The Devil in the Details: An Essay on the Blind Watchmaker, the Invisible Hand, and the Theology of Whiteness

Abstract

This essay explores the puzzle of persistent racial inequality. It probes the well-worn alternatives of racism and merit by raising a provocative comparison between the intelligent design creationism and racial conspiracy theories. In each case, proponents observe complexity and, with deep personal commitments at stake, reason that some kind of agent must be responsible, either a benevolent God or a malevolent racist. In each case, respondents agree about the definition of religion or racism as grounded in an agent of some kind, but argue that ordinary science - either evolutionary biology or classical economics - proves that no such God or racist exists. The essay then surveys the historic misuses of evolutionary and economic rhetoric with regard to race, noting that such misuses depend on a self-serving appeal to the natural, simple, scientific inevitability of progress. The complex, interconnected historical development of religion, race, and evolutionary and economic theory are examined, and the essay argues that the rhetoric of economics often serves as a secular theology that functions to support Whiteness. The essay suggests that the fundamental questions of racial inequality are ultimately theological questions, and offers some avenues for finding common ground.