The Culture of Life, The Culture of the Market by Rev. Robert A. Sirico

What devalues human life? Our times are undoubtedly characterized by a lack of respect for the dignity of the human person. Many who proclaim the culture of life fault the free market for devaluing human life. It is thought that the market reduces people to mere economic actors, valued only for their earning potential or their productive capacity. However, this misunderstanding of the market economy hinders our allies against the forces that degrade the human person. Let us reflect on the interaction, tension, and ultimate reconciliation of the culture of the market and the culture of life more deeply.

I want to be clear about definitions. The culture of life is the recognition that this life is a temporary stage of our eternal existence and that life itself is a gift entrusted to us by our Maker that should be preserved with the utmost responsibility and care. Life carries a sacred value from its inception to its end, and every human being has the right to have his life respected to the fullest extent possible. The market is not a mere abstraction of economic production and distribution, but, rather, people themselves—people who save and invest, keep contracts and watch markets, take risks and make dreams. In their economic lives as producers and consumers, they are cooperating in a vast network of exchange in which people half a world away buy their products and make products for them. 

The market strengthens the culture of life and its moral order in three important ways. First, the market promotes peace among people. From the simplest to the most complex market exchanges, they all have one thing in common: people trading voluntarily with each other to their mutual self-satisfaction. Second, the market offers people the best opportunities to employ their creative gifts and become full participants in society, thus obeying God's command to work and create. In contrast, legal barriers and perverse incentives erected by government prevent people from entering the workforce and keep many from perfecting their abilities and becoming a vital part of society's division of labor. Third, the free market promotes the material betterment of humanity. For example, it has brought modern medicine, electricity, running water, and, now, information access to an ever-broadening segment of the world population. 

It is unfortunate and highly dangerous that many of the market's most eloquent advocates often overlook the moral foundations of freedom. To those who might be tempted to think that society can revolve around the bank statement, the culture of life delivers a message: Base motives can also exist within a market economy. There are values higher than profit and market success, among which is the preeminent value of life itself. What we propose, then, is a free economy that puts the human person at the center of economic actions because the human person is the source of all economic initiative. The market, imbued with freedom and virtue, is a necessary ally for a social order that respects human dignity.

Source: Acton Institute

Yam: Importance, production, Havesting, consumption and impact

Yam

(Dioscorea species)

Yams are starchy staples in the form of large tubers produced by annual and perennial vines grown in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, South Pacific and Asia. There are hundreds of wild and domesticated Dioscorea species. White Guinea yam, D. rotundata, is the most important species especially in the dominant yam production zone in West and Central Africa. It is indigenous to West Africa, as is the Yellow yam, D. cayenensis. Water yam, D. alata, the second most cultivated species, originated from Asia and is the most widely distributed species in the world.

Importance
Yams are primary agricultural commodities and major staple crops in Africa, where yam cultivation began 11,000 years ago. In West Africa they are major sources of income and have high cultural value. They are used in fertility and marriage ceremonies, and a festival is held annually to celebrate its harvest.
Consumer demand for yam is generally very high in this sub-region and yam cultivation is very profitable despite high production costs.

Production
Worldwide yam production in 2007 amounted to 52 million tons, of which Africa produced 96%. Most of the world's production comes from West Africa representing 94%, with Nigeria alone producing 71%, equalling more than 37 million tons. African countries imported more than 2,000 tons in 2002, and exported 15,500, of which Nigeria exported 12%.
Yam production is declining in some traditional producing areas due to declining soil fertility, increasing pest pressures and the high cost of labor. Smallholders therefore need access to innovations to reduce labor and improve productivity.
Yams are grown by planting pieces of tuber, or small whole tubers (‘seed yams') saved from the previous season. Small-scale farmers, the majority of producers, often intercrop yams with cereals and vegetables.
The major pests that affect yams include insects such as leaf and tuber beetles, mealy bugs, and scales; parasitic nematodes; fungi causing anthracnose, leaf spot, leaf blight, and tuber rot; and viruses, especially the yam mosaic virus (YMV).

Harvesting
In terms of area harvested, 4.6 million hectares were planted worldwide in 2007, with about 4.3 million in Central and West Africa.
In West and Central Africa tubers are planted between February and April, depending on whether in humid forest or on the savanna, and are harvested 180 to 270 days later. Care is needed during harvesting to minimize damage to tubers that lead to rot and a decrease in market value. Harvested tubers normally stay dormant (do not develop sprouts) for 30 to 120 days depending on environmental conditions, the date of harvest, and the species. This means that only one crop cycle is possible per year, possibly restricting supply.

Consumption
Yam tubers consist of about 21% dietary fiber and are rich in carbohydrates, vitamin C and essential minerals. Worldwide annual consumption of yams is 18 million tons, with 15 million in West Africa. Annual consumption in West Africa is 61 kilograms per capita. Yams are boiled, roasted, baked or fried. In Africa they are also mashed into a sticky paste or dough after boiling.

IITA's research and impact
IITA’s objectives are to develop new varieties of yams with desired agronomic and quality traits (e.g., high and stable yields and reduced labor requirements) and improve yam-based cropping systems.
IITA scientists have made progress in finding and analyzing the genetics of yam resistance to anthracnose and viral diseases. The sources of resistance have been used to develop improved varieties, which have been delivered to research partners.
We are increasing our efforts in developing and applying molecular markers for genetic improvement. We use state-of-the art techniques in tissue culture to eliminate pathogens, principally viruses, from samples planned for international distribution. Ongoing research includes improving protocols for rapid field propagation using vine cuttings.
In food science and technology we conduct research to improve the understanding of the relationships between physical and chemical properties of yams and the range and quality of processed yam products. Our current work also includes screening new variety samples and yam food products for their retention of micronutrients such as carotenoids, iron, and zinc, ascorbic acid, tannins, and phytic acid.
Our social scientists assess the financial viability and adoption potential of the technologies being developed. They are also working towards a better understanding of markets and demand for yams and yam products.

Source: IITA

Technology, Culture, and Christianity by Jordan Ballor

The commercial success of the Matrix franchise is em- blematic of a pervasive cultural curiosity about the nature and future of the relationship between technology and humanity. In The Matrix: Reloaded, the savior-figure Neo has a conversation with Councillor Hamman, one of the leaders of the last human city Zion. Neo and Councillor Hamman travel to the engineering level of the city, where Hamman observes, “Almost no one comes down here, unless of course there’s a problem. That’s how it is with people. Nobody cares how it works, as long as it works .… I like it down here. I like to be reminded this city survives because of these machines.”

Albert Borgmann, a professor of philosophy at the University of Montana, picks up on the heart of Hamman’s observation, that the central characteristic of contemporary culture is its technological nature. As a Christian, Borgmann wonders about the future of the Gospel within such a technological culture. “Perhaps underneath the surface of technological liberty and prosperity there is a sense of captivity and deprivation, and we may hope that once we understand technology more incisively and clearly, there will be good news once again” (8). Borgmann contends that the industrial and post-industrial culture pervasive in the First World represent a unique threat to Christianity, and that “making room for Christianity is in fact the most promising response to technology” (8). This is the task to which Borgmann turns in the body of his book Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology. 

Borgmann is searching for the “heart of contemporary culture,” which he finds to be technology, and he therefore seeks to articulate the “philosophy of technology” (14). Borgmann sees the pervasiveness of high technology in the advanced industrialized nations as their defining cultural characteristic. It is the invisibility and opacity of such technology, its clean integration into all aspects of life in the industrialized nation, that Borgmann takes special notice of, as “nearly everything that surrounds a citizen of such a society … rests on a sophisticated and unintelligible machinery” (16).

Borgmann critiques the technological culture contending that the culture of technology has aggravated and enhanced a malaise of the human spirit, or at least has effectively concealed the reality of such a failing. “In the Gospels, poverty is the manifestation of human frailty. In poverty it is apparent that humans cannot through a sheer act of the will, through an effort that would owe nothing to anyone, secure their welfare” (103).

The situation of the biblical poor stands in direct contrast to the situation of the biblical rich. The rich “are favored with food and physical health and seem to possess and control the conditions of their wholeness” (103). Their apparent “self-sufficient security secludes them from real life, which is celebrated in gratitude and sharing, in the gladly accepted dependence on others, and in the willingness to have others take part in one’s gifts” (103). It is because of this situation that “it is difficult for the rich to be saved. They must, against their wealth, recognize their fundamental frailty and so become poor” (103).

The reality of human frailty that biblical poverty signifies is no less present in the modern technological culture, but its signification has become less clear and more fragmented. The great success of technological innovation is that “poverty as material deprivation and physical suffering is no longer a frequent human condition” in technologically advanced countries (103). It is this situation that Borgmann calls “advanced poverty,” the “concealed” spiritual poverty of the technological nations.

“Technology is the systematic eradication of profound poverty, and it is just that success that gives rise to advanced poverty. It is the accomplishment of unquestionable comfort and security that has all but paralyzed our capacity to help and to be helped and so to have part in the fullness of life” (106). This poverty is related to the situation of the biblical rich, as “advanced poverty, one might say, is a radically aggravated and universalized form of the condition of the rich of which the Bible speaks” (106).

Is the way then to make room for the Gospel to be found among the contemporary poor? Borgmann answers that it is not, because “the misery of the developing countries has lost its biblical profoundness too” (104). Because of the state of the technological countries, “global misery is no longer an essential sign of human frailty but a scandal, a cruel and unnecessary misfortune since the elimination of that misery is clearly possible, not only conceptually but in fact” (104). Because the elimination of poverty is technologically possible, “global poverty has attained, necessarily, I believe, a bitterness and brutality that make such poverty a difficult and contradictory setting for the promise of salvation” (104). This is in direct contrast to the theological approach, for example, of liberation theologians, who find direct parallels between what Borgmann calls biblical poverty and modern brute poverty. 

The answer is not to decry all technological advances, therefore, and to pine for a pristine state of biblical pre-modern affairs. Technology that has a direct impact on alleviating human suffering should be celebrated and affirmed, although not necessarily unconditionally. “Surely God does not want us to court and suffer preventable harms. Our morally crucial circumstances are the exact mirror image of those that made for martyrs. Where theirs were overt, ours are concealed; where theirs were mortal to their bodies, ours are lethal to the soul; and where theirs tore them out of their normal life, ours channel our lives within the unquestioned banks of the technological culture” (114). The reform of the technological culture must therefore come in our everyday lives and the seemingly mundane choices we make daily. 

Borgmann effectively uses an illustration of a person coming home from a long day’s work, “frazzled and spent” (114). The rest of the evening is spent engaging in a variety of technological distractions, from television, to e-mail, to video games. A scant few words are exchanged between family members as everyone eats at different times, engages in different diversions, and heads off to bed to prepare for a repetition of the same process the next day. Borgmann asks incisively, “has this been an un-Christian evening?” (114). He concludes that although no sins of commission have occurred, such an evening is rife with sins of omission. He concludes that “a life without grace or gratitude is un-Christian, not in this failing or that, but from the ground up. It has become incapable of redemption. This is not an all-or-nothing affair, of course. But the rising specter of irredeemability is stalking all of us” (115). 

The positive and Christian course of action would be to engage the world of “focal things,” for all around us is “the world of personal engagements and engaging things ….” (115). Borgmann notes the possibilities for real personal engagement and fellowship are endless and critical to our well-being. “The things I have in mind are good books, musical instruments, athletic equipment, works of art, and treasures of nature. The practices I am thinking of are those of dining, running, fishing, gardening, playing instruments, and reciting poetry” (124). Such are the activities and things that contribute to the health and prosperity of the vital human person.

Borgmann does not take an uninterrupted path to this point, however. At the beginning he tends to emphasize the negative aspects of technology rather than also seeing human innovation as a good manifestation of the cultural blessing in Genesis 1:26. This can give the impression that Borgmann is working from some sort of romanticist, neo-Luddite conception of technology. In the end, this is not really the case at all, but his largely negative view of technology results from the nature of this book. It is a reactionary critique against the prevailing cultural mores, and it is difficult to write such a critique, constructive though it may be, without erring at some point on the opposite extreme. 

Some of his conclusions, too, are highly problematic. For example, a community that embodies such emphasis on focal things and practices is called a community of celebration. Borgmann finds that “without public support, genuine communities of celebration will be impossible, and to secure such support appropriately is the task of communal politics” (58). Borgmann is all too ready to place the task of reforming technological culture within the purview of governmental legislation and oversight. This statement is representative of Borgmann’s general tendency to trust in a pervasively tolerant, politically correct notion of popular religious engagement. 

Nevertheless, Borgmann’s analysis of the culture of technology is helpful insofar as it seeks neither to “demolish technology nor run away from it” (8). Instead, he attempts to displace the worship of technology from its idolatrous throne in industrial and post-industrial nations. Borgmann raises issues that often are not explicitly dealt with in contemporary public discourse, but tend to remain unexpressed and unarticulated by many Christians. Technology is not an unmixed blessing nor is it completely evil. Relegating the use of technology within its proper sphere and keeping technology from dominating every aspect of our lives is the right path to “restrain it and redeem it” (8). 

Source: Acton Institute

Cultural liberty and freedom of belief

The freedom to hold beliefs of one's choosing and to change them is central to human development. It is the individual's search for meaning and the desire to know who we are as human beings that distinguish the human conscience.

We applaud the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for its Human Development Report, “Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse World.” For the first time in the Report's fifteen-year history, it acknowledges cultural liberty as a “vital part of human development” and affirms the “profound importance of religion to people's identities.”
Human Development Reports have evolved dramatically from a purely materialist approach centered on wealth and income to embrace the concept of development as the expansion of human freedoms. By including cultural freedom in its analysis — including the freedom of religion or belief — the UNDP has once again broadened the conceptual framework underpinning the evaluation of progress in human development.
The UNDP's focus could not be more timely. Human development and security — two issues at the heart of today's global agenda — have refocused the attention of the international community on the question of human freedom. And the Report has set the stage for an earnest re-examination of the role of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion in human development.

As a worldwide religious community that regards the human conscience as sacred and believes in the independent search for truth, the Bahá'í International Community urges the UNDP to give serious consideration to four critical issues intimately related to its Report: (1) the right to change one's religion or beliefs; (2) the right to share one's beliefs with others; (3) the responsibilities of the international community and national governments vis à vis marginalized and peacefully organized religious communities; and (4) the responsibilities of religious leaders vis à vis the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of religion or belief.

1) The right to change one's religion or beliefs. The Human Development Report defines cultural liberty as the “capability of people to live and be what they choose, with adequate opportunity to consider other options.” The Report, however, focuses primarily on cultural exclusion based on “external'” manifestations of one's religion or belief while omitting from its discussion the core dimension of cultural exclusion — namely a denial of the “internal” right to change one's religion or belief. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly affirms:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.”
The individual's search for truth and meaning is an activity most intimately linked with the human conscience and with the desire to see the world through one's own eyes and to understand it through one's own faculties of perception and intelligence. As such, it is inextricably linked with all facets of human development.
Due to pressure from dissenting States, however, subsequent United Nations treaties have used weaker language to define this right, failing to uphold the unambiguous standard set by the Declaration.
The Human Rights Committee has identified the freedom to change religion or belief, freedom to manifest beliefs, non-coercion in matters of religion, and non-discrimination on the basis of religion as core components of this right. As signatories to the Universal Declaration and subsequent treaties and global commitments, governments bear the primary responsibility to create, safeguard, and promote the necessary conditions for the enjoyment of the freedom of conscience, religion, or belief for all of their citizens.

2) The right to teach one's religion or beliefs. Intimately connected with the freedom to hold and to change one's religion or belief is the freedom to share those beliefs with others. Within the broad range of activities potentially encompassed by the freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs, the right to teach one's religion or beliefs has been particularly contentious.
While the Declaration calls for the unconditional protection of the “internal” right to freedom of religion, the “external” right to manifest one's beliefs is subject to limitations: Governments are permitted to place restrictions on this right for purposes of “meeting the just requirements of morality, public order, and the general welfare in a democratic society.” This has too often been abused in efforts to quell minority populations and has raised questions about what constitutes legitimate governmental interference in manifestations of religion or belief.
States argue that limiting the teaching of religions and the sharing of beliefs is necessary to preserve particular traditions and to protect the rights of the targeted populations; yet the right to freedom of religion or belief is necessarily contingent on the exposure to new ideas and the ability to share and receive information. Limitations on the basis of “maintaining public order” and “morality” have also been applied with considerable latitude and in a manner inconsistent with the principle of non-discrimination.
Non-democratic and theocratic States in particular have repeatedly issued such reservations without the burden of proof, calling into question not only their interpretation of this right but also their protection of related rights and freedoms such as the right to employment and education, and the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.
Ultimately, a long-term preventive strategy must be rooted in efforts to educate children and adults alike, equipping them with literacy skills and opportunities to learn about other systems of belief. Within a culture of education, people who can read the writings of their own religion as well as those of others, who are free to question and discuss, and who are able to participate in the generation and application of knowledge will be better prepared to counter the forces of ignorance and fanaticism.

3) Marginalized religious minorities. The challenge before States, and one of their central concerns as addressed in the Human Development Report, is the maintenance of social cohesion and national unity in the face of increasing cultural pluralism. The report cites the threats of social instability and violent protest as a primary imperative for States' need to accommodate minority claims.
States must discard outmoded notions of cultural homogeneity and ideological uniformity as a guarantor of peace and security and come to embrace a plurality of identities and beliefs.

4) The responsibilities of religious leaders. The responsibility to uphold universal principles of freedom of religion or belief also rests with religious leaders. In a world harassed by violence and conflict in the name of religion, leaders of religious communities bear tremendous responsibility for guiding their followers towards a peaceful coexistence.
Too often, those acting in the name of religion have fanned the flames of hatred and fanaticism, themselves serving as the greatest obstacles in the path of peace. Yet the religions and faiths of the world with which the majority of the earth's inhabitants stand identified have imparted a vast spiritual, moral, and civilizing legacy, which continues to succor and guide in these troubled times.
Indeed, religions have reached to the roots of human motivation to lift our vision beyond purely material conceptions of reality to embrace higher notions of justice, reconciliation, love, and selflessness in the service of the common good.

Given the weight of culture and religion in shaping motivation and behavior, it is clear that legal mechanisms alone will not engender the commitment and mutual understanding required to sustain an ethos of peaceful co-existence. The role of religious leaders as partners — in word and deed — in the promotion of respect for human dignity and freedom of conscience, religion, or belief cannot be understated.
Urgent action is now needed to reaffirm the vision of equal rights for all without discrimination on the basis of religion or belief. As a first step, the United Nations must unequivocally affirm an individual's right to change his or her religion or belief under international law.

Concrete actions — investigative, legal, and operational — must follow. Research and analysis are needed to clarify minimum standards for compliance with international law and to develop indicators marking the presence or absence of freedom of religion or belief. An annual world report prepared by the United Nations assessing the state of this freedom throughout the world would provide further substance and facilitate comparisons over time and across geographic regions.

Source: Bahá'í International Community