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Today is
"A word to the wise ain't necessary --
it's the stupid ones that need the advice."
-Bill Cosby
posted by Madman of Chu | 8:03 AM | Permalink
|
26 comments
26 Comments:
An interesting article, Madman, and one that makes a few good points about our lack of engagement with relatively moderate and non-violent factions of the "Islamist" movement, particularly with respect to Egypt.
However:
1) Who is in a panic about Indonesia?
2) It seems to me this article doesn't really address what's going on in Indonesia. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood spokesman whom Silverstein interviewed -- who seems to support free speech and religious pluralism, as well as only *voluntary* adoption of the headscarf -- the situation in Indonesia seems to be one in which those freedoms (free speech, religious pluralism) are being curtailed.
3) There's a section in the middle of the article that reminds me of a point that Dinesh D'Souza apparently makes in his latest book. I'm not remembering the title (something inflammatory, I think), and I haven't read it, and it seems to me it's been roundly and justifiably criticized among conservatives, but apparently one of D'Souza's points is that the in-your-face coarseness of Western culture alienates "moderate" Muslims with whom Western social conservatives might otherwise find some common ground (all this, as I understand it, is accompanied by some ridiculous argument blaming liberals for 9/11 and the hostility of the "Muslim world"). I find it ironic, therefore, that liberals -- who might generally be supposed to support some of the policies that Silverstein hints at here -- are also generally the ones who are ranting about theocracy in America and the threat of "talibangelists," etc. when they speak of groups that overwhelmingly work within and accept our democratic system.
4) I must say that, as a woman, I'm very uncomfortable with the beliefs/rhetoric of some of these groups -- even the ones who claim that the adoption of the headscarf, for instance, would be entirely voluntary. Surely you can understand that.
Dear Kate Marie,
1)Certainly no one on this blog is in a panic about Indonesia. As a self-consciously right wing blogger I just want to ensure that our little conservative group blog presents a fair and balanced picture of global affairs.
2)There are differences between the Silverstein and Der Spiegel cases, but they must be viewed in context. The two most important contexts are:
a)Indonesia has a more robust and stable democracy than any of the Arab countries in which Silverstein worked, thus the Islamist parties of Indonesia have made further strides towards legislating their agenda than their Arab affiliates.
b)Indonesia is a much more ethnically diverse community than any Middle Eastern nation, thus Islamism has a much broader appeal. Where Arabs may view Islamism as disrupting fundamental Arab unity (as in the case of tensions between Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood), Islam provides one of the few common bonds between the ethnically, regionally, and linguistically fragmented communities of Indonesia.
As for the question of freedoms, the trend in Indonesia is an illiberal one to be sure, but I don't see that the Spiegel article reports unequivocal attacks on free speech or religious freedom. The "free speech" issues seem to be limited to questions of pornography, women's public dress, etc. I certainly sympathize with Indonesian women and would fight these trends were I an Indonesian citizen. But in relative global historical terms these are hardly unique phenomena. One wouldn't have to go too far back in US history to find laws very similar to the ones that the Indonesian Islamists are trying to enact on the books and being enforced in the USA. Prohibition is the classic example of federal policy being hijacked by a largely religious agenda in the US case. This is not meant to justify the Indonesian Islamists- I am happy that the US has come out of its illiberal past. But it does suggest that what is happening in Indonesia is an organic process that many if not all young democracies experience.
Re religious pluralism, the one "threat" to this that the Spiegel article hinted at (that I could find) was the city mayor who wouldn't let Christian shop owners open during Ramadan. This is unfair, to be sure, but is different from US "blue laws" that force liquor merchants to close on Sunday only in degree, not in principle.
3)Luckily we self-consciously conservatives here at WTR don't consort with such liberal types. I agree that one very common blind spot among "liberals" is a rather smugly complacent disregard for religion, religious institutions, and people of faith. I would only contend that an isomorphic "blind spot" among conservatives is the failure to recognize that many of the trends among Islamists that cause so much concern abroad can be found right here at home among religious fundamentalists. The operative principle is that a group's attempting to legislate its religious values is not uniquely alarming or even intrinsically wrong. Islamic groups attempting to do so should be viewed and assessed with the same dispassionate perspective that we right thinking conservatives apply to Christian groups in the good old US of A.
4)Yes, as an American man I'm troubled by these trends that conflict with our values, and I don't think that it is necessarily wrong for individuals of conscience to fight those trends on a personal level. At the same time I believe that we have to respect the right of foreign communities to work through these issues independently and organically, especially at the larger institutional level of sovereign governments. My sense (and time may prove me a rosy eyed optimist) is that the kind of trends outlined by both Silverstein and Der Spiegel will rebound to the detriment of groups like Al Qaeda. Once some of the values Al Qaeda is championing get institutionalized through political processes a)people won't feel they need Al Qaeda anymore or the risks that its tactics entail; b)people may ultimately come to feel (as the US did in the case of Prohibition) that these values aren't all they were cooked up to be, and get tired of Islamist political programs altogether.
1) This point inspires thoughts at once bleakly despairing and sanguinely violent.
2) I certainly hope you're correct that "what is happening in Indonesia is an organic process that many if not all young democracies experience." My fear is that Indonesia's young democracy may not be robust and stable *enough* to weather the illiberal policies that are legislated in its name, and that's a fear that is not entirely unfounded given the sad history of at least a few young democracies.
As for the prospects for religious pluralism, again, I hope you're correct, but it does seem at least slightly pollyannaish to suggest that a potentially growing sentiment against religious pluralism is no more troubling than U.S. blue laws, especially in a country with a recent history of anti-Christian, anti-Chinese, and anti-Muslim rioting.
2)"The operative principle is that a group's attempting to legislate its religious values is not uniquely alarming or even intrinsically wrong."
-- We're in complete agreement on that score, my self-conscioulsy conservative friend.
"Islamic groups attempting to do so [legislate religious values]should be viewed and assessed with the same dispassionate perspective that we right thinking conservatives apply to Christian groups in the good old US of A."
-- Agreed here, too, with the caveat that such groups are sometimes *not* working within a stronly democratic framework/system, are sometimes not committed exclusively to non-violent democratic reform (see Hizbollah), and that we should thus pay close attention to the results of their experiements in democracy.
4) "Yes, as an American man I'm troubled by these trends that conflict with our values, and I don't think that it is necessarily wrong for individuals of conscience to fight those trends on a personal level. At the same time I believe that we have to respect the right of foreign communities to work through these issues independently and organically, especially at the larger institutional level of sovereign governments."
-- But at what point should a respect for sovereignty give way to concerns about horrific oppression and systematic violations of human rights? At what point, at least, should we refuse any longer to "engage" or encourage a sovereign state that countenances such violations? And can this not sometimes be a delicate balancing act? Shouldn't we at least have a "conversation" (as the saying goes) about these questions.
Finally, I note that you and Silverstein share some philosophical ground with the dreaded and much-maligned "neo-cons." A fundamental principle of the neo-conservative assessment of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been the notion that it is detrimental to American interests, antithetical to American democratic principles -- and, moreover, just plain wrong -- simply to bolster an illiberal and despotic stability at the expense of democracy in that region. Whatever you, in your self-consciously conservative wisdom, may have concluded about the Iraq War, don't you think it behooves Americans to stop attacking the "evil" motives of their political opponents and start talking about the right (or wrong) policies to help us achieve goals that many of us have in common?
I'm indulging in a kind of a treacly "Can we all get along?" moment, I know, but let it stand . . . maybe it's a symptom of my self-consciously submissive and conciliatory femininity.
Dear Kate Marie,
1) It is perhaps good that we are on opposite coasts.
2)Illiberal policies in and of themselves don't necessarily pose a threat to the *democratic* nature of a regime. Not all democracies are liberal, and not all liberal democracies are liberal to the same degree or in the same manner. Prohibition was an illiberal policy instituted (and repealed) in a completely democratic fashion. Your right that the stresses of conflict over liberal principles can strain democratic institutions to the breaking point, we'll see if that proves to be the case in Indonesia.
As for religious pluralism, the only evidence of a "growing sentiment" against it in the Spiegel article (that I detected) was the case of Christian restauranteurs, which does seem quite comparable to blue laws in the United States. I have no problem believing that religious tensions are high in Indonesia, but the Indonesians are going to have a very hard time legislating away religious pluralism. The country is 88% Muslim, but still has 30 million non-Muslims among its citizens, including Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Any move to restrict religious freedom too far would result in civil war. That is not to say that this is impossible, but there are real limits to how far democratic institutions could be manipulated to that end.
3)"Such groups are sometimes *not* working within a stronly democratic framework/system, are sometimes not committed exclusively to non-violent democratic reform (see Hizbollah), and that we should thus pay close attention to the results of their experiements in democracy."
Agreed, with the caveat that all of this applies to many Christian and Jewish groups here in the US.
4)"At what point should a respect for sovereignty give way to concerns about horrific oppression and systematic violations of human rights?"
I don't think that individuals are bound to respect the sovereignty of any nation per se. Letter writing campaingns, boycotts, protests, etc. are all legitimate tactics for people who are concerned about attacks on human rights anywhere in the world.
Governments are likewise free to use diplomacy, econonmic sanctions, and other suasions to try and influence human rights policies in other countries. I personally think that governments should err on the side of caution in this regard, as such campaigns are never as effective as private movements by individuals of conscience (if only because most governments are/have been guilty of almost anything of which they accuse another government). As a matter of principle and international law I would argue that a government is only empowered to intervene in the internal affairs of another country *militarily* in cases of genocide.
I agree that speculating about one's political opponents' motives is always counterproductive. As you have noted to me in the past, everyone has biases and ulterior motives, that doesn't necessarily mean they are wrong in any given instance. Certainly whenever discussing something as important as the future of democracy or religious freedom one should restrict oneself to the empirical merits of one's opponents case and avoid ad hominem inferences and attacks.
Dear Madman,
"Agreed, with the caveat that all of this applies to many Christian and Jewish groups here in the US."
-- 1) Do you mean "many," according to the number of lunatic fringe groups or according to the size of their membership? Do you claim that there's an American Christian or Jewish group that is equivalent to Hizbollah in terms of its support in the general population and its purchase on elected positions within the government? And does this apply to any Muslim groups in the U. S.?
Dear Kate Marie,
I don't imagine such a group exists that has support equivalent to Hizbollah in Lebanon, no. But I am willing to bet that such a group exists with support equivalent to a comparable group in Indonesia, yes. Comparing Lebanon to the US for an understanding of the relative roles of Christianity/Judaism is a false analogy. Have there recently been/are there currently Christian groups that resemble Hizbollah? Sure, in Ireland and Bosnia. Would many groups become like Hizbollah here in the US if America experienced a catclysmic meltdown like Lebanon? If the history of the KKK is any lesson, the answer is- Yes!
Okay, Madman, but I specifically referred to Hizbollah and to groups not exclusively committed to non-violence in my original formulation. There are certainly no such groups that I know of that have recently elected members to Congress or to positions in state/local governments, and so I don't quite understand how such groups could be said to have any significant political power.
Have such groups existed here before and could they conceivably gain some sort of political power again? Sure, but at the risk of sounding like a rosy-eyed optimist, I'd venture to suggest that we needn't *yet* be as vigilant about the state of our democracy as the citizens of Indonesia.
Beyond that, though, I don't understand the impulse toward cultural self-flagellation which requires that any time someone says something remotely critical of [insert culture of the Other here], he must also remind himself and everyone else that "this, too, has been one of the dark places of the earth," yada yada yada.
Thank you, Professor Marlowe. :)
Dear Kate Marie,
What you call "cultural self-flagellation" I call "getting a little perspective." If we are to talk of original formulations, the original question was whether the Der Spiegel article genuinely demonstrates that Indonesia's secular democracy is "under siege." My point is that if we are not going to be alarmist and capitulate to a knee-jerk reaction every time we see Islam enter the public arena, we have to recognize that the question of the danger (or lack thereof) of groups pursuing an "Islamic" agenda in Indonesia (or any other democracy) is not different from the more abstract question of the significance of any religious group pursuing a religious agenda in electoral politics. Situating the Indonesian case in this larger context requires us to search for cross-cultural comparisons, and since ours is one of the oldest and most robust democracies the USA is a natural place to turn for such.
In this sense, one may compare Hizbollah to The Fellowship Foundation if one so desires, but this comparison is going to yield a very distorted picture of the role of Islam in global politics. The first rule of cross-cultural comparison is that one must compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges.
Hizbollah may have comparable support in Lebanon to that of the Fellowship Foundation in the USA, but to leap from that to the conclusion that Islam is a more subversive and violence-prone force in democratic politics would be erroneous. One must ask, is Hizbollah's predisposition to violence rooted in Islam or in the particular historical conditions of Lebanon? Lebanon is, after all, one of the smallest Islamic nations and one of the most socially conflicted. Looking at Hizbollah's activities among 800,000 Shi'ites in Lebanon yields information of dubious predictive value for the activities of Islamic political groups among Indonesia's 194 million.
Moreover, cross-cultural comparisons compel us to recognize that religious groups "not exclusively limited to non-violence" have played an ambiguous role in the history of democratic societies. Abolition is another example of a policy largely driven by organized religious participation in US politics. While Abolitionists included Quakers like William Lloyd Garrison, they also included men like John Brown who formed Christian militias and staged attacks on secular institutions like the Harper's Ferry raid. The fact that today many militias in Michigan and elsewhere proudly claim to be carrying on the legacy of John Brown hasn't compelled more mainstream Americans to repudiate his legacy, nor should it.
The fact that no violent religious groups "have recently elected members to Congress or to positions in state/local government" is an index of our system's health for which we should be greatful, but this doesn't necessarily mean that such groups have less power than equivalent Islamic groups do in Indonesia, nor does it provide a good guiding principle for policy toward the Islamic world. It's great that our two-party system keeps people like Timothy McVeigh or David Koresh out of elected office, but we should not mistake this latter phenomenon for an end in and of itself. The political systems in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria do as effective a job of keeping Islamic figures comparable to David Koresh out of power, but no one can really be congratulated on that score. Silverstein's article points out that as politics in the Muslim world become more democratic they will become more Islamic, just as our democratic politics have always had a Christian (and to a lesser extent a Jewish) dimension. The religious dimension in American politics have always had both good and bad effects on government policy, and the continued presence of religion in American politics does not evoke panic because in dealing with religious traditions that are familiar to us we feel confident that we can discriminate between good, bad, and neutral influences (I'll grant you there is less than unalloyed consensus on this score). If we are to avoid panic with regard to the emergent phenomenon of Islamic democracy we have to develop meaningful gauges of the role of Islam in politics and try to discern how and where the pursuit of Islamic agendas are good/bad/neutral. Focusing myopically on exceptional groups like Hizbollah absent clarifying cross-cultural contexts will not aid in that pursuit.
Dear Madman,
"My point is that if we are not going to be alarmist and capitulate to a knee-jerk reaction every time we see Islam enter the public arena, we have to recognize that the question of the danger (or lack thereof) of groups pursuing an "Islamic" agenda in Indonesia (or any other democracy) is not different from the more abstract question of the significance of any religious group pursuing a religious agenda in electoral politics."
-- Doesn't it depend on the agenda (which, in the case of Indonesia, appears to be Wahhabist, according to the article)? You seem to be assuming that I've made some claim that it's the sole fact of these groups' association with Islam that I find uniquely "dangerous" and worthy of attention. Not so. It's specific agendas and specific ideologies that I'm concerned about. And I don't think my belief that some ideologies are more dangerous than others is an indication of any lack of perspective (and again, I don't mean "Islam" versus "Christianity" or "Judaism" here). If Indonesia were on the verge of electing Osama bin Laden (or heck, David Koresh reanimated) would you say that that's no different from America being on the verge of electing Mitt Romney (or Harry Reid) or Mike Huckabee? Maybe that analogy isn't fair, but my point is that it doesn't make sense to say that the question of the danger (or lack thereof) of real groups with specific beliefs and ideologies gaining a purchase in the political system of Indonesia is *no different* than the abstract question of any non-specific religious group pursuing a content-free ideology gaining a hold in some hypothetical country's electoral politics.
Regarding Hizbollah, I've never claimed that their predisposition to violence was rooted in Islam. Nor am I focusing "myopically" on groups like Hizbollah. Your article mentioned Hizbollah.
In the course of broadly agreeing with a couple of your points, I warned that we needed to be more vigilant about the electoral successes of certain groups than of other groups. I don't think it warranted a caution about "getting a little perspective" -- which, if you'll forgive me, is sometimes as much a knee-jerk reaction as the kinds of alarmism you are concerned about.
Dear Kate Marie,
I didn't mean to accuse you personally of knee jerk reactions or myopia, I just meant to defend why I think it is important for observers of global affairs *in general* to keep in mind that Hizbollah-like groups do exist here in the US, even if they do not have quite the social, political, and economic traction or power that Hizbollah does in Lebanon.
"It's specific agendas and specific ideologies that I'm concerned about. And I don't think my belief that some ideologies are more dangerous than others is an indication of any lack of perspective (and again, I don't mean "Islam" versus "Christianity" or "Judaism" here). If Indonesia were on the verge of electing Osama bin Laden (or heck, David Koresh reanimated) would you say that that's no different from America being on the verge of electing Mitt Romney (or Harry Reid) or Mike Huckabee?"
I would never claim that the content of a group's agenda or ideology is insignificant. Any group that is dedicated to forcing women to wear the veil does not have my approval, I don't care how peacefully or democratically they are going about doing it. I would just contend that-
1)The difference between that agenda and banning abortion, banning same-sex marriage, or banning alcohol is not a difference in kind.
2)The fact that there are groups who are closer to democratically imposing the veil in Indonesia than comparable groups in the US are to amending the constitution to ban same-sex marriage or abortion points to differences between the role of Christianity in the US and the role of Islam in Indonesia, but that it is very easy to exaggerate either that difference itself or the cause it gives for concern among defenders of democracy worldwide.
In other words, it would obviously be much worse for the Indonesians to elect Osama bin Laden than it would be for Americans to elect Mitt Romney, but little in the Der Spiegel article suggests that the Indonesians are much closer to electing Osama bin Laden than we are to electing a latter-day David Koresh.
Dear Madman,
I don't have time to respond fully to your last comment, but I think I can say that I agree with most of it.
However, I have one quibble, and it has the potential to open up a whole new thread of epic proportions, but I must say it, anyway. While the most visible and vocal proponents of banning abortion may be mostly religious organizations (not exclusively Christian, I might add), an opposition to abortion is not necessarily or exclusively a religious position -- unless you consider an opposition to murder a religious position. Yes, I realize there are all sorts of arguments about what constitutes murder and what constitutes "personhood," but those who oppose abortion need not rely on any specifically Christian or religious assumptions in order to reach the conclusion that abortion is murder and ought to be restricted or banned.
Dear Kate Marie,
I agree with you, with one quibble. It would not be impossible or completely illogical for an Palestinian or Egyptian Muslim to write:
"While the most visible and vocal proponents of the veil may be mostly religious organizations (not exclusively Islamic, I might add), support of the veil is not necessarily or exclusively a religious position -- unless you consider an opposition to immodesty a religious position. Yes, I realize there are all sorts of arguments about what constitutes immodesty and what constitutes "propriety," but those who support the veil need not rely on any specifically Islamic or religious assumptions in order to reach the conclusion that the veil is necessary and ought to be imposed.
Dear Madman,
Impossible? No. *Completely* illogical? Um, maybe not.
But I don't understand the point. Is it to suggest that any opposition to abortion which is *not* based on religious assumptions is as rare as arguments for the veil that are not based on religious assumptions? I'd have to disagree with you there.
A secular argument to impose the veil is different from a secular argument to oppose murder.
Dear Kate Marie,
I chose the veil to be provocative, but I could just as easily have chosen the ban on alcohol, which is a political agenda shared virtually identically between Islamists in Muslim societies and Christian political activists here in the US. One could plug in many such agendas to your paragraph- "a ban on same sex marriage," "a ban on dancing," etc., etc. My point is that if you are deeply enough committed to a particular value or set of values it is naturally going to seem true wholly independently of one's religious beliefs. The same is as true for Muslim proponents of the veil, the ban on alcohol, etc. as it is for opponents of abortion here in the US. The fact that non-religious arguments can and are made in support of the agendas of religious groups doesn't really serve as a good index of cross-cultural comparison, as this is true of virtually any agenda championed by any religious group in any society.
As for whether non-religious arguments for the veil are any less common in Muslim societies than non-religious arguments for abortion, I think you might be surprised. Also, whether or not someone's opposition to abortion is based on "religious ideas" depends very much on how one defines religion. Equating abortion with murder relies on certain underlying assumptions about absolute truth and absolute value that are not universal (they are not shared by Rabbinic Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. etc. etc.), thus even if one does not personally associate these ideas with a particular religious tradition they do constitute a kind of religious faith. In other words, on questions of ultimate value and ultimate truth there are in essence no "non religious" answers. However one comes down on these questions priveleges the world view of a particular religion or religions, whether one self-consciously affiliates with that/those group(s) or not.
As for whether an argument to impose the veil is different than an argument to oppose murder, this assertion requires that Muslim believers perceive there to be less at stake in the veil than Christian believers see in abortion. I think that if you examine into some of the arguments made in support of the veil you would find that many proponents of the veil view it as a matter of life or death, that the absence of the veil will negate or destroy the value of human life as thoroughly as Christians believe abortion does. One could trade arguments back and forth about whether these are "objectively" equivalent, but in the end the final "truth criterion" of each side's position would be an article of faith that was not susceptible to logical proof or falsification.
1) "The fact that non-religious arguments can and are made in support of the agendas of religious groups doesn't really serve as a good index of cross-cultural comparison, as this is true of virtually any agenda championed by any religious group in any society."
-- Sigh. But I wasn't citing the non-religious argument against abortion as an index of cross-cultural comparison. I simply didn't want to let your inclusion of abortion [on the list of "religious" issues] pass without comment, as it is an issue I care about, and I didn't want to appear to agree with your characterization of it as an exclusively "religious" issue.
2. "The fact that non-religious arguments can and are made in support of the agendas of religious groups doesn't really serve as a good index of cross-cultural comparison, as this is true of virtually any agenda championed by any religious group in any society."
-- Okay, then, surprise me. Anyway, from what little I understand of the history of the veil in majority-Islamic countries, it has been more of a religiously-informed cultural custom than a strictly religious one. It has not been adopted by all Muslim cultures at all times (I don't know whether the same applies to the headscarf).
3. "Equating abortion with murder relies on certain underlying assumptions about absolute truth and absolute value that are not universal (they are not shared by Rabbinic Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. etc. etc.), thus even if one does not personally associate these ideas with a particular religious tradition they do constitute a kind of religious faith."
-- In a certain sense, I agree with you that any worldview which proposes moral absolutes and moral codes are "religious." In another sense, I'm not understanding your point. I don't know very much about the Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish traditions, but don't they also condemn murder? An attempt reasonably to persuade people that a human being in the earliest stage of its development is also a "person" who deserves not to be destroyed doesn't *seem* as though it would require a very radically different view of "absolute truth." In any event, I feared this would devolve into an argument about abortion . . .
4. "One could trade arguments back and forth about whether these are 'objectively' equivalent, but in the end the final 'truth criterion' of each side's position would be an article of faith that was not susceptible to logical proof or falsification."
-- But the same could be said about *any* discussion of *any* aspect of moral codes and ethics (and even of many laws). Is stealing wrong? Is murder wrong? Is using another person as a means rather than an end wrong? Is lying wrong? On all of those questions (and many more), the final "'truth criterion' of each side's position would be an article of faith that was not susceptible to logical proof or falsification." So while I basically agree with this point, I'm not sure that it illuminates very much for the purposes of this discussion.
In any event, perhaps we needn't go further if I say once again that my mention of abortion as a not specifically religious issue was not meant as an index of cross-cultural comparison.
P.S. As you may already know, I'm all for the privileging of worldviews, but that's a discussion for another time.
Dear Kate Marie,
I see abortion as an irreducibly religious issue because it does touch upon ultimate concerns in a way that necessarily implicates articles of faith and priveleges one religious tradition over another. You are right that in absolute terms that almost any debate could enter "religious" terrain on those criteria, but there are still differences of degree between issues, especially when one takes into account the particular cultural setting within which a debate takes place. On a sliding scale abortion sits firmly near the "very religious" end of the spectrum here in the US.
Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism etc. all condemn murder but all define murder differently, and none of their definitions of murder allow for abortion to be equated with it. In Judaism for, example, the ultimate criteria of what constitutes a crime is the Torah. The Torah explicitly ordains different penalties for causing the death of an unborn fetus and causing the death of an adult, thus in Judaic law abortion is definitively not murder.
I think in the final analysis where you and I disagree is that I see there being far less at stake in whether abortion is a "religious" issue or not. Lots of religious issues enter the public arena in the US and become the focus of jurisprudence or legislation, the fact that an issue implicates religious values or practices doesn't immediately disqualify it as being an illegitimate concern of our secular institutions. In the end which religious values get institutionalized and which do not is the product of adversarial processes that are constantly evolving, and each citizen has to decide as a matter of conscience which values s/he will champion and which s/he will oppose.
Dear Madman,
"On a sliding scale abortion sits firmly near the 'very religious' end of the spectrum here in the US."
-- I disagree -- or rather, I agree only insofar as I accept the premise that, here in the U.S., the "rights-based" constitution and moral philosophy that we generally accept is also on the "very religious" end of the spectrum.
"I think in the final analysis where you and I disagree is that I see there being far less at stake in whether abortion is a 'religious' issue or not. Lots of religious issues enter the public arena in the US and become the focus of jurisprudence or legislation, the fact that an issue implicates religious values or practices doesn't immediately disqualify it as being an illegitimate concern of our secular institutions."
-- As a matter of fact, I most emphatically do *not* disagree with you on this. The stake that I have in the discussion of whether abortion is an exclusively or purely religious issue is a political one; that is, most people who consider themselves "secularists" do not accept or perhaps even understand the point you make here. Therefore, the political rhetoric which seeks to brand the abortion issue as a matter of "legislating religion" is often an attempt to shut down, rather than to open up, discussion, since many people glibly adhere to a rather fuzzy idea that religiously informed values may *never* be institutionalized. That's not what you were attempting to do, but that's why it's a matter of some concern to me -- not because I think it's illegitimate to advocate legislation or policy based on religious beliefs or principles.
Dear Kate Marie,
I guess we've reached a warm and fuzzy moment of accord here, so perhaps I should leave it alone. I would only advise you that insisting that abortion is a non-religious issue for the reasons you give seems a bit tendentious. No matter how you slice it, religious values enter into the abortion debate. There are as many resources in our "rights based constitution and moral philsophy" to use in constructing an argument against a ban on abortion as for it, so that in squaring off in such a debate inevitably contending parties must confront metaphysical questions like "what is a human being," "when does life begin," which can only be answered by appeal to religious values outside the compass of the "rights based constitution and moral philosophy" of the US. As a matter of "constructively engaged politics" (one self-conscious conservative to another) I would advise you (and you can take this advice or leave it) to confront people's erroneous ideas about the place of religion in secular politics rather than attempting to retreat into an "abortion is not a religious issue" position.
Dear Madman,
1) We'll have to agree to disagree about whether it's my tendentiousness or . . . something else (I hesitate to suggest a bit of myopia on your part) that is the crux of our disagreement here. I think you are failing to consider what an actual "non-religious" argument against abortion might look like.
2) "No matter how you slice it, religious values enter into the abortion debate."
-- Just as, no matter, how you slice it, "religious values" enter into any notion of rights and where rights come from, whether they are explicitly theistic or not, since any "proof" of the existence of rights (or at least of inalienable rights) or explanation of their source must ultimately rest on unprovable theses.
3) There are as many resources in our 'rights based constitution and moral philsophy' to use in constructing an argument against a ban on abortion as for it, so that in squaring off in such a debate inevitably contending parties must confront metaphysical questions like 'what is a human being,' 'when does life begin,' which can only be answered by appeal to religious values outside the compass of the 'rights based constitution and moral philosophy" of the US.'"
-- Excuse me, but why aren't bans on murder or slavery subject to the same metaphysical debates? Are they exclusively religious issues? If someone proposes a law allowing for euthanasia of "geneticlally defective" infants up to a year old, based on the idea that they do not have the moral status of "persons," is the debate that would ensue a strictly religious one? I'm willing to concede that all such debates are "strictly religious" but not that *only* the abortion debate is.
In addition, I think you are tendentious in your characterization of the metaphysical questions that arise from the abortion debate. This is one issue, I think, where the religious zealots have science on their side; that is, I think it is much more scientifically and biologically sound to claim that an embryo and fetus are human beings in the earliest stages of their existence. The debate seems to be whether an embryo/fetus is a "person" with full moral status in society. Those on the "pro-choice" side of the debate want to sever the notion of "personhood" from the biological status of "human being." Those on the "pro-life" side do not.
In any event, debates about the human being/personhood distinction may arise in conjunction with any number of issues (abortion, infanticide, euthanasia of Alzheimer's patients . . . all the way up to slavery and to the question of the legality of murder of those who may, by certain lunatic segments of the society, be deemed "non-persons" for one reason or another). Either they're all religious issues, or none of them are.
Dear Kate Marie,
"I think you are failing to consider what an actual "non-religious" argument against abortion might look like."
Please don't make presumptions about what I may or may not imagine. I think and read a great deal about all of these problems, Kate Marie. I'm sure you could sketch out arguments I haven't encountered or thought of yet, but I doubt any of them would come as a shocking epiphany to me.
"Excuse me, but why aren't bans on murder or slavery subject to the same metaphysical debates?"
Murder is by definition a transgression, so that any discussion of what should be done about it presumes that certain metaphysical questions are already settled. It is only when one attempts to redefine murder from an already existing point of consensus that metaphysical questions come into play.
This is the crux of the matter. In order to be an "issue" a question must be controversial. There is no idea or "issue" that is religious or non-religious *in essence*, issues become religious because of historical conditions that force people to renegotiate their understanding of ultimate concerns. Slavery is a case in point. Today whether or not to ban slavery is not a religious issue, but back in 1850 it most irreducibly was, as historical conditions made fundamental questions of humanity, property, and their mutual relationship implicit in any debate over whether slavery should be banned. Today one can simply say "people can't be property," and there is enough consensus on those issues for the matter to be settled. In 1850 all of the terms of that equation were still in flux, which is why most of the organized opposition to slavery was religious in nature.
The whole "personhood/human being" distinction you talk about is just such a moment of cultural flux as occasioned the "religiosity" of the issue of slavery in the 1850's. Yes, the same metaphysical questions that arise from an attempt to draw a distinction between "personhood" and "humanity" could arise in a debate over whether or not to round up and kill Jews, but such a debate isn't coming any time soon. You keep using words like "exclusively religious" and "strictly religious" when I've already admitted that an issue can only be classed as "religious" as a matter of degree, in relative rather than essential terms. Your continued arguments seem from where I am sitting to be more about some importance you have invested in the word "religious" as it applies to the abortion issue than the merits of my case. This is wherein I perceive you to be tendentious.
P.S. The other reason I perceive you to be tendentious is that though you know how fallacious arguments against "legislating religion" are, you yet implicitly capitulate to them by insisting that abortion is not a religious issue.
Dear Madman,
I apologize for making assumptions. I promise not to make assumptions about what you may imagine if you promise not to make unfair claims about my tendentiousness and disingenuousness.
1) ". . .though you know how fallacious arguments against 'legislating religion' are, you yet implicitly capitulate to them by insisting that abortion is not a religious issue."
-- No, I am not. I have never, in a discussion that hinges on the idea that the pro-life side is trying to "legislate morality" or "legislate religion," let people get away with arguing that there is something inherently illegitimate about legislating religion or morality. But that's not what we're talking about here. As I pointed out somewhere way above us in the thread, the description of abortion as a religious issue is used by people who mean that it is a religious issue for only one side in the debate. I think you and I agree that if abortion is a religious issue, it is a "religious" issue for *both* sides. My objection to the bare assertion that it's a religious issue -- or at least what we seem to disagree about here -- boils down to a matter of semantics and context.
So here's my best shot at clarifying where we agree and perhaps disagree:
1) Abortion is a religious issue for *both* sides of the abortion debate.
2) When I objected to your claim that abortion was a strictly religious issue, I objected on the grounds that, in the context of the abortion debate in the U.S., "religious" means something very different from what you and I take it to mean -- that is, it means "sectarian" rather than "touching on ultimate metaphysical questions." It is not, therefore, a "religious" issue in the way that most people mean "religious" when they make that argument.
3) Yes, the question of murder is non-controversial, but it is only "settled" because we have a consensus of beliefs about murder as transgression (or slavery as evil). I would argue that the "religiousness" of these issues still inheres in them. In other words, they are settled because we have consensus (thank God), not because we have proof.
Dear Kate Marie,
1)If your position is that the abortion issue is, in fact, a religious issue for both sides of the debate, I have no quibble with that. Indeed, it makes me wonder what you've been arguing with me about, as it does not contradict anything that I wrote upthread.
2)Abortion is not a strictly sectarian issue, though in its social manifestations the kind of sectarian tensions and conflicts it evokes in the USA are quite comparable to those evoked by the issue of the veil or a ban on alcohol in Indonesia and other Muslim countries.
3)The principle reason that abortion continues to evoke the kinds of sectarian tensions it does in the USA is because there is no consensus about the religious dimensions inherent in this issue (nor is their likely to be anytime soon). If Indonesia institutes laws such as an imposition of the veil or a total ban on alcohol it will be because there is a critical mass of consensus regarding the questions of ultimate concern these issues entail. We here in the USA are not compelled to agree with or even condone that state of affairs, but we are not justified in taking coercive steps to counter it either, any more than the liberal democracies where abortion is legal would be justified in coercing the USA to change its laws if it ever decided to ban abortion.
A consensus once reigned in the USA that facilitated a continuous criminalization of abortion, that consensus changed. If Indonesia imposed the veil or instituted other illiberal "Islamic" policies a similar change in consensus might ultimately transpire that would cause these policies to be abandoned.
Dear Madman,
1) "We here in the USA are not compelled to agree with or even condone that state of affairs, but we are not justified in taking coercive steps to counter it either, any more than the liberal democracies where abortion is legal would be justified in coercing the USA to change its laws if it ever decided to ban abortion."
-- Isn't this a bit of a straw man? I've never suggested we would be justified in taking coercive steps to counter Indonesia's adoption of the veil (should that, in fact, happen). I certainly hope, though, that if Indonesia imposes the veil, consensus will come first, and imposition after.
2) "A consensus once reigned in the USA that facilitated a continuous criminalization of abortion, that consensus changed."
-- There's a whole world of additional back-and-forth comments in that simple statement, Madman --having to do with how and when the consensus changed, and with whether the consensus changed as much as some claim it did. ["Consensus" is decidedly against partial birth abortion, for instance, as well as against abortion on demand for the entire length of a pregnancy, which is in practice what the current constitutional state of affairs guarantees. Abortion laws in this country are far more liberal than abortion laws in many Western European democracies.]
Dear Kate Marie,
We've really squeezed most of the juice out of this puppy, I'm just about ready to abort (pun most tastelessly intended). You're mischaracterizing what I mean by "consensus" though. When I say "the consensus changed" in the US I wasn't making any blanket claims about whether the current state of the law is justified or accurately reflects public opinion, just that viewed in the historical long term, over time enough people's attitudes and values have shifted to create a debate where none existed before. I was applying this "long term" sense of consensus to Indonesia as well.
Okay, Madman, fair enough.
To be honest, I just really wanted the last word. :)
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