They shape their traditions in turn
The latest from Taner Edis on multiculturalism.
Liberal language about “choice” and “force” is very misleading here. No one chooses who they are. Our choices take place in a context of unchosen circumstances, and unchosen but organically acquired loyalties. Particularly conservative religious people (a pretty large chunk of the human species) are very much embedded in unchosen traditions and communities. It’s not so much that they are forced into anything as that belonging to a community is an integral part of who they are.
Yes, but again, they don’t all simply accept everything that results, and they don’t all want simply to accept everything that results. We’re not obliged to just assume that everyone is happy with whatever slot she was born to. On the contrary, it’s better, more humane, more progressive, more just, more reasonable to assume that other people are like me and are capable of wanting more, or less, or better, or different. This applies doubly or triply to people who are ’embedded in unchosen traditions and communities’ that consider them underlings. That is, obviously, not to say we should kidnap all such people and force them to be more like us, but it is to say that we should be concerned about their ability to choose what to be.
A good number of secularists seem to have a model of religion as an authoritarian, top-down imposition. Devout religious people who perceive themselves as freely living their faith do not see things the same way. Not because they are brainwashed, but because they routinely experience their community as a place full of negotiation and give-and-take. Religious people are agents. They are shaped by their traditions, but they shape their traditions in turn.
Some are; some do; but not all. Some can’t, because they’re not allowed to. Some don’t, because they’ve never had the opportunity even to develop the thought. Not all religious people get the chance to ‘shape their traditions in turn.’
[G]iven the much fuzzier boundaries between communities than persons, I would expect any sane communitarian view should make plenty of allowances for interference. Slavery, for example, may well be a point where enough is enough.
‘May well be’??
Here is some nice community life for you.
A woman Muslim councillor says death threats and sexual harassment calls have made her change the way she dresses and reconsider being in politics…The mother of four said: “It’s really horrible. A male voice said ‘We are going to get your parents out of their grave and put you there’ and ‘We know where you and your kids live and we are going to show you!’…One talked about how he liked my western clothes, my tight jeans, my body parts and sexual acts he would like to do to me.”…Last year Rania Khan, another of Tower Hamlets’ women Muslim councillors, received hate mail after photos were taken of her without headscarf at an Eid party.
Well? So? The councillors and their tormentors are all ‘in a context of unchosen circumstances, and unchosen but organically acquired loyalties’; they ‘routinely experience their community as a place full of negotiation and give-and-take’; they are agents; they are shaped by their traditions, but they shape their traditions in turn; so there is no problem, right? They live in a community, and living in a community is good, so if women who have the gall to be councillors and dress as they see fit are subject to sexist sexual threatening phone calls, that’s just part of community life.
I don’t actually think Taner thinks that – yet it is what he’s saying. What can I tell you?
“Slavery, for example, may well be a point where enough is enough.”
I see we’ve gone straight backwards through medievalism and well into the ancient past of human organization here. No doubt the Assyrians or the Egyptians would argue that slave-taking is integral to their value system and must be respected.
That is simply false. It is simply not true that people have no choice about who they are, or what they become. No one chooses to be here, but, as the Stoics liked to point out, we do have a choice over whether we stay.
And we do have the ability to learn, and some of us make more rational and considered choices than others. I have learned, sometimes slowly and painfully, to make better choices that I made before. And I’m sure that others can learn this too. Education demonstrates this daily. The supposition that all our loyalties are simply organically acquired is ridiculous. We may begin that way, but, given the right direction and instruction, we can learn to base our loyalties on reasonable premises. Or is Edis simply hammering a way at a keyboard in the same way that a weed is growing in his lawn? If this kind of stuff is not simply absurd, it certainly is getting close. It’s enough to make one weep.
“We may begin that way, but, given the right direction and instruction, we can learn to base our loyalties on reasonable premises.”
Well, apparently the conclusion that Edis is building towards is that this is just too hard to expect everyone to do, so we should therefore just not bother. Let a thousand petty tyrannies bloom; let a thousand holy wars be fought; better than the totalizing metanarratives of Western liberalism.
Yes, it rather seems like it. But of course it is not that Western liberalism is a totalising metanarrative in the same way that other metanarratives plan to be. It can only be construed as totalising to those who wish to impose an alternative truly totalising narrative that seeks to govern all narratives whatever.
Liberalism, in intention, at least, is intended to permit a flowering of narratives, so long as they are consistent with not doing harm to others following their own divergent narratives. I can see how this is an imposition on those who wish to govern all narratives in a society, but I can see no reason to permit such a hegemonic metanarrative to gain control. Edis’ and others’ tendency to read liberalism as hegemonic discourse is precisely the kind of reasoning that will catch us all in the truly totalising trap. Islamic jihadists make no bones of their intention. And the Muslim assasins captured in Ireland are a sober warning of what kind of hegemony these people quite nakedly aspire to. Why should anyone think that giving their narrative free play in “their” communities is a good thing? As becomes very clear after a few murders of Theo van Goghs and Pym Fortunes and threats against others, such “communities” have a nasty way of overflowing their borders. Shiria Khatun’s story is a convincing enough reason – to me at least – to tell Edis to go peddle his nostrums on another street corner.
Certainly puts his contribution to 50 Voices in perspective. I’m not at all sure he’s as convinced an unbeliever as I am. He seems woefully uninformed about the amount of influence and control religious organisations already possess in Western liberal societies. We need less, not more.
“A good number of secularists seem to have a model of religion as an authoritarian, top-down imposition. Devout religious people who perceive themselves as freely living their faith do not see things the same way. Not because they are brainwashed, …..”
But they are brainwashed.
I have an apparently educated, intelligent neighbour, who is an (infant-school) teacher. She, in the pub the other day, really could not get her head round the idea that the current pope is a shit, and that the RC church is systematically covering-up the various abuse scandals.
“He’s the POPE! He can’t be bad!”
Completely switched-off critical faculties, in an otherwise awake person.
Scary.
How many more does this apply to, even now – and that’s without even going anywhere near islam.
( Especially in Tower Hamlets )
Well I hope those Hijab Gates are approved. This is exactly the sort of thing we should be celebrating: women being manipulated and bullied into accepting they are responsible for the way men treat them. Wonderful.
From Paula Kirby’s recent comment in the Washington Post:
And I had just been reading about the tribute that has recently be paid to Alan Turing. A bit late. (Centenary of his birth coming up in 1012.) And the Catholic Church is quite content to hound such people to their graves. Let that be a warning to you, Taner Edis! Get some perspective, will you?
No, I didn’t mean before the Norman Conquest! That’s what comes of keyboard hubris!
It’s so hard to keep track of these years that start with a 2. 2010 still just looks like a crazy date to me. 2010? It’s not 2010! That’s just silly!!
‘”A good number of secularists seem to have a model of religion as an authoritarian, top-down imposition. ”’
Yeah, it’s almost like we see a religion which calls itself ‘submission’ or others that base themselves upon ‘commandments’ etched in stone by god himself and conclude that there’s some kind of power imbalance between god and his followers.
Yes and besides…that’s what he’s talking about, after all. He’s not talking just about people being able to adhere to a religion, which of course is already the case – he’s talking about allowing ‘communities’ to have their own laws – which does at the very least run the risk of allowing top-down imposition. I think it’s not so much a risk as a certainty, but call it a risk for the sake of argument – he should at least admit that much.
In fact I think that was a bit of goal-post moving.
I’d say 3 strikes and you’re out.
After the initial article and 2 “clarifications” it’s time to stop paying attention.
I disagree. Time to start paying close attention. These guys are very worrying and very widespread. Time to start saying in plain English where they can go.
Many religions refuse to allow women and gays to be clergy. So if the religious leaders (of the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Jews for example) are to set binding laws for their community, that’s over half the population with no voice already. Compared to that, how can secular democracy be seen as tyranny? If you want to impose extra religious rules on yourself while living in a secular democracy (keep kosher for example) you are free to do so. You just can’t force others to do so.
That’s a good point. Taner’s been obscuring that aspect by talking about that handy buzzword ‘communities’ – but since they’re opposed to secular liberalism (and he’s been adducing ‘devout Muslims’ a lot) clearly he means religious communities, and most of them do of course exclude women and gays from the big jobs.
“Many religions refuse to allow women and gays to be clergy. So if the religious leaders (of the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Jews for example) are to set binding laws for their community, that’s over half the population with no voice already. Compared to that, how can secular democracy be seen as tyranny?”
Well, it is tyrannical–if you happen to be a member of the old entrenched power elite that fears secular democracy. Communitarianism on the whole is just the worst, most hidebound kind of conservatism in pomo trappings.
It’s not so much that they are forced into anything as that belonging to a community is an integral part of who they are.
What disingenuous nonsense. If it’s such an integral part of who they are, then why does it need to be enforced with shame, ostracism and violence?
I can’t stay away, there is so much wrongness here! For instance:
Devout religious people who perceive themselves as freely living their faith do not see things the same way. Not because they are brainwashed, but because they routinely experience their community as a place full of negotiation and give-and-take. Religious people are agents. They are shaped by their traditions, but they shape their traditions in turn.
Okay, and? How is this a reason for giving these devout religious people the authority to FORCE others who don’t feel the same way to adopt their “devout” way of living?
Isn’t this argument that “we’re all a product of our circumstances, therefore there’s really nothing to choose between a theocracy or dictatorship and a liberal democratic social order” rather disingenuous? “We in Europe or the US or Canada or Australia really are no better off than we would be in Saudi Arabia or Iran” is just not going to be convincing to most people.
I admit that I’m getting a bit tired of this argument, because Tanis seems to have some basic assumptions that I’m having a hard time teasing out, which makes me feel that we’re totally talking past each other. He couches things in this language of “I wouldn’t be happy under this system” and “I hope you’re right about liberal democracy” but presents this communitarian setup as somewhat inevitable and “the wave of the future” which we should learn to accept. The concerns of women and other disfavored groups in such a system seem not very important to him at all, given how casually he dismisses them (which is fine; at least I know where he stands, as opposed to those who push for this kind of thing while denying that any such ugly consequences are even possible because religion is such a Good Thing!).
I feel sort of the same way I do when reading a religious tract that goes on and on about how necessary it is to live according to God’s law and wear the hijab or not listen to music or not have premarital sex or whatever…because I don’t even accept the starting premise. I was looking at Katherine Bullock’s apologia for the hijab, Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil (she’s another Western female convert to Islam, and I should probably admit that we’re all messed up at least a little!), and she was trying to argue that not only is the hijab not oppressive (fine, I’ll grant that it may be a matter of opinion), but that it’s also perfectly OK and not coercion for Muslims to pressure women to wear it, since in secular society people will point out when your button is undone; similarly, they would just be “informing” non-hijabbed women of their sartorial lapse. She says, “The liberal/Western concern over cultural pressure to cover makes sense only where covering is not seen as a ‘good.’ It is not that in other contexts Westerners do not condone social pressure, nor indeed, state law to persuade (or coerce individuals): the ‘Don’t Drink and Drive’ campaign, the ‘Smoking is Hazardous for your Health’ campaign (including a law to ban smoking in public places, aeroplanes etc), the laws banning hate literature, and so on. These are social pressure campaigns to change what most people see as detrimental and to encourage good behavior. Publicity campaigns in favor of hijab are similar. The mere existence of nonviolent social pressure to cover should not be seen as ‘sinister.” (I note how closely this mirrors some of what Tanis was saying…)
The point is, since I so totally reject all of Bullocks’s starting premises, that the hijab is good, that it is required in Islam (I never agreed with that), that Muslim women should actively “encourage” each other to wear it as opposed to leaving them the hell alone to wear what they like, etc., there really wouldn’t be much of a point in me trying to set up an argument against her particular take on the hijab.
I do not accept most of Taner’s starting premises about the importance of groups in modern society, and the notion that “Muslims (note the generalized term) want to live under their own law” needs to be seriously unpacked (what kind of law? defined by whom? who wants this, exactly?). I reject unequivocally the idea that individual rights should be subsumed under the rubric of “group rights,” and I get quite livid at the casual dismissal of women’s rights and even of “native” feminists who try to go against the clerics.
By the way, for an example of how such “communitarianism” would work in practice, observe the saga of the town of Ave Maria, Florida, which was conceived as a Catholic enclave by Domino’s Pizza founder and devout Catholic Tom Monaghan, where Catholic norms would be “encouraged”: pharmacies and hospitals were “asked”
not to stock contraceptives, porn mags were banned, and X-rated channels were banned.
Eventually the ACLU got into the act, raising concerns about the — wait for it — civil rights of those in the town who might not subscribe to the same notions and threatening lawsuits. From the point of view of devout Catholics (and I presume Taner Edis), they were being done a grave misfortune by not being able to run their town the way that they saw right, and the ACLU was imposing its liberal, godless, anti-Catholic values on the town by forcing it to accept such things. (Here’s a story about it: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article735109.ece)
Put this way, I can ALMOST see where the devoutly religious might be coming from, but it certainly doesn’t make me more sympathetic! In fact, it kind of has the opposite effect — what presumption to circumscribe people’s lives and choices this way!
Ignoring this plonker Edis, I’d just like to note that it CAN’T be 2010, because I haven’t got my flying car.
‘Communitarians’ do seem to have a blind spot when it comes to religious involvement in the public sphere. Coincidental to this row, Julian Baggini spoke to Michael Sandell on the subject. He’s got an anti-Rawls thing going on, but his argument seems completely incoherent. He makes the not unreasonable point that theists must be allowed to argue their corner in the public square, with their moral and religious convictions. Baggini points out that that is OK, but they cannot simply point to their doctrine when arguing their corner, but must speak in a common language. Sandell questions that theists do that, and says that in practice they *do* use a common language. But when they do that, they’re conforming to the secular liberal demand, so what’s the beef?! Secular liberals are *not* seeking to exclude theists from the public sphere; they’re seeking to exclude conversation stopping arguments.
It’s here, if anyone wants to listen @ 21:50 in; it’s not a long exchange.
http://www.philosophymonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/bpmmarch10.mp3
Well said, Lisa – and how weird it is that Taner (as far as I’ve seen, at least) is ignoring all objections of this kind.
As Jenavir says – ‘so much wrongness here.’
Ave Maria, jeez, that’s a new one for me. Must look into.
I subbed the written version of that interview awhile ago…I’ll have to look it up.
| Eric MacDonald | 2010-03-10 – 20:17:07 |
@ I disagree. Time to start paying close attention. These guys are very worrying and very widespread. Time to start saying in plain English where they can go.
I agree that their point of view should be opposed.
But at some point a direct dialog becomes counter productive and wastes time.
In fact, continued dialog may act to give their arguments credibility.
This is similar to Richard Dawkins refusal to debate creationists.
I’ve given up on the direct dialogue now. Taner’s “So?” was the final straw.
The shrug was bad enough, and that’s too much.
Steve, yes, of course, at some point dialogue is simply mindless, but the fact that it is shows how important it is to expose this kind of nonsense.
Listened to the Michael Sandel stuff (with Julian) and I’m not sure where he’s coming from. If he’s saying what I think he’s saying, he’s claiming that religious people can actually argue rationally. Well, yes, of course they can, the problem is that they often don’t, and yet they think they are actually doing so. When you get to that stage, it’s a bit like Taner’s ‘So?’ At that point, there’s no reason to carry on a discussion.
Starting with anna’s point: “Many religions refuse to allow women and gays to be clergy.” In the case of the Catholic Church, this is an edict honoured perhaps as frequently in the breach as the observance. Though scandals involving clerics buggering little boys are routine these days, and abuse of innocents of both sexes is rife, one rule is at least respected. If a priest is having it off on the side with a female parishioner, the press and the law regard it as none of their business.
Same for the Church of England, even its Australian branch. Vide “[Richard] Walsh broke a sensational story about the Archbishop of Sydney, Hugh Gough, who had relentlessly reminded his flock that youth ‘wallowed in a mire of immorality’.
“Well – we did our best. Archbishop Gough, as it happened, was caught wallowing in a mire of
adultery – on a cruise ship, no less – and sent back to Britain in disgrace. The Sydney media suppressed the story, until maverick Anglican, Francis James, now promoted to the Oz ‘religious correspondent’, blew the Archbishop out of the water.”
It was further rumoured that Gough left Sydney in a hurry because an outraged husband and parishioner had threatened to name him as co-respondent in a divorce case. One might sum it: ‘the flesh was willing, but the spirit was weak.’
It would seem to this perhaps naive observer that vows of celibacy, chastity and fidelity on the part of clergy should put a notional end to it. The sexuality or sex of a cleric should be of no concern at all within that framework.
It is in the light of the above that I read Taner Edis’ “A good number of secularists seem to have a model of religion as an authoritarian, top-down imposition. Devout religious people who perceive themselves as freely living their faith do not see things the same way. Not because they are brainwashed, but because they routinely experience their community as a place full of negotiation and give-and-take. Religious people are agents. They are shaped by their traditions, but they shape their traditions in turn.”
Too bloody right they do.
http://www.richardneville.com/Satire/TheAge1105.pdf
I don’t really see what this guy is driving at. Either you have a system with his “release valves” — i.e. a larger authority that protects individual rights from excesses of community law — or you don’t. If you do, you’re adopting a liberal philosophy of governance, defeating immediately his thesis that just philosophies don’t cut it. If you don’t, you’re enabling oppression. I don’t see another way to look at it.
Am I missing something?
This from one of Edis’ comments:
“But I’m also tempted to say to hell with it, it’s not worth fighting over this, if the devout want so much to do their own thing, who am I to stop them?”
But that’s exactly the problem! The devout don’t just want to do their own thing, they want to do OTHER people’s things as well. If a wealthy, powerful Mormon wants to marry his 12 year old daughter to a business partner, is that just “letting the devout do their own thing?” Is this one of those scenes where we just shrug our shoulders and say:
“Well, she could have been a doctor or a researcher or a concert cellist, could have married someone of her choice and had a family in which she was an equal partner rather than subordinate to her partner, but since her community prefers to make her the third baby factory for a devout — not to mention MORAL — man thrice her age, I suppose it’s not worth fighting over.”
Now maybe the girl herself at the tender age of 12 is enthusiastic about her new-found responsibilities as a wife and potential mother, but then, she was probably never given the chance to imagine any alternatives. Certainly it would be hard to argue that her cumulative life experience equips her to be able to make an informed decision about whether or not she wants to marry. Can whatever institution that is charged (in Edis’ scheme) with protecting individual liberties assent to such a marriage? If yes, aren’t we imposing liberal political ideals upon that community (thus contradicting the purported aims of our multicultural society)? If not, aren’t we enabling oppression?
Switch the last “yes” and “no.” If the “release valves” protect 12 year olds from marriage, then they’re imposing liberal political philosophy. If it doesn’t, then they’re allowing the very sort of oppression that Ophelia talks about in her latest post.
@Dan L: I don’t get it either. If Edis would have just stated that in a liberal system, you can’t simply force people to become liberals against their will, he’d have a point. I’d have to agree with him. It’s an interesting paradox, and we could have had an interesting discussion about certain forms of injustice might be reduced instead without violating our own liberal principles.
But instead he appears to argue that this paradox means that we should just let people do whatever they want, as long as it is within their own community and according to their own culture – including stuff that is generally considered criminal behavior in our society as a whole, and for good reasons.
It’s almost like Edis has found some sympathy for the complaints of the religious: “Help, they are oppressing us by not letting us oppress people anymore!” or “Help, they’re biased against our bigotry”. I just don’t understand why anyone would fall for that.
Or if he had just said that there are terrible, knotty problems about how much to interfere with parents’ treatment of their children, as with Yearning for Zion ranch, he’d have a point, one we’ve discussed here often. But he’s saying way more than that, and I can’t for the life of me see why.
I rejoin the fray here:
http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2010/03/taner-edis-should-write-book.html
I’m not sure appealing to values like liberty and so on will sit firm with Taner. It seems to me that underlying his whole argument is a kind of (to invent a word) stabilitarianism. He wants to argue that liberalism was great for the last era because of its promise of upholding the social peace. But for this era (evidently) the game has changed in some important way that makes secular activism more of an inconvenience than a boon.
I’m willing to play along with this for the sake of argument. But first I need to know what he thinks has changed. We have more communities in close proximity in urban areas — fine. But so what? What are the “practical challenges” involved here? I’ve argued before (against Russell, ironically) that state control over its citizens is much more feasible now than ever before, precisely because the hierarchies of power have become both more dynamic, pervasive, and centralized. So — given that many of these communities are out for each others’ blood, it is only practical for us to aspire to act in such a way that we might infiltrate and control them, for the sake of social peace. Right?
No. Of course not. But why not? Well, because it’s *wrong*, of course.
Ophelia’s good sense wins the day here, as usual. As she suggests, there is no wall between politics and ethics — and if there were, there should not be one. Taner’s stabilitarianism gives him a perversely anodyne idea of what makes for a “reasonable argument”. There’s nothing reasonable about tolerating abuse as a way of life — it’s not even a candidate.
Stabilitarianism; excellent nonce word.
“There’s nothing reasonable about tolerating abuse as a way of life”
No quite – yet that’s what Taner keeps saying (as with the ‘shrug’ line). I can’t help thinking he’s coat-trailing, or trying to elicit…something. Since he has been a secular liberal, I’m having a hard time believing he means what he’s saying.