Strengthening the hand of the theocons
Jeff Sharlet has some of the same qualms I have about Nussbaum on religion and freedom.
More worrisome are those liberal defenders of religious equality such as Nussbaum and Waldman, who actually do know better and yet strengthen the hand of the theocons by underestimating and even minimalizing the scope of the Christian nationalist challenge…The overlapping consensus model extends an assumption of good faith to all parties. That’s fine. But it fails when it rests too easily on assumptions about just what good faith is.
Precisely. That’s exactly what Nussbaum does – she backs up these assumptions about just what good faith is by citing easy examples, like Quaker non-violence, instead of hard ones, like raising girls to be subordinate and marrying them off at 14. By doing that, she minimalizes the scope of the problem with, for instance, closed fundamentalist sects that subordinate women and don’t allow them to leave. Not that she supports such things, but by talking about Quakers rather than Mormons on Bill Moyers’s tv show, she gives a distorted picture. That’s worrisome.
Isn’t this what practically everyone is doing nowadays? When Rowan Williams suggested, a short while ago, that British law would have to accommodate parts of Sharia, he seemed to be blissfully unaware that there were any Muslim extremists. Does he really think that the Muslims who want Sharia will thank him when they get the power they seek? Sure, there are moderate Muslims, but they are not the ones seeking religious power, and they are largely silent.
The same thing goes for Christians. Most Western democracies are used to liberal Christianity taking a back seat in political decision making. Theocons are a new phenomenon, almost a point by point reflection of the Muslim bid for power, recognition and respect in the West.
When the US and Britain invaded Iraq, no one seemed to have any awareness of the religious (and related political) situation on the ground, and what forces despotism had, to that point, managed to keep under a volatile sort of control.
Even Christopher Hitchens seemed unaware. The parties of God, he suggests, have made a peaceful transition to democracy impossible in Iraq. Yes, they have, but those parties were there, just waiting for the signal to go. It’s almost as though people are sleepwalking to disaster.
It’s more than worrisome. It’s a catastrophe just waiting to happen. The Americans dare not leave, but so long as they’re there, the pressure will continue to mount. When they leave, they have no idea who will be pulled into the vortex created by their lack of understanding of the situation into which they intruded.
The same kind of sleepwalking is going on in the West, with Christians supporting the Muslim bid for recognition and respect, as though they had something in common. Haven’t they read the Qu’ran?!
No, you’re right, those who say these things, like Nussbaum, don’t support things like forced marriage, honour killings, and suchlike, but they dare not bell the cat, because it’s got fangs. Better to stay with safe topics like the Amish, or Quakers. The problem with that is that the cat still has fangs.
Oh dear, I’ve done it again, and tried to include too much. I’d better leave it at that.
Williams didn’t actually seem unaware that there were Islamists (which I think is a less vague term than ‘extremists’); it was worse than that; he seemed aware of it yet still determined to say what he said.
I don’t understand what Nussbaum is doing, because she’s written in great detail about religious tyranny over women. It makes no sense to me that she nevertheless keeps doing this incomplete picture thing.
Faith is, of itself, extremely bad.
It may from time to time by coincidence be associated with good things – but in each of those cases it is not difficult at all to isolate the coincidental part & link the good things with things that happened to accompany faith.
The faithful need time to realize this, & we should give them the time, as long as they realize that, eventually, their faith is a dying phenomenon.
You’re right, of course, Ophelia. However, I’m not always sure that Rowan knows what he knows. This has partly to do with his rather torturous mind, which cannot say anything in a simple straightforward way. Have you ever read his book on the Arians?! The man is a walking nightmare as a scholar, and as an archbishop he’s intolerable.
JoB. You may be right that faith is a dying phenomenon, but I seem to remember AC Grayling remarking somewhere that its death throes are likely to be quite violent.
I’m sorry, how is faith a dying phenomenon?
Faith is a very large catchword and to call it “Bad” is a pretty much unsupportable, just like calling it good.
[and Eric, Chris Hitchens was embarassingly wrong in almost all his Iraq predictions and pronouncements. In no way is he an Iraq expert, to look to him for regional expertise is farcical. He mistook his idealised concepts of solidarity for reality]
DFG/Eric, Can’t one indulge in wishful thinking these days?
Faith is not a very large catchword and calling it bad is not unsupportable. If you do something out of faith you do it knowingly (& wantingly) uninformed.
I can imagine you were referring to the nuances faith can have &, yes, I do buy stuff because I have faith in my wife’s wine recommendations.
The question is: will you try to defend your position with arguments or just do a snipe again?
JoB,
That faith has nuance is exactly my point. And you just backed it up.
Even if one narrows it down to the term “religious faith”, I don’t condone your wishful thinking. A secular society should be working to minimise the intrusion of religion into discourse and decisions. I don’t think that voice should be silenced, as you have the right to worship whatever you want, but I do believe that voice should be granted it’s due weight. Which is feather-like.
People are strange and complex. Religion and faith aren’t the be-all and end-all of human activity and attitude. After all, there are some hideously racist and misogynistic athiests I have fun goading…
DFG,
If that was the nuance you were hinting at, it’s a cheap hint. The context here was clear enough. As far as ‘condoning’ my wishful thinking, the verb is to say the least a bit out of order.
I am – by the way – rather in agreement with you on religious faith. I am quite in disagreement with militant atheism – if I may risk using a word with nuance. No question we should not arm ourselves to remove religious faith forcefuly, or even to remove faith-based opinion from the public discussion.
But I stand my ground: the faithful are obliged to recognize faith is dying and whilst it’s OK that they cling to their faith they should refrain from activity ensuring that their children cling also to their faith. I am fine if they limit themselves not loosing faith that their faith will endure across generations.
&, yeah, yeah, there is BS in the world totally unrelated to religion, where in earth did I imply otherwise?
“the faithful are obliged to recognize faith is dying and whilst it’s OK that they cling to their faith they should refrain from activity ensuring that their children cling also to their faith.”
And that is what I took issue with i the first place, where is the evidence that faith is dying?
And in the absence of that, your idea that they are somehow ‘obliged’ to acknowledge your completely unsupported view is some I don’t condone. Out of order? Cry me a river.
Re: BS in the world. Wasn’t my intent to imply that, it was more related to the complexity point.