America's Three-Headed Beast: Money, Power and Freedom
To summarize Catholic historian Christopher Dawson's theory on culture and history, ideas influence the folkways, workways, and placeways of society. The influence ideas have on a culture is a piece of wisdom we have forgotten in our age.
I used some strange words to start, so let me explain myself further. Folkways are simply the social culture of a society; what people do in their leisure time. Workways are the types of jobs they do and the motivations behind those jobs. Placeways are the local mores of a place; in other words, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do'. You get the idea.
These characteristics of a society matter, because they give a culture its identity. Without an identity, a culture fades into obscurity and it can be easily conquered or collapse from within.
Before we can know our culture's identity, we need to know the ideas that drive our lives. When I look around America today, I can't help but ask, "What's the big idea?" What's the philosophy behind our soulless built environments? What are the fears and motives behind our myopic concerns and pursuits?
The more I search for answers to these questions, the more I see the trio of money, power, and freedom pulling the strings behind the scenes. Some of us want want to get rich, some of us want to be influential, some of us just want to be free, and others want some combination of two or all three of those things---depending on the day, week, month, or year. Our desires fluctuate because that's how human nature works, but those three motives are the driving force behind American society today.
Separate, there is nothing wrong with any three of them, but together they form an unholy trinity that can control our entire lives. I know this from experience. Focusing on any one or even two of the three seems fine, as long as I keep room in my life for more virtuous concerns, like family, God, truth, goodness, and beauty. But for some reason, the pursuit of all three tends to consume my life, leaving no room for anything good. The vanity of money, power, and freedom then seeps into everything I do, and I become hopeless and despondent.
Power and Influence
Influence is bound to gain value for those who seek power in a democracy, because power is based on how many votes they can get and votes are won through influencing the voters. Ancient philosophers often warned about how this can lead to the tyranny of the majority. Socrates called it the "fatal flaw of popular rule". Even architects of modern democracy warned of democratic tyranny; Thomas Hobbes called it the Leviathan because it has the potential to grow into an unnatural monster. As fallen human beings, we are bound to be influenced by the wrong things. Influencers--- politicians or otherwise---often decide what to post based on the popularity of past content, regardless of the values the content represents.
Look at social media and you will see how our culture's addiction to influence has taken over our social interactions. Everyone is trying to be noticed, get more likes, and go viral. This pursuit could simply be a means to making more money, but it's hard to deny the separate satisfaction that comes from merely seeing thousands of views on our posts. The innate values of the post tend to fade into irrelevance the moment we see it is gaining popularity.
For instance, my most popular post is about realigning the NFL's divisions geographically. There isn't anything wrong with the values or subject of the post, but it is about a rather innocuous topic. I can't even mention how many times I've been tempted to just devote my blog to football commentary. That's the power of influence getting to me. There's nothing wrong with this desire to influence, in and of itself, but I would be neglecting many other more important interests if I let the popularity of that post steer what I posted.
That football post is not more valuable simply for garnering more attention. More folks liked it. That's all. As it gains popularity, more and more folks pay attention to it as well, thanks to internet search algorithms. The article mentions nothing about our culture's overall well-being. It simply reached a certain level of popularity, and started gaining momentum. The more momentum it gained, the more influence it gained. Influence, which is a form of power, apparently has a strong impact on our folkways.
Money and Freedom
At a certain point, when posts become popular enough, we inevitably start to wonder how we can monetize it. Again, there's nothing wrong with this by itself. If our content can make us money, oot only will it help us. Marketers will use our popular posts as templates for future campaigns, and this will help many people in many ways. There's nothing wrong with this. They're just doing their job. Together, money and influence are not bad motivators.
But when freedom is added to the mix, they become a force for decadence. Someone says we shouldn't post something because it goes against our values. Since freedom is so valued in our land though, people will say restricting such content is a violation of the freedom of speech. Besides, it's making us money and people love it. In our culture, for most people, checking the money, power and freedom boxes is much more important for content than faithfully representing any value system.
So, the desire for influence is the idea behind our folk culture. The desire for money is the strongest idea behind our work, and the desire for freedom is the idea upon which America was founded. Switching out even just one of the three would go a long way toward healing our culture. For instance, if we used social media to promote community more than ourselves, or if we worked primarily out of love for our craft rather than just for money, or if we let wisdom or justice hold as much weight as freedom does in our land; if we did any of these things, just for example, we would start to build a better America. We need to slay the three-headed beast ruling our culture.
And then maybe we could replace these American gods with the Triune God who has given much better trios: like faith, hope and love; or truth, goodness, and beauty.
Explore these and other ideas in my newest book, A Guide for Rambling Spirits: A Collection of Essays.
Comments