The immigrant experience—first given significant attention by Oscar Handlin in his classic The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations that Made the American People, (1951)—was one that removed people from a situation that was often rather miserable, but that provided some measure of security; provided them with a stressful and miserable journey to America (resulting in many deaths—especially in the case of slaves); and placed them in a situation of discrimination and maltreatment (especially with slaves, of course). The language barrier placed immigrants at a disadvantage, but the fact that many those who had come over “freely" had arrived with family members and village friends/acquaintances at least provided them with some sense of security—a sense denied, however, to slaves, who were often separated from family members. Basically, however, immigrants—whether free or slave—were “provided" with a sense of estrangement by their immigration experience (i.e., their trip over, along with their experiences as new citizens in this country), and that sense was transmitted to progeny—which helped prepare those progeny later to acquire the values of greed, materialism, and selfishness.

The frontier experiences (first given important attention by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in his 1893 “The Significance of the Frontier in American History") affected primarily immigrants from northern Europe who came to this country in the middle and late nineteenth century. Turner claimed that that experience encouraged those involved in it to value conquest (initially of the environment—which needed to be “tamed"), invention, individualism, simplicity, and democracy. A value system that encouraged innovation (especially of a technological nature) and energetic activity—values further encouraged by the “Protestant ethic" which these immigrants may have brought over with them. These values, again although not themselves involving greed, materialism, and selfishness, contained the seeds of those values, and required only further societal development before “flowering" in the values of greed, materialism, and selfishness.

That further societal development I would identify as industrialization/urbanization—a development that especially impacted immigrants who came to this country from northern and southern Europe, and who settled in urban areas. Those from Europe who settled in rural areas (primarily from northern Europe) were not initially affected; nor were those who had been brought over as slaves (and were still associated primarily with the South). Asians may have been affected somewhat, but few of them were present in America a century ago—and the ones that were present were “shielded" somewhat from the effects of industrialization/urbanization by strong family ties.

A “classic" (if largely unknown) discussion of the effects of industrialization/urbanization the American value system was provided in Thorstein Veblen’s 1891 “Some Neglected Points in the Theory of Socialism" (published in the Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science). ₂ This article was written at a time when industrialization/urbanization was well underway in America, Darwinian thinking (with, e.g., its “struggle for existence") was in the air (and being applied in socio-political contexts), and socialism was a significant movement in the Western world, including in America. All three of these developments are reflected in Veblen’s article.

His starting assumption was that man has, and always has had, regard for “his good fame—to his standing in the esteem of his fellowmen. ₃ This characteristic he always has had, and no doubt always will have" — presumably because it is a trait rooted in our biological nature as humans. In the past, the people with whom one interacted were known to one; and because one had first-hand knowledge of their behavior, one could make judgment’s regarding their character from that knowledge. One had, i.e., a good basis for labeling another as honest, trustworthy, hard-working, skilled, kind, selfish, etc.

An industrial society, however, is one that typically has a settlement pattern featuring cities of varying sizes. ₄ The density of population in cities is such that one typically, during the course of a week, interacts not only with a large number of people, but people who mostly are strangers. Because of this fact, how is a city-dweller to satisfy his/her need for having a good reputation in the eyes of others?—given that “the existing organization of society does not in any way preeminently foster . . . [such a] line of development" [i.e., a reputation based on solid knowledge on the part of others].

Given that the opinion that others have of oneself cannot, in most cases, be based on their first-hand knowledge of oneself, the only avenue open to oneself is to seek economic success, and then display that success (Veblen’s famous “conspicuous consumption"). The urban environment, then, tends to precipitate a “struggle for respectability" on the part of its residents. ₅ A “struggle" that—as it manifests itself with clothing, e.g.—may result in a person choosing “to go ill-clad in order to be well dressed." A “straining after economic respectability" that comes to result in “the struggle of each to possess more than his neighbor . . . ."

Veblen went on to note that this “struggle" was (a) inseparably related to the institution of private property; was (b) resulting in increased jealousy (feeding the socialist movement) and unrest; and (c) resulted in much wasteful production (i.e., goods that were not necessary to produce)—but these comments are all beside the point so far as the present discussion is concerned. The principal contribution of Veblen’s article was to provide a basis for explaining greedy behavior focused on the acquisition of material things. And given that it virtually follows that if one is driven by greed, one likely will also be selfish, in effect Veblen also provided an explanation for the selfishness component of our value system.

Veblen concluded his article by asserting: “With the abolition of private property, the characteristic of human nature which now finds its exercise in this form of emulation, should logically find exercise in other, perhaps nobler and socially more serviceable, activities; it is at any rate not easy to imagine it running into any line of action more futile or less worth of human effort." A conclusion—the latter one—that I find easy to accept. Whether Veblen was correct in asserting that the abolition of private property would result in a change—for the better—of our society’s value system is more debatable. If by “private property" Veblen meant “privately-owned real property," I tend to agree with Veblen. The problem, however, is developing an implementable plan for accomplishing such a change, one that would also involve the use of non-violent means. Veblen did not offer a solution to this problem, but neither has anyone else.

It may be, then, that we are “stuck" with a value system that is inherently anti-Jesuan—while being Christian. Unfortunately, Christian values—for what they’re worth—will likely lead us to the edge of the precipice, and then some. So that just as Jesus was crucified as a consequence of decisions by the religious leaders of his time, the human species may very well crucify itself—led by people attached to Christian values.

Footnotes:

1. Bruce Chilton has argued brilliantly in The Temple of Jesus, 1992, that there is good reason for believing that at some point Jesus began using bread and wine as sacrifice substitutes. Although Chilton does not carry his argument to its logical conclusion, I would add that if Jesus did this, this would seem to indicate that Jesus learned—perhaps from Essenes living in Jerusalem—near the end of his life, the Essene view that the High Priest was not legitimate. In learning this he concluded that Temple sacrifice lacked legitimacy, and that he needed, therefore, to cease participating in Temple sacrifices and instead institute a suitable substitute that would simultaneously not place a burden on his fellows. Jesus then “hit" on the idea of using bread and wine as substitutes for flesh and blood, and began promoting the practice of the sacramental use of bread and wine—outside the Temple. When the Temple authorities learned of this practice, they realized that they could not allow it to become widespread, because their livelihood depended on Temple sacrifice. (One is reminded here of the amusing story of Demetrius’s reaction to Paul’s preaching; Acts 19:21 – 41.) They therefore plotted to have Jesus killed, having the Romans do their dirty work for them—for reasons other than the real ones. (Reminds one of the current war in Iraq, doesn’t it!)
2. Available online at http://de.geocities.com/veblenite/txt/neglect.txt.
3. The article was written before the era of political correctness.
4. A hierarchy of cities, in fact—something that German geographer Walter Christaller was to theorize about several decades later.
5. An analog of Charles Darwin’s “struggle for existence," with its “natural selection" (or “survival of the fittest," a phrase Darwin borrowed from Herbert Spencer, and first used in the fifth edition of the Origin of Species).

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