We explain what is something orthodox, the origin of the term and various meanings. Also, what are religious and economic orthodoxy?
What is something orthodox?
The orthodox term is widely used in different areas of knowledge, always with the same general meaning: that which follows what is established, that adheres to the rules or that he plays according to the given rules, and is therefore considered “correct”. The set of norms to which the orthodox adheres, or the set of opinions or views considered “correct”, at the same time, is known as orthodoxy.
The word orthodox comes from the Greek, and is the result of the union of the voices orthos (“Correct”, as in orthography) and doxa (“opinion”). In that way, someone orthodox would turn out to be someone who professes the “correct opinion.”
In fact, this word was used for the first time in history in the 4th century AD. C., by the four Greek Fathers of the Church, to differentiate between those who followed the central Christian doctrine, and those others (“heterodox”) who raised or adhered to different interpretations and versions (“heretical”) of Christian worship.
Of course, this does not mean that “orthodox” is synonymous with “correct” or “good”, but rather with “traditional”. An orthodox thought, for example, is one that starts from what has already been established, that respects what is given in advance: it can be innovative, but it always does so in relation to what was previously accepted, without going off track.
On it differs from heterodox, which would be the opposite: that which rejects the established and proposes new perspectives or new paths.
This term is widely used in the fields of politics, religion and economics, areas of knowledge in which, precisely, there are many conflicting points of view and many doctrines that aspire to the truth.
Religious orthodoxy
In the religious field, those religions or religions are known as orthodox slopes of a religion that adhere to ancient traditions and reject more modern versions or the reinterpretations of the cult, preferring to stick to the “original” religious tradition.
Thus, it is common to speak of Orthodox Judaism, for example, to call the most conservative and strict variants of Jewish religion and culture, which adhere to the ancient mandates as much as possible, even going so far as to reject the advantages of modern life.
Orthodox Christianity is also spoken of, although in this case to refer to the Eastern Christian Church, that is, the Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church, a variant of Christianity that definitively separated from Western Catholicism during the East-West Schism of July 16, 1054, an event that marked a great change in the political, social and religious configuration of the Christian world.
This church considers itself uninterrupted heir to the worship professed by Jesus of Nazareth in antiquity, and has between 225 and 300 million faithful in the world, mostly in Eastern Europe and the former territories of the Byzantine Empire, being thus, only one of the 14 or 15 Eastern Orthodox Churches, which do not recognize any other religious authority except their own.
Economic orthodoxy
For its part, in economics orthodoxy (also called “traditional economics”) is understood as the traditional way of teaching economics, which responds to the microeconomic precepts of the Neoclassical School and the macroeconomic proposals of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), in what is known as the Neoclassical Synthesis.
It is distinguished from heterodox economics, which pursues different approaches to the economic fact, in their own ways of understanding the subject and in the basic philosophy they profess.
Thus, orthodox economics understands economics as an exact science, whose rules can be understood, measured and formulated, betting on the rationalization of people’s behavior to achieve a balance (rationality-individualism-balance).
In contrast, heterodox economics thinks of economics as a social science, whose actors present subjective and unpredictable behavior, and which deserves to be understood from history (institutions-history-social structure).