Believing in economics

Christian Century, May 8, 2002 by David A. Krueger, Thomas H. Schmid, Franklin Gamwell, I., Ronald Goetz

However, there are limits to the usefulness of such ever-suspicious analyses. What one wants to know about a culture or era is not just that it was peopled by sinners, but also how it achieved greatness, as Venice certainly did. Not only did its art, architecture, literature and thought bring riches to the world, but the city itself, even in its decline, even now when it is sinking into the sea, is a visual miracle, incomparable in its mystery and beauty.

Wills credits the enormous accomplishments of the Venetian empire to its sense of exceptionalism. "The whole myth of Venice is simply exceptionalism writ large. According to it, Venetians were the favorites of Christ, Mary and Saint Mark. Their city's birth was miraculous."

Wills observes that because America's sense of exceptionalism is under attack from within and without, Venice's claim to exceptionalism "proves a special problem for Americans." However, he does not offer a blanket condemnation of all empires. The establishment of "one code of law for a scramble of feuding ethnic groups is not always a bad trade. The Roman Empire had that to recommend it."

Wills sees as a "tempering element" to Venetian exceptionalism the fact that, unlike America, it had" no missionary sense that it should spread its values to other people." Yet in a world in which one power bloc or another rules and in which we have witnessed the likes of Hitler and Stalin, one wonders whether even American exceptionalism might not have something to recommend it.

Reviewed by Ronald Goetz, professor of theology and religion emeritus at Elmhurst (Illinois) College.