It is important to set the decline of the significance of land in economics within the larger context of the separation of humans from the natural environment as a consequence of the enlightenment. The origins of this split have been traced to the nominalist and voluntarist shift in the 13th century or even to the material-intellectual dichotomy in Plato’s work. With either interpretation, there was a dramatic tearing apart of man from his environment in the age of the enlightenment. Two key figures that are both representative of and contributive to this shift are Rene Descartes and Francis Bacon. Descartes, in his quest to find a metaphysical foundation in light of the growing skepticism in Europe, made a distinction between the experiencing subject and objects, or material substances. Thus a metaphysical dualism was created between mind and matter. Daly and Cobb argue that this had a significant impact on the relationship between mankind and the natural environment, in that “since… only humans possess subjectivity, it follows that only humans can be the locus of value.”[i]
Archive for January, 2010
Capitalism and the Loss of a Sense of Place – Part 2: Towards a Theology of Place
Posted in The Loss of a Sense of Place, tagged Capitalism, loss of a sense of place, theology of place on January 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Did Christianity Cause the Crash? – A Response
Posted in Reflections, tagged Capitalism, economic crisis, Recession, Sub-prime on January 12, 2010 | 1 Comment »
“Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” asks the provocative journalist Hanna Rosin in the December 09 issue of The Atlantic. Rosin’s well written article argues that the prosperity theology present in a significant amount of American churches has been a cause of the current economic crisis. In order to link this theology with the economic crisis, Rosin presents evidence to suggest that the areas, both geographic and demographic, where there was a high incidence of defaulted sub-prime mortgages are the same areas where the ‘health-and-wealth’ gospel prospers.
