being surprised by anything.

I leave Mr Unger with a parable relating to Louis Pasteur, who declared that he had the Faith of a Breton peasant and that his prayer was to advance to the Faith of the Breton peasant’s wife.

Frank Pulsford
Aspley, Qld

Economics and Morality

Sir: In discussing the Pope’s “more spiritual approach to economics”, Peter Smith (December 2015) observes that the “free market is not of human ingenuity and design. It simply evolved.” Perhaps so, but it has embedded in it a set of values, which manifest themselves in the market’s operations. Many of them are deleterious, as shown, for example, by the actions of the agents who supplied and provisioned many of the ships involved in convict transportation to Australia. Moreover, there has emerged an impressive body of economic theory which explains the free market, justifies and in many instances advocates it as a desideratum, to be interfered with as little as possible. But there are values embedded in and assumptions underlying that theory too. Even where there is an awareness of these assumptions they are often ignored in policies intended to foster the market, to increase competition and so on. That is a main reason why examples of market failure and its adverse consequences abound. This is notwithstanding the fact that empirical studies by behavioural economists and others are increasingly exposing these assumptions and values and demonstrating just how far they are removed from reality and from the way people and institutions actually behave.

The Pope might have made his points better by more clearly identifying these underlying values and assumptions, rather than multiplying instances of their malevolent operation, because many of them are at odds with Christian values and spirituality, and for that matter with other value systems. The Pope clearly names two: materialism and consumerism. Economics tries to excuse itself by claiming, as Smith notes, that it is “not a spiritual discipline”. But it is. When those values and others are embedded in it and when in many instances they are advanced as desirable it is necessarily a spiritual system, and its spiritual values are legitimate objects of analysis and criticism. An “economic” choice between more of this (armaments, say) and less of that (health care) is also a moral choice, in addition to whatever else it may be.

Frank recognition of the underlying values and assumptions and an examination of their consequences is an essential first step to deciding what to do next. The Pope has at least furthered that process. One need not warm to the Pope’s suggestion of a supra-national authority, any more than to the notion of highly centralised planning, to acknowledge the need for his investigative surgery on the bowels of the free market and its justifications, for in its present condition it is surely not in good health. Unlike Smith, a number of the Pope’s critics seem unwilling to engage the real issue; they recite the usual shibboleths and carry on as before.

Greg McCarry
Epping, NSW

So Much for Black Lives

Sir: I refer to your Chronicle in the November 2015 edition in which you refer to an article by Jim Geraghty in National Review Online. In a quote from that article appears the line, “all lives don’t matter: black lives do”. It would appear from the abortion rates amongst black women which, according to Susan Cohen of the Guttmacher Institute, are higher than those of all other racial/ethnic groups in America, and five times higher than those of white women, that black lives don’t really matter. The irony of this is that the first black president of the United States is an enthusiastic supporter/promoter of abortion.

Chris Rule
Gilmore, ACT

What is Art?

Sir: I refer to a letter from William Etheridge (January-February 2016) in which he contends that the answer which Robin Norling gives to the question “What is art?” in his article “The Life of an Artist” (November 2015) is too narrow. He also disagrees with Arthur C. Danto’s definition of art being whatever the art world decides.

Robin Norling defines art as a “contract” between artist and viewer that exists when “any object made to be viewed aesthetically, [is] viewed aesthetically”.

Mr Etheridge has provided a wider definition of his own, enumerating a range of human factors and aesthetic responses that may be involved in the process of art appreciation. His definition, with respect, is not prescriptive of what art is, but of what effect art may evoke in a viewer’s response to it.

But it is futile, I suggest, to even ask “What is art?” or to attempt to provide a general definition, even though every dictionary does so in terms of art’s creative intention rather than of its appreciative response; for each of us perceives objets d’art in a different and personal way. One may just as easily find artistic merit in something which was not produced as art as one may regard the Mona Lisa as a dreary old picture. Art is simply what you make of it, rather than what it is or intended to be.

One person likes a painting because it’s the right size with a nice frame to hang over the mantelpiece. Another likes the top of a cigar box because it has been painted on by Arthur Streeton. But what determines art to be art has more to do with the judgment of those who are in a position to influence others, which then leads to the work’s popularity, monetary worth and ultimate acceptance as art, notwithstanding that many trend-setters in art have been exposed by their own vulnerable judgments (for example, the hoax paintings of Pierre Brassau, a chimpanzee so named, whose work was exhibited in Sweden in 1964 and won almost unanimous praise from the critics).

Why then should we rely upon anyone else’s judgment when Van Gogh sold only one painting of the 900 or so he painted; when Manet’s famous Olympia met with derision by art critics; when his Dejeuner sur l’Herbe caused a riot in the streets of Paris; and when Maurice Utrillo tried to sell his paintings outside the Galerie Druet after it had rejected them, at just the moment when another art critic was passing, saw them, liked them, and the rest, as they say, is art history?

There is much pretentious rubbish being portrayed as art nowadays. But who am I to judge for others? Let me illustrate my point: I am presently wearing a necktie. It is plain blue. It is artistic in design but I would not call it art. Yet if I were to attach it upside down to a piece of board, call it Tie Up Blue and exhibit it, someone would surely regard it as legitimate and saleable art. And it might well be. That’s what makes art art.

John de Meyrick
St Ives, NSW

An Open Letter to Mona Shindy

SIR: This is an open letter to Captain Mona Shindy, a Muslim lady who has been promoted to the rank of captain in the Royal Australian Navy, and who is apparently adviser to the Chief of the Navy on Muslim affairs.

Dear Captain Shindy,

I would, as a taxpayer and citizen, be much obliged if you would answer the following questions. All except Questions 14a and 15 may be answered by a simple “Yes” or “No”.

1) Do you believe the Koran is the complete and unalterable word of Allah as revealed to his messenger Mohammad?

2) Do you believe in sharia law, including punishments such as amputation for theft?

3) Do you believe women taken prisoners of war by Muslims may be used as sex-slaves, or other slaves?

4) Do you believe a woman’s evidence in court is worth half as much as a man’s?

5) Do you believe apostates from Islam should be put to death?

6) Do you believe homosexuals should be put to death?

7) Do you believe it is permissible for a Muslim to lie to unbelievers?

8) Do you believe a Muslim man can validly divorce his wife by saying “I divorce thee” three times?

9) Do you believe Jews and Christians should pay the dhimmi tax and other disabilities?

10) Do you agree with those Muslim states which make it a capital offence to sell land to a Jew?

11) Do you support Israel’s right to exist behind secure boundaries?

12) Do you believe it should be permissible for Jews and Christians to build places of worship in Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia?

13) Do you believe Jews should be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem?

14) Do you believe the location of the Australian embassy to Israel should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?

14a) If not, why not?

15) In your address to the Royal United Services Institute of New South Wales on March 31, 2015, you stated inter alia: “Another example of double standards is the world’s reluctance or inability to enforce the 1948 United Nations resolution regarding the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine, but its willingness to take prompt and decisive action against other nations such as Iraq, even in the absence of a United Nations mandate.” What exactly do you mean by this and which 1948 resolution do you refer to?

15a) Is this statement consistent with the rule that serving officers should not comment on political subjects?

16) Do you agree that Israel was the victim of aggressive war by Arab states in 1948, 1967 and 1973?

17) Do you agree that Israel has been the victim of innumerable rocket attacks and other acts of terrorism?

18) Is your paramount loyalty to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of Australia, and her lawful representatives?

I await your reply with interest.

Hal G.P. Colebatch
Nedlands, WA