Superficial respect
Stanley Fish is at the old stand. (Thanks to Christopher Moyer for the link.) Liberalism, secularism, universalism – he hates’em.
“Liberal principles,” declares Milbank, “will always ensure that the rights of the individual override those of the group.” For this reason, he concludes, “liberalism cannot defend corporate religious freedom.” The neutrality liberalism proclaims “is itself entirely secular” (it brackets belief; that’s what it means by neutrality) and is therefore “unable to accord the religious perspective [the] equal protection” it rhetorically promises. Religious rights “can only be effectively defended pursuant to a specific and distinctly religious framework.” Liberal universalism, with its superficial respect for everyone (as long as everyone is superficial) and its deep respect for no one, can’t do it.
So Fish equates “deep respect” with respect for the rights of the group (or rather the “rights” of the group, since in fact groups don’t have rights, because rights are linked to personhood) at the expense of individual people, and “superficial respect” with respecting the rights of individual people and thereby requiring everyone to be superficial. Fish thinks respect for groups at the expense of individuals is deep and respect for individuals at the expense of groups is superficial. Well – he’s a prosperous straight white guy, and maybe he just doesn’t have the imagination to understand what it would be like to be subject to the authority of clerical bullies.
The word ‘respect’ has nothing to do with rights. If you look into the various bill of rights that seem to spring up, the word respect is supposed to be shown by the state for individual rights. But for some reason, the ‘respect’ rhetoric has gone bonkers and formed the politically correct paralysis where no one can criticise anything for fear of offense. This is the crackers revisionism of liberalism and natural rights, with the absurd social rights and beyond. This means that now everything is reversed, liberalism has become it’s opposite in the name of appeasement for theocratic fascism.
What we need to do is to expose the pseudo-liberals as ‘not liberals’ especially those who shut down criticism and preach ‘respect’ for they are not liberals!
I am glad to see Fish standing up for the deepness of religion. Perhaps in his next essay he will present some evidence in support of the deep truths of religious thought that are unobtainable by secular means.
Or maybe he’ll just offer up another steaming pile of deepities.
OK, I am not an expert here, but maybe someone can answer these questions for me or show me where my thinking is wrong.
“Must a devout Muslim (or orthodox Jew or fundamentalist Christian) choose between his or her faith and the letter of the law of the land?”
urr…Yes.
“as Ann Black explains, “Muslims do not conceptualize Islam in terms of the Westernized sociological categorization of religion which places the individual at the centre of all analyses.””
How come Black can talk about ‘Muslims’ as a group when making assertions like this, but to assert something like ‘Muslims conceptualize all people as being subject to the ultimate surrender of their selves to Allah, with Mohammad as his profit and the Koran as the infallible set of rules.’ is not ok?
“liberalism cannot defend corporate religious freedom”
There is no such thing as corporate religious freedom is there?
Damned straight.
And then there’s Fish’s delusion that all the religions will get on just fine and “respect” each other if the liberals will just get out of their way. I can’t believe a guy this blinkered is even allowed to teach, let alone write for the NYT. Christianity and Islam are triumphalist religions; they think they have the final truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The only reason some forget this about Christianity is that we have pulled its claws over the past three hundred years at great effort and expense. Given the means to do so, the two would be at each others throat in a heartbeat, and at a good many other throats as well. Religion is well tempered only under the boot of secularism. Without that, all pretenses of tolerance will vanish.
I cannot find a way to get worked up about either Terry Eagleton or Stanley Fish anymore. They don’t actually seem to be saying anything concrete, or valuable.
Agreed, Hitch. Paying attention to the puling prattle produced by these privileged, pretentious panjandrums of postmodern poppycock produces no payoff. They are, in a word, prats. I can imagine putting time and energy into lots of fairly pointless activities — such as devising elaborate alliterative insults aimed at pseudo-scholars who have earned my disdain — but I can no longer imagine wasting my time reading anything Stanley Fish or Terry Eagleton has to say about anything whatsoever. If they were blog commenters, they wouldn’t get past the ideal spam filter.
I tend to agree with Hitch, G Felis: Stanley Fish does not write very well (which means he doesn’t think well) and so I can’t be sure what he is saying. I read OB’s link to the NYT and I couldn’t get it.
As far as I can tell, he’s saying we can muddle through:
I don’t find this offensive. I’m not aware of a consensus on the hijab/niqab debate, even in my own mind. That’s not to say that this piece deserves to be taken seriously. It’s average op-ed oatmeal, mealy-mouthed and muddled but arguably palatable.
Of course the real problem is that the NYT hired Fish in the first place.
Ah, another outburst from the Feagletish: solid evidence for a compulsory retirement-age for academics if ever there was one…
Fish quotes Milbank as saying that “religious rights ‘can only be effectively defended pursuant to a specific and distinctly religious framework.’” If this is so, why is religious freedom the greatest, and inter-denominational conflict the least frequent and the least violent, in the nation that has the world’s most secular constitution and bill of rights, where god is not mentioned in those documents [execept the reference to “the year of our Lord” — 1787 — in the date line], and where (at least normatively) a mutual “hands-off” arrangement exists between government and religious institutions?Does Fish agree with Milbank? About all of this? Well, all that Fish explicitly says in this latest essay is that he thinks Milbank is right that there is a “conflict between secular and religious imperatives” that can’t be resolved at the level of theory (whatever “at the level of theory” means).
Does Fish agree with Milbank that liberal [secular] universalism can’t defend religious rights? It’s part of Fish’s standard tactics to never say whether he agrees or disagrees completely with the people he quotes. It’s all part of his role-playing as law professor and provocateur, and I find it frustrating. I went through 3 years of that sort of gamesmanship in law school, 30+ years ago, and that was enough. And because Fish also engages in gratuitous atheist-bashing at every opportunity, I don’t seek out his op-pieces anymore (I took the bait this time when a regular at another on-line non-beliver forum provided a link and a tantalizing excerpt).
Btw, if you want to read something truly bizarre take a look at
http://crosscut.com/2010/10/27/religion/20296/Pride-is-at-center-of-today-s–atheistic–culture/
You know I rarely if ever get involved with this whole religion/atheism issue. Just not my thing and I have avoided it.
But those remarks of (in the link) are just fantasy and find what Havel (is supposed to have) said rather aggravating.
“Group rights” are individual oppression. If some individuals wish to oppress others as part of their identification as part of a group, that isn’t freedom for the group, it’s oppression for the individual. There is no way of squaring this circle. In fact the best defence of the freedom of individuals who identify as part of a group to identify as part of that group is to protect their individual right to do so.
I despair at anyone unable to hold this thought in their clever little head while addressing the public.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Superficial respect http://dlvr.it/7bMWG […]
It seems pretty obvious, based on a lot that is being said in the popular media lately, that the liberal consensus is, under pressure from religious interests, in the process of breaking down. It has, mainly, to do with the intransigence of Islam, and its repeated claim that it has a right to live under its own laws, even in countries where the principle of equality under law obtains. If respect for religious community depends upon acceptance of different legal regimes for different religious communities, and if respect for religious community is an essential part of acceptable political settlement, then the whole liberal experiment is at an end.
Clearly, Fish has no idea of what he is talking about. Milbank is a broken reed. He has this wonderful way of writiing in a grand generalising way, stringing quotes together to prove that religion and sociality are somehow coextensive, but all it amounts to in practice is an attempt to destroy liberalism in favour of conservative forms of religious social dominance.
Religions, as I have said before on B&W, does not respect boundaries, and it will push at the boundaries until they break, if they can. Given that Sharia law is an integral aspect of jihad, and jihad is part of traditional Islam’s world outlook (the idea that there is a separate, extreme form of Islam, is a dream, in my view: Islam and Islamism are identical), where all lands not part of the dar-al-Islam, are legitimate targets for jihad and assimilation to the the lands of Islam, it seems clear that any inroads that Sharia makes in the West will be at the expense of the freedoms that have been fought for over centuries.
Islam is not going to back down, and it will take every opportunity to cause the breakdown of the system of Western freedoms. The process is now well advanced, and dhimmitude is becoming second nature to the Western chattering classes. This is clear in Fish’s analysis. In my view it’s time to push back, and to suggest to Muslims that, if they wish to take up resident in the West, then they must respect the culture of the West, and its freedoms. The only way this will happen is if we begin to lay down the law regarding the limits of religious expression that can be tolerated by liberal society. So far, Islam acknowledges no boundaries in this respect. I think it’s time that these freedoms be imposed as a matter of urgent necessity. Those who think that imposing boundaries is anti-liberal should remember that liberal freedoms are not robust, and can be easily undermined. All it takes is religion, any religion which is prepared stolidly to stand firm on its principles. Islam is the most dangerous in this respect, with Roman Catholicism running a close second. Don’t think that Iran can’t happen here. It will, if we are not watchful.
Gosh, how jaded does one have to be not to get irritated by Fish or Eagleton? A lot more jaded than I am, fer sher.
They’re both Names. They both get attention. They both have access to Major Media. They’re both academics, who talk (different brands of) pure bullshit. They’re worth a quick blog post, at least.
Moreover, it’s past time to put to bed the canard that this view is inherently “right-wing,” “Tea-Partyish,” or “racist.” Political conservatives believe that killing your neighbor on a whim is wrong. Political liberals need not therefore automatically support whim-neighbor-killings, in protest. Erosion of Western liberal freedoms threatens the liberty of everyone who now lives under them, local political disagreements notwithstanding.
I’ll just reiterate my (not terribly uncommon) opinion of Stanley Fish: If you want to learn about the finer points of Milton’s Paradise Lost, he’s your guy. If you’re looking for thoughtful insight into ANY other subject, go elsewhere.
I thought it was a prerequisite for writing for the NYT.
The important thing is that Fish is making the world safe for Scientology.
The concept of interpretive communities is useful too. Otherwise, he’s just a dick.
…so long as it’s limited to the interpretation of fiction, that is.
Substitute “Eagleton” for “Fish” and the same holds true.
What sort of laws are you proposing (the practicalities aside)? For e.g. I would find say the fundamentalists latter day saints behavior with respect to women deeply disturbing but unless you are willing to legislate what can(and cannot) be taught to your own kids , no law is going to be very effective – as can be seen by the number of women who believe that they are choosing to be the spiritual wife of some old guy.
Milbank is one of those useful people – he is reliably wrong. Connoisseurs of nonsense will appreciate his papers at http://theologyphilosophycentre.co.uk/online-papers/ – I particularly recommend the interview. You won’t believe your eyes. I once had the pleasure of seeing him talk at a church event. He is just as amazing in person.