The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

408 chapter 38speech, semiotics, society, sympathy, service, stewardship, sentiment, sharing,soul, salvation, spirit, symbols, stories, shame, in a word, the Sacred.The two-level universe of the axial religions are these, the Profane and theSacred. The two summarizing commandments, I have noted, refer to thetwo levels: (1) love God and (2) love your neighbor. As the historian of religionMircea Eliade put it,“Sacred and profane are two modes of being in theworld.” 1Or at least they are two modes of being in a God-haunted world, especiallythe world of Abrahamic religions. A world without al-Lah is magicalor materialist, merging the sacred and the profane into a single plane oftechnical tricks. The shaman’s tent and the local Brookstone store have a lotin common. In both you get gadgets for dealing with life piecemeal, trick bytrick. The special holiness of a J*H*W*H separated from mere humans,I repeat, is reflected in the Christian’s Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father who art inheaven, hallowed be thy name,” and in other parts of monotheism.The gods of polytheism are less sacred and less apart from us becausethey are competitive. For example, in the Cantonese Temple of the FiveHundred Gods, destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, the supplicant couldchoose a diverse portfolio of gods to which to offer incense, the way onelights a candle before the shrines of the Blessed Virgin and of St. Thomasand of St. James. 2 The Protestants were protesting such residual polytheismPricePaymentPocketbookPurposePlanningPropertyProfitPredictionPunishmentPurchasePrivacyPowerPracticeSympathyServiceSoulSpiritSentimentStewardshipSalvationSemioticsShameSymbolSocietySpeechStories