The global capitalist=consumerist economy has an entire
faith system, which has its own hierarchy, its own institutions, its own marble
palaces. It has its own mythology, doctrine of the creation, doctrine of the Fall,
doctrine of redemption, even a kind of eschatology, where history is going
where it ought to be going – all interpreted and presented in terms of a
consumer capitalist economy. It has its own heretics, its own schisms. It
encourages us to trust in the god of the system: to trust, even though the god
of the economic system doesn’t seem to know what he is doing at times, when
things go very wrong. But we are still supposed to trust that in the long run
the wisdom of this market god will make things right. There is an old American
religious song called “Farther along we will understand why.” There may be a
mystery now that the trickle-down theory of economics is not reaching everyone,
as Pope Francis reminds us, but if we only wait, if we are only patient, in the
long run the market knows best. In other words, to use a term taken directly
from theology, the market is omniscient.
It may not appear omniscient, but it certainly claims to be.
So we must have confidence that it is omniscient. So I am talking about an entire
symbol system here, of myths and stories and narratives, that are parallel to
but very different from those of traditional religions such as Christianity or
Judaism or Islam – very different and in some ways contradictory.
[M]odern art still commonly refers to a rather narrow range of meaning and scope. It basically focuses on developments in Paris (Impressionism etc.) in the nineteenth century, and to selected Euro-American movements in the twentieth century (Cubism, Abstract Expressionism etc). But if we understand modernity as a socially transformative condition that was in force across much of the world from the nineteenth century on, how are we to understand artistic practices that were associated with these momentous changes?Iftikhar Dadi, Interview of March 26, 2012
The two world wars of the twentieth century were a product of the dislocations brought about of modernization in an environment where great power competition and the drive for hegemony were conducted primarily by violent means. Now that this era has passed in Europe and is receding in much of the Pacific rim, and hegemony achieved by force is no longer considered a legitimate ambition, the security requirements and fears of great powers should decline.Richard Ned Lebow, Interview of October 4, 2010
In a nutshell
The global capitalist=consumerist economy has an entire faith system, which has its own hierarchy, its own institutions, its own marble palaces. It has its own mythology, doctrine of the creation, doctrine of the Fall, doctrine of redemption, even a kind of eschatology, where history is going where it ought to be going – all interpreted and presented in terms of a consumer capitalist economy. It has its own heretics, its own schisms. It encourages us to trust in the god of the system: to trust, even though the god of the economic system doesn’t seem to know what he is doing at times, when things go very wrong. But we are still supposed to trust that in the long run the wisdom of this market god will make things right. There is an old American religious song called “Farther along we will understand why.” There may be a mystery now that the trickle-down theory of economics is not reaching everyone, as Pope Francis reminds us, but if we only wait, if we are only patient, in the long run the market knows best. In other words, to use a term taken directly from theology, the market is omniscient.
It may not appear omniscient, but it certainly claims to be. So we must have confidence that it is omniscient. So I am talking about an entire symbol system here, of myths and stories and narratives, that are parallel to but very different from those of traditional religions such as Christianity or Judaism or Islam – very different and in some ways contradictory.