Matthew Yglesias has a good response to this Andrew Sullivan post calling for “hard thinking on the left” in the wake of the Danish cartoon brouhaha:
Andrew Sullivan writes, with regard to the cartoon riots:
People keep talking about avoiding conflict. They are in denial. The conflict is already here. It is outrageous to be informed by a crowd of hundreds of thousands that the West must give up its freedoms in order to avoid violence. I’m relieved to see that this moment has forced some very hard thinking on the left. I got an email from a leftist British reader this week, passionately opposed to the foreign policies of Bush and Blair. Now he writes:
The guy says some stuff, but nevermind. I’m not buying. I’m on the left and this is forcing me into no hard thinking whatsoever.
There’s no need for hard thinking precisely because this isn’t a hard question. Of course newspapers should have the legal right to publish cartoons that offend some people. Of course the people offended by the resulting cartoons shouldn’t start throwing around threats of violence to intimidate people. But what does this have to do with “the foreign policies of Bush and Blair” or the need for “very hard thinking” on the left?
I’m not really “on the left” (well, depending on how you define things, but that’s an issue for another post) but this seems exactly right to me. The argument that one either has to side with the “foreign policies of Bush and Blair” or side with those who would crush free speech is only the latest in a long line of false dilemmas that proponents of the “clash of civilizations” view of the war on terrorism have been feeding us for roughly the last five years.
Yglesias concludes:
The problem with the foreign policies of Bush and Blair, by which I take it we mean the Iraq War, is twofold. One, the nature of the threat from the Iraqi regime was neither so large nor so acute as to make invading and occupying Iraq a reasonable method of enhancing American national security. Two, invading, conquering, occupying, and reconstructing medium-sized multi-ethnic polities ruled by long-entrenched dictators is neither an effective method of spreading liberal democracy nor an effective method of achieving humanitarian goals.
So to recap: Killing people or threatening to kill people over cartoons is wrong. Invading Iraq was a bad idea. That’s what I thought before this cartoon mess broke out, and it’s what I still think today. There’s nothing to rethink.
If anything, this issue might force some people into rethinking on some domestic questions. This could involve questions relating to immigration such as whether effective steps are being taken to help immigrants assimilate in a way such that they come to internalize (or at least respect) values like freedom of speech and the press, and how a society balances those values with a commitment to multiculturalism. But the connection between this issue and support for (or opposition to) the Iraq war is hard to see.
We’re ambivalent about doubt, I think. On the one hand, we admire the person whose faith is so robust that they seem to be able to act with complete trust and confidence. Other the other hand, we tend to be a little bit afraid of the person whose faith is so robust that they seem incapable of entertaining the possibility that they might be mistaken. In the old days (maybe – I wasn’t actually there) we think that doubt was frowned upon in the Church, perhaps a sign of unfaith or an unconfessed sin. These days we’re likely as not to see doubt as a good thing, even an inseparable part of faith. We say that doubt is part of “a mature faith.”
So, what role does or should doubt play in the life of faith? Is doubt something that should ideally diminish over time, something we should strive to get rid of? Or is it a constant companion since we “walk by faith and not by sight,” at least in this life?
Our modern (and post-modern) culture teaches us that every claim to knowledge or belief is suspect. The fact that there are other people who believe differently than we do can all by itself cast doubt over our own convictions. The fragility and contingency of our knowledge, the way our minds are shaped by culture, upbringing, even biology, can undermine trust in our own beliefs.
One can find (at least I do) that sometimes the things you think you believe just don’t seem as plausible as they once did. You suddenly see the once-solid edifice of your beliefs as a rickety structure held together by duct tape and chewing gum. C.S. Lewis wrote somewhere that he never felt less certain about God’s existence than after he’d just finished defending it with some kind of argument because it made him feel like everything rested on his own puny reason. I’m certainly no C.S. Lewis, so the jury-rigged nature of my own belief-system is even more apparent. Not that there are no good arguments for the truth of Christianity, but those arguments, like the people who make them, are fallible and open to revision. And most of them are inconclusive to say the least.
After all, how much of what we believe is the result of hunches, educated guesses, intuition, or weighting some experiences or pieces of evidence over others, not to mention because that’s what mom and dad/my friends/my super cool professor/Bono believes? Being the incorrigibly social animals that we are, we seem to be highly susceptible to social influences and pressure in forming beliefs.
The trendy post-modern argument that all belief-systems (or “meta-narratives”) are all equally ungrounded is of little comfort here. It’s tantamount to saying “Oh yeah, so’s your old man!” when someone challenges your epistemic credentials. While it might be nice to think that we’re all in the same (leaky) boat, it’s hardly conducive to confidence in one’s own conclusions. We’re faced with what sociologist Peter Berger called “the heretical imperative” – since we no longer see any tradition as simply given and authoritative, we’re forced to choose, knowing that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to offer compelling objective grounds for out choice (this is akin to the existentialists’ notion that we’re “condemned to be free”). Incidentally, appealing to the tradition-boundedness of rationality, as MacIntyre and others do, doesn’t seem to me to help here both because traditions themselves are far from being monolithic and impermeable, especially in the modern world, and it still leaves the question of which tradition one should submit to.
The dilemma here was well put by Kierkegaard: how can faith, which calls for complete (subjective) commitment on our part, be founded on something that is (objectively) uncertain?
If popularity is next to godliness, Eagle Brook Church is the holiest place in Minnesota.
The Lino Lakes church became the state’s largest this month, with weekly attendance of 8,000. And that’s without the cup holders.
The new $24 million building is designed to make worship as comfortable as possible, and movie-theater-style cup holders soon might draw even more people.
[…]
Critics of megachurches say high-volume big-box religion cheapens the value of worship because it appeals to the consumer culture. Instead of being quiet places of prayer and reflection, megachurches mimic the architecture and noise of malls, theaters and sports arenas.
But megachurch leaders say the style isn’t important — it’s the message. And preaching to empty pews doesn’t accomplish anything, Anderson said. He said millions have found megachurches an alternative to stuffy, traditional churches.
Being un-churchly is exactly the point of Eagle Brook. First-timers could be excused for thinking they were in a mall or a high school, with bright, open spaces and a lack of religious decoration.
“That’s our cafe on the left,” said Anderson, as he gave a tour of the building in December.
Next to Cafe 5000 is the religious bookstore, Beyond Books. Next to that is the Box Office, offering tickets for events aimed at nonmembers.
“That’s so you can check out the church without feeling you have to join,” Anderson said.
Inside, the sanctuary looks like a large theater, with comfortable movie-style seats with armrests. The razzle-dazzle services include comedy sketches, rock music from an 11-piece band and staging that would fit right in at the Guthrie Theater. There are no pews, no Bibles, no hymnals, no stained-glass windows.
The church is designed to feel homey. Which brings us to the cup holders.
“Our little coffee shop is humming on Sunday mornings,” Anderson said. “It’s a huge hit.”
But church leaders figured it was difficult to stand, sit or praise the Lord with your hands in the air while worrying about dumping a hot latte onto fellow Christians. So they decided to add cup holders — anything to boost their reputation for putting people at ease.
“You can’t underestimate the value of energy and buzz,” Anderson said. “Those things bring people through the door.”
Fr. Jim Tucker has a good balanced post on the cartoon controversy:
A number of editorials make the point that if media can disrespect Christianity (Rolling Stone’s current cover, for instance), Islam shouldn’t be given a free pass. That’s playground logic. In reality, media shouldn’t take great, offensive swipes against Christianity, either (or any serious religion, for that matter). But that “shouldn’t” is a moral “shouldn’t,” not a legal one.
[…]
Obviously, burning down embassies is not a proportional response to cartoons, but I don’t see why mass protests shouldn’t be. Those protests, though, ought to be aimed at the newspapers that make the decision to print inflammatory and irresponsible content, not at the governments that refrain from forbidding it. I think that one of the reasons that these protests (even minus the rioting) seem so excessive to us is that we have lost the intensity of our own piety.
Here’s a Christian-specific question, though. Interpretations vary on how we are to understand Jesus’ admonition to “turn the other cheek” (e.g. does it forbid all use of force to defend oneself or others), but nearly everyone agrees that it means that we aren’t supposed to retaliate against insults we receive as Christians. So, is it un-Christian to protest (even in a civil way) when someone blasphemously depicts Jesus or the Blessed Virgin or mocks Christianity in some other way? And how do you tell the difference between turning the other cheek and a decadent tolerance that can’t get angry about anything?
Jennifer tagged me with this meme, and who am I to say no?
Four Jobs I’ve Had 1. Pizza Delivery Boy 2. Street Department worker (included such fun tasks as shoveling asphalt, clearing downed tree branches, painting crosswalks, etc.) 3. Stock room manager at the Gap 4. Assitant Editor at a book publisher
Four Movies to Watch Over and Over 1. Star Wars (the original trilogy, but, like Jennifer I think Empire repays the most multiple viewings) 2. It’s a Wonderful Life 3. Ghostbusters 4. A Fish Called Wanda
Four Places I’ve Lived 1. Greenville, Pennsylvania (my hometown) 2. Lafayette, Indiana 3. Berkeley, California 4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Four TV Shows I Love to Watch 1. The Office 2. Scrubs 3. Battlestar Galactica (though, due to our lack of cable I’ve been watching it on DVD and am a season behind) 4. The Way of the Master – that awesome show where Kirk Cameron and that Australian guy are talking about Jesus from inside Alcatraz (A prison – get it? It’s a metaphor! For sin! Get it??) Did I mention I don’t have cable?
Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation 1. Maui (even better than you’d think) 2. Prince Edward Island (yes, I’ve seen the Anne of Green Gables house!) 3. London 4. Yosemite National Park
Four Favorite Foods 1. Vegetarian chili with a thick hearty bread of some sort 2. Pizza 3. Filet mignon (I know, I’m supposed to be a vegetarian, but darn it, is there really anything better?!) 4. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (just like the Prez!)
Four Places I’d Rather Be Right Now 1. Home in bed with beloved wife, cats, and a book 2. On a road trip 3. Hanging out with my college buddies, of whom I’ve seen far too little in the last several years 4. Walking in the woods
Four People I’m Tagging (should they choose to accept it, and my feelings won’t be hurt if they don’t) 1. Josh 2. D. Klein 3. Jack 4. Eric
The religious person should not seek an accommodation with liberalism; he should seek to rout it from the field, to extirpate it, root and branch. — Stanley Fish
This line from celebrity literary intellectual Stanley Fish occurred to me in light of the controversy over the cartoons printed in Denmark which have sparked numerous protests in the Muslim world, some of themviolent. Fish’s article was one half of an exchange with Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, who contends that Christianity is compatible with at least some forms of liberalism – understood broadly as a political system that protects individual rights and refrains from imposing a substanitve vision of the good life on its citizens. Though Fish is not himself religious as far as I know, his criticisms of liberalism have been picked up by certain “post-liberal” theologians, most notably Stanley Hauerwas.
The Hauerwas school of thought sees liberalism as, despite its claims to the contrary, imposing a metaphysic or a “narrative” that is at odds with and indeed undermines Christian faithfulness. In Hauerwas’ view, liberal modernity seeks to remake us into autonomous choosers, people who “have no story except the story they choose when they had no story” as he likes to say. For Hauerwasians, liberalism manifests itself in the political arena by making “freedom” or “choice” the highest value, and in the economic realm by its embrace of free-market capitalism (whether of the relatively unregulated U.S. version or of the tamer European social-democratic variety doesn’t seem to make much difference to these critics of liberalism). Some, like John Milbank, go as far as to accuse liberalism of being founded in an “ontological violence” – of positing egoism as a natural and normal part of the human condition, rather as a result of the fall as in Christian theology.
What the Danish cartoon controversy may indicate, though, is that the people who have the best chance of extirpating liberalism in our world are not likely to be civilized pacifistic theology professors. The notion that liberalism and its guarantees of freedom of speech, religion, etc. are anathema to a robust religious faith appears to have been embraced by many of the more radical elements in the Islamic world. Under these circumstances, the liberal idea that we often need to be protected from other people’s certainties starts to look pretty appealing. This isn’t to deny that post-liberals make salutary criticisms of (at least certain varieties of) liberalism – I agree that they do – just that before we write it off, we ought to see what’s most likely to be put in its place.
P.S. Just to forestall any confusion, I didn’t intend this to be some alarmist post about the “Muslim hordes bearing down on us,” ’cause I don’t really think that’s true. My point was the more general one that, whatever ills liberalism may cause, chucking liberalism is likely not the answer, because the forces of illiberalism are almost always worse, wherever they may come from.
But I don’t think that commits me to a kind of dogmatic come-what-may defense of liberalism. It’s possible that there are other ways of ordering political life that are just as legitimate, but among what appear to be our currently available options, liberal democracy looks the best to me.
This piece overreaches in a few places (the cell phone user as Gnostic is a bit of a stretch), but makes some salient points about the ubiquity of the cell and its consequences. As far as I can tell, what we have is a new technology that has cut across the public/private distinction. Talking on your phone used to be an essentially private activity, but now that you can literally do it anywhere, people haven’t adjusted their phone-behavior from ways that would be appropriate in private to ones more suited to a public setting. Instead we see people behaving in inappropriate, and in many cases downright rude, ways because they seem to think that an invisible bubble of privacy surrounds every cell phone call.
Defenders of the inherent-powers position frequently and significantly direct attention to the necessity or desirability of the ends they seek to achieve: fighting the terrorists or Communists or (in Hamilton’s case) achieving national greatness and economic growth. While such goals were worthy enough on their own, the move of loudly proclaiming their transcendent worthiness is a political tactic rather than a constitutional or substantive argument; its real function is to embarrass and silence critics by calling their patriotism or morals into question. At the same time, the tactic expresses a basic tenet of old-school governance, which is that law, procedure, and constitutionalism are minor matters as long as what Hamilton called “the essential ends of political society”—security and prosperity and whatever other states of being a community wants for itself—are being met. State this as a folksy modern politician might, say as “getting the job done,” and it sounds like practical good sense. State it a bit more clearly, and it makes a mockery of the very idea of limited, transparent, and democratic government by dismissing it as so much “red tape.”
A Thinking Reed 