It is an extraordinary time.
And somehow, the American people seem to be all right with that.
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.
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.
Here is a brief excerpt from testimony that claims the authorization to use torture in Iraq came from pretty high up. Read the whole article at TomDispatch.com and Truthout.org.
“Tracing the Trail of Torture: Embedding Torture as Policy From Guantanamo to Iraq,” by Dahr Jamail
While President Bush has regularly claimed – as with reporters in Panama last November – that “we do not torture,” Janis Karpinski, the U.S. Brigadier General whose 800th Military Police Brigade was in charge of 17 prison facilities in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib back in 2003, begs to differ. She knows that we do torture and she believes that the President himself is most likely implicated in the decision to embed torture in basic war-on-terror policy.
While testifying this January 21 in New York City at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, Karpinski told us: “General [Ricardo] Sanchez [commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq] himself signed the eight-page memorandum authorizing literally a laundry list of harsher techniques in interrogations to include specific use of dogs and muzzled dogs with his specific permission.”
All this, as she reminded us, came after Major General Geoffrey Miller, who had been “specifically selected by the Secretary of Defense to go to Guantanamo Bay and run the interrogations operation,” was dispatched to Iraq by the Bush administration to “work with the military intelligence personnel to teach them new and improved interrogation techniques.”
Karpinski met Miller on his tour of American prison facilities in Iraq in the fall of 2003. Miller, as she related in her testimony, told her, “It is my opinion that you are treating the prisoners too well. At Guantanamo Bay, the prisoners know that we are in charge and they know that from the very beginning. You have to treat the prisoners like dogs. And if they think or feel any differently you have effectively lost control of the interrogation.”
Miller went on to tell Karpinksi in reference to Abu Ghraib, “We’re going to Gitmo-ize the operation.”
When she later asked for an explanation, Karpinski was told that the military police guarding the prisons were following the orders in a memorandum approving “harsher interrogation techniques,” and, according to Karpinski, “signed by the Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld.”
That one-page memorandum “authorized sleep deprivation, stress positions, meal disruption -serving their meals late, not serving a meal. Leaving the lights on all night while playing loud music, issuing insults or criticism of their religion, their culture, their beliefs.” In the left-hand margin, alongside the list of interrogation techniques to be applied, Rumsfeld had personally written, “Make sure this happens!!” Karpinski emphasized the fact that Rumsfeld had used two exclamation points.
When asked how far up the chain of command responsibility for the torture orders for Abu Ghraib went, Karpinski said, “The Secretary of Defense would not have authorized without the approval of the Vice President.”
Karpinski does not believe that the many investigations into Abu Ghraib have gotten to the truth about who is responsible for the torture and abuse because “they have all been directed and kept under the control of the Department of Defense. Secretary Rumsfeld was directing the course of each one of those separate investigations. There was no impartiality whatsoever.”
Does she believe the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib has stopped?
“I have no reason to believe that it has. I believe that cameras are no longer allowed anywhere near a cellblock. But why should I believe it’s stopped? We still have the captain from the 82nd airborne division [who] returned and had a diary, a log of when he was instructed, what he was instructed, where he was instructed, and who instructed him. To go out and treat the prisoners harshly, to set them up for effective interrogation, and that was recently as May of 2005.”
Karpinski was referring to Captain Ian Fishback, one of three American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Forward Operating Base Mercury near Fallujah who personally witnessed the torture of Iraqi prisoners and came forward to give testimony to human rights organizations about the crimes committed.
For the record – and I will remember this – these are the only Senators who stood up for my civil liberties by voting against the renewal of the USA Patriot Act.
I thank you:
Boo-hiss to all the Republicans, and:
The Roving Ellipsis hosts the Progressive Faith Blog carnival this week. Great job weaving the various strands together!
Are you a progressive faith blogger? Join here.
The Carnival will be hosted next week by Velveteen Rabbi.
I don’t think I had ever seen South Dakota’s State Senator Bill Napoli speak before tonight. He was commenting on the abortion ban there that would close down – gulp – the only operating clinic that’s left in the entire state (this one clinic has to fly in medical volunteers from out-of-state). Guess there wasn’t really much left to do.
Online NewsHour: South Dakota Bans Most Types Of Abortion — March 3, 2006
BILL NAPOLI: When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn’t allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: You really do?
BILL NAPOLI: Yes, I do. I don’t think we’re so far beyond that, that we can’t go back to that.
Sounds almost sweet, huh? Like the "wild west" reference, which frames the whole thing. In the actual "wild west," women didn’t do very well… Of course, the west wasn’t "wild" when this guy was growing up.
Under what circumstances would Mr. Napoli concede that a woman (or her community) might be allowed to consider abortion? Rape or incest? um… well…. actually….even those cases would have to come under "danger to life of the mother."
A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
The case he allowed that might actually "endanger the woman’s life" would be if she were a religious virgin saving herself for marriage" and she was not only brutally raped but also sodomized (because she was sodomized? Does he need some basic sex ed on how pregnancy occurs?). Note that just being a virgin isn’t enough, and that he assumes virginity isn’t actually a choice made in full knowledge and self-value, but only in "religious" conviction (or more likely, quasi-religious pressure).
Note also that the ideal situation is where the community makes the decision for the people involved – both that the woman will carry to term and that the two will marry. What a great basis for commitment – an unwanted, unplanned pregnancy. Maybe we should hear some autobiographies from people who had marriages with that auspicious beginning. I can’t think of many men who would welcome a return of the shotgun wedding either. Oh, and should uncle or brother daddy marry the one they "savage"?
His delivery was shocking. It was almost as if the thought of the brutalization of the woman – oh wait, he said "girl" – was a turn-on for him. The last sentence was a bit of an afterthought. Here is a man who clearly views women as property to be controlled and dominated (and even protected – as property). How is he that much different than the rapist he cites?
In any case, "danger to the life of the mother" is usually interpreted in quite narrow terms – that carrying to term might well result in the literal death of the mother – such as with an ectopic pregnancy or other medical conditions.
Is it virgin sodomy that makes all the difference for him? Is a woman who isn’t a virgin less traumatized by rape or incest? Is it all about the qualities of the rapist – the brutalizing, sodomizing defiler of religious virgins? Is it enough to be an anal virgin? (Actually, anal and oral intercourse are on the rise among the "no-sex" pledgers. Hope they don’t catch a disease while they’re trying not to get pregnant without birth control.)
Watch for other moves back to the "good old days" too. For people who are so against abortion, they are oddly and ferociously opposed to the proven factors of reducing the number of abortions: birth control, sex education, women’s education and training, equality, and freedom of opportunity. What next? Barring women from the vote or from owning property? Will American women be disallowed from wearing miniskirts, working outside the home, going to college, driving a car?
Fundamentalist sexism and domination of women looks very similar to me across religions. It’s about the same thing as rape – it’s about power, it’s about controlling and dominating women into a semi-subhuman status. Watch what happens to those women in those communities when they don’t have the abortion. See how friendly their neighbors are to a single woman with a child, or to a struggling family with five. Shall we bring back the good old witchcraft charges too?
In a way, I understand. Some people don’t want to have to face reality. There is so much change, and they don’t know where or how they will fit. It’s clear that many of us will be sacrificed to the Mammon, the "god of money." There is meth addiction, there is crime, there is disrespect to "elders" – surely it feels like apocalypse approacheth. It’s strange that they refuse to look at economic factors – but it’s clear that our children and grandchildren will live in a very different world. My generation is the first that has not (on the whole) done as well as our parents did. So some of us can’t actually face the world we live in – we’ve had it relatively easy and some have an irrational assumption that the world owes us something whether or not we’ve earned it or deserve it (shall we call it the W syndrome?). We pretend that there is no poverty while it’s actually increasing, that all parents must by definition be wonderful people, that kin don’t rape or otherwise hurt one another, that everyone who is the least bit different from our comfort group must be evil, that people who do their own thinking and make their own ethical choices are a threat to those who simply submit to authority (hoping they will be spared?). Some people can’t even really understand that there are other countries or people different than the "folks" on our street – most Americans only speak one language. Of course our own "group" has its problems as well, but if we are not directly affected we tend to ignore that as much as possible. We want to protect our kith and kin and we like to hide in the safe comfort of our folk mythologies.
But these are childish reactions, and they bring out very bad things in us. They bring out the very things that every prophet warns against. America is living in a very thin veil of self-induced hallucinations. Part of the "good old days" mythology has to do with dominating women – oh, and killing Indians in the "Wild West." Violence against immigrants, especially Mexicans, is on the rise.
A religious response would have to listen compassionately to narratives of actual, truthful experience (as you would have your God hear you) before proposing solutions or making judgments. These politicians don’t do that very much – and neither do many of their constituents. Listen to the stories of the women who are desperate enough to abort their pregnancies that they travel hundreds of miles to the only clinic in the state to get it done. Listen to the circumstances by which a woman decides to end a pregnancy – it is no easy thing to decide. The stories are often heartbreaking. There are women who have had abortions and regretted it deeply – this is true. There are women who have not, and paid dearly.
This issue is a handy tool to drive people apart because abortion is a very controversial and difficult topic. Ultimately, though, it is not the job of the government to mandate a woman’s reproductive life. Such decisions have to reside with the woman, with her God (if she is a believer) and in consultation with her doctor.
Maybe that’s the beef – that finally there is a matter in which a woman has the final say-so. How threatening to the fragile male ego.
Roe v. Wade was the compromise. If your daughter or your sister or your mother or your friend were in a position where abortion had to be contemplated, you might think differently. Or maybe not – maybe you’re in that group who wants to turn America into a theocracy – complete with stoning?
Added March 4th: Mark Morford’s reaction to all this is much more strident – and witty. Read "S. Dakota Slaps Up Its Women: Another state you should never visit passes an appalling abortion ban, because they hate you"