I am not a multiculturalist in any accepted sense. But if a person thinks (as I do) that local cultures are valuable, and that a healthy nation or society allows for local cultures to develop along their own freely chosen lines, then it seems absurd to wish ill upon the very basis of that culture, which in the case of the Hopi is the farming of corn.

I believe that this variety is something that evangelical Protestantism has trouble with, and thus tends to flatten human experience upon certain culturally and historically limited American, capitalist lines. I believe that this problem is worse with such forms of Protestantism than it is with either Roman Catholicism (which reluctantly allows some cultural difference) and Orthodoxy (that actually sometimes seems to have willingly embraced cultural difference, as in the missionary work among the Inuit in Alaska). For whatever reason, Protestantism is a more specifically Euro American phenomenon than either of these other two.

Your comparison of the Hopi to the Amish (the John Deere and Ford 150 bit) doesn’t fit, since the Hopi and other such groups are in a very different relationship to Euro American culture than are the Amish, and for historically obvious reasons.

Despite being a Christian and very much a believer, I would dread a world where everyone in some simplistic way (my categorization, not yours, of course) believed and acted exactly as me. I think God’s own variety, God’s own glory, would not be served by such a narrow world. I think local variety of culture reflects the glory of God just as different ecosystems do; and losing cultures removes one of “God’s mirrors” just as does losing a species or an ecosystem.

To which we ultimately ask what is the kind of market that serves the common good? I would answer the “free-market”. But what the heck is a “free-market”? I think Prof. Deneen gives a good broad definition of markets when he says: “Markets are themselves creations of human beings – requiring law and custom, courts and practice, prisons and memory – for starters.” But what kind of market is “free” and does that market serve the common good? Does free imply a lawless market where license reigns. Or does a free imply the ability to choose the good and avoid the evil, where man participates in the natural law to find ways of interacting with each other economically? Also, is there a definition of the “free market” that avoids the problems that arise from state of nature arguments that hold insufficient and erroneous views of human anthropology?

The answer to the questions, I’d have to say right now, I don’t know.

The point on which I was commenting relating to the Hopi is: “If corn is a commodity purchasable on the cheap at Wal Mart, how can such a culture continue to exist?”
It may be that the best choice for the Hopi is to continue a culture based on the cultivation of corn. That is a decision that needs to be made intentionally. The multi-curturalist viewpoint that because a given culture regards something as sacred, that therefore it is worthy of preservation is faulty. I totally respect the comment about my views being narrow. Just because I believe something, or because my Evangelical culture regards it as sacred, ought not to end the discussion. I did not say the Hopi ought to discontinue their agrarian based culture and become Walmart consumers. I asked, might it be better? You seem to imply that the very consideration is wrong.
As to the comparison of the Hopi to the Amish: It seems the ready availability of John Deere tractors and Ford pick-ups has not hindered them from maintaining their culture. I disagree with their conclusions on such matters, but I admire the way in which they intentionally maintain a culture (which in many ways overlaps with mine) that is contrary to what is going on around them.
And, yes, though I would likely express it differently than you did, I would like to see not only the Hopi, but all the peoples of the world come to my faith. I happen to believe it is true. Why would I want someone else to live based on what I conclude is falsehood?

For convenience, I grouped the 2 of you together in my reply. If I misrepresented either of you in that way, please forgive me.
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As for the lamentation of “capitalism” and “free-trade”, I also think these have been caricaturized. Before criticizing the licentious behavior that has developed amongst the business elite for the last 30 or so years, one must ask, who is bringing about the conditions for such licensure? Is it the “free-market”? Or is it a highly centralized state of organized production?

Think about the regulatory bodies, like the SEC, that effectively destroyed the possibility of local means of capital formation. Do the Securities and Exchange Acts really protect the commoners? Or do they drive the vast lot of capital formation into the hands of Wall Street elites? In thinking about that answer, think about how Bernie Madoff had a substantial role with the SEC. Also, think about how regulatorily impossible it is to set up a a new competing local stock exchange in your neighborhood, which deals in capital formation of the local companies (the bakery, the drug store, the mom & pop…). The rise of Walmart is not due to an unbridled free-market, rather it is because of the rise of the regulatory state where only sufficient economies of scale can get around the regulatory burdens it takes to both raise capital and operate. Walmart operates on such an economy of scale. Walmart can afford the investment bankers and lawyers necessary to navigate through the maze of regulatory strictures required to raise capital. As for mom & pop, they’d be lucky if they could afford a lawyer to do their own will. Walmart begins to lose its competitive advantage as soon as the administrative state declines in its effectiveness and barriers to entry are either broken down or ignored. Until then, expect to see mom & pop shops eviscerated by Walmart, Applebees, Home Depot, and the NYSE.

So is it the free-market? Is there really a free flow of capital going on?

An example: I spoke to an Irish American Franciscan priest in 2006 who told me that at Santo Domingo pueblo, in between Albuquerque and Santa Fe that is known for its cultural conservatism, the residents will sometimes just close the gate on Sunday and tell him “Father, we don’t need you today; we’re doing something else.”

The Hopi adapt; they now have what I call “symbolic cornfields” which I argue are different than subsistence or “metaphysically transparent” cornfields. But Howard Merrell, even in your (from my point of view somewhat narrow–sorry, but that is what I believe) Christianity, why should large market forces dictate what culture they do or do not follow? Why should it be okay that impersonal economic forces be culturally coercive? I would understand it if you said that the Hopi should become good Protestant evangelicals; but why do you believe that they should become interchangeable fixtures in a commodity economy? Is this part of your form of Christianity too?

I think there is a question that the article missed. Not all aspects of ecosystems should be preserve. Some should be eradicated. Would anyone want to return to the time when there was no flood-control, when diseases ravaged whole populations, or when the bulk of our population lived a subsistence life? Likewise, a case can be made that there are aspects of culture that ought not be preserved.
Part of the problem with our current multiculturalism is that it assumes that all cultures are equally good. This is clearly false, since each of those cultures has within it core-values that condemn practices in other cultures.
Being a believer in the Bible, I conclude that there is a standard that stands above culture.
Is it possible that the Hopi might be better off to work to preserve more valuable aspects of their culture, than subsistence farming, and buy their corn at Walmart?
Culture is not static. The culture of which I am a part is the result of millennia of adaptation, adoption, rejection, and evolution.
If the point of the article is that we need to be more intentional about this process, then I say, “Amen!” For you folk who aren’t a part of the Bible-belt culture, that means, I agree.”

The same ordering rules our cultural defacto imperialism and your linking them here is astute. Regulation is not an evil in and of itself but it becomes degenerative when it is based upon arid dogma rather than an ethic and aesthetic that reflects a reverence for and literacy of life.

We possess a fundamental capacity to reach this conservative state but it will never come until we abandon the patently absurd either-or of liberal-conservative dogma characterizing our relationship to the planet. The interesting thing about this site is that it is exploring these issues within a discursive forum informed by both left and right sympathies. An intellectual ecosystem is perhaps under construction.

I particularly like the museum and reservation comment, since I’ve recently been working on an essay (available in Sacred Web) on the rise of a global market economy and the decline of Hopi culture, which revolves around the spiritual significance of subsistence high desert corn farming. If corn is a commodity purchasable on the cheap at Wal Mart, how can such a culture continue to exist?