Re: The Brights article – As nouns, are not \’Christian\’ and \’Catholic\’ equally distortive of adjectival essence? Other examples, outside religion, abound.
Surely \’gay\’ was invented by the, well, gay community to describe themselves, and the word has caught on. I\’d say \’gay\’ in its old sense has even less relartionship to gays than \’bright\’ has to atheists.
Richard Leather\’s first posting on 04/12/2003 has the sonorous typo \’nounds\’. Perhaps concrete and proper nouns will henceforth be distinguished from abstract nouns by using \’nounds\’ for the former and reserving \’nouns\’ for the latter. . . perhaps not.
Regarding the word \”Brights\”: Might it not be that some people who hold to this set of beliefs assume that they are, necessarily, brighter than those who do not and, therefore, find the designation \”Brights\” entirely appropriate?
Your reservations about the term \’bright\’ are eminently reasonable, but I think you miss the essential point. Richard Dawkins has been sent by God to make atheism seem so obnoxious and self-righteous that even committed atheists will begin to wonder whether there aren\’t some reasons for theism after all. This is just another stage in the holy campaign: if people are going to start calling me a bright (Yech!) I may have to ask myself whether I wouldn\’t rather be known as a lapsed Anglican after all…
My commentary probably won\’t make an earth-shattering difference, but presumably neither will Dr. Stangrom\’s excellent critique of the attempted repackaging of the atheist label on the minds of those who wish to remove society\’s otherwise perceptive view of the eccentric nature of those who wish to deny the supernatural.
The attempt by those of this curious philosohical position to post a positive label on their atheistic worldview is nothing more than raw intellectual snobbery at its worst. Atheists like Dawkins look down their long noses at anyone who dares to believe in God with not mere (and quite unjustifiable) pity, but with complete contempt and disdain as Dawkins said in a November 23rd lecture at Harvard:
\” Society provides a breeding ground for the *virus* of religion by labeling children with the religion of their parents…Religion provides false comfort—it is actively divisive and harmful \”
Umm…before you go on Prof. Dawkins, shouldn\’t you consider the fact that your precious naturalistic/secular worldview which spawned the likes of Karl Marx and his demon-spawn, communism, which was responsible for the largest mass extermination of humanity in history in its short 20th Century stint?!
And while we\’re on a roll, shouldn\’t you consider, Prof. Dawkins, the absolute religious nature of your non-theistic beliefs? As the \’Harvard Crimson\’ noted:
\” Dawkins did, however, concede that there is a sort of religious quality that characterizes scientific phenomena.
\’The sense of transcendence is something that is shared by those who don’t call themselves religious\’\”
Nice try Mr. Dawkins, but you can\’t have your cake and the whipped-cream too! To assume \”transcendence\” in any endeavor is to flirt with the metaphyscial…with the religious!
Which one is it now, Mr. Dawkins? You can\’t have your cake and eat it too!
Meera Nanda\’s piece on pomoism, science and religious fundamentalism makes a racy and enlightening read. Full marks! Thanks for making it available. I would add that the neglect of the \”spiritual\” i.e. the mental and emotional aspects of human development by secularists and \”left\” thinkers gives the mystifyers, gurus and religious dogmatists (used by reactionary politicians such as the Indian government and the religious right) the green light to do their damage.
\”An extreme Zionist will reach different conclusions about the covenant between God and man than a follower of Reform Judaism or a Christian liberal\”
I am wondering what an \”extreme Zionist\” is, since labeling Jews, Zionist seems to be the new anti-semetic label of the month. I am hoping that it\’s use here was not intended to refer to politics in an article describing religious differences. I am Reform and to my near half a century association and understanding, Zionism is an integral part of Reform. To a great many Reform, Zionism is extremely important to them, hence in a religious context they could also very well BE \”extreme\” Zionist. I realize the Reform movement is different in Europe than the U.S., but the desire for Eretz Yisrael to exist, free of terrorism has no exclusivity to any branch of Judaism that differs in it\’s concepts of importance of Jewish law. The differences among the branches of Judaism, are also different from each other, in a unique ways than most branches of Christianity differ from each other. Rather than the doctrine itself or concept of what the covenant is that makes Christian denominations differ, the branches of Judaism differ primarily on matters of level of observance, custom and ritual and how one should apply them in our daily/modern lives that are the primary difference. And of course \” the covenant\” would seem far more different to any Christian, no matter how liberal, than to any sect of Jew, since the covenant with Israel is viewed as having been superceded by a \”new\” covenant. I never knew before this article, the covenant had been perceived as having a different conclusion by any Jewish sect despite having association with such varied groups as the Beta Yisrael, Chabad and Reconstructionist. There are differences in belief on what our role as Jews should be as members of that covenant, however.
Perhaps, in this one sentence, the author may have inadvertently (?) tried to include a political rather than religious intonation.
While I am in agreement on most of the points you make in your article, and they coincide with much of my own understanding after more than 30 years of study of comparative relgion, that the differences of most religions far outnumber the similarities. I have often said, that despite these major differences, many of those whom the adherents of the world\’s major religon\’s and of the followers of more secular leaders in history and modern times, look to similar human values rather than religious ideology as being the common connection we have. ( Brotherhood comes to mind) Indeed, the only core \”truth\” that I can seem to find, is that humans have a potential for a greater good outside of ourselves, in how we interact with the \”other\”.
Understanding differences in belief,helps one to better understand the behaviors exhibited by the adherents to that belief. And greater understanding of others beliefs also means that those others beliefs are less likely to be manipulated and to be used to justify intolerance, violence or greed, by either adherents to those beliefs or those who wish to delegitimize them. It can indeed, be difficult to objectively study religious beliefs without bringing your own bias to the table…in an us and them ideation.
I also have one other bone to pick..regarding a phrase that I believe at best was coined to try to minimize the differences and the conflicts of doctrine, but at worst is used to deligitimize the original belief, and that is the term Judeo-Christian. It is most often used in speech and writings today NOT as a way to link beliefs based on the fact that Christianity took Jewish belief and adapted it into a new belief or that some of the same texts are \”shared\”, but to support the idea that Christianity was the logical successor from the \”old\” Jewish ways, and therefore supercedes it.
You wouldn’t yolk any other two quite different belief systems together in that same manner, such as Hindu-Christian. And you don\’t hear either Christians or Muslims using the term Christian-Islamic, to describe any shared values, even though Islam considers the texts of Christianity as holy texts, yet has adapted them to it\’s own doctrine. I think the term is most misleading in that it makes it harder for most Christians to understand the beliefs of the Jews it yolks them to in that phrase.
I would also disagree that monotheism inspires any more than any other form of theism ( polytheism ) a call to violence. What inspires that, is a belief that the \”other\” outside of your realmm of belief must by it\’s exclusion, be evil or the enemy. If your belief system shows that you must tolerate others beliefs, even if you do not embrace them while remaining steadfast to your own and in defence of your right to your own, that is a far different lesson and inspires far different behaviors. History has shown that when that concept of the other being evil just because they don\’t believe as we do is used, regardless of how many deities or who is called the deity, violence is justified by those who follow it. There are widespread examples of cruelty and violence among all forms of theism, as well as from the adherents to secular philosophies.
Other than the above, I think this article could be an important reminder to many that if they want to truly understand what goes on in the world, they could start by trying to understand what beliefs inspire those behaviors.
About \”If I Had A Hammer: Why Logical Positivism Better Accounts for the Need for Gender and Cultural Studies\” I just wanted to note that an interesting spin-off of this whole school of thought was the work of Boris Goldenberg who became something of the historical theorist of the Cuban Revolution. I knew Dr. Goldenberg as the crusty, lovable teacher-of-all-work at my high school in Havana in the early 1960s. From him I learned–and learned to love–Ancient History and Languages. It was only afterwards that I found out about his writings on Marxism and the Cuban Revolution, although he used to talk about his run-ins\’ with US authorities as he flew back to Europe via New York in the 50s. His connection to the subject matter of the article is that he was one of Ernst Cassirer\’s graduate students in the 1930s. Interesting that his particular world outlook and the state of world politics would take him to Cuba in time for the Revolution! It would be worth further study to see how the Logical Positivist school of philosophy and the diaspora of intellectuals fleeing Nazism contributed to the current state of the world–even as the Enlightenment which gave birth to it (and its competitors) is blinking out. Thanks for the excellent article.
I attended a lecture nearly 40 tears ago, where the lecturer made the point that nonbelievers could not be persuaded to believe, nor could believers be persuaded to become nonbelievers. it was his contention that volition was required.
Also, it is easy to argue that science has given up in its arguing against religion (if indeed it has), because not all scientists treat science like a faith. Some, IMHO, rightfully, treat science as a body of knowledge to explain the physical world, while acknowledging the existence the existence of a non-material, or spiritual world. Religious people, having already accepted the existence of the non-material or spiritual, see no conflict in accepting (most of) the tenets of physical science.
Two important things need to be said. First, religion will never \”give up\” arguing against science because of its belief that the afterlife is more important than this life; and, therefore, whatever efforts must be made to prepare one\’s self, and others, for the afterlife, are worth it.
Second, science might \”give up\” its argument against religion, not because it is magnanimous, or openminded, but rather because its arguments are often weak and variable. For example, the theory of evolution is just that, a theory, precisely because it is, to this date, an unobserved phenomenon. It is less than two hundred years, and it has already been modified by the theory of punctuated equilibrium. SCience has any number of other theories related to any number of events, astronomical, physical, and biological, yet it claims to wear the mantle of inarguable Truth, which in my opinion it does not deserve.
\”In times not long past, Nietzsche was to the Third Reich what Aristotle was to the Schoolmen and Heidegger was the Nazi’s willing St. Thomas, while the logical positivists, imprisoned and/or in fear for their lives, were some of the loudest voices on the socialist left. In all three of the foci of early analytic philosophy-Cambridge, Vienna, and Berlin-resided bands of thinkers, leftist to a person.\”
Hmm. This is a bit of an easy cliché. Comparing Nietzsche\’s influence over Nazism to the of Aristotle over Scholasticism (a) implies that Scholasticism was a bad thing; (b) grossly simplifies Nietzsche\’s thought (which I doubt any Nazi ever considered seriously). Ditto for Heidegger.
As for the leftiness of the Cambridge philosophers, well… Russell was as much of a social reformer as was anybody in the precious Bloomsbury set, and Wittgenstein\’s social efforts were all a form of self-inflicted punishment – a form of masochism for somebody who was a member of the Vienna high class élite to the bone all through his life.
What\’s in a name? For sure any name that becomes a \’Meme\’ of off to a bright start.
In your post you note that the originators of the Brights, \”did not want to be referred to as being \’godless\’, and that their hope was that the word Bright \”will become an umbrella term for the whole range of naturalistic philosophies (i.e., atheist, agnostic, humanist, ets.\”
The alternatives or opposites indicated consist of those who believe in God and those favoring a naturalistic approach. My first question:Is the idea of a non-personal god naturalistic? For instance, the idea of \’light\’ as god, or the idea developed broadly by Levinas that \’infinity\’ is a transcendent: infinity and light…natural and god like.
It will be interesting to see if ideas about Light, Infinity and Gnosticism are accepted under the umbrella of Brightism, or perhaps they may serve instead as the triadic, mediating, reflective and interpretive domain for valid dialog. Not sure it matters as long as a dialog takes place, hopefully the \’umbrella\’ will serve to act as a stimulant and not merely take the form of a coalition.
Ours is a large city with lots of churches representing many denominations, with elaborate architecture and ancillary buildings like schools; recently I made this observation: Individuals finance the many temples and maintain them but the investments are not made from pure generosity, something is expected in return. Those that invest need to protect and support their investments. Don\’t we all do that, defend and support what we believe and have faith in? As strange as it seems there is a strong case that we do not, in addition thinking we do may be counter productive.
A paper by Joshua Landy appeared in \”Philosophy and Literature\” (April, 2002) with the title, \”Nietzsche, Proust and Will-To-Ignorance.\” It is related to my thought above. For Nietzsche, \”the will to truth…is merely a form of the will to illusion.\” Landy ads that in N\’s view, \”truth and knowledge are not unconditional goods, that they should not always be pursued, that they should never be pursued for their own sake.\”
The examples from Proust\’s \”Rembrances of Things Past\” are clear-cut: Marcel is both jealous and suspicious of his lover\’s (Albertine\’s) fidelity. He has spies he cant trust, he is aware that Albertine lies, and yet faced with the truth, incriminating letters, he chooses not to see them. He needs to protect his relationship with the girl.
It is possible the Bright movement will fade away on the other hand if it gains strength it may just be a great antidote, a private movement that goes beyond separation of state and religion and provides a forum for all sides to pursue the search for values and change when called for. Joe Mann
Congratualtions on Barney McClelland\’s tedious little article on hip hop\’s destruction of western civilisation. Like most articles of its type it is badly researched and loaded with hysterical generalisations that do not equate with reality. His basis for denouncing a whole art form are meagre and unconvincing: 3 main examples of evil rappers (only two of which are actually professional) without any broader explanation of how the actions of three men mean all rappers behave the same. Just a vague gesture at all the guns and swearing in hip hop advertsing. Remarkably he quotes marketing articles on the advantages 50 Cent\’s (criminal) record has given him, but fails to make the connection to the hip hop\’s guns and girls PR in general: it\’s mostly just hype. Americans have always loved rebels, and hip hop is not the first or the last genre to feed of the mystique of the public enemy. (Rock n\’ roll is probably the prime offender here. And like rock, rap\’s institutionalised rebellion is stale to those who follow it.) P. Diddy, one of the biggest names around at the moment, was born middle class but got rich producing the genre rap McClland attempts to analyse.
Which brings us to the second problem: McClelland doesn\’t bother looking beyond the sub genre of gansta rap. Guns, ho\’s, cars etc are staple elements of this sub-genre, but not of many other types of popular or alternative rap and hip hop (labels such as anticon, mush, ninja tune, big dada, and many others will give him \’bitch\’ free listening, if he could bother.) But he doesn\’t. So, beacuse of this incompetence, the reader has yet again to swallow badly researched and pureile generalisations. Can you imagine an art critic saying \”I saw three crap paintings the other day, therefore all paintings are bad\” (Then again, I have not yet read any of McClelland\’s other articles.)
He quotes academic justification but does not give counter arguments. Presumably he couldn\’t find any.
The argument that an artists\’ personal action invalidate their work is unconvincing. (Think of Wagner. ) McClelland\’s predictable response will be \’R.Kelly isn\’t as good as Wagner.\’ However, comparing 4 minute pop songs to 7 hour opera\’s shows an equal lack of critical thoroughness.
This becomes acute on the issues of sexism: most art of the last 2000 years is sexist, but this does not make it bad art. Should we ban Plato because he regarded women as a subspecies? Does that mean he had nothing to say?
Similar problems occur here:
\”It will surely be remarked my assessment of Tupac Shakur\’s \”poetry\” is unduly harsh and Eurocentric in its focus because I do not believe it stands on the same level with Auden, Eliot and Yeats.\”
It\’s POP music. It\’s not supposed to stand up to any of those. White pop music doesn\’t. It\’s content is equally insipid.
Part of pop music\’s function is to offend – this allows what are a largely trite bunch of rebel myths to perpetuate from one generation to another. Elvis initially shocked and with good reason: Lyrics smothered with innuendo, performed with gyrating and gasping that openly imitated sex on stage. Now he has become a white american idol, revered as pure and healthy.
It\’s perverse, but profitable. Murder and mayhem do make good entertainment in all types and forms. Whatever conclusions you can draw about this reveal more about human nature than one genre full of men in baggy pants.
Finally, the article ends with this self-indulgent attempt to evade criticism:
\”My opinions will be countered with the objection that I am a middle-aged, white male and I simply \”don\’t get it.\” After all, I am part of the \”ongoing hegemonic appropriation\” of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and therefore not entitled to an opinion.\”
Poor Barney, it\’s hard being white.
His opinions are countered because they don\’t meet the criteria any opinion should if it is to convince others. He has not researched his material. He confuses gangsta rap with hip hop in general, and form (the music) with content (lyrics). At basics, hip hop in beats and samples, with voices over the top. Explain to me how this combination of sounds causes murder, please.) Like any good philistine, McClelland enjoy\’s his ignorance. The fact that he and others can trot out such garbage without feeling any burden of proof is a continuing reminder of which race owns more of the media, and the rage at racial and economic inequalities that started hip hop back in the \’70\’s.
I suggest there are two basic models of society: the colligate (hunter-gatherer) and the hierarchical (warrior-raider).
We need both! Hierarchies do best in short-term bullying situations, and give us fabulous palaces and extreme wealth based on \’structural authority\'(from the muzzle of a gun).
Colligate structures do best in longer term, more considered situations. They rely on \’sapiential authority\’ based on scientific method. whilst argument and debate is crap at defending against real enemies, a more considered process is essential to rebut the more extreme imagined enemies (aka perpetual war for perpetual peace.
Politicians are warriors pretending to be hunter-gatherers. Sometimes we have to remind them that they are not really appointed by some divine benediction but elected by us, the fickle electorate.
So has anyone any idea how to dispel the voter apathy and bring some of Gerry\’s \’brights\’ back into the theatre of life?
Is it not the case, that if 95% of children (as was the case, pre-scare) have had MMR vaccines, the chances of someone developing Autism OUTSIDE the group is very small? Indeed, if the figure was 100%, we could blame everything that happens thereafter on MMR.
It is a bit like the dreaded tomato.
99% of all those who ate tomatoes before 1903 are now dead.
A high proportion of those born between then and 1930 have lost hair colour, some lost all hair.
Between 1930 and 1940 those born have suffered tooth loss!
kudos for taking on this issue. I wanted a social constructivist (SC) (one of the longest \”four-letter\” words in the language!) interpreter sitting with me just so I could grill them on things like, \”It is those who oppose relativism, and who grant certain forms of knowledge a privileged status, who pose the real threat to a scientific understanding of knowledge and cognition.\”
The laughable, \”An outpouring of recent studies in every area of the social studies of the sciences forces the recognition that all scientific knowledge is always, in every respect, socially situated\” are simply indicative of this … movement. Really? Things people living in a society do are \”socially situated\”? Whodda thunk it!
Ms. Benson says, \”The result is a kind of happy free for all, in which science and New Age and folk wisdom all mix it up together, with no \’way of knowing\’ privileged over any other, all crafting their paradigms as they like.\” That\’s practically proof-positive of free will! I\’ve got news for the SCs: I don\’t particularly CARE what you believe, now that you\’ve made your point(s). And, this is SO un-PC of me, I don\’t feel any particular compunction not RESPECTING what you think and say, if that\’s all you\’ve got.
But I\’m not on the frontlines. I\’ll do my level best to keep rationalism on the radar in all the little ways I can. Think globally, act locally.
While Ms. Benson might argue that this \”idea licenses a magic, instant egalitarianism, one free of struggle or conflict, that is just spoken into being,\” I don\’t think it\’s quite that simple. True the SCs might like to interrogate \’the \”is\” in terms of the \”ought,\”\’ but that doesn\’t change the \”is,\” and I suspect has little bearing on the \”future \’is\’.\” If it did, well, I reckon I could plug a crystal (procured at the finest New Age shoppe, of course) into my car and power it that way, rather than on gasoline.
As far as the \”hard work of examining evidence\” goes, why should that phase the SCs. That kind of hard work is only relevant to \”scientific\” knowledge (side note to the NPR commentator who used the phrase, \”big \’S\’ science,\” on Dec. 17, 2003, I got news for you pal, there ain\’t no such thing, except perhaps in the twisted minds of the SCs and those they\’ve managed to cloud. Don\’t confuse how big \’B\’ business uses science and related technologies with the practice of science).
\”Revelation\” may seem like some seriously mystical shit, but it\’s just your brain, people! If you can\’t substantiate it in reality (and thus produce knowledge, with all its inherent limitations), all you\’ve got is vaporware. I don\’t mean to play down the importance of imagination (remember Einstein) or mediatation (remember his pal Krishnamurti; quotes provided on request), as they are both powerful tools. But science as a practice, as the method into which we\’ve managed to craft it, is a self-admittedly closed system. Not that it\’s an exclusive system, as anyone willing to adhere to the scientific method and produce testable hypotheses may particiapte, but it is limited to an exploration of the physical. It may be the case that all there is is part of a physical system, but we\’re unlikely to ever find that out. So science plods along, figuring out the principles of how the system in which we live, called the universe, works. That\’s the only claim it can make, but it\’s enough. You want fairies, head for the hills or desert, fast for a while, chew some funky root or pop a funky mushroom, and you\’re likely to get what you came for.
I suspect the SCs came to a painful realization: we ain\’t got shit, folks [if all they have is \”all scientific knowledge is always, in every respect, socially situated\” and that\’s the only \’serious\’ statement I\’ve read so far]. So, in the interest of job security they turned to that age-old human trick: obfuscation. \”No more absolutes\” must be their battle cry! ;-)
This is all just fun for me, but the real world consequences of people with power adopting this way of thinking (as Krishnamurti so wisely noted about thought: it is a fragmentary view of Truth; fortunately, science deals with particulars, from which it derives principles) are not to be taken lightly. Please, all you truly (and I DO mean that ;-) intelligent folks, keep up the fight.
glad to see someone pointing out the crass idiocy of this suggested use of \’bright\’. Announcing to others that one is a bright could only be done by someone with a tin ear and no sense of irony. How pompous! How smug! Any self respecting teenager would immediately joins the dims.
All pretty ironic. The science studies crowd have their universalistic claims about the partiality of knowledge challenged by Nanda. Nanda, on the other hand, defends the universality of science without seriously asking what failures of the science-technology complex led to the critique.
Perhaps it\’s time for a little dialectical thinking?
\”Is it difficult? Is it daring? Or is it just pretentious and empty and circular.\”
So reads Ophelia Benson\’s \”Bad Writing\” article summary found on the cover page of B&W. And, I would agree with her thesis, to wit, that most bad writing is indeed pretentious and empty and circular.
So I was dismayed to see Steven Gimbel\’s article \”If I had a Hammer:…\” appearing on B&W recently.
The article fulfills every criterion associated with bad writing Ms. Benson alerts us to in her commentary, but it goes way beyond simply being bad and pretentious.
Indeed, it qualifies as an assault on English prose of whatever genre one would care to name. It enters the realm of literary terrorism in its preposterousness. Worst of all, the article in excrutiatingly long to the point of numbness.
Naturally, I can\’t go into an analysis here, but I don\’t see how anyone could read beyond the first page, indeed beyond the first paragraph of this embarrassing screed, without being reminded of the type and quality of essay one was forced to write as a high school freshman in an attempt to win over the teacher with one\’s \”maturity\” and \”insight\”.
At first, I thought the article had been included in this site as some kind of joke…..but I see it was posted in deadly earnest. The amazing thing is that the author, I assume, actually got paid by someone to bare his soul in this fashion.
Still, the author is a philosopher, not a writer, so we shouldn\’t expect much along literary lines. After all, Socrates himself never wrote anything.
David Stanway\’s article is an interesting and useful analysis. As I’m sure he would agree ,there are many other implications with respect to China and its contradictory belief systems, and their possible evolutions. Putative rising living standards for millions of Chinese rural poor must coincide with steady economic expansion. With that expansion – which includes the continued development of a stable middle class – must come more energy. China will need exponential amounts of fuel to generate power for its new and expanding conurbations, its new cars and white goods production, its technology leaps, as well as funding hospitals and education etc. If that fuel is not available within China – and that is a highly debatable question – it must be sought without via economic means, or other, political means. The nearest sites of oil reservations are in the cash-starved former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan. Conflicts of interest could have military implications as well as geopolitical ones. A historical example would be Japanese expansion a few decades after the end of the Tokugawa period. We should remember that in that case, religious fanaticism and political repression were also present in abundance.
Re: The Brights article – As nouns, are not \’Christian\’ and \’Catholic\’ equally distortive of adjectival essence? Other examples, outside religion, abound.
Surely \’gay\’ was invented by the, well, gay community to describe themselves, and the word has caught on. I\’d say \’gay\’ in its old sense has even less relartionship to gays than \’bright\’ has to atheists.
Richard Leather\’s first posting on 04/12/2003 has the sonorous typo \’nounds\’. Perhaps concrete and proper nouns will henceforth be distinguished from abstract nouns by using \’nounds\’ for the former and reserving \’nouns\’ for the latter. . . perhaps not.
Regarding the word \”Brights\”: Might it not be that some people who hold to this set of beliefs assume that they are, necessarily, brighter than those who do not and, therefore, find the designation \”Brights\” entirely appropriate?
Your reservations about the term \’bright\’ are eminently reasonable, but I think you miss the essential point. Richard Dawkins has been sent by God to make atheism seem so obnoxious and self-righteous that even committed atheists will begin to wonder whether there aren\’t some reasons for theism after all. This is just another stage in the holy campaign: if people are going to start calling me a bright (Yech!) I may have to ask myself whether I wouldn\’t rather be known as a lapsed Anglican after all…
My commentary probably won\’t make an earth-shattering difference, but presumably neither will Dr. Stangrom\’s excellent critique of the attempted repackaging of the atheist label on the minds of those who wish to remove society\’s otherwise perceptive view of the eccentric nature of those who wish to deny the supernatural.
The attempt by those of this curious philosohical position to post a positive label on their atheistic worldview is nothing more than raw intellectual snobbery at its worst. Atheists like Dawkins look down their long noses at anyone who dares to believe in God with not mere (and quite unjustifiable) pity, but with complete contempt and disdain as Dawkins said in a November 23rd lecture at Harvard:
\” Society provides a breeding ground for the *virus* of religion by labeling children with the religion of their parents…Religion provides false comfort—it is actively divisive and harmful \”
Umm…before you go on Prof. Dawkins, shouldn\’t you consider the fact that your precious naturalistic/secular worldview which spawned the likes of Karl Marx and his demon-spawn, communism, which was responsible for the largest mass extermination of humanity in history in its short 20th Century stint?!
And while we\’re on a roll, shouldn\’t you consider, Prof. Dawkins, the absolute religious nature of your non-theistic beliefs? As the \’Harvard Crimson\’ noted:
\” Dawkins did, however, concede that there is a sort of religious quality that characterizes scientific phenomena.
\’The sense of transcendence is something that is shared by those who don’t call themselves religious\’\”
Nice try Mr. Dawkins, but you can\’t have your cake and the whipped-cream too! To assume \”transcendence\” in any endeavor is to flirt with the metaphyscial…with the religious!
Which one is it now, Mr. Dawkins? You can\’t have your cake and eat it too!
Meera Nanda\’s piece on pomoism, science and religious fundamentalism makes a racy and enlightening read. Full marks! Thanks for making it available. I would add that the neglect of the \”spiritual\” i.e. the mental and emotional aspects of human development by secularists and \”left\” thinkers gives the mystifyers, gurus and religious dogmatists (used by reactionary politicians such as the Indian government and the religious right) the green light to do their damage.
\”An extreme Zionist will reach different conclusions about the covenant between God and man than a follower of Reform Judaism or a Christian liberal\”
I am wondering what an \”extreme Zionist\” is, since labeling Jews, Zionist seems to be the new anti-semetic label of the month. I am hoping that it\’s use here was not intended to refer to politics in an article describing religious differences. I am Reform and to my near half a century association and understanding, Zionism is an integral part of Reform. To a great many Reform, Zionism is extremely important to them, hence in a religious context they could also very well BE \”extreme\” Zionist. I realize the Reform movement is different in Europe than the U.S., but the desire for Eretz Yisrael to exist, free of terrorism has no exclusivity to any branch of Judaism that differs in it\’s concepts of importance of Jewish law. The differences among the branches of Judaism, are also different from each other, in a unique ways than most branches of Christianity differ from each other. Rather than the doctrine itself or concept of what the covenant is that makes Christian denominations differ, the branches of Judaism differ primarily on matters of level of observance, custom and ritual and how one should apply them in our daily/modern lives that are the primary difference. And of course \” the covenant\” would seem far more different to any Christian, no matter how liberal, than to any sect of Jew, since the covenant with Israel is viewed as having been superceded by a \”new\” covenant. I never knew before this article, the covenant had been perceived as having a different conclusion by any Jewish sect despite having association with such varied groups as the Beta Yisrael, Chabad and Reconstructionist. There are differences in belief on what our role as Jews should be as members of that covenant, however.
Perhaps, in this one sentence, the author may have inadvertently (?) tried to include a political rather than religious intonation.
While I am in agreement on most of the points you make in your article, and they coincide with much of my own understanding after more than 30 years of study of comparative relgion, that the differences of most religions far outnumber the similarities. I have often said, that despite these major differences, many of those whom the adherents of the world\’s major religon\’s and of the followers of more secular leaders in history and modern times, look to similar human values rather than religious ideology as being the common connection we have. ( Brotherhood comes to mind) Indeed, the only core \”truth\” that I can seem to find, is that humans have a potential for a greater good outside of ourselves, in how we interact with the \”other\”.
Understanding differences in belief,helps one to better understand the behaviors exhibited by the adherents to that belief. And greater understanding of others beliefs also means that those others beliefs are less likely to be manipulated and to be used to justify intolerance, violence or greed, by either adherents to those beliefs or those who wish to delegitimize them. It can indeed, be difficult to objectively study religious beliefs without bringing your own bias to the table…in an us and them ideation.
I also have one other bone to pick..regarding a phrase that I believe at best was coined to try to minimize the differences and the conflicts of doctrine, but at worst is used to deligitimize the original belief, and that is the term Judeo-Christian. It is most often used in speech and writings today NOT as a way to link beliefs based on the fact that Christianity took Jewish belief and adapted it into a new belief or that some of the same texts are \”shared\”, but to support the idea that Christianity was the logical successor from the \”old\” Jewish ways, and therefore supercedes it.
You wouldn’t yolk any other two quite different belief systems together in that same manner, such as Hindu-Christian. And you don\’t hear either Christians or Muslims using the term Christian-Islamic, to describe any shared values, even though Islam considers the texts of Christianity as holy texts, yet has adapted them to it\’s own doctrine. I think the term is most misleading in that it makes it harder for most Christians to understand the beliefs of the Jews it yolks them to in that phrase.
I would also disagree that monotheism inspires any more than any other form of theism ( polytheism ) a call to violence. What inspires that, is a belief that the \”other\” outside of your realmm of belief must by it\’s exclusion, be evil or the enemy. If your belief system shows that you must tolerate others beliefs, even if you do not embrace them while remaining steadfast to your own and in defence of your right to your own, that is a far different lesson and inspires far different behaviors. History has shown that when that concept of the other being evil just because they don\’t believe as we do is used, regardless of how many deities or who is called the deity, violence is justified by those who follow it. There are widespread examples of cruelty and violence among all forms of theism, as well as from the adherents to secular philosophies.
Other than the above, I think this article could be an important reminder to many that if they want to truly understand what goes on in the world, they could start by trying to understand what beliefs inspire those behaviors.
About \”If I Had A Hammer: Why Logical Positivism Better Accounts for the Need for Gender and Cultural Studies\” I just wanted to note that an interesting spin-off of this whole school of thought was the work of Boris Goldenberg who became something of the historical theorist of the Cuban Revolution. I knew Dr. Goldenberg as the crusty, lovable teacher-of-all-work at my high school in Havana in the early 1960s. From him I learned–and learned to love–Ancient History and Languages. It was only afterwards that I found out about his writings on Marxism and the Cuban Revolution, although he used to talk about his run-ins\’ with US authorities as he flew back to Europe via New York in the 50s. His connection to the subject matter of the article is that he was one of Ernst Cassirer\’s graduate students in the 1930s. Interesting that his particular world outlook and the state of world politics would take him to Cuba in time for the Revolution! It would be worth further study to see how the Logical Positivist school of philosophy and the diaspora of intellectuals fleeing Nazism contributed to the current state of the world–even as the Enlightenment which gave birth to it (and its competitors) is blinking out. Thanks for the excellent article.
I attended a lecture nearly 40 tears ago, where the lecturer made the point that nonbelievers could not be persuaded to believe, nor could believers be persuaded to become nonbelievers. it was his contention that volition was required.
Also, it is easy to argue that science has given up in its arguing against religion (if indeed it has), because not all scientists treat science like a faith. Some, IMHO, rightfully, treat science as a body of knowledge to explain the physical world, while acknowledging the existence the existence of a non-material, or spiritual world. Religious people, having already accepted the existence of the non-material or spiritual, see no conflict in accepting (most of) the tenets of physical science.
Two important things need to be said. First, religion will never \”give up\” arguing against science because of its belief that the afterlife is more important than this life; and, therefore, whatever efforts must be made to prepare one\’s self, and others, for the afterlife, are worth it.
Second, science might \”give up\” its argument against religion, not because it is magnanimous, or openminded, but rather because its arguments are often weak and variable. For example, the theory of evolution is just that, a theory, precisely because it is, to this date, an unobserved phenomenon. It is less than two hundred years, and it has already been modified by the theory of punctuated equilibrium. SCience has any number of other theories related to any number of events, astronomical, physical, and biological, yet it claims to wear the mantle of inarguable Truth, which in my opinion it does not deserve.
\”In times not long past, Nietzsche was to the Third Reich what Aristotle was to the Schoolmen and Heidegger was the Nazi’s willing St. Thomas, while the logical positivists, imprisoned and/or in fear for their lives, were some of the loudest voices on the socialist left. In all three of the foci of early analytic philosophy-Cambridge, Vienna, and Berlin-resided bands of thinkers, leftist to a person.\”
Hmm. This is a bit of an easy cliché. Comparing Nietzsche\’s influence over Nazism to the of Aristotle over Scholasticism (a) implies that Scholasticism was a bad thing; (b) grossly simplifies Nietzsche\’s thought (which I doubt any Nazi ever considered seriously). Ditto for Heidegger.
As for the leftiness of the Cambridge philosophers, well… Russell was as much of a social reformer as was anybody in the precious Bloomsbury set, and Wittgenstein\’s social efforts were all a form of self-inflicted punishment – a form of masochism for somebody who was a member of the Vienna high class élite to the bone all through his life.
Jeremy Strangroom: Comment on # 38; Bright\’s
What\’s in a name? For sure any name that becomes a \’Meme\’ of off to a bright start.
In your post you note that the originators of the Brights, \”did not want to be referred to as being \’godless\’, and that their hope was that the word Bright \”will become an umbrella term for the whole range of naturalistic philosophies (i.e., atheist, agnostic, humanist, ets.\”
The alternatives or opposites indicated consist of those who believe in God and those favoring a naturalistic approach. My first question:Is the idea of a non-personal god naturalistic? For instance, the idea of \’light\’ as god, or the idea developed broadly by Levinas that \’infinity\’ is a transcendent: infinity and light…natural and god like.
It will be interesting to see if ideas about Light, Infinity and Gnosticism are accepted under the umbrella of Brightism, or perhaps they may serve instead as the triadic, mediating, reflective and interpretive domain for valid dialog. Not sure it matters as long as a dialog takes place, hopefully the \’umbrella\’ will serve to act as a stimulant and not merely take the form of a coalition.
Ours is a large city with lots of churches representing many denominations, with elaborate architecture and ancillary buildings like schools; recently I made this observation: Individuals finance the many temples and maintain them but the investments are not made from pure generosity, something is expected in return. Those that invest need to protect and support their investments. Don\’t we all do that, defend and support what we believe and have faith in? As strange as it seems there is a strong case that we do not, in addition thinking we do may be counter productive.
A paper by Joshua Landy appeared in \”Philosophy and Literature\” (April, 2002) with the title, \”Nietzsche, Proust and Will-To-Ignorance.\” It is related to my thought above. For Nietzsche, \”the will to truth…is merely a form of the will to illusion.\” Landy ads that in N\’s view, \”truth and knowledge are not unconditional goods, that they should not always be pursued, that they should never be pursued for their own sake.\”
The examples from Proust\’s \”Rembrances of Things Past\” are clear-cut: Marcel is both jealous and suspicious of his lover\’s (Albertine\’s) fidelity. He has spies he cant trust, he is aware that Albertine lies, and yet faced with the truth, incriminating letters, he chooses not to see them. He needs to protect his relationship with the girl.
It is possible the Bright movement will fade away on the other hand if it gains strength it may just be a great antidote, a private movement that goes beyond separation of state and religion and provides a forum for all sides to pursue the search for values and change when called for. Joe Mann
Congratualtions on Barney McClelland\’s tedious little article on hip hop\’s destruction of western civilisation. Like most articles of its type it is badly researched and loaded with hysterical generalisations that do not equate with reality. His basis for denouncing a whole art form are meagre and unconvincing: 3 main examples of evil rappers (only two of which are actually professional) without any broader explanation of how the actions of three men mean all rappers behave the same. Just a vague gesture at all the guns and swearing in hip hop advertsing. Remarkably he quotes marketing articles on the advantages 50 Cent\’s (criminal) record has given him, but fails to make the connection to the hip hop\’s guns and girls PR in general: it\’s mostly just hype. Americans have always loved rebels, and hip hop is not the first or the last genre to feed of the mystique of the public enemy. (Rock n\’ roll is probably the prime offender here. And like rock, rap\’s institutionalised rebellion is stale to those who follow it.) P. Diddy, one of the biggest names around at the moment, was born middle class but got rich producing the genre rap McClland attempts to analyse.
Which brings us to the second problem: McClelland doesn\’t bother looking beyond the sub genre of gansta rap. Guns, ho\’s, cars etc are staple elements of this sub-genre, but not of many other types of popular or alternative rap and hip hop (labels such as anticon, mush, ninja tune, big dada, and many others will give him \’bitch\’ free listening, if he could bother.) But he doesn\’t. So, beacuse of this incompetence, the reader has yet again to swallow badly researched and pureile generalisations. Can you imagine an art critic saying \”I saw three crap paintings the other day, therefore all paintings are bad\” (Then again, I have not yet read any of McClelland\’s other articles.)
He quotes academic justification but does not give counter arguments. Presumably he couldn\’t find any.
The argument that an artists\’ personal action invalidate their work is unconvincing. (Think of Wagner. ) McClelland\’s predictable response will be \’R.Kelly isn\’t as good as Wagner.\’ However, comparing 4 minute pop songs to 7 hour opera\’s shows an equal lack of critical thoroughness.
This becomes acute on the issues of sexism: most art of the last 2000 years is sexist, but this does not make it bad art. Should we ban Plato because he regarded women as a subspecies? Does that mean he had nothing to say?
Similar problems occur here:
\”It will surely be remarked my assessment of Tupac Shakur\’s \”poetry\” is unduly harsh and Eurocentric in its focus because I do not believe it stands on the same level with Auden, Eliot and Yeats.\”
It\’s POP music. It\’s not supposed to stand up to any of those. White pop music doesn\’t. It\’s content is equally insipid.
Part of pop music\’s function is to offend – this allows what are a largely trite bunch of rebel myths to perpetuate from one generation to another. Elvis initially shocked and with good reason: Lyrics smothered with innuendo, performed with gyrating and gasping that openly imitated sex on stage. Now he has become a white american idol, revered as pure and healthy.
It\’s perverse, but profitable. Murder and mayhem do make good entertainment in all types and forms. Whatever conclusions you can draw about this reveal more about human nature than one genre full of men in baggy pants.
Finally, the article ends with this self-indulgent attempt to evade criticism:
\”My opinions will be countered with the objection that I am a middle-aged, white male and I simply \”don\’t get it.\” After all, I am part of the \”ongoing hegemonic appropriation\” of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and therefore not entitled to an opinion.\”
Poor Barney, it\’s hard being white.
His opinions are countered because they don\’t meet the criteria any opinion should if it is to convince others. He has not researched his material. He confuses gangsta rap with hip hop in general, and form (the music) with content (lyrics). At basics, hip hop in beats and samples, with voices over the top. Explain to me how this combination of sounds causes murder, please.) Like any good philistine, McClelland enjoy\’s his ignorance. The fact that he and others can trot out such garbage without feeling any burden of proof is a continuing reminder of which race owns more of the media, and the rage at racial and economic inequalities that started hip hop back in the \’70\’s.
I suggest there are two basic models of society: the colligate (hunter-gatherer) and the hierarchical (warrior-raider).
We need both! Hierarchies do best in short-term bullying situations, and give us fabulous palaces and extreme wealth based on \’structural authority\'(from the muzzle of a gun).
Colligate structures do best in longer term, more considered situations. They rely on \’sapiential authority\’ based on scientific method. whilst argument and debate is crap at defending against real enemies, a more considered process is essential to rebut the more extreme imagined enemies (aka perpetual war for perpetual peace.
Politicians are warriors pretending to be hunter-gatherers. Sometimes we have to remind them that they are not really appointed by some divine benediction but elected by us, the fickle electorate.
So has anyone any idea how to dispel the voter apathy and bring some of Gerry\’s \’brights\’ back into the theatre of life?
So A. O. Scott, admirer of \”Eminem\” devotee, is an \”eminent literary critic\”? I suppose that\’s what passes for scholarship these days.
MMR,
Is it not the case, that if 95% of children (as was the case, pre-scare) have had MMR vaccines, the chances of someone developing Autism OUTSIDE the group is very small? Indeed, if the figure was 100%, we could blame everything that happens thereafter on MMR.
It is a bit like the dreaded tomato.
99% of all those who ate tomatoes before 1903 are now dead.
A high proportion of those born between then and 1930 have lost hair colour, some lost all hair.
Between 1930 and 1940 those born have suffered tooth loss!
Need I go on?
Oldal.
re: Paradigms U Like, by Ophelia Benson
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=39
kudos for taking on this issue. I wanted a social constructivist (SC) (one of the longest \”four-letter\” words in the language!) interpreter sitting with me just so I could grill them on things like, \”It is those who oppose relativism, and who grant certain forms of knowledge a privileged status, who pose the real threat to a scientific understanding of knowledge and cognition.\”
The laughable, \”An outpouring of recent studies in every area of the social studies of the sciences forces the recognition that all scientific knowledge is always, in every respect, socially situated\” are simply indicative of this … movement. Really? Things people living in a society do are \”socially situated\”? Whodda thunk it!
Ms. Benson says, \”The result is a kind of happy free for all, in which science and New Age and folk wisdom all mix it up together, with no \’way of knowing\’ privileged over any other, all crafting their paradigms as they like.\” That\’s practically proof-positive of free will! I\’ve got news for the SCs: I don\’t particularly CARE what you believe, now that you\’ve made your point(s). And, this is SO un-PC of me, I don\’t feel any particular compunction not RESPECTING what you think and say, if that\’s all you\’ve got.
But I\’m not on the frontlines. I\’ll do my level best to keep rationalism on the radar in all the little ways I can. Think globally, act locally.
While Ms. Benson might argue that this \”idea licenses a magic, instant egalitarianism, one free of struggle or conflict, that is just spoken into being,\” I don\’t think it\’s quite that simple. True the SCs might like to interrogate \’the \”is\” in terms of the \”ought,\”\’ but that doesn\’t change the \”is,\” and I suspect has little bearing on the \”future \’is\’.\” If it did, well, I reckon I could plug a crystal (procured at the finest New Age shoppe, of course) into my car and power it that way, rather than on gasoline.
As far as the \”hard work of examining evidence\” goes, why should that phase the SCs. That kind of hard work is only relevant to \”scientific\” knowledge (side note to the NPR commentator who used the phrase, \”big \’S\’ science,\” on Dec. 17, 2003, I got news for you pal, there ain\’t no such thing, except perhaps in the twisted minds of the SCs and those they\’ve managed to cloud. Don\’t confuse how big \’B\’ business uses science and related technologies with the practice of science).
\”Revelation\” may seem like some seriously mystical shit, but it\’s just your brain, people! If you can\’t substantiate it in reality (and thus produce knowledge, with all its inherent limitations), all you\’ve got is vaporware. I don\’t mean to play down the importance of imagination (remember Einstein) or mediatation (remember his pal Krishnamurti; quotes provided on request), as they are both powerful tools. But science as a practice, as the method into which we\’ve managed to craft it, is a self-admittedly closed system. Not that it\’s an exclusive system, as anyone willing to adhere to the scientific method and produce testable hypotheses may particiapte, but it is limited to an exploration of the physical. It may be the case that all there is is part of a physical system, but we\’re unlikely to ever find that out. So science plods along, figuring out the principles of how the system in which we live, called the universe, works. That\’s the only claim it can make, but it\’s enough. You want fairies, head for the hills or desert, fast for a while, chew some funky root or pop a funky mushroom, and you\’re likely to get what you came for.
I suspect the SCs came to a painful realization: we ain\’t got shit, folks [if all they have is \”all scientific knowledge is always, in every respect, socially situated\” and that\’s the only \’serious\’ statement I\’ve read so far]. So, in the interest of job security they turned to that age-old human trick: obfuscation. \”No more absolutes\” must be their battle cry! ;-)
This is all just fun for me, but the real world consequences of people with power adopting this way of thinking (as Krishnamurti so wisely noted about thought: it is a fragmentary view of Truth; fortunately, science deals with particulars, from which it derives principles) are not to be taken lightly. Please, all you truly (and I DO mean that ;-) intelligent folks, keep up the fight.
glad to see someone pointing out the crass idiocy of this suggested use of \’bright\’. Announcing to others that one is a bright could only be done by someone with a tin ear and no sense of irony. How pompous! How smug! Any self respecting teenager would immediately joins the dims.
All pretty ironic. The science studies crowd have their universalistic claims about the partiality of knowledge challenged by Nanda. Nanda, on the other hand, defends the universality of science without seriously asking what failures of the science-technology complex led to the critique.
Perhaps it\’s time for a little dialectical thinking?
Re: \”If I had a Hammer…\” by Steven Gimbel
\”Is it difficult? Is it daring? Or is it just pretentious and empty and circular.\”
So reads Ophelia Benson\’s \”Bad Writing\” article summary found on the cover page of B&W. And, I would agree with her thesis, to wit, that most bad writing is indeed pretentious and empty and circular.
So I was dismayed to see Steven Gimbel\’s article \”If I had a Hammer:…\” appearing on B&W recently.
The article fulfills every criterion associated with bad writing Ms. Benson alerts us to in her commentary, but it goes way beyond simply being bad and pretentious.
Indeed, it qualifies as an assault on English prose of whatever genre one would care to name. It enters the realm of literary terrorism in its preposterousness. Worst of all, the article in excrutiatingly long to the point of numbness.
Naturally, I can\’t go into an analysis here, but I don\’t see how anyone could read beyond the first page, indeed beyond the first paragraph of this embarrassing screed, without being reminded of the type and quality of essay one was forced to write as a high school freshman in an attempt to win over the teacher with one\’s \”maturity\” and \”insight\”.
At first, I thought the article had been included in this site as some kind of joke…..but I see it was posted in deadly earnest. The amazing thing is that the author, I assume, actually got paid by someone to bare his soul in this fashion.
Still, the author is a philosopher, not a writer, so we shouldn\’t expect much along literary lines. After all, Socrates himself never wrote anything.
Alo Kievalar
David Stanway\’s article is an interesting and useful analysis. As I’m sure he would agree ,there are many other implications with respect to China and its contradictory belief systems, and their possible evolutions. Putative rising living standards for millions of Chinese rural poor must coincide with steady economic expansion. With that expansion – which includes the continued development of a stable middle class – must come more energy. China will need exponential amounts of fuel to generate power for its new and expanding conurbations, its new cars and white goods production, its technology leaps, as well as funding hospitals and education etc. If that fuel is not available within China – and that is a highly debatable question – it must be sought without via economic means, or other, political means. The nearest sites of oil reservations are in the cash-starved former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan. Conflicts of interest could have military implications as well as geopolitical ones. A historical example would be Japanese expansion a few decades after the end of the Tokugawa period. We should remember that in that case, religious fanaticism and political repression were also present in abundance.