How to be respectful
The discussion of my hostile and flippant comment on the Secretary General’s advice to ‘respect all religious beliefs’ last week got diverted into irrelevance right at the beginning with talk of laughing at people who pray before dinner, which had nothing at all to do with the subject under discussion; and it went on the way it began, irrelevance piled on irrelevance. Commenters insisted that the Secretary General didn’t really mean what he had said, he meant something else; I kept replying that I was talking about what he had in fact said, only to get more assertions about what he really meant. Commenters insisted that the only alternative to ‘respect’ was laughing at people, ignoring the vast middle ground between those two possibilities. As an example of some of that middle ground I mentioned Katha Pollitt and suggested that she doesn’t pause to ask herself if every thought might cause some reader to feel disrespected, only to be told (with mystifying confidence) that Katha Pollitt doesn’t want people to feel disrespected. How ‘Serafina’ knows that is a question for the annals of The Journal of Other Minds, but be that as it may, I had a look through Pollitt’s Subject to Debate and found plenty of comments that (note that I say this with energetic approval) could be seen by the hypervigilant as failing to worry about whether or not some readers might feel disrespected.
[C]ommunitarianism offers a particular social ministratum – middleaged white academics with children and fading memories of once having been happier and more liberal – a way to see themselves as political actors without having to do much that is difficult, boring, scary or expensive…What is communitarianism, finally, but Republicanism for Democrats – Reaganism with a human face? It’s the perfect philosophy for our emerging one-party state…[‘Communitarianism No’ The Nation 1994; Subject to Debate pp 15-6]
Mostly, though, chapel made me loathe religion…I know believers too who don’t trouble themselves over the outmoded or bloodthirsty bits of their faith; they just take what they want and leave the rest. Not me. For me, religion is serious business – a farrago of authoritarian nonsense, misogyny and humble pie, the eternal enemy of human happiness and freedom. My family may have made me a nonbeliever, but it took chapel to make me an atheist. [‘School Prayer? By All Means’ The Nation 1994; Subject to Debate p. 29]
The state-backed religions of Western Europe are pallid affairs compared with our robust industry of Virgin-spotters, tongues-speakers and Mitzvah-mobilers. Where is the English Jimmy Swaggart, the French billboard in whose depicted bowl of spaghetti thousands claim to discern the face of Christ?…[Y]ou could say that when the state underwrites religion the buried links between these two forms of social control stand too clearly revealed for modern, let alone postmodern, people to accept…It’s never too early for the young to take the measure of the forces arrayed against those who would think for themselves…Prayer in the schools will rid us of the bland no-offense ecumenism that is so infuriating to us anticlericals: Oh, so now you say Jews didn’t kill Christ – a little on the late side, isn’t it? [Ibid]
Better a panhandler than the Hare Krishna costumed like Bozo the Clown, who is louder than any panhandler and much more obnoxious, or that beautiful black nun, doomed to spend her rapidly fading youth silently holding her bowl near the Times Square token booth. At least with panhandlers, you know your money isn’t going to build ashrams or convert the heathen. [‘Beggar’s Opera’ The Nation 1994; Subject to Debate p 33]
See what I mean? It’s not what you’d call gentle, or respectful of religious beliefs, or noticeably concerned about the possibility of making believers or Hare Krishnas or nuns or communitarians or fans of Jimmy Swaggart or anyone else feel “disrespected”. And what a good thing it’s not!
So what was all the huffing and puffing about? It wasn’t (we were assured) about the kind of thing Katha Pollitt writes – good heavens no – so what was it about then? If (as we were assured) Pollitt is fine, Pollitt is okay, Pollitt is not the kind of writer we are to understand as the kind who is disrespectful – then there is no disagreement, and all those hymns to respect and not laughing at people praying were a complete waste of time, because we’re all on the same page. I’m defending everyone’s right – moral as well as legal – to write this kind of thing, not the BNP or God Hates Fags kind of thing. So what was everyone else defending? Beats the hell out of me.
All the discussion of what the SG really meant was entirely appropriate, because you started off with an uncharitable, overly literal reading. It is just not generally fair to take every utterance absolutely at face value. In linguistics it’s called “accomodation.” You’re obliged just by the rules of communication to fill in and interpret as necessary to figure out what a speaker is trying to say.
No, he surely didn’t mean people ought to respect every religious belief in the sense of regarding every belief as true…and thereby contradicting ourselves. That’s what you assumed. That would be a very silly thing to say. And after all, he’s the SG of the UN, and probably not a downright silly man.
As for KP’s rhetoric. She does chastise the new Atheists, Sam Harris in particular, for being too scornful in that piece I linked to on another thread. She says that kind of “you’re all stupid” tone doesn’t convince the people it’s important to convince– religious people themselves. Sometimes she’s a bit Harris-ish herself, so maybe she’s the pot calling the kettle black. She’s extremely smart and amusing, but maybe no saint.
When I agreed with Serafina I think I was remembering that piece attacking the new atheists. I think Serafina said something about warmth, and I agree about that (but it’s certainly hard to corroborate the view that someone’s a warm writer.)
Jean K:“He [the U.N. Sec. Gen.] surely didn’t mean people ought to respect every religious belief in the sense of regarding every belief as true…and thereby contradicting ourselves. That’s what you assumed.”
No, I don’t believe that’s what OB assumed. Rather, I think she interpreted him to mean that people ought to respect every religious belief in the sense of never denouncing, condemning, ridiculing, or satirizing such beliefs. That’s a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the SG’s words, considering the context, and the recent history of the controversies about ‘offensive’ speech. There’s no warrant for supposing that the SG meant only that criticism is more effective if it’s polite and gentle, or that people should not mock religious believers themselves (as opposed to beliefs).
OB should be commended for seeing the distinction between condemning beliefs and condemning the people who hold them. There is no fine line between the two, but rather, a tremendous gulf. It’s true that many people take offense when their own beliefs are opposed, but that reaction is simply their own intellectual disorder. If we try to always accommodate this, we might as well just give up on the life of the mind.
She wrote in the original post (“Oh Grow Up”) “How can we respect all religious beliefs when they contradict each other?” There is no problem respecting contradictory beliefs unless respecting them invovles regarding them as true. So it was reasonable to assume that’s how she intepreted the SG.
Jean K., your point about this remark of OB’s is well taken. But I think the rest of what she wrote on the subject suggests my take on her interpretation of the SG. Perhaps that remark was just hastily and inexactly phrased.
Why don’t we just ask her?
OB, what did you mean?
I didn’t assume anything – I read what he wrote. You’re the one who’s assuming – you’re ‘interpreting’ so energetically that you’re simply inventing. I think it’s pretty unreasonable to call it an uncharitable reading when it’s exactly what he said. I would even say it’s not all that respectful, or indeed civil.
It may not be fair to take every utterance absolutely at face value, especially every spontaneous, spoken utterance – but is it really not fair to take an official statement by the Sec Gen at face value? It was a political statement. It wasn’t off the cuff, it was a statement by his spokeswoman to reporters.
I simply refuse to believe that “rules of communication” oblige anyone to “fill in and interpret as necessary” in order to come up with a reading that makes the speaker sound better. Does that rule apply to Hitler? Stalin? Mugabe? Pol Pot? If you have to do all that filling in, how can you possibly be so confident that your interpretation is right? Especially confident enough to chastise me for reading what he did actually say?
The comment about contradiction was mostly a joke. The whole post was (obviously) jokey; if I’d known it was going to get all this heavy breathing I would have done it straight. But even though it was a joke, I do not think it’s simply self-evident that the Sec Gen did not mean what he said.
I’m not the only commenter who has pointed out the difficulty of respecting all religious beliefs, by the way.
“She says that kind of “you’re all stupid” tone doesn’t convince the people it’s important to convince– religious people themselves.”
No she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything about a “you’re all stupid” tone; that’s your version, exaggerated the way you exaggerate everything in this discussion, which is one reason it’s so hard to figure out exactly what you’re trying to say.
And she also doesn’t say “the people it’s important to convince” – again, you’re over-interpreting. It’s not clear if that’s what she’s saying. It’s not clear what she’s saying throughout the article; I puzzled over it when it was first published; it goes back and forth a little. But it doesn’t just straightforwardly say exactly what you say.
“She’s extremely smart and amusing, but maybe no saint.”
No saint? So it’s morally wrong to criticize religion? Dang – what next – atheists cause floods and earthquakes and terrorist attacks?
My question is – if the SG didn’t mean what he said (or was reported to have said) then what was the point of saying it? If we de-nature it in the way Jean K is suggesting it becomes a non-statement.
And although sophisticates like Jean K can apply post-modern readings to public statements those looking for reasons to clobber atheists (or indeed believers in other religions – cf Iran’s latest effusions) will surely see the advantage in taking them at face value.
Bottom line – for someone supposed to be leading an organisation that is dedicated to bringing the peoples of the world together it was an extraordinarily divisive thing to say.
Hmm, encouraging respect is divisive. Trying to understand what people mean is post-modern. Katha Pollitt didn’t chastize Sam Harris. Apparently the way to avoid getting my comments deleted (what on earth was wrong with the last one?!) is to say Yes to everything.
Or stop commenting…which is surely the more reasonable option.
It seems to me that many of those arguing against criticism of religion trade on the dual meaning of ‘respect’. On the one hand, there’s respect as in ‘I respect your right to do X’, or I respect my neighbour’s property (i.e. I don’t vandalise it), which are perfectly legitimate, and clearly religion (where it doesn’t infringe on others’ rights) does deserve ‘respect’ in this sense. However, there’s ‘respect’ in the other sense, i.e. ‘to value, think highly of’ which is another matter entirely. It seems to me there’s a bait and switch trick going on between the two meanings, so that if you accept that you need to ‘respect’ in the first sense, which most of us do, it’s implied that you also have to ‘respect’ in the second sense.
I didn’t delete anything on this thread. I’ve been offline since shortly after I made the comment above (at 03:52). The only comments I’ve deleted from any of these threads are a group at the end of ‘Oh grow up’ which added nothing and simply muddied the waters.
About the bait and switch: exactly: that’s what I’ve been saying all along. For a week now! There was a moment when we almost had agreement, but then a couple of trolls came along and stirred things up again. ‘Respect’ is a terrible word, because it means both those things and people who want to manipulate or coerce us all into shutting up can use it to slide happily back and forth between the two while always retaining the ability to protest ‘I only meant ____.’ It’s a shoddy trick, and not one that should be defended, especially not as being the moral high ground.
Mea culpa, terribly sorry, the supposedly deleted comment was not deleted. I had put it on another thread. I was getting paranoid due to one previous deletion, which at least I understood. Never mind. (Red face.)
No problem. Amity restored.
Jean K
I got the impression that this whole thread wasn’t about what the SG said – that’s available to anybody who can read – but what various people choose to understand by what he said, which is where my reference to post-modernism comes in cf. Barthes and the death of the author.
Chris, Actually, I think what the SG said is just the kind of thing that can’t be taken at face value, but calls on the hearer for some filling in. Using words literally, you an agree with a belief, support it, contest it. Respecting is the sort of thing you do to people. So what would be involved in respecting a belief? Hmm. Not obvious. Any hearer has to figure that out before responding.
I think the goal is to figure out what the SG meant, so I don’t regard this interpretive work as having anything to do with “death of the author” stuff. Somebody ought to ask the SG what he meant. That’s really the only way to corroborate any particular interpretation.
Well, the idea of respecting beliefs (however unobvious its facial meaning may be) fits into a whole context of the (craven, or pandering, or deferential to the point of slavishness, or all those) reactions in 2006, which the SG’s statement cited. That’s why I posted that little collection of such reactions in “‘You have to respect’ 2006 version.” Fittingly, the version that’s closest to what Ban said is that of his predecessor (which the statement said he was “reaffirming” so we know the resemblance is intentional and explicit):
“Annan said he defends free speech, but insisted “it has to come with some sense of responsibility and judgment and limits. There are times when you have to challenge taboos,” he said. “But you don’t fool around with other people’s religions and you have to respect what is sacred to other people.””
‘Respect’ in this context means ‘you don’t fool around with.’ It means hands off; go away; shut up. It draws a holy circle and tells us not to cross it.
Also, I think asking the SG what he meant would be otiose, because he (I think) meant the meaning to be ambiguous. He didn’t want to be maximally clear and explicit; the statement was rhetorical as well as hortatory as well as scolding. In that sense it’s true that a literal reading is beside the point. But in another sense it isn’t beside the point, because the SG did say what he did say, and I think it’s entirely fair to quarrel with what he did say. (I think there is a literal meaning to ‘respects all religious beliefs’ – I’m not sure it’s true that respect applies to people but not to beliefs – isn’t ‘I respect your opinion’ a common phrase?)
OB wrote:
“‘Respect’ in this context means ‘you don’t fool around with.’ It means hands off; go away; shut up. It draws a holy circle and tells us not to cross it.”
Exactly! And if the ethical imperative behind this is “do not criticize other people’s foundational beliefs” then we’ll be bound to do the same for *all* foundational beliefs; political, philosophical, scientific, secular, you name them, and we’ll all become mired within a sticky web of impossible to negotiate “sacred cows”.
Or is there someone out there prepared to stand up and say “No, obviously that would be an untenable situation, we’re only talking about *religious* foundational beliefs which are more important than other types of foundational belief”? Go on, I challenge someone to go on record (no pseudonyms or nicknames please), let’s hear it…
Yes, reading what the SG’s predecessors have said helps somewhat. The problem then becomes what exactly they said. You write:
Your interpretation is:
No doubt you will think it’s nitpicking to say that Annan’s recommendation was actually much more moderate than that.
But hey, let’s not jump from the frying pan into the fire. My uncertainties about what these Secretaries General really think about religion and respect don’t need to be anybody else’s here.
The first quoted passage I didn’t write myself; the whole thing is quoted – not just Annan’s direct quote but the whole thing.
No I don’t think it’s nitpicking, and anyway I have no problem with nitpicking. (I’m an editor; I spend a lot of time nitpicking!) But I don’t entirely agree. The first part was somewhat moderate, or moderate compared to the rest; but that last sentence is not moderate at all. You have to respect…
But in any case, even if he had put it more gently, I would argue that what he said shouldn’t be called moderate, because the context makes it very illiberal. There were twelve bland cartoons, and there were riots and arson attacks and killings and death threats. Various officials lined up to rebuke not the rioters and threateners but the cartoonists. For what? For drawing very very mild satirical cartoons. In that context, I don’t think the SG of the UN has any business at all applying moral pressure to the party that didn’t do anything wrong.
I think people tend to read the cartoons backwards – starting from the riots and deaths and then thinking the cartoons must have been in proportion somehow. But they weren’t. At all. So I really can’t consider it moderate when people scold the innocent party, and encourage self-censorship in the process.
In short I don’t think it’s really moderate to do anything other than support the cartoonists without reservation, on the grounds that they did nothing wrong, and that the people who were outraged had no valid grounds for their outrage.
So that’s why I worded it the way I did.
I so agree with that last post by O.B.
Me to.
Just to clarify–I didn’t call anybody moderate. I called the first passage “more moderate” than the second.
Fair point.
I was doing something I do quite often (now you mention it) – there must be a name for it in rhetoric (rhetoric has names for all sorts of things) but I don’t know what it is. It can be seen as unfair and uncharitable in one sense…but in another sense I think it corrects an unfairness in the thing it’s commenting on. How to describe this something…I take something that I think is disguising an illiberal or coercive or otherwise objectionable statement in carefully ambiguous, woolly, emollient, euphemistic language so that it will deliver the desired message but in a sufficiently warm fuzzy (i.e. disguised) way that many people will accept it, when they wouldn’t have accepted it if it had been expressed with sufficient bluntness; I take that something and I reword it so that the woolly emollient disguise is stripped away.
Of course this is very arrogant; of course this assumes that I can tell what is really meant; but then, people in power do use a lot of cuddly rhetoric to get us to do what they want us to do, and it is necessary for the rest of us, not in power, to look carefully and skeptically at what they are telling us to do. So I think the arrogance is justifiable. I think we shouldn’t automatically take official statements at face value; I think we should try to tease out what we are really being told.
So: I do think my gloss does indicate what Kofi Annan was really saying. I think he dressed up a mere order to shut up.
Another complication is that he had at least two audiences. He had people who don’t want to be told to shut up, and he had people who want people to be told to shut up. He wanted to show the “offended” that he sympathized, and he wanted to show people accustomed to free speech that all he meant was “show a little respect” or “play nicely.”
Another point – made for the sake of precision, not to be dog with bone-ish. Made respectfully. :- )
“My uncertainties about what these Secretaries General really think about religion and respect don’t need to be anybody else’s here.”
I’ve never been talking about what either of them really thinks, and I don’t greatly care what either of them really thinks; what I’ve been talking about all along is the import of what each of them really said. This is all purely external, and official, and public, and impersonal. I have nothing against either of them; I have everything against official bodies rebuking cartoonists for drawing mild satirical cartoons about a religion in a context of riots and death threats aimed at those cartoonists.
Don’t be insulted but the rhetorical term is “hyperbole” or “parody.” This is not a bad thing when there’s a large grain of truth to your rendition, and the thing in question deserves to be ridiculed. In fact, I often love that kind of thing.
But the Secretaries General? I thought they were good guys! They’re peacekeepers, etc. etc. Moreover, the UN declaration of human rights is an absolutist document that conflicts all over the place with Islamic law and culture. For example, it says everyone has a right to leave their religion. Sharia says otherwise. (That apostasy business is seriously awful…) In principle, anyway, the UN chiefs are not respecters of religious nonsense.
What they’re advocating is just about speech, not generally about letting different religions flourish and do things their own way. It’s surely fine to criticize Sharia–since in essence the UN does criticize Sharia.
The UN declaration does defend the right to free speech. But the derisive attitude of the cartoons–that’s not OK according to the SGs. Religion is a sensitive thing and we should be very very careful when we talk about it. (That’s my gloss of what they both said.)
All in all, their views don’t seem far enough off the mark to be parody material. To be honest, I find myself with a duck-rabbit reaction to their view. It seems right, then it doesn’t, then it does. That’s a sign that there are different values at stake and it’s difficult to reconcile them.
Heh. I know it’s hyperbole – but most of what I write (here) is that. I thought there must be a more specific term – for a particular kind of hyperbole.
Well – yes, the SGs said the putative derisive attitude of the cartoons is not okay – and they said it when the cartoonists in question were under threat of death. I think that’s not okay. I think they chose the wrong side. (I’m all duck. Or is it rabbit.)
Maybe it’s that context (that they were under threat of death) that I should be responding to more.
What is a duck rabit reaction?
It’s shorthand for seeing the same thing in two different ways; it refers to that drawing that looks like a duck or a rabbit but not both at once (you have to shift perspective to see it as one or the other). I’m sure you could find the drawing via google.
Thanks.