The glorious transfigured future
Let’s see Fish and Eagleton – or should I adopt the latter’s sophisticated witticism and call them Eaglefish? – sneer at progress, liberalism and enlightenment in the context of Delara Derabi’s last minutes, and her parents’ experience of her last minutes. First some Eaglefish sneering –
Progress, liberalism and enlightenment — these are the watchwords of those, like Hitchens, who believe that in a modern world, religion has nothing to offer us…[W]e are where we always were, confronted with a choice between a flawed but aspiring religious faith or a spectacularly hubristic faith in the power of unaided reason and a progress that has no content but, like the capitalism it reflects and extends, just makes its valueless way into every nook and cranny.
And then a few minutes in a world where contempt for progress, liberalism and enlightenment is not just a selfish smug I’m all right Jack trope among male literary critics in Florida and Lancashire but the real thing. Let’s see how funny the joke seems in Tehran.
It was 7am when Delara Darabi phoned home. “Oh mother, I see the hangman’s noose in front of me,” she garbled. “They are going to execute me. Please save me.” Moments later a prison official snatched the handset away. “We will easily execute your daughter and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he barked at the parents. Then, with a chilling click, the line went dead. The desperate couple rushed to the Central Prison in Rasht, Iran, wailing at the guards to let them see their 22-year-old. As they prostrated themselves, an ambulance emerged, most probably with Delara’s corpse inside.
There you are – will that do? Is that sufficiently without progress, liberalism and enlightenment? Is that what Feagleton wants? Is that their idea of an excitingly post-enlightenment world rich with ‘flawed but aspiring religious faith’? Is it part of their bill of indictment against atheism that there’s not enough of that kind of thing?
Yes, pretty much. Eagleton at least is pretty explicit about it.
For Eagleton the choice is obvious, although he does not have complete faith in the faith he prefers. “There are no guarantees,” he concedes that a “transfigured future will ever be born.” But we can be sure that it will never be born, he says in his last sentence, “if liberal dogmatists, doctrinaire flag-wavers for Progress, and Islamophobic intellectuals . . . continue to stand in its way.”
But Tel, your transfigured future has already been born; it’s in Tehran, it’s in Kandahar, it’s in Mingora. All those pesky liberal dogmatists, doctrinaire flag-wavers for Progress, and Islamophobic intellectuals haven’t been able to stop it. What are you complaining about?
It is truly sickening, Ophelia. I felt it when I first read it. I will not read it again. These men shame themselves. Send them to Swat! (The secular equivalent of ‘Damn them to hell!’)
However, the chilling thought occurs. Perhaps they really do think that is the transfigured future!
The “transfigured future”… what the hell does that even mean?
They’re hypocrites who rail at progress while enjoying its fruits.
It strikes me that you could just as easily reverse what Fish is saying in the first paragraph “we are where we always were, confronted with a choice between a flawed but aspiring belief in the power of reason and progress, or a spectacularly hubristic belief in the power of unaided religious faith”
It’s a simple rhetorical trick – associate something bad (hubris) with what you are against, and something good (aspiration) with what you are in favour – and hope that your readers are not switched on enough to notice what you have done.
“But Tel, your transfigured future has already been born”
‘Something is happening, Reg! Something is actually happening!’
Ahhhhh well spotted, patrick – it’s another one of those irregular verbs, or rather, irregular predicates – I am flawed but aspiring, you are over-ambitious, they are spectacularly hubristic.
Woot – Isn’t ‘transfigured’ just a very pretentious way of saying ‘changed’?
Of course, if he’d just used the word ‘changed’ that might have begged the question ‘into what?’ which he doesn’t answer…
Patrick -Either he’s being very pretentious as you said, or he’s being very Christian, what with transfiguration referring to the acquisition of divine characteristics. So there are two options: pretentiousness or religious madness. So basically we have to liquidate all us liberal, secular, rational types to realize the sublime future promised by Eaglefish’s god. Delightful.
That’s utterly hideous of Eagleton, and Delara’s story is heart-rending.
However, that particular barbarity and contempt for liberal ideals is almost as prevalent in the U.S., which also executes people for crimes committed as minors. Not in secret–but that is also illegal in Iran, and aberrant as well. And Iran has many influential rights groups protesting this. Per the article, the authorities might have secretly rushed the execution out of fear that these rights groups would stop it. I mention this because I think there’s a lot of hope for Iran’s political, and it does get portrayed unfairly in the American media quite a bit. Tehran is nowhere near Kandahar as far as rights go.
Which does not, needless to say, take away from the horror of this young woman’s death one iota.
Eagleton will never have to suffer because of a lack of liberal ideals, So of course he can be scornful of them.
The US has a shitty record on executing minors – and minorities and retarded people and people who didn’t commit the crime etc etc – but even in the US, even in Texas, I don’t think anyone would ignore a court ordered delay and carry out a flatly illegal execution.
Bush did laugh at Tanya Faye Tucker in much the same way the official taunted Darabi’s parents though.
Wasn’t it *Karla* Faye Tucker? Yes, I remember the report on him mocking her pleas.
Probably. My memory…