La Dolce Vita ... Berlinerstil!

My brother called me from Malaysia this morning.  Ordinarily I'd be ecstatic, but he called me at 9:00 am in the morning.  I'm still trying to catch up on all the sleep I've lost throughout the school year, which means it's an hour or two too early from my optimal summer wake-up time.  And I do want to do this catching-up business before I head out to Singapore for a few weeks.  My mom's one of those early risers, and she doesn't really take too kindly to people sleeping in a wee bit late.

No doubt we talked about the Eurozone Crisis - he being a manager of an entire wing of the family business.  Since he deals with overseas orders - all of them paid for in USD - exchange rates are important.  To make a long story short, the Eurozone Crisis is not making his working life easier.  As we talked about it, he exclaimed, "Man, those Italians and Greeks need to just work harder!  They're just lazy!"

I stopped him right there.  I should note right now that his statement is not original.  I'm quite sure millions (perhaps 1-2 billion) in the world think very similarly.  On the surface, it seems that's the case.  Greece, for instance, has a very, very generous system of welfare.  Blind citizens get €700 in monthly compensation (€6,300 ~ $7,300 a year!); the blind in the US are generously paid $0.  Maybe Medicare might pay for a few equipment that may help, but no monthly compensations of that sort!  The retirement age was around 55.  In the US, it was 65 (now 67, I believe), although many continue working into their 70s.  Of course, from countries like the United States (despite silly accusations of becoming "European socialist"), China, and Germany, where no such generosity is given for welfare, the Italy and Greece seem to be "lazier."

But we must realize the ease by which such statements can be made.  Indeed, it can only happen because we have drawn a line in the sand that delineates what "laziness" constitutes.  But such statements belie what is actually going on, and in this blog post, I suggest that the problem at hand is not that the Italians and Greeks are lazy bums, but that the underlying problem remains rooted in some new form of colonialism.

When we label people using comparative adjectives, we always have a basis by which the comparison can be made.  To claim that some individual is "holier" than another means that we have some baseline means of determining what constitutes "holy."  Without that baseline, we can't make any comparisons.  That's why comparing "success" or "intelligence" is tricky business.  If "intelligent" means "eloquent and incisive" then one can say Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is more intelligent than Joseph Stiglitz (both of them University Professors at Columbia University).  But if "intelligent" means "facile with mathematics" then the opposite is true - Stiglitz would be more intelligent than Spivak.   Similarly, to claim someone is lazier than another means we have an operative standard of assiduousness, and that unfortunate someone is lacking in that assiduousness relative to someone else.

Ordinarily comparative adjectives may not be so much of an issue.  If intelligence were denominated in mathematical ability, then many theologians would gladly admit that they're living in between the Valley of Dolt and the Mountain of Stupidity.  Their profession, after all, does not require them to perform constrained optimization and knowing the difference between different sorts of algebraic mappings (maybe unless they're doing some work between the intersections of math and theology).  But that is exactly the point.  The reason why theologians wouldn't really be troubled at being seen as stupid (assuming "intelligent" unquestioningly meant "mathematical ability") is that such an adjective does absolutely nothing because it has nothing to do with the work of theology. The word, in other words, has no performative power.

Another example is the word "bastard."  Before the 20th century, the term denoted children born outside a legitimate marriage.  Now, I do not mean to say that being a bastard was existentially neutral; my guess is that even before then there were social stigmas attached to bastards.  But at the time the word only applied to a certain group of people who, in fact, were children born out of wedlock.  If someone were to call me a bastard in 1820, I would say, "No, sir, I am not a bastard."  To disagree, he or she would have to produce evidence proving that either my mom or my dad were not biologically related.  Until that is shown, "bastard" has no performative power.  BUT, in 2020, if I were to be called a bastard, I would be very much offended, because the word has evolved to become a general derogatory adjective that includes everyone.  Thus, the word has taken on performative power.  I should note this idea was first explored by Columbia University visiting professor of English and Comparative Literature Judith Butler in her 1997 book on censorship, Excitable Speech.

As she also describes in her book, what makes words powerful is the cultural context that empowers those words, a note that I agree with.  When we deem Italy or Greece "lazy" we have infused "lazy" with a cultural Weltanschauung that allows for comparisons to be made.  The same can be said of other adjectives like "holy" or even "biblical."  These descriptors are backed by cultural assumptions and practices that guide approaches to conceptualizing holiness, laziness, or "biblical-ness." For the Christian, how these adjectives are used is of paramount importance, particularly if we do indeed wish to take seriously Jesus' teaching on being a people careful about speech.  Indeed, Ephesians 4:29 is not about uncouth language, but about speaking and writing well - "well" as in utilizing the right vocabulary in order to speak and write truthfully and honestly, not "well" as in A+ on a paper.

As we discuss the Eurozone Crisis, let us be wary too of another unsung dimension of the discussion; consider another stereotype of Italy and Greece: an idyllic paradise.  The Amalfi Coast, the la dolce vita, Mediterranean cruises, delicious food, etc.  But why do such stereotypes exist?  It's not the weather.  Singapore has a tropical climate, and Penang, Malaysia, too with good food to boot.  But the overwhelming sense people get - or, at least I get - when visiting is overwhelming busy-ness.  I can't sit still in Singapore, even at a Starbucks with air-conditioning blasting and elevator music playing away.  I always feel I have to do something. Cross the strait into southern Johor, however, and the feeling changes.  Life is slower; I can relax better.  If Italy or Greece became Germany, we wouldn't get la dolce vita or the lush idyllicism that we impute upon the Mediterranean countries.  No - we would get the equivalents of Berlin, Frankfurt, New York, and Singapore.  I wonder if some of these identities are not so much indigenous to Italy or Greece, but were imposed or exacerbated by our speech about them.  After all, one unfortunate aspect of stereotyping is that people end up living into those stereotypes.  If so, to put it in purely free-market economic terms, the Italians and Greeks have an incentive to maintain la dolce vita.

For that reason, the Eurozone Crisis will have no swift conclusion.  At stake is not merely national pride, but national identity.  These nations are confronted - or, are already wrestling - with the reality or prospect of adopting German fiscal practices and disciplines, a political move that cannot but strike out the dolce from la vita.  Again, it is easy for us in the US or Singapore to see this as intransigency and laziness on the part of the Italians and Greeks, but to put it in perspective, we are seeing something similar cropping up in the United States - the largest holder of our debt is China.  World markets no longer react to data from the US, but also from China, now.  That our nation is now confronted with the reality of China joining the table of superpowers - a table that the US used to enjoy as its own - is unsettling to many.  What if China forced Americans to adopt an aspect of Chinese political or fiscal policy?  This would be utterly ludicrous - who does China think it is?  But this is exactly what is happening in Italy and Greece!  Germany has swooped in and bailed out those nations on the condition that they shore up their finances, something which cannot but drastically change the way Italians and Greeks live their lives.  And let us not forget that in those two nations, unelected leaders were put in power, something which proponents of democracy should be alarmed at!   The final result will, as Margaret Thatcher put it, a "federal Europe."  One, if I may add, that has Germany at its helm.

Depending on who you talk to, whether there should be a Christian theological response to this predicament is debatable.  But for American evangelicals serious about dispelling what Mark Noll calls "the scandal of the evangelical mind," one practice in our theological tradition - for better or for worse - is that our emphases on personal piety has a public component to it.  I personally do not approve of an undue emphasis on personal piety, preferring the piety of the ecclesial Whole which can only exist with a strong and robust ecclesiology, something which American evangelicalism does not have (or even comprehend).  To simply declare Italy and Greece "lazy" not only condemns them relative to our idea of "not lazy," but suggests that such industriousness is per se godly.  Indeed, this is, I think, a problem with American evangelicalism - in our zeal to emphasize God's presence in daily life, we unwittingly end up uncritically sanctifying everything we do.  We degenerate into this simplistic and faulty logic that, "as long as it's done for Jesus, God will approve."

Indeed, as Stanley Hauerwas briefly noted, we must be suspicious of an economic system that pushes parents to work longer hours, to spend less time at home with their children, etc., in order to ensure that the bills get paid.  We need to be suspicious of an economic system that does not condemn the notion that "I made my money, I deserve to decide what to do with it."  (This is, by the way, profoundly without biblical support, considering that Jesus has insisted that all things come ultimately from God.) I think this insight has some grain of truth to it.  American evangelicals are very preoccupied with the "family" but the strange thing is that many believe the road to securing the "proper family model" is through political machinery.  I do not think that solves anything, just as Prohibition did not force Americans to not drink alcohol.  All it did, really, was to make Americans drink alcohol in secret.  I am fully aware that right now the three apparent political economic models available are libertarian-leaning capitalism, mixed economies, and socialized capitalism... with one or two clueless nations practicing communism with various degrees of failure.  Church tradition and public theology, in my view, has little to say on these notions; after all, these are modern 20th-century articulations of how people make decisions.  

But the Church has had a long tradition of asserting its unique identity as a people constituted by the Holy Spirit (actually, dating from Pentecost!).  In Acts 2, we see this constitution lived out practically as the early Christians had everything in common and ate together, presumably in the houses of the wealthy.  Of course, there are communities in the United States that practice this model of living, and a few of them have enjoyed several decades in existence (Reba Place in Chicago is one example).  But they remain exceptions to the general way of life, and a way forward, I think, needs to begin by asking ourselves how such a model can possibly apply today.  American evangelicals need to tread carefully - to say this model is utterly non-applicable to today's contexts raises a whole host of issues concerning which parts of Scripture do and do not have any such applicability.