Post truths / legitimizing reality through discourse / Narratives

Martin Luther

Thomas Aquinas

"The practicing of legitimizing economic paradigms by creating grand cosmological narratives to accompany them is an age-old practice. Contemporary historians point to St. Thomas Aquinas's description of creation as a Great Chain of Being during the feudal era as a good example of the process of framing a cosmology that legitimizes the existing social order. Aquinas argued that the proper workings of nature depend on a labyrinth of obligations among God's creatures. While each creature differs in intellect and cpabilities, the diversity and equality is essential to the orderly functioning of the overall system. If all creatures were equal, St. Thomas reasoned, then they could not act for the advantage of others. By making each creature different, God established a hierarchy of obligations in nature that, if faithfully carried out, allowed the creation to flourish.

St. Thomas's description of God's creation bears a striking resemblance to the way feudal society was set up: everyone's individual survival depended on them faithfully performing their duties within a rigidly defined social hierarchy. Serfs, knights, lords, and the pope were all unequal in degree and kind but obligated to serve others by the feudal bonds of fealty.

[...] The cosmology of the Protestant Reformation that accompanied the soft proto-industrial revolution of the late medieval era performed a similar legitimizing role. Martin Luther launched a frontal attack on the church's notion of the Great Chain of Being, arguing that it legitimized the corrupt hierarchal rule of the pope and the papal administration over the lives of the faithful. The Protestant theologian replaced the church's feudal cosmology with a worldview centered on the personal relationship of each believer with Christ. The democratization of worship fit well with the new communication/energy/transportation matrix that was empowering the new burgher class."

Jeremy Rifkin, Zero Marginal Cost Society [pa 70, 71]