The budget has come and gone. The public's interest in the budget has been mild, and its disengagement notable. One reason is that we still live in the shadow of the economic crisis and the revelations it brought about the lack of wisdom among bankers and the economic clerisy.
Many people still remember clearly their moment of illumination as they watched the economic order totter, and saw the play of ideologies, greed, stupidity and self-interest that had brought it to this point. They find it hard to take seriously prognostications about economic reconstruction by authorities who had earlier talked up investment in Gadarene swine right up to the moment they toppled over the cliff.
Talk about the economy needs to be set in a broader conversation about the values that underlie its workings. There is a space for deeper reflection on the human condition, which will help us understand why greed and fear so dominate in human affairs, and what hopes we may reasonably entertain for the betterment of humanity.
An interesting recent reflection on these sombre themes is found in a book by Richard Holloway, Between the Monster and the Saint. Holloway, once Archbishop of Edinburgh, and now a writer and broadcaster much in demand in Britain, structures his reflections as a redemption song. He begins by exploring what is wrong with the world, points out some of the reasons why things go wrong, and concludes with intimations of healing.
Like most preachers Holloway is more compelling when he treats human discontents than when he deals with human happiness. He draws on the insights of philosophical, religious and creative writers to describe a precarious world. The natural urge to survive and to propagate all too often expresses itself in sexual exploitation and violence. These drives are only lightly checked by social, religious and cultural inhibitions.
In developing this theme Holloway offers arresting accounts of the implications of the human maltreatment of animals. He also shows how the recurring campaign of the tabloids to punish wrongdoers appeals to the pleasure human beings take in inflicting pain. Newspapers inherit a long tradition of flogging seats at public executions.
In exploring the reasons why unreconstructed nature so often prevails in human affairs, Holloway points to the defects of theories designed to account for human behaviour. The appeal to a human soul in order to explain what is distinctive about human beings, for example, encourages people to disregard