Few theologians have been more radically orthodox in mining Catholic tradition to explain the 'death of God' in modern societies than Dr. William T. Cavanaugh. We spoke to him recently about the Eucharist, politics, consumerism, war, and how Catholics can repair the rift between faith and life.
By John Romanowsky
When we talk about our “free-market culture”, we’re assuming a certain understanding of freedom. What kind of freedom is presumed and promoted in our free-market culture and where is it leading us?
The classic philosophical distinction between positive and negative freedom is that negative freedom is freedom from interference and positive freedom is the ability to do something. The kind of freedom you get in the so-called free market is not the freedom to flourish as human beings—it’s negative, an absence of restrictions. This by itself isn’t necessarily helpful.
In the free market, where nothing is considered objectively good, no goods that everyone necessarily ought to desire, then everybody is free to choose anything. Some choose poetry and others pornography. Everybody’s free to choose whatever they want. In this kind of culture, all movement towards goods is arbitrary—and so, in the absence of a common good, all you have in the end is power.
Is this your main criticism of Walt Disney, that since companies like this have so much marketing power there’s not much real choice left in the market?
Yes, that’s exactly right. Disney is just an example I’ve used of a hugely powerful company. Whatever movies and merchandise they put out is what every kid in school is watching and has to have.
I’m trying to understand this phenomenon: If we live in such a free-market economy, how do we end up with such homogenization? How is it that in this incredibly free market you can drive three thousand miles from one end of the country to the other and the whole way you meet people listening to the same songs, wearing the same clothes, watching the same movies and TV shows, talking the same way, getting news from the same sources, and staying at the same hotels? Where does that come from?
You’ve said that CEOs of large corporations sometimes despair because they’re being manipulated by the all-powerful market forces. Is it even possible for the individual Christian consumer not to go with the flow?
Yes, I think it’s possible. CEOs are being honest when they say that they’re often squeezed by the consumer. Sure, corporations will try to manipulate consumers to get their interests to coincide with the corporation’s interests, but still the consumers drive corporate decisions.
We like to blame Wal-Mart, but we’re responsible for Wal-Mart. We shop there because we accept low, low wages for others so we can get low, low prices for ourselves. The consumer is in the driver’s seat, despite the manipulation. And it’s possible to resist. Most of us don’t have to shop at Wal-Mart. You can buy fair trade and voluntarily pay more for a product that you know is going to provide a decent living for other people. It’s difficult because some people feel compelled to shop at Wal-Mart—their own wages are low—but for many of us that’s not the case. We’re able to make other choices.
What sorts of choices have you made in your own life that reflect your critique?
We’re not perfect, but my wife and I really try to do something as a family. There are a lot of opportunities here in the Twin Cities. We belong to a co-op and also own a share of a community supported farm. There’s another farm co-op of family farms that markets through our church where we buy things like eggs and cheese each month. We buy fair trade and try to reduce consumption as much as possible. I bicycle to work, we only have one car, and we’ve insulated the house. We don’t watch much TV, don’t have cable, no internet at home, you know, that sort of thing. And we always try to buy local, even though there are many times when you can’t. Finding a pair of shoes that aren’t made in China or Thailand takes a lot of effort. But we try to do these things as part of our spiritual life. It’s part of our spiritual practice to make these concrete, everyday sacramental choices.
I don't know if I believe CEOs feel despair or pressure because of consumers.
But when we’re talking about the common good in general, who’s responsible? Isn’t this the role of the state?The question of size.
There are many reasons to resist the idea that the nation state is solely responsible for the common good. Alisdair MacIntyre has some interesting arguments on this. He says that the nation state is simply too big to be a real community discerning the common good.
This brings me back to Dorothy Day. She believed we were all responsible for the common good. We’re responsible for each other, for our neighbors. Personalism was a key theme for John Paul II. For Dorothy Day personalism meant that if somebody was hungry, you didn’t send a letter to your congressman—you fed them. For me, this is the biblical vision of the common good: we’re responsible for each other. The only way you can discern what’s truly good for each other is to meet each other face to face. That’s the only way to promote the common good.
You’ve written that the nation state has become a “parody of the Church” and that we should treat it like the “phone company.” How far do you think the state has overreached itself in this country?
The phone company quote comes from MacIntyre. He says that the nation state is a dangerous and unwieldy organization that presents itself on the one hand as a bureaucratic provider of goods and services which is always about to, but never actually provides, value for money, and on the other hand, as a repository of sacred values which from time to time asks us to lay down our lives on its behalf. He says it’s like being asked to die for the telephone company. I think that really characterizes it very well.
On the one hand, you have this enormous bureaucratic organization which is growing constantly despite all the talk about small government. Even under Reagan and the current president the state continues to grow. People foresaw this as early as the 19th century. When there’s no organic community and your society is a mass of individuals, each with their own goals, goods, and ends, you need a bigger and bigger state to keep them all from interfering with each other.
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