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Love Powerfully

Love Powerfully

Rereading some Martin Buber today, in celebration and gratitude.

‎Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.
We cannot avoid
Using power,
Cannot escape the compulsion
To afflict the world,
So let us, cautious in diction
And mighty in contradiction,
Love powerfully.

~ Martin Buber, “Power and Love” (1926)

Excerpt from Martin Buber, “I and Thou”

(trans. by Walter Kaufmann, 1970)

The world is twofold for man in accordance with his twofold attitude.

The attitude of man is twofold in accordance with the two basic words he can speak.

The basic words are not single words but word pairs.

One basic word is the word pair I-You.

The other basic word is the word pair I-It; but this basic word is not changed when He or She takes the place of It.

Thus the I of man is also twofold.

For the I of the basic word I-You is different from that of the basic word I-It.

*

Basic words do not state something that might exist outside them; by being spoken they establish a mode of existence.

Basic words are spoken with one’s being.

When one says You, the I of the word pair I-You is said, too.

When one says It, the I of the word pair I-It is said, too.

The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one’s whole being.

The basic word I-It can never be spoken with one’s whole being.

*

There is no I as such but only the I of the basic word I-You and the I of the basic word I-It.

When a man says I, he means one or the other. The I he means is present when he says I. And when he says You or It, the I of one or the other basic word is also present.

Being I and saying I are the same. Saying I and saying one of the two basic words are the same.

Whoever speaks one of the basic words enters into the word and stands in it.

*

The life of a human being does not exist merely in the sphere of goal-directed verbs. It does not consist merely of activities that have something for their object.

I perceive something. I feel something. I imagine something. I want something. I sense something. I think something. The life of a human being does not consist merely of all this and its like.

All this and its like is the basis of the realm of It.

But the realm of You has another basis.

Whoever says You does not have something for his object. For wherever there is something there is also another something; every It borders on other Its; It is only by virtue of bordering on others. But where You is said there is no something. You has no borders.

Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing. But he stands in relation.

*

We are told that man experiences his world. What does this mean?

Man goes over the surfaces of things and experiences them. He brings back from them some knowledge of their condition — an experience. He experiences what there is to things.

But it is not experiences alone that bring the world to man.

For what they bring to him is only a world that consists of It and It and It, of He and He and She and She and It. . . .

The world as experience belongs to the basic word I-It.

The basic word I-You establishes the world of relation.

*

When I confront a human being as my You and speak the basic word I-You to him, then he is no thing among things nor does he consist of things.

He is no longer He or She, limited by other Hes and Shes, a dot in the world grid of space and time, nor a condition that can be experienced and described, a loose bundle of named qualities. Neighborless and seamless, he is You and fills the firmament. Not as if there were nothing but he; but everything else lives in his light. . . .

*

I require a You to become; becoming I, I say You.

All actual life is encounter.

*

This, however, is the sublime melancholy of our lot that every You must become an It in our world. However exclusively present it may have been in the direct relationship — as soon as the relationship has run its course or is permeated by means, the You becomes an object among objects, possibly the noblest one and yet one of them, assigned its measure and boundary. The actualization of the work involves a loss of actuality. Genuine contemplation never lasts long; the natural being that has only now revealed itself in the mystery of reciprocity has again become describable, analyzable, classifiable — the point at which manifold systems of laws intersect. And even love cannot persist in direct relations; it endures, but only in the alternation of actuality and latency. The human being who but now was unique and devoid of qualities, not at hand but only present, not experienceable, only touchable, has again become a He or She, an aggregate of qualities, a quantum with a shape. Now I can again abstract from him the color of his hair, of his speech, of his graciousness; but as long as I can do that he is my You no longer and not yet again.

Every You in the world is doomed by its nature to become a thing or at least to enter into thinghood again and again. In the language of objects: every thing in the world can — either before or after it becomes a thing — appear to some I and its You. But the language of objects catches only one corner of actual life.

The It is the chrysalis, the You the butterfly. Only it is not always as if these states took turns so neatly; often it is an intricately entangled series that is tortuously dual.

*

The It-world hangs together in space and time.

The You-world does not hang together in space and time.

The individual You must become an It when the event of relation has run its course.

The individual It can become a You by entering into the event of relation.

These are the two basic privileges of the It-world. They induce man to consider the It-world as the world in which one has to live and also can live comfortably — and that even offers us all sorts of stimulations and excitements, activities and knowledge. In this firm and wholesome chronicle the You-moments appear as queer lyric-dramatic episodes. Their spell may be seductive, but they pull us dangerously to extremes, loosening the well-tried structure, leaving behind more doubt than satisfaction, shaking up our security — altogether uncanny, altogether indispensable. Since one must after all return into “the world,” why not stay in it in the first place? Why not call to order that which confronts us and send it home into objectivity? And when one cannot get around saying You, perhaps to one’s father, wife, companion — why not say You and mean It? After all, producing the sound “You” with one’s vocal cords does not by any means entail speaking the uncanny basic word. Even whispering an amorous You with one’s soul is hardly dangerous as long as in all seriousness one means nothing but experiencing and using.

One cannot live in the pure present: it would consume us if care were not taken that it is overcome quickly and thoroughly. But in pure past one can live; in fact, only there can a life be arranged. One only has to fill every moment with experiencing and using, and it ceases to burn.

And in all the seriousness of truth, listen: without It a human being cannot live. But whoever lives only with that is not human.

Engagement Balance Decision

Engagement Balance Decision

No disguise can long conceal love where it is, nor feign it where it is not. ~ François de La Rochefoucauld

I’m passionate about certain topics. Some themes in politics and religion and life in general are not matters of disinterested observation but of deep commitment. In the last year, I’ve become very frustrated – angry even – about how malleable people can sometimes be, about how fearful, paranoid and even hateful the manipulated populations can become. Inchoate, thick with sadness, I feel claustrophobic – surrounded by ignorance and misunderstanding, perversions of thought, and the misinformation and disinformation campaigns that seem to function just fine for whoever pours enough money into the effort.

Our culture alienates us and turns us away from one another’s authenticity. It caricatures, scapegoats and demonizes its own. It allows bald-faced lies to parade as truth, and it appeals to the worst aspects of us – in the name of God or good. You can taste it sometimes. It’s acrid.

I’ve heard a lot of anger – often horribly misplaced – and far too much destructive and misinformed prattle. It erupts in unexpected places sometimes, and that’s very depressing. Not all arguments are equal in value. Knowledge is always partial and biased, but there are statements that are closer to the truths we can grasp than others will ever be. To me, it’s more about creating balance in fairness, in justice.

Some of the schemers have overplayed their hand. The values of this country at its best are being reflected back to us in new ways. Perhaps that mirroring can yet defamiliarize us and then catalyze recognition effects in that mythical “average American” that so flattens out our complexities into illusion and prejudice.

“Intellectual freedom is essential to human society. Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships.” ~Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov

Engagement on topics that mean something to me is fruitless when there is no understanding of what counts as an argument. I don’t enjoy trying to create dialogue with unworthy adversaries. In this respect, I have become what many would call an elitist. It means something to me – so contribute something worthwhile! Why else would I care about what you say? Yes, it’s a free country. Think whatever you like in the sacred space of your mind. Say whatever you like, too. However, I’m under no obligation to take what you say seriously or to engage with you in dialogue unless there is some hope of real and serious communication. I’m willing to hear and judge for myself, just as you are. Here and there… discernment still flows. I no longer have the inclination to play in arenas where it is palpably absent.

If the only object of a discussion appears to be a simple lashing out at perceived or imaginary adversaries, especially combined with a lack of information or any reasonable picture of context or reality, it’s not really a conversation – it’s just an emotional beating. I’m no masochist. Anyone can look up the rules of argument, the necessary grounds of dialogue, the guidelines of debate. Why should I engage when the dialogue doesn’t observe the conventions of simple civility?

Sometimes I get the sinking feeling that I’m being played as I get drawn into these discussions that are more about abuse than enlightenment. Such predatory games are extremely infuriating. Claims attempted on me because of some historical association or commonality of interest just aren’t enough to move me anymore.

The other day a former Jehovah’s Witness asked me why I had defriended him on Facebook. He thought it was “very sad” that it appeared to be because of a discussion on his wall. My response:

I’ve found that the ex-JW connection isn’t always enough. There are many people who remain confused, broken, and with deep imprints of thought patterns and habits. Some of these I can embrace, even support and help. Others infuriate me because I can see the blocks and the slave mentality that survives, or I can see an unthinking flipside of meaningless rebellion. I tend to spend my time on the ones that have an ability for self-reflection, transformation, kindness and flexibility. I have little patience anymore for uninformed propaganda parroting, or false piety, or manipulations.

Outside of that consideration, I’ve developed a rule of thumb about FB friends in general. If I see more than a few posts that push my buttons and make me angry, it’s just better for my mental health to defriend. I give it my best shot a couple of times, but it’s not my responsibility to teach or guide or inform and when it becomes more of a negative than a positive experience, I just walk away. It’s too short of a life to embroil myself in impossible dialogues.

I am writing this explanation to you simply because you were kind enough to ask. Best wishes –

It is difficult for me to write such things. I feel that I should somehow be available to everyone and anyone – in concern, in caring. However, I’m also much more keenly aware of the relative merits and effects of my interactions as I’m spread so very thin. I re-read what I wrote. And again.

Why should, why would I engage in and even seek out such discussions? Why do I so often feel compelled to participate? I have a choice. I can choose the occasion, the level, the tenor, the style. Why haven’t I had the discipline and meta-flexibility to do that more often? I think it’s because I’ve not been caring enough for my own needs.

I need nourishment. I need sustenance. Time is running through my hands.

I’m drawn more and more to the projects and pursuits that I have delayed for far too long. How much of what I do is really worth my limited time? Deeper affinities and sympathies are necessary. They have become – Necessary.

If this means that I become less accessible, less visible – what of it? Service is, after all, a valuable gift to oneself as well as to others. The best hope with some is just to plant a seed and trust to the winds anyway. My own best insights have often been a result of such actions by others.

There are so many avenues to explore, so many meandering paths, so many divine moments and details. Should all of this be discarded or postponed – deferred – simply for the sake of a paltry and very secondary urge to persuade others to my own point of view? It has to be an honest exchange. Where there is no scene of the between, why bother?

I’ve drowned myself in this superfluous uselessness for too long. There are too many other things to do, to think, to find.

I have real friends. I have a real home. I have a real job. I have a real book to write. I have real dreamtime to enjoy. I have real communion.

AND – I got my smile… I got life, brother.

Atheism is Not Enough

Atheism is Not Enough

Slavoj Žižek makes a very interesting defense of atheism in the editorial “Defenders of the Faith” (New York Times, 3/12/06). Certainly atheism deserves the restoration of the inherent dignity of its position. But his overall argument, at least in the context of our current realities, is flawed. It could be a readerly effect, since the article looks as though it might have been chopped up. (Boo-hiss to the editor if that is the case – Žižek deserves better.) Still, I read the piece and was surprised. So I’ll respond.

In the piece, Žižek proposes atheism as the (only?) position or standard that might offer a chance for peace.

Today, when religion is emerging as the wellspring of murderous violence around the world, assurances that Christian or Muslim or Hindu fundamentalists are only abusing and perverting the noble spiritual messages of their creeds ring increasingly hollow.

…the lesson of today’s terrorism is that if God exists, then everything, including blowing up thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted — at least to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to God justifies the violation of any merely human constraints and considerations. In short, fundamentalists have become no different than the “godless” Stalinist Communists, to whom everything was permitted since they perceived themselves as direct instruments of their divinity, the Historical Necessity of Progress Toward Communism.

Very interesting comparison. Although he then nods in the direction of compassionate ethics as a mode of the religious (something I see in more progressive faith positions), he attributes to atheism the standing of being the only home of ethics in contemporary reality. Why should people act ethically, why should they do good, be good, strive for good? Doing so for reward (praise, salvation, paradise, heaven) or from fear of punishment (opposition, scapegoating, shunning, criminal punishments, hell) is a low moral standard – but it has often served as a starting place.

It’s true that you don’t need to believe in God to assess a situation and do what you think is the right thing. A moral deed doesn’t require God. One can do a good thing because you feel you should, or when your compassion rises, or when it increases your well-being, or even because it’s just not too inconvenient at the moment. You could do the right thing for the wrong reasons. You could do the right thing completely by accident. Or you could do the right thing because that’s the kind of person you have become – by habit, by inclination, by choice, because you like attention, or are turned on by sacrifice, because of a sense of noblesse oblige or solidarity, to gain some greater advantage, or just because your mamma told you to.

It’s the fixed idea of absolute authority, absolute truth that is more of a problem. The article even gives the idea of Communism that became a kind of “religion” as an example. One could add “manifest destiny” or “privatization” or “superior race” or any number of other ideas – when such an idea is ascendent, watch out!

So it seems to me that the alternative should properly be a kind of agnosticism, rather than atheism, which can be just another form of fanaticism (the zeal of the truly anti-religious).

I would go further than Žižek does here in this respect, and claim that religious systems of belief actually undermine ethical thinking and actions in very specific ways. Beliefs interfere by mandating rules that can and do silence narratives of experience, or cut some people off from equal consideration, or simpy reinforce existing power structures, no matter how oppressive they might be. Beliefs set up clusters of priorities that may have little relevance to the actual situation. Moreover, Zizek misses here his strongest argument, which is the tendency of some to claim authority (even the authority of the absolute – of God) as their own simply to take advantage of their apparent ability to do so. If God is in any sense within us, God is within us all.

However, I am not at all convinced that atheism is the solution. While atheists might (not always!) tend to be more tolerant of religion than the religious are of atheism, there are no guarantees that atheists are good, or will strive for the good, either. There are nasty horrible atheists, too. I don’t actually find that religious affiliation (or a lack of one) really has very much to do with what kind of a person someone is, or how they behave. Religion only creates a set of standards on what the community of believers will regard as good or bad. That creates its own effects, such as the thrill of transgression. Sometimes people will create a public persona to conform to the standard, while having a secret life that is quite different.

Žižek says that when he himself does a good deed, he does it “because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror.” Fair enough, and it’s also a standard of my own. I judge myself a bit harshly (more so than I would judge others), perhaps as a holdover from having been a Jehovah’s Witness. It is difficult to judge oneself clearly and honestly, even when one really truly wishes to do so. There are also those (whether fanatical, religious, or without significant motivations based on systems of religious belief) who are not terribly concerned with honest, realistic self-evaluation or insight. It’s a completely separate topic from the one at hand.

The larger points – that it is better to do something out of love than because you have been trained to do it, and that atheism actually creates a “safe public space” for believers – really illustrates how far the religious world as a whole has fallen. Those are both religious concerns!

These weird alliances confront Europe’s Muslims with a difficult choice: the only political force that does not reduce them to second-class citizens and allows them the space to express their religious identity are the “godless” atheist liberals, while those closest to their religious social practice, their Christian mirror-image, are their greatest political enemies. The paradox is that Muslims’ only real allies are not those who first published the caricatures for shock value, but those who, in support of the ideal of freedom of expression, reprinted them.

However, allies are not always accepted (or seen as allies) if one feels disregarded or insulted – or when one of your own is whipping you into a frenzy. One has to look at how different people will prioritize the spheres of difference.

What does it really mean to respect the beliefs of another? What follows from that ideal?

If you take it seriously as a high value, then according to Žižek you are left with an aporia. Your choice then is either a patronizing tolerance (as toward a child – Santa Claus, the tooth fairy) or a relativist stance of multiple “regimes of truth” in which ultimate truth claims themselves become a kind of transgressive violence. The first choice has obvious problems. I lean toward the latter myself because I have come to believe that “Truth” is more of a goal than a possession, and that we project our truths as much – if not more so -than we discover them. Neither of these alternatives faces the actual situations he concerned with here, nor does the admittedly fascinating historical events he mentions.

We’re missing some pieces. I think there are other alternatives – alternatives that are not new, just not being activated. One is reciprocal dialogue (I agree to listen if you agree to listen, etc.), but this – and other options – depend on the will to dialogue, a will to the cessation of violence, a will to peace. Why don’t we have this, do this? That is the central question, and it is to some extent a religious question.

Critical analyses of belief structures show respect, treating even the most problematic of “believers” as adults, responsible for their beliefs. But is that really the issue? Why would a zealot feel he has to justify himself to an unbeliever anyway? Where is that going to go? In any case, I question whether the return of fanaticism and violence really has much if anything to do with beliefs. Atheism does provide a safer “space” in many respects, but it is still an absolutist “position.” How do you know that God does not exist – and what does that question really have to do with what is happening anyway? Is this what he means to argue here? Does he really mean something like liberal democracy? (If so, we could use it in America too).

I think a better strategy would be really to push for true public debates, debates that include more voices from within each tradition and viewpoint – and across traditions as well. We are talking past one another. Even in America we are subjected to outright propaganda from all sides. We hear fewer informed perspectives in the media with each passing week, in a country that used to be known for freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and public protest. Now we have biased reporting, “no-protest areas,” illegal surveillance, censorship, use of “propaganda assets,” and erroneous “terrorist” labelling of dissent/anti-war groups, even if they are pacifists!

Critiques of fundamentalist views from the position of atheism, “godless humanism” (and post-humanism) and so on are valuable. I agree that atheism should be afforded its former dignity and more (especially considering how many atheists there really are, even within religious communities). But I also think that critique and reasonable debate “from the inside” of communities is actually much more powerful – especially for adherents and members of a community. Even the simple display of events of such dialogue and debate would be a meaningful improvement. Let’s see the best minds grapple. Let’s fight with words – not fists, not bombs, not backroom deals. Such a series – broadcast all over the world – would be much better than American “Idol” (did they really think that one through?).

Religious traditions are a kind of transmission, meant to preserve the best of what has worked in the past – for stability, for group coherence, for common good, and even for human transformation and spiritual growth. Sometimes the transmission is garbled or misunderstood. Sometimes the conditions under which traditions worked for a long time no longer apply. Sometimes the rules become destructive, and sometimes they are problematic in the first place. The message means different things at different times and with different receivers (the people who hear, practice, mediate, interpret). Where the climate is cold, the vision of hell is colder. This is the time for prophets – they challenge, they teach, they realign, they reattune. Every one of us has something of the prophet within, but also something of the community that resists the prophet. Reattunement, at once longed for and feared, is a process that can never be finished. We find our way by tracing out paths, going off course, adjusting.

A loving, thinking community that argues and critiques itself from within is a stronger and more adaptive community. When communities can no longer do this – even while change is going on all around them – then I question whether the problem really has so much to do with specific beliefs. Does repression, silencing, inciting to violence, and self-righteousness (on any side) show honor to God? Yet there is an undeniable appeal for all of this among many people. What is the nature of the energy that is being tapped here? Can that speak and be addressed in some other way?

The substantial problems that we see have less to do with religious beliefs, practices or traditions than they do with other factors. Simple manipulation of the masses hasn’t gone away, nor have the old social dynamics like the ones that produce the myth of the “good old days” or the idea that diseases start elsewhere. There are economic and political factors. There are power grabs and clashes. There is greed and there is poverty. There is actual suffering and frustration. There are miscommunications and hostilies. There is powerlessness. There is love.

The ethical “accounting” for beliefs that Žižek would direct at violent believers is perhaps something like step 3 in a process that would ethically hear and respond to the multiplicity of issues involved (even supposing that a fundamentalist of any stripe would submit to being judged by anyone who did not share very deeply felt, shaping beliefs – my own modest experience suggests its unlikelihood).

Critical analyses, but also serious public discussion and dialogue across the positions, are lacking. When people are reduced to violence (there are many kinds of violence), it is not about religion – or not only about religion, although religion may be used as a tool. From almost all sides, the participants in conflicts involving religion/culture/nation/ethnicity/race/class/gender/… (almost ad infinitum) appear to lack interest in developing a consensual process to arbitrate disagreement and clash. There are significant power imbalances. Substantial discussion does not take place. Common ground is not found – nor sought.

  • Shame on us all for lacking the wisdom, courage and will to use the tools we have.
  • Shame on us all for treating anyone as subhuman, of treating anyone as unworthy of speaking or of being heard.
  • Shame on us all for turning against one another in hatred, whether in God’s name or in the name of any other.

The twilight space for safe meeting seems to have been taken or destroyed – and it needs to be rebuilt. Realistically speaking, I don’t think that atheism is a viable ground for discussion. I wonder whether we will have to find a common enemy of humanity before we can understand our common interest in our own survival. Is that the plan, to bring us to the brink of global destruction? That’s a dangerous game.

We won’t find solutions, and can’t find solutions, until we can gain consensus and wisdom on the actual problems – and summon the collective determination to face them together.

Banning hot cross buns?

Banning hot cross buns?

What do you get when you pour very hot water down a rabbithole?

Hot cross bun(ny)s!

One a penny two a penny – Hot cross buns!

It’s official – the memes of repression in the name of freedom and diversity have travelled to the U.K. Or have they?

For fear of offending the religious minorities at The Oaks Primary School in Ipswich, headteacher Tina Jackson has asked suppliers to remove the cross from their hot cross buns. .. “The cross is there in recognition of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ but for our students who are Jehovah Witnesses hot cross buns are not part of their beliefs. “We decided to ask to have the cross removed in respect of their beliefs. It was just a currant bun.”

For some reason, they seem worried -only- about Jehovah’s Witnesses. JW’s are not activists for such things – I smell mendacity here.

Evening Star – School decides to ban the bun

Albert Berwick, a minister with the Ipswich Cavendish Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, said the buns would indeed be offensive to members.

He said: “I can understand why the school has done this and I support the decision. Hot cross buns are a pagan symbol of fertility no different to bunnies, eggs and Easter.

The sentence is so typical in its self-confusion and half-understood prohibitions. I notice they didn’t get any offical statement from the Watchtower Society, who would never put it quite this way. Excusing the grammer (or lack thereof) for a moment, I’m simply trying to understand how hot cross buns are a symbol of fertility – you know, exactly. Since when is bread, currents and the shape of a cross made in icing a symbol of fertility? If you want to talk about the “pagan” roots of the resurrected god, that’s one thing, but this? “Hot cross buns” does of course sound a little bit suggestive (or is it just me?), but “hot cross buns” are a very different thing than “hot buns” in general…

The cross, cut into the dough before cooking or added later (as in this case) with icing, was thought to ward off evil spirits. You might not have noticed, but JWs don’t say anything when someone sneezes. The common “God bless you” or “gesundheit” has the same sort of ancient belief attached.

Of course, bunnies and eggs harken to something other than Christianity – but everyone knows that. Are egg hunts “offensive” to the Church of England?

Are the Brits turning into JWs? I’m curious about how exactly this school made the decision, and why they leave it at the feet of JWs. If they wanted to mollify JWs, they would have to end all of the holidays, delete all of the celebrations, get rid of anything that suggested a connection to any of them. Somehow I don’t see that happening.

My recollection is that JWs who are troubled by “pagan” celebrations and symbols simply do not participate, and they do not partake of those foods if they feel they are too closely associated. They simply wouldn’t eat the buns. Or – they could have an alternative, such as regular bread. Or they could simply smear the icing. You can’t spend your life trying to avoid symbols – anything can be a symbol.

An aside – I wish my son had the option of hot cross buns at school – they are delicious.

So is this for real, or are the same folks operating over there as here? Sounds either bogus or extremely silly to me. It’s a Monty Python sketch in the making. I welcome any contact from the school administrators. It would be an interesting conversation. No mention of any other religions…

As a former JW and an American liberal (as well as a scholar of religion, ethics and literature), may I suggest that banning hot cross buns has nothing to do with liberation, affirmation of cultural or religious diversity, or reducing hatred of those different from one’s own comfort group?

Pretending that traditions do not exist is not “politically correct” at all, even if you forget that the designation of “political correctness” is meant as an insult rather than a description. With all my disagreements with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I don’t know a single one who would be “offended” by such a thing as hot cross buns. If there is someone who is in fact offended by hot cross buns, please send contact information and an interview invitation. That would be the story here – someone is offended by hot cross buns! Let them explain.

A better solution might be to include some foods from other cultural and religious traditions. Some of them are downright yummy.

Inclusivity, toleration, respect and dignity for all people regardless of their religious beliefs – these are the deeper issues, and I don’t see how these are served by eroding and erasing one set of beliefs for another. There is no need to become bland in order to have dialogue. This attempt, if it was sincere, only reinforces resentment – the JW is reconfirmed in his own sense of superiority above the “impure” and the “pagan” remnants tied up with Christian tradition (as though there were a “pure” place without such influences), and the traditional Christians feel threatened and upset that even the most innocuous food should(?) be sacrificed (they don’t necessarily know the history of traditions, but why spoil them for everyone?).

If what has come to be called “political correctness” is really about attempting to erase difference in some authoritative way, then it no longer represents a move toward a language of liberation and freedom. As I recall, the main point was to create a language of inclusivity and dialogue so that everyone could speak – not to make every utterance so problematic that people were afraid to speak at all. Those who would make freedom of expression a way to limit expression have profoundly misunderstood. The regulatory function has to do with limiting hate speech, not with erasing one’s own differences from others.

Compare this to the situation of depicting Mohammed in cartoons – misunderstanding all around. The cartoon used the Prophet as a visual shortcut to depict radical Islam as terrorism. It’s sloppy, but no more so than the cartoons of Jesus and God that are seen all over. The main problem is not so much the comment on terrorism as its collapse into Islam generally, which isn’t really fair and, most importantly, it is regarded as blasphemous. There is a prohibition on depicting God (and by extention, perhaps) the Prophet in images. By the way, this prohibition is technically shared with Judaism and I’m not exactly sure how the Christians got around it. It’s a commandment. Here is the wriggle room – how does anyone know that the cartoons depicted the Prophet specifically? Were they actually labelled as such, or could they have been depictions of terrorist leaders? Personally, I was more disturbed by the exaggerated features on the one I saw, which seemed a caricature of race/nation/people more than of religion per se. There is a whole history of such caricatures of the “enemy” (see, for example Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of a Hostile Imagination by Sam Keen).

The culture clashes on religion can be mediated – with difficulty, but it is not impossible. Why just jump in to opposition, hatred, violence – without speaking with one another, without even an attempt at dialogue? Again, the differences are reinscribed as opposing ones and all sides have forgotten to care for one another as all religions of the book agree we ought to do.