Being constructive
Chris Stedman is patting himself on the back again for being more “constructive” and bridge-building and worried about marginalized communities than everyone else. He patted himself on the back on Facebook this morning for a blog post about Draw Mo Day.
In my work for the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) I’ve labored alongside Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. My biggest takeaway has been the notion that people of different religious and philosophical identities have a lot more in common than we instinctually imagine. Sure, my Muslim collaborators think Muhammad was the prophet of a God that I don’t even think exists. But, I don’t care much about that difference between us. Our deeper convictions—that all people have the right to dignity, that we need to find a way to achieve a more peaceful world—are the same and, frankly, they matter more.
That’s lovely – as long as their deeper convictions are in fact that all people have the right to dignity (with all that that entails). It’s not safe to assume that with theists, though – theists always have the potential for believing the opposite – that not all people do have the right to dignity. Religions play a very large part in rejecting that very conviction and assertion.
The theists (and Buddhists) Chris Stedman knows nevertheless hold that conviction, according to him. Good; excellent. But he doesn’t get to extrapolate from that that all theists do. He doesn’t get to assume that all theists put human dignity (and thus equality) first and belief in their god or their god’s prophet second.
The significant disagreement among secular folks around EDMD isn’t a new phenomenon. Our community is an oft divided bunch. This diversity can be an asset as often as it is a weakness. But the only way this will be a source for strength is if we can come to a consensus on some ground rules. The first of these must be respect for our ideological differences, a respect we must extend to communities beyond our own.
No it must not. That’s why I refuse to join Stedman’s parade, and why I keep raining on it. (Well, that plus the relentless way he keeps saying how swell he is for saying things like that.) I’m not going to sign up for any ridiculous blanket respect for ideological differences; I’m not going to respect the Catholic church’s ideology about women, for one example, and there are plenty more where that came from.
I guess that means I’m not “constructive.” Well, too bad.
Some work to maintain the wall of separation between church and state, some work to build a bridge over that wall…
Don’t bridges sound more happy, sparkly, fuzzy and warm than a mean old wall. ;^)
Oh you betcha. Nobody said “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this bridge.”
Stedman is drunk on his own rhetoric and his reachy-outy vibe. Too bad he gets there by pissing on gnus so much of the time.
“Sure, my Muslim collaborators think Muhammad was the prophet of a God that I don’t even think exists. But, I don’t care much about that difference between us…”
The point is that they care. A lot.
Jackass.
What is with the incessant demand for respect? It’s quite stupid to demand that people just give respect without qualifications. It’s also quite intrusive, because in order for me to respect certain religions, I have to change many of my own values. To respect the RCC’s view on abortion, I have to change my values. I value the rights and welfare of women, the RCC values prohibiting “sin.” I would have to care more about the “spiritual” welfare of a woman than her actual welfare in order to “respect” the RCC view. Well, fuck that!
I would also have to dispense with valuing honesty, a demand for evidence, and my materialist view that there is no after-life, which is why this life is so damn precious. It’s quite rude for faitheists like Stedman to insist I abandon my values so that religious folks won’t have to live in a world in which their views aren’t respected. They just need to get used to the fact that some people don’t like them. It isn’t the end of the world. It’s not even anything to lose sleep over.
Besides, this little project isn’t even about actually earning real respect, it’s just about being shown respect. It’s about the illusion of solidarity. A.C. Grayling once recalled an instance in which he visited a primary school and asked a group of multi-faith students group what their respective religions claimed about the eternal fate of their classmates. The teachers accused him of trying to stir up trouble, but he simply pointed out that they had glossed over a very important issue in order to maintain an illusion of respect.
That’s all this is. Feel good self-indulgent BS.
I’m perfectly happy to get along with the nice progressive adherents of whatever faith, and I recognize that in certain important respects they may have more in common with me than with their fundamentalist brethren. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to permanently bury the differences we do have.
In his defense, such as it is, I’ve seen from his Facebook page that Chris has a lot of people who are patting his back. It’s no wonder if he’s drunk on self-congratulation; the guy is hip-deep in flattery. Of course he is. There’s always a market for what Chris is selling.
Chris’s essays — and even more, the adulation he gets for them — lead me to feel acutely embarrassed for ever having been that young. (Perhaps in twenty years I’ll cringe at some forty-year-old and think, “Oh, if only I’d kept my own mouth shut back in the day! If only I’d spent more time doing and less time expounding!”) It’ll be interesting to see where he is in about fifteen years. I often dislike his little essays, but still I think the kid basically has a good heart. I can’t fault his passion — I just hope his dignity and common sense catch up with it at some point.
It’s largely another way in which the religionists have co-opted the language of secular human rights in order to erode secularism and human rights. When women or gay people ask for respect, they mean that they would like to be treated as equal citizens to men and other privileged groups. When religionists ask for respect, what they’re asking for is additional privilege on top of the privileges they already enjoy.
Can someone explain to me the point of “bridge building” where one side does all the building, and the other side takes half credit while doing nothing?
This week on B&W has been all about power and privilege, hasn’t it? I’m trying to see a significant difference in what Chris Stedman does in reference to religious people, and what Ben Stein did in reference to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, or Michael Ruse did in reference to the Pope… and I’m having a hard time finding one. Some people are temperamentally disposed to spend their lives on their knees in front of whatever powerful person or group that can make them feel important by association. Not coincidentally, those genuflecting sycophants always choose the side of those who have power and will lash out when offended, instead of the side of the less powerful who are the victims of power.
It is no surprise that Stedman would be more concerned with the hurt feelings of religious fanatics, and not too worried about the people who are hurt when those fanatics lash out. It is all about maintaining the privilege of power for people like him.
Uh, he finds it remarkable that a group of people who joined an Interfaith Youth Core have a lot in common? Really? And then he extrapolates that to the world at large?
I can only imagine his reaction were he to tour the United Nations General Assembly:
“My biggest takeaway is the realisation that, no matter our religion, ethnicity, and nationality; deep down inside we’re all basically diplomats in a big building in New York. That’s what being human is.
Thirsty after my epiphany, I hit up a Starbucks. There I realised that, regardless of how much cream or sugar we take in our ventis, deep down inside we’re all medium roasted—no! We’re all baristas, foaming milk to earn our tips…”
Heh, Cam – I was just having the same thought, while out admiring the flowers. I cringe often at some of the things I used to “think.”
Yes, well, I’m writing a book on the subject. To a hammer everything looks like a nail; you know how it is.
Brownian – lol.
Maybe they’re building Palin’s Bridge to Nowhere.
I wonder how many of these youth realize how much many of them are disregarding the tenets of their faiths in order to work together? Certainly Christians and Jews already have to ignore some of the demands made upon them by their holy books just to live in civilized society, let alone mix with others who believe in different gods. To some extent their ability to have interfaith anything is in spite of their faiths rather than because of them.
His epigones at Facebook are calling me (and Cam) Libertarians. That’s all there are – their gang, and Libertarians.
Sigh.
Shhh! If it ever gets back to my Libertarian friend that I have been called a Libertarian, I will never ever hear the end of invitations to the Dark Side of anti-authoritarianism. It took about fifteen years before we learned to stop talking politics with each other. *shudder* Ye gods and little fishes.
Stedman ignores the fact that “the right to dignity” can quite easily mean very different things, especially based on religion. Cue Muslims saying that blasphemous drawings of Mohammed offend their dignity, or Catholic theologians claiming that doing kinky things in bed offends human dignity. Chris Stedman needs to deal with the fact that piping up about our differences is a pretty integral part of western culture–and it’s a strength, not a weakness. It improves things in ways that self-censorship in the name of not rocking the boat can’t hope to achieve.
Yeah… but that’s a pretty big and major nail. Sort of foundational, and that nail holds the whole rotten thing together.
from now on, I’m going to call Stedman Colonel Nicholson (from the movie Bridge Over The River Kwai) as that demonstrated literally what bridge building achieves.
Some communities are marginalized because their cultures are inimical and impervious to Western liberal democracy, no amount of compromise,or “bridge-building” on the part of majority society will make any difference.
Surely that is obvious to all, except the most ego-centric ‘useful idiots’.
For me this often comes down to what’s easy versus what’s hard. Gnubashers often phrase their criticisms as “It’s easy to find fault with religion…” or “It’s easy to list all the atrocities of religion…” I always think, “Um, no, it most certainly is not ‘easy.'” Sam Harris has been very eloquent about how, to paraphrase him, When one endeavors to criticize religion, one immediately is met with all the reasons why so few people do so. It’s hard to speak the truth about religion. You get bashed for it. You get called a bigot. But you know what’s easy? Giving blanket (and therefore meaningless) respect and deference to religion. That gets you nothing but applause and atta-boys from all the right people. It’s also easy to bash gnus—there’s absolutely zero risk, zero chance you’ll be called a bigot. The bashers have it exactly backward: what gnu-minded people do is difficult, and risky, and sometimes even genuinely brave (e.g., the brilliant and far too humble Ayaan Hirsi Ali); what the gnubashing religionhuggers do is easy. Kowtowing to the majority is easy; declaring your blanket respect for “all beliefs” is easy. [I’m finished with this soapbox if anyone needs it…]
Yes but on the upside, we don’t have to have a lot of damp-palmed unctuous weepers for our friends.
They’re young. I keep telling myself – they’re young, they’re young, they’re young. But god they’re thick. And self-righteous with it. One goon carefully explained to me that the reason she blah blah is because she cares about bigotry and oppression. Ohhhhhhh I see; that does explain it. Since I’m a huge fan of both, naturally we don’t understand each other.
The more I read about Stedman the more he puts in my mind that he is idealized atheist Jesus figure (in his own mind maybe). Bridge building didn’t work in the 70’s when the political climate was more liberal and nothing has shown me it is better in the present. The only difference is our numbers may be larger now.
I’ll respect those ideological differences to exactly the extent that they are supported by a good argument and they don’t trample on the rights of others.
Trading on the equivocation in the term “respect” here leads to precisely the opposite of respect; only *taking beliefs seriously* is respecting them. Just ignoring the contradictions, because what? can’t we all be sisters and brothers? fails to take beliefs seriously and hence fails to respect them.
The only way to accomplish this sort of “community” is to declare exploration of the areas where our beliefs are contradictory simply off limits, which is inimical to the broader epistemological inquiry of the world where our interests lie.
(Libertarians???)
Ah well I just have to include one example of the oozing self-righteousness, from one of the messiah’s fans. It’s so classic…
Maybe they all think they’re Jesus. :- )
You know, I don’t feel at all bound by the prescriptions of other peoples’ religions, because *I don’t believe them*. I also don’t take communion. If I draw a picture of Mohammed, and am threatened with violence, I’m the one who’s being oppressed by a bigot. How can this be less than obvious?
I think I figured out the problem. Besides the fact that Chris Stedman is an ignorant apologist for abuse, a lazy ahistorical thinker, and a sycophant in the face of religious power and privilege.
The problem is that Stedman sees Muhammad as a perfectly wonderful human being who started a perfectly wonderful religion that never advocated or caused or supported any negative attitudes or actions in the entire history of humanity. Therefore, any offence towards Muhammad or Islam is completely unjustified and an unfair attack.
The reality is that Muhammad and Islam are repulsive, and we have every right to show both disrespect. Drawing a simple goddamned PICTURE is milder than the smallest crime against humanity that this disgusting religion has caused.
Egbert, that’s brilliant.
Signal: “We’re building bridges…”
Response: “…over the River Kwai!”
Hey, now, I’ve met some Muslims who practiced Islam in a way that was not repulsive to me. “Islam is repulsive” is awfully broad and doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for human diversity. There really are Muslim moderates out there. They do exist. They might have to do some pretty fancy tap-dancing to resolve the theological problems with being both secular and Muslim, but they do manage to their own satisfaction. Lovely people, not one of whom would have expected me to follow their religious prescriptions.
Andy Dufresne:
Spot on. While it’s easy to list the problems with religions, it’s not easy to put that list in a public space. If you’re lucky enough to live in a nice country like I do, the worst you can expect is some galling criticisms that miss the point, but in other countries you can expect to be publicly condemned and vilified, denied political / public service ambitions, ostacised (including your primary school children as in the Dover trial), threatened, or even murdered.
Cam @6 I know what you mean. I went through a period in my late twenties where I wrote notes in the margins and highlighted passages in whatever books I was reading at the time. Rereading those books now is painful. Doing it so publicly should add an additional layer of caution and reflection. A lesson I fail to learn every time I post some late night, typo filled, half baked, half-witticism.
@Cam:
Islam doesn’t become less repulsive because you have friends who are Muslims. “Islam is repulsive” is exactly what I meant to say, and leaves no room for dishonest and disgusting “diversity” that would apologize for the nasty anti-human stances that Islam takes as a matter of fact.
It doesn’t matter that there are less-extreme Muslims out there. When I criticize a religion, pointing to otherwise nice people who claim that religion carries no weight with me. My parents hold themselves to be Christians and to some extent Catholics. I love my parents, and they are good people as far as I understand the word “good.” My father especially is one of my heroes, and for all his flaws I still count him as an example of decency that everyone should aspire to.
Nevertheless, I say without reservation that Catholicism is evil. My parents are good DESPITE their faith. By the same token, I have no issue saying that Islam is evil, even though you can point it Muslims that are good despite their beliefs. Good people will ignore the evil of the faiths they hold. It doesn’t mean that the beliefs themselves aren’t evil.
Chris, you have got to be fucking kidding! If there is one thing we know it’s that we don’t all agree that everyone has a right to dignity and that we need to find peace. What kind of bubble do interfaithers live in?
You’re quite right on this point. I don’t know what Chris meant, precisely, by “respect for our ideological differences”, but of course there are ideologies that demand scorn and condemnation, not respect.
I suspect it comes down to what you think Islam is — is it the practices that actual people actually have, or is it the substance of its scriptures, or what? I’m not unfamiliar with heinousness in Islamic scriptures, but Islam-as-it-is-practiced is too various for me to be okay with spittle-flinging declarations about its repulsiveness. Some of those variants do not appall me. Many do. I don’t see that we can have a productive conversation about this.
Do you think if Stedman spent some time around the sort of people who _don’t_ go to Interfaith meetings, he might change his mind about the nature of religion?
Ophelia @ 23 – so, from this individual, the Christians and Muslims are the ones marginalized?
@Improbable Joe – I view moderate Muslims as collaborators. It may be in some countries that they honestly fear for their lives should they speak out against the example of Mohammad’s life or the worst of Islamic scripture. But there they are. Quiet as can be.
For that matter, moderate Christians are collaborators, thought with a more attenuated responsibility. Even moderate Christians vouch for the truth that there’s an invisible man in the sky who must be obeyed, no matter what he says.
s/people/men/
s/impacted by/promoting/
That’s the way people talk who want to signal they have no intention of helping anyone.
Cam @ 27 – yes, but given the fancy tap-dancing required, it seems reasonable to think that the lovely people are lovely despite Islam rather than because of it – or to put it another way, because they have changed “Islam” so that it encourages loveliness as opposed to its opposite.
Islam is a religion of the book, and the book does matter, and the book does have an enormous amount of unlovely stuff in it.
Then again I am in fact squeamish about saying “Islam is ___” because it is so easy to confuse that with “Muslims are ___.”
But – I do think it’s reasonable to argue that Islam has certain qualities – I think it’s reasonable to generalize about Islam as such. I think it’s better to do it cautiously, but I think it’s do-able.
There. I’ve probably irritated everyone equally with that.
Most fundamentalists and religious militants share those convictions as well. Ask them. It’s actually rather difficult to find any religious organization or group which doesn’t insist that they hold dignity, love for their neighbors, and peace as core values derived directly from Scripture and/or God. And then — they start to add in the context. Their faith allows them to see the nuances and problems and Big Picture situation which requires them to do or advocate things which sure, seem to be the antithesis of dignity, love, and peace by earthly standards — but that’s not the case at all! It’s dignity, love, and peace on a higher level!
The idea that we need to gloss over differences in order to be friends seems to be based on a sort of absolutist mindset: people are either bad, or good. If you think fundamentalist theocracy is an evil idea and then meet up with a wonderful, generous, likeable fundamentalist theocrat who takes to you as well, then the argument over how we ought to ground government is on its way to being solved. I think that’s only true if neither person really bases their views on any principles, and no principle is taken as a matter of faith, and faith is not seen as a matter of virtue.
Getting along may make it easier to talk. But free, open, and honest discussion isn’t necessarily going to lead to the realization that good people share the same specific interpretation of what’s good and how to get it.
Cam #27 wrote:
I think it’s also difficult to find any ideology at all that can’t be helpfully re-worked by individuals intent on making it more reasonable in practice.That doesn’t really say much about the ideology itself.
Yeah, when I hear all this talk of bridge building and forming alliances, I want to ask “Ok, but to what end?” What are we joining forces to do? Hold hands and sing Kumbaya? That’s good and all, but I have a feeling once the next order of business comes up, suddenly this feel-good coalition won’t be able to agree on how to proceed.