Rude women
Speaking of Katha Pollitt – she made an interesting comment on the Women’s Studies list yesterday, one which is partly relevant to all this stuff about respect and worry.
Actually I think powerful women make many women quite uncomfortable.
Just look at what women say about Hillary Clinton — she’s
‘ambitious,’ “cold,” “I just don’t like her,’ etc. I’m not saying a
feminist has to vote for Hillary, but the kinds of things so many
women hold against her are quite revealing of their own discomfort
with a woman who steps out of the nice-nice nurturing deferential role.
That comment inspired me to reply, in a way also relevant to all this stuff.
Ain’t it the truth. Which is why some of us feel a kind of duty to be abrasive, brisk, chilly, sarcastic, even at times hostile and aggressive. We have to stake out that territory.
I’m serious about that. I think there aren’t nearly enough women around who step out of the nice-nice nurturing deferential role. Mind you, I would be abrasive and hostile even if there were, even if there were no such discomfort, even if I didn’t feel a kind of duty, because it is My Nature. But the fact remains that I think it is a kind of duty. I’m a longstanding fan of Pollitt’s because she is not nice-nice nurturing deferential, and I wish there were more women like her.
I got an enthusiastic reply and a new fan of B&W via that comment, so there are a few of us chilly sarcastic women out there. We do what we can…
But do let’s take into account what Katha Pollitt wrote here: (as I just said in another comment). My views as expressed here in the last couple of days exactly agree with hers.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071203/pollitt
I think the “ambitious” sneer is particularly ridiculous: she’s going for the most important, powerful, prestigious job on the planet. So are Obama, McCain, Huckabee, Nader et al.
A (serious) US presidential candidate is by definition the height of ambition. But it seems only women get criticised for this sort of thing.
And – correct me if I’m wrong – it’s women on the (relative) left rather than on the right that get the most stick, very often from other women, for being ‘unwomanly’. Did Thatcher get this sort of crap?
No, what Pollitt says there does not agree exactly what you’ve been saying here. She doesn’t say a word about “respecting” everyone. There is overlap, yes, but exact agreement, no.
The closest is: “Still, it’s probably the case that once you’ve described yourself as a nonbeliever, believers aren’t going to take your view of their faith too seriously: you’ve written yourself out of the story. This would be true even if you had an encyclopedic grasp of your religion, which Hirsi Ali does not.”
She’s stating a fact, but she’s not rebuking Hirsi Ali, whom she admires (despite the AEI affiliation).
In the column I linked to above, KP chastises the new atheists for their “scorn”–her word. In fact, she seems to mock the “ferocious Sam Harris-style atheist who thinks religion is completely stupid.” The problem, she says, is that this doesn’t convince religious people and doesn’t do justice to liberal forms of religion. So what’s she recommending, if she’s against scorn? I would think it’s pretty much what I’m recommending. Looking for common ground, keeping esteem intact. That’s what most people call “respect”–a word that’s elastic enough to cover all sorts of things.
She’s not chastising the “new” atheists; she’s pointing out that they won’t convert believers. If she chastises anyone, it’s Ian Buruma for calling Hirsi Ali an Enlightenment fundamentalist.
But at least you’ve said what you’re recommending. “Looking for common ground, keeping esteem intact.” In all books? So you really are arguing that there should be no polemical books, no “strident” (your word) books?
I don’t want to keep esteem intact. There are people and ideas and systems and laws and institutions with which I have no desire to find common ground or keep esteem intact. My recommendation is to know who is never going to be cuddly and nice no matter how conciliatory the rest of us are.
I do think she chastises Sam Harris–and very plainly so, in the first couple of sentences. She does chastise him because to her it is important to affect believers. Maybe not convert them, but move the very conservative ones into the moderate column. Part of her essay is about scorn for moderate religion, which (the scorn) she also disapproves of.
To my mind there’s no particular reason to go after religion, except for the harm it does. I really don’t care if people believe 70 virgins will be waiting for them when they die. I care if they’re going to kill people to get to the virgins.
And so the issue of how to talk effectively to religious people strikes me as extremely important. Do I want a world with no scornful, outrageous, anti-religions books. Well, but that would be taking away one of my guilty pleasures. Guilty because I worry they are counterproductive.
Here’s the most positive thing I can say about all the scornful books. Maybe they do liberate and embolden skeptical types. The scornful books preach to the choir, but then the choir goes off to spread the word. And maybe some of these people are good at communicating effectively with believers.
Jean
Again, I think things are a bit more complicated than you’re allowing for here (even though I have a fair amount of sympathy with your view).
Take the example of Karen Armstrong’s books. I think she whitewashes Islam. In her efforts to redress what she sees as the West’s intolerance of Islam, her critical faculties go on holiday, her treatment of the Qur’an, Hadith, etc., is tendentious, etc. (And I could give you a fairly detailed argument to this effect – but it’ll have to wait until Does God Hate Women is published!)
Okay, so leaving aside the ethical issues to do with getting things right, there are (at least) two possible responses to this kind of thing:
a) It’s possible to argue that Karen Armstrong is helping to make the world a better place because she’s building bridges, trying to foster mutual understanding, trying to defuse tensions, etc.
Or:
b) It’s possible to argue that Armstrong’s approach is dangerous because it blinds the West to the reality of Islam. So, for example, if you buy into something like the clash of civilisation argument, then part of what is depressing about what’s going on in Western countries is that there are too many concessions to Islam. The whole point here, of course, is the belief that Islam has a pronounced tendency to intolerance, etc.
Okay, so if you think that something like the 2nd thing is true then the value of a more robust approach isn’t simply that it acts as a rallying call to the committed, it’s also that it acts as a warning to the people who are non-committed.
If it is the case that some values are simply incommensurate, and you’re facing a situation where incommensurate values are beginning to knock into each other, then it might be that you’re just going to have to take sides. And part of what it means to take sides is to attempt to marshal the non-committed to your own side. In such a situation, your best bet isn’t necessarily to try to show the humanity in the other person’s perspective (not least because there will be aspects of their worldview that you’ll judge to be fairly abhorrent), or to foster esteem. Your best bet might be to try to show that their views or the implications of their views are just as terrible as you believe.
The more general point is the point I made before. You need to re-couch your position – he says, with the utmost respect! – so that fostering esteem, etc., is part of the moral calculus. Not so that it is the moral calculus (which I’m not sure you think anyway). (Of course I won’t need to say that this kind of argument works whether or not you think the clash of civilization argument is correct. The point here isn’t the particular example. It’s the principle that a proper moral calculus about this kind of thing is going to be complicated.)
Bravo to women who speak their minds plainly. The stereotype dies when enough women kill it.
As for “new” atheists, can someone cite me the passage in Dawkins, Hitchens, or Harris that comes close to the harshness or shrillness of “you will burn in hell forever if you don’t change your mind/your ways” — with or without the almost as commonplace proviso, “I will take glee in your endless sufferings from my comfortable perch in heaven”?
Christians and Muslims, “new” and “old,” are pretty harsh. And yet they reach wide audiences, sell books, get high political offices, even. Maybe there’s a lesson there that being conciliatory and ‘respectful’ isn’t quite so essential.
“Shoot the women first.
Any female terrorist operative has had to work ten times as hard as her male counterparts to be accepted in their organisation. She will be more able, will react quicker, and will generally be much more dangerous.
Kill her first”
Herr Major Starr. Preacher, War in The Sun
Disclaimer: I am not in any way advocating the shooting of Baroness T. It’s far too late for that!
Jeremy,
I haven’t read Karen Armstrong on Islam because I doubt she’s reliable. I don’t think she’s ever met a religion she didn’t like, which is interesting since she’s not religious herself. (Her book “The Spiral Staircase” is about how she lost her own religion, and it’s delightful.)
Reaching the uncommitted–I see your point. I suppose I don’t worry about these uncommitted people because they’re less likely to do crazy things in the name of religion.
The folks I worry about are the very committed conservative Christians that have been in the majority in the US for the last 7+ years…and their counterparts in other places. I know a lot of people like this, and there’s no way they’re reading Sam Harris. They would read Karen Armstrong though. I think that might do them some good, even if she’s inaccurate. They’re already prone to demonizing Islam,and every other non-Christian religion, so a dose of Karen Armstrong could be just what the doctor ordered, even if she’s not utterly reliable.
I haven’t meant to suggest that respect is some kind of absolute value. It just strikes me as important, both intrinsically and for many purposes of persuasion. Surely not all purposes of persuasion–I’ll buy that.
But supposing the Christian right are correct to “demonise” Islam?
That’s part of the point here. Any decision about appropriate strategy and tactics (in terms of our style of writing) is necessarily going to refer back to the wider view that we have about the terrain.
If we’re right to “demonise” Islam – and certainly in this regard I can cite you a raft of very disturbing polling data – then we don’t want Karen Armstrong muddying the waters.
I’m sure you get the point. I mean suppose it were some extreme right-wing group we were talking about. We wouldn’t want a Karen Armstrong figure to come along then with a softly, softly approach.
So again the point is just that there is a moral calculus. It’s complex. There is a moral compulsion to add thoughts about the humanity of our interlocutors, adversaries and audience into the mix. But I think that’s about as far as we can go with the principle. Apart from that it’s just the business of thinking through the various ethical issues (which sometimes will partly be about tactics and strategy).
Jean It is not right wing christians that would fly an aeroplane into your office block or self explode on the tube,I think it makes more sence for liberals to make common cause with r.w.c on the isue of radical islam because our enemies enemy should be our friend. The reason that a lot of women (including my wife)think Hillary Clinton is cold ambitious and un likeable is because she is cold ambitious and unlikeable as well as dishonest and mean!
So let me get this right, Richard. The people who drove the US into invading Iraq thereby fuelling Islamic outrage, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians and an increase in terrorism across the world are “our” friends?
If that’s the case please exclude me from “our”.
“It is not right wing christians that would fly an aeroplane into your office block or self explode on the tube”
Nah, they might just shoot an abortion doctor though.
Oh my, Richard opinionated all over himself again. Somebody clean him up, please!
Jeremy, I agree that you that a lot of things need to be considered when people decide whether to write respectfully or not. I write stuff about the genocide in Darfur for a newsletter. People need to know the brutal facts. That’s what makes them make phone calls and donations. I don’t aim to humanize the Janjaweed, as the militias are called.
Talking to conservative Christians about Islam…well, there I think the audience already demonizes too much, so humanizing is the way to go. It’s important because the demonizing makes people feel justified about Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, torturing prisoners, etc.
Karen Armstrong is someone I think these people will read. She’s good for remedying the “axis of evil” mentality. I wouldn’t want researchers at the State Department to be relying on what she says.
Jean
“there I think the audience already demonizes too much, so humanizing is the way to go.”
Sure but in a sense that’s not the issue.
If you accept that a moral calculus could require that you tell people about “the brutal facts” and that there are instances where you don’t want to humanise people’s actions, etc.
Then you must concede that a Conservative Christian might well be acting consistently with the principle that “a lot of things need to be considered when people decide whether to write respectfully or not”, might in their own terms – and indeed in terms you’d recognise – be acting perfectly morally, when they attack Islam. The point being, of course, that they see the whole terrain differently than you do.
If that’s the case, the focus of the argument (in determining whether their behaviour is justified) shifts from what all sides agree is a moral principle (that there is a moral compulsion to add thoughts about the humanity of our interlocutors, adversaries and audience to the moral calculus) to a discussion of the nature of the terrain.
In other word, if I disagree with you about the nature of Islam, I can quite consistently agree with you about the importance of people’s humanity, but come to a radically different conclusion about what’s justified in terms of strategy and tactics.
Indeed, I suspect that would be precisely the position we’d find ourselves in (I think the actions in Iraq, Afghanistan are justified, for example).
I think we’re in agreement. I brought up the Darfur example precisely to say that respect will take higher and lower priority depending on the topic and the audience and all sorts of other things. It would be silly to attach some kind of absolute value to it.
I am definitely making all sorts of factual assumptions when I say that the very respectful Karen Armstrong is salutary reading for conservative Christians. So now I know not to assume those assumptions are shared. Interesting (she said with utmost respect).
Whoops, I said I was going to stop commenting (on another thread), what with getting deleted too much. And now I really will. Besides, I have a rally to get ready for. Hillary’s in Dallas! Hurray for strong women.
Thanks, Jeremy for putting the cards on the table. We’ve been arguing for several days about “respect” when our real differences are about the threat of Islam and about the wisdom of U.S. (and also U.K. and Israeli) military interventions in the Middle East. I respect your frankness.
As I said on that other thread: there’s some misunderstanding about deleted comments; Jean thought I deleted a comment there, but I didn’t.
Never mind the whoops just above. My bad, as they say in elementary school. I got some threads mixed up.
Whew. Glad we got that straight anyway!
Too many threads. I’m deeply confused. That’ll teach me to type before making cappucino.
There are a lot of threads, aren’t there. I’m like a dog with a bone. I think I’ll talk about something else now…
“our real differences are about the threat of Islam and about the wisdom of U.S. (and also U.K. and Israeli) military interventions in the Middle East.”
That wasn’t really my point; and it isn’t my view. After all, OB and Jean seem to disagree about the issue of “respect”, but I’d guess that neither of them particularly support military intervention in the Middle East, etc.
My point is just that this stuff is about a complex moral calculus. And that therefore it is possible to agree about parts of this moral calculus – i.e., that it is important to factor in thoughts about common humanity, esteem, etc (and I mean thoughts, as opposed to any particular thoughts) – and come to radically different conclusions about the justification of certain kinds of writing (because of genuinely held differences about the nature of the particular terrain under consideration).
Jeremy: OB and Jean certain disagree about respect, perhaps neither of them supports the current US-UK military intervention in the Middle East (as you say that you do), but my impression is that there are real differences between OB and Jean about the threat that Islam poses. Those differences, what you call genuinely held differences about the nature of the terrain, lead them to what you call radically different conclusions about the justification of certain kinds of writing. They, OB and Jean, also seem to have genuinely held differences about whether religion in general plays a positive role in contemporary society. I realize that you are trying to make a more general statement than I am, about what you call the moral calculus and its role in our decision making processes. I actually am merely applying your general statement to the particular case of the debate in question.
“As I said on that other thread: there’s some misunderstanding about deleted comments; Jean thought I deleted a comment there, but I didn’t.”
Wouldn’t be the first time though, would it?
That Jean thought I had deleted a comment when I hadn’t? Yes, it would.
So Chris islamic outrage is fueled by Iraq how come 19 rather ticked moslems flew planes into buildings before Iraq was even a glint in G.W.B.s eye then? Good on you Jery for supporting the just war.
G.T If Hillary Clinton looses the nomination to Obama it will not be she is female it will be because Obama,s campain looks forward whereas Hillary,s campain just looks back to her husbands lack lustre, scandal ridden administration and promises more of the same!
Richard
If you think that it took 9/11 to get the Bush entourage interested in invading Iraq you haven’t been concentrating hard enough.
So because Bush was thinking about invading Iraq that made moslems angry enough to carry out 9/11? I thought 9/11 had been planed 10 years or so prior to its execution long before Bush was even president?
Chris never said invading Iraq caused 9/11, or any particular act. He said it’s made things worse in terms of some Muslim’s anger at the US. It certainly hasn’t helped.
What has getting the extremist Muslims responsible for carrying out 9/11, and related groups like the Teleban, got to do with invading Iraq? (Afghanistan, yes, but Iraq?)
“Chris never said invading Iraq caused 9/11”
He didn’t, but if you look at Chris’s 11.34am post in the context of Richard’s 6.54 post, you can see why Richard thought that might be what he was suggesting.
Anyway Richard is right about this. Chris’s thesis is: (a) devoid of any kind of counterfactual thinking; (b) intellectually lazy; and (c) politically complacent.
Jerry is absoloutly right about Chris,s thinking on this isue,radical islam is no different that any other hate filled ideaolgy that has come before it,there is nothing other than outright capitulation from us that will placate it, so it must be confronted while we still have the advantage otherwise we may have to deal with it when the outcome is less certain.
As for moslem outrage I think it is more likely fueled by jealocy rather than G.W.B, the way radical moslems see the world is that they are the devout ones but it is the infidel west that has all the wealth,power and influence in the world,ditto for hatred of Israel.
Well at least I got Jerry and richard to agree about something, even if it’s only how useless I am!
I’m still not clear how cozying up to the right wing Xtians is going to help anything though, so my lack of counter-factual wotsits is obviously more serious than I thought.
“cozying up to the right wing Xtians is going to help anything though”
That’s not the bit I objected to!
Chris it is quite simple right wing christians are very vocal oponents of radical islam therefore it is sensible for liberals to stand with them on this isue. I think you are thinking of G. who I often diagree with, I never disagree with Jerry on this isue because he is always 100 percent right.
1) I can’t spell ‘Taliban’. Wah.
2) Chris said: “cozying up to the right wing Xtians is going to help anything though”
To which Jerry said: “That’s not the bit I objected to!”
Then Richard said: “I never disagree with Jerry on this isue because he is always 100 percent right”
I’m confused. Jerry, do you agree with Richard that we should cozy RW Xtians?
Sorry I never diagree with Jerry on the war or radical islam I dont know Jerry,s position on making common cause with right wing christians, I hope that clears up some of your confusion Steve.
Yes, thanks.
That’s weird, though, because it was your comment about “cozying up” to RW Christians that was the point Chris was refuting:
“It is not right wing christians that would fly an aeroplane into your office block or self explode on the tube, I think it makes more sence for liberals to make common cause with r.w.c on the isue of radical islam because our enemies enemy should be our friend.”
Chris, rightly, disagreed with this, and in doing so pointed out that Iraq has been counterproductive in terms of dealing with Islamic extremism. To which you made the non-sequitur about Iraq not causing 9/11. Oh well.
Steve Just because facist moslems hate us a little more since Iraq does not mean that the Iraq war was counter productive, these guys will hate us whatever we do!Chris seems to feel the need to place the blame for their hatred on us and that is what Jerry was commenting on when he said Chris,s thinking was lazy ect.
The Iraq venture is counterproductive because it has taken the focus away from Afghanistan, where the US’s military might can meaningfully be used in for good in the war against Islamic fascists, and because it has provided yet further “evidence for the prosecution”, so to speak, in the Islamic extremists recruitment drives.
I shouldn’t continue to speak for Chris, but I doubt he was saying the blame for Islamic fascism was to be laid at our feat – just that the Iraq venture (which RW Xtians broadly supported) hasn’t helped.
Steve
i’m still trying to work out how Jerry agreeing that Richard probably misread what I wrote but understandably so makes ME intellectually lazy.