Prevention
Our sermon for today is on the text
The religiosity of the recovery movement is evident in its rhetorical appeals to a higher power and in the evangelical fervor of its disciples. When I criticize the movement I am usually accused of being ‘in denial,’ as I might once have been accused of heresy.
That is from Wendy Kaminer’s examination of the ‘recovery’ and self-help movements, I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional. But the reaction she describes is typical of vastly more ‘movements’ and ideological systems than just the self-help variety. In fact it’s probably fairly difficult to find a ‘movement’ or ideology whose adherents don’t resort to that tactic. If someone criticises a set of ideas to which I am committed, then that someone is doing a bad thing. I must elaborate on exactly what kind of bad thing it is that the critic is doing. Let me see. The critic is being intolerant. The critic is an elitist. The critic is arrogant and anti-democratic. The critic is an extremist and outside the mainstream. The critic believes things that most people don’t believe, or doesn’t believe things that most people do believe. The critic has Bad Motives – I don’t know exactly what they are, but I’ll hazard a guess. The critic is Eurocentric, or Orientalist, or a positivist.
It’s all pre-emption. And all based on the premise that criticism, however impersonal and general it may be, is somehow impermissible. Not just wrong, in error, inaccurate, but wicked and invidious and deserving of moral condemnation. That’s a bizarre notion on the face of it, and it will be worth pondering where it came from…
I can’t help feeling that this is unproductive of you, OB. Intolerance, elitism, etc etc have real manifestations. But when used as smokescreens constitute the poorest of arguments. So far, so obvious.
By preempting the bogus attack, you rather give the impression that *any* accusation of intolerance, etc. is unfounded. Not what you mean, perhaps, but the point remains.
Well, feel whatever you like, Armando. One person’s unproductive is another person’s etcetera. Here’s Alan Wolfe (who’s a fairly influential writer) right now telling us secular intellectuals that we have to be more tolerant of religion. Here’s the Archbishop of Birmingham whingeing about the Beeb criticising the Catholic Church. I say it’s pre-emptive and I say the hell with it.
I have to admit – I hear so many bogus, self-serving accusations of intolerance that I do tend to look closely even at non-bogus ones. But that’s one of the problems with bogus accusations, isn’t it, they taint the other kind as well.
Speak of the merits or faults of the criticism first, then of the perceived intolerance later.
Do not use the perception of intolerance to sidestep the criticism.
I believe this is OB’s point, and a good one at that.
That it is a bizarre notion comes with the territory, in my estimation. It is the rare individual that can rise above the, always at hand, fallacies that are offered up in emotional response to perceived attacks on the, largely unexamined, beliefs that underlie any ideological system.
To paraphrase some forgotten source: Reason is the slave of passion. Just happens most can’t reason very well. Myself included many times in the heat of an emotional response — no matter how hard i try.
Perhaps it is the recognition of this failing, that allows for dialogue instead of entrenchment. And perhaps too, it is too much to expect for the initial response to some criticism which elicits (intentionally or unintentionally) an emotionally reaction to be well reasoned and leveled. Perhaps at best we can ask for a better go at it once the flood of emotion passes.
Just some “pondering where it came from…”
greg
Yeah, fair enough. I concede the point.
Although I would point out that criticism can be both accurate yet, in some sense, unfair. In the sense that one might, for instance, only criticise the Democrats of innapropriate behaviour and never the Republicans. Each instance of criticism might be accurate, but the net result is not representative. If this were a religious bias, then one might call it intolerance.
Thanks Greg. I think your forgotten source of ‘Reason is the slave of passion’ is Hume, though I think he said it ought to be rather than that it is. Not sure though.
Well conceded Armando! And I completely agree with your next point. In fact I was thinking of just exactly that, not five minutes ago. Schwarzenegger is at least as much of a harrasser as Clinton, but will we hear a peep about it from the Republicans? Will we hell.