Faith in the Public Sphere, Part 2
It was nice of Mitt Romney to time his speech with our blog discussions this week. I won’t add to the analysis of his speech, except to say …
We pay elected official to understand complex matters and make important decisions, and these decisions are formed in the context of the reason and values of the official. The elected official’s reason and values, in turn, are formed, trained, and resourced – often unconsciously - by the “framing story” in which he or she lives. (“Framing story” is a term I explain in some detail in Everything Must Change) We receive our framing story unconsciously as children, learning it as we learn our native tongue, from our parents, our culture, our religion or philosophy, even our playmates. As we grow, many of us question it, deconstruct it, and adapt and reconstruct it again and again.
At heart, I think this is what many people mean by spirituality, as opposed to “organized religion” (a term I commented on briefly a few days ago). While organized religion may hold our bodies for an hour on Sundays or whenever, our framing story at a very deep level tells us who we are, where we’ve come from, what’s going on, what we should be doing, and why. What people call “spirituality” seems to involve the sense that we’re living from a deep and meaningful framing story that we have examined and continue to hold with conscious, sincere commitment.
Anyway, I think that everyone has one of these framing stories, whether one considers oneself secular or religious. The respondent yesterday expressed a possible secular framing story like this:
"Okay, look, believe what you want but I know this... we're on our own, there's no God and so we have to find a rational solution to this that involves a UN committee made of the greatest secular thinkers in the world. Richard Dawkins will report on his findings within 6 months..."
At their worst, faith communities give people destructive framing stories that lead them to act as fearful isolationists, violent nationalists, ethnic bigots, crusading jihadists, or whatever. At their best, faith communities give people creative and constructive framing stories that lead them to love their neighbors and their enemies, care for the earth all their fellow creatures, pursue not just self-interest but the common good, admit their own mistakes fast and be slow to judge the actions or beliefs of others, and show a special concern for the last, the least, and the lost. (I just saw the powerful documentary The Bible Tells Me So last night: it gives poignant examples of both kinds of behavior.)
The danger of a Hitler or Pol Pot or Joe McCarthy or hate-mongering preacher lies in their ability to concoct or adapt a destructive framing story and entice others to buy it, believe it, and live it out. The grandeur of a Socrates, St. Francis, Gandhi, Dr. King, or Mother Teresa lies in their ability to invite others into a better, truer, more liberating and life-giving framing story.
And this, to me, is where we have to become more enlightened about the separation of church and state. We all want to avoid the kind of illicit affair that we’ve witnessed for the last three decades on the right, where a political party used a religious community to shave percentage points off the other party’s voting bloc, and did so by spreading framing stories of conquest and domination, scapegoating and fear. In so doing, they too often stimulated fearful and unthinking reaction, not wise and well-considered action. They too often tricked people into trusting them based on their supposed religious authority, rather than earning confidence through honest communication and genuine service and sacrifice. As one respondent said earlier this week,
That's faith by appeals to authority. All to often, authentic learning ends where faith begins.
In light of the all-too-common practice of false appeal to authority, where authority figures manipulate through framing stories that stop people from thinking and get them fearfully reacting, no wonder someone would say, as one respondent did, “… take your religion and stuff it.”
But drawing from the profound, creative, and reconciling framing stories that hold many of us to our faith (this is what “makes us stay” – thinking back to the previous posting), we find resources and motivation and inspiration that I believe can help us in achieving truly progressive ideals. Perhaps one of the great challenges of a great politician is to find resonances between constructive framings stories and communicate them in ways that draw all of us toward a better, wiser, more sustainable and just and compassionate future.
So, like a lot of people here, I get tired of religious language being used as a kind of semantic massage on hearers … reminiscent of President Bush’s adaptation of a hymn lyric in a speech a few years ago: “there’s power, power, wonder-working power in the hearts and minds of the American people,” or something close to that. I think it is wrong for religious people to try to force their religion on others, and more, to leverage their religion as an argument for public policy on others who do not share their religion. But I also believe that the crises we face – which I detail in Everything Must Change – reveal flaws in the stories that currently frame our personal and political lives. The search for better, truer, more hopeful and action-inspiring framing stories is a matter of both spiritual vitality and political viability. Grappling with these crises will require all the faith and reason we’ve got.
This is the kind of faith-reason partnership expressed early this week by a respondent:
On the other hand, if there are Christians, or atheists for that matter, that want to do good work by helping the poor and the lame, by protecting the environment, and wish to improve the lives of the public in an altruistic way, I'm with them.
It’s also an attempt to address the religious problem identified earlier this week by a respondent:
In the third section of Dewey's A Common Faith,? he says, and I quote,
" ... churches have lagged behind in most important social movements and ... they have turned their chief attention in social affairs to moral "symptoms," to vices and abuses, like drunkenness, sale of intoxicants, divorce, rather than to the causes of war and of the long list of economic and political injustices and oppressions. Protest against the latter has been mainly left to secular movements."
I hope that more of us who are people of faith will address these deeper social issues in the future and work in a healthy partnership with secular movements toward the common good. Perhaps instead of talking about faith in the public square – which suggests a kind of flattened, two-dimensional dialogue, we can envision the role of faith in the public sphere, where we accept that there are many dimensions to our dialogue about public policy, one of which is reason inspired by faith, one of which is reason operating at an arm’s distance from faith. They both have something to offer.
Thanks for your interest and excellent dialogue this week. I’ve learned a lot and hope the conversation will continue in the future.
You've really stood out among Table For One participants as being willing to engage us and argue with us. You're a good writer, too. This has been great.
I wish you had talked some policy specifics, though. You did a great job with the larger theme but the extent to which we can all cooperate really does depend on policy.
You wrote about an alternative approach to terrorism and that's a clear case where secular and religious thinking can lead to the same conclusions.
But, as you say: "I also believe that the crises we face – which I detail in Everything Must Change – reveal flaws in the stories that currently frame our personal and political lives."
When you start talking about other people's personal lives, I get nervous.
So I have to ask where you stand on the social issues like same sex marriage, abortion rights, freedom of expression (even for Hollywood and the video game industry) and scientific freedom (genetics and stem cells).
Some people will say those are just wedge issues used to divide the electorate. To me, the culture wars are real, though. They do have an effect on how people can act, express themselves and administer or receive medicines. When it comes to personal matters I want to know how "Live and let live" you are. I suspect the answer is "a lot" but I'd like to see you give some specifics.
You say you're not for imposing religion on anyone. I believe you. But imposing religion means a lot more than forcing some one into a church. If a same sex couple can't get married because religious members of their community don't want them to, that's an imposition. If genetic research is stymied by religious objections to cloning human cells, I consider that an imposition (since I have no such objection and just want access to whatever medicines or treatments that might result).
I'll gladly work with people of faith who are out to do good. But I do expect them not to impose limits on me. What do you say on the specific issues?
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
December 7, 2007 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have to disagree with you, Destor. Being anti-gay marriage is not an imposition of religion, nor is being against stem cell research. The way you describe it, any time a religious person supports a policy that is in accordance with their religious views, that is an imposition of religion. That's just not the case.
An imposition of religion is something like attempts to create official religions; attempts to force creationism to be taught in science class; bible classes in public schools, etc. We can't simply say that any religious motivation disqualifies individuals from making policy decisions.
Certainly you accept that people want to impose limits on you or disagree with you for reasons that aren't religious--that people can rationally disagree about policy. If such people are in the majority, you wouldn't ask them to not put limits on you. It seems that you are arguing for some sort of compartmentalization of our society so that the religious regulate themselves and the secular regulate themselves. But we have to have laws that apply to all people. The problem with the gay marriage debate is that we lost the vote, not that people were religiously motivated. I don't think we can ask people to set aside their beliefs just so that they will agree with us.
That's a rambling paragraph, but I hope I get my point across.
December 7, 2007 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
You make a good point, Reece. This is why I want people to come clean about what it is they want, what they believe and why, on specific issues.
One of the problems has been that arguments based on religious faith have been privileged over other arguments because it's considered impolite and impolitic to critize religions.
I think, when you really drill down on the issues, you can get people to reveal what's motivating them. If it's something other than reason, at least you can call them out on it. But you've really got to push and ask questions in order to get there.
I'm not saying I should be exempt from laws supported by the religious, of course. But I will darned sure let people know that I think they're exercising unjust authority over my life.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
December 7, 2007 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I see the government is being responsible for the legal aspects of providing support to families, but I don't see why that should not apply to any committed pair of individuals, regardless of gender. The anti-homosexual marriage thing is purely Biblically based, making it religious.
My son and daughter-in-law were married in Thialand. The marriage as far as the state was concerned consisted of completing, signing and filing the marriage certificate. After that they chose a Buddhist wedding reception in the Empress hotel in Bangkok, but if they had been Catholic they would have chosen a Christian religious ceremony. Inheritance rights for any children and other legal rights of marriage were taken care of by filing the signed marriage certificate. The same separation of legal and religious marriage applied when I was stationed in Germany.
Now if you can explain a valid reason why society should not legally recognize marriage between committed homosexuals, then I can see that there might be more than pure religion involved in banning them from getting married, but all I have ever seen or heard is that somehow allowing homosexuals to commit to another person of the same gender and receive the legal rights of that commitment would destroy heterosexual marriages. Which is utter nonsense, as no mechanism for that destruction is ever proposed or discussed.
The same kinds of arguments apply to stem cell research. The idea that an embryo is a full human being in itself separately from its mother is a semantic farce, normally supported by the slippery slope argument that since there is no clear point at which an embryo becomes a human being it attains all the rights of a human being at either conception (eliminate birth control) or at implantation. This is a semantic argument that did not exist until physicians learned enough to even recognize that embryos could be recognized. For most of human history, a human being was one who had been born.
That's not to say that there are no ethical issues surrounding the joint collaboration of mother and fetus in the process of bearing a child, but when the very high rate of natural failure of an embryo to be implanted and to survive to be born is considered, and with the extreme demands on the mother's body in that process, those ethics issues are too complex to be solved by anything as simply as the assumption that an embryo is a human being with all rights thereof. That's especially true of an embryo created outside a woman's body. Most embryo's are disposed of by nature before becoming a fetus. If one is created especially to provide research knowledge that can save real live post birth human beings, the ethical trade-off is heavily weighted towards benefiting already born people. Anything else is both religious and absolutist. The Roe Vs Wade trimester system was a good, but rough, approximation of the trade-off of rights between the embryo/fetus and the mother.
Perhaps not an absolute a priori disqualification, but the individual making policy better have a broadly approved secular reason to apply such decisions to anyone outside the religious community that is the source of the policy. Otherwise the policy-maker is imposing religion through government on those who are not members of that religion. That is a violation of the separation of church and state.As an example, the imposition of abstinence only sex education on all children is pure religion. As the recent increase in teen pregnancies shows, it simply does not work. It has also been a major barrier to providing effective sex education to limit the spread of aids. There is no secular justification for the abstinence only sex education mandates. That is pure religion, and as such is a violation of the establishment of religion by government clause.
As I have pointed out elsewhere, when the motive to apply a government policy is religious, then the idea is that the policy, emanating from a perfect God, is itself perfect and any disagreement becomes heresy.The only solution that that quandrum is to never allow religious policies to direct government actions. Government, as flawed as it is, and as flawed as every government official is, cannot safely implement religious decrees. Otherwise, as an example you get government fatwas, conducted with government tax money, against writers the religious leaders object to.
December 7, 2007 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
The idea that an embryo is a full human being in itself separately from its mother is a semantic farce,
That's not even close to an argument. It's perfectly reasonable to judge: an organism with a unique DNA identity that has begun developmental process that -- if it proceeds like yours and mine -- will continue until adulthood is a human person with all the attendant rights.
Calling it a farce tells everything about your bias and nothing about the position. Calling it religious imposition just tries to ratchet up the tension in lieu of making an argument. It also implies that non-religious folk come to these decisions from rational foundations, which is demonstrably false.
Civil marriage and religious marriage should be completely separate.
December 7, 2007 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Demonstrably false? So demonstrate. Your emphatic assertions are no substitute for demonstration. You may also wish to clarify your personal understanding of the word "rational."
A soiled sanitary napkin or a used tampon may also contain unique DNA since upwards of 60% of fertilized eggs are shed in menses. Potentiality does not bestow rights.
Beware of swinging that bludgeon; it just might come around and hit yourself in the back of the head. Bias, indeed.
December 9, 2007 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm going to back nolaboyd up here. If you actually get into some of the details of the stem cell debate, you'll find that there really isn't an objective resolution to the debate. People on both sides start from completely different assumptions, assumptions which are not really susceptible to rational argument. In the end, the outcome that a person supports is more likely to be determined by the rest of their worldview than by some rational grounding of principle.
For someone on the other side of the debate, for example, an embryo is no mere potentiality but rather a person in a particular form. You have to make some argument that it is only a potential. What are you going to base that on?
Opponents of stem cell research face the same problem--their assumptions are no more demonstrable than yours. Ultimately, there is no strictly rational solution.
If you are really interested in engaging this debate instead of simply dismissing it, you should read some of the reports from the President's Council on Bioethics, especially the reports entitled, "Monitoring Stem Cell Research" and "Human Cloning and Human Dignity." Yes, this council was appointed by George Bush. The reports are fair to both sides, however, and in any case, if you are at all interested in developing your arguments, you should face the strongest versions. You can find the reports at www.bioethics.gov/reports/
December 9, 2007 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dunno, Reece... the Bioethics panels is hopelessly biased and was appointed to deliver the results Bush wanted. It's really a sham organization and that will become clear about 10 years from now when countries like China have beaten the US to major medical advances. Then everyone who gets sick who opposed this research will be clamoring to buy it from abroad. Well, maybe some of them will be principled and refuse such treatments. But I'll be buying help from Chinese biotechs and I won't feel bad about it.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
December 9, 2007 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
For someone on the other side of the debate, for example, an embryo is no mere potentiality but rather a person in a particular form. You have to make some argument that it is only a potential. What are you going to base that on?
Actually, if the folks on the anti-choice or anti-science side of the argument are going to assert that a blastocyst is a person, the burden is on them to support their assertion, isn't it?
Even so, although of course I can't anticipate every argument those folks might make, I've yet to hear a definition for "person" that can't be easily deconstructed in applying it to an embryo without benefit of metaphysics.
December 9, 2007 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
That you think the burden is on the other side is another assumption that isn't really susceptible to rational proof. If I ask you what ethical terms apply to a blastocyst, you will be the one making the positive assertion, won't you? Saying that it is a blastocyst does nothing to help your argument because that alone does not tell us how it should be treated. You must make some further argument about it's ethical status. It is a blastocyst and [it's a mere potentiality] or [it is not sufficiently developed to be worthy of protection] or . . . . The scientific description alone does not inform our ethical obligations.
And if you are making positive arguments, then the burden is on you, isn't it? The reality is that both sides make positive statements that burden them with proof.
To Destor: Yes, their conclusions are ultimately biased, but I thought that the monitoring stem cell research report did a fair job in summing up the various arguments on both sides. You can find that here: http://www.bioethics.gov/reports/stemcell/chapter3.html
December 10, 2007 6:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry, what was the assertion that you feel I need to defend again?
If you don't mind, I'm going to refer to "you" below where I actually mean "they or you, if you are on that side of the argument." Please correct me if my apparent assumption is incorrect.
By the commonly-accepted ethos of most civilizations, a creature has no "moral status" unless it is a person. You need to establish that we're dealing with a person, not a clump of cells that have more in common with a goldfish than a human. Then we can discuss the relative rights of an actual person and a creature we'll call a Potential for the sake of brevity.
OTOH, I don't think you can argue very successfully that a woman is not a person -- one who has a recognized right to maintain the integrity of her body and mind without interference from people who promote superstition for fun and profit.
Nor will you have much luck, IMA(rrogant)O, showing that suffering humans should not have access to care that can be provided by sacrificing senseless (meaning, of course, having no sensibility) non-persons. The stem-cell argument on my side is further strengthened by the fact that these embryos have virtually no potential to become humans, in that they will eventually be destroyed.
December 10, 2007 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
But not their souls! And now that Limbo is in limbo, just where do those tiny, little, itsy-bitsy souls go?
December 10, 2007 8:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, yes, souls. Good point, Ellen.
Tell me something, all you religio-biologists out there: The soul is present (inserted?) into the embryo at conception, correct? So, if an embryo splits to form twins, does the soul split with it or does a new one get created? If the latter, which embryo gets to keep the old soul?
And when two embryos combine, does one of the souls die? Oh, I forgot. Souls never die, huh? So maybe the two souls merge when the embryos merge? Or does the resulting embryo actually retain two souls?
Imponderables, I suppose. Probably only god knows these things, huh? But if he told you all about when souls enter the "body" of these cell clusters, why didn't he give you a little more information so you wouldn't look so uninformed in the face of simple questions such as these? Probably only he has the answer to that question, too, huh?
Not that I'm expecting any answers.
December 10, 2007 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
All good points you raise.
Interestingly, the longstanding belief (like nearly two thousand years now) of Christianity as a whole recognized without any need for scientific analysis that up to a certain point an emryo is NOT a human. Traditional beliefs led the ancients to conclude through common sense what science now proves which is that conception is not the point at which a human life begins. At minimum, they had eyes and surely could see upon miscarriage that human life is not present from the moment of conception. Only after the "quickening" will the embryo take on human dimensions. The quickening is when the soul enters the body. This is at an unknown point during pregnancy for the ancients and, of course, it remains unknown (if we do, indeed, have souls).
Whenever it occurs, this point in time during the pregnancy is without question long after conception. The Apostle's Creed, one of the earliest uniformly agreed upon documents of the entire Christian world clearly states that after his resurection, Jesus will "sit upon the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." Uncountable millions have recited this creed with those very words aloud for thousands of years and still do.
Only in the last few years has the Roman Catholic Church altered this wording to accomodate their newly created and fully preposterous notion that human life comes into being at the moment of conception. They have now altered the ancient creed and say that he shall come to judge "the living and the dead" thereby conveniently accidentally on purpose eliminating that inconvenient truth. Other denominations that hold radical and completely unscientific views on this question have done likewise.
So clearly, at least for mainstream, tradition honoring Christians of all types, the question of whether human life begins at conception was answered long, long ago in one of Christianity's most ancient, authoritative and universally agreed upon documents.
Thus, there is no basis whatsoever for the specious claim that Christianity in any way has historically believed that life begins at the moment of conception and therefore "Christians" must oppose abortion. None. It is only an invention designed to prop up the unsupportable notion used to tweak the emotions of millions to motivate them to oppose abortion in order to make women have babies if they engage in sex. It's the only conclusion I can reach given what is known.
December 10, 2007 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, tank, I confused you with the person who replied above for obvious reasons--you basically continued lightiris's argument straight off.
Since you haven't really followed the argument to this point, it seems necessary to point out that I have been playing devil's advocate here. To sum up, nolaboyd started by saying that it is a rational to believe that embryo's deserve protection and that calling a ban on stem cell research an "imposition of religion" implies that people who are against such bans are rational while people opposed are not. Lightiris asked nolaboyd to show that people against bans are not entirely rational as they claim to be. I jumped in at this point, because I agree with nolaboyd on both the fact that it is not an imposition of religion and that stem cell research supporters are not some sort of perfect rationalists. You came in after that and here we are. I was confusing you with lightiris.
For what it's worth, I support stem cell research for a variety of reasons, but I'm not going to pretend that support for research is the only rational position.
I think my point still remains, though. You are arguing that we should perform stem cell research because blastocysts are a "Potential." Both sides agree that blastocysts are blastocysts, but that doesn't tell us what to do with them. You assert that blastocysts are Potentials, others assert that blastocysts are persons. I don't think you can simply rest. After all, one could rationally argue that even a potential is worthy of protection. Saying it's a potential doesn't really get you anywhere. Ultimately, both sides of the debate are reduced to arguments just like the one you make, i.e. that it's worth destroying frozen embryos to pursue cures that can reduce human suffering, or to take the other side, that such research should "not be seen as inherently and always obligatory, and claims to support it may be overridden even by a level of respect for nascent human life that does not suppose that embryos possess full human moral standing."
(Quoting one argument discussed in the President's Council on Bioethics report entitled "Monitoring Stem Cell Research" which I have linked to elsewhere in this thread.)
I don't really feel the need to engage with the arguments any further since I really am just taking the opposite position for the purpose of showing that supporters of stem cell research are not perfectly rational. You can find more at the bioethics site I pointed out above.
December 10, 2007 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK Reece, I understand the position you are in, and I wouldn't want to defend that side of the argument either, so no hard feelings if you don't respond. But...
I still have a problem with your assertion that their argument is rational sans religiosity. Let's put aside the fact that those embryos are destined for destruction in any case and concentrate on the issue of morality.
I used the term Potential only as a convenience and to avoid legitimizing the claim -- and a claim is all it is -- that fertilized egg = person. The fact of the matter is that my side of the conflict doesn't need to make what you called a "positive statement" at all. All we have to say is that we support using the cells for the benefit of people (in the case of stem cells) or that a woman has a right to control her own organs. Then the other side must protest for a reason. If their reason is not personhood, they are arguing the supremacy of the rights of a non-person over those of a manifest person. If their reason IS personhood, I say I agree -- if they can convince me that we are dealing with a person. I doubt that they can do that.
December 10, 2007 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I have free time, so I'll respond. (But no promises for the future, especially if this post drops off the front page.)
First, let me try to make my original point, namely that neither side is perfectly rational. It seems to me that what is happening here is one side is saying such-and-such is ethical while the other side is saying such-and-such is unethical. That the two sides can't agree tells me that they aren't operating on the same system of ethics. If there were just a bunch of ethical rules that we were supposed to follow and which we could apply impartially, it would be a pretty simple thing to decide whether such-and-such was in fact ethical.
But it seems pretty clear to me that this isn't what is going on. I think that instead that each side represents it's own ethical system. That is not to say that the systems are incompatible or always contradictory. I would guess that 95% of the time, they're going to overlap, but this is one of those cases where the systems don't. Each system can be rational even though they disagree. Both Kantian deontological ethics and Millsian utilitarian ethics are rational, but they produce different outcomes in some circumstances. I mention those two systems because the two sides in this debate seem to fall roughly along those lines. People against stem cell research tend to say things like human dignity and human rights are inviolable regardless of how much suffering may be relieved, while people in support of stem cell research often say things like it is our moral duty to do everything we can to relieve suffering especially when the doing so does not cause more suffering. (And since blastocysts can't suffer in any reasonable sense of the word, destroying them does not increase suffering.)
So, in short, I don't think there is any good way to argue a kantian into a utilitarian or a utilitarian into a kantian. And furthermore, you don't have to be religious to think that Kant was onto something with his moral philosophy. Originally, I said that neither side is perfectly rational, and I think that is true insofar as people come to moral philosophies for reasons other than cool, rational reflection. But I think it would be just as fair to say that both sides can be rational in this debate. That, of course, is not to say that both sides always are rational as in fact many people oppose stem cell research for purely religious reasons.
Finally, above I used "such-and-such" to stand in for the debate, and I did that because I think either side can fill in that variable with some proposition. When you say it is ethical to perform research, they can say it is ethical to preserve embryos without destroying them. In that case, you would have to be the one raising an objection to the proposed course of action and you would have to justify your position, wouldn't you?
December 11, 2007 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Where in the hell do you get the idea that stem cells are removed from embryos that would, or even could, become real live human beings. They are extracted from embryos that are headed for the dippsty-dumpster out behind the fertility clinic. For all purposes "they" are already "dead".
December 20, 2007 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
An "imposition of religion" is when the government tries to force people to adopt or believe a specific religious belief. Outlawing same sex marriage and stem cell research are not instances where the government is trying to tell people what to believe. Furthermore, those specific beliefs--that same-sex couples should not get married and that stem cell research should not be performed--are positions that can be arrived at without any specific religious background or motivation.
It seems that you are making two arguments here. First, you are saying that the only motivation for being against same sex marriage is religious. Second, you are saying that the ban is therefore a religious imposition. But there are at least a few rational justifications for being against same sex marriage that are not biblically based. For example, our law has never recognized same sex marriage at any point in the history of the western legal tradition. This was not out of an anti-homosexual bias. It's just the way it was. I mean to say that in fact there was no positive law creating a bias against homsexuals--it wasn't like Jim Crow. I think people can rationally believe that there is no reason to change the way the law operates insofar as at most the discriminatory effect is produced by negative effects of generally applicable law, i.e. side effects that result from a lack of positive law. Second, in any case, banning same sex marriage does not force anyone to believe a religious proposition. It merely regulates behavior in the same way that criminal law regulates behavior. You may believe that smoking pot is acceptable behavior, but you are still responsible for your actions if you are caught in possession.
So, not necessarily religious and not an imposition of religion. For what it's worth, I'm in favor of gay marriage or rather as another person has pointed out, any form of universal civil unions, i.e. if people want to be married in a church, that's fine, but anyone and everyone can get a legal civil union that controls the the effects on their property and children, so long as the union is between two adults at most.
Again, this is not the only argument against stem cell research. One can rationally take a strong view of human dignity that demands recognition of each embryo as a separate and unique individual worthy of protection by the state. I personally find that argument much more challenging than any argument made from religion in large part because I personally believe that human dignity is an important right.
Again, for what it's worth, I am personally in favor of stem cell research. I voted for the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative in 2006, and I strongly support continuing the right of women to terminate pregnancies.
It should be clear by now why I disagree with this. The government is not "imposing religion" simply because it enacts a policy that is supported by religious belief. This sort of argument can go both ways. If what you're arguing were the case, then the civil rights movement was an imposition of religion. Much of the Progressive movement would have been an imposition of religion, etc.
December 8, 2007 11:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Destor - thanks for the kind words - and good questions. Three quick replies ...
1. When I say that I think there are flaws in the stories that frame our personal and public lives, here's the kind of thing I have in mind ... this is stuff I go into in a lot more detail in Everything Must Change:
- If our personal lives are built on a narrative of greed, then we will value things above people and we will contribute to the further plundering of the planet rather than its wise stewardship.
- If our personal lives are built on a narrative of fear, than we will vote for the most militarist candidate who comes along promising more security through more weapons.
- If our personal lives are framed in a narrative of nationalism, racism, or religious supremacy, then we will always see the world in terms of "us" and "them," with "us" being superior.
2. Someone earlier in the week asked for my positions on these issues - can't remember if it was you or not. For me, the ways some of these issues are framed is problematic ... which makes it feel dishonest for me to say "for or against" the way many people can.
But in short (with the proviso that there is a lot more to be said than a single simple statement on each of these issues), I believe gay and lesbian people should be treated with the same rights as every other human being, I believe our efforts regarding abortion should focus on rendering it unnecessary and rare - I address the reasons behind this near the end of the book, I believe in freedom of expression although I am very troubled by the trivialization of violence and the commodification of sex and the sexualization of children that are increasingly common in the digital media culture, and I affirm the importance of scientific investigation although I am very concerned about the corporate commodification of life and the resurgence of a some kind of nationalist or corporate-driven eugenics. I think that many of my religious brethren have made a mistake by fighting these battles almost exclusively on the legislative front. Instead, we need, I believe, reasoned and open dialogue about these issues "upstream" from legislation - the kind of frank but respectful dialogue this blog aims to foster.
3. I agree with you that there is always a danger of some religious communities trying to impose their values on others against their will through legislation. But I think there are two other factors to keep in mind. First, when we legislate against a fifty year-old man being able to have sex with a twelve year-old girl, or against a corporation being able to build a factory by filling a wetland - we're often doing so on moral grounds, and we're limiting the freedom of a pedophile or a factory owner to pursue their personal interests. We deem - morally - that their personal interests are sufficiently harmful to the community that we choose to override and criminalize their desired behavior, and thereby impose our standards on them. So morality can't be simply relegated to the realm of the personal, it seems to me. I think you would agree, but let me know if I'm missing something. I just don't think the issue is as simple as a lot of people make it seem.
And second, while certain religious communities pose certain dangers to a free society, we shouldn't minimize the threats posed by corporate interests ... Wendell Berry, Bill McKibbin, and David Korten write on these issues very effectively, in my opinion. I often think that while we worry about the real dangers posed by religious communities, a kind of corporate pseudo-religion (I call it theocapitalism in the book) is succeeding in a massive invasion and conquest over our inner and outer lives. I guess dangers often come in two's.
December 10, 2007 6:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
. . . when we legislate against a fifty year-old man being able to have sex with a twelve year-old girl . . . we're often doing so on moral grounds, and we're limiting the freedom of a pedophile . . . .
To pick a nit because I think the nit worth picking . . . .
Actually, we're limiting the freedom of the twelve year old, because after reasoning carefully we have judged 1) that sex acts should be limited to those between people of fairly equivalent power as demonstrated by their ability to give "consent" (no more husbands raping wives) and 2) twelve year olds have neither the experience, judgment, or maturity to give/evidence that consent. In the absence of consent the pedophile is raping the twelve year old.
December 10, 2007 6:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
We're probably closer on a lot of things than we see, though I am very much a libertarian on personal/sexual/expression issues.
One thing I can promise -- I'm as worried about corporate power as you are. No church has ever been able to threaten firing me.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
December 10, 2007 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
.> One thing I can promise -- I'm as worried
> about corporate power as you are. No church has
> ever been able to threaten firing me.
.
Apparently you have never lived in the semi-rural Midwest.
.
sPh
December 10, 2007 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I finished Rev. McClaren's book last night - he is so obviously a good man seeking a solution for a better world I urge everyone to read his book. He gives us much to think about and his sincerity shines like a beacon. He is though, profoundly, utterly wrong.
Reframing the narrative or the story in a new interpretation is nothing more than prolonging the old narrative that has caused so much suffering and conflict among the peoples of the earth. We cannot change everything by remaking the old black and white film in colour. Over and over throughout the history of christianity we've tried to "change" the message of Jesus, to "reframe" it or "get back to basics" and his "real teachings" and "spread the good news" and while that is admirable, it isn't working.
Perhaps the problem isn't our ability or inability to reframe the narrative, perhaps the problem is the narrative itself. Perhaps it is time to look at the narrative and ask ourselves if that story is beneficial not to just the individual, which I'm sure it is, but to humanity as a whole.
Maybe it is time for humans to look at themselves as their own source of happiness, their own source of suffering and their own source of solving these profound needs. I wonder if it is time to stop reframing the old story, but find a new story that includes us all, that works better for all human beings, that is more concerned with the here and now and less so on what becomes of us after we are no longer here.
It might become a better world if the focus wasn't on the narrative and the meaning of the narrative and the intepretation of the narrative and how do we convince others to believe in the narrative and consider creating a new narrative - and of course, bring all the best of the old narrative with us, not as the sum but as a factor in what we are.
December 7, 2007 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
BevD
You are right on target. Let us not fear a new narrative.
For me, it is early childhood healthy education for all the worlds' children with heavy emphasis on the arts and self discovery-self esteem.My narrative does not include a healthy sprituality. They are synergistic in fact.
Dr. Rick Lippin
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com
December 7, 2007 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Some men see things as they are and say why...I dream of things that never were and say why not." GBS
December 7, 2007 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
MEGA WHOOPS!-NOTE CORRECTION
"My narrative DOES include a healthy spirituality"
Sorry folks -typos are my bane
Rick Lippin
December 7, 2007 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you notice the little "edit" button at the bottom of your comment? I discovered it several weeks ago, and use it regularly. I am both a bad typist, lazy editor and yet somewhat anal about proper spelling and clear grammar - usually after posting the comment. Baaad combination!
Apparently, though, after one or two uses the edit function locks up and you cannot use it any more. So I try to only use it once.
December 7, 2007 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rick B
Thanks- Also after the comment has been up a while I think the edit function disappears?
I was interuppted when I first commented and discovered my mistake a few hrs later.
Thanks again
Rick Lippin
December 7, 2007 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Editing capability only "locks up" (the link disappears) when someone posts a "reply" comment to a comment. The principle involved is so that a respondent doesn't end up with someone changing what they originally said after they replied to it. Otherwise, if your comments have no replies to them, you can edit them forever. By replying to you, we have just made it so you can no longer edit your comment.
December 7, 2007 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah. That explains it.
I have in the past started an edit, then tried to post it and been told that I am not permitted access to that function. So someone must have posted a reply while I was editing.
Thanks.
December 7, 2007 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
thxs artappraiser
I'll just have to proof more carefully. It would be nice if these blogs had a spell check function
But I am grateful to dialogue with folks like you and Rick B.
Rick Lippin
December 8, 2007 5:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I understood what you meant. I assumed it was a mistake, based on your message in your text.
December 8, 2007 7:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Since we have locked horns before, you may be surprised to hear that I share your concerns, to some extent. You are ahead of me, however. I have not read the book, only a blurb about it. To be fair, I should just say that I have some questions that I hope will guide my further thinking on the subject.
If I am permitted to mix my cliches, I am inclined to think that this sort of thing has to be "emergent" from the "grass roots".
Maybe I have just seen too many leaders come and go. Maybe I have seen too many paradigms turn to shifting sand.
To be more specific, however, I think that I would question that spirituality is a frame. That sounds too deterministic to me.
I think of spirituality as more of a process of empathetic exploration.
Perhaps a frame sounds too much like a doctrine to me, and doctrines are very low on my radar.
It is possible that I also wonder how (or whether) a frame distinguishes ends and means. I am inclined to think that there should not be any (or much) separation between ends and means. So I wonder if the frame is too directed toward a specific goal to allow for a flexible path to a pretermined outcome.
I guess when it comes down to it, I prefer the word "karma," which I understand as a complex web of cause and effect. This whole discussion seems to me very much oriented toward Western thought.
Of course, you could say that karma is a kind of paradigm. But I wouldn't be doing good Zen if I didn't ask you to consider that karma might be a kind of anti-paradigm, in somewhat the same sense that "thinking outside the box" is an anti-procedure.
Buddhists are so damned uncooperative, aren't they?
But then, I haven't read that much about the book, yet.
There is a story that a Western philosopher once went to a Zen monk to compare notes. The philosopher expounded his views for several hours, while the monk sat patiently listening. Finally, when the philosopher was finished, he looked at the monk expectantly, hoping for an enlightening discussion. The monk said, "That is very interesting. But of course, the opposite is also true."
December 7, 2007 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go look at at the paragraph "On the different kinds of cognitive frames."
December 7, 2007 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is very interesting.
I don't want to exaggerate the point, but some people might say that the Western point of view carries with it an implicit imperialism. That is, Westerners cannot help themselves but frame things in a rule-bound, deterministic way that is controlling.
How does that fly?
December 7, 2007 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
On first glance it seems to fly rather well.
I have been studying the Chinese I Ching (Classic of changes) with the intent of creating a computer program that accepts the question, creates the appropriate hexagrams, and then permits easy access to explanations that make understanding the Chinese imagery it uses. Somewhat to my surprise, I learned that it is based on the logic of patterns and analogies rather than the formal western logic of cause and effect.
In the author's introduction to the Legge translation (that's the book that all the Hippies used to use) he points out that translating from the Chinese characters there is often some difficulty getting the English right, because each character represents a concept rather than a phrase in language.
The I Ching has been central to Chinese thought for over two millennium.
Whereas one of my linguistics books makes the point that every sentence contains a verb that is a tiny theory of cause and effect, which the verb applies to its subject and objects.
Does this mean that Western thought, being bound up with alphabetical language, is a frame that is more suitable for tightly focused study of the cause and effect actions in limited domains, while Chinese, being bound up with characters that each embody a full concept without differentiating the verb is more focused on analogy and larger domains? Unfortunately, I neither read nor speak Chinese, so I have no way of chasing this idea down.
But it certainly COULD suggest differences in framing.
Western imperialism, at least in its worldwide sense, results from the last five hundred years of expansion out of Europe. That was based on the development of cannon, deep water sailing ships, and governments that depended on trade more than on agriculture as a tax base to support permanent large armies. It also grew out of the Roman Empire which surrounded the largest lake or enclosed sea in the world, which provided easy training steps for the development of a merchant based civilization rather than a mostly landlocked agricultural civilization.
I'd guess that the mindsets that led to the last 500 years of European expansion through the world probably came as much from geography as from any frame of imperialism, but successful efforts at imperialism would certainly reward those with the mindset. Chicken? Egg?
But the idea that westerns have a unique predilection to be "rule-bound, [and] deterministic [in a] way that is controlling" overlooks the Chinese history of Legalistic thought. From what little I know about that, the Chinese could match western forms of legalism easily.
December 7, 2007 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a lot to think about here.
Even within Buddhism, there are different strains of thought. There are, for example, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, which seem, at least to a Westerner, to represent a categorizing, rule-bound way of looking at things. On the other hand, when you look at the Four Noble Truths in detail, they are not easy to understand.
December 10, 2007 7:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not deliberately being rude, I'm thinking about how to answer this in a thoughtful manner. It may take awhile...
I would urge you to read the book. It's a thoughtful, well written book and McClaren has some interesting observations about humanity and its condition and how we have come to this pass.
I don't confuse spirituality with religion. Spirituality is a component of religion but it isn't religion. There are other components of religion that make it was it is, among them doctrine, faith, dogma, organization, the worship of artifacts and symbols of artifacts, inclusion and exclusion and supernaturalism. (and because I named some, it neither excludes or discludes others.)
I'm not big on karma as a cosmic force, I understand it and appreciate it as a concept, but I am not so sure that everything that rises must converge. I'm no longer sure that randomness is an element of the universe, but I cannot make that leap to karma as an explanation. Of course if we accept that the universe is made of many dimensional planes then both could be true and both could exist simultaneously. It could well be true that some dimensional membranes are random and some deliberative. How's that for a Buddhist answer?
December 8, 2007 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your answer. I will have to cogitate about it.
December 10, 2007 6:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is no escape from the very human habit of perverting and twisting ideas to suit the ends of certain individuals whether it is corruption of the purpose of religion or the corruption of the purpose of ideas and ideology that is nonreligious. They didn't seem to have had any problems in nonreligious Stalinist Russia or Mao's China in imposing the same sorts of tyranny and oppression we've seen in religious society's whether directly or indirectly sponsored by religion.
If all religion everywhere disappeared instantly, soon we would find people creating another form of dogmatic mental regimentation for their own agrandizement, pleasure, power, and so on. The misuse of religion is only one of many forms of mischief humans can exploit and have frequently exploited to further individual or group aims. So perhaps Dr. McLaren is suggesting an approach that is far more likely to succeed than eradicating or abandoning religion since there's not a chance (literally) on earth that religion will ever disappear and it certainly won't disappear in this country within the lifetime of anyone living today.
December 7, 2007 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I'm not suggesting that we ban it overnight or discard it tommorow. I wouldn't say I'm very big on this argument that that because non religionists do bad things, then religion is okay. What does one have to do with the other? Just because we rid ourselves of one tyranny, it doesn't follow that we must accept and approve other tyrannies or that the void would automatically be filled with evil.
It's simplistic to claim that Russia banned religion to replace it with another tyranny. Russia and the Orthodox church had an intricate and complex political, symbiotic relationship (and parasitical might be the better word) and the church was an integral part of the power structure in support of the class system. The revolutionaries saw the church as the bulwark and moral support for the autocracy, which it was. The Tzar was the head of the Russian Orthodox church and the Russians' history with the church was a far different experience than in most countries.
We are dismayed and critical of China's repression of the Falun gong, but gongs aren't religious, they're political, the Boxers were a gong, just as one example and again the the spiritual in China was entwined with the power and political structure of the government.
Both Russia and China were autocracies, they weren't "religious societies" where religion played the dominant role in their culture. Their governments were fusions of religion and government - they couldn't be separated, they both had to fall in order for the revolutions to be successful for the revolutionaries. (I'm not passing moral judgements, merely making a historical observation.)
Fortunately we have the example of the United States, which from the beginning separated the church from the state, and even with the unevenness of the experiment it has moved this country forward, not replaced it with a tyranny.
Your comment that "if all religion disappeared instantly....we would find people creating another form of dogmatic regimentation" is specious. If religion stayed around idefinitely we would find people creating new dogmatic mental regimentations. The point to this is that the two are neither exclusionary nor inclusionary - the existence of one isn't dependent on the existence of the other. People can just as easily create new and freeing philosophies as they always have. Not everything new has to be feared and suspected.
The Rev. McClaren isn't suggesting a "new approach" - the reformation of christianity has been undertaken time and time again. Over and over christians have rewritten and retuned their message. The last great reformation was the "Social Gospel Mission" of the late 1880s to pre WW I. It was the same rewriting of the message that Rev.
McClaren is suggesting today - to make the gospels relevant to the lives of people and an integral part of the politics of societies. The Russian priest, Father Gapon, who led the workers to the Winter Palace in 1905 which resulted in such carnage and the beginning of the fall of the Romanovs, was an enthusiatic proponent of the philosophy of the Social Gospel Mission and did many wonderful things for the Russian workers. Unfortunately, in mixing politics with religion it also became a tool of the government for covert control of the workers as it was in Germany.
The catholic ecumenical council was also a reworking of the social gospel mission and radicalized the church in South America which led to the suppression of both religious and political movements. While his ideas are admirable, they're not really something "new" in any sense of the word.
I don't call for religion to "disappear instantly", I don't call for it's "eradication" or "abandoning" it. Why you would make such an assumption is beyond my understanding - I certainly didn't suggest it. I suggested that a new narrative, a new paradigm might be a novel approach to the problems we face as human beings.
Lastly, of course there's a chance that religion could disappear from the world in the future, just because it is unimaginable to people, doesn't mean there it isn't possible. I didn't claim that religion would disappear in our lifetime, nor did I claim that it was a good idea. I said that it might be in our interest to develop a new narrative and a new way of looking at our problems.
December 7, 2007 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not even sure what it would mean for religion to disappear from the world. Even to imagine it happening means that we can draw a clear distinction between religious views and non-religious views, religious stories and non-religious stories, religious practices and non-religious practices. But I doubt we can draw such a clear distinction. The stories people tell themselves always seem to be modified and remixed versions of the stories that came before.
December 7, 2007 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, that is why bringing what is best about religion into the future and discarding the superstition would be a good model. I don't think that this is going to happen in the next hundred years or even a thousand years, but I do hope that humans can imagine a new paradigm where it just doesn't matter, perhaps in a hundred thousands years somewhere else in the universe.
I'd like to think we can move beyond human sacrifice and the infliction of torture and suffering as the paradigm of divinity. Humanity is moving forward, I believe, would you not agree?
December 7, 2007 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure a disinterested empirical study of violence in the 20th century would support that belief.
December 7, 2007 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I tend to thinks so. But sometimes we seem to create new superstitions as rapidly as we discard old ones, so its hard to say for sure. Superstitions aren't all about gods and divinities. Not all superstitions make people kill and torture, and not everything that makes people kill and torture is a superstition.
December 7, 2007 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with everything you say. Because I mention one, it doesn't mean I'm excluding all others.
December 8, 2007 5:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bev, I have a hard time ever finding anything to disagree with you about, but can you explain the underlined section of this?
I'd like to think we can move beyond human sacrifice and the infliction of torture and suffering as the paradigm of divinity. Humanity is moving forward, I believe, would you not agree?
Give me something to hold onto, because I think humanity is giving humans a bad name!
Jan
December 9, 2007 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jan, I know that it appears to be worse in some ways, but I do think that we've been more progressive in the last 2000 years than we have been regressive. We at least have a glimmering hope that people have a right to self-determination, that representative government can be effective, that we're growing in our knowledge of human behavior and how are behavior affects others, that we have a duty and obligation to take care of children and the elderly and the mentally ill, that peace brings us prosperity and war doesn't, that judging people on their ethnicity, religious beliefs or national identity isn't as good as we once thought it was, that suffering doesn't have to be a part of the human condition nor do we have to accept it as such.
Just as an example, the other day I was watching a concert that was being beamed to the space station - we were not only communicating with the inhabitants of outer space, we were the inhabitants of outer space. If we're capable of that kind of communication, of that kind of technology, then maybe we're capable of changing and improving the way we communicate our interdependence here on earth. We may have setbacks, we may revert at times to old paradigms, but I really believe that because we are an intelligent species with empathy for others, we will evolve to a better species. I see evidence of that everyday. It is better today than it was a thousand years ago, it's better today than it was 60 years ago. Self-interest is a component of human behavior, but who is to say that the kind of self-interest that is so selfish today, will not become a self-interest that is based on the fact that the interest of others, is part of our self-interest. I am very hopeful about the future. This will probably, I'm sure seem very silly, but a recent "invention" called, I believe "nutty buddy" (and it is very, very cheap to make) or something like that, made of peanut butter, milk solids and vitamin fortified is being distributed to starving children and is the most effective feeding method for them ever found. (Even very small babies can ingest it.) It is proven to have saved lives. Now if humans can do something that simple and make a profound change in people's lives, think about what they will be able to do to effect real food distribution systems. I can cite many examples just like that and they are being implemented every day in the world. It doesn't have to be the way it is, it is very possible and very probable that it will be better.
(Just as an aside, several years ago, doctors found that since most children in third world nations die of dysentary than they do of starvation a simple method that families can do with minimal supplies was needed - it is a handful of sugar, a handful of salt in boiled water and then given to the children to drink. It can be made in a can over a fire. They know how to do this, it has been effective, there is no measurement, no special equipment, nothing that can impede its implementation other than a redistribution of salt and sugar and not much of that. How simple that is, and caring people and nations can do this so easily. Those are the true "miracles" every human can "perform.")
December 9, 2007 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Test pilots, who are still very strongly represented among astronauts of all countries, are extremely controlled people. I've read transcripts, and heard a few tapes, of test pilots in an out-of-control aircraft, systematically describing what they are doing to try to regain control, or, if it is certain they will die very soon, they may still try to get as much information as possible to the controllers.
Quite a few, however, of assorted nations, have said that they had...call it a transcendental experience, avoiding trickier words...when they looked at the Earth from space. The experience was not a sense of being small, but more of a sense of universal brotherhood.
Your point about oral rehydration solution being an enormous breakthrough, which took so long to recognize, is well taken. It is the sugar or starch that is necessary to get the water and electrolytes to absorb; the traditional Chinese rice porridge, when thinned, is very close to an ideal mixture -- many such recipes put in some orange or orange peel for flavoring, but, without realizing it, they are adding needed potassium.
In my own experience, and that of colleagues in Internet core engineering, it's not at all uncommon for people to realize that Internet-enabled communications is the closest thing yet to the future of which Martin Luther King dreamed, in which one would be judged by the content of one's character, as expressed by words, rather than the color of one's skin.
It was interesting to discover that MLK was a strong fan of the original Star Trek series, and personally convinced Nichelle Nichols not to leave the show because she felt her role was minor. Even in the presence of the William Shatner School of Acting, King said that the starship crew was as good a role model as he could imagine, and the parts would become better. It's too bad that MLK didn't see what Michael Dorn did, later on, to develop the role of Worf.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 9, 2007 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very nice reply, Howard. The very simple sugar/salt recipe was such a great breakthrough because it was so simple. Pedialyte is wonderful and ideal but not practical for very young children in those circumstances, by the time it is distributed it is usually too late. The peanut butter mixture is another great breakthrough in providing life saving nutrition to children. The cost is pennies per pound and in many nations in Africa, peanuts make an ideal crop plant. One interesting bit of information I learned about the peanut butter mixture, is that while fortifying it with vitamins makes it better, it is still lifesaving without it. Mothers can walk away from distribution points with five gallon pails, and it doesn't need fuel to fix. One of the great disadvantages to refugee camps is the inability of the inhabitants to find fuel for cooking fires. Any simple solution to that would be another great breakthrough in solving the immediate problem of starvation and possibly help find longterm solutions. For most of these women in these regions the entire day is taken up in locating enough fuel to cook one meal. I often wonder about that when people buy firelogs or I see newspapers in recycling bins or throw away paper myself. What is garbage to us or a night's fire in a fireplace would be lifesaving to those poor families caught in that endless cycle.
Instead of spending trillions of dollars finding ways of hurting each other, we would spend trillions solving problems like this, but I don't think that will happen in my lifetime...of course I didn't think the Berlin Wall would fall in my lifetime either, so I can always be happily surprised.
p.s. Did you see the aside I left for you on another thread about the new "terrorist group" in Iraq? I was hoping you might have some information. The A'adhamiya Knights - Iraqis say they are in the pay of the U.S. I found one article about them written by Robert Fisk.
December 9, 2007 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fuel, unquestionably, is a major issue. I'm trying to remember where I saw it recently, but several college engineering students came up with a very simple (but non-obvious) stove, which could be made locally from scrap metal. It's being used in Darfur and considerably improves fuel utilization.
I saw the note on that group, and it could well be a US-funded group. Part of the challenge in that sort of situation is how much authority can be delegated to local security people. There's a very legitimate challenge that needs more social science work -- we are seeing in Iraq, Somalia, and perhaps some other places a much more multipolar system than Foreign Internal Defense doctrine ever addressed. This does remind me, however, of one of my favorite stories of rebellious youth, such as it is, in Japan. One group was proud to call itself the best-organized anarchist collective in the world.
It's not always the trillion dollar solutions. There is more and more evidence that microloans have a disproportionate effect, and Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank absolutely deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. For example, microloans to women widowed by husbands who died of AIDS traditionally went into a brother's household. If they were infected, there was even more spread. A microloan that lets a widow get a sewing machine and some materials, or practice some other craft, not only is lowering the HIV transmission rate, but also more of an idea of womens' rights.
Little things can be critical, but it's recognizing them that is the challenge. Recently, some US soldiers in Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, which is becoming Africa Command, realized they had a solution to the school dropout rate for Muslim girls entering puberty. All it took was to set up a third privy or porta-potty, so that there could be a gender-separated toilet for these young women. It wasn't a problem of not having school resources for them, but something that lots of people had overlooked. IIRC, this was in Ethiopia, which is a mixed Christian-Muslim population, and the Christians may not have noticed -- I'll try to find the link.
In other words, one of the best investments here and elsewhere is language and culture/area studies training. It doesn't take much -- the Marines in Iraq have dusted off the Combined Action Platoon doctrine from Vietnam, where a squad of Marines lives in a village. These are people with far less training than in Army Special Forces, but it's a situation where odd skills turn out to be important. I remember one from Vietnam, where an 18-year-old Marine had been a champion in 4-H Club hog raising, and revolutionized the village pig farms. That particular skill won't be important in Iraq or other Muslim countries. The social dynamics of manual work appear somewhat different in an Arab village than a Vietnamese one, and they aren't sure what to make of an American who digs a well or som other "menial" task.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 9, 2007 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The point is that there will never be a time in human civilization without religion. It is every bit as delusional to think religion will ever disappear as it is for religious people to think there's a big grandpa in the sky watching over each individual. Religion is as old as humanity. It is an invention of humanity. It will never cease to be a part of the human experience. Our founders clearly understood this and didn't trouble themselves with wasting their time on trying to find an ultimate solution to the problems caused by the existence of religious factions. Instead, they chose to deal with reality and provide for complete religious freedom which means both complete freedom to practice the religion of your choice and the equal freedom to practice none if that is your choice. Freedom of conscience was very important to them and I think it remains very important to most citizens.
You wrote:
"I wouldn't say I'm very big on this argument that that because non religionists do bad things, then religion is okay."
Who made that argument? Not me. The point was that you have to deal with reality and not just what you would like it to be. The reality is that with or without the presence of religion, the negative, nasty, repressive things that have been done in the name of religion will still be done whether in the name of a religion or God or in the name of some other system of belief such as we have seen take place in the name of communism or in the name of capitalism, or in the name of Americanism, or you name the cause, movement, etc...
It's simply faulty logic to believe that eliminating religion a) is possible and b) will eliminate the tyranny and oppression and possibly even delusion that religion has been used to advance in the past because religion was not the cause of the problem it was only a vehicle--a host if you will---for certain kinds of humans to take advantage of for their own ends. There are plenty of vehicles out there for power hungry, oppressive, authoritarian personalities and groups to exploit.
December 7, 2007 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
These arguments don't fly.
1. I'm not arguing for suppression of religon, what people choose to believe is their business. The negotiators of the constitution made a very wise choice in their wording concerning religion. I never said they didn't nor did I criticize it.
2. It isn't "delusional" to think that in the future religion might be eliminated anymore than it is delusional to think that we will always be a "religious" species. There are all sorts of things humans used to believe and do that they no longer do, just as there are things that we do not do and believe that we might well do in the future. If you think that it will always be a part of humanity's understanding of the universe, that is what you think. I am hopeful that we can put it aside as a defining characteristic of human identity.
3. You certainly did make that argument, and you continue to make that argument. Just because we have A, it doesn't mean we have to have B, nor does it mean that because we don't have A, the logical default is to B. It could well be that because humans evolve the absence of A could mean the absence of B. There is no "reality" that in the future "nasty repressive things" that have been done or are being done now will "always" be there. That is the ultimate "faulty logic." It's making an assumption about human behavior and making a prediction based solely on how humans behave now. There are too many variables to make that kind of prediction.
It could well be that humans will evolve in such a way that wars, repression, infliction of suffering, nationalism, identity politics and all those things that hamper and stall our evolution will be eliminated. It is also possible that we'll blow ourselves up, overheat and destroy our planet or some other overwhelming catastrophe will overcome humanity.
4. It is "faulty logic" to assume that religion as we know it will not be "eliminated" a word I wouldn't choose - I don't call for its elimination or suppression, I never have and I never will.
Secondly, we don't know if religion is or isn't the "cause" for anything - my contention isn't that the narrators aren't bad or good, it is that the narrative itself is no longer the best paradigm as a vehicle of human progress and evolution, just as totalitarianism or autocracy or tribalism are not. Those vehicles are seeming to slowly disappear as best narratives for progress and are being replaced sometimes with better paradigms/narratives so it would seem that humanity is making progress in its evolution to a betterment of the human condition. My hope is that a better narrative than religion will develop, one that can be globally inclusive and rational. Your claim is that the future is epilogue to the past, my claim is that the past is prologue to the future.
December 8, 2007 6:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I'm not arguing for suppression of religon, what people choose to believe is their business."
Who said you were? Not me. I didn't even mention suppression of religion. You are creating arguments for yourself again so that you can disprove them.
"It isn't "delusional" to think that in the future religion might be eliminated anymore than it is delusional to think that we will always be a "religious" species."
Well, in my opinion it is and pretty obviously so at that. And, I have a right to my own opinion. That's what freedom is all about: being able to think, and believe, and act as you choose.
"You certainly did make that argument..."
I most certainly did not. You have me doubting your ability to read now. I am arguing that the human beings that distort and use religion can just as easily distort and use some other set of beliefs if religion is not available. Thus, the absence of religion in no way eliminates the sort of oppression, etc. that religion often has been associated with in the past. I say this because there are many, many instances of oppression and tyranny of the sort religion has been associated with happening without religion in the mix. It's pretty self evident. That is nothing at all like what you say I am arguing. That you conclude something completely incorrect about what I thought was pretty straightforward indicates to me you're a whole lot more interested in arguing for the sake of it rather than actually paying attention to what others are writing and having an exchange that might shed some light on the matter.
"It is "faulty logic" to assume that religion as we know it will not be "eliminated" a word I wouldn't choose - I don't call for its elimination or suppression, I never have and I never will."
But you still think it is faulty logic to assume the religion as we know it will not be eliminated? Uh huh. So, I take it that means that you think it is perfectly logical to assume that religion "as we know it" will be eliminated?
I still believe what I wrote above, which is that for better or ill it is faulty logic to believe religion will ever be eliminated. You can quibble about "as we know it" if you wish, but I think that's simply preposterous. It's very faulty indeed, perhaps more like wishful thinking on the part of some. And, in point of fact, you have written above about the eventual disappearance of religion and it's desirability. Read what you wrote. You have a right to your opinion, but my point was simply that people always have and always will be religious and it's unrealistic to assume this will ever change. That is what I believe. I think there is abundant evidence of this. It seems clear that since the dawn of time humans have had some form of religious beliefs. That's really not an issue that is debatable (though I'm sure you'll debate it) and there's no evidence whatsoever that religion will ever not be a part of humanity.
December 8, 2007 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bev, do you realize you are imposing your perspective on everyone else? Did you really intend to blame all the ills of society on a failed Jesus narrative? There are many nations with these same problems that don't have a Jesus narrative at all.
Diversity and tolerance does not simply mean accepting racial or ideological differences. It's about an awareness that all of us are not equal in perspective or life experience and have the free will to select the path we believe works best for us. Millions of these individuals have selected the Christian faith as their path and they will testify most sincerely as to the power and positive change it has made in their lives.
Perhaps you want to choose a more humanist path, but how about a little more tolerance for those who don't.
December 7, 2007 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why do you assume that I lack tolerance for religionists? I am really curious as to why you have that impression. I don't call for the banishment, the censoring of religion, I don't blame all the ills of humanity on a failed Jesus narrative. I don't "blame Jesus" or anyone else for that matter. Humans are responsible for the ills and the goodness in the world. I don't blame anyone for anything, people make bad decisions, they make good decisions, they act from self-interest and altruistic ideals and everything in between. I use christianity as an example because that is the subject of the book.
I don't impose my belief, I don't ask anyone to agree with me or make any kinds of demands on anyone. I tolerate and consider every philosophy, I don't accuse others who don't agree with me as being intolerant of my views and my philosophy, why would I? That's what were here for, an honest and frank exchange of ideas.
December 7, 2007 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bev, with all due respect, I think the reason people think that is because of the caustic, generalized, anti-religion statements you keep putting in print.
December 7, 2007 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what you're saying is that as long as I vehemently uphold the christian gospel narrative, applaud religionists and their works and pomp, agree with their promulgation of their doctrine, promote their political goals and solutions, admire their finding of the true path and the light, refrain from offering an opinion, other than the socially acceptable opinion that Rev. McClaren's "change" is the best way, the truth and the light while reviling the more obvious hucksters and shysters who "use" religion to promote an agenda, although, since they don't believe in what we believe in it must be the work of the devil...well, I suppose I can set aside my visions and hopes for the future, it would help maintain reputation for tolerance.
December 7, 2007 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've never seen a better example of building a straw man and then knocking it down.
Your strident, sweeping generalizations are why you repeatedly have people assuming that you mean them. Nobody said said you have to "vehemently uphold the christian gospel narrative..." or any of the rest of that silly argument you posed for yourself. What the writer suggested was that what you would like is precisely what you claim to dislike about religion which is that you would like to impose your own beliefs on everyone else. That's a far cry from the staw man you built and knocked down.
Who shall be the judge of what is good and bad about religion and religious beliefs? You seem to indicate that you know the answer. The founders thought each individual should be the judge. I agree with them. Once you go beyond that, it is an endless mess.
December 8, 2007 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Then why do you make the assumption that I am "anti-religion"? I'm not anti-religion, I'm not anti-religionists, I have said repeatedly that I would not ban it or eliminate it, or force my beliefs on anyone else. What is amazing to me is this idea that because I am critical of religion, then I hate it or hate the practitioners or cannot voice an opinion or make a judgement about it, without being accused of intolerance. Never once did I claim that others must agree with me, or not criticize my opinions or views, nor do I accuse them of being intolerant of my views.
Speaking of strawmen, I did not insinuate, intimate or say at anytime that I thought the founders were "wrong". Quite frankly, I don't know what the founders "thought". In fact, I doubt very much that they all agreed with it, disagreed with it or had any total agreement on anything in the constitution - in fact, I believe the opposite is true - the constitution was a compromise, a contract in which all parties consented to the terms of the contract without full agreement with every clause and section.
I can certainly hold two thoughts simultaneously - that people should be free to hold any beliefs they choose and at the same time wish that religion wasn't one of them. I can recognize that religion was at one time a useful tool in our evolution and at the same time recognize that it is also bad for our evolution. I see no reason why I can't believe in full expression of thought and at the same time decry and critique that thought. It isn't necessary that because we're "for" something we must be "against" the opposite. Human thought is more nuanced than that. I can understand that war is sometimes necessary but at the same time think it immoral and a crime against humanity. I can be "for" a candidate and at the same time not be "against" the other candidate. Isn't that a possibility for you?
December 8, 2007 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Then why do you make the assumption that I am "anti-religion"? I'm not anti-religion, I'm not anti-religionists..."
I make the assumption from reading what you have written. Your antipathy toward religion is self evident. I don't understand how not to conclude that from what you've written. It's okay to be that way as far as I'm concerned, but I think it leads to some bad judgements.
There you go again:
"Speaking of strawmen, I did not insinuate, intimate or say at anytime that I thought the founders were "wrong". "
Who said you did? Not me. Why do you assume when I write what I believe that means I am writing that you don't? You need to be more careful reading before you attack in response.
December 9, 2007 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see this as "attack."
Yes, you're making assumptions instead of asking. I don't "hate" religion, I don't hate religious people, I don't harbor antipathy to religion or religious people, I don't think religion is "bad", I don't consider religious people to be "evil" or misguided or stupid or anything over than what they are - believers in a narrative. I don't demand that religion be eliminated, banned, censored, be imprisoned, shunned or in any way be vexed. I believe that the religious paradigm is hampering human evolution, and while it was once helpful to our evolution as a species, it no longer is. I respect your opinion, I would never try to convince you otherwise, I will always strongly uphold people's right to beieve in whatever they choose to believe in, I don't discuss religion in anything but the appropriate venue, when I am at political or other meetings or events and they begin with a prayer, I am always respectful, I bow my head, I allow them to express their sentiments and I appreciate their effort, I don't actively agitate against that expression at anywhere or anytime with the exception of creationism being taught as part of a scientific curriculum, not because it is "religious" but because it isn't science. I've said this over and over and over again. It is impossible to find a way to get you to understand this.
December 9, 2007 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps you should read your posts above -- when you claim that the Jesus narrative isn't working. these are your words, not mine.
Maybe you can explain what you meant by that, but i interpreted it to mean Christianity had failed to offer a workable solution to the problems of society.
December 8, 2007 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Christianity has failed to offer a workable solution to the problems of society, chiefly because not all people of the world are Christians. That's why it is limiting. That is why no one religion can offer a workable solution to the problems of humanity - none of them are universal. It may work for the individual, but globally and collectively I think we need a new narrative that is inclusionary of the world.
I don't think that the Jesus narrative is "bad" or those that believe in it are "evil" or "stupid" or "intolerant", I think that it is a bad solution for encompassing all the people of the world. After a 2000 year trial, perhaps it is time to look for a new paradigm. We're not all still hunter/gatherers, we moved over millenia to new paradigms and new solutions.
December 8, 2007 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
what you are suggesting has never existed in the world's known history. It's difficult to fathom how 7 billion very diverse individuals would ever accept a single global perspective.
It's more realistic, in my opinion, to demand universal respect for diverse global beliefs. There are places where this has been achieved. We still have a long way to go for universal tolerance to supercede all religious, political, racial, and cultural differences.
December 8, 2007 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
We're already moving towards universal respect for diverse global beliefs. We may still have our ups and downs but it seems that we are making slow progress towards that goal.
If the worship of gods is universal, why is it impossible to think that the opposite might occur?
It isn't "more realistic" to demand anything. The moment you demand that people do anything, they're more than likely to do the opposite. You can't demand "universal respect" anymore than you can demand that people stop believing in one narrative and move to another.
I've explained this several times now, and I think it might be too esoteric and complicated for this venue. I'm looking at a future not tommorow or a hundred years from now or a thousand years from now, but perhaps a hundred thousand years from now and how we will have evolved in that time - my guess is that because we're an intelligent interdependent, co-operative species with self-consciousness, an awareness of our mortality and the ability to plan for future events, we can eventually see that the happiness of humanity is in the hands of humanity. That we're slowly but surely moving towards that realization is encouraging to me.
December 9, 2007 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
the worship of gods is not universal, but it is prevalent. Would we ever reach the point where the prevailing religions are regarded as ancient Greek mythology? I think 100 years is too short a time frame for that. However, what you are suggesting is much more in line with Eastern philosophy, especially Tao and Zen. It's not a new framework by any stretch of the imagination.
December 9, 2007 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good points. I can't think of any culture that hasn't worshipped gods. I didn't suggest any new framework. I don't have a new narrative and I wouldn't suggest one. I agree, 100 years is too short of a time span. I think I said it would take a hundred thousand years, if not more.
December 9, 2007 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bev, c'mon, you did suggest a new narrative -- that being the humanity would self-actualize or self-realize their way to a better world. Stick to your guns here. I didn't disagree with it -- simply made a few parallels to Eastern philosophy. You make some good points, but seem to back away from them when challenged. This agressive/passive approach hurts your credibility.
December 9, 2007 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
How does the psychoanalysis help your credibility? I don't personally insult you or your integrity, nor would I. That isn't helpful in this kind of discussion, and in fact makes me want to respond to you in kind.
No, I did not suggest a new narrative and any reading of my posts would support that. I said it was time for a new narrative, a narrative that would encompass all of humanity. I didn't describe that narrative, I didn't detail a new narrative, I did not suggest a new narrative. You are the one who drew parallels with Eastern religions, I didn't. I didn't say humanity would "self realize" or "self-actualize", I said they had the potential for change. "Self realization" and "self actualization" are not an end to a means. They are the means, not the narrative/paradigm. I also would never use either of those terms in describing human evolution and find them meaningless in context to it. "Self consciousness" is not "self realization" or "self actualization." In evolution it means an awareness of one's own existence, something which not all species have. Your insistence in creating a "challenge" is counter-intuitive to what I am saying and in fact misses the very point - there can be no demand, there can be no challenge and there can be no enforcement in creating a new narrative. I also said that the old narrative isn't working and explained why I thought the old narrative isn't working.
I specifically did not describe a new narrative or a new paradigm because I would have no idea as to how that new paradigm should be developed or even what it should be. I'm not trying to "back away" when challenged, I'm trying to tell you in as many different ways now that I can think of to impress upon you that I do not have a new narrative but I do think the old one is any longer workable. That you choose not to believe me speaks to your own credibility, not mine. You seem to think I'm being coy or retreating or holding back or acting with a "passive/aggressive approach", and you simply will not accept for reasons I cannot fathom, that I am telling you that I neither want to or care to, or can form a new narrative for humanity. I have neither the inclination nor the talent to do so and if I did, I certainly wouldn't use a forum like this to present it or discuss it nor do I think it would be of any interest to anyone here.
December 9, 2007 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disagree with your last point. This is a forum for people to express themselves and learn from what others have to say in a way that's never been possible before. We are interested in your perspective. If i pushed you a little, it was to try and draw out exactly what you were saying. This doesn't mean i would agree with it, but i would probably take away a few ideas to consider.
The old narrative is still working for some -- not for others, but that is how it has always been. Atheists and agnostics have always existed. Indeed, some Greek philosophers absolutely despised the worship of the gods. Conversely there are those who will tell you how their lives have been transformed by faith. I think that speaks to the diversity of consciousness.
December 14, 2007 6:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've got a question on terminology.
"Framing" is the new buzzword. But it is not clear to me how it differs from the term "Paradigm."
Both seem to address the same phenomenon, that of defining what an issue is, how it can be dealt with, and how important it is. Both work largely by excluding certain ways of thinking about issues.
So are they different? Or did George Lakoff just repackage Thomas Kuhn's idea of a paradigm shift and apply it to political rhetoric for sale under a new name?
December 7, 2007 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
After many years of overexposure to buzzwords I would say that there isn't much difference. But to the extent that there is I would say that a paradigm as originally envisioned is something that develops as an organic entity from a Smith-type marketplace of some type and is gradually accepted as common wisdom. In other words it just "is". Whereas a frame is something that is deliberately developed and pushed into the collective conscious by a concentrated and organized effort.
sPh
December 7, 2007 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think that the way McLaren used frame isn't quite how George Lakoff uses it.
When Lakoff says frame he's talking about a linguistic construct. A way of talking about something. A way of communicating.
The way McLaren uses it really is much closer to paradigm -- a way of thinking.
Now Lakoff might argue that the way we talk is the way we think. But I think it's fair to draw a distinction and that McLaren's use of the word is certainly different as Rick B noticed.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
December 7, 2007 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's a good question, Rick. I took framing to mean the selection and manner in which information is presented whereas paradigm is the current or acceptable model of the framing. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the two words, I didn't know they were interchangable.
December 7, 2007 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you check the links I provided?
In each case the author was describing a set of concepts that exist in the mind and restrict the choices of solutions to problems, sometimes even restricts what is defined as a problem.
It is not clear to me that there is a real distinction between the two concepts, other than the fact that Kuhn was describing the way the existing known science created a barrier to recognizing and solving new problems, while Lakoff is going into greater linguistic detail about how "experience is made possible and structured by preconceptual structures." From George Lakoff.
Also, "Cognitive models derive their fundamental meaningfulness directly from their ability to match up with preconceptual structure. Such direct matchings provide a basis for an account of truth and knowledge". "In domains where there is no clearly discernible preconceptual structure to our experience, we import such structure via metaphor. Metaphor provides us with a means of comprehending domains of experience that do not have a preconceptual structure of their own".
"Paradigm" describes an existing pattern of scientific thought, with an emphasis on how the existing pattern of thought can be a barrier to new scientific discoveries. See Paradigm Shift. Kuhn was writing science history, after all.
Lakoff is describing a linguistic pattern in which preexisting frames of thought prescribe "certain fixed points in the objective evaluation of situations", and which can be transferred from a known situation to one that is less well known via metaphor. But that preconceptual structure also limits thinking "outside the box" just as older scientific paradigms prevent thinking of new paradigms.
The two words seem to me to be very similar in what they describe, but are they interchangeable? I've certainly used them interchangeably, but are they interchangeable? Dunno.
December 7, 2007 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, but I will, and thanks for the research, I haven't gotten around to it and appreciate the effort. I never thought they were interchangable, and have never used them as such. The easist way I have always remembered it was this "the house is the paradigm and the structure is the framing of that paradigm." It's simplistic, but it has always worked for me.
December 7, 2007 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rick - for what it's worth, I chose the word "framing story" in part to distinguish it from a number of related terms. Sorry if it came off as a buzzword.
A paradigm doesn't need to be a story, although I think certain paradigms would fit better with certain stories than others - so there is a strong relation between the two. My sense from reading Thomas Kuhn is that for him, a paradigm is a way of approach, not just what you think but how you think.
The term worldview also differs from a framing story in that it can be a system of thought or a set of laws or dogmas, with little or no narrative content.
My sense, though, is that as individuals and as cultures our narratives are prior to and deeper than our paradigms and worldviews.
Regarding metanarrative ... I understand the word to be in the same category as "propaganda." It's a word that carries a negative connotation - a story intent on the conquest, destruction, replacement, and so on of other stories, which it sees as competitors. A framing story doesn't necessarily have these imperial aspirations (although some do). For example, an isolation narrative simply says, "We are an oppressed people and want to be left alone," or something along those lines.
I haven't read Lakoff - I've only heard a lot of people talk about his work, and probably should read it.
December 10, 2007 6:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rev. McLaren,
You describe the "framing" provided by faith communities as
which seems to me to be highly accurate. [Thank you for the insight.]It struck me a while back that 'story-telling,' that is, communicating by narrative, goes both to the very core of human beings as beings whose primary characteristic is the use of a symbolic language in which the meaning of words is arbitrarily assigned by culture to sounds so that there can be an infinite number of words with different meanings assigned to a very limited array of sounds. The memory for this is apparently stored as 'narrative.' This same language with narrative has been the most powerful form of communicating between people in groups over distance before writing (which itself is an extension of narrative speech.)
A writer named Reynolds Price wrote an excellent book called "A Palpable god" in which he wrote the best essay I have yet found on what a narrative is, and then retranslates a number of the early stories from the Bible and explains their narrative power. It's a Hell of a book (if you'll pardon he expression) in many ways, one of which is to explain how we humans transmit our experiences, feelings, and emotions in stories.
Or, in the current context, it explains how religion transmits frames. It suggests that the most important people in history have always been the story-tellers - the Bards.
Organized Religion has been an institution for telling tales - narratives - that transmit frames, many that have good results and many that are to say charitably have had less than good results. But I don't think religion has any monopoly on transmitting frames that literally direct how people live their lives.
Digby has an excellent article over at Common Sense in which she concludes that Naomi Klein's disaster capitalists use Ayn Rand's philosophy (as described in "Atlas Shrugged" to assuage their conscience so that they can do things like start preemptive wars so that they will individually benefit from the chaos yet still sleep at night. That seems to me to be another case of using narrative to frame a situation and actions, in this case the narrative provided by Ayn Rand (and swallowed whole by Alan Greenspan.)
There is a difference between the religious frames and the conservative capitalist frames provided by Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, though. Religious organizations claim the source of their narratives (and thus the frames) come from a Perfect and Unquestionable Source, the authority of God.
Bush reportedly feels that he was called by that perfect God in whom he believed to become President. He reportedly uses his 'intuition' as a basis for his decisions. He reportedly does not question his previously made decisions. I think it is fair to conclude that he feels that his work as President has the imprimatur of the perfect God. Huckabee and Romney each appear to be trying to sell themselves as the Republican candidate who similarly represents the perfect God.
I don't think any action by any human being can possibly be perfect. Not even if it is inspired by a perfect God, particularly when it is someone else's image of that God and I am not allowed to question that image. "God" may or may not exist, and if "he" exists, may or may not be perfect. Like apparently was true for mother Teresa, I am unlikely ever to know the definitive answer to those questions. What I do know is that there is no perfect human being, and that includes those who purport to represent God.
My reason for objecting to representatives of religious organizations in high office of the government is that very assumption of the perfection of human actions that are inspired by a perfect God, together with the social idea that such perfect actions cannot be questioned or determined wrong.
Bush objects to anyone questioning his decisions, and he has large segments of the religious community supporting him in that. At least I am at least allowed the freedom to question Greenspan's Objectivism and Ron Paul's Libertarianism. With religion closely associated with government, that freedom to question government's actions is lost.
That seems to me to be a very strong reason to enforce a strict separation of church and state. Martin Luther King was a great man, but he sure did not belong inside government making decisions that would be enforced by the government's monopoly on the use of force, its police power, and the courts.
That's my view, and I deem it Perfect and Unquestionable. (And anyone who lets me get away with that claim is a fool.)
December 7, 2007 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I've considered the relationship among faith, belief, intuition, study, philosophy and action, I've come become convinced of the value of faith and intuition to inspire the search for truth. But unlike people of pure faith, I believe the process must not stop there. It must be supported by empirical verification.
Faith, including (even) fundamental Christian belief, is one perfectly fine place to begin a study of how "things should work". But the error of so many people of faith is that they stop there. Because their faith is in a perfect God whose loving divine guidance is also perfect, the necessary followup is often skipped. That followup requires study and consensus building before any action should be taken. After action has been taken, the results must be re-examined to either adjust or entirely reject the chosen path.
In my opinion, the separation of church and state is absolute, with reference to action taken in the public interest. Action may only be taken based on unbiased understanding of observable reality.
The process of allowing "faith/intuition" to be one of several inspirations guiding a process of study, experimentation and observation before acting and of following up by validating whether it actually worked, is familiar and comfortable for secularists: It's essentially the scientific method.
None of this is new, and I believe none of this should contentious. But it has one very serious problem: It takes the privilege of religious authority away from some very powerful people.
I wonder whether these processes are uncomfortable for the rank-and-file faithful, and are absolutely detested by religious authorities, because they result in one's faith being tested against reality?
December 7, 2007 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rick - thanks for these references.
As you say, a lot of religious people claim that their stories and understandings come from the Perfect and Unquestionable. I think they tend to underestimate the levels of adaptation and interpretation that surround all our stories and understandings. A friend of mine says, "We first seek for God, then speak with God, then speak for God, then speak as God." A dangerous procession - so I agree with you that people making these claims should be met with skepticism.
But I question the idea that by getting rid of religion, people will somehow achieve pure objectivity and reasonable-ness. This was a popular assumption of the Enlightenment, and I think that the twentieth century has pushed us, in the words of philosopher Jack Caputo, to get "enlightened about the Enlightenment." Pure objectivity is unattainable not only for the religious but also for the nonreligious. It may also be less desirable than many people think, could it be achieved. I don't think you'd disagree - I just think that's an important thing to keep in mind.
December 10, 2007 6:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think that religion is the only source of personal frames, and in fact I think that religion as philosophy and ritual is becoming a harder sell.
It is my understanding that fundamentalism flourishes during times of great social change. It provides rigid frames, rituals and a community of like-minded people as social support during the times of social change.
Religious institutions also appear to me to provide ways to deal with efforts by government to either cause social change (Civil rights movement) or to prevent it (the restlessness of Shiites in the then Sunni dominated Iraq and the fundamentalist Sunnis in Saudi Arabia who oppose the monarchy.)
I think that American fundamentalism provides a number of such refuges. The political power of the religious right is based in the American South, the old slave states, and is an institutional repository of racism to counter the efforts of the federal government to enforce Civil Rights for racial minorities, women, and more recently, sexual minorities (LGBT.) I suspect that those groups have allied with the anti-science people in Biblical inerrantism (a reaction to textual criticism of the Bible) and in creationism (the reaction against Darwin.) The Discovery Institute's Wedge Document shows how totally anti-science these people are.
These fundamentalists take their fear of modernism and social change and wrap it in the rhetoric of religion, claiming that their efforts to stop change are actually efforts to implement the "perfect" commands of the "perfect" God.
And since they represent the "Perfect" God, anyone who opposes them is declared anti-religious.
A lot of people grew up with that set of frames, but a lot more are just frightened people who don't fee they can cope with a rapidly changing society, and the religious institutions offer them the deal that if those frightened people will adopt their frames, then the changes will stop and all will again be well with the world. There will be white picket fences, Wally and Beaver will live again, (and a subtext - the Blacks will again be restricted to ghettos and the back of the Bus.)
Those religious institutions can get away with it because they all support each other. Watch the reactions of those five ministries that were asked to document the use of their funds for mansions, big houses, and the high life. at least three are refusing to cooperate, and we can expect that many of the rest of American religious organizations will support their refusal because such an inquiry by government into any religious organization, no matter how bad, threatens greater government control over all religious organizations.
But that inquiry is necessary. Religious institutions do not police their own. It's like free market economics and labor. Every religious institution in America wants to be totally free to contract with anyone in any way they wish to offer their "frames" and their community to whoever they can get to choose them. and they don't want to be questioned, policed, or even self-policed like businesses do with the BBB and with Consumer's guides.
That leaves every individual on their own to chose any religious frames they wish with no guidance about what works and what does not except word of mouth.
A lot of us have chosen not to accept the institutional set of religious frames we are offered. I suspect that as the racist generations die off, their children will also abandon the fundamentalist institutions and America is going to start looking religiously a lot like Europe.
That's because people do choose their frame-set to meet their personal needs sometime during college age, as they leave home and go out on their own intellectually.
December 7, 2007 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Faith has 236,520 friends. Does that qualify it as a "faith community"?
December 7, 2007 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't wished to weigh in too often. Debates like this often degenerate into strong opinions about religion itself, which isn't easily resolvable and isn't really a part of political discourse anyhow (which, I think, is part of the point the secular contingent is trying to make). But let me try some thoughts anyhow and hope they're not confrontational to either side.
I, too, have been grateful to McClaren for appearing, for his unusually active listening and participation, and his eloquent writing. All these obviously embody his ideals, which is the best way of arguing for them. I particularly enjoyed how little his imagined speech panders to the reader. It could lull even an intelligent reader here into thinking that he's advocating the worst hard-line foreign policy.
I agree with those like Destor who wish, however, that it stopped about two-thirds of the way through, although perhaps for slightly different reasons. I simply feel it goes way over the line for elected officials to lead us in prayer. Secularism aside, I can say that a Jew would not appreciate the implications of a reading like that even of New Testament passages we all would admire. In the present, Muslims are likely to overread this as part of the Bush crusade against their religion. But practical matters aside, these are just some indications of why we do wish for separation of church and state.
I hope very much that a person's morality is informed by his deepest convictions, whatever they be. Great writers and speakers, such as Lincoln or Shakespeare, have also shown how religious people can so memorably draw on the language and metaphors of the Bible. Mostly MLK did just that in his great speeches at the site of protests, reserving his actual preaching for contexts in which he was acting as a reverend, although as a private citizen he could of course have crossed the line I am suggesting regardless.
However, it's interesting to me that I'd disagree with McClaren on much of the core message as well. I think this is a healthy disagreement. I like to think that liberalism is broad enough to encompass different motives for and approaches to seeking peace. Still, it should not surprise us if coming from different philosophies we have different emphases and disagreements worth airing as well.
It struck me when he spoke of not making war but understanding our enemies. My gut reaction was that this is politically the wrong strategy, because it's the cardboard image of liberalism that was so often and effectively manipulated already by the right. (Oh, those wimps want to understand bin Laden!) For that matter, I myself doubt that there's much to be gained by figuring out what got into the WTC bombers. I just wish a world in which our policy isolated them rather than rallying so many afterward to their cause.
Then I thought more, and I realized the disagreement runs deeper. I don't find preemptive war wrong because it's seeking war rather than peace. I was happy enough calling Afghanistan a war. I thought it was wrong because it was unprovoked invasion, a policy I consider fascism and sure to fail. For another example, the choice between war and peace isn't always even at issue. A key part of American policy after 9/11 should have been pursuing an Israeli-Palestinian accord, not so much because we value peace as because we value justice and know that there is no lasting alternative there to diplomacy. We did not make war or peace in the region. We just let it fester, which was just as horrible as anything we could have done.
Could it be, I thought, that McClaren's Christianity leads him to a more utopian vision than I would like, in which better solutions will not come until the hearts of humanity change? I would be happy with a pursuit of justice, democracy, and an assault on the military-industrial complex. You can call me secular or Jewish or part of Western tradition that includes Christianity or an admirer of the framers or a plain old Great Society liberal. I don't care. Swords can turn into plowshares when the Messiah comes.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
December 8, 2007 7:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush seems to be taking your advice at Annapolis, J, and the entire exercise is being met with suspicion and rejection by the radical Palestinian elements. Our ability to do anything about that conflict is limited, and a President has to be cautious about how he proceeds. The problem is there is no real international will to do anything but talk about peace when real action is required. The feckless UN peace-keeping force in Lebanon is a good example of how impotent and incapable the int'l community is in that region to affect change. The probability of war is far greater than peace at this point, and when more Israeli's start dying in these daily Hamas rocket barrages, there will be nothing we can do to stop the IDF from invading Gaza.
December 8, 2007 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would suggest that coining and applying new idioms such as "a framing story" impedes communication rather than facilitating it. The practice is an academic convention that, as this thread demonstrates, inevitably sequesters the exchange of ideas from the public square behind the gated communities of academia.
I agree wholeheartedly with this post by Dr. McLaren. But I worry that it portrays a basic -- and crucial -- human truth as something new and recondite.
I think we can all agree that an individual with no moral framework is by definition mentally ill: a sociopath. Our disagreements are about what is moral.
The difference between "moral" and "immoral" is a personal choice, and in no way static in either time or space. Morality depends on context and perception, neither of which are absolute.
But though what constitutes "moral" is a personal choice, it is a choice we cannot make in isolation. Morality is conduct within a community.
A "framing story" is just the history of a person's communities. That history begins at birth with (or without) a family, and at its healthiest continues to expand until death. Stagnation is illness. The success of any cult depends entirely on how well it isolates its members from other communities.
I was raised as a Christian. My parents have been active members of their church for 40 years. And their current pastor is their daughter-in-law. In 45 years, I've participated in catholic masses, been baptized twice as a protestant, and felt most "at home" when I called myself a Quaker. Currently, I'm none of the above.
But I am also the son of an anthropologist, the brother of an archaeologist, and will soon have a Ph.D. in geology. I firmly believe Earth is 4 billion years old.
A religion should NEVER be confused with its members, in the same way that the Americans at TPM should not be mistaken for Dick Cheney.
A religion is a story -- but a "church" is a community. And the vast majority of churches are filled with ordinary people seeking to better themselves in the company of others: ordinary people, who like everyone else, need a context for their lives.
People who do not "practice" religion do the same thing. They group together with like-minded individuals in communities with unwritten rules, and members to provide reminders and counsel when someone strays beyond what is accepted.
It is all the same thing.
Religious communities that insist their members -- and non-members -- accept an immutable set of rules are unhealthy.
Non-religious communities that would exclude an individual solely for having religious beliefs are equally as inflexible, and equally unhealthy.
This too is the same thing: bigotry.
Does God exist, and if so in what form? I don't know and neither do you. The paths of spirituality and science are parallel, and those who cannot see from one to the other are so focused on what lies ahead they've forgotten to look around and enjoy the journey.
Was the monk not commenting on his own philosophy, as well as that of the 'west'?
tj
December 10, 2007 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Was the monk not commenting on his own philosophy, as well as that of the 'west'"
Yes, you are getting over my head, but I believe that issue is one of the complexities of the Heart Sutra.
Form is emptiness
Emptiness is form
Emptiness is no other than form
Form is no other than emptiness
Whatever you say, the monk will respond, "Then I will hit you with a stick thirty times."
Having thought about the subject from every point of view, and thoroughly understanding every point of view, and understanding the limitations of every point of view, the fully comprehensive non-answer is that "Things are just like this," or more simply, "The grass is green, the sky is blue." Or even more simply, a single syllable, such as "Mu" or the belly-laugh, "Katz!"
It is not correct, however, to simply respond with any of these phrases as a canned answer.
December 11, 2007 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink