Author: Ophelia Benson

Clerics will say anything, and they’re allowed to; that’s their job. In some jobs you have to try to get things right and then report them truthfully; in others you’re allowed and indeed encouraged to just make things up. Archbishops are firmly in the second camp.

Many Catholics see in the dismay over MPs’ expenses and the behaviour of the financial markets, a growing public conviction that all is not well in the moral life of the nation. They believe it presents a rare opportunity for the Church to make its voice heard, and see in the archbishop a forceful and articulate spokesman…[The archbish] said the revelations about expenses and the activities of the markets showed rules alone could not make a society work. He insisted they showed that some sense of “virtue” – such as that offered by Christianity – was also needed.

From an obvious truism to a ridiculous non sequitur. Of course ‘rules alone’ can’t make a society work, but who ever said they could? What’s that got to do with anything? Nothing, apart from the automatic slandering of all things secular. ‘Those pesky unbelievers – they think rules alone can make a society work – how shallow and uninformed and clueless can you get? Typical godless.’ Nobody said rules alone can make a society work, and in any case, why is the only other option ‘some some sense of “virtue” such as that offered by Christianity’? It isn’t, of course, the archbishop just felt like saying it is, and his job description says he’s totally allowed to do that.

So – what would this ‘sense of virtue’ be? Especially this ‘sense of virtue’ offered by Christianity? Think hard now. Hmmm. Is it anything like the virtue of
the religious congregations in Ireland? No, probably not. What then? Oh…humility, turning the other cheek, loving your enemy, that kind of thing. Unless you’re in charge of an industrial school, of course, in which case humility and turning the other cheek and loving your enemy is quite the wrong kind of thing. So that must not be what’s meant by a sense of virtue then? So what is? Hmmm. Not getting hitched to someone of the same sex? Yes, perfect! But then – that’s just a rule, right?

Well, the archbishop probably did have something in mind, but I’ll be damned if I can guess what it might be.

The truth is that religion has nothing to offer to morality. It may have some utility as a morality-assistant, but it’s worthless at moral reasoning. That’s not to say that no religious people can engage in moral reasoning, it’s just to say that the religious part doesn’t add anything to the reasoning. Well it doesn’t. Moral reasoning is secular, and religion either gets it dead wrong, or muddies the issues, or simply applauds what everyone knows anyway.

This is why I won’t be applying for any archbishop jobs soon.

Finally, people who can’t think for themselves have an easy way to get instructions.

A telephone help-line offering advice about the true teaching of Islam is being launched in the UK today. Callers to the Islamic Hotline will get answers to their questions within 48 hours, from scholars trained at one of the world’s principal Islamic universities…The Islamic Hotline believes it has good news for British Muslims – keeping the laws of Islam is not as difficult as you thought.

How nice – submitting to the authority of reactionary outdated self-serving androcentric laws dating from fourteen centuries ago is not as difficult as you thought. It’s still a ridiculous pathetic slavish way to live and to make others live, but it’s not as difficult as you thought.

Prof Aboshady provides callers with a sense of the varying interpretations of Islamic law and then recommends one in their particular case. “We are not sticking to one view, or one school of law,” he says. “What we present is what we believe is suitable to people in different times and places and let them choose which is suitable to them. This gives Islamic law some flexibility, so we are not changing the religion or creating new religion, but simply give people the chance to choose which is suitable to them.”

So there’s a kind of gloss of flexibility, an appearance of being sensible and reasonable, but in an eviscerated form. You get a choice of a few views or schools of law, but all of them are imprisoned within the one religion, so there is ‘some flexibility,’ but no actual freedom. It’s like a bigger, airier prison with more privileges and better facilities – but it’s still a prison. It’s nothing to boast of.

Hanaa Ismail called the line about what she calls “issues in the family, about the relations between a man and his wife, what a wife’s duties are…She might be abused by a man for a long while and yet she could get embarrassed to talk about it. This has been… an Arab tradition. With this helpline she can ask for help without any embarrassment, and [the scholar] won’t know who she is, and she can ask about all the details.”

Right – but what she can’t do is say ‘the hell with this, I’m leaving.’ She can’t decide for herself that she has no duty to be beaten by her husband and no desire to tie her life to someone who wants to beat her – she has to ask a ‘scholar’ what the rules are. If he says the rules are that she has to stay with the guy who beats her, that’s that.

She should look elsewhere for advice.

This is one reason I think the Times article is very odd and in fact unfair.

There is no Muslim outrage about this book yet, but the fear of it is palpable enough for the Sunday Times to write an article about it. And if that outrage does indeed materialize, this will be yet another case, as here and here and here, of Muslims becoming outraged over accurate representations of Islamic texts and teachings.

Yes, it will, but on the other hand, in this case as well as the Jewel of Medina/Denise Spellberg case, it will also be a case of ‘Muslims’ (which is to say, some Muslims) being nudged into becoming outraged. I’m really not sure it’s fair to start with nudging people into being outraged and then rebuking them for their hypothetical future state of being outraged. How about waiting until someone actually does get outraged before rebuking anyone for getting outraged? That would be an idea, don’t you think?

Robert Spencer did say there is no Muslim outrage yet, which was alert and fair of him. One could be forgiven for getting the impression from the Times article that there was some such outrage, or at least rumours of outrage. That’s the problem. Spencer had no way of knowing and no reason to think that Toomey was in fact reporting on her own ‘concerns’ and ‘suggestions’ and no one else’s, and that’s why such an article is so dubious. It gives an impression that is just plain false. The idea that ‘the fear of [“Muslim outrage”] is palpable enough for the Sunday Times to write an article about it’ is simply wrong. It’s not a matter of palpable fear that the Sunday Times picked up on, it’s a matter of Toomey predicting something and then reporting on her prediction as if it were reality.

Of course, it’s true that people can always refuse to get outraged even if people try to nudge them into it; and they ought to; but all the same, if people do try to nudge them into it…that’s a kind of entrapment. I thought that when Spellberg did it, and I think it about this.

First posted May 31

Okay, now you know all. I said last week ‘For reasons which I will explain another day, the publisher became nervous’; now you know the reasons. I must say, given the way the article is worded, and given the headline, I understand the publisher’s reaction better, and I regret the slightly acid tone of my post.

The article is, frankly, worded in a rather peculiar way. There’s a very noticeable lack of attribution throughout – there are free-floating feelings and reactions with no actual people having them or expressing them or taking ownership of them. There are fears and concerns and suggestions, but the reader can’t tell whose fears and concerns and suggestions they are.

Well I can tell you. I have privileged information here, so I can tell you. No one’s. They are no one’s fears and concerns and suggestions. This is not altogether surprising, since the book is not out yet, and very few people have read it. I suppose it could be that some people could have read about the book, and developed fears and concerns, and told the journalist, Christine Toomey, about them – but it seems very unlikely, and the fears and concerns would have to be awfully vague and amorphous. The article makes it sound as if (without actually saying) there are real people who have real fears and concerns about the actual content of the actual book – but there can’t be any such people, because they can’t have read the book. You see what I mean? Of course you do. So that makes it odd to talk about fears and concerns and suggestions.

An academic book about religious attitudes to women is to be published this week despite concerns it could cause a backlash among Muslims because it criticises the prophet Muhammad for taking a nine-year-old girl as his third wife…This weekend, the publisher, Continuum, said it had received “outside opinion” on the book’s cultural and religious content following suggestions that it might cause offence.

What Toomey doesn’t say there is that the ‘suggestions that it might cause offence’ came from Toomey. That’s how all this got started. Toomey interviewed the publisher, and that’s when the publisher decided to get outside opinion. (The ecumenicist by the way behaved very well. The ecumenicist put aside his likes and dislikes, and judged it on impartial grounds. The ecumenicist is impressive.) That last sentence really should say ‘This weekend, the publisher, Continuum, said it had received “outside opinion” on the book’s cultural and religious content after I suggested that it might cause offence.’ As it is the article creates the impression that there is already a set of people who have fears and concerns about the book. There isn’t.

It’s all rather odd, really. It’s like another Denise Spellberg except it’s one who likes the book as opposed to hating it. Toomey does great reporting, but I don’t think much of this anticipatory ‘there could be a backlash’ approach. It’s too closely related to internalized self-censorship. Saying a book is controversial is one thing, but sounding a warning is another.

Still – it’s always nice to be noticed eh?

Roxana Saberi talks to NPR:

“I learned a lot from the other political prisoners there, too — the other women — because after several weeks, I was put into a cell with them. Many of those women were there because they are standing up for human rights or the freedom of belief or expression.

Many of them are still there today; they don’t enjoy the kind of international support that I did. And they’re not willing to give in to pressures to make false confessions or to sign off to commitments not to take part in their activities once they’re released; they would rather stay in prison and stand up for those principles that they believe in.

They gave me a lot of inspiration. I learned a lot from those women. I think they’re some of the most admirable women I’ve met, not only in Iran, but all over the world. I shared a cell with Silva Harotonian, who is a researcher of health issues, and she’s been sentenced to three years in prison.”

Silva Harotonian…another one to keep track of.