If anything is going to jolt our political culture out of its deep and muddy ruts, it will be artists with wit, vision and humanity. I recently stumbled across a great example, a poster by Dan Thibodeau called “Markettheism: One World, One God.” The 24- by 36-inch poster skillfully riffs off of religious iconography to show how our fealty to The Market is essentially religious in nature. The illustration is available online at Thibodeau’s website and contains 85 weblinks to enlarged portions of the poster and quotable quotations.
There is an illustration of a CEO sitting serenely in lotus position, for example, with a pot of gold in his lap; the image is labeled “Tax Haven.” Another segment shows an entangled circle of missles and snakes called “Global Crown of Thorns.” A greenback dressed as an angel/Roman centurion declares, “Let them eat rhetoric.” On the website, a rendition of Munch’s “The Scream” clicks through to an observation about the market by theologian Harvey Cox:
One sometimes wonders, in this era of Market religion, where the skeptics and freethinkers have gone. What has happened to the Voltaires who once exposed bogus miracles, and the H. L. Menckens who blew shrill whistles on pious humbuggery? Such is the grip of current orthodoxy that to question the omniscience of The Market is to question the inscrutable wisdom of Providence. The metaphysical principle is obvious: If you say it’s the real thing, then it must be the real thing. As the early Christian theologian Tertullian once remarked, “Credo quia absurdum est” (“I believe because it is absurd”).”
In a short bio of himself, Thibodeau explains a bit of his own political/cultural philosophy:
Especially after browsing the Markettheism poster, some may find it surprising to discover I am not anti-capitalist. Again, there is a need to distinguish values from methods. Capitalism can be a useful tool. But it is not a panacea, it is not a god. Like every human creation, this system of production and distribution has utility toward certain ends, but is dysfunctional toward others. Today those other ends, like social justice, responsibility, security, environmental stewardship, democracy, and peace, are under siege precisely because they challenge the market’s claim to be absolute. Today’s ideologues seek to extend the domination of market values over all other values in every sphere of life. It makes no difference what the question is, the answer is corporate control; if it cannot be done by the market, it should not be done. Indeed, market theory is taking on the role that communism once played – a secular religion that claims utopia as its justification. For its acolytes it has become an all-embracing belief system – it is a new totalitarianism in the making.
I guess that makes me a heretic.
Thibodeau’s website and other artwork are well worth a look. The poster makes for a fine conversation-starter.