Safely Dead

Reader Lawrence King wrote in a recent comment

I might compare it to the sociological difference between a religion (or quasi-religion like Marxism) that has a fixed canon, and a religion that has a living prophet. Adherents of the former tend to pore over texts and hyper-analyze them to learn the deep secrets of their faith, and to figure out how to apply ancient doctrines to new situations. Adherents of the latter rarely do that, since they can just ask the living prophet for new revelations any time they want.

I'd actually been thinking about this recently, due to the Stimulus.  Everyone is arguing over whether it's working (or can work, or will work).  But what I find even more intriguing is economists arguing over whether Keynes would agree that this is how to do the stimulus.

Keynes was an economist, not a god.  Unless you think he has some sort of otherworldy insight, does it really matter if this stimulus is properly Keynesian?  If he were alive, and said "you're doing it wrong," I wonder how much difference that would make.  You get the same sort of thing with Marx, just worse (as Larry notes).  Marxists constantly argue over what Marx really meant, as if truly understanding him will lead to the best economic solution.

In a religion, it's logically consistent (even if your religion is false) to pore over old texts to divine their meaning, since you may believe they contain otherwise unattainable wisdom.  On the other hand, in the hard sciences today, anyone who tried to prove something by citing Darwin or Lavoisier would be laughed at.  It's those in-between areas, like philosophy or economics or law where authority still seems to hold some weight.

Look at the Founding Fathers.  There's a huge political fight over what they believed, even regarding fairly specific issues today. This makes some sense because (whether or not you believe they were especially wise) they did write a Constitution which is the basis of our legal system.  On the other hand, general arguments about what sort of society the Founders wanted, and how relevant their wishes should be, are much trickier. (Furthermore, if you believe the Founders set up a system where we could control our own destiny, then, in a paradoxical way, ignoring what they would have wanted could be following what they wanted.)

It occurs to me that a lot of movements (religious and otherwise) probably take off best once the founder is out of the picture.  There's nothing worse than trying to follow someone, only to have HIM, an unimpeachable authority, say you don't get it.  Once a guy is safely in the ground, then you can do what you want with his philosophy, bend it to whatever goals you have in mind. (I wonder--has there ever been a religion/philosophy started by a guy that kept going, even though the guy himself rejected it while he was alive?  Maybe Wittgenstein.)