Rothbard, cultura e religião

JOSEPH T. SALERNO, Murray N. Rothbard: In Memoriam:

"(...) Murray's scholarly treatment of history, culture and religion was also infused with piety. An outstanding historian, as well as economist, he was always eager to discover and credit the great libertarian scholars and heroes of the past. But in matters of culture, religion, and traditional or bourgeois morality, piety set Murray leagues apart from typical modern libertarians, whom he referred to as "modal" or "left"-libertarians. In contrast to the latter, for Murray liberty was not an arid abstraction to be discoursed on and debated at interminable length on the Internet, nor was it an ultimate cultural value to be "lived" by ingesting recreational drugs, indulging in sexual promiscuity, and shedding the bonds of family, church, and community.(...)

Regarding religion, Murray's historical studies had increasingly convinced him that it played an enormous role in both American political history and the history of economic thought. In particular Murray recognized the positive role in bolstering liberty inthe U.S. played by liturgical Christianity. This brand of Christianity,which is epitomized by the Roman Catholic Church—according toMurray "the original and continuing Christian Church"—emphasizes personal salvation through participation in the Church's liturgyand denies that the Kingdom of God can be established onearth by the puny efforts of man.

Unlike the "pietistic" sects of American Protestantism, which tend to be millennialist, Catholicism denies that the second coming of the Messiah depends on prior establishment of a Kingdom of God on earth and thus places no duty on its members to purify and save the whole of humanity through "social action" (read, State compulsion). Moreover Murray,although an agnostic, also came to conclude from his historical inquiries that all societies are inevitably religious and that irreligionon a society-wide scale is impossible and undesirable, because aformal religion, specifically Christianity, is necessary as the natural repository of the traditional moral rules that are necessary to reinforceand complement a classical liberal or libertarian legal code inorder for a real market society to survive and flourish. Even Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which were conceived in derangedattempts to abolish religion, succeeded only in supplanting Christianitywith pagan and Marxist millennialism, respectively.

Amusingly, left-libertarians, who are nothing if not impious,were predictably dumb founded by Murray's championing of Roman Catholicism as an important and beneficent political and cultural influence in human affairs and began to gleefully concoct and disseminate rumors of his surreptitious (past or imminently impending)conversion to Catholicism.

To these militant anti-Christians, who were unable to transcend the inevitable adolescent encounters with Ayn Rand, Murray replied: "[I]t shows that, for them, joining theCatholic Church is just about the worst thing you can say about yourenemy. Why is that? Why, for them, should becoming a Catholic be theultimate in disgrace?... As for me, I for one do not consider becominga Catholic on a par with becoming a child molester; on the contrary, Iconsider it an honorable course Apparently [they] are incapable ofunderstanding how anyone could be appreciative of the CatholicChurch without having actually been converted—or, in their eyes,snatched up, something like the invasion of the body snatchers."

Murray went on to conclude that, though not a believer, he hadbecome "an ardent fan of Christianity," because, unlike his Randian-libertarian critics, "I've learned something over the years."

Murray's reference to his continuing learning is indicative ofhis second great virtue: a genuine and abiding intellectual humility.(...)"