The Renaissance According to NPR « The Thinking Housewife

The Renaissance According to NPR

February 1, 2012

N.W. writes:

Despite my conservative views, I still listen to NPR on a regular basis. I really shouldn’t. It often gets me mad. However, I enjoy that NPR gears its programming towards a more intelligent audience.

I really got riled yesterday morning, however, with a piece on an art exhibit in Italy exploring the rise of banking in Florence at the start of the Renaissance. The segment started by describing how the Church’s rules against usury had up until then prevented banks from prospering in Medieval Europe. The exhibit illustrates the way in which “Florentine merchants got around the Catholic Church’s ban on money-lending and bankrolled the Renaissance.”

Of course no one pointed out the irony of how the Church’s restrictions against usury would most likely be applauded by the latest darlings of the left, the OWSers.

Now I can take in stride the usual leftist revisionism in talking about the Church, I would have been surprised if it hadn’t occurred. But what got me riled was the smarmy British curator with his off-hand remark about how the introduction of a standardized currency allowed for a numerical value to be placed upon just about anything. Says the curator, Tim Parks,

“Suddenly everything has a unit value, and everything can be compared in numbers. A priest has a fee for a wedding and a funeral — is that more or less than the cost of a flask of wine, or a prostitute?”

So, to recap, first we are reminded how backward the Church is for not allowing the development of effective financial instruments to assist the market and then we are further strengthened in our negative view of the Church with the subtle insinuation that priests appreciate a fine vintage and fast cash almost as much they like a good time with the occasional prostitute.

Since the Bishops’ outcry about the healthcare mandate, it’s been open season on Catholics in some circles and I don’t think they should just stand silently by. What really ticks me off about this particular incident is how NPR nonchalanty slipped in such a despicable and unrelated slur.

I wrote to them to complain.

— Comments —

MRG writes:

You provide a refreshing perspective on your blog, and I really appreciate it.

I’m writing to raise one minor factual note concerning “The Renaissance According to NPR.” It appears your author was unaware that the definition of usury has changed somewhat from the Renaissance definition. Today, usury means the practice of lending money in exchange for excessive or extortionate interest payments. But historically, usury meant the practice of lending money for any interest payments at all. Back when the Catholic Church had its usury ban in place, it used the historical definition, so the ban guaranteed that moneylending would be an untenable business model. That’s not revisionist history, it’s a fact.

All but the most extreme modern liberals (i.e., anarchists) would not be pleased by a renewal of the ancient usury ban. The modern economy (and government) would collapse completely.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing.

N.W. wasn’t defending the ban on usury, I believe.

N.W. writes:

Yes, I was by no means defending the Churches twelth century position on what one could do with ones money. What I found to be ironic about the whole affair was the fact that OWS would have no problem with the Church’s 12th century opinions on usury and NPR, thus far, has voiced no negative opinion concerning OWS’s demand that all holders of student loans not only ignore interest accumulation but write off the loans in thier entirety. This is why I find it ironic that NPR will criticize century’s old economic iniatives put forth by the Church while completely ignoring far more radical ideas put forward by contemporary political entities.

Also, the main criticism I had of the NPR article was not their leftist slant on history but their completely random and unqualified slur against the Roman Catholic priesthood.

Art writes:

Was that statement really a slur directed at the Catholic Church? I see it as simply a statement describing the transformation of Renaissance Italy. It seems to be slurring the laity much more than the clergy. Many have criticized the market economy in today’s society. One could certainly say that the present day configuration of the market does tend to make abortion and marriage both
choices of equal moral validity. And I would not be so quick to say that only a modern liberal would oppose usury by the medieval definition. Many factions of conservative economics reject modern capitalism in favor of Distributism, which could very well involve a rejection of interest.

Laura writes:

Distributism is another name for socialism. But that’s a subject for another day.

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