{"id":419,"date":"2014-01-24T15:40:06","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T15:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=419"},"modified":"2014-08-12T23:17:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T23:17:25","slug":"working-from-the-foundations-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/working-from-the-foundations-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Working from the foundations up"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report by Oxfam has found that a tiny elite owns the wealth of half of the world\u2019s population. The report, entitled \u201cWorking for the few\u201d shows that 85 of the world\u2019s richest people own the same amount of wealth as half the world\u2019s population. The report was released ahead of this week\u2019s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to highlight that economic inequality is rapidly increasing in most countries and is now a threat to democracy, states Oxfam. [i]<\/a> As these facts show, society is sick and in real need of a cure, and sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, is one man who cares. In his wish to \u201cmake society better\u201d [ii]<\/a> he goes to great lengths to define and describe some of the prevailing modern social ills and their causes in today\u2019s \u2018liquid modernity\u2019 (as he calls it). He talks about many issues including how communism failed; people\u2019s obsession with security and safety in cities; the substitution of moral impulses by consumerism and the resulting transformation of consumption into a moral act; the mixing of public and private spheres, and the reappearance of luck as a concept on an individual level in a world devoted to the reduction of risk. Throughout his writing, Bauman makes regular reference to the words \u2018uncertainty\u2019, \u2018insecurity\u2019 and \u2018impotence\u2019, words he repeatedly uses albeit within differing contexts. In very basic terms, much of his writing focuses on the insecurities and fears of individuals and thus, society, all wrapped up around a dialogue on social inequality. Given his clear partialities, it\u2019s no surprise then that Bauman talks at considerable length on one of the most \u2018disturbing\u2019 books in the whole Bible – the book of Job: \u201cThe Book of Job recasts the frightening randomness<\/em> of Nature as the frightening arbitrariness<\/em> of its Ruler. It proclaims that God does not owe his worshippers account of His actions<\/em>, and most certainly does not owe them an apology<\/em>.\u201d [iii]<\/a> Although his intentions are no doubt admirable, Bauman is not the most optimistic of writers, evident, by way of example, when he makes no reference to God\u2019s extended discourse with Job over His love and concern for His creation, but prefers to leave his readers with a scepticism and distrust towards Job\u2019s God. Elsewhere Bauman\u2019s discussion of insecurities and power move over to man\u2019s relationship with power in the context of technology and machines. He writes, \u201cPowerless as we are, we are omnipotent, since we are capable of bringing into being forces able in their turn to cause effects which we wouldn\u2019t be able to produce with our \u2018natural equipment\u2019 \u2013 our own hands and muscles. But having become all-powerful in that way, watching and admiring the might and efficiency and the shattering effects of entities we have ourselves designed and conjured up, we discover our own powerlessness\u201d [iv]<\/a> In reading his words, I am reminded of the story of the Tower of Babel from the Old Testament. They were fixated on building great projects back then, and aren\u2019t we still today? Nothing much has changed in the way of human ambition. We still desire to succeed and reach the heavens – to attain that sense of omnipotence, in the face of our own weaknesses, throwing away our need for God in the process. Although it is true we may not be literally constructing tall towers in our lives per se, we still focus most of our efforts on external and material constructions, thinking that building bigger and taller, while leaving the divine out of the design, is the way to build our lives. After all, that\u2019s how our consumerist society educates us. Although there\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with the desire to build, when we do so at the expense of concern for the poor, and at the expense of our dependence on the divine, that\u2019s where things begin to go askew. In other words, the problem is foundational. Foundations matter, whether they undergird the construction of a building, or the structure of our lives and society. Indeed, what is interesting is that despite all the losses Job of the Bible endured, his faith was not destroyed. Not once did he curse God, although that was the advice of his wife. Not once did he turn his back on the God he had worshipped his whole life. How was that even possible? Because he had strong foundations in God and although Satan questioned it, God knew it. And so Job stood, through some of the worst personal losses any individual has probably ever endured, because he had firm foundations. For Bauman, the answer lies in quality dialogue and mutual understanding,[v]<\/a> but I find that a poor solution at best. If humankind has not yet come up with effective answers to society\u2019s ills, what makes us think we can come up with a remarkable new model to follow at this point in the game? After all, as Bauman has gone to great lengths to remind us, society is unstable and liquid. If society is so liquid, surely it follows that what society needs is something firm, unmovable and secure. Something to stand on, to be dependent on, something that will dissipate all the uncertainties and insecurities Bauman elaborates on. The abuse of capitalism is not simply the cause of so much poverty and inequality. It is also the new god, the new reason and purpose for living and everything around us: television, movies, and retail exist to reinforce that message. We have filled our lives with commercialism, a void it was never designed to fill. Life is more than the buying power of our wallets, and Bauman knows it. So what is the answer? Psalm 125:1 provides some insight:<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

While no doubt consumerism has indeed fed into the inequality we see in the world, at the end of the day, it\u2019s the heart of an individual that makes decisions among societies and nations. After all, whether someone chooses to purchase several top end cars with their money or just one modest car while using the rest of their money to help the poor, really is, at the end of the day, a heart choice. That\u2019s where we need to start rebuilding.<\/p>\n

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[i]<\/a> http:\/\/www.thejournal.ie\/worlds-richest-people-wealth-oxfam-report-1272951-Jan2014\/<\/a> accessed January 23rd<\/sup> 2014<\/em><\/div>\n
[ii]<\/a> Zygmunt Bauman, Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2011), 160<\/div>\n
[iii]<\/a> Bauman, 106<\/div>\n
[iv]<\/a> Bauman, 147<\/div>\n
[v]<\/a> Bauman, 172<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report by Oxfam has found that a tiny elite owns the wealth of half of the world\u2019s population. The report, entitled \u201cWorking for the few\u201d shows that 85 of the world\u2019s richest people own the same amount of wealth as half the world\u2019s population. The report was released ahead of this week\u2019s World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[63,2],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bauman","tag-dminlgp","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1746,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/1746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}