Doc- welcome home, hope you're doing better. This is too much reading for tonight, I'll try to tackle it in the morning.
But one quick thought- people gave up their belief in a particular Southwest Asian Monotheistic Cult, but not their belief in the existence of the deity proposed to exist by that same Southwest Asian Monotheistic Cult. So the God idea gets projected somewhere else, like politics.
My pops, rest and bless his soul, did his master's and Doc. Of Ed. at Columbia. FInished the Doc. in late '52. I was born in Jan '53, and a month later we were in Saigon, as part of my pops Doctorate.
Religon, as the academe, as my pops begin to tell me at my 15th birthday, is greatly flawed and very narrowed, despite the 'liberal' slant Columbia had.
He forgoe'd TEACHING at Columbia, to run to SE Asia, where he THOUGHT, he had a plan to humanize the villages, villagers and masses of Vietnam. Later, he did refugee relocation work as the CIA ran black ops around him.
Turns out, pops told me, he had to include government in being as narrow as religon and the academe.
I look forward to reading this, thanks Doc.
You guys are often good medicine for what ails this Larue at times . . . thanks for shining a light on the evil, and here's hoping we all come outta the tunnel on the right end . . *G*
Regressing to the 16th century? Earlier than that.
By the time Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D., the Jewish religion was in a total shambles, riven with quarrels and differing interpretations. One group wanted to militantly bring on the Messiah; another wanted to collaborate with the Romans. And so forth. And so on. Until they were actually conducting vendettas on each other as the Romans encircled the city.
Talk like this, whether from Jews, Protestants, or Islamists, or from Bush or Ahmadinejad always has that tinge of 'last man standing.' That is, all adherents think the other folks are going to get burned off the face of the planet, while they the Righteous get the full measure of the Deity's love here on earth.
Moreover, I've always had the feeling that the longer people await an Armageddon moment, the more idiots push to try make it happen according to biblical portents. Just like when we blundered our way into Iraq. The schmoes from Falwell to the Dominionists were on the horn saying that this was America following prophecy. Therefore, the Palestinians/Saddam/Iran become the bad guys, and the U.S. becomes the good nation blessed by the Deity, trying to do Its will. The more this Apocalyptic crap is slammed into my face everyday--from cable shows, commercials and even PBS--the more I'm convinced that anyone in the State Department or the Pentagon or even Darth himself will make a suicide pact with the whole world in order to prove a point that doesn't even make complete sense.
The point? Fuck you, I'm holier than you. I'm chosen. God shines beams on me and not you.
Reality has a way of intervening on this shit. In the case of Judea in 70 A.D., the Romans came in and showed that dogma wouldn't defend against cold steel--or assassins' knives.
Today, global warming might screw the precious visions of all those Xtian Reichwingers who see hellfire burning up all the secularists, unbelievers, Islamists, Catholics...you know the drill. Cause when the deal goes down, a flood doesn't discriminate.
Freedom of religious belief is essential, because thought police are at least as bad as bedroom police.
But concerned humanitarians need to say clearly that the content of religious belief, particularly the extraterrestrial characters and events - such as the Holy Ghost, the Apocalypse, the 70 virgins waiting for bin Laden - tends to be irrational, divisive, and dangerous.
I think Mark Lilla very much underestimates the power of what he called 19th Century Liberal thought. It ended up being quite conservative in its outlook and was also very successful in causing Europeans(mostly) to take over the world. It involved involuntary conversion to some form or another of Christianity In fact the US is the only notable case of an anti-establishment clause in its Constitution.
My immediate reaction after reading this thing is that Lilla's ideas are interesting but not all that well thought out. I think the natural reaction against traditional religious values and institutionalized religious thought is that it is promoted by people and cultures that are poor, uneducated and very isolated when it comes to dissenting ideas within their community. With the internet ballooning out into a truly global exchange of ideas, the promoters of "received knowledge" over learned knowledge will learn either to isolate themselves or assimilate into the greater community.
World War I ended the Victorian era and replaced it with something much closer to what we have today. In the Middle East it sparked movements like Arab nationalism promoted by religious minorities such as Christians to emphasize similarities and reject the Islamic rhetoric put out by the Turks to keep the Ottoman Empire together. Communist parties sprang up around the region. Being a Muslim was something that could be meaningless in identity if someone wanted to consider themselves many other things first(an Arab,a secularist, a progressive).
I think Lilla underestimates the rhetoric put out by religious fundamentalists here at home referring to the Ahmedinejad note and the cryptic religious meanings behind many of the words that Bush uses himself (Iraq is a comma). They don't strap bombs on themselves, but they do blow up family planning clinics and also federal buildings as well as carry out targeted assassinations. If a foreign power were to invade this country, the faction oriented toward Christian theocracy would have the opportunity to resist in any number of ways many of which could be suicidal.
I always find it interesting that there is a comparison between what happened in the brutal religious wars of Europe and what is going on now in the Middle East. The end result being an ideological fatigue and the eruption of violence outwards and the attempted establishment of religious utopias in the newly conquered land. In a nuclear armed world I don't see this happening but Europe emerged from a backwater on the global stage to hold the entire world in its grasp. Today's religious extremists are tomorrow's secular conquerors.
So the Sunni and Shia are today's Catholics and Protestants? Maybe GW and the neo-cons were right after all. In invading Iraq we set the groundwork for an Islamic 100 Years' War which will exhaust both sides and ultimately lead to a secular accommodation, as happened in W. Europe? My goodness. I had no idea these folx could even read, much less draw such a creative historic parallel. But there's got to be some logical explanation for what appeared to be total idiocy. Perhappenstance not? Hmmmmm...
Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great, Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate. - C S Lewis
***
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (1999) Basic Books [pages 567-568]:
"The mechanism by which spirituality becomes passionate is metaphor. An ineffable God requires metaphor not only to be imagined but to be approached, exhorted, evaded, confronted, struggled with, and loved. Through metaphor, the vividness, intensity, and meaningfulness of ordinary experience becomes the basis of a passionate spirituality. An effable God becomes vital through metaphor: The Supreme Being. The Prime Mover. The Creator. The Almighty. The Father. The King of Kings. Shepherd. Potter. Lawgiver. Judge. Mother. Lover. Breath.
The vehicle by which we are moved in passionate spirituality is metaphor. The mechanism of such metaphor is bodily. It is a neural mechanism that recruits our abilities to perceive, to move, to feel, and to envision in the service not only of theoretical and philosophical thought, but of spiritual experience."
***
So -- we find ourselves in the time (to invoke a metaphor) of a new sort of tower of Babel. We become unable to respond to the metaphors of one another's inner life and world.Across political lines, across theological lines, across racial lines, men/women/gay/straight -- all the divisions that can be accentuated are accentuated.
Perhaps those who are the makers and interpreters of "new" more universal metaphors can lead the way out of the either/or us/them pairs of opposites that bedevil us and our world. The new metaphors aren't even new. It's up to the artists to rework the old into something that is recognized anew in this different world that we now find ourselves exploring. Surely our country (who's true religion is advertising and it's symbol the dollar) is capable of crafting word and image magic to bring a little harmony, not just sell a new product.
The religion/politics dialogue is too often interpreted in terms of "two" (thank you vapid stoopid media). But it's never "evolution vs religion".
It's not either-or. It's both-and. The view is always inclusive. It has to broaden to include more than it did. For all of us to step outside of our conditioning and our own metaphoric landscape and upbringing, we have to "enlarge" ourselves, to go beyond.
How might we be able to help shift polarizing language and metaphor and "change the conversation"? How might we bring people along in a conversation that sees a different outcome, that dares a different prophecy? The radical aspect of democracy is participation. By participating and refusing the top-down hierarchical, RC, Priestly, Kingly, Prezidentin' , CEO, DaddyGod view of "how it is" we reclaim for ourselves the sanctity of our own human life. All the money on earth and all the papal paraphenalia cannot stop that impulse in all of us.
That is why I love blogs. I see them as another great spewing forth of that democratic spirit (at their best). To play with language and image and conversation in hopes of influencing the rules of the game, the very nature of the conversation. Irreverence and reverence both make the world go 'round.
And btw folks, thanks so much for this blog, this labor of love.
God , {or whatever}, bless you.
I read it. These final comments interest me:
"...we have chosen to limit our politics to protecting individuals from the worst harms they can inflict on one another, to securing fundamental liberties and providing for their basic welfare, while leaving their spiritual destinies in their own hands.
Excuse me, but does that really apply to Iraq. Are Iraqis and American soldiers being protected from the worst harms they can inflict on each other? And at what cost?
The essay is interesting and informative. But what will happen finally is anybody's guess. Any kind of apocalyptic event, natural or man-made can tip the scales in either direction depending on who outnumbers who among survivors. That thought is bone chilling to me, who has no use for radical religious fanatics on either side.
But, there is a holier-than-thou tone to Western liberal, non-secular thinking. These people forget just how much horror they released on the world in the creation of their way of life. Slavery, Colonialism, exploitation of poor peoples and their country's resources in order to build/sustain their opulent way of life.
It's poetic justice that immigrants come to western countries and then want to transform them. The immigrants are allowed in for the sole purpose of exploiting their cheap labor and then we bristle when they want their religious beliefs validated.
No... we can't have our cake and eat it, too and behave as if we are better. Capitalism has it's ungodly and hypocritical aspects too. Of course, we don't think that counts. What was more ungodly than invading a country under a false premise?
There's a reason for that old axiom about never discussing politics and religion. And here we are doing both. Mmmmmmn.......
Yeah..but whatever.
I read through all of this, and a couple of things came to mind:
#1. Too many cheap shots at non-religious thought. However this might be the result of...
#2. Very confused writing It tried to be half a history lesson and half a political tretise and half a religious tretise...and succeeded in none of them.
The article is a muddled mess.
Anyway,
That picture of dei Frari in Venice reminds me of St Boniface in Chicago. Now abandoned and put on the chopping block for no good reason. The Copts would like to restore and use it but the Archdiocese won't deal with them. That Pope of Alexandria might be up to something.
What I reject is the claim that we in the west can not understand or even hear the call for "political institutions [which] are conceived in terms of divine authority and spiritual redemption".
This is patent nonsense.
Anyone whom has ever spent significant time giving themSelf (capital S) to God, understands the power and siren call of surrender to a higher authority. In the United States alone there are both mainstream and emerging religions as well as many educational and work organizations, all of which are dedicated to changing the world, to making a difference, and given the opportunity would certainly remake the law to fit their idea of a just society.
The problem is, you just can't get everyone to agree on which God to follow, and before you know it you're at war again, brother against sister, families separated from family.
As one who spent considerable time inside various organizations and practices, I absolutely grasp the idea of melding civil and religious government. It's just since my first breakaway from the religion I was raised in at 22, I've had 26 years now to think about what I truly belive (and some 10 years before that to a certain extent.) I don't want your beliefs running my life, which is why although there was a time when I was young and stupid enough to actually think I knew all the answers or could surrender my will to someone else, I certainly now would never want any group, person or organization to mix religious law with civil law. They are simply ummixy.
But it isn't that I can't see the possibility. I can see the possibility and believe it must be safeguarded against. Further I reject Professor Lilla's claim that there is nothing to be done; we simply have all these people for whom theological law is natural so now we just have to live with it. Bullshit.
This is a matter of education, of time, specifically of waiting for the proper technological and cultural moment to make its appearance which will make the education happen fairly automatically as part of the background.
We are moving from an era of convenience to an era of shifting concerns where dealing with issues of identity, traditions and narratives will matter most. While from here it seems as if one of the rules of the old era is to convert everyone, the coming era of shifting concerns brings with it a background understanding and appreciation of flexibility. This is one of those issues in other words which I believe a generation of time should solve, simply by the way in which the world is unfolding. While people can be on the internet for the first generation and maintain their old ways, their children can not. The automatic reconfiguration into workability will defeat the old passions. A flexible space in which everyone can follow the religious practices they choose is a more workable solution, much like giving everyone their own virtual spaces and computers to try new programs on.
This is an issue which will be solved by time as people learn to intentionally shift their concerns and identities inside of networks for projecting, creating and monitoring identities and narratives, over the next twenty years.
Jesse
I hope that you are right.
The thing that gives me hope , is that the Utopianist, whether Bush or Trotsky believes that they can mold reality and destiny in some God-like way. That they can be "in control" and control events while themselves staying above the fray (in the bubble).
But it doesn't seem that the Universe respects that belief. Events seem to have a life all their own, and once set in motion, who is actually controlling what unfolds? I respect people who are respectful of the mystery of THAT.
The control issues of most right wing people I know (most of my family) are HUGE. It is important to maintain the illusion of control , or else their faith beliefs and emotional life fall apart.
I remember a Callahan cartoon {http://www.callahanonline.com/index.php} once of a guy sprawled on the ground surrounded by spilled popcorn candy softdrinks etc., saying; "What kind of a God would allow a thing like this to happen?"
Yeah. Thinking like that is just silly.
So much has been set in motion, both good and bad. I have hope that people of good will prevail somehow and tip the balance. Just keep putting the truth into the world and refuse to harm others.
Educating ourselves and others and meeting and knowing more of our fellow creatures chips away at the forces that would harm us all . Shifting concerns are going to continue to shape events -- and I hope that that is the good news.
Utter crap, If you read the 'The reluctant fundamentalist' and the interviews by the author 'Mohsin Ahmed', the fears, wishes,hopes and religious outlook of the average muslim is just about same as every European or American.
But that's not going to sell on TV, is it?
Like being under a 8 year nutter rule their lives are under the theology thumb a little longer.
shanks
Hey Shanks --
Good to see you.
Your speaking actually validates what I'm saying. 20 years ago, 40 years ago what you say wouldn't have been true. But if this is the result as the first generation of Muslims find themselves more of the world than in the world, imagine how it shall be as the second generation, the ones now in their teens and early twenties come into their own... And then their children. The integration is unstoppable.
And as technology begins to make identity more an object of intent and design, rather than a fixed immutable fact of being, religion becomes just another design attribute in a shifting sea of design attributes for a generation used to shifting identities and stories about who they are and what it means to be them Self, just as easily as you and I change email address and cell phone numbers.
I'll speak more on this in the months to come. But if you want a hint, go watch the video of one of the top 20 computer minds alive today, Fernando Flores, Ph.D. at the ACM 97 Conference. *smiles*
For those of you whom have never heard of Dr. Flores (99.xxx% of you), just notice who else he's on the podium with. That isn't an accident. *laughs* Yes, I'm biased. I was deeply privileged to work for the man directly for six years, day after day after day. A man of brilliant insight and integrity, the finest thinker I've ever had the privilege of being around, a colleague and co-author of Terry Winograd, Ph.D. of Stanford, the faculty adviser of Page and Brin, Google's founders, Flores is as good as they get.
Anyway, if you want an advanced look at where I'm going with this conversation about identity and technology, watch the video of Dr. Flores at ACM 97 in front of the assembled leaders of the computing world. Now note that he said it all ten frigging years ago.
Laters...
I read the article. For various reasons I have a extreme interest in 16th -17th century religeous wars and thought. The disappointment in that article for me was next to no mention of Nationalism (with a veneer of Islamic fundamentalism) as the driving factor in the current situation.
It's unfortunate that an essay meant to help us understand Muslim politics makes no mention at all of specific Muslim political movements or what Muslims think about them. Do they have broad support by many sectors of society? Or a few devoted adherents? Isn't it important to know these things?
Lilla writes a very intelligent and thoughtful essay about messianic politics in the 'West', but offers no support whatsoever for his analogy to Islam. He offers no factual details about Islamic history. He doesn't even try to make careful generalizations.
"Why is this important?" one might ask. Religion is religion, right? But maybe that's not such a safe assumption to make. I'm not saying Islam is beyond comprehension by scholars of European history like Lilla, but if readers don't know even the basic facts and issues of Islamic history, how can we have any idea whether Lilla's comparisons even make sense? The first question I would ask Lilla is, are Islamist political parties like the AKP in Turkey, or the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran in the late 70s "messianic" at all? Or do they have much more modest ambitions than combining religion and politics to create a perfect society? Maybe what they want is merely (for them) a livable one? Or to cast out dictators propped up by foreign economic and military might? Lilla's essay (to be fair, maybe there's more in his book) doesn't answer basic questions like this. Lilla in this essay sounds to me like another self-appointed authority on Islam who hasn't even bothered to learn, or at least present us, with basic facts about the Muslim world. I hope he does this in his book because without it, the essay does more harm than good.
Just to name an obvious example, 'political Islam' in Iran (and all over the Arab world) since its very beginnings has framed itself as a response to economic and political domination by foreigners. Sure, Weimar Germany may have suffered from a post-WWI victor's justice imposed on the Central powers, but I'm not sure how well that compares to 25 years spent under the rule of the Shah--an autocratic tyrant, put in power by a CIA-assisted coup, who persecuted dissidents with the help of a secret police trained in a foreign country? Even if one is not worse than the other, it should be obvious that they are different--different enough that Lilla needs to do more than just talk about Germany, as if what's happening on the Muslim side of his comparison is well-known. It's not.
Much of the Iranian "messianic politics" that led to the "Islamic Revolution" in 1979 was more influenced Marxism than by Islam. They just found a way to justify Marxism and anti-colonialism with lines from the Qur'an. A couple years back I heard that Che Guevara t-shirts were popular in Iraq. I don't know if that's still common. But the fact that people think what's going on in Iraq is a matter of intolerant religious people beating each other up tells me they have made no effort to learn facts, or details, or to verify their assumptions--as if the universe is going to forgive them for not knowing these things about Iraqis, for not making an effort to learn them. It's not. There are right answers and there are wrong answers. I think the big paradigm shift that needs to happen is Americans accepting that Muslims are real people whose opinions and life circumstances are something they need to learn about, and care about. And that they can't get around their ignorance with generalizations about religion.
Lilla's essay doesn't address the question of what most ordinary Muslims actually want, and whether they actually support this kind of politics. Shouldn't that be the first, most important question in an essay like this? Even if the book takes a shot at these questions--and I'm afraid I'm not very hopeful that it does--this essay has already failed in a big way.
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