Job schemes
The ‘religious big cheese guys say religion is good and important and necessary‘ thing again. It occurs to me that I forgot to say well they would, wouldn’t they. I mean it’s a pretty funny story and headline, if you think about it. ‘Leaders back faith in public life’ the BBC has it – presumably because it would look too silly to say ‘Clerics back faith in public life’ and lead to a deafeningly raucous chorus of ‘No, really?!’ You might as well have a news headline saying ‘Shoe sellers back shoes on public feet’ or ‘Car makers back cars on public highways’. I mean what else would a couple of topp clerics say? ‘Clerics declare religion a waste of time and attention’? So they made it ‘leaders’ in order to fool people, also perhaps to reinforce the hidden assumption that clerics are in fact leaders.
Really when you come right down to it the whole exercise is just an unsubtle bit of job-protection. It’s like tobacco company executives earnestly assuring Congress that as far as they know and to the very best of their knowledge and understanding, tobacco is not addictive no indeed uh uh nope. It’s like the sugar people saying that sugar gets a bad rap. It’s like PR people doing PR for the PR industry. Archbishops moaning about atheism is like queens moaning about republicanism or doctors wishing more people would get sick. It carries just a faint, tiny, barely detectable whiff of self-interest about it. And if you look at it that way, of course, they are the very last people anyone should listen to on the subject. They’re wheeled out as experts, but what if they’re not so much experts as people with a vested interest? What if they’re simply guys who want to hang onto their posh jobs? At the very least it discredits their line of patter.
Alun at Archaeoastronomy has an amusing post on the Archbishop of York’s latest grumblings at atheists and secularism.
The last 2 paras:
“National Secular Society vice-president Terry Sanderson said religious intolerance in the UK came “almost exclusively from Christian evangelicals and minority faiths”.
“The more Britain becomes a society in which competing religions jostle for power and religious observance continues to decline, the greater the case for a secular society where everyone is treated equally – regardless of religion or none – especially by the state,” he said.
Quite, and for reasons of competition the various churches will feel the need for increasingley competetive marketing strategies…
And over at Theos’s website, poor muddled Alister McGrath is not getting much support.
Help, how do you turn off the hyperlink command? I thought rogue italics were bad enough….
Did that do it?
Phew! Anyway, I was about to say, having looked at that Theos debate [apart from ‘what a lot of bottom-feeders they do get’], that can there be any sadder label than that of ‘former atheist’ which McGrath applies to himself? A mind is a terrible thing to lose, as a great man once said…
“Archbishops moaning about atheism is like queens moaning about republicanism ..”
For a moment I thought you meant “queens (= effeminate male homosexuals) moaning about
Republicans.”
Must have been the amyl nitrite …
Thanks for the fix, Dave.
Yeah, I knew the other reading was likely with queens; couldn’t really help reading it that way meself; but that’s okay. Adds richness and diversity.
I quite like the sentence at the end of the archaeoastronomy letter…
I hope the Archbishop will take the time to address the true meaning of Christmas this Saturnalia.
I’ve always wanted to send out Saturnalia cards for the end of December, but never got around to making them/finding them. ‘May the light of Bacchus shine on you this Saturnalia’.
The obvious tongue in cheekiness would probably annoy some pagans out there though.
But annoying pagans is a good thing.
No, annoying pagans *are* a good thing, surely? Blood-sacrifice and augury would make better TV than the Eucharist, and if they could throw in some really good maenads, it could be a real goer…
Well, yes. This is pretty much what I said in my post on Michael Bérubé’s book. Of course people who don’t agree are going to see it that way.
But if that’s what the clerics mean, they need to say that. They don’t get to mumble nonsense and then have other people decide they mean something else. They’re stuck with the nonsense.
Mind you – I think your putative ‘purely secular grounds’ are actually a mix of secular and religious (the idea that ‘personhood’ is a self-explanatory attribute that can be meaningfully said to ‘commence’ at a particular moment is not really a purely secular one, for instance). That paragraph looks to me like mostly a set of religious or traditional prejudices that have been trimmed out with some quasi-secular justifications because people who hold them know it’s expected.
But of course the same could be said of many liberal ethical ideas.
“But if that’s what the clerics mean, they need to say that. They don’t get to mumble nonsense and then have other people decide they mean something else. They’re stuck with the nonsense.”
If they could say that, they wouldn’t be clerics — there’s certainly a kind of negative selection procedure at work. It’s a kind of downward spiral. And given the shortfall in vocations, the churches have to take in almost anybody who wants to sign up. There was a time when they could be choosy, but those days are gone.
Now they need lawyers to help them string their sentences together.
Well that’s their problem. If they’re going to pronounce in public, they have to do their own pronouncing and defending. You don’t get to claim ‘they really meant something much more coherent.’ Not unless you become at least a bishop yourself.
“the idea that ‘personhood’ is a self-explanatory attribute that can be meaningfully said to ‘commence’ at a particular moment is not really a purely secular one, for instance ..”
Well, you certainly have Argus’s eyes – it’s the one argument in my posting I felt had something askew about it.
“That paragraph looks to me like mostly a set of religious or traditional prejudices that have been trimmed out with some quasi-secular justifications because people who hold them know it’s expected.”
Obviously I don’t think that is true about my paragraph, but it certainly is true about much of what Christian theologians write when they try to defend the more unsavoury aspects of their faith on secular grounds – e.g. Roman Catholic ethicists on lifelong chastity if you’re spouse deserts you, etc. I’ve read this stuff with as open a mind as is possible when I see ‘SJ’ after a person’s name — but it’s awful junk about being ‘truly two in one flesh’ that makes me almost feel embarrassed on the writer’s behalf.
Now that requires some real trimming.
If I have Argus’s eyes, what’s Argus using?!
…There’s a dog in my neighborhood called Argus. Big ol’ yellow lab. He doesn’t give the impression of being especially observant, I must say.
“that makes me almost feel embarrassed on the writer’s behalf.”
Kind of squirmy, right? I know the feeling.
So they don’t want their children to be taught that it’s OK to be gay
So when it happens that they are gay they’ll be screwed up with self loathing and disgust for years. I’ve seen the side effects of exactly that on several people close to me and it’s pretty uncool to say the least.
The ‘unnatural’ argument against homosexuality is as specious as the ‘God don’t like it’ argument.
But annoying pagans is a good thing
Depends on the pagan I suppose. As with all religious types, I only like to actively annoy the annoying ones.
‘atheists are not content with teaching evolution: they also want to force their own values down the throats of the general public,…’
Cathal, I would never force anything down your throat, and would be appalled if anyone else were to. These are not atheist values, atheists don’t necessarily share common values, as history has shown.
You have out-lined some of the moral issues, such as should homosexuality be defined as insanitary and promiscuous? There are differing views, but what is wrong with a secular debate on the matter?
Personally, I am ambivilent over hanging Saddam, I was very pro-promiscuity when younger but have reversed positions since having a family, and as for ‘the adverse affects of ‘liberal atheism’ – don’t know what that is.
‘Heather’s got two Mommies’
You mean schools are teaching that homosexualists are human? To kids? Hell, what next?
I’ve had parents come to me wanting their kids withdrawn from RE rather than be taught ‘Paki religion’. How does your point differ from theirs?
By the way, I’m unofficially barred from teaching RE, since the incident with the Reverend Jenny.
I would suggest that regarding homosexuality, there may well be a “secular” argument against it being “OK” to be gay, but can we be quite clear that it is NOT one that is supported by science?
Who missed the recent homosexuality in nature exhibition in Oslo?
http://www.nhm.uio.no/againstnature/index.html
and an easy-read summary of the current state of play can be found here:
Brain Research Institute UCLA
http://www.bri.ucla.edu/bri_weekly/news_050812.asp
“Insanitary sexual practices”…such as heterosexual ‘backdoor action’, might one hazard?
Just like serious STD’s are going to damage anyone’s life expectancy. Bit like morbid obesity.
But then, aren’t gay guys LESS likely than the general populace to let themselves go & cram in the treble-cheeseburgers?
:-)
BJN, Don, Andy,
It takes a lot longer to answer a question than to ask one, and I haven’t given up my day job just yet.
BJN: “So when it happens that they are gay they’ll be screwed up with self loathing and disgust for years. I’ve seen the side effects of exactly that on several people close to me and it’s pretty uncool to say the least.”
I am sure you are right about this – even if same-sex attraction is a disorder (in the purely empirical sense of being maladaptive), it hardly makes life more attractive to budding homosexuals to rub it in. My point is that it’s not really up to state schools to address these controversial issues at all, unless it happens that 100% of parents have the same views, in which case the issue is no longer controversial.
Don: ‘I was very pro-promiscuity when younger’.
Weren’t we all – in fact I firmly believed that young women had to follow the dictates of their conscience without too many preliminaries … indeed I always envied male homosexuals for the speed with which they cut the crap, got to the point, and didn’t have to listen to some psycho-bullshit afterwards.
Andy – thanks for the references. But ‘Science’ has nothing to say as to whether something is OK or not, unless by ‘OK’ you mean ‘fit for purpose’ rather than ‘good’ in a moral sense. Science can tell us NOTHING about the morality of anything.
Maladaptive to what? And is ‘maladaptive’ really a sense of ‘disorder’ at all?
“ Maladaptive to what? And is ‘maladaptive’ really a sense of ‘disorder’ at all?
Maladaptive to the survival of a group, species, tribe, society, religion, etc. And no true physician would deny that any behaviour that is maladaptive is also a disorder.
But adaptation in the biological sense isn’t about the survival of a group, species, tribe, society, religion. If you mean something like social or cultural adaptation you need to stipulate that. And for that reason (along with others) the comment about the true physician makes little sense. And of course it’s not at all clear that same-sex attraction is maladaptive even in a social or cultural sense. You’ve made similar claims before, and I’ve pointed out that sheer numbers are not always the best reproductive strategy; but I think you ignored the point.
Are you just dressing up irritation at gay rights in pseudoscientific clothing?
‘it’s not really up to state schools to address these controversial issues at all, unless it happens that 100% of parents have the same views,’
If I understand that correctly, then I strongly disagree. Maybe you could expand. Several of your comments have suggested to me that you are out of touch with the reality of education.
Kids need a space to address ‘controversial’ issues (less than 100% concensus?) and school is that place. Hopefully the teacher will have the intellectual integrity to allow that engagement to be honest and constructive. In my experience, most have.
Are you just dressing up irritation at gay rights in pseudoscientific clothing?
I can’t write a book about it. It’s just that these are complicated topics. Naturally, what’s maladaptive in one environment may be adaptive in another. Who on earth would deny that?
Example:
When two out of three children died before adulthood, a rule to the effect that women should have six children on average was adaptive; at a time when virtually all children survive until adulthood, the same rule is maladaptive if not a recipe for disaster – population explosion, war, famine, pestilence, die off etc.
No doubt the same applies to homosexuality – bad, maladaptive thing when not enough of us, good, adaptive thing when too many of us (I mean good and bad in purely instrumental terms, of course).
And no, I’m not irritated with gay ‘rights’, if by that you mean that homosexual activities behind closed doors should not be prosecuted. I’m irritated with gays interfering with my ‘rights’ to shun their company if I so wish without being criminalized for doing so and with their belief that society should not only tolerate them but also ‘value’ them equally or ‘celebrate’ their lifestyle as on a par with that of responsible parents. Just as I don’t feel under any obligation to ‘value’ chain smokers or alcoholics or gluttons in the same way as I ‘value’ people who look after their health.
By default, some ways of life are more ‘valuable’ to society than others. Needless to say, I’m not being judgmental …
Well then your “even if same-sex attraction is a disorder (in the purely empirical sense of being maladaptive)” doesn’t work, does it.
“I’m not irritated with gay ‘rights’, if by that you mean that homosexual activities behind closed doors should not be prosecuted. I’m irritated with gays interfering with my ‘rights’ to shun their company if I so wish without being criminalized for doing so and with their belief that society should not only tolerate them but also ‘value’ them equally or ‘celebrate’ their lifestyle as on a par with that of responsible parents.”
Okay, now we get down to it. No, that’s not all I mean by gay rights; I mean gays should not be subject to discriminatory laws, employment practices, and the like.
What do you mean about your right to shun the company of gays without being criminalized for doing so? I’m all agog with curiosity. Have you been arrested and prosecuted (and perhaps fined or imprisoned?) for deciding not to visit the local gay bar of an evening? What, precisely, are you talking about?
‘Their belief’? Whose belief? What ‘lifestyle’? And what do responsible parents have to do with anything? You’re so annoyed you’re incoherent, which is a little unusual for you.
Cathal,
Science does, indeed, have nothing to do with morality. But then, I never said it did, so let’s forget that little straw man, shall we? What science can do, however, is suggest whether a belief/ vague notion/sense of “yuck” is rationally tenable in the face of evidence.
You clearly didn’t read the references, or you wouldn’t be foolishly banging on about “maladaptation” and “disorders”.
For instance, from the Oslo Uni website I listed:
“In birds, homosexual pairs obtain eggs from “one night stands”, and raise the chicks. Homosexual penguins, swans, geese, ducks and seagulls are known to successfully raise families in this way.”
Then there is the question of homosexual behaviours as part of group social bonding, etc, etc.
I would say more but I’m typing thisd while trying to keep 3-yr old & 2-week old sons happy simultaneously…
OB: Incoherence often occurs when people are trying to justify something from a position of ignorance or irrationality, doesn’t it..? Jonathan Sachs was guil;ty of it on John Humphreys’ “in search of god” bbc radio 4 show yesterday – while being deeply condescending at the same time…
Ophelia writes:
I mean gays should not be subject to discriminatory laws, employment practices, and the like.
Unless I misinterpret that, what you mean (for example) is that people should be coerced into employing homosexuals even if (for good reason, bad reason or no reason at all) they do not wish to do so. In other words, you are in favour of criminalising the expression of private preferences. That is what I object to, if that is what you stand for.
It would be interesting to know what you think of Council Directive 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, which criminalises discrimination on the grounds of “religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation as regards employment and occupation”. Note that this directive applies to all persons “as regards both the public and the private sector” (Article 3(1)). [my italics]. This directive has since been transposed into national law by (AFAIK) all EU Member States.
The law in some EU Member States goes far beyond the minimum requirements set out in the Directive. Example: in France you risk ending up in jail if you speak your mind on homosexuality or feminism. See below, extract from Daily Telegraph:
“MP faces jail over anti-gay comments
By Colin Randall in Paris (Filed 15 December 2005)
A French MP faces jail and a heavy fine after being accused of offending homosexuals by saying they represent a “threat to humanity”.
In France’s first criminal prosecution under a year-old amendment of an 1881 law on press freedom, Christian Vanneste was taken to court by gay rights groups.
The modified law outlaws insults based on gender or sexual orientation and allows for up to six months’ imprisonment and a £15,000 fine.
The public prosecutor at the trial in Lille said Vanneste was guilty as charged but made no recommendation on how he should be punished. Judgment on the case will be given on Jan 24.
Three groups – SOS Homophobie, Act Up-Paris and Sneg, a national umbrella organisation for gay businesses – joined forces to prosecute Vanneste after comments made in parliament were allegedly repeated by him to two newspapers.
Vanneste, 58, a professor of philosophy, regards himself as being on the Right of the ruling UMP party which has not supported him.
The MP, who denies breaking the law, protested in court that he did not say homosexuality was dangerous, but that it was inferior to heterosexuality and could, in extreme circumstances, become a danger to mankind.” [my italics]
I reckon that some of the stuff I’ve written here could well be deemed a criminal offence pursuant to French law – and for all I know you might be charged with aiding and abetting criminals like myself.
As you will understand, I am not claiming that Vanneste was correct in saying that homosexuality could present a threat to humanity — and certainly not one that is greater than a real existing one (the Vatican’s teaching on birth control). But a society which penalizes freedom of thought or freedom of contract is not one that appeals to me – I think that at any rate the burden of proof as to the desirability of restrictions should be on those who wish to restrict, not on those who are to be restricted.
That’s all for the moment … I must check the outcome of the Vanneste case in the French press (no other references to it in the Anglosphere rags).
Andy writes:
What science can do, however, is suggest whether a belief/ vague notion/sense of “yuck” is rationally tenable in the face of evidence.
Yes, indeed it can. But I am under no obligation to spend my time examining the justification of my ‘yucks’ unless I intend to interfere with the ‘yuckee’s’ freedom to do as he pleases. I don’t have to work my way through peer-reviewed journals to examine my ‘yuck’ reaction to (e.g.) coprophiliacs if all I want to do is to avoid their company.
As to whether same-sex attraction is a disorder or not – that’s really a question of definition (no true psychiatrist would define X as a disorder….).
What would you define as a sexual disorder, BTW? Or are you arguing that no such thing exists?
What about asexuality (i.e. inability to experience sexual arousal in the male)? Ability to ejaculate only when viewing photographs of Margaret Thatcher? Coprophilia? Sex with consenting corpses (i.e. corpses of persons who had given their consent prior to decease)?
Just out of curiosity.
More re the Vanneste case…
A bit on the side – or what French gays have to say about freedom of speech
“SOS homophobie, Act Up-Paris et le SNEG rappellent que M. Vanneste n’a pas été condamné pour ses opinions, mais pour injure publique envers un groupe de personnes en raison de leur orientation sexuelle, ce qui constitue un délit.” [16 May 2006]
My translation:
“SOS Homophobia, Act Up-Paris and the SNEG recall that Mr Vanneste was not sentenced because of his opinions, but because he publicly insulted a group of persons on the grounds of their sexual orientation, which constitutes a crime.”
Best piece of casuistry I’ve come across since I last opened the International Herald Tribune.
X-Y-Z: Fill in the blanks:
[X] recalls that [Y] was not sentenced because of his/her opinions, but because he/she publicly insulted a group of persons on the grounds of [Z], which constitutes a crime.”
X = the Vatican, the Murcan Values Association, the Hang ‘Em Higher Front, the Musselman Union of Great Britain ….
Y = OB, Gerlinda Tingley, Don the Obscure ….
Z = their most deeply held beliefs
I hadn’t realised that homosexuality was a belief.
You are quite right, I have sometimes insulted people (and whole groups of people) by denigrating their most deeply held beliefs. Sometimes I have regretted being so rude, sometimes I have regretted not being ruder (or at least more tellingly rude.)
I am sorry you feel so persecuted by these bullying gays, but the debate about whether it was acceptable to abuse or debar from employment particular groups has been a long, slow one. You must have noticed it going on.
‘No dogs, no blacks, no Irish.’ was once regarded as a perfectly reasonable sign to put in a boarding house window.
Those days are gone, and if it took legislation to see them off, fair enough.
‘No poofs need apply’ on job adverts? I see that as an analogous position.
But now I have to stumble to a low ale-house where I will drunkenly recite the mass in latin, but those ignorant buggers won’t know if I got it right or not.
The stuff about prosecuting people for saying gays are dangerous and the like – no, I’m agin it, and said so at some length here a few months ago, when the cops ‘investigated’ Bunglawala for saying just that in response to a question on Radio 4. There was also a parallel fuss a week or two before that, about a conservative woman who said similar things on some other radio programme and the next day found cops on her doorstep.
Also, the whole thing about insulting a group of people etc etc – you’re hammering on an open door, Cathal. I’ve been dissing the whole ‘we’re offended’ thing for literally years, here. No, I don’t construe gay rights to include the right never to be offended; neither do any ‘truly intelligent’ gays or advocates of gay rights. The right not to be offended is not a right.
As I recall, the lady in question had a phone-call from the police to tell her a complaint had been made. They certainly didn’t raid her house, though I did make you very cross by suggesting I didn’t care if they did… But then my hatred of Tories is particularly visceral…
Yes? I thought they dropped by for a chat. I don’t insist on it though – the memory is fuzzy.
Who was that woman, does anyone remember? I don’t, and I can’t find any comments on the incident – but then I don’t know exactly when it was. If I knew her name I could find comment(s) via google.
Ah – well done – thank you. That’s the one.
And here’s the N&C.
Cathal,
The history of the defining of psychological/sexual “disorders” is indeed a long & fraught one, filled with much vagueness & pseudo-science…
“Psychopathia sexualis”, anyone? How about a quick spot of Siggie Fraud?
all basded on culturally-derived norms of behaviour, varying wildly with historical time & location.
Personally, no matter how much I might loathe maggie t., as long as adult consent is properly given & the good old liberal cop-out about harm to others satisfied, well, who cares if that’s what does it for someone? and who am i to classify it as a “disorder” or “perversion”? or even a “paraphilia”, perhpas – a supposedly non-pejorative clinical term, which includes the concept of the behaviour causing significant mental problems to the individual – but even that one can be contorversial.
enough of me – one-handed typingh while holding an over-tired baby isn’t working very well.
“But I am under no obligation to spend my time examining the justification of my ‘yucks’ unless I intend to interfere with the ‘yuckee’s’ freedom to do as he pleases.”
Fair enough. But a small addition – if you parade your “yucks” in public without justifying them, then you should expect challenges/criticism/general ridicule.
Having kids is the greatest incentive to make sure you can back yerself up…on the most obscure stuff, too.
“But WHY daddy?”
:-)
Whew – that N&C kicked off a very long and heated discussion, with a lot of good contributions from Allen. Other people said some strange things, I thought.
‘All debates with a moral dimension have been long and slow, given that they lack ultimate foundation.’
Damn, I keep mislaying that ultimate foundation. Must remember to avoid moral debates.
‘The normal procedure is to work your way backwards from your prejudices to whatever ‘underlying principles’ you need to work your way forward to – hey presto! – bang on! what a surprise! — the very conclusions you wanted to draw in the first place.’
I’m assuming that doesn’t apply to you. If it applies to me, I’d like to see some actual argument.
On the Kant/gay thing, I really don’t know what point you are making. Any chance of you following up on a point?
Don wwrites:
I’m assuming that doesn’t apply to you. If it applies to me, I’d like to see some actual argument.
No. I’m assuming it does apply to me — that’s why I make a principle of reading the ‘other side’ as much as possible. Example: I always had a ‘yuck’ reaction to female circumcision, until I read what Richard Shweder had to say on the matter (I still do have such a reaction, but it’s not quite as yucky as it used to be).
What an open-minded person I am, aren’t I?
I had two points re Kant:
a) to show how the finest minds can differ on ‘obvious’ moral matters
b) to have a bash at the Great Categorical Emperor, even if (as you suggest) it does mean going a teeny-weeny bit off topic.
As to moral debates — point taken and hats off. It’s just that these debates DO seem to lead nowhere, while learning more about the real, empirical world at least gets you from A to B to C, rather than from A back to A again.
Andy Gilmour writes:
who am I to classify it as a “disorder” or “perversion”? or even a “paraphilia”?
Basically, what you are saying is that there is no such thing as a disorder, or that unless it’s an act that harms a third party you have no entitlement to be ‘judgmental’.
You don’t really believe that. Imagine yourself saying:
“My son-in-law was arrested for dangerous driving.”
as opposed to:
“My son-in-law enjoys sex with dead pullets.”
Even in Hampstead they’ll think you’re just having them on.
Good luck with the baby. Michel Houellebecq [pronounced ‘well beck’, not ‘howl back’ or ‘who’ll back’] recommends ground sleeping tablets (in moderation, of course).
Yes, live pullets are absolutely de rigeur on the Heath this Autumn
“I always had a ‘yuck’ reaction to female circumcision”
Female genital mutilation, it’s properly called.
What do you mean a yuk reaction? Just an irrational revulsion? Really? Are you sure? That seems almost impossible to me. There are excellent reasons for having an oppositional reaction to FGM; the yuk reaction is superfluous. (It may be there in addition, but I strongly doubt that it’s the only factor.)
Have you played the Taboo game? It used to be on B&W as well as TPM, but no longer. Dead chickens are a feature. If you play the whole game you get to read my essay on the yuk factor – a large privilege.
Ophelia,
Richard View-from-Manywheres Shweder prefers the term ‘cosmetic genital surgery’, I think. You might like to read his essay entitled ‘The Idea of Moral Progress’, which is on line here:
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/2003/shweder.pdf
[www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/2003/shweder.pdf (See here)].
I think he overstates his case but you will be a more enriched person after you have read his contribution — he really will change your mind, if only just a little bit.
I think I did play the Taboo game two years ago– I discovered I was far more liberal than I think I am, so there must be something wrong with it.
But I’d love to read your yuk article anyway.
The servant classes are getting restive, I must go.
Oh, terrific – I’ll adopt that terminology right away. Cosmetic genital surgery is a wonderful way to describe it: it assumes that the female genitalia are so ugly that they require intervention, and that chopping off the clitoris and sewing up the labia is a medically sound, indeed curative, practice.
I’d like to see you call removal of the penis and testicles ‘cosmetic genital surgery’.
I’d never heard of Shweder so I checked the essay in question. Not sure it was worth the effort. How to describe it…?
‘The normal procedure is to work your way backwards from your prejudices to whatever ‘underlying principles’ you need to work your way forward to – hey presto! – bang on! what a surprise! — the very conclusions you wanted to draw in the first place.’
(Hint; cultural imperialism)
Cosmetic genital surgery is a wonderful way to describe it: it assumes that the female genitalia are so ugly that they require intervention, and that chopping off the clitoris and sewing up the labia is a medically sound, indeed curative, practice.
Ophelia, I refuse to wind you up by drawing attention to the potentially adaptive dimension of certain surgical interventions objectively designed to empower women by reducing their sexual drive hence enabling them to strike a better bargain with men when it comes to the intrafamilial exchange of sexual services, not to mention their functionality in controlling venereal disease ….
Actually Shweder doesn’t argue like that but he does make fine distinctions between minor incisions and major interventions. Honest, go and read the goddam article. Apparently, compared with what pubescent boys have to endure during their initiation rites, female circumcision is a bit of a pushover – if Shweder is to be believed.
I am no expert on these matters and reserve judgment.
P.S.
“It is difficult for me — considering the number of ceremonies I have observed, including my own — to accept that what appears to be expressions of joy and ecstatic celebrations of womanhood in actuality disguise hidden experiences of coercion and subjugation. Indeed,I offer that the bulk of Kono women who uphold these rituals do so because they want to — they relish in the supernatural powers of their ritual leaders over against men in society, and they embrace the legitimacy of female authority and particularly, the authority of their mothers and grandmothers.“
– Fuambai Ahmadu, distinguished Sierra Leonian anthropologist
Don, actually Shweder does argue that the war on female circumcision is in fact a follow-up to the ‘white woman’s burden’ philosophy of the colonial era.
Citation from Shweder’s TIOMP:
If you read and believe the
literature put out by anti-FGM activists then what African peoples are said to do is indeed horrifying and you must think that Africa is indeed a “Dark Continent,” where for hundreds, if not thousands of years, African parents have been murdering and maiming their daughters and depriving them of the capacity for a sexual response. You must believe that African parents are either monsters (“mutilators” of their children) or fools (who are incredibly ignorant of the health consequences
of their own child rearing practices and the best interests of their children); or else that African women are weak and passive and live under the thumb of cruel,loathsome, barbaric African men. This is the identity politics discourse of moral horror, moral idiocy, and victimization that I alluded to earlier and that I believe has too frequently triumphed over critical reason in our public policy forums.“
You bet, Cathal. The minute you cut off your own penis and testicals in order to improve your bargaining position, I’ll take what you’re saying with considerable seriousness.
“but he does make fine distinctions between minor incisions and major interventions.”
Well so do lots of people. Is this Shweder fella the only person you’ve read on the subject?! Maybe you need to look into it a little further before you take a position. The white burden thingy is far from new or unique to Shweder.
Well, thanks – that article make a worty entrant for the Nonsense Files In Focus. It also might come in handy for a book Jeremy and I are going to write. Classic stuff. (But not in the least original or surprising.)
‘actually Shweder does argue…’
Yes, I read it. It was not as persuasive as you said it would be.
Is this Shweder fella the only person you’ve read on the subject?!
He’s the only person I’ve read who has systematically challenged the conventional wisdom – I must have read hundreds of articles from the anti-FGM perspective. Richard Posner has also benevolently addressed the topic en passant in his magisterial “The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory” (page 22) and (if I remember correctly) somewhere in “Sex and Reason”.
But Shweder is definitely on the ‘cutting edge’ in the female circumcision department- it’s one of the main topics of his recent book ‘Why Do Men Barbecue?’ He is a tad too relativistic for my own taste – I sometimes wonder whether he isn’t half-spoofing, half-serious – sort of like Schopenhauer on women. But the idea of the ‘view from Manywheres’ certainly stimulates the mind. Maybe it’s not original to you, but I’m just an ornery guy not a professional pointy-head and it’s sure damn original to me apart from the fact that it’s been round since the age of Sextus or Michel de Montaigne even if they keep on calling it something else ….
Night has fallen. The iguanas have long ceased their evensong. To bed.
No, Shweder’s angle is conventional wisdom in some circles; very conventional indeed. It’s really not as original as you seem to think. As I believe has been discussed here at some point. Maybe I should order you to read all N&Cs before you comment again. That would keep you busy for a few years! But you have been doing a fair bit of open door hammering – of urgently telling me things I already know, and have talked about here.