Watch this installment of Bill Moyers Journal, "Faith & Social Justice." Evaluate it. You will not be graded on your opinion. What is important is that you show an understanding of what's being said and supporting your point of view. If you insert an image or link to accompany your blog entry, that helps your grade. Since this is a project, creative elements are critical.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07032009/watch.html
It was interesting how Gary Dorrien, Serene Jones, and Cornel West addressed how Christianity is relevant in today’s world, with our economy, our government, and our social structure. The principles and beliefs of Christianity in theory do seem as if they would help our current economic crisis if properly carried out by everyone including our government officials. I agree with Gary Dorrien when he says that it was a culture of greed that led to this downfall. Cornel West also mentioned that our government is too concerned with the political pull of the Wall Street elite and therefore, marginalized people are not properly provided for. What both of these speakers were getting at was the evil brought about by the intermingling of capitalism and democracy, and how democracy becomes inadequate and ineffective when infused with a capitalistic society. The aims of each seem to counteract each other. Democracy is reliant upon the participation of all people and is supposed to benefit for the greater good. On the other hand, only the highest echelon of society, those who control the business and industry worlds, reap the benefits of capitalism while their proletariat counterparts make them rich. Serene Jones said that the kingdom value of love as noted in John’s Gospel can tame capitalism. This sounds good on paper, just as the thought that Christianity can cure our economic crisis is appealing. However, I believe this idea of love is only an ideal that will never be attained as long as we “worship” capitalism. Our government has been plagued with corruption and will continue to be in the future. I do not see how an arguably corrupt institution that is the Catholic Church can remedy another corrupt institution. Serene Jones said that justice is what love looks like when you put it in social form. I agree with this, but love can only be an enacted on a smaller scale, not at the national level. Politicians and lobbyists are too consumed by the power that lies in their grasp. Love cannot thrive in this environment and this political carton exemplifies why.
ReplyDelete(http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/jlv/lowres/jlvn719l.jpg)
In my opinion How these three people stated many truths about how our everyday lives revolve around greed and the economy is true. However, how they stated we as a society can change the way people live by Christian values is false. People in our world revolve around money and look out for themselves, people who have worked there way up in society don't care about the misfortunes of others. Greed will remain forever, it's not something that will change if people turn to helping others and living their lives by Christian values.It's not in human nature to do so, it's true that people do live their lives following christian values and give up their possesions for others. That is only a small percent of the world, the rest follows survial of the fittest, and care only about themselves. Everyone in our world is consumed by greed and power, the only differance being that each person has different levels of greed and power hunger. We won't dont trust in God and in Christian values, we as a society revovle around greed and power.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.truegreed.com/includes/in_greed_we_trust.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.truegreed.com/&usg=__xoWqQ-09sJJmnHtTCVhdPHGC640=&h=303&w=432&sz=49&hl=en&start=0&sig2=G9pkkKtxmydV867nBc3sxg&zoom=1&tbnid=OqU3bXNmi4n0JM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=151&ei=GH2nTYq_E8OP0QH2pYX5CA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgreed%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1R2ADFA_enUS344%26biw%3D1003%26bih%3D549%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=374&oei=GH2nTYq_E8OP0QH2pYX5CA&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0&tx=85&ty=49
In this video clip, Gary Dorrien, Serene Jones, and Cornel West integrate how aspects of today's society relate to the struggle in the Christian faith. The main point that caught my eye in this video was sin. Serene Jones makes a great point about sin. He basically says that humans are born of sin, therefore we are destined to make big mistakes in our life. You cannot avoid sin. But the community around us remind us that we can, on the other hand, be good. I like this point a lot because no one wants to admit that humans make plenty of horrible mistakes. But, there are ways to steer away from those mistakes. The people around you can, instead, lead you to grace. This balance of sin and grace leads to the corruption and downfall of the economy. Dorrien states that he is for economic democracy and gives a very interesting reason why. He says that human goodness makes democracy possible, while evil makes democracy necessary. I agree with this statement because Dorrien points out the fact that humans can do some pretty bad things, and that other people need to monitor the sin. "Checks and balances" as stated earlier in the interview. This concept ties back with the discussion about sin because they talk about the balance of human goodness and human sin. Greed and the need for control and power is consuming America and the rest of the world. What the people were trying to get across is that the Christian values need to be incorporated into today's world in order to make the economy and society right. Although, in my opinion, one religion is not going to solve it. I believe that if a movement of people with these values, or a trend starts, then we may see some improvement. Encouraging a religion that most people "practice" is not going to do much. I also agree with Nick's post. More and more people are concerned with themselves and how much money they will make. God is not and will never make it into their core values and life.
ReplyDeleteThe movie, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" is about how greed consumes people in America. The people only care about themselves and money, and this movie is a perfect example of that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=873PrTZkLsI
I agree with Nick when he said that the countries greed will never go away. I feel this way because in the Untied States everything is centered around money. People can't get by and have a good life without it. So everyone wants to get as much as they can and keep as much as they can to themselves because they believe it will make them have a better life. However, money doesn't make people happy and people need to realize that there are other people in much more need of money then they are.
ReplyDeleteThe song Billionaire shows how people just want to get as much money as they can and keep it to themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aRor905cCw
I agree with what Serene Jones , Gary Dorrien, and Cornel West said about how greed and money run our lives. Also that since every human is born with sin, no matter what we try to do we will make mistakes throughout our lives. Cornel West talked about what kind of virtures and values will we try to have in our lives. I agreed with this because everyone has different virtues and values that they want to live by. Some people choose to stay on the right path and do what they belive is right while other choose to only think of themselves. Greed is apart of human nature no matter what and it wont simply just go away. Many americans carelessly spend money on useless items rather than give them to people in need that really need the money. People now believe that money equals happiness when in reality it only leads to greed if you use it the wrong way.
ReplyDelete"Limitless" is a movie about how greed can take over our lives and steer us away from the right path like the video talked about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3U9RsXeJ3w
I was deeply intrigued by the conversation between Cornell West, Gary Dorrien, and Serene Jones when they discussed the mixing of democracy and capitalism. While I can agree that a culture of greed led to the fall of the market and countless other economic depressions, I do not believe that 1.) A Christian ethics system would be a realistic solution to the economic downturn and 2.) Democracy and capitalism contradict each other. The notion that a economic system based on the Christian kingdom values of love as described by Jones would in theory produce an equal and stable market. But in order for this to occur, I believe that all people must be fully committed to it, and that is an unattainable goal in a pluralistic democracy. As West mentions, humans do have a natural tendency to be corrupt and greedy. With this in mind, how can anyone expect a society with a melting pot of ideas such as the US to fall in line with the Christian values? To me it seems unreasonable. Also, I do not agree with the assertion that democracy requires all people to participate for a greater good because when everyone is compelled to act in that specific way, individual freedom is lost. Also, the basic definition of democracy is “a form of government in which all citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives” according to dictionary.com. If the citizens decide they desire a capitalist economy with business competition and unequal wealth, then capitalism shall rule. In no way do I find that contradictory to capitalism. People are naturally greedy and corrupt. This is a sad and true fact. But I believe that accepting this reality by creating free markets (even though the result is unequal distribution of wealth and power) is better than adopting a hopeless plan such as revolving an entire economy on Christian values in a strong democratic country like ours. This clip with the famous “Greed is Good” supports this notion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vscG3k91s58&feature=related
ReplyDeleteLove is most definitely the right path for Christians, and if we were all Christians then maybe West’s proposals would be valid. But the US is not and people embrace our greed. While capitalism is far from perfect and does not support the Christian morals, I believe it still is fitting for our American society.
Serene Jones, Gary Dorrien, and Cornel West bring up an interesting view on how this economic crisis is bringing more people of mainstream society in marginalized situations but through these dark situations we can see the magnitude of Christianity's voice. This reminds me of the quote that states that through the darkest times ones true character is revealed. Love ends up being the characteristic that can keep our society going. I side with Mr. West's comment on how love is the underlying force that improves social justice. This idea of if everyone acted out of love, reminds me of Jesus' view of the Kingdom of God. Ultimately, this is what humanity could be but, only if we stop living this capitalistic lifestyle. Ideally we all want this to work but, can it on a national scale? Katie's previous comment like the 3 speakers understand that humans are naturally conditioned to sin, some being more predisposed than others. Greed specifically is a sin of human beings due to Darwinistic "the survial of the fittest" mentality. Gandhi best said: "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." Living out as a community of disciples can make great change. With this battle of love versus greed, the question ends up being what kind of human being do you choose to be.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nick when he says that our society is greedy and I dont think this is going to change anytime soon. Our society is all about money and who has what. It is true that people volunteer their time and donate money to good causes but almost always their life does not change. People give up money according to their lifestyle and only donate so much that will not effect they way they live. I think people live this way because there is no concrete promise from God that we will be rewareded if we live a "poor" life. I think if our society knew for sure that they would be rewarded then more people would not be greedy.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmeUuoxyt_E