Horrors

Last updated on: February 22, 2012 at 5:00 pm By Peter Leithart

In his The Poetics of Evil: Toward an Aesthetic Theodicy , Philip Tallon examines Marilyn McCord Adams’s use of “horrendous evils” as a starting point for theodicy. Tallon writes, “One key advantage of horrors is that their unrelentingly negative vision drives us to look beyond them for some larger framework wherein they can find resolution. Whereas tragedy aims to offer some solution to the problem of evil within the realm of the immanent, horror demands eschatological resolution,” and this forces... Read more

Wage Slaves

Last updated on: February 22, 2012 at 3:13 pm By Peter Leithart

The most controversial portion of the Graeber article mentioned in a previous post is his claim that there are structural similarities between slavery and modern capitalism. He enumerates several: “Both rely on a separation of the place of social (re)production of the labor force, and the place where that labor-power is realized in production– in the case of slavery, this is effected by transporting laborers bought or stolen from one society into another one; in capitalism, by separating the domestic... Read more

Modes of production

Last updated on: February 22, 2012 at 3:02 pm By Peter Leithart

A reader pointed me to a fascinating article by David Graeber in a 2006 issue of Critique of Anthropology (available on the web). He examines the “naturalization” of capitalism that has developed even within Marxist theory, partly under the pressure from world-system analysis. Capitalism is seen by many not as a contingent organization of production and distribution but as the secret reality of economic life from time immemorial. Graeber notes, “Wallerstein argued that almost all our familiar categories of analysis... Read more

Humanist Marx

Last updated on: February 22, 2012 at 2:39 pm By Peter Leithart

Marx has many dimensions, but the humanist one is not typically noted. In his ethnographic notebooks, he writes this about ancient conceptions of wealth: “Among the ancients we discover no single inquiry as to which form of landed property etc. is the most productive, which creates maximum wealth. Wealth does not appear as the aim of production, although Cato may well investigate the most profitable cultivation of fields, or Brutus may even lend money at the most favorable rate of... Read more

Open wide

Last updated on: February 21, 2012 at 10:17 am By Peter Leithart

“Open your mouth wide and I will fill it,” the Lord promises (Psalm 81:10). I had always taken that as a reference to food. But it comes just after this: “I, Yahweh, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt,” a clear allusion to the opening of the Ten Word (Exodus 20:1). The Psalmist might still want us to open our mouths for food, but the immediate idea is that we open our mouths to be... Read more

Israel from Adam to Eve

Last updated on: February 21, 2012 at 6:13 am By Peter Leithart

In her Jacob’s Tears: The Priestly Work of Reconciliation , Mary Douglas summarizes her argument (from In the Wilderness: The Doctrine of Defilement in the Book of Numbers (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series, 158) ) that the book of Numbers is a ring construction and has to be read not sequentially but in terms of the parallels of different sections: “The book is highly structured and has to be read strictly according to its literary... Read more

Jesus’ temple action

Last updated on: February 21, 2012 at 5:33 am By Peter Leithart

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is the royal “son of God” (1:1), the stronger man who enters into combat with the “strong man” in order to plunder his house (3:20-35). Thus Jesus “casts out” ( ekballo ; cf. 1:34, 39, 43; 3:15, 22, 23; 6:13; 7:26) demons from the outset of His ministry, tossing them out of the house of Israel. Significantly, Mark identifies the spirits as “unclean.” “Unclean spirit” occurs only once in the Old Testament (Zechariah 13:2) and only... Read more

Consumption

Last updated on: February 20, 2012 at 3:43 pm By Peter Leithart

Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood wrote The World of Goods out of exasperation with the limited view of consumption that has dominated discussions, the “tendency to suppose that people buy goods for two or three restricted purposes: material welfare, psychic welfare, and display. The first two are needs of the individual person: the need to be fed, clothed, and sheltered, and for peace of mind and recreation. The last is a blanket term that covers all the demands of society.... Read more

Mauss and Smith

Last updated on: February 20, 2012 at 3:29 pm By Peter Leithart

In an essay on Mauss’ The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies in Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory , Mary Douglas makes an intriguing comparison between Mauss and Adam Smith: Mauss “discovered a mechanism by which individual interests combine to make a social system, without engaging in market exchange. This is an enormous development beyond Durkheim’s ideas of solidarity based on collective representations. The gift cycle echoes Adam Smith’s invisible hand: gift complements market... Read more

Tree of life

Last updated on: February 20, 2012 at 12:26 pm By Peter Leithart

In a March 2011 NYT review of Tree of Life , AO Scott explains one of the achievements of this great movie: “There are very few films I can think of that convey the changing interior weather of a child’s mind with such fidelity and sensitivity. Nor are there many that penetrate so deeply into the currents of feeling that bind and separate the members of a family. So much is conveyed — about the tension and tenderness within the... Read more