Posted by Pope Francis makes a wonderful point concerning Globalism vs Localism*:
An innate tension also exists between globalization and localization. We need to pay attention to the global so as to avoid narrowness and banality. Yet we also need to look to the local, which keeps our feet on the ground. Together, the two prevent us from falling into one of two extremes. In the first, people get caught up in an abstract, globalized universe, falling into step behind everyone else, admiring the glitter of other people’s world, gaping and applauding at all the right times. At the other extreme, they turn into a museum of local folklore, a world apart, doomed to doing the same things over and over, and incapable of being challenged by novelty or appreciating the beauty which God bestows beyond their borders. (H/T to Rod Dreher as always).
I’m given to understand that Adam Smith intended The Wealth of Nations to be accompanied by another now lesser-known book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Modern interpretation of the Wealth of Nations only and the “invisible hand” rip out any moral/ethical foundations from discussions concerning commerce and trade.
However, in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith starts with the following assertion:
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.
Here we see Smith make the assertion that man is not motivated by (economic) greed only. Pity or compassion can’t be modeled so such theories are left out of economics classes. However, if the moral and ethical aspects of higher education are left neglected, as they so often are in most college curricula not devoted to the humanities, people will easily lose sight of them. This gives rise to the gross abuses and excesses of modern capitalistic behavior. The Humanities may not directly help a student land a job but they help him/her to further develop as a human. A fully rounded religious education will also do the same and is just as neglected in public life.
It’s certainly true that studying the Humanities (or religion) won’t prevent some people from acting cruel, from taking advantage of their fellow Man. However, it’s certainly a start.
(Apropos of nothing: I wrote the word globalism rather than globalization to illustrate that the impulse to take the goods of globalization can, as Pope Francis points out, turn into a rigid dogma of its own, same as Islamism, Christianism, etc).
