Sentimental bullying
John Denham really does talk the most rebarbative kack.
As communities secretary I am formally responsible for the government’s engagement with faith communities. Lacking some depth of knowledge I set about recruiting a panel of advisors (retained on an expenses-only basis) to advise me on relations with these communities.
And to encourage him to think in communalist terms and to use the word ‘community’ a minimum of six times whenever he opens his mouth, lest any foolish person somehow lose track of the fact that New Labour is obsessed with ‘communities’ to the point of insanity.
Outside of polemic is the real question of how a modern government should relate to the fact of faith. One view is that government should seek to marginalise faith as much as it can. The other, which I hold, is that something which is of immense importance to millions of people – the precise size of this minority or majority is not the real point – should not be lightly dismissed.
Note that – ‘the other’ – there are two and only two; there is one, and then there is the other. Bullshit, and coercive bullshit at that. It is not the case that the only alternative to thinking government should try ‘to marginalise faith as much as it can’ is thinking government should not ‘lightly dismiss’ anything ‘which is of immense importance to millions of people.’ That’s a false dichotomy, a bogusly limited choice, a stupidly narrow frame of reference, and a bullying piece of sentimentalism. It’s not a matter of what should or should not be ‘lightly dismissed,’ it’s a question of what the state should actively foster – particularly at the expense of alternatives, such as secularism, meaning neutrality among religions. Religion is important to lots of people, as Denham sagely points out, but he neglects to point out that freedom from religion, freedom of religion, separation of religion from government, is also important to lots of people. He simply plumps for the stupid retrograde intrusive notion that government should be sticking its nose into religion and shoving religion onto its balky citizens.
Over the past few weeks I’ve tried to set out a reasoned argument for government to take faith seriously. Firstly, the fact of faith for many of our citizens should be respected. Second, many issues which concern governments can not be tackled solely by regulation or spending. Governments and faiths share an interest in the values which lead people to act they way they do.
What does he mean ‘the fact of faith for many of our citizens should be respected’? That it should be acknowledged? But it already is, and that’s not a matter for government, and why should that fact be respected while the opposite fact is strenuously disrespected? That it should be respected in some substantive sense? If so, the hell with that. That it’s the governments job to go creeping around the landscape sucking up to various ‘communities’? That’s just absurd.
Campaigns for international development, peace, decent housing, living wages and many others have often been sustained by those of faith – not alone of course, but as key participants nonetheless. On these issues, and others including climate change and the values of our economy, faiths have views and values that deserve a hearing.
No they don’t. That’s flat-out nonsense. ‘Faiths’ have no views that are exclusively faithy that deserve a hearing – all they have are shared views that deserve a hearing for shareable reasons. ‘Faith’ as such adds nothing useful to views and values, and it often subtracts merit from views and values, by making them subject to threats and rewards, or predictions about some imagined other world.
A cynic and a hypocrite trying to buy Muslim votes in marginal Labour seats – that’s what John Denham is. He’s cosying up to bigots because he puts his personal career first, and that means putting his party before his country. Of course he has to squirt out a vast amount of rhetorical squid-ink to disguise this post-modern pseudo-Vichy approach. Wouldn’t you?
No. I’d get a nice respectable job tending the parks, instead.
You’re right, Ophelia, it’s ridiculous cant, and, as you note, it’s dangerous cant too, because it’s placing religions with respect to secular space, precisely where they should not be placed: in a privileged position. By suggesting that ‘the fact of faith … should be respected,’ he’s implicitly privileging religious faith even more, implying that government has a role in protecting faith groups from offence, or even serious question. Notice how he carefully second lists everyone except ‘those of faith’ – ‘not alone, of course,’ he says, as an afterthought. What the hell is wrong with these people? Do they not see what everyone else can see – that religion increasingly constitutes a danger?
On first reading, I found the linked editorial benign. Whatever problematic parts it might have, they seem gratuitous. For example, there is no such thing as an “water atom”, but a lazy chemist might use this term as a shorthand to talk about the atoms in a water molecule. Until being forced to do otherwise by arguments in context, I’m prepared to take the same attitude towards “faith communities”.
So it wasn’t until I read Nick Cohen get to the specifics that I felt a real pull backwards from Denham’s politics. I’m upset at the anti-Rushdie types, and it bothers me that they find themselves comfortable calling themselves progressive, and it bothers me that progressives find themselves reflexively tolerant of those that hold the sentiment.
Oh for the good old days back when Labour, according to Alistair Campbell, didn’t do god. These days Labour seems altogether too keen on religion. So at present the government is quite happy to dismiss scientific advice on drugs policy but is not ready to dismiss religous views on various topics. What views do faiths have on climate change other than it does not matter because the rapture is imminent?
‘Faith communities’ – indeed most scripture – didn’t have shit to say about environmental matters until the government turned it into a means to micromanage people’s behaviour and they realised they were missing a trick.
I wonder why the fact of faith is supposed to be respected in some way in which the fact that many like football or cricket or fishing or ballroom dancing. Why is faith special?
I wonder why the fact of faith is supposed to be respected in some way in which the fact that many like football or cricket or fishing or ballroom dancing isn’t. Why is faith special?
Why is faith special? Because people are prepared to torture and kill for it. That, really, is the bottom line.
And because some people are prepared to kill and threaten and exile merely because their particular ‘faith’ is not (in their view) being sufficiently respected.
“That’s a false dichotomy, a bogusly limited choice, a stupidly narrow frame of reference, and a bullying piece of sentimentalism.”
Oh Ophelia, I love your trails of words…
:- )
Thanks evie!
A former collaborator of mine used to give them the less elegant name of ‘lists.’ I like ‘trails of words’ much better…
It’s odd. I suppose if a large part of one’s constituency is mentally deranged you’re kind of obliged not to ignore it. If they’re capable (for the most part) of coherent conversation then I suppose engaging with them on some level might be a good idea, particularly if they’re not considered so crazy as to have their right to vote removed and you’d rather like them to think well of you when exercising said right.
However, Denham says:
“Over the past few weeks I’ve tried to set out a reasoned argument for government to take faith seriously.”
Not a bad start. But what he’s doing is actually the exact opposite of that. Largely because he thinks that:
“Firstly, the fact of faith for many of our citizens should be respected.”
When presented with stupid ideas you can pander, flatter, fawn, and mollify and nod and smile and say, “Ooo, that’s really profound” and “wow you’re thoughts on climate change are really important” and “isn’t it good that we agree about some things and agree to disagree about others?” whilst you astutely ignore the herd of elephants jockeying for space in the room. But that’s not taking them seriously.
If someone tells me that there is an asteroid the size of Manchester about to land in my garden, taking them seriously would mean either, A) jumping into my car and heading off at great speed or B) demanding to see their evidence. All other responses like “piss off you twit” would be the very opposite of taking them seriously.
Denham seems to want people to think that the crazy secularist response to ‘faith communities’ is the “piss off” option, when in fact it is to _actually_ take them seriously and demand that they make their case in the marketplace of ideas instead of relying on the usual free ride they get from the likes of Denham.
“Firstly, the fact of faith for many of our citizens should be respected.”
Sure, in the same way that we should respect the fact that crocodiles might eat you if you swim in estuaries where they are common; the fact that you may not survive if a tornado hits your house while you’re in it; the fact that it’s still prudent not to get into a fist fight with Mike Tyson, even if he’s not as deadly to elite boxers as he used to be; and so on. It’s always good to have a healthy respect for the facts. So? What follows?
A while ago, Labour seemed to be getting the message about the Islamists, hence they withdrew funding from the MCB and started talking to genuinely moderate Muslim groups. Ruth Kelly and Hazel Blears (notably both women) were in the forefront of this harder line policy. Sadly, since Denham has taken over, the Kelly-Blears policy seems to have been reversed, and they now seem to define ‘moderate’ as anyone who doesn’t actually want to plant bombs in Britain.
If governments must talk to ‘community groups’ – and it’s likely, whatever the views of Butterflies and Wheels that they always will – it seems to me that the test should be explicit commitment to liberal democracy. That would rule out by definition anyone who wants to force their own religious beliefs on others (including other members of their ‘own’ community), and would certainly rule out anyone committed to an Islamic caliphate.
i was into ballroom dancing last month and it was a great way to exercise`,: