Month: May 2009

Brandon does some passive-aggressive self-chastisement:

I at least try to follow principles of amiability on this weblog. I do not always succeed; in a recent argument with Ophelia Benson in the comments thread to this post, when her response seemed to me to be a set of equivocations and red herrings of a pernicious kind that should not be tolerated on such an important subject as people’s lives, I became impatient and lost my temper; whatever the reason, however, the lapse of amiability was simply inexcusable.

I would say it’s not really the lapse of amiability itself that is inexcusable; I think a certain amount of heat is to be expected in substantive disagreements, and can be harmlessly expressed and perhaps dissipated by certain kinds of vehemence. What I think was wrong about Brandon’s reaction was the actual content of what he said – in particular this charge:

Don’t think it has escaped my notice in my years of reading you that on the topic of Muslims you only worry about the obnoxiousness and invidiousness of criticisms applied to you, and that while you’re quick to talk about Muslim liberal friends when you are being criticized, you only use them as shields against criticisms and not as friends to support in public.

That’s a very strong and very offensive accusation, and it’s also false. (Gina Khan’s Diary, anyone?) That’s what I object to – the content, not the heat. So it’s interesting and ironic and…somewhat distasteful that Brandon manages to combine this display of repentance with another round of offensive accusation. It’s interesting and distasteful that on the way to rebuking is own lapse of amiability he accuses me of pernicious equivocations and red herrings of a kind that should not be tolerated on such an important subject as people’s lives – meaning, basically, that I tell lies in an effort to harm or endanger people’s lives. Pretty poisonous stuff for a humble apologetic guy.

What’s the issue here? As near as I can tell, it’s the claim that beliefs are beliefs and that they affect 1) other beliefs and 2) actions. My underlying assumption has been that Islam entails some core beliefs, and that some of those are in tension with liberalism. Brandon’s assumption is, apparently, that Islam is completely irrelevant to how difficult it is for Muslims to be liberals.

Well…there is a sense in which that can be true: if one is talking about de facto Muslims as opposed to doctrinal Muslims. It may well be that that’s what Nussbaum meant in the Boston Review article – Muslims as a population, a group, a ‘community’ within the larger population of India. Certainly people are born into religious groups, and that doesn’t necessarily mean they sign up to all the official beliefs of the religion in question. But then – that is something that has to be cleared up. It’s not possible to be sure what is meant either way, unless it is spelled out, and in any case there is of course a huge amount of overlap: people are born into religious group X, but then the beliefs of X are handed on to them, and they may sign up to most or all of them. One can’t assume that the word ‘Muslim’ means someone who agrees with every word of the Koran, and one also can’t assume that it means the opposite.

Now, in a way, I think Brandon has a point about Nussbaum’s article. In a way my comment on it was ungenerous. Her main point was that Muslims are treated horribly in India – which is a subject I know more about because of her, specifically because of what she’s been writing about the Gujarat massacre ever since it happened. Intercommunal hatred is India’s nightmare (that is, it’s the nightmare of the people of India) – and I admire Nussbaum’s work in explaining that to Americans.

But in another way, I still think I have a point, because Nussbaum does tend to sentimentalize religions and religious beliefs, and to gloss over some unpleasant realities about them. Reading her is often an ambivalent exercise for me: I’m always having to bracket off certain bits where she lapses into rhetoric about profoundest precious etceteras. I prefer to turn a colder eye on religion.

It’s nice to think we can all get along, but it isn’t always true. The US thought the mujahideen were just the ticket for opposing atheistic global communism in Afghanistan, but that turned out to be a mistake. Before that the US thought the Shah was just the ticket for opposing the nationalization of British Petroleum in Iran, and that turned out to be a mistake too. The US made similar mistakes in Guatemala…Chile…and a good many other places. It’s better to ask searching persistent questions about exactly what we’re signing up to before we sign up to things.

Nussbaum quotes Hasan himself saying something related in her article:

The stranglehold of the orthodoxy, especially in its political and religious form, has to be loosened and slackened. The answer lies in more and more Muslim communities moving towards democracy. There is no short cut to democracy…There is no place for pharaohs in the modern world.

He’s saying there is a strangling political and religious orthodoxy which has to be loosened and slackened, and that more democracy is needed. He’s saying there is not enough liberalism, and there is a need for more. Well – that’s all I’m saying.

The Guardian continues its commitment to publish commentary from excitingly reactionary clerics and fans of clerics with the vomitings-forth of George Neumayr. His comment is an exceptionally lazy and vulgar diatribe.

Notre Dame’s now-infamous president, Father John Jenkins, is very fond of politically correct patter…This year Jenkins has rolled out his broken wheelbarrow of inane PC clichés to justify honouring the most pro-abortion American president ever.

And so on; it’s all like that.

A brilliant commenter posted a list of bishops taken from a Dallas Morning News list of Catholic bishops who protected sexually abusing priests. There are 19 bishops on the list, out of 61 who signed a petition protesting Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama. She suggested a different headline for Neumayr’s blurt:

George Neumayr and paedophile apologists are outraged by the existence of a liberal African-American president.

A hit, a palpable hit.

I’ve been wrangling for a couple of days with Brandon at Siris. He took exception to my post on Nussbaum and stereotypes, accusing me of resorting to stereotypes myself, especially in replying to a comment:

It is as if you actively doubted that a black man could be an honest, law-abiding citizen. “Why?” Nussbaum asks. “Isn’t this just the stereotype of the violent black man?” Then says Ophelia’s counterpart (I’m very sure Ophelia herself would never say this): “Why do stereotypes have to be the reason for it? Couldn’t some people think that honest, law-abiding citizenship is just more difficult for blacks for a lot of reasons…?

And more of the same unpleasant implication. I asked him some questions –

So you’re saying that it is simply a stereotype to ask ‘Does the Koran, and the relationship of Islam to the Koran, have nothing to do with it?’? So you’re saying that there is nothing about the relationship of Islam to the Koran that can ever make liberalism difficult for Muslims? That’s not what my liberal Muslim friends tell me. Similarly, you’re saying it is simply a stereotype to ask ‘Couldn’t it be that at least some people wonder if Muslim liberals still have the Koran to contend with, just as Christian liberals have the Bible, and if there is some tension?’? So you’re saying that there is no such tension? None at all? If so can you explain how that works?

And more of the same. He ignored the questions, and pretty much went straight for abuse, starting out by fairly drastically re-writing what I’d said and then flailing away at that. I took strong exception to a couple of his accusations, and he replied (I thought) more reasonably, so I replied in a more temperate way – only to be told that he can’t comment any more because he can’t keep his temper; ‘even reading your arguments above set my lips in a thin straight line more than once.’ So I must have said some really horrible things, right? Well no, I don’t think I did. So I’m puzzled – I’m puzzled by the whole thing. I thought Brandon was a reasonable guy, religiosity aside, but his claims here seem to me quite unreasonable. For one thing, as I said, he simply misreads what I said, and rewrites it and then attacks what he said instead of what I said – and he ignores all my ‘that’s not what I said’s. But more than that – he apparently does think it is simply a stereotype to ask ‘Does the Koran, and the relationship of Islam to the Koran, have nothing to do with it?’. He apparently does think it is both a stereotype and illegitimate (and racist-like) to ask questions of that kind. That’s why I’m puzzled. How can a question like that be simply a stereotype, and illegitimate and racist-like as well? How can it be so illegitimate that he can’t keep his temper while discussing it?

I think the question is simply a question, not an assertion. But I can put it in the affirmative. I think the relationship of Islam to the Koran does make liberalism difficult for many Muslims, just as the relationship of the Catholic church to the Vatican makes liberalism difficult for many Catholics, and the relationship of Southern Baptism to the Southern Baptist Conference makes liberalism extremely difficult for all Southern Baptists unless they leave the SBC, as Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter did. I do not think this is an illiberal thing to think, but Brandon apparently does. He thinks I’m dismissing ‘living, actual people’ out of hand and ‘tar[ring] a lot of pretty decent, and very real and concrete, people with a set of negative stereotypes.’ But he never actually says it’s not true that liberalism is difficult for members of very conservative religious denominations; he just expresses rage at the very idea. I don’t get it. To me that’s a little like expressing rage at someone who says ‘conservatives are conservative.’ To him it’s not. What am I missing?

I don’t even know if he thinks that Islam is not in fact a conservative religion, or if he thinks it is but no one should say so, or if he thinks it’s okay to say Islam is a conservative religion but not okay to say that it’s difficult for Muslims to choose liberalism. But if it’s the last – what I wonder is: how the hell could it not be difficult for Muslims to choose liberalism? Is the world making it easy for them right now? Is liberalism the primrose path for Muslims at this time? I don’t think so!

So, I’m puzzled. Also irritated, of course. I don’t want to pretend to be all high-minded about it – I think Brandon said some really offensive things, to use that over-used word in a precise sense for a change. And I think this whole way of carrying on – expressing barely controllable fury, suggesting the worst kind of thought crime, rewriting – is a way of trying to intimidate out of existence what ought to be a legitimate discussion. I do not take myself to be attempting to incite hatred against people, and I think that’s what Brandon is accusing me of. It’s puzzling and also rather…dubious.

About the ‘Good News Club’…

The afterschool world at Cold Spring had hitherto consisted of basketball, karate, dance, and other physical fitness activities. In this context, a sectarian religious group that seeks to recruit the very young stuck out like a barstool in a bunny cage…The CEF labels the Good News Club program as “Bible Study,” but the term “study” in this context is a euphemism for indoctrination in and practice of a particular religion. Once class begins, there is no pretense of analyzing the bible as a literary, cultural, or historical document. The program moves directly to the CEF’s stated purpose, which is “to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, disciple them in the Word of God, and establish them in a Bible-believing church for Christian living.”

Before the Good News Club, afterschool programs were physical activities of various kinds. The Good News Club masquerades as a kind of teaching – complete with ‘instructors’:

[T]he Good News instructor was found approaching students and distributing leaflets just outside school grounds. Often, instructors arrive on campus before the bell rings. When young children exit their regular classrooms, they find the instructor outside the door bearing treats and trailing balloons. In Valencia, California, a parent of a kindergartener reported that the Good News Club actually started 15 minutes prior to the end of her child’s school day. The instructor, she said, would enter the classroom as kindergarten was winding down and perform a roll call – effectively segregating the children by religious affiliation.

So that it all seems like just more school, with teachers teaching content to the students.

In short, the confusion Ashley evinced on the playground about just what her school was teaching her was no accident. It is built into the design of the Good News Club program. The average six-year-old cannot reliably distinguish between programs taught by his/her school and those taught in his/her school; and the CEF may be determined to make use of this fact in order to advance its religious aims.

There’s a big problem here, and it’s not just the familiar old separation of church and state. Or it is that, but the reason for we need separation of church and state is particularly starkly revealed. The problem here is that these people are teaching stuff to children, and the stuff they’re teaching is not true, and there is no good reason to think it is true. That’s not what education is.

That’s part of the social contract when it comes to schooling. People don’t expect the schools to teach their children falsehoods. That’s not the job of the teachers and it’s not the job of the schools.

Given that, I’m not sure why the administration at Cold Spring couldn’t have told the Good News Club people that they don’t have afterschool education programs, Milford decision or no Milford decision. I don’t see why the administration couldn’t have said education was their job and they couldn’t parcel it out to amateurs after hours. I don’t see why the administration couldn’t have taken its stand on education as education and just said No thank you to rivals.

People who oppose abortion rights are making a big fuss about Obama’s invitation to Notre Dame, the Catholic university in Indiana.

The vast majority of faculty and students support the invitation. However, a few academics have come out against and are planning a commencement-day protest. Most of the noise, though, is coming from outside the university. Over 60 bishops have publicly opposed the invitation…

But that’s not the best bit. This is:

The ability of Notre Dame to stir Catholic hearts speaks to the role it plays among “subway” alumni – immigrants and their descendants who in many cases have never visited the university but whose devotion to it and its American football team forms part of their Catholic identity.

Yeah! They’ve never been there, and they couldn’t give less of a shit about actual education or learning or research, but man they love that football team and that there Catholic identity. That’s what universities are for – football, and identity.

Except places like Cambridge. Cambridge has its priorities straight. Right?

Maybe not.

After the university amended its equal opportunities policy to stress it “respects religious or philosophical beliefs of all kinds” and opposes discrimination, Prof Ross Anderson warned it could [damage] freedom of speech among staff frightened of causing offence.

It could also damage Cambridge’s reputation for being a university. How can a university possibly respect religious or philosophical beliefs of all kinds? When so many religious or philosophical beliefs are idiotic? How can a university sign up to deciding in advance that religious or philosophical beliefs of all kinds are automatically worthy of respect?

University policies on race equality were approved in 2002, with statements on disability and gender equality added in 2007. Further development of those policies, as the university puts it, would see respect for philosophical and religious beliefs (including lack of belief) put under this banner of protection. The new addition to policy says: “The university’s core values are freedom of thought and expression and freedom from discrimination. It therefore respects religious or philosophical beliefs of all kinds, including the lack of religion or belief.”

But respect for philosophical and religious beliefs shouldn’t be put under a banner of protection. Respect for people, as a shorthand for not doing bad things to them, yes, but for beliefs, no. At a university of all places!

Ross Anderson, a professor of security engineering, hit out at the amendment, submitting an official note of dissent. He wrote: “The university has no duty under this legislation to ‘promote religion and belief equality’, merely a duty not to discriminate when hiring staff or admitting students – which we stopped doing in 1877. The unfortunate wording of this policy might be interpreted to suggest that Cambridge is to promote the equality of evolution with creationism, or of cosmology with shepherds’ tales. We must never accept any duty to promote the equality of truth and falsehood.”

Out of the mouths of professors of security engineering.

Watch out for beliefs.

[Judge] Rodenberg found Daniel has only a “rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. … he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently.”…Johnson, the parents’ attorney, said everyone should be able to get medical care that follows their beliefs. “The Hausers believe that the injection of chemotherapy into Danny Hauser amounts to an assault upon his body”…The Hausers, who have eight children, are Roman Catholic and also believe in the “do no harm” philosophy of the Nemenhah Band. The Missouri-based religious group believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians.

But what the Hausers ‘believe’ is beside the point here in the most fundamental way. It’s beside the point in the same way as it would be beside the point to ‘believe’ that one could stand in front of an approaching high-speed train and be undamaged because one was holding a magic amulet. The Hausers’ ‘beliefs’ make no difference to what is happening inside their son’s body and to what would change that, any more than anyone’s ‘beliefs’ make any difference to what a moving train does to a human body. The train does what it does, lymphoma does what it does, chemo does what it does. What’s needed here is not belief but knowledge. The oncologist knows what chemotherapy does to lymphoma, and the Hausers don’t know, and they apparently don’t know that they don’t know and don’t know that the oncologist does know – or else they do know but choose to decide not to ‘believe’ it. They shouldn’t do that, any more than they should tell their kid to stand in the path of a high speed train while holding a magic amulet.

Rodenberg wrote that Daniel claims to be an elder in the band, but does not know what that means. Daniel also says he is a medicine man under Nemenhah teachings but can’t say how he became a medicine man or what teachings he has had to become one. He also noted that at age 13, Daniel can’t read. “He lacks the ability to give informed consent to medical procedures,” Rodenberg said…According to Daniel’s court testimony, he believes the chemo will kill him, and said: “I’d fight it. I’d punch them and I’d kick them.”

His parents have failed to make sure he knows how to read, and have apparently failed to correct his mistaken belief that the chemo will kill him as opposed to probably saving him. Beliefs are beside the point here, and being beside the point, they are lethal.