Bizarre parallel universes

by Chris Bertram on July 29, 2004

The novel I’m reading at the moment is full of stuff about multiverses, alternate realities and quantum physics, and maybe I’ll post about it in a few days. It was a shock to put the book down, leave the garden, do some surfing and “almost immediately read this by Tim Burke”:http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/perma72704.html :

bq. If Kerry is elected, and imposes a kind of extremist political vision root and branch upon the Americans who oppose him….

In what bizarre possible world might Kerry impose an “extremist political vision”? Perhaps one in which he’s actually “a reptoid alien disguised as a human?”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke To be fair to Tim, the hypothesis (of extremism rather than reptilism) is one that he dismisses, if only on the grounds that the Republicans have a solid majority! And there are some worthy sentiments in his post. But the very idea that Kerry, who, in European terms is a moderate conservative — and who won’t even “impose” such sensible ideas as “socialized medicine” — might seek to advance an “extremist vision”, shows how disconnected from reality American political discourse is becoming.

[UPDATE: I seem to have read Tim’s post rather too hastily. See comments for details]

{ 109 comments }

1

Vance Maverick 07.29.04 at 8:18 am

Can you say some more about this notion of “reality”? It sounds like you’re arguing for an evaluation of political ideas against an objective transhistorical spectrum, rather than in the time and place where they’re proposed.

2

bad Jim 07.29.04 at 9:01 am

The paper I read this morning had comments from assorted humanoids. One objected that the Democrats in Boston were exuding the usual “liberal poison.”

(FWIW, it was the Oakland Tribune)

1) someone who was distressed by his last experience with a poissonnerie (or doesn’t like fish)

2) expecting a Gaussian, confounded by a Poisson distribution

3) didn’t know what a German means by “gift”

e) huh?

3

dsquared 07.29.04 at 11:44 am

My Uqbar theory, that some parts of the Internet are clearly connected to a world which differs from our own in significant ways, looks more convincing every day and the election campaign hasn’t even started yet.

4

Matt McGrattan 07.29.04 at 12:34 pm

I think this may be a misreading of what Burke says.

Burke isn’t claiming that Kerry will impose an extremist vision.

He’s arguing that Bush did impose such a vision and that if, hypothetically, Kerry were to do the same then we would know that political consensus would be impossible as the choice would be between two extremes.

It’s a subjunctive claim :-) – Burke doesn’t seem to making any kind of point that Kerry would in fact do so.

5

Ian 07.29.04 at 12:57 pm

It might be a ‘subjunctive claim’ but it is a standard – and disreputable – political device too. All you need to do is attach some horrendous consequence to your target by setting out some hypothetical circumstances and then later forget the hypothetical context…

6

rea 07.29.04 at 1:25 pm

“I think this may be a misreading of what Burke says.”

I quite (in the American sense) agree. It looks to me like Burke is endorsing Kerry for president, when you read the whole thing:

“To choose Bush is to choose to impose the starkest, most extreme formulation of the agenda that Bush has come to exemplify on a population of Americans to whom that agenda is repellant. To choose Bush is to choose Tocqueville’s tyranny of the majority (or even, judging from the popular vote in 2000, tyranny of the almost-majority). To choose Bush now—not in 2000, when he plausibly could have been many things–is to aspire to tyranny, to ruling your neighbors and countrymen. That some on the left have had or even achieved similar aspirations from time to time doesn’t change things: it’s wrong whenever it is the driving vision of political engagement, for whomever holds it.”

7

Giles 07.29.04 at 1:27 pm

Kerry is going to renegotiate all the US free trade deals. I doubt the other parties are going to agree to that.

So I think it is fair to say that Kerry’s trade isolationism is “extreme” in this day and age (although not in the 30’s).

8

Giles 07.29.04 at 1:27 pm

Kerry is going to renegotiate all the US free trade deals. I doubt the other parties are going to agree to that.

So I think it is fair to say that Kerry’s trade isolationism is “extreme” in this day and age (although not in the 30’s).

9

Chris Bertram 07.29.04 at 1:35 pm

You’re probably right Matt, though I think Tim Burke’s choice of language in which to make such a subjunctive claim is odd – yours is much clearer.

But don’t you think that, even as a subjunctive claim, it is a rather bizarre one to entertain?

“If John Kerry were to order the slaughter of all infants under the age of one …” also introduces such a subjunctive, but I wouldn’t expect to see such a strange antecedent in a bit of political commentary (unless it was written by Ann Coulter).

10

Timothy Burke 07.29.04 at 1:50 pm

Holy baby Jebus, Chris, what do I have to do? Read the frikkin’ piece: I make it clear that I regard George Bush as the worst possible president we could have. Part of the argument of the piece is that he’s partially responsible for edging the United States towards a kind of undeclared civil war.

But the rest of the argument is aimed squarely at people who are already declared Bush supporters, because I actually think they’re a more important problem than Bush himself. I’m saying to them–pleading with them–to see what it is that they’d be doing by choosing Bush. Not just voting for the candidate they prefer, not just irrationally overlooking his failures in Iraq and elsewhere, but voting to impose a highly coordinated and connected totalizing social and political agenda on the other half of the population.

So the quote you’re taking exception to is about–and I think, re-reading, that this is screamingly clear–my plea to Bush supporters, particularly cultural conservatives. I’m saying, “Ok, to be fair, if you vote for Kerry, and he does the *same thing* I’m accusing Bush of doing, then maybe we’re at a final impasse in this country, and there’s nothing left but a take-no-prisoners fight for domination between two almost-majority voting blocs”. But it’s obviously not just that Kerry won’t be able, it’s that he wouldn’t, in my judgement. I’m simply trying to communicate to a strong Bush supporter that what I’m proposing is a general standard, that for their sake as well as my sake, a person who governs by considering each issue as it comes independently, by considering each issue on its merits, by NOT imposing a totalizing agenda, is good. Good for them and good for me. And since we know Bush is not that, it seems fair enough even if you knew nothing else about Kerry to give him a shot and see if he is.

Way to read the whole essay.

11

Jeremy Osner 07.29.04 at 1:51 pm

Chris — I have to confess I’m a bit puzzled. At first I read your complaint as playful and assumed you understood Burke’s post and were in agreement with it — and really, what is not to understand or be in agreement with? It is a very well-written, sincerely thoughtful piece.

But it seems from your latest comment like you were genuinely confused. I don’t get it — Burke writes, “I choose to believe and hope and trust that we’re not there yet.” He clearly believes that the hypothetical you object to is contrary to fact. I think it makes sense to introduce it as a possibility and then strike it down, given that he has been talking about Bush’s behavior in this regard, and especially after he has mentioned the belief on the part of some Christian conservatives, that electing a liberal means they will be repressed.

12

mc 07.29.04 at 1:55 pm

I’m getting that feeling a lot from the tv news reports on the campaign. Sometimes it really becomes hilarious. It seems the prevailing mantra is, how can Kerry with his rich privileged lifestyle appeal to the masses blah blah – insert footage of Kerry doing water-skiing, skiing, snowboarding, whatever – Sky News, to their credit, also offered footage of Bush’s “multimillion-dollar ranch”… only to inform us, though, that Bush likes to be seen doing very “down to earth” activities like, walking in the woods – insert footage of Bush walking around among very down-to-earth foliage – instead of fancy rich boy sports… so he doesn’t come off as such an aristocratic snob, like. Wow. Interesting! I guess playing golf is no longer a posh thing, then. If Bush does it.

I’d like to know, by what logic is the question of how a wealthy and privileged life can affect one’s relationship with the electorate only a problem for Kerry? In what parallel universe is walking in your own _private_ ranch more in touch with the working class than water-skiing? or is it what, more “American”? like they only water-ski in Monte Carlo?

I don’t know, they were picturing Bush as Gary Cooper and Kerry as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Three more months of such entertainment, you almost wish it never ended…

13

William 07.29.04 at 1:57 pm

What novel are you reading?

14

bob mcmanus 07.29.04 at 2:05 pm

“as a uniter and not a divider. That’s his biggest lie of all” …Burke

I have never heard a single Republican who would not deny this, who would not say that Bush’s attempts at comity were ruthlessly spurned repeatedly by the Democrats. I say this as preface.
….
I, in the moonbat crowd, can think of conditions in which Kerry might get radical. Since I believe Repubs are capable of anything, a phrase I do not use lightly, they may attempt a scorched earth retreat if defeated in November. (Of course, since I really believe them capable of anything, I also think Bush will be here in February.)
….
For a hypothetical:after Bush loses in November, Greenspan and the Fed raise interest rates to 20% or default on debt; nukes Tehran and Pyongyang; rounds up American Muslims and inters them; does whatever is within his power to throw America into war and depression. Under such conditions, the new Kerry administration might do things that Tom DeLay and NRO and the Republican party would consider radical.

15

Thorley Winston 07.29.04 at 2:30 pm

Bob McManus wrote:

I have never heard a single Republican who would not deny this, who would not say that Bush’s attempts at comity were ruthlessly spurned repeatedly by the Democrats. I say this as preface.

Actually that’s pretty much the case considering that Bush gave Democrats pretty much let them write the education and agriculture bills, agreed to those silly “rebate checks” while scaling back the size of the tax cut, proposed a de facto amnesty for illegal aliens, pushed through Clinton’s judicial nominees, gave them a larger prescription drug benefit for Medicare than the one he campaigned on, held a vote on Iraq after Senate Democrats demanded a vote before the midterm elections (of course they almost immediately flip-flopped on it), went back to the UN, etc. etc. Frankly Bush has done more to accommodate the opposition party than any other POTUS in recent memory and they have rebuffed him at nearly every turn.

16

Thorley Winston 07.29.04 at 2:33 pm

Chris Bertram wrote:

But the very idea that Kerry, who, in European terms is a moderate conservative

You miss the point, in American terms (the ones that matter since this is an American election), most European politicos are far left socialists. Generally, American politician considered “moderate” by European terms would be an “extremist” by ours and vice versa as evidenced by the attempt to paint Bush, who has pretty much governed as a center right President, as some of extreme conservative by the lunatic fringe.

17

Chris Bertram 07.29.04 at 2:42 pm

Thanks Tim, I see it more clearly now that I’ve gone back to the piece in the light of your comment. So sorry for getting you wrong. What you say does raise a different problem, though, since it now reads

bq. If Kerry is elected, and imposes a kind of extremist [in the view of Bush supporters about what counts as “extremist”] political vision root and branch upon the Americans who oppose him….

Since Republicans and their supporters are often crazily expansive in what counts as “extremist” that looks like a major hostage to fortune. See, e.g. this hilarious quote (via “a Matthew Yglesias post”:http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/07/fusionism.html ) about “”the totalitarian implications of the federal school lunch program.”

18

mc 07.29.04 at 2:45 pm

Oh dear.

19

djw 07.29.04 at 2:49 pm

Whoa….talk about your alternative universes. Actually, I think Tim and Chris (and Thorley) make a mistake when they expend energy trying to figure out and argue about whether Bush is an extreme conservative, moderate conservative, or exactly where in between he is. It’s a fools game, and there’s ready evidence to counter either claim. Why? Because Bush’s most distinct trait (and greatest failure) is that he doesn’t govern from a consistent place, or anything close to one. He’s not any of those things–he’s a political opportunist. His legislative priorities have been to throw something big and juicy to a number of different constituent groups on the right (and, occasionally, the center or left). All politicians do this, but along the way most of them try to combine this with actual good governance. That’s something distinctly lacking from the tax cuts, medicare bill, Iraq/Afganistan strategy, energy policy, etc. I think there was an attempt to govern well in addition to make certain people happy with No Child Left Behind, but it rather obviously failed. It’s the exception rather than the rule.

To sum up: You have to earn a place on the political spectrum by trying to govern–actually govern in a way consistent with that ideology. I haven’t seen sufficient evidence of that to grant Bush a place on the center right, or extreme right, or anywhere in between.

20

bob mcmanus 07.29.04 at 3:20 pm

Mr Burke, I want to compliment you on a very enjoyable piece, suffused with idealism and sadness. As you might see by reading Mr Winston, we have most likely already passed your tipping point. We are at 1960, or even 1860. It is that damn South and Red States again, a conflict in the American Soul religious in nature, and deeper than slavery or racism.

There are men of good will on the other side who are frightened and sad. Like John Calhoun was frightened and sad. Your characterization of religion as a personal faith is part of the problem, they see religion as the foundation of a community. A totalitarianisn of personal liberty is unacceptable to them. I believe, on a reading of history, they have a case.

This conflict is most likely no longer succeptable to compromise. It would be best to realize this as soon as possible, but so difficult it will be accepted too late. John Kerry is likely, if elected, at best to play a role comparable to Buchanan’s.

21

Leighton 07.29.04 at 3:30 pm

Highly amusing. In comment after comment Chris asks us to consider all sorts of outrageous hypotheses with a “not-agreeing-or-disagreeing, just-linking” caveat, but when he finally links to and takes issue with an interesting essay — one of the more interesting takes on the current American political stalemate — he gets it all wrong. And before he has time to “update” his post, half the commenters have already hopped onto the horseless bandwagon. Worse; (like so many war hawks) they refuse to get off, arguing surrealistically that bandwagons don’t really need horses. No, not amusing — depressing.

22

Timothy Burke 07.29.04 at 3:41 pm

Well, that’s my fear, Bob.

I suppose I am oddly enough casting cultural and religious conservatives as the North here, and pleading with them not to divide the Union. And I’m trying to be as understanding as I can about what I know their counter-claim is: that the Union is, in their eyes, already divided, that they cannot compromise with what they see as sin.

That’s as sensitive as I can be to how others see it–obviously I think the moral equation is completely reversed, and the immorality here is the tyrannous ambitions of cultural crusaders on the Right, that the moral and righteous thing to do is to defend a conception of American freedom that is secular and rights-based, that is about constraint on the powers of government to regulate the moral and cultural behavior of citizens.

But I do think that those of us who oppose Bush must try to communicate with his most ardent supporters, to get them to see what it is that they’re really proposing. I’m not talking here about those tattered remnants of older conservatisms that cling to Bush because they’re supposed to–I think a serious libertarian, fiscal conservative or foreign policy realist has no business even contemplating a vote for Bush. I’m not talking here about Americans who are fearful of terrorism and looking for whomever sounds toughest on it. Those folks are all persuadable that Bush doesn’t even represent their interests or beliefs, at least potentially.

I’m talking about the people that Bush really does represent, whose loyalty to him is well-founded. I hope they can see what they’re doing and what it will mean if Bush wins by a narrow majority. It really does mean that the other 49.99% (or even, based on 2000, 50+%) of the voting population has to face the fact that they’re disenfranchised in a very scary and structural way, that what is sometimes a local dilemma produced by gerrymandering has become a national dilemma.

In such circumstances, electoral politics will no longer even notionally or theoretically be the place where we struggle about the dispensation of the social.

23

Timothy Burke 07.29.04 at 3:48 pm

A quick-follow up to Chris’ last post. It may be that many activists on the right have a delusional conception of what constitutes “extremism”–I still have no idea why Bill Clinton is regarded by the activist right as a wild-eyed extremist liberal. It may be that one does not want to write a blank check to their perceptions, as you could definitely claim my hypothetical does.

But one of the driving points I want to get at is that the hardcore of Bush’s support–I’d guess it at about 35% of the voting population–is a social fact, not merely a bit of Fox News puffery. It can’t be argued away, exposed for what it is, dispersed with the facts. It might be that the perception that a moderate Democrat is an extremist is loony. Against virtually every meaningful yardstick I can think of, it is indeed a false perception. But false or not, there it is. Either there’s a route into that perceptual world or there is not. If there is not, then the problem we’re facing is more than George Bush or Iraq.

[p.s. thanks, leighton–I was thinking the same thing, that this should demonstrate that it’s *prudent* to actually go to the link before you join a prompted pile-on…]

24

GMT 07.29.04 at 4:09 pm

Kerry is going to renegotiate all the US free trade deals

What “free trade deals”? What “free trade”? What is “extreme” about reassessing a failed trade policy? Why shouldn’t we revisit the agricultural subsidies reinstalled by Bush (after Newt and Bill had joined hands to pull them down)? Why shouldn’t we laugh at a phony shrimp-dumping crisis, manufactured by lobbyists? Why shouldn’t we be alarmed at American industries so coddled by purchased protections that they can’t compete abroad (and how is it that that protectionism has come to wear the name “free trade”)?
How is reassessing Bush’s selective isolationism (code named “free trade”) supposed to be “isolationism”?
Smarter false dichotomies, please.

25

bull 07.29.04 at 4:15 pm

Timothy – W is “the worst possible president we could have.” He’s “edging the United States towards a kind of undeclared civil war.” Voting for Bush is tantamount to “voting to impose a highly coordinated and connected totalizing social and political agenda on the other half of the population.”

And people say that Republicans are divisive? Puhleaze.

26

GMT 07.29.04 at 4:20 pm

Yes, bull. It’s OK to do these things. It’s not OK to talk about them.

Shhhhhh! You’re being divisive!
Why does accountability hate America?

27

Steve Carr 07.29.04 at 4:22 pm

Leighton’s point is an excellent one. Chris dismisses Tim’s well-considered post as coming from a bizarre alternate universe — and Daniel, surprisingly, piles on — while calling tripe like Marc Mulholland’s implicit defense of Islamism as a “rounded expression of full humanity” “very useful and serious.” I realize this is the Internet, but it seems like devoting a little more time to careful reading before linking (and, for commenters, reading the linked-to piece before posting) might not be a bad idea.

28

GMT 07.29.04 at 4:36 pm

steve: agreed.
What the hell is this place? Instapundit?
All it needs now is a superfluity of posts ending in “hmmmmmmm…”

29

William Piek 07.29.04 at 4:38 pm

Pot, Kettle, Glasshouse, stones …

How predictable that Steve Carr, who appears to specialize in gratuitous misreadings of posts on Crooked Timber should weigh-in here. I read Mulholland’s piece too, and anyone thinks it was an “implicit defense of Islamism” shouldn’t be in here throwing stones.

30

Leighton 07.29.04 at 5:14 pm

If this is a new bandwagon, I’m not on it, certainly not pulling it. But Steve Carr is entirely right about Marc Mulholland’s piece. It may not have been an outright apology for Islamism, but anyone labelling “liberal Islamophobia… the most dangerous prejudice we now face” would seem to me a far likelier inhabitant of Chris’s “bizarre parallel universe” than his current (now withdrawn) candidate.

31

son volt 07.29.04 at 5:26 pm

Timothy Burke’s original post was thoughtful and sprang from the noblest of sentiments. But I think the apocalyptic tone is unjustified. C.f. the “who lost Kansas” discussion: struggling whites are voting to outlaw abortion, but are getting capital gains tax cuts.

If there were anything structurally authentic in the GOP’s adoption of the culture war standard, I’d share Tim’s worries. But the GOP’s real business is, not the establishment of a theocracy, but the revocation of the New Deal. And that’s a proposal for which the white working class has heretofore shown little enthusiasm.

32

Russell Arben Fox 07.29.04 at 6:04 pm

1) I don’t particularly believe that Bush is the worst president this nation has ever seen. 2) I don’t really agree with (much less appreicate) Timothy’s description of social conservatives as having “tyrannous ambitions”; federal funding for faith-based policy initiatives, the preservation of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and (yes, even) marriage laws which reflect the traditional moral perspectives of a majority of American citizens do not, I would suggest, a Christian theocracy make. (For whatever it’s worth, I say this as one who is glad that opponents of same-sex marriage have failed in their attempts to take the constitutional route…and for that matter, as one who doesn’t didn’t and won’t vote for President Bush, because frankly the man is a tunnel-vision incompetent.) In short, as Son Volt suggests, Burke’s plea, while thoughtful, strikes me as unjustifiably paranoid.

But still, thoughtful all the same. I cannot agree more with Burke’s intelligent point that any responsible thinking about progressive politics in the U.S. must begin with the “social fact” that around one-third of the electorate–mostly white, rural, socially conservative, religious, middle or working-class (that is, non-professional) voters–forms a “hardcore” base for Bush and his ilk. I think Frank is framing the “who lost Kansas” debate all wrong, whereas Timothy is essentially getting it right (though I doubt he agrees much with Frank’s thesis): how can one progressively engage the sensibilities of those who have convinced themselves (not without cause) that secular society is out to get them, and enable them to see that their (frequent, though I wouldn’t say consistent) absolutist partisanship is actually hurting them, in that it prevents them from appreciating how mostly Republican oligarchic policies have often impoverished their ability to economically and socially defend their preferred ways of life? Well, the first thing you do is grant them at the very least the legitimacy of recognition, something which the Democrats have long failed to do (though hopefully that is changing).

I also hope that the mindset of many of my fellow Christians can be changed, not necessarily because I think we may be on our way towards civil war, but because the deeper they (and others) help to unintentionally entrench a winner-take-all, first-past-the-post, a-bare-majority-equals-whatever-mandate-you-can-grab approach to politics, the harder it will be for any candidate to plausibly break out of the crude dividing lines which distinguish the two major parties, and actually propose a different agenda. As someone who’d like to see a different mix of progressivism and conservatism as an electoral option, that is an end much to be desired, and something which thinking like Timothy’s is a crucial part of.

33

mc 07.29.04 at 6:10 pm

Well it was easy to read Timothy Burke’s hypothetical the way Chris did. You’ve got an argument against the catastrophical consequences of re-electing Bush that concedes to the hypothesis a Kerry victory might bring just as catastrophical consequences, were it not for one’s personal act of faith it won’t and for the merciful intervention of a Republican congress… that’s what it sounded like, a self-defeating argument using a very bizarre hypothesis.

I now understand what Timothy meant, after he explained it. It wasn’t that clear in the post itself.

I still don’t understand why would anyone want to argue with Bush supporters ;)

No, what I mean is, if someone is a hardcore Bush supporter, still at this time 100% convinced Bush governed beautifully, there’s not much you can say to make them change their minds. Especially if you lose them right at the second paragraph or so. A hardcore supporter would never agree it was Bush that created a civil war atmosphere and governed so terribly. They’d never get to the end of the post to read that hypothetical argument addressed to them.

In any election in any country there’s always people voting for a party out of hardcore partisanship and they’ll maybe never change their vote in their lifetime, whoever the candidate is. You’ve got only two parties in the US after all. Also, not everyone who wants to vote Republican might be a Bush enthusiast, so it doesn’t have to be all about Bush either.

But the hardcore voters seem to be the minority anyway, otherwise, there would be a far higher turnout at elections. The US has one of the lowest. That is the worrying thing.

You can’t argue with someone with extreme prejudices and absolute certainties. People who will be open to change their minds and swing votes are those _without_ that kind of paranoias. They will have far less ideological bias and partisanship to start with, but then, they will probably feel less involved and less interested in voting… Seems to me that is the biggest problem in any elections, not the hardcore bases of one party or the other.

34

Ophelia Benson 07.29.04 at 6:11 pm

Secular society gonna get yo momma.

35

mc 07.29.04 at 6:11 pm

Well it was easy to read Timothy Burke’s hypothetical the way Chris did. You’ve got an argument against the catastrophical consequences of re-electing Bush that concedes to the hypothesis a Kerry victory might bring just as catastrophical consequences, were it not for one’s personal act of faith it won’t and for the merciful intervention of a Republican congress… that’s what it sounded like, a self-defeating argument using a very bizarre hypothesis.

I now understand what Timothy meant, after he explained it. It wasn’t that clear in the post itself.

I still don’t understand why would anyone want to argue with Bush supporters ;)

No, what I mean is, if someone is a hardcore Bush supporter, still at this time 100% convinced Bush governed beautifully, there’s not much you can say to make them change their minds. Especially if you lose them right at the second paragraph or so. A hardcore supporter would never agree it was Bush that created a civil war atmosphere and governed so terribly. They’d never get to the end of the post to read that hypothetical argument addressed to them.

In any election in any country there’s always people voting for a party out of hardcore partisanship and they’ll maybe never change their vote in their lifetime, whoever the candidate is. You’ve got only two parties in the US after all. Also, not everyone who wants to vote Republican might be a Bush enthusiast, so it doesn’t have to be all about Bush either.

But the hardcore voters seem to be the minority anyway, otherwise, there would be a far higher turnout at elections. The US has one of the lowest. That is the worrying thing.

You can’t argue with someone with extreme prejudices and absolute certainties. People who will be open to change their minds and swing votes are those _without_ that kind of paranoias. They will have far less ideological bias and partisanship to start with, but then, they will probably feel less involved and less interested in voting… Seems to me that is the biggest problem in any elections, not the hardcore bases of one party or the other.

36

Ophelia Benson 07.29.04 at 6:23 pm

“how can one progressively engage the sensibilities of those who have convinced themselves (not without cause) that secular society is out to get them”

Nice bit of pompous periphrasis there. I wonder what it means. What ’cause’ do ‘those’ have for convincing themselves that secular society is out to get them? Unless the claim is so periphrastic that it just doesn’t mean anything – unless ’cause’ in that context means because they feel like it, which is indeed a cause to convince oneself of something, as is almost anything.

In short – rhetoric in action. Imply, but in such a tortuous way that you can deny it if queried, that something naughty is being done by someone somewhere, but be careful not to say anything specific.

37

Russell Arben Fox 07.29.04 at 6:46 pm

“Imply, but in such a tortuous way that you can deny it if queried, that something naughty is being done by someone somewhere, but be careful not to say anything specific.”

Fair enough; that was lousy and somewhat condescending way to make my point. My apologies.

To reformulate my point: from my perspective, which I would like to believe is not an unreasonable one, most of what is described by social conservatives as “secular attacks” on religion is paranoid bunk…but not all of it. Thomas Frank and others who have of late bemoaned the way many rural, conservative Americans have followed culture-war rhetoric away from their “true” economic interests generally imply that the social concerns and suspicions of this class of American citizens are the product of simple ignorance and backwardness. I agree that some of it, perhaps a lot of it, is. But again, not all of it.

38

baa 07.29.04 at 7:05 pm

Let me briefly support Russell Arben Fox.

Look, how do we read the aggressive reading of separation of church and state by courts as directed by secular interest groups? As a secular attack on religion, obviously.

What about claims advanced by some academic liberal theorist(and Robert Reich!) that religious ‘reasons’ can’t be included in political debate because they aren’t subjcet to the requirements of “public reason.” Same thing.

Now, you may believe that in both these cases, the secular left is right and the religious right is wrong. Bully for you! That doesn’t mean there isn’t a seed of a greivance here.

And let’s not forget the big event in the polarization of the religious right: Roe v. Wade. I’m honestly confused that anyone would not see what religious conservatives found objectionable about that ruling. It changed the state of play, it gave very little room for manuever by opponents, and it proceeded essentailly undemocratically. So question out there to Ms. Benson, do you understand why religious conservatives might feel threatened by secular society?

39

Ralph Luker 07.29.04 at 7:13 pm

It is all well and good for people who operate from secular assumptions to insist that secular ground is neutral ground, but it is merely _their_ ground and they have a way of insisting that it is the only acceptable common ground.

40

Another Damned Medievalist 07.29.04 at 7:31 pm

Do you think they have tenure on the Discworld? If so, I may be moving to Ankh-Morpork.

41

Ophelia Benson 07.29.04 at 7:39 pm

“Fair enough; that was lousy and somewhat condescending way to make my point. My apologies.”

Now I’m all abashed. No need; not at all; etc.

As for the concerns and suspicions – maybe. But I tend to think some of that is more cultural than religious (and in fact I share a lot of it), and also that some of it is as it were generated rather than spontaneous. I don’t know, though; it’s a guess.

“do you understand why religious conservatives might feel threatened by secular society?”

Yes, I think so. But that’s not the same thing as thinking the threatened-feeling is legitimate. People can have all sorts of grievances that are not particularly legitimate. People can have grievances that they’re expected to share buses with people of other races, for example. We may understand in some sense why they feel that way without thinking they have any particular right to, or any claim to remedial action.

And secularism needn’t be seen as an attack on religion. Just for one thing, plenty of religious people are themselves secularists. I know plenty myself. Secularism is not synonymous with atheism.

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mc 07.29.04 at 7:42 pm

Here’s a tougher one: how do you “progressively engage” the sensibilities of those who have convinced themselves (not without cause?) that the Second Coming is near and who view US global policies in that light? What about people who literally believe the Bible stories are literally true, and, again think politics should adapt to that thinking?

Did they actually “convince themselves” of that, all of their own, or was there someone else helping along with the convincing part? Maybe with some self-interest of their own?

Do we need to adopt or justify an extremist way of thinking to “engage” people who fall for it? Are we so afraid that otherwise we’d be insulting them?

The mere “social fact” that there are people holding extreme partisan or paranoid views, whether in politics or religion or both, and in all varying degrees of extremism, does not in itself require any acceptance of it, or adaptation to it. Sure, you can’t ignore it. But you can’t ignore that when people are really on the extremes, then they are usually not open to engaging in political dialogue on a rational, logic basis at all. Renouncing that basis only to hope to be able to reach them is not a way to communicate. It’s a way of giving up on the idea that there just IS a rational position vs. an irrational one, and that it’s not a crime against freedom of opinion to say it clearly. There are differences of opinions, and then there are far bigger differences of entire approaches and entire worldviews and some are really so far out they cannot be brought back to reality. They can only be confronted and counteracted and neutralised at a cultural level first of all. If everyone prefers to pander to the extremes instead, they will most certainly grow stronger.

Why would anyone who’s not an interested party and fishing for votes or money want to do that? Sheer delusion? Fear of confrontation? I don’t know, but if there is something that needs to be confronted, it seems preferable to have that cultural “civil war” out in the open than to avoid the questions.

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Walt Pohl 07.29.04 at 7:42 pm

What I find astonishing is how a dominant minority can still feel aggreived. The United States has never elected a non-Christian President. I couldn’t even tell you who the most prominent atheist elected official is (and whoever they are, I’m sure they keep it close to the vest). We invoke God on our money and in our pledge. We’ve had Highway to Heaven, Touched by an Angel, Seventh Heaven, and Joan of Arcadia on prime time versus zero atheist shows. You tell most people you are an atheist, and it’s not too far from telling them you’re a child molester. I’ve had people ask me “If you’re really an atheist, why don’t you commit murder?” I had one person seriously try to convince me that if I were try to my philosophy, I would kill myself.

What more do Christians need to be happy? Sure popular culture don’t perfectly represent Christian values, but it doesn’t represent my values either. (There are plenty of atheists who don’t let their children watch television, or carefully restrict what they watch.) Atheists are at the mercy of the marketplace like anyone else.

When someone like Robert Reich argues in favor of secularism or public reason, he’s not saying that you cannot be influenced by your religion, but that when it comes to making laws the discussion should proceed on a basis that is neutral both between religions and between religion and atheism. The alternative is that a religions majority imposes its will on everyone else.

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Ophelia Benson 07.29.04 at 7:51 pm

Another point. It’s rhetoric to talk of assumptions unless you’re really certain they are in fact assumptions. And there are good grounds for saying that secularism is indeed neutral ground – because it doesn’t require belief or non-belief. And in a world where different people have different metaphysical beliefs (or none), there is a case to be made that a ‘neutral’ ground where none of those metaphysical beliefs play a role is both safer and more fair than one where some do and others don’t. That’s not an assumption – it’s an argument.

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Ralph Luker 07.29.04 at 7:53 pm

And how is Reich’s insistence that when I act in my status as a citizen I must act out of secular assumptions not the coercive demand of one who insists that I must act on _his_ assumptions?

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Ophelia Benson 07.29.04 at 8:02 pm

Oh, well there, I needn’t have bothered, Walt Pohl and MC said it for me.

“I’ve had people ask me “If you’re really an atheist, why don’t you commit murder?””

Yup. I’ve had very similar conversations.

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Steve Carr 07.29.04 at 8:08 pm

Walt, you know what Christians — at least conservative Christians — need, at the very least, to be happy. They need abortion to be illegal, so that they are not part of a country in which, as they see it, millions of innocent humans are, with the approval of the state, murdered every year. Would you be happy if you lived in a country in which you thought this was happening?

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Walt Pohl 07.29.04 at 8:18 pm

Ralph: Are you saying, “Only one group can rule, so it might as well be my group?”

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Ralph Luker 07.29.04 at 8:24 pm

Walt, I am obviously not saying that, because it is a pluralistic society and I don’t demand that my Southern, white, male, evangelical Protestant (or any of the many subdivisions thereof) must rule all others. I do expect that others will not insist that I give up my identity when functioning in my civic capacity.

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djw 07.29.04 at 8:30 pm

Russell, Thomas Frank making a false consciousness argument does not a serious secular attack on Christianity make. I’m sympathetic to you’re argument, maybe. But I’d like to see a more concrete example of a serious and not paranoid threat to Christianity.

A quasi-Rawlsian argument by Robert Reich doesn’t constitute such a threat. If cultural conservative Christians feel persecuted by being asked to translate their religous reasoning into public reasoning, they’re expecting priviledged position in political discourse that the rest of us don’t get. That no one expresses any shame (or even concern) about the fact that an atheist could never be elected to high office is an example of just how priviledged Christians are in our discourse and society. Simply being used to a little more priviledge than they have now doesn’t make their complaints just or appropriate (although it does perhaps make them sociologically predictable, which ought to make us a little more sypathetic, maybe.

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Ophelia Benson 07.29.04 at 8:56 pm

“which ought to make us a little more sypathetic, maybe.”

Or then again maybe not. Because the trouble is it just seems to turn into an endless feedback loop. It’s the self-fulfilling prophecy thing. You tell people they have a grievance, they believe you, you sympathize with their grievance, they feel even more badly-treated – and so on. It might be time to start telling religious people that they in fact don’t have much of a grievance, and that they have no legitimate grievance at all, and that they should suck it up and stop kvetching.

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djw 07.29.04 at 9:27 pm

Well, I didn’t necessarily mean it as a strategic argument. On a personal level, I’m more apt to be forgiving of unreasonableness if I have good reason to believe that a solid majority of humans confronted with a similar situation are quite likely to respond in similarly unreasonable ways. Maybe what I’m saying is not that we should concede merit to their grievances, but rather that we should be as understanding as possible (even when we’re boiling with righteous rage at their utter myopic lack of a sense of fairness and political equality) when we explain why they don’t have a greivance. Which seems rather banal now that I’ve actually spelled it out.

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mc 07.29.04 at 9:33 pm

Ralph – “It is all well and good for people who operate from secular assumptions to insist that secular ground is neutral ground, but it is merely their ground and they have a way of insisting that it is the only acceptable common ground.”

Outside of a theocracy, it is. Secular society is not the antithesis to religion, that is a giant distortion. A secular system is the one system that allows religions to thrive as religions. It doesn’t impose anything on religious people.

In a secular democratic society, all religions are free to be practiced by anybody and no one forces anyone to get divorce, have sex outside of marriage, use contraception, watch porn, you name it.

But those things are allowed by law, are considered legal because not everyone is religious, and not everyone who is religious follows those particular religious dictates, etc. etc. The basis for laws allowing or banning something is not religion, but secular ethics that can have many things in common with religious ethics, but are not dictated by it or by religious traditions and scriptures.

In a theocracy, religious fundamentalists want all those things _outlawed_ just because _they_ say so, or because they say the scriptures say so. Regardless of that common ground of laws and ethics. That is a theocratic mindset, even when you don’t have complete literal theocracy, that’s what happens when religion is used as an imposition into the political and social life.

Which system guarantees the best freedom to all kinds of people, religious and non religious alike? So why demonise it like that – and why reduce religion to just another political system? Doesn’t sound very ethical or religious-inspired to me.

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Timothy Burke 07.29.04 at 9:47 pm

I think there are good grounds for regarding secularism, as I understand the term, as neutral, not as “my values”. It allows the religious to be religious and it allows me to be me.

But perhaps secularism is the wrong way to put it, because secularism definitely does have a value system, broadly speaking.

Perhaps the better thing is to talk about a constrained state, about the Bill of Rights, and so on. That’s probably more resonant with many Americans, of all convictions, than secularism per se.

35% of the population isn’t a fringe or a margin or a constituency you can just ignore. I think some people adopt instead a strategy of rule: that such a group will just have to settle for not getting things their own way. Which, I suppose, in the end my position also equates to. But I think there’s a big difference in how you get there, both in terms of the relative willingness of that 35% to accept limitations on what they can and cannot have and in terms of the degree to which the 35% are able to make inroads on any potential “swing” constituencies who might be sympathetic to them.

Among the many things that went wrong with the institutionalization of some kinds of identity politics in the 1970s is that those politics handled whatever meager sources of social power they laid their hands on like blunt instruments. That this power was always vastly less than today’s critics of “political correctness” pretend is immaterial: what is important is that the crudity with which it was pursued was a major contributor to the widespread popular reaction to anything understood as “pc” today.

For example, how far do you think you’re ever going to get at convincing people that evolution is not just another theory if your standard-bearer is Richard Dawkins, say? Or even Carl Sagan? If I were going to set out to try and kick the legs out from underneath creation science, I’d first want to understand why it has the credibility that it does have–and that requires not approaching everyone who believes in it as if they’re demonic fiends or slack-jawed hillybillys. If you just know you’re right and don’t care what anybody else thinks, then why talk about it at all? Because, of course, creation science threatens the minds of innocent children yet to be born who deserve better, because it is a public issue–because in the end the thing that’s wrong about creation science is not what it says about evolution, but about how it breaks the rules of a free society by demanding equal time in those institutions where it’s not owed equal time.

This pretty much goes for everything in the core social and cultural agenda that drives that 35%. People here are probably right that I’m seeing things too apocalyptically; I’m certain that I’m seeing too stark a contrast between the core support for Bush and the rest of the United States. In that respect, as I noted, the Times polls showing a less partisan divide among Americans than it might appear are perfectly right. Barack Obama is perfectly right, too–the red states and the blue states are not really so different.

But that is why you can’t just dismiss that 35% as extremists that you can ignore or rule over with a polite form of force majeure–because they’re not so different from the 35% that lives next door to them ideologically, and maybe not so different from the 35% that thinks of themselves as utterly different. What they believe now could be prologue of what more people might believe tomorrow, precisely because we do share so much.

All I care about is getting us all back (or forward, if you like–I don’t want to engage in inaccurate nostalgia) to a civil society where all the players are respecting some common rules–and where no one is trying to win the game so finally as to force all the other players out.

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Ralph Luker 07.29.04 at 9:56 pm

One might tell Ophelia Benson to “suck it up and stop kvetching,” but it will get as little positive response from her as it will from me.
MC: If you go back and, well, actually read what I said, instead of just working up your own fevered crescendo, you’ll find that I didn’t demonize anything. Did I demand that abortion, contraception, divorce, or pornography be outlawed? Not at all. Did I demand the establishment of a theocracy in the United States. Not at all. You’re not reading well; and insist on attributing to me all of the right-wing extremist positions you fear. I simply said that the demands of secularists that as a citizen I must act on their secular assumptions is an effort at co-optation and, I might add, one that is unlikely to succeed.

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bob mcmanus 07.29.04 at 10:15 pm

Mr Burke & Ms Benson, meet Paul Cella

Religious War

“What I mean specifically to reprehend in this strain of libertarian thought is the tendency to equate intellectual or moral criticism with an appeal to or longing for action by the State. Thus, the traditionalist or Christian or social conservative who castigates the mass-produced ugliness and nihilism of American entertainment appears to the clouded eye of our libertarian as nothing but a stale Statist. Now I suppose I number among the adherents of each of the above-mentioned philosophies, and indeed I do think that the enormous American entertainment industry accounts for a kind of ubiquitous and uniform intellectual rot unparalleled in history; but I most emphatically do not propose to replace said industry with the State.”

a quote from an essay on Cella’s Review. I really sometimes enjoy watching this fight, between the righteous Benson’s and the righteous Cella (and I think both righteous and worthy of respect), since historical forces probably make their arguments moot. I suspect Ophelia will “win”, and I predict it will be a Pyrrhic victory.

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mc 07.29.04 at 10:21 pm

Ophelia, we seem to be more or less on the same wavelength on these matters… You (and Walt) said exactly what I meant too.

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baa 07.29.04 at 10:26 pm

djw, I grant that reich/frank do not consitute a major cultural threat to anybody. They are, however, quite indicative of a mindset that is very common in academic life, and hence among lawyers. I suspect you’d also find it common among journalists, and generally in “blue” metropolitan areas. (at least it sure is where I live). I’m not a conservative christian myself, but my acquaintances who are certainly have war stories to match those advaned by atheists on this thread.

The courts, however, really have been significant. Not just in the prayer-before-the-football-game and pledge cases that are explcitly religious, but in rulings on abortion, homosexuality, and (almost) on assisted suicide. Whatever you think of these issues on policy grounds, it’s been a pretty imperious process. Are those “legitimate” greivances? If not, what would qualify, I wonder?

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mc 07.29.04 at 10:37 pm

Dear Ralph, of course I was talking in general of people who do demonise secular approaches and confuse it with atheism, who do want laws to be subordinate to their beliefs, etc.

I never attributed that to _you_. I don’t know you. This discussion is not about you. I objected to your statement that secular is not neutral and common ground, and explained why indeed it is.

Also – I did say theocratic mindset; not “establishment of theocracy”. Read well, indeed.

I simply said that the demands of secularists that as a citizen I must act on their secular assumptions is an effort at co-optation and, I might add, one that is unlikely to succeed.

First, if the US is not a theocracy, it follows it is and has always been a secular society. So you too are a secular citizen in a secular society. You do recognise the authority of your secular government, secular police force, and magistrates, right? Then it’s not “you” vs “them”. It’s everybody living in the same society, sharing a basis to live together and organise as a society, through laws, political institutions, etc. That basis is not religion, but allows total freedom of religion, which you like everybody who is religious do enjoy. There is no co-optation except in your own mind.

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mc 07.29.04 at 11:00 pm

Timothy – that’s all very well said but what if the people who are really extremist do not want to join you at all, not one bit, in that effort to make things more civil? What do you do?

It’s not about not caring or dismissing. It’s that you can’t dilute your own views just because they may alienate those who are already extremists.

Aside from political differences, differences in voting, etc. On really fundamental issues. Like indeed creationism and education. How on earth can you change the minds of creationists and creationism advocates, for instance? You can only try and counteract their influence. I don’t see how toning down criticism of creationism (that’s what it sounds like you’re suggesting – sorry if I misread it or read it too grossly) would make any inroads. If it has prospered so far, it means there has been too little criticism and too weak.

Tone it down some more, and the effort towards civility risks becoming an effort towards capitulation.

I understand what you mean but from my point of view I do get the impression the problem with politics today (and not just in the US) is there is _not enough_ hard and open fighting and protesting. Too much extremism, yes, too much paranoia and rhetorics, but too little serious open frank confrontation (and as a consequence, accountability). Confrontation in itself is not divisive, it’s just necessary.

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Ralph Luker 07.29.04 at 11:05 pm

MC, You cling to a binary, neither pole of which is likely to be acceptable to most citizens of the United States. They are abstractions which in some times and in some places some people have attempted to reify. Most examples of those attempts are good illustrations of what we should try to avoid. Revolutionary secularism has produced horrors as real as revolutionary theocratism. I agree with my colleague, Tim Burke, that reserved rights and constrained government is extra-ordinarily important in this regard. I am as concerned to preserve his freedom as he is to preserve mine — because the two are bound up with each other. And I suspect that the freedom of both of us is best preserved in a determination that neither secularist nor theocratic triumphalism shall prevail. In fact, that’s the way I choose to read Tim’s very thoughtful post at Easily Distracted.

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Timothy Burke 07.29.04 at 11:35 pm

MC:

Not so much toning down, but trying to understand why something is important to those who disagree with me in a way that has genuine curiosity, rather than assuming I know the answer. Why is creationism important to the ordinary people who are attracted to it? Why has it become a synecdoche of faith for some? I don’t want to concede anything to that importance, but I want to approach it as if I don’t already know the answer, in the spirit of dialogue.

As for what happens if people who I don’t think want to play by the rules refuse to play by the rules when the plea to them is made, well, I think my piece makes that fearfully clear. When there’s a large constituency that won’t come inside what I consider to be the outer bounds of a rights-reserved civil society, when there’s a large constituency trying to capture the state, and I’m sure there’s no hope, then the game itself is cancelled. And there’s nothing left except me-or-them, no-rules struggle.

I think that would be extraordinarily bad for them and for me. I fear it, perhaps unreasonably.

Bob’s mention of Cella’s Review is interesting, though, and another issue to sort out–where’s the line between cultural or religious conservatives merely seeking to persuade others (forcefully) of their views, and an attempt to capture the state? To my thinking, that’s exactly why I focus on this election and the vote for Bush. The line is between voting for Bush and not voting for Bush. A cultural conservative who votes for Bush now–not in 2000, but now–is in my eyes trying to capture the state. Which is why I’m pleading with people not to vote that way even if they think Bush represents their values.

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burritoboy 07.30.04 at 12:42 am

Timothy,

It might be helpful to (perhaps temporarily) ignore trivia concerning the current situation and seek guidance from some historical analogues.

There are (to my view) two important points to be thought about here, one important enough but less eart-shaking than the other:

1.

What happens in a democracy when a significant minority simply refuses to act according to the norms of being democratic citizens? (the less important question)

I would suggest that much light is gained by analyzing the actions of the royalist right in Europe from the French Revolution to 1945 (focusing on France, Germany and Italy). A significant portion of the population (more importantly, a wealthy and powerful portion of the population) believed that full democracy was simply wrong, even as a theory. On the occasions when persons or parties of that belief won elections (relatively rare), they would generally attempt to convert the state back into a royalist or dictatorial form from a democratic form. Of course, they could never fully bring the state back to a fully royalist form as had been common before the French Revolution, but had to settle for more mixed forms simply because they no longer had enough popular support nor exclusive control of the levers of power (rehearse theories of Industrial Revolution, Enlightenment, etc here).

Gradually, the royalist right began to merge with other players on the right as their theory became increasingly implausible into the twentieth century. These other players also (for other reasons) ranged from skeptical to outright hostile to democracy. However, even these combined forces (often the coalition barely deserved the title)rarely had enough popular support to outright win elections. What they did have, however, was the power to disrupt and destabilize the system, which they did frequently. In addition, their radicalism increased radical responses from extremists on the left, weakening the center. Moderates looked weak, since they lost the ability to control the extremists of either side.

Here is a central point: the conservatives could have never overthrown democracy before they (and the extremism they often incited, and, in turn incited them further) destabilized the system and weakened the center. Thus, their greatest allies, really were the extremists of the left and their greatest enemies, the moderates and liberals of the center.

What happens after the democracy is weakened enough? Well, essentially, that’s random. The democracy WILL likely collapse. Whether the left or the right wins is dependent on who can win whatever pitched battles then erupt.

2.

More interestingly, is the question of whether democracy itself carries within itself the seeds of the tyrannic personality. The Enlightenment thinkers believed that, once enlightenment had occurred and the new order established, men’s characters would be permanently and irrevocably changed so that, except in isolated perverse cases, men would no longer have the desire to rule capriciously over others (without being ruled in turn). Tocqueville was one expression of that Enlightenment belief. The anti-democratic faction of Athenian thinkers (Plato, Xenophon and Socrates) would not have agreed with this belief.

Essentially, in America, we have possibly a very pure test case of democracy, since there is no real history of ancient tyranny, old aristocracies, previous political arrangements, great discrepancies in wealth and power and so on. Timothy’s real worry is that, if in America the tyrannic desire can re-emerge in the perhaps the purest democracy known, then the claims of the Enlightenment cannot be fully true – that men’s souls inherently contain the tyrannic impulse, meaning no democracy can be the permanent and every-lasting state the Enlightenment hoped it could be. Or even possibly that democracy can actually create tyranny or even worse, that the tyranny created from the fall of a democracy might be tyrannies of unheard-of evil.

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P. Hollahan 07.30.04 at 1:07 am

I don’t see how toning down criticism of creationism… would make any inroads. If it has prospered so far, it means there has been too little criticism and too weak. Tone it down some more, and the effort towards civility risks becoming an effort towards capitulation.

Ok, what if we substituted the word “Islamism” for “creationism”? What I don’t understand is why the “moderate” Islamists get “understanding” from some people and “moderate” creationists don’t. (Just to be clear, neither group would would get a pass from me.)

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mc 07.30.04 at 1:34 am

ralph: what binary am I using? I honestly don’t understand what you refer to there. I’m not the one who keeps juxtaposing secular society to religion.

Also, you say – Revolutionary secularism has produced horrors as real as revolutionary theocratism.

No one was talking of any “revolutionary _secularism_”, but of _secular_ society. Secular in itself is a totally neutral word. There’s also secular nuns and priests. Go figure.

I should clarify I’m not referring to any specific current of thought or historical movement, but as a simple noun from the word “secular”. And to the concept of laicity, in the French sense and tradition. Not active opposition or rejection of religion (if that’s what you guys tend to interpret “secularism” as?), but freedom of religion plus separation of church and state in everything that relates to church and state. I don’t mind how much a religion is visible, as long as it doesn’t claim an authority beyond its bounds.

Anyway, whatever you mean with the word “secularism”, you can’t define as “revolutionary secularism” things like dictatorships, rebellions, bloodshed, wars… maybe you meant atheism instead of secularism, but it wasn’t atheism all by itself that caused any bloodshed either.

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mc 07.30.04 at 2:10 am

P. hollahan: Ok, what if we substituted the word “Islamism” for “creationism”?

Yeah, what if?

Did you see me make an argument in praise of Islamism? Or anybody else on this thread for that matter?

So why bring it up?

It’s raining straw men, halleluja?

What I don’t understand is why the “moderate” Islamists get “understanding” from some people and “moderate” creationists don’t. (Just to be clear, neither group would would get a pass from me.)

Just to be clear, what and who are you talking about? What “moderate Islamists”, and who is giving them a pass that isn’t giving “moderate creationists” (?) a pass?

(I didn’t know there’s moderate creationists. So what are extreme creationists like? I thought, you’re either a creationist – you believe the biblical creation story is literal – or you don’t believe that it is literal and think it is allegory – so you’re not a “moderate creationist”, but simply, not a creationist at all. Theres not any alternative definitions of “literal” that you can embrace.)

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Ralph Luker 07.30.04 at 2:21 am

MC, Here is your binary: “if the US is not a theocracy, it follows it is and has always been a secular society.” You set it up, repudiate it when I named it, and then return to re-affirm one of its polarities, as if I am a defender of the other. The United States has never been a theocracy; nor has it ever been the “secular society” you appear to want. It’s the longing after theocracy and the longing after “secular society” that is the problem. It’s your own triumphalism which will energize the forces you most fear.

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mc 07.30.04 at 3:03 am

Timothy: ok, I do understand what you mean about dialogue.

But it’s not easy to avoid conceding while trying to engage people who just don’t want to be engaged.

Often you don’t even realise it, and you’ve already conceded, given legitimacy to something, involuntarily, even just by elevating it to worthy of being discussed at the same level as something else that is not extremist. (This in the case of things like creationism being taught in schools – not just political disagreements in general).

You can be far more objective about the reasons for believing in creationism than someone who believes in it, you know? So why pretend you don’t know the answers. You don’t need to hide your views in order to listen to other people’s. Unless you’re just doing a reportage rather than having a political debate.

But I’m referring more to extreme viewpoints, not so much that 35% you refer to, or just Bush supporters in general. I wouldn’t assume everyone who votes for him (or for Republicans in general) is an extremist! Or that they have such catastrophic intentions. I do think you’re exaggerating. At least I hope so.

It’s wider political trends that are scary in certain aspects, I don’t even see them overlapping exactly with voting for Bush.

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mc 07.30.04 at 3:32 am

MC, Here is your binary: “if the US is not a theocracy, it follows it is and has always been a secular society.”

Oh my. And what’s wrong with that phrase? It’s a statement of fact.

The US is a secular system. It’s been one of the earliest secular democracies. You don’t even have a Church of England. There is total separation of church and state.

Then, there’s society at large, not just in the institutional sense of society as a system of political organisation. And society at large has a myriad influences. There’s people with a theocratic mindset, within that wider society. I don’t see an entire society subjugated by theocrats, though. So, yes, even at the wider cultural level, it is all the same a secular society. Visibility of religion does not detract from secular nature of a society. Religion can have more or less of a public role. But that separation is still there. Otherwise, you would have a theocracy indeed…

What I repudiated is the binary between _secular_ (laicity) and _religion_, which is a false dichotomy. Not between secular and theocratic! Secular is not the opposite of religious, but it is very obviously an opposite of theocratic. I sure don’t equate religion with theocracy because they’re not the same thing. Do you? see them as the same thing?

The United States has never been a theocracy; nor has it ever been the “secular society” you appear to want.

I don’t want the US to be anything in particular.

I’m merely observing it is a secular society and I don’t see why you’d find that proposition so shocking. Unless by a very bizarre misreading of the word “secular”.

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P. Hoolahan 07.30.04 at 3:43 am

Just to be clear, what and who are you talking about? What “moderate Islamists”, and who is giving them a pass that isn’t giving “moderate creationists” (?) a pass?

Who? Among others, you, MC. Most recently in posts in the “Liberal Islamophobia” and “Justified Assassination” threads.

Last year I taught briefly (filling in for colleague) at a religious college that espoused a fudged theory of creationism — mostly hinging on a metaphorical interpretation of biblical “years”. Many in the community espouse a more literal interpretation. I’m a scientist and see any form of “creationism” as a threat to science and to secular liberalism, but anyone who equates apologies for creationism with, say, the blood-curdling stuff that Al-Qaradawi spouts (to Muslim audiences, only, to be sure), must be living in one of Chris’ alternate worlds.

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Walt Pohl 07.30.04 at 3:48 am

Ralph: Is this a simple disagreement in definitions? By “secular”, I (and I presume everyone else here) I literally mean neutral between religions, and between belief and non-belief. I don’t mean that the government should promote non-belief.

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Ralph Luker 07.30.04 at 4:40 am

MC: If separation of church and state in the United States is “proof” that it is a secular society, I have to assume that you believe that an established church in England is “proof” that it is a theocracy. What nonsense will you not hold forth?
Walt: Secularity as neutrality between belief and non-belief and among beliefs doesn’t work well. The state _will_, like it or not, promote beliefs which are conducive to its interests. That should not go disguised as neutrality. And separation of church and state is rightly understood as protecting the church from the intrusive influence of the state.

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mc 07.30.04 at 10:22 am

MC: If separation of church and state in the United States is “proof” that it is a secular society, I have to assume that you believe that an established church in England is “proof” that it is a theocracy. What nonsense will you not hold forth?

You know, Ralph, that nonsense is of your own making, not mine.

What straw man would you bring up to avoid making your argument?

You tell me, if the US is not a secular system, and a basically secular society, then what on earth is it?

You want to define it as a Christian society? go ahead, if you mean Christianity plays a bigger role than in other western secular societies, then ok, but it doesn’t mean it’s _not_ a secular society.

I’ll recap my point, see if it’s clearer. All I said was, you too live in a secular society already. Secular is neutral. *It doesn’t mean absence of religion*. It doesn’t mean religion has no place whatsoever in public life, or even, in political discussions – there are different approaches and the US is not France. But both are defined as secular systems. Even Italy, the republic of Italy, has always defined itself as secular too, even when the Catholic church used to have much more influence. Ditto for Ireland. So, even when those societies was much more religious, like, fifty years ago, they were a secular system and society all the same. There’s other European countries that like Italy had or still have a “Christian Democrat” party, and they too are _secular_ societies. And Britain, even while having an official Church of England under the monarchy, is also a secular system. I brought up that example not as an absolute binary to contrast to the US, you are the one reducing everything to binaries. It was just an observation that, as far as _institutions_ go, the US has even more of a formal separation of church and state, while the UK hasn’t – but, because the separation is not just a matter of recognising an official church or not, the UK is even more secular a society at larget than the US, because religion enters the public debate even less.

How much religion is present in the public life and political debate is a variable, but when it is not the basis for law-making and for the entire political system, that’s what makes a democracy secular. (Redundant – there’s no other form of democracy. Democracy is secular by definition.)

That’s what separation of church and state is.

All of the western democracies are secular systems.

This is not my opinion, it’s simple obvious facts that should not need repeating.

Also, you do need to look up “secular” in the dictionary and stop using it to mean something it doesn’t.

The basic binary, if you want to see binaries so much, is indeed secular vs. theocratic, but just because in a country religion(s) may play a more visible role it doesn’t mean they’re not secular.

It’s people who want to refuse the secular basis of society, who want to give up that neutral common ground, who want a far heavier role for religion in _political_ and public terms and to adapt law-making to that end, that are theocratic-minded. And indeed religion can become a far heavier influence and demand more and more political power via indirect ways even without requiring the system change to a theocracy. That is the root of the debate over religion within secular systems. The balance of that church/state separation. It can be threatened from within.

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mc 07.30.04 at 10:52 am

p. hoolahan: MC: Just to be clear, what and who are you talking about? What “moderate Islamists”, and who is giving them a pass that isn’t giving “moderate creationists” (?) a pass?
p. hoolahan: Who? Among others, you, MC. Most recently in posts in the “Liberal Islamophobia” and “Justified Assassination” threads.

Ha, really? Says who? How, where exactly? I’m afraid you have to bring up a more precise example of how exactly I defended or supported Islamists, Islamic fundamentalists, extremists.

I might as well make wild claims about your views too, but just saying so doesn’t make those claims any valid, does it?

I didn’t take a pro-Islamist position at all, in either of those threads. The “Justified Assassination” thread involved discussion of the Israeli assassination policies. If _that_ is enough for you to read a “free pass for Islamism”!, then wow, you won the straw man award. Ridiculous. In the “Liberal Islamophobia”, I made comments on the Mulholland piece, I didn’t like it, both for its confused definition of “liberalism” and its patronising about Islam as one single entity, one single society, that was to be considered a rounded expression of humanity etc. etc., I thought it was untrue to both liberalism and Islam and the issues involved, and if you’re referring to my “almost makes me want to become a fundamentalist”, which was not literal, doh, and I don’t think that needed clarifying but I already did in that thread… you do really need some reading comprehension aid.

Can’t think of anything else that you could have distorted so grossly into ‘support for fundamentalists’.

But, hey, well done on dodging the discussion on _this_ thread.

I’m a scientist and see any form of “creationism” as a threat to science and to secular liberalism

So… what are we arguing about? What is your problem with other people saying the same thing?

but anyone who equates apologies for creationism with, say, the blood-curdling stuff that Al-Qaradawi spouts (to Muslim audiences, only, to be sure), must be living in one of Chris’ alternate worlds.

But it was _you_ who did it! Are you pulling my leg or what now? :)

You brought up Islamism in the first place, and I quote word for word: “Ok, what if we substituted the word “Islamism” for “creationism”? What I don’t understand is why the “moderate” Islamists get “understanding” from some people and “moderate” creationists don’t.

You made that comparison. Not me!

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mc 07.30.04 at 10:53 am

p. hoolahan: MC: Just to be clear, what and who are you talking about? What “moderate Islamists”, and who is giving them a pass that isn’t giving “moderate creationists” (?) a pass?
p. hoolahan: Who? Among others, you, MC. Most recently in posts in the “Liberal Islamophobia” and “Justified Assassination” threads.

Ha, really? Says who? How, where exactly? I’m afraid you have to bring up a more precise example of how exactly I defended or supported Islamists, Islamic fundamentalists, extremists.

I might as well make wild claims about your views too, but just saying so doesn’t make those claims any valid, does it?

I didn’t take a pro-Islamist position at all, in either of those threads. The “Justified Assassination” thread involved discussion of the Israeli assassination policies. If _that_ is enough for you to read a “free pass for Islamism”!, then wow, you won the straw man award. Ridiculous. In the “Liberal Islamophobia”, I made comments on the Mulholland piece, I didn’t like it, both for its confused definition of “liberalism” and its patronising about Islam as one single entity, one single society, that was to be considered a rounded expression of humanity etc. etc., I thought it was untrue to both liberalism and Islam and the issues involved, and if you’re referring to my “almost makes me want to become a fundamentalist”, which was not literal, doh, and I don’t think that needed clarifying but I already did in that thread… you do really need some reading comprehension aid.

Can’t think of anything else that you could have distorted so grossly into ‘support for fundamentalists’.

But, hey, well done on dodging the discussion on _this_ thread.

I’m a scientist and see any form of “creationism” as a threat to science and to secular liberalism

So… what are we arguing about? What is your problem with other people saying the same thing?

but anyone who equates apologies for creationism with, say, the blood-curdling stuff that Al-Qaradawi spouts (to Muslim audiences, only, to be sure), must be living in one of Chris’ alternate worlds.

But it was _you_ who did it! Are you pulling my leg or what now? :)

You brought up Islamism in the first place, and I quote word for word: “Ok, what if we substituted the word “Islamism” for “creationism”? What I don’t understand is why the “moderate” Islamists get “understanding” from some people and “moderate” creationists don’t.

You made that comparison. Not me!

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mc 07.30.04 at 10:55 am

p. hoolahan: MC: Just to be clear, what and who are you talking about? What “moderate Islamists”, and who is giving them a pass that isn’t giving “moderate creationists” (?) a pass?
p. hoolahan: Who? Among others, you, MC. Most recently in posts in the “Liberal Islamophobia” and “Justified Assassination” threads.

Ha, really? Says who? How, where exactly? I’m afraid you have to bring up a more precise example of how exactly I defended or supported Islamists, Islamic fundamentalists, extremists.

I might as well make wild claims about your views too, but just saying so doesn’t make those claims any valid, does it?

I didn’t take a pro-Islamist position at all, in either of those threads. The “Justified Assassination” thread involved discussion of the Israeli assassination policies. If _that_ is enough for you to read a “free pass for Islamism”!, then wow, you won the straw man award. Ridiculous. In the “Liberal Islamophobia”, I made comments on the Mulholland piece, I didn’t like it, both for its confused definition of “liberalism” and its patronising about Islam as one single entity, one single society, that was to be considered a rounded expression of humanity etc. etc., I thought it was untrue to both liberalism and Islam and the issues involved, and if you’re referring to my “almost makes me want to become a fundamentalist”, which was not literal, doh, and I don’t think that needed clarifying but I already did in that thread… you do really need some reading comprehension aid.

Can’t think of anything else that you could have distorted so grossly into ‘support for fundamentalists’.

But, hey, well done on dodging the discussion on _this_ thread.

I’m a scientist and see any form of “creationism” as a threat to science and to secular liberalism

So… what are we arguing about? What is your problem with other people saying the same thing?

but anyone who equates apologies for creationism with, say, the blood-curdling stuff that Al-Qaradawi spouts (to Muslim audiences, only, to be sure), must be living in one of Chris’ alternate worlds.

But it was _you_ who did it! Are you pulling my leg or what now? :)

You brought up Islamism in the first place, and I quote word for word: “Ok, what if we substituted the word “Islamism” for “creationism”? What I don’t understand is why the “moderate” Islamists get “understanding” from some people and “moderate” creationists don’t.

You made that comparison. Not me!

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mc 07.30.04 at 10:57 am

sorry for the triple posts! I keep getting server errors when posting.

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mc 07.30.04 at 11:21 am

Ralph, in your response to Walt, you say “The state will, like it or not, promote beliefs which are conducive to its interests.”

But the ‘state’ in the widest sense is the system of political organisation, and its interests in the widest sense are the interests of all citizens, religious and non-religious alike, of different religions or none.

Religion does not belong to the same sphere the “state” does.

Separation is to the end of coexistence, not of conflict.

There’s no disguising anything. You may be thinking of the meaning of secularism as an active effort to eradicate religion, that’s not the meaning I was using at all, and it’s not the meaning of the word secular when used to define a state system.

Perhaps there is an extra ambiguity here because in English the term secularism itself does also have that meaning of hostility to religion. I think this definition is clearer:

… implies free exercise of religion, but no special status for religion: religious activities should submit to about the same set of laws as other activities and are not considered above the law. The government refrains from taking positions on religious doctrine and only considers religious subjects from their practical consequences on the inhabitants’ lives.
… Laïcité does not imply, by itself, any hostility of the government with respect to religion. It is essentially a belief that government and political issues should be kept separate from religious organizations and religious issues (as long as the latter do not have notable social consequences). This is meant both to protect the government from religious organizations pushing their agenda on the public, and to protect the religious organization from political quarrels and controversies.

That is what I’m talking about.

I’m not sure what you are talking about, when you say such an approach is no good. Which other approach would you envisage, then?

And separation of church and state is rightly understood as protecting the church from the intrusive influence of the state

It does go both ways, it is also meant to protect the state from intrusion of the churches. That’s actually the main motive that historically led to the development of secular democracy.

I’m not sure how the difficulty of even referring to common established definitions and historical contexts relates to Timothy Burke’s argument, but it’s an interesting addition to it, perhaps…

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Ralph Luker 07.30.04 at 11:55 am

MC: When I quote you back to yourself, you repudiate the argument that you made, but you keep coming back to assertions that the United States must either be a theocracy or a secular society. I’m telling you that there are complex gradations between those two things. It isn’t simply one or the other. Beyond that, I’m telling you that the complexity — the lack of pure form — is a good thing.

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mc 07.30.04 at 1:39 pm

Ralph – “When I quote you back to yourself, you repudiate the argument that you made

No, it’s more likely we’re not communicating very well and you did not understand the argument I was making.

I’m sorry if I may have sound confusing, for my part. I just find it hard to have to explain things that are quite obvious to me and that I would have assumed were obvious to everybody because there are indeed accepted definitions for them.

I mean, I didn’t invent the definition of secular. I didn’t invent its being applied to _all_ western democracies.

but you keep coming back to assertions that the United States must either be a theocracy or a secular society.

I’ll try again. You seemed to be refuting the very basic idea that the US is a secular system. All I pointed out is that it definitely is.

But not just “because it’s not a theocracy”, of course, that’s not all there is to it, it was a simplification. It’s because of facts, history, laws, etc. the system, how it’s conceived. It’s a secular system. That’s established. I’m not making that up myself. Ok?

I mean, I don’t see why you would dispute that or find it troubling at all.

I’m telling you that there are complex gradations between those two things. It isn’t simply one or the other.

Both things are true. It is indeed that simple at the _basic_ level of definitions. Of course it is more complex at the level of how much a role religion plays at a cultural, social, political level, that is where the disagreements and debates occur.

But it’s not a question of what is in between two extremes.
At that _basic_ level of how a state system is organised vis a vis religion, secular and theocratic simply are the two opposite ways of dealing with it – but secular systems are not an extreme in the way theocratic systems are.

Those gradations are the different levels at which religion is present in public life, how it interacts with it, _within secular societies_. In theocracies, there’s no such gradations at all!

So, two countries with different degrees of presence and influence of religion (say, France vs. USA) are both still secular.

Whereas, without a basic secular system to guarantee freedom of religion and separation of church and state, you do get theocracy.

Is it clearer now, perhaps?

Put it this way. America can still be seen as profoundly religious, if you like, if you want to define a predominant influence of religion on a whole country. For the sake of argument, let’s say America is the most Christian country there is in the entire world. But it’s both religious, _and_ secular. Just like, at a different level, individuals can be both religious and secular. Because secular is not elimination of religion.

The varying degrees are varying degrees of secularism – ie. more or less visibility, influence, social power, political power, of a religion or more. That’s where the issues arise.

Beyond that, I’m telling you that the complexity — the lack of pure form — is a good thing.

It depends what you mean. Again, this secular notion you seem to resent is precisely what allows complexity. The complexity of all religions being allowed to coexist and practice freely in a secular system, being granted this special “religion” status that no other system of belief has (Scientology people should be more thankful, don’t you think?). That has to go hand in hand with the acceptance that religion, while it obviously influences society and even politics insofar as it relates to common issues, is not and cannot be a political or legal system in itself, or, the foundation for a political and legal system. When people no longer accept this, the complexity can become very problematic, and a secular society can be undermined from within. It requires a leap of imagination, however, to argue that religions can be undermined by secular systems, especially today, when even fundamentalists are mainstream.

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TJ Henley 07.30.04 at 2:46 pm

MC: I don’t see how toning down criticism of creationism… would make any inroads. If it has prospered so far, it means there has been too little criticism and too weak. Tone it down some more, and the effort towards civility risks becoming an effort towards capitulation.

P. Hoolahan: Ok, what if we substituted the word “Islamism” for “creationism”?

That’s a question I’d like have answered, too. Like P. Hoolahan, I abhor both ideas, both groups. But, unless we link the anti-abortion terrorists to the creationists, it is clear that Islamism is several levels of abhorrence beyond creationism. Yes, despite this, reading through the threads on Islamism, once encounters a willingness to “engage” the Islamists that MC refuses to consider for creationists. Why is there a risk of “capitulation” vs. the creationists but none vs. the Islamists?

MC argues: “Whatever Qaradawi is advocating and supporting is not half as shocking as the tabloids were making it.” In fact, Qaradawi’s views are well documented (plenty of firsthand sources on the Internet). Peter Tatchell, the leader of Outrage, a gay group which campaigned against Qaradawi’s recent reception in London, resumes them well: “Mr al-Qaradawi blames women who are raped for provoking the sexual assault. Giving a platform to him is an insult to women as well as to Jewish and gay people because he endorses wife beating and sanctions the killing of homosexuals and Jews.” I’m gay myself (not that it should matter), and I’m beginning to fear the apologists for Islamism a lot more than the creationists. Theirs (the apologists) is hypocrisy of a very dangerous order.

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mc 07.30.04 at 4:44 pm

Oh here we go again with the assumptions and distortions…

tj henley, where do we start. I was commenting on the context of the reactions to that visit, on the hypocrisy of people who are suddenly shocked by Livingstone welcoming Qardawi, but not by other politicians welcoming other Islamic fundamentalists.

I never expressed all of my views on Islam vs. Islamic extremists and the complex relationships thereof and how they should be addressed. I don’t even know how that can be addressed, I do know I have absolutely zero sympathy for Islamic fundamentalists.

I was not endorsing Qardawi’s views. What I heard about those views was contrasting takes. I saw an interview where he denied supporting such extreme views, but then again, of course, I’m not inclined to trust his own smiling proclamations of moderateness in front of a BBC reporter. I just thought the idea of banning that visit was nonsense, the whole uproar from the Conservatives was completely opportunist, Britain has entertained relations with even worse kinds of extremists, and radical Islamists are well free to preach within British territory, as anywhere else. Amongst other things, that is what struck me as making the political reactions rather hypocrite. That was the point. The reactions. Not Qardawi’s views per se.

If you want to insist on taking that out of context as ‘support for Islamists’…

On the Ramadan thread, just so it’s clear, I also never meant any endorsement of any views, I was commenting on a specific point, and the interest was in how he views the issue of religious traditions and modernity. It’s got nothing to do with giving “free passes”. I don’t even know about his views so well. I know he advocated the veil in schools, I don’t. I support the French ban completey. I know he is not that concerned primarily with human rights and feminism and gay rights and secularism. I happen to be concerned by all those things quite a lot.

You have no right to infer any apology for any extremism of any kind, ok?

This thread started with a discussion on how to engage people with hardcore views, and that moved from Bush supporters to creationists, and that’s what we were talking about. I don’t know where I have said anything that can be construed as seeing creationism as an equal or worse evil than fanatical Islamism and its terrorist offspring. I just don’t know. I never even brought up the comparison. I don’t think there is such a direct parallel. I don’t see the point of positing one, if not to _avoid_ talking about creationism per se, or the mindset of hardcore fanatics, within the US, which I believe was the original topic.

But let’s pursue that parallel – if there was ever a choice, and some Aladdin genie could ask us “you are given the option of having either creationist advocates or Islamic fundamentalist preachers completely and painlessly removed from this earth, like they never existed, who do you choose?” – of course I’d go for removing the latter.

But we’re not given that choice. I think the really fanatical Christian fundamentalists of the kind who want to change laws, education, politics to suit their own ends are relatively dangerous _within_ the context they operate. Of course, it goes without saying, they’re not as dangerous as bin Laden. Doh. They’re not even the same kind of fundamentalists. They don’t act the same way. They don’t have the same power. So? Does that mean they can be ignored? Or excused? or tolerated?

I don’t think that’s what you’re suggesting, so why all those assumptions and absurd conclusions? Is focusing on creationism in a discussion about creationism giving other extremists a free pass? Is criticising the political opportunism of the Tories a free pass to Islamists? Is being interested in making one’s mind up on whether someone is a moderate or a ‘theocrat in disguise’ a free pass to extremists?

Of course hardcore Islamism is a far heavier affair than creationism. I don’t think anyone who is not fundamentalist-inclined would dispute that. But the fact that there’s always something worse than x does not excuse or justify ignoring the existence of x. I’m sure you can see that.

I’m also sure you haven’t missed the hypocrisy of those extremist Christians who love to switch the discussion about extremist Islamists so that _they_ can get a free pass. That does happen. It’s the favourite trick of any fundamentalists. Islamists point the finger at “crusaders”, Christian fundies point the finger at Islamists, and the audience is supposed to, what, pick one target of criticism only? why not both?

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mc 07.30.04 at 5:01 pm

And to answer P. Hoolahan’s rhetorical question about the comparison _he_ set up – yes, of course, nothing would change about the need for confrontation if you substituted “Islamism” for “creationism”. Was anyone arguing we need less confrontation with Islamists? Even more would be needed from within the societies that harbour those extremists. Everyone knows that. Everyone also knows that not all those societies have the freedom of speech and criticism that both the creationists and their critics enjoy in the US. Whatever reasons and factors make confrontation harder or easier, though, toning down the criticism does amount to capitulation in _any_ case, whatever the context, be it creationism and Christianity, or Islamists and Islam. I sense a confusion of terms here, because the civility and dialogue is needed, both ways, not with _Islamists_ but Muslim people, who are not one block of people thinking all alike. I haven’t seen any argument for civility towards _Islamists_. And even if I didn’t like the Mulholland piece, I don’t think that’s what he was suggesting either. Reading it like an apology for radical Islam is quite a stretch.

The last time I heard that “_that_ is far worse than _this_ so why don’t you engage _that_ instead, why are you giving _that_ a free pass” trick, it was about Abu Ghraib. Yes, now I’m the one being rhetorical.

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marky 07.30.04 at 5:35 pm

“Moderate Creationism”?
Is this something compassionate conservatives have as an apertif before dining on 3rd world babies?

I have a moderate suggestion for ameliorating religious extremism—very moderate.
We need to recognize that a choice of religion is something no child can make for himself; on the other hand, if his parents choose for him, he will be so bound by the emotional constraints of the religion that he will find it almost impossible to consider the question rationally.
My moderate proposal is to make religion a choice that can be made at majority. Frankly, telling children they are going to burn forever if they steal a cookie is a form a child abuse. The sooner we recognize that religious indocrination of children is abusive, the sooner we will arrive at a moderate, reasonable society.

Should be simple, right?

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Ophelia Benson 07.30.04 at 7:00 pm

“if his parents choose for him, he will be so bound by the emotional constraints of the religion that he will find it almost impossible to consider the question rationally.”

Exactly. Hence the bizarre confusion between religion and ‘identity’ which one sees everywhere – as if religion were genetic and physical as opposed to acquired and cognitive. Causes a vast amount of muddle, that mixing.

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Timothy Burke 07.30.04 at 8:29 pm

Unless you’re the sort of hard-core evolutionary psychologist who thinks that morality and ethics are completely instinctive, non-cultural and largely non-learned (can’t think of anyone credible in that field who goes that far out on the limb), then you surely wouldn’t advocate that children be kept scrupulously away from ethical or moral questions and lessons until they’re 18, whereupon they can be allowably introduced to ethical problems.

But the ethics you learn and operationalize is partly path-dependent on your parents; your parents thus choose it for you, in some way, either through conscious teaching or through setting examples (good and bad).

Why is that different from the religious instruction of a child? I don’t think you *can* make a categorical distinction of any kind–you can only make what is effectively an anti-religious argument, that religion is bad morality. If you’re against it on the grounds that it is wrong entirely to force a given morality on a child before the age of majority, then you’re also against teaching children to share, or be polite, or abjure violence, or any number of other things.

You’re certainly entitled to shrug and say, Ok, religion IS bad morality, and all those other things are common-sense virtues to which everyone subscribes because they’re rational, but that is most certainly NOT a moderate suggestion. Indeed, it is precisely that kind of suggestion that makes it hard to maintain that secularism is mere neutrality–as long as people who argue on behalf of secularism are essentially also making this kind of back-door anti-religious argument at the same time, then I think honesty compels us to say that secularism is a value system for some of its advocates, though I think it need not be.

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marky 07.30.04 at 10:04 pm

Timothy,
Read what I said: Christian religious instruction is inherenty abusive ( I don’t know about other religions, so I won’t comment).
When you tell a child that he will suffer infinite consequences for wrongdoing, you instill a sense of fear that generally overwhelms the ability to think rationally about religion.
We ban other forms of child abuse; why not this too?

Incidentally, it’s quite easy to make a categorical distinction between religion and ethics—as a matter of fact it astounds me that you suggest any difficulty making such a distinction.
Think of it this way: religion is about unveriafiable metaphysics;
ethics is the study of the rules and consequences of human behavior.
I see no relation at all.
By the way, I think this is a fundamental problem with religious thinking—the idea that the creation of the universe must be related somehow to the morality and ethics of one living species in a very small part of the universe seems like quite a large category error to me.

Finally,
you don’t have a sense of irony, do you? “moderate”
heheh

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burritoboy 07.30.04 at 10:08 pm

One part of my previous post that I didn’t get to write up a few days ago was that most of the commentary here seems to be trying to transform the demands (or desires) of the tyranic-souled into demands that are of the same type as democratic demands. That’s a mistake. The desires of the democratically-souled are interest-demands: I want a school in my neighborhood, the highway should go here rather than there, I’d like the procedures for certifying unions to be this rather than that, and so on. These are desires that can actually be processed through a democracy. Of course, you may not get your way, but a democratic process can rationally deal with such desires and give you rational answers as to why your desires were not fulfilled.

The desires of the tyranous-souled are of different characters entirely. Our current tyrant-wannabees yell such things as “[well, everyone can fill in the blanks here]!” – which are NOT even in the class of desires that actually can be fulfilled in the current democratic order. These claims cannot be understood or grappled with democratically because they are not really of the class of democratic interests.

To put it in a current light, in our upcoming election, the Kerry campaign relies on democratic-class arguments: on arguments such as Kerry is very competent, Kerry is very experienced, Kerry has been successful in previous projects A, B and C; Kerry proposes policies X, Y and Z that satisfy your interests 1 2 and 3 and so on. Of course, these arguments may be false, but one can rationally evaluate them and provide rational arguments for acceptance or rejection.

The Bush campaign has obviously offered many democratic-class arguments as well. Nothing unusual in most of those (though I believe that their arguments are false, again, at least the arguments are democratic-class arguments and thus amenable to rational examination). What’s far more worrisome is that very many of his supporters have provided arguments of a wholly different nature: “Bush is a Godly Man”, “Kerry is a Godless Communist” and so on.

I would argue that there is essentially no real way for a democratic system to handle such arguments, because they are statements of a non-democratic class. If you believe that Bush is a Godly man, there is no evidence on either side that can be produced, nor any rational dialogue that can convince one either way. The entire statement is divorced from democratic dialogue: what policies are promoted or avoided because of Bush’s Godliness? are my interests served or harmed by Bush’s Godliness? It’s not that I don’t know the answers to these questions – it’s that there are no answers to these questions.

Judging from the inability to fit these sentiments or beliefs [these things aren’t arguments] into a democratic process indicates to me that they are being generated by persons whose souls no longer easily function within a democratic framework.

I personally don’t see any rational accomodation or measure that can be made to easily bring such psyches back into a democratic framework – such believers aren’t looking for small changes in policies or laws but a change of regime, a transformation of modes and orders (tip hat to Machiavelli).

I would point to the experience of postwar Italy as a case study of what I’m thinking. I’ll leave that for a later post, I think.

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Ralph Luker 07.30.04 at 10:53 pm

Two points, if I may:
Given the real world realities of child abandonment and child abuse, the notion that nurturing a child within a religious tradition is itself abusive is ludicrous. Allowing a child to grow up in some values vacuum would be one of the worst forms of neglect.
Why would one think it appropriate for a citizen who is a secular humanist to act as a citizen out of such a values framework, but think it inappropriate for a citizen who is a Christian or a Jew or a Moslem to express that frame of values in the public sphere?

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bob mcmanus 07.31.04 at 1:06 am

“If you believe that Bush is a Godly man, there is no evidence on either side that can be produced, nor any rational dialogue that can convince one either way.”

I like your stuff, burrito, and the first post about what happens when a democracy falls reminded me of some especially horrific sections of Thucydides.

But to this I sez, “Sez you”. There definitely have been communities with standards used to measure the Godliness or virtue of men. They are definitely often subjective, but they exist.

I have often thought that Bush’s fans believe that even with the utterly obvious unworthiness of the idiot boy, the fact that he became President proves he is blessed by God. What other explanation makes sense? Y’all hoity-toity types laugh away, but how should Saul and the Israelites have looked at David?

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Kiwi 07.31.04 at 1:29 am

you surely wouldn’t advocate that children be kept scrupulously away from ethical or moral questions and lessons until they’re 18, whereupon they can be allowably introduced to ethical problems. But the ethics you learn and operationalize is partly path-dependent on your parents; your parents thus choose it for you, in some way, either through conscious teaching or through setting examples (good and bad). Why is that different from the religious instruction of a child?

Why is it different? Because teaching morality is not the same thing as teaching that there is a supernatural person in the sky, that’s why. They’re completely different things. Obviously.

Why would one think it appropriate for a citizen who is a secular humanist to act as a citizen out of such a values framework, but think it inappropriate for a citizen who is a Christian or a Jew or a Moslem to express that frame of values in the public sphere?

Because saying “be good because Allah/God said so” is different from saying “be good because [insert reason(s) based on shared human values]”. Obviously.

What dopy questions people ask here.

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Ralph Luker 07.31.04 at 1:50 am

Kiwi, What is dopy here are your caricatures of religious belief. They are the sort of ignorance that prides itself as emancipation from folly.

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marky 07.31.04 at 3:09 am

Ralph,
You are the one who is adopting caricatures. I said not one word about restricting moral and ethical instruction—as a matter of fact, the clear implication is that I value both highly.
HOwever, there is absolutely no necessity to associate those with religion.

Since you approve so highly of religious instruction of children, may I assume that you will be sending a check to fund Madrassas in Pakistan?
At least, you would find that a worthy use of money, right?
I take it you approve of female
“circumcision” and honor killing too—as these are expressions of religious values.
Of course in Texas, killing fags is the way to be godly.

Finally, you totally ignore the specific criticism I have of Christian religious instruction, as it is widely practised in the West. Threatening children with eternal torture is psychological abuse, period.
No postive moral or ethical value is transmitted that way. On the contrary, you stunt moral development this way.
YOu can’t see this, because you are thoroughly indoctrinated.

In the modern world, when religious absolutism, instilled in childhood, is combined with specific political movements, in this country and in Muslim countries, the recipe for utter disaster is at hand.

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Ralph Luker 07.31.04 at 4:15 am

Marky, Your “taking it” that I approve of female circumcision and of “the killing of fags in Texas” is just the sort of attribution of unworthy opinion to those with whom you don’t agree that is the essence of caricature and just the sort of polemical unworthiness that Tim Burke has criticized. Your desire to outlaw religious nurture is just the sort of secular humanist extremism that I have warned against here and which some of your allies here have denied even existed. It is leaves me thanking G_d for the Bill of Rights. What you propose is unconstitutional.

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marky 07.31.04 at 4:40 am

Ralph,
It’s a thought experiment.
Try it sometime—-it might do you some good.
Apparently you don’t find female circumcision or honor killing to be good values—but they are religious. What I’m getting at is the difficulties that arise when
religion is considered the source of values. Since there are different religions that have different values, your worldview has no mechanism for coping with disagreements.

And please—about killing fags: ever heard of Fred Phelps?
Murderous hatred toward gays is fanned by religious extremists in this country. Hatred of gays is not a secular value.

Incidentally, you still haven’t defended the specific type of religious instruction I find objectionable. Is is beyond you to do so?

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marky 07.31.04 at 4:45 am

Incidentally, while implementation of my moderate proposal is not remotely possible, the religious extremists in large parts of this country are gutting science education and replacing it with utter trash. Who is forcing their views on others, here in the US?
Not the atheists.

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Ralph Luker 07.31.04 at 5:22 am

Marky, You choose to blame religion for female circumcision and for killing gay people. There’s good reason to believe that those practices grow out of a social/phychological soil in which particular religious beliefs are a component but not necessarily the crucial element. There is something twisted about your insistence that I must defend practices which I find reprehensible. So, I won’t do it. G_d wouldn’t want me to. You’ll just have to accept that answer. I have no interest in defending your stereotype of what you call religious instruction. My “worldview” has plenty of “mechanisms for coping with disagreements”. One is just to let you know that I’m not interested in playing your mindgame.

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marky 07.31.04 at 5:56 am

Well, Ralph,
You claim that your worldview has plenty of mechanisms for handling disagreements of the sort I laid out. Let’s hear them. I don’t think the answer to these questions is obvious at all.
About other religious practices: I don’t think you understand my point. What I’m saying is that if you think morality flows from religion, then you need to be able to explain how morals such as I described above fit into this prescription.

Now, to say that female circumcision does not flow from a religious value system is facile—I disagree— and saying “blah blah.. complex social.. blah blah”.. is rather ceding ground to a secularist viewpoint, don’t you think?

As for my stereotype of religious instruction—that is a FACT.
I was raised in a very liberal faith, but I still got the message about avoiding eternal damnation.
I can only imagine what it’s like for true holy rollers.

Apparently you are Jewish. I would have expected more subtle reasoning from you. I took you for a Pentecostal type on reading your first post.

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Ralph Luker 07.31.04 at 6:14 am

Marky, I’m happy to be mistaken for Jewish. As it happens, I’m an evangelical liberal Protestant. Typing the word “fact” in caps doesn’t make it so; nor does understanding that values flow from a complex matrix which may include religious references necessarily validate secularist claims.

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mc 07.31.04 at 12:27 pm

Timothy Burke, I think you put the finger on the source of misunderstanding on “secular” and “secularism”. In French or in Italian, for instance, the distinction is clearer because the word laicité is more neutral and never has a connotation of hostility to religion. That hostility would be described as _anti-clericalism_, which has had its good uses too (and a great tradition, all the way back since the Renaissance), especially in a historical context where you have had an overwhelming presence of a powerful church. I’m more used to that history and that context so I tend to take that distinction for granted, but in English it is more ambiguous, because secularism can also have that extra meaning of anti-religion, both in its definition and its use…

That said, I think there’s a point to the kind of provocation like marky’s. It does force you to consider how much religion is a system of beliefs that is acquired, and how it is not in itself a necessary basis for ethics. Ethics are independent from religion, and it’s depressing to see people conflate them. Even if you are religious. It’s a poor idea of religion to reduce it to morality, and it is completely wrong to use only religious arguments with kids to show approval or disapproval of certain behaviours. But usually, people who are not fanatically religious won’t do that.

It’s not religion per se, it’s _too much_ religious _indoctrination_ that is damaging. Religion doesn’t have to mean brainwashing. It’s all a matter of measures and balances. I’m not keen on faith schools precisely for that reason, because I think it’s best, even if you want to give some religion to your kids, that they have a neutral environment for education.

It’s a fanatical mentality, not religion itself, that is the problem. Any system of belief can be used in fanatical ways. But there’s no worse combination than fanaticism and religion. No, actually, there is. It’s fanaticism, religion _and_ politics…

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Ralph Luker 07.31.04 at 12:52 pm

Now we are getting somewhere, MC! Just acknowledge the historical reality of fanatical secularism and we’ve got it.

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mc 07.31.04 at 1:15 pm

Ralph: see, I don’t know exactly what you refer to as ‘fanatical secularism’. Especially in an American context. I get the feeling it can mean anything you want it to mean.

Every term is loaded when we’re talking religion and its role in society. We’re not “getting anywhere” until all who identify strongly with religion recognise that a (neutrally) secular system _and_ cultural mentality is what guarantees the best balance for all, religions included.

You may have people who confuse religion itself with religious brainwashing. But you also have people who confuse anything secular with anti-religion.

Besides, even overtly hostile positions need to be considered. Anti-clericalism is not necessarily fanatical. Aren’t there valid criticism of the influence of churches?

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mc 07.31.04 at 1:34 pm

Besides, whatever you mean by ‘fanatical secularism’, I don’t see how it can even come close to having 1/1000th of the influence that religious fanaticism currently has, worldwide, and across different religions.

Where are all these fanatical anti-clericalists demanding churches are converted into public libraries, faith schools abolished, religion banned from tv, film, books, political discourse? Where?

No, we’re not getting anywhere, Ralph. We’re still talking of parallel universes. And you are still using the word “secularism” only in the hostile meaning. Where’s your acknowledgement of a shared neutral ground?

Let’s just forget about it. We’d only be going round in circles.

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burritoboy 07.31.04 at 8:42 pm

Bob,

But I think you’re actually making my point. Ancient Israel, of course, was not a democracy. First, I don’t think you should conflate virtue and morality. Virtue is a term used by the ancients versus morality after the Enlightenment. They’re not the same things at all.

Secondly, I think we could apply, for example, the standards of the ancient Greeks as to virtue, to our own democracy. We can readily and rationally observe whether a person is brave or cowardly, whether she does her civic duty, whether he sacrifices to the gods at the appropriate times and places, and so on. An ancient Athenian could argue that his fellow citizen K was impious and unvirtuous by showing that he had failed to perform the rites or broken the laws or failed in his civic duties (which of course were also religious ones). Conversely, citizen K could PROVE his virtue and piety by producing evidence of his courage in battle or his sacrifices to the Gods or the boats he’s donated to the city and so on. Kerry’s campaign explicitly uses many of these themes (i.e., Kerry is virtuous because of his bravery in the Mekong Delta, etc.) I don’t see anything irrational in that. An opponent of Kerry could rationally challenge this claim to virtue by discovering that Kerry’s acts were not in fact as heroic as Kerry’s campaign claims (which is precisely what the opposing camp has tried to do – though it’s failed to make the case). That’s a rational and democratic dialogue.

But, in the Christian context (especially the American Christian Right context), since it’s so heavily based on “faith, not acts”, there can be no comparable dialogue as to Bush’s Godliness or lack of Godliness. There’s simply no evidence that could be brought forth to challenge that belief in Bush’s Godliness (baring a video tape of Bush repeatedly worshipping Baal or something).

On a macro level, I would suspect that the political orders you speak of would not and could not be modern democracies based on Enlightenment thought. Ancient democracies are a different story, and, of course, are exceedingly different than modern democracies.

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marky 08.01.04 at 8:47 pm

Ralph,
I assumed you were Jewish because of your spelling “G_d”.
“Fanatical secularism”—what a hoot!
Bottom line: when you say that values flow from a complex social matrix (or whatever gobbledegookey phrase you used), you are accepting that they do not come from a deity.
Sounds good to me.
Cheers.

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Ralph Luker 08.01.04 at 10:02 pm

Marky, You really should read about the fanatical secularism of the 1st French Republic or of the Soviet Union after 1918 or of China after 1949. Too bad you’ve so little interest in history. It’s full of illustrations. As for whether values “come from G_d” or not, you’ve far closer to the fundies than I am. Good for you!

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bob mcmanus 08.01.04 at 10:33 pm

“there can be no comparable dialogue as to Bush’s Godliness or lack of Godliness” ….burritoboy

(There was a “Bob” and a “Bob McManus” in this thread, sorry for late response)

Let me make very clear that I am not speaking of evidence or argument that would convince, you, Ophelia Benson, or myself. Nor is it publicly discussed loudly in the pulpits of even mainstream fundamentalist churches. And just in passing, for without some googling I will frame it badly, I had thought that some Protestant denominations did consider worldly success evidence of grace. Calvin?

But to be more specific. I am sure we all remember Falwell blaming, and quickly retracting without denying, 9/11 on American licentiousness.

And I saw a man named Marvin Olasky, from UT Austin, give a long lecture on the subject: “Human History is God working his Will on the World.”
According to Olasky, WWI and WWII were God’s punishment on America for Woodrow Wilson’s 1905 adultery, just as God punished Israel for David’s adultery with Bathsheba.

Again, I am not saying it would make sense to you or me, but I am sure intense googling could find sme discussion of George W Bush as the prodigal son, as David, as a person whose personal redemption has been rewarded beyond his apparent material efforts …and even stronger statements concerning the relationship between Bush, the Nation, and God.

The essential question is I guess, is God an existential participant, even driver in human affairs. Most Christians say no. Most pre-Christians assumed yes. There, I hate to tell you, many people out there who believe 9/11 happened because of Clinton’s immorality, and that 9/11 was proof that Clinton was a bad Christian.

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bob mcmanus 08.01.04 at 10:55 pm

Oh, and as an additional resource, and though I suspect most here will think me not sane for looking at it seriously. Aren’t our three favorite Sophoclean plays, Oedipus, Antigone, Philoctetes, based on the theme of the community being supernaturally punished for the immorality of its leadership?

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mc 08.02.04 at 10:35 am

Ralph, you’re talking of dictatorships in China and the Soviet Union, you can extrapolate the atheist element, you can extrapolate the communist element, but the main element is “dictatorship”. Many people got killed and persecuted under those dictatorships and it had very little to do with religion.

Today. We were talking of today. In the USA. Where are these “fanatical secularists”?

Worldwide, persecutions – real persecutions, not imagined ones – occur in ethnic and religious and political conflicts between different groups. They don’t occur because of some “fanatical secularists” taking up rape and pillage of entire countries. In Sudan, it wasn’t the “fanatical secularists” who killed thousands of people. In Yugoslavia, it wasn’t “fanatical secularists” killing each other. In Latin America, it was religious powers that collided with right-wing dictatorships and torturers against a common target.

Even there, we’re extrapolating a religious element where the causes of conflicts and massacres are more complex. So it’s not religion per se that causes anything. But today more than ever, it is religion, not “secularism”, that is so easily turned into fanaticism with such horrendous consequences. And churches are political powers. They do play dirty too, like all political powers.

You need to take off those religion-tinted glasses before you tell anyone about history.

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