April 21, 2004
If you don’t believe that, try reading the comments following Kevin’s post—starting with the very first one. [11:44 AM]
Is it really one of the biggest?
I mean: Is there some kind of evidence (polling data, perhaps) indicating that religious mockery by the leftward-leaning drives significant numbers of people rightward who wouldn't be there anyway?
Secular Americans are a minority, something on the order of 10%. And I've seen secularists on the right (a lot of Randroid pseudo-libertarians for the most part). It's easy to assume that most secularists lean left, but I don't know that it's true.
And the nation is so evenly divided that a major lump of the religious majority must lean leftward.
So, is this a real worry, or is it one of those things everyone knows that turns out not to be so?
I think that we have to make it very clear that the left is not attacking religion, we are attacking the frauds who hide behind religions they simply do not respect.
The right make no objection when people point out that Bin Laden's interpretation of Islam is rejected by the vast majoroity of muslims. It seems fair to point out that the vast majority of Christians reject the bigotry of Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell.
Perhaps a better way to make this clear is to refer to the pseudo-christian right. Those who worship Mammon should not be confused with Christians.
What people are objecting to is the fact that a faction of pseudo-christians are attempting to impose their own bigottries and predjudices as law and are using religion as an excuse.
Honestly, I would have to argue that the two examples cited in the LA Times articles are pretty weak examples of leftist mockery of religion.
1. These citations are from a radio show and the radio show that isn't offending someone, somewhere, is a rare show indeed.
2. This sort of literally irreverant humor is older than all of us and is most certainly not limited to secular humanists.
The right wing has been trying to use weak anecdotes like this since before forever to make their argument that leftys hate religion and are trying to destroy our christian society. From my perspective, it has always seemed to me that progressives are far more likely to respect an individual's right to believe whatever they would like, even if that involves bloody sacrifices of livestock. As far as I can tell, which is to say that I have never seen or heard any tangible evidence to the contrary, the notion that the left has some specific anti-religious agenda is purely mythological. Even those who are strongly anti-religious, have no interest in preventing others from believing whatever they would like.
I'd like to believe you, Phill and Brent, but the very first comment on Kevin's post talks about "religious nutbags" and it only goes downhill from there. This comment is a particularly fine example. Little Green Footballs would be proud of some of the rhetoric that's being slung over at Political Animal.
That's not a compliment.
What do you think good-hearted liberals should do when people (ostensibly liberal people, even) do propose that Christians deserve no respect and even less consideration? I'd really like to know, because after getting all the way through Kevin's comment page my liberal spirit is feeling very weak indeed.
(PS: I used to use the handle "MD" while commenting here and on Making Light, but today I noticed that a commenter here is already MD^2. Since they were around longer and I'm a lot less than their square root, I'm changing my name. I apologise to MD^2 and to everyone else for causing confusion.)
Anticorium says: "the very first comment on Kevin's post talks about "religious nutbags" and it only goes downhill from there."
Actually, if you bother to read the posts, it does not by any means only go downhill from there. The next several after that one are sensible.
And does anyone find those descriptions of jokes from Air America actually offensive? I didn't, but I'm an atheist. (They're not funny either, which may be another problem.)
...it's fine to make it clear that the attacks are being launched at "the pseudo-Christian right" who are trying to inject their interpretation of Christianity into public life, but progressives need to clearly indicate that this is really going on.
As a lefty (well, ok, a moderate lefty) and a Christian, I am at best bemused by the tone of some commentators, many fine examples of which you can find in the comment section of Kevin Drum's post. Despite any insistence to the contrary that they are merely expressing disgust for fundie righties, the attacks, insults, and slurs are frequently directed against Christianity itself with no distinction drawn between fundies and those of us who disagree with their interpretation.
Being a big boy, I ignore the comments because of the need to achieve a greater good in areas where we do agree (and besides - from a purely objective standpoint - if I'm right and the insulters are wrong, they are going to eventually have way bigger problems that whether or not they hurt some Christian's feelings). But, as one of Drum's commentators alluded, this is not the way to be trying to win the hearts and minds of moderate to left-leaning Christians...
I don't think that's a representative group over there. People who read contrarian blogs most likely self-select for contrarianism, don't you think?
I'd be amazed to see any of that stuff here, and I think this blog is far more consistently opposed to the right.
I'd like to believe you, Phill and Brent, but the very first comment on Kevin's post talks about "religious nutbags" and it only goes downhill from there.
Well my argument is not that there are not a lot of liberals who disdain religion for whatever reason. It is more that first, those anti-religous attitudes cannot reasonably be thought to comprise the majority of progressive opinion and second, that they are just attitudes, not actions. To clarify, I think that even many of the people who have expressed some of the more odious commentary on Drum's log, would not advocate some sort of government stricture or state limitation on religious freedom. Pray to whomever you like. Believe whatever soothes you. The vitriol you see expressed comes more, I think, from their feeling that the extremely religious, and most especially fundamentalists, have made it plain that they have no interest in extending the same sort of courtesy (not sure if that is the right word but you get the point). Many fundamentalists actually do represent very powerful political organizations that have made it a point to change the political and social realities of those who do not share their beliefs.
The point I was making in my earlier post was that we have, on the one hand, a small but powerful movement of people whose religous beliefs directly inform their politics and who wish to apply their political power in a way that directly effects the lives of all of us. They have a powerful lobby and a great deal of influence, particularly with the current administration. On the other side, you have a couple of disc jockeys and some simple minded blog posters who want to make fun of religous belief because they think its humorous. The former group claims they are being mercilessly victimized by the latter group. Is that really a reasonable view of this situation? Do we, on the left, really want to lend credence to that idea?
I think, looking at the posts, the one which bothers me most was the one which saw the conversation as being boolean. Either pity them, and condescend, or mock and abuse them.
The split, in public discourse, seems (though I feel like a left-wing nutjob to say it, which bothers me) to come from the controlling memes in the media.
To wit: the left of right group is composed of people who want to abolish relgion.
Those of us who are both religious (observant or not) and moderate (e.g. Slackitivist, though perhaps my thinking him a moderate says more about where I think the nation should be than where either of us actually sits) are ignored, by both sides of the vocal debate.
I guess it boils down to my aversions to black and white renditions of the world, either the Falwellion/Robertsonians, or the ones that read like this quotation from the comments at Washington Monthly..."anti-religious sentiment is now so well-entrenched in liberalism that I think it is probably impossible to eradicate. There is no way that you will ever get the editorial board of the Nation to sing the praises of old time religion. Evangelical Christianity will never be fashionable in the academy or the media. The stereotypical Democratic party activist, a 45 year-old public school teacher with frizzy sweaters and funny looking glasses, is going to be turned off by religion, and that's just the way it is. She won't want to see some preacher introduce Howard Dean. She'll feel threatened and alienated."
He may not speak for me, nor for most of my liberal/progressive friends, but that is how we (I and those liberal and progressive friends) are usually depicted (unless I am being painted as another troopie who found his faith in a foxhole... I never lost it, but Mass was more comforting in the field than it is at home).
Terry
Hmmm. A good friend from Western North Carolina, a pretty religious chunk of the country, describes a culture that has its ears open for two things - the appearance of evil and sanctimony.
The first tends to create a suspicion of cultural change. But persistance pays off. Asheville has become a regional center for alternative culture without making the long-time residents flip out.
The second is more a sort of Elmer Gantry insurance policy. Not to say that everyone detects the religious demagogues and frauds, just that the culture resists them enough to keep them from taking over.
Christianity has a strong progressive streak, especially Catholicism and main-line Protestantism. I agree that we need to be attentive to not turning potential allies away at the door of the tent. We just need to learn to agree to disagree, which just might be our insurance against the right's desire to polarize every aspect of American politics.
So your answer, Brent, to the question "What do you think good-hearted liberals should do when people (ostensibly liberal people, even) do propose that Christians deserve no respect and even less consideration?" is ...
... is ...
... hm. I didn't actually see an answer there.
On the other side, you have a couple of disc jockeys and some simple minded blog posters who want to make fun of religous belief because they think its humorous.
No, I think that on the other side there's an undercurrent of rationalism so rough and sharp that it risks becoming, or already is, hatred of Christianity and its adherents. And, given that hatred is a bad thing, I'd rather like to know what you think should be done when otherwise decent people start talking like that. If, hypothetically, someone were to say I think that a better analogy is that most religious belief is an illness, like schizophrenia, and should be treated as such or The only difference between belief based religions (as opposed to practice based) and other odd mental states, is the veneer of respectability that 2000 years brings*, would you think it was just a big ol' joke?
I'd like to think that there's a better answer than "yeah but Georgie and Johnny hit me first and it got me so darn mad I had to hit Suzie." Please prove me right.
Do we, on the left, really want to lend credence to that idea?
I'd say the best way to lend credence to an idea is to let evidence of it go unchallenged.
* I am of course completely fabricating these quotes, which were never once uttered anywhere on washingtonmonthly.com. Honest.
And, given that hatred is a bad thing, I'd rather like to know what you think should be done when otherwise decent people start talking like that. If, hypothetically, someone were to say I think that a better analogy is that most religious belief is an illness, like schizophrenia, and should be treated as such or The only difference between belief based religions (as opposed to practice based) and other odd mental states, is the veneer of respectability that 2000 years brings
Well, I'd probably wouldn't assume that the people speaking were representative of something other than A Person with Access to a Computer.
Otherwise I would be suggesting that people posting comments on a not-particularly-left-leaning blog were a microcosm of all leftists, and that would be a bit reductive, don't you think?
"What do you think good-hearted liberals should do when people (ostensibly liberal people, even) do propose that Christians deserve no respect and even less consideration?"
Depends where the "liberals" are proposing that Christians deserve no respect. On comment boards--especially those as unenlightening as KD's has become--I ignore. Among friends I'll dissent (though I'm a pretty firm agnostic). On unfunny radio shows that I can't receive anyway I, well, I won't listen. Should I be doing something I'm not?
(In fact, I'd like to distinguish between "liberalism" and "anti-clericalism." The two may have a history together, but they aren't at all synonomous. Conflating the two necessarily is just sloppy.)
Generally, I agree, though. Mocking religion isn't polite. Ostentatious anti-clericalism is just as annoying as ostentatious piety. Where religious satire is funny, it's usually funny because the mockery is directed at excessive pomposity or hypocrisy, not at, say, the Beatitudes. The chances that blackly humorous or "sick" religious satire will be funny rapidly approach zero, but isn't impossible. YMMV.
there's an undercurrent of rationalism so rough and sharp that it risks becoming, or already is, hatred of Christianity and its adherents
This isn't perfectly obvious to me, but then I live in a fairly religious part of the country. Perhaps you could elaborate?
So your answer, Brent, to the question "What do you think good-hearted liberals should do when people (ostensibly liberal people, even) do propose that Christians deserve no respect and even less consideration?" is ...
... is ...
... hm. I didn't actually see an answer there.
Well Anticorium I will flip the question back to you. What do you think we should do about what other people (I contend a small minority of people) think? The obvious answer would seem to be that we have plenty of forums to express our own opinions and rejections of their ideas. There are plenty of people over at Political Animal who took their opportunity to do just that. Do you think there is some further more stringent approach that we should take?
No, I think that on the other side there's an undercurrent of rationalism so rough and sharp that it risks becoming, or already is, hatred of Christianity and its adherents.
My point remains, that there is no real evidence that this hatred or lack of respect extends beyonds the attitudes of a small minority. Anti-religious sentiment of the type being cited here existed before the democratic party or anything resembling our current political system. The notion that these sentiments represent a real challenge to anyone's right to believe anything they want is a more recent invention of the right. The posters on Poltical Animal or the comments by Djs on some small market radio station don't indicate a trend towards anything and more importantly have no real effect on our constitionally protected freedoms.
If, hypothetically, someone were to say I think that a better analogy is that most religious belief is an illness, like schizophrenia, and should be treated as such or The only difference between belief based religions (as opposed to practice based) and other odd mental states, is the veneer of respectability that 2000 years brings*, would you think it was just a big ol' joke?
Perhaps not a joke but I think not something to be treated as "one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing." Look, there are liberal racists, liberal sociopaths, liberal anti-semitists. These individuals do not define progressive thought in any meaningful way and we do ourselves a disservice by allowing the right to define us and the debate according to the most wrongheaded among us. Moreover, I think there is no real connective tissue between your citation regarding treating religion as an illness and the irreverent but unfunny radio jokes that are cited. While we may agree that they are both wrong, those two attitudes toward religion have nothing in common.
I'd say the best way to lend credence to an idea is to let evidence of it go unchallenged.
This may be the second best way to lend credence to an idea. The best way is to spend an inordinate amount of time defending ourselves against every invented idea of the left that the right can come up with.
Brent said:
The point I was making in my earlier post was that we have, on the one hand, a small but powerful movement of people whose religous beliefs directly inform their politics and who wish to apply their political power in a way that directly effects the lives of all of us.
But, of course, that statement could equally well apply to religious left. Well, except for the "but powerful" part.
People who support welfare programs because God said they should feed the hungry, are letting their religious beliefs inform their politics just as much as people who want to forbid gay marriage because it's an abomination before the Lord.
In fact, I, as a religious person, submit to you that anyone whose religion doesn't inform their politics is someone who doesn't take their religion seriously.
Furthermore, anyone who doesn't want to apply their political power in a way that directly effects all of us is someone who doesn't take politics seriously.
Brent: The best way is to spend an inordinate amount of time defending ourselves against every invented idea of the left that the right can come up with.
Yeah. A chunk of this thread reminds me of that little act Glenn Reynolds puts on every time someone to his left says anything stupid. "Oh, how am I supposed to take liberals seriously unless every single liberal blogger in the world denounces [insert outrage of the hour here]? Not that I'll actually notice the ones who do. Dance, oh dance for my pleasure, liberal bloggers!"
In my experience, the most venomous anti-religious zealots tend to be people who were raised by religious zealots and have fought themselves almost free. They aren't arguing with any religious people actually present -- they're re-fighting battles with [often quite toxic] ideas that were dinned into them as young children, before they had any critical defenses. They are still, quite justifiably, angry about having been emotionally abused.
This has nothing to do with political left and right, except that the kind of people who engage in cruelty masquerading as religion have, in the US, attached themselves very visibly to the right wing. So naturally any opposition to the political right (I won't say the left -- you don't really have much of what most other people would call a left wing) is going to attract some walking wounded for whom the single largest issue in their lives is that the "religion" that tried to warp them as children must never, ever be allowed to take over the country.
They're not able to distinguish well between the fanatics they fear, and the (I think) still very substantial numbers of genuinely good, loving, generous people for whom religion is a central part of their lives. Part of the reason for this is that the fanatics, who really are quite scary, have spent a great deal of effort for many years trying to erase any public distinction between themselves and ordinary religious folk.
This is not the fault of the Democratic Party.
I've done something that I think many people commenting on this here and on Kevin's blog haven't done--I've actually listened to Marc Moron and his Morning Sedition show.
He's being actively and intentionally offensive to religious believers, on the expressed assumption that religious believers are brainless, bigoted idiots and not anyone that liberals and progressives need to worry about. When a caller attempted to politely point out to him and his co-host that his humor was likely to be offensive to liberal religious believers, he responded by reiterating his opinion of how stupid religious believers are, and clearly stating his intention to go on being as offensive as possible to them.
As a Catholic and a liberal, I was not charmed, not amused, and not impressed. After tuning in again on a couple of subsequent occasions, and hearing more of the same, I wrote off the Moron and stopped listening.
But, folks, I'm not someone on the edge, with doubts about Bush but not yet convinced that I can trust those liberals I've always heard such bad things about. I'm going to vote a straight Democratic ticket anyway, regardless of Mr. Moron. People like me aren't enough by ourselves to give the election to Kerry, especially with Diebold in the mix. Being pointlessly offensive to large numbers of marginal voters doesn't demonstrate how smart, clever, and courageous Mr. Moron is. It demonstrates how stupid he is.
"the ones that read like this quotation from the comments at Washington Monthly...'anti-religious sentiment is now so well-entrenched in liberalism that I think it is probably impossible to eradicate.'"
As something of a regular over there, i can assure you that the guy who said that is not a liberal
I imagine that Mr. Moron will get his pink slip soon enough, given who AAR's financial backers are.
I suggest that AAR look to America's Finest Newspaper for pointers on how to poke genuine fun at religion in a secular, leftist setting.
rea is spot on.
If I (social liberal, non-Xian by choice) deride the not-so-right-but-Right Revs. Falwell and Robertson for their claim that NYC invited 9/11, I am disparaged as being "anti-religious."
If I (ibid.) do not immediately denounce someone who says something legitimately anti-religious, Anticorium will disparage me for not speaking up.
The latter is the TRUE "liberal" problem: the strange propagation and acceptance of the claim that--unlike conservative pundits who believe "The 11th Commandment" really is one--liberals who do not disparage immediately are somehow complicit.
If you can name five--or even three--visible conservative commentators (feel free to define "visible" very loosely, but it has to be someone who did so in print or on non-public-access television, not just some Republican friend of yours who made a passing remark) who took Anne Coulter to task for having declared in that NY Observer interview her deep regret that the NY Times wasn't destroyed on September 11th, then I'm willing to consider that liberals may have an obligation to speak out.
Until then, Drum and Brill are confusing a collateral issue with the Root Cause--the higher standard that conservatives would like to set for liberals.
In fact, I, as a religious person, submit to you that anyone whose religion doesn't inform their politics is someone who doesn't take their religion seriously.
Furthermore, anyone who doesn't want to apply their political power in a way that directly effects all of us is someone who doesn't take politics seriously.
This is an excellent point. Of course, you are correct. I should try and be more precise.
What I want to know is why have Christians allowed the Fundamentalist nutjobs to own public perception of Christianity?
If it's OK to criticize liberals because some liberals exhibit anti-religious bigotry, why isn't it OK to criticize Christians because some Christians exhibit anti-liberal bigotry?
And when someone says "Two of the hosts gratuitously announced that they're Jewish", who exactly is being anti-religious? They were talking about Easter, right? I would think one's religion is relevant to an airing of one's views about a particular religious holiday. What's gratuitous about that?
Kevin Drum's piece is a misguided recommendation, based on false premises in several dimensions. Jokes are effective reinforcers of a shared point of view. Rush Limbaugh et alia ridicule "liberals" all day long on radio; its entertaining and the only people it alienates are Democrats; the same tactic, with reverse politics, can be applied to the cause of Air America.
Religiosity, and frequently religion itself, are more than faintly ridiculous, and therefore the natural target for ridicule. Ridicule the ridiculous should be an obvious prescription for a humorist, while what really alienates most moderates from the left is the very kind of earnest oversensitivity and eagerness to censor any kind of interesting commentary, which Kevin Drum demonstrates.
Easter -- named for a pagan goddess, and featuring such pagan fertility symbols as eggs and bunnies and peepers, is a strange holiday to marry to the gross-out, bloody-mindedness of Mel "Passion" Gibson and his fellow wingnuts. Silence wins few converts.
The charge that Kevin Drum is "eager to censor" anything is, of course, grotesque.
Further above, Brent is concerned about spending "an inordinate amount of time defending ourselves against every invented idea of the left that the right can come up with." And Avram Grumer says that parts of this thread remind him of "that little act Glenn Reynolds puts on every time someone to his left says anything stupid."
Hello, who raised this issue in the first place? Are you guys really suggesting that Kevin Drum, Allen Brill, and Amy Sullivan are right-wingers?
Honestly, I'm stunned by the hostility provoked by the suggestion that progressives and liberals might want to dial down their tolerance for a certain kind of gratuitous abuse of people who are trying to be their allies. If you don't think this is a real problem, I suggest you re-read Lis Carey's post just upthread from this one. If you think Lis is someone inclined to lend aid and comfort to right-wing opportunists, you really, really don't know Lis.
Frankly, I think there are people in this thread, some of whom I've never seen here before and some of whom are old friends and acquaintances, who are behaving absolutely abominably--who would never dream of saying things anywhere near as rude if they hadn't rationalized to themselves that religion and religious people are somehow a special case in the general rules of decent social behavior.
Well Anticorium I will flip the question back to you. What do you think we should do about what other people (I contend a small minority of people) think?
Speak out. If they're a minority, prove it with words and actions. Make it clear that the anti-religious left won't get away with anti-Christian statements, because that's not what liberals really believe. There's a saying about evil's victory conditions, and I'm sure it doesn't go "Evil always fails in a comical slapstick manner because it's so self-evidently wrong that good men need never waste their time fighting it."
The best way is to spend an inordinate amount of time defending ourselves against every invented idea of the left that the right can come up with.
And yet it's not a right wing "invention" that I'm talking about here. I'm talking about what people actually said on Kevin's comment page. (Maybe they're all actually right-wing trolls sent off by Instapundit to poison the well, but I'll risk that I'd have some tough crow to eat if that truth comes out.)
If there's some sort of litmus test you'd like me to take so that I can show my True Liberal Bona Fides, some sort of cerification test I can write to demonstrate that I'm not Glenn Reynolds, please point me at it.
And in ken's post...
If you can name five--or even three--visible conservative commentators [...] who took Anne Coulter to task[...]
Wait, what? I simply can't agree with that. It's not okay to wallow in the mud like a pig! I don't care what the other pigs are doing, or how many "heh"s and "indeed"s and "objectively pro-Saddam"s they oink out. I'd like to be better than that not just because people respond to virtue (he said, perhaps naively) but because it's the right thing to do. Be honest, be compassionate, be just, and then kick some ass.
Patrick: "...if they hadn't rationalized to themselves that religion and religious people are somehow a special case in the general rules of decent social behavior."
Ah, if THAT is the issue that Drum and Brill are raising--Brill seemed more to be working from the premise that liberals don't want him or others like him playing in their pool, and using Shaw's bias to reinforce his own--then by all means it's a legitimate discussion, and one being carried on by liberals of all stripe (e.g. http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=7572 and http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=7373).
Jeremy Leader got it right, though, in one significant respect: the discussion is about public perception, not reality. And that has been shaped by a discourse that allows self-declared Xians to hide behind their declaration of religion--no matter how askew it is from Jim Caviezel's (or Martin Luther's; see http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4767275/) teachings--and declare liberals to be antagonistic to what they call "Xian values."
Not exactly something that could be repaired in the next six months, or six years.
Hello, who raised this issue in the first place? Are you guys really suggesting that Kevin Drum, Allen Brill, and Amy Sullivan are right-wingers?
Patrick (If I can feel free to call you that) wonderful site by the way.
I am not sure if you meant to direct this particular comment to me but if so, then I should clarify. I did not suggest - at least I did not intend to suggest - that Kevin or Allen or Amy were right wingers. I was not even objecting to Kevin's post (or your post) exactly. My points in my original post were in the first place, that the examples cited in the Times were weak examples of anti-religious sentiment and in the second place, should not reasonably be associated with any general idea of progressivism. As Lis Carey correctly pointed out, I have not listened to the original source material so that may have colored my opinion.
Later on I was simply defending my original post and further raising the point in that context that we have to be careful not to allow the right wing to define the debate by constantly making us defend ourselves. I guess we just simply disagree on the degree to which the sort of virulent anti-religious sentiment you discuss is something that we tolerate on the left.
Honestly, I'm stunned by the hostility...
I also apologize if any of my posts seemed hostile. To my sensibility, it seemed that we were all having an honest and reasonable debate.
On the cross-post, to Anticorium:
I don't thinking of it as "wallowing in mud with a pig" to not waste time posting indignantly every time someone posts something silly on the internet. Your expectation that liberals must fight any and all at all times while conservatives choose their battles (and tar with impunity) is at best dubious.
The first comment on KD's site referred to "religious nutbags." This apparently was offensive to Patrick (who is religious but not a nutbag), but I note that he decries the line here, but not there.
By your reasoning, should he not be obligated to do that as well?
For me, the most accurate and relevant statement in that exchange so far is:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_04/003740.php#150963
If there's some sort of litmus test you'd like me to take so that I can show my True Liberal Bona Fides, some sort of cerification test I can write to demonstrate that I'm not Glenn Reynolds, please point me at it.
I already responded to this sentiment as expressed by our moderator to some extent but I will restate here. I am not accusing you or anyone here of being a right winger. Looking over my posts I can see as how that would be unclear. Well I am not a very good writer obviously.
What I am suggesting is that "we" and I do mean myself included are often guilty of accepting a definition of progressives from the conventional wisdom. That wisdom is influenced by elements of the right wing that hammers phrases like "godless socialists" and we spend a great deal of our time defending ourselves from this characterization. My contention is that some clown on a radio show and a couple dozen blog posters don't define anything.
So if someone, liberal or conservative says to me, what do you have to say about Joe Blow, an avowed liberal, who says that all religous people suck, I say, "Joe Blow's opinions have nothing to do with his politics. The idea that they do is a conservative myth." What I don't say is, "well I don't agree with Joe Blow. He is just ignorant. And besides, most liberals don't really think that." Perhaps I should, but to my way of thinking, I have no obligation to defend myself from the opinions of Joe Blow because he really has nothing to do with me or my politics.
What an awesome diversity of narrow-minded hatred Kevin called up.
For some reason I am reminded of moving into married student housing at the University of Chicago (many years ago). I know I was surrounded by liberals of the time - they celebrated, in my view indecently, the fall of Saigon a few years later. They all displayed proper urban manners and passed by with eyes averted as I hustled boxes from the U-Haul upstairs.
With the one exception of a Southern Baptist type who grabbed a box and followed me.
Reminds me (quoting) there is no cause too noble to attract [undesirable adherents] and just because you are on their side doesn't mean they are on your side.
[Delurk (or decloak)]
Unfortunately, we have let the Xtian Wrong define the debate and the terms thereof. I say "we" because although only relatively recently in my life (about the last 3 years) have I admitted openly to myself and others that I am, yes, that dreaded and loathed entity, a Liberal Feminist (though with a couple of nonstandard tenets) as well as a Catholic, part of that admission was the realization that I have, on many levels, been one in denial all my life. (I come from the orthodox (but not Greek) academic conversado branch, which is a tiny sub-splinter of those whom Teresa has said, truly, "You are for them but they are not for you" in re our relation to the conservative political establishment.
The realization process was a long one, starting pretty much with the Anita Hill and Tailhook hearings and a simultaneous course of Bib Theo and Early Church history, and I won't bore you with the details of it all, but eventually I realized that there wasn't really any place for those of us who were for civil rights and social justice and the environment and small business and science and so on, in the Conservative Christian sphere, and I had to stop pretending to myself that a) I fit and b) there was any room for me to even belong.
Why would I have struggled so long? Because Liberal and Feminist are the dirtiest words in the English language, the way I was brought up on Wanderer and Register and Crisis versions of religion. It wasn't until I got out into the real world, and met real live liberals and/or feminists (and even athiests and pagans)and realized that I'd been fed lies about what those categories consisted of for the most part, and equally that evil was "not all bottled up in the dragons" but that all the things I had been raised to loathe were present in "us", the conservative Christian side, and that *I couldn't pretend they were just abberations* (all men are sinful, Christianity doesn't pretend otherwise, you know the drill) but inherent to the spiritual pride of the movement and the linkage with the secular status quo.
Yes, there is a problem that a lot of liberal writers and so on are unaware that liberal Christians are not chimeras, and that there is any other kind of Christian than anti-intellectual, "Fearing Believer" types out to muzzle dissent and impose a version of 50s whitebread Americana masquerading as the Gospels on everyone.
But the problems are dual:
Firstly, Christianity, and the words "tradition" and "faithful" have been co-opted by the noisy Mammon-worshipers and wishthinkful revenge-fantasists, the Left Behind fans and Pat Robertsons, the "blame-the-problems-of-the-world" on everyone but us, and pretend they're new, and if you just let us roll it back to Ye Goode Olde Dayes, we will make everything happy and shiny and new... (and axes will be sharp ObPratchettRef)
The other problem is that we haven't shouted back. We've *let* them assert that *we* are wishy-washy stand-for-nothings, "the lukewarm that will be spat out of the mouth of God," who only want clown masses and Kumbaya and don't know history and don't care about culture and have a naive belief that everyone can just get along if everyone is nice...
This Lent has been hell on me for a lot of factors, and in it a moment of blinding personal clarity connected with facing all the bizarre and sexist and masochistic spirituality that I came out of (my background is a lot more moderate than Gibson's, but I definitely know where he's coming from, and we know people in common as a matter of fact - handshake away etc) and the revelation was this: I am a *proud* post-Vatican II Catholic. Not some hangdog watered down leftover, but heir to a vibrant and reconfiguring Early Church that got lost under the trappings of princely power.
I'm a Bible-Thumping Liberal: Woe to the complacent! Remember you were once immigrants too! Protect, don't mock, the handicapped! Put those safety railings up! Don't let the rich and powerful eat up the widows and orphans and workers! Woe to you violent and stone-hearted military-industrialists...
That's the message *I* get out of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and the whole rest of it, the important part - not four dubious lines that probably refer to idolatry via fertility cults, at least.
So how do we convince the world to think of *us* first, and not Mel Gibson or Pat Robertson or the vast mass of cranks who teach say, hexameronical literalism, and who have co-opted Christianity? If we have let the latter be the Fruits of Christianity, how can we complain that passers-by conclude the Cross is a upas tree?
(No, I don't have a good solution. I'm best at defining problems myself. Sorry...)
hrm.
I think true religion (that which is of the soul and not the ballot box) is a good thing. I think it's a good thing because any time you raise your eyes, you see past yourself, and far too few of us do that.
I think that whenever someone realizes that there is more that we have in common than there are differences between us, something has been gained.
I agree that there are people who have gotten sucked into a reflexive and unconsidered position of Is this what The Religious Are? Well, then, I'm agin 'em.
I also think that people who comment on a blog which recently suggested that the fifth amendment is overrated might be a trifle extreme in their views.
Your expectation that liberals must fight any and all at all times while conservatives choose their battles (and tar with impunity) is at best dubious.
Given that I've never said that liberals must fight "any and all at all times", I haven't said a word about conservatives "choos[ing] their battles", and I think nobody should be allowed to "tar with impunity", I'm quite interested to find out who this horrible person is you're arguing with. Their body, being made entirely out of straw, poses many fascinating questions in the field of biology.
(I, on the other hand, would be quite pleased if liberals started "dialing down their tolerance", as PNH puts it, for Christian-bashing; think that mending fences with the evangelical left would help greatly in taking the initiative away from the right; and feel that you can go ahead and tar all you want, as long as you're repairing some of the sad, sad highways into the city I used to live in. Skip the impunity, though -- bad road repairs are almost worse than none at all.)
I'm a bit tired of having liberalism called to account for every comment left on a popular blog. The urge to contradict being what it is, I would think it very likely that the first comment after an article saying "we should not criticize X" will be one that harshly criticizes X.
After all, the people most highly motivated to respond are not those in agreement, but those who want to call attention to their views (or themselves) by disagreement. With enough people reading the blog, the chances of finding people to disagree with any issue go up.
Is it really necessary for me, as a liberal, to dutifully respond to each of these predictable outbursts and assure everyone that no, liberals really don't believe that? I'm sure that conservatives would like nothing better than that we spend our time policing ourselves in this way.
What I'm really tired of, is just how insane my country is on the subject of religion, either pro or con. I am reminded of walking into a panel at Octocon (Ireland) a year and a half ago to hear someone state, and the rest of the room marvel, that some huge percentage of Americans believe in God. They don't necessarily belong to a church or attend service, but they believe. So it's possible that some of us non-believers are indulging in a bunker mentality. Not that this excuses rudeness, esp. to people we want on our side. And the Europeans in the room found this very remarkable.
I wonder sometimes why this country is so crazed on sex and religion. They're obviously connected, at least obviously to Americans, but why? The UK and the rest of Europe, our cultural cousins, are much more relaxed and laissez faire about all this. Why is the US so obsessed? Sometimes I really do wish I lived somewhere else. Given my husband's job though, not bloody likely.
MKK
Well, if these idiots are hosts on the new highly-publicized new liberal radio network, it's not like we can claim that they're just some isolated wackos who don't speak for/on behalf of liberals. If they don't speak for us, why are they on Air America? I don't think that we have to apologize for every idiot in a comment section, no. But that's not where this discussion started.
Step back for a second. Forget about the issue of who represents liberals or whether there's a double standard between left and right, or any of that. Two radio hosts went out of their way to attack religion and Christianity on _Good Friday_. Isn't that worthy of at least some negative comment, just for grounds of general rudeness and bigotry? Put it another way: is _this_ what we want Air America to be like?
Sylvia, I think you're very right about some of the averse reactions to blatant religiosity--and I also had a thought after reading Kevin's original post. He commented that it's rude to mock unless you're a member of the group, but I don't think mainstream Christianity is so foreign to most of us (and by "us", I should clarify, I mean some value of stereotypical white vaguely middlish-class American whose parents loosely attended a Christianish church, not "liberals") that we would treat it as most would, say, Taoism or Shintoism or something "exotic" like that.
Speaking for myself; I wouldn't mock anyone of a "different" religion...but I feel like I know enough about, oh, different varieties of paganism to give my roommates crap about artsy-fartsy New-Ageyness. Likewise with Christianity; it's not foreign. Which means it doesn't get any instinctive politeness.
Also, speaking as a vaguely stereotypical white vaguely middle-classish liberal, I think some of my reflexive yarking at Christianity is because I'm still trying to distance myself from the Christianishness of my youth. It wasn't traumatic or scarring and I'm not violently opposed, or even bitter & angry; but I do feel uncomfortable with strongly Christian settings. I wonder if there aren't more people like that than Pentecostals in revolt.
I suppose I could edit this for readability and post it over at PA, but the comments section at that site is icky. Thanks, everyone at Light Enterprises, for maintaining a fantastic comments section :).
"What I want to know is why have Christians allowed the Fundamentalist nutjobs to own public perception of Christianity?"
We haven't. You have. We're out here, doing what we think is right (as in correct, not wing). You have a choice who to believe. If you choose to leap around howling about extremists (sorry, I'll not misuse "fundamentalists" in the way every one else on this thread has been doing) that's your choice.
You could also take a cue from what happened to me recently over on Teresa's blog, where a simple comment about belief which I made has been mischaracterized and misapplied into a mockery of what it originally said. It never fails to amaze me what people can read into words, and then denounce you for saying what you never said in the first place.
I once had to endure a campaign to toss me off a discussion list, simply because I wouldn't change my .sig line (which simply read "In God We Trust, All Others Must Supply Data"). That was my only offense.
There's a strong bias against Christianity in particular among the media, but it also goes against anyone who is sincerely trying to do what is right. It's understandable; it's wrong that sells newspapers, after all, not right.
So folks like me just move on, because we know there's no point in trying to outshout the human howler monkeys. People will believe what they want to about us, regardless of what we do or say. So why waste the effort?
I share the belief that mockery of religion by pro-Democrat political activists is likely to lose more votes than it gains.
I think that I do understand this practice, without endorsing it -- in the same way I understand the belligerent tone of most reader response on Atrios' website.
A good number of atheists (and leftists) feel oppressed by, and resentful of perceived majority opinions. Letting off steam about it seems to provide a sense of emotional relief. I habitually listen to KPFA's "humanist-political-folk" programming on Sunday mornings. I noticed (not being at Minicon this year), that their Easter Sunday song selection was full of bitter anti-Christian stuff that I'd never heard before -- ratcheted up from the Utah Phillips/Phil Ochs level to beyond Paul Krassner intensity. I'm not a Christian; but I switched it off as not what I was looking for on a Sunday morning.
Whether expression of that kind of anger is justified or therapeutic is two other discussion topics. It's not a useful vote-getting tool for Air America or other Kerry campaigners.
Arlen, secularists make up at best about 10% of the American population. How the heck can our beliefs constitute “public perception of Christianity”?
Patrick, I’m not suggesting that Kevin Drum is a right-winger. I’m suggesting that perhaps he, and the chain of people he’s linking to before I get to that LA Times article by David Shaw, are being over-sensitive, and taking one person’s vague description of offensiveness and blowing it up into “The Progressive Penchant for Self-Destruction”.
I could be wrong here. But I’ve seen enough of these this-is-offensive-no-it-isn’t arguments (remember the Brooklyn Museum’s Sensation show?) that I don’t trust summaries and descriptions.
Avram, I'm not taking anyone's vague description of anything. I'm talking about what I heard with my very own ears on several different occasions of listening to Morning Sedition. Marc Moron was very, very clear about his intentions. There was no ambiguity. He thinks I'm a blithering idiot, and probably a dangerous one, but hopefully more dangerous to myself than to him, based solely on the fact that I'm religious. He cannot even begin to wrap his mind around the fact that religious believers might be politically liberal, nor not believe the world is flat, and he means to be as offensive as possible.
I'm rather struck by the fact that the only two people who appear to have noticed that I've said this--that unlike many of the people insisting that it's all just hypersensitivity, based on comments about comments, I've actually listened to the show--are Patrick and Brent. This is intentional offensiveness on Mr. Moron's part, and he says it's intentional offensiveness.
And if you can't take the word of a religious believer that this is not good for what I presume is our shared liberal/Democratic goal in this election, consider believing Lenny Bailes, who is, at least, safely non-Christian.
Lis, maybe I’ll try listening to the show. I’ve had my radio tuned to that station all week, and I’ve been catching bits of it in between snoozes, but haven’t tried for anything longer because it’s sounded really annoying and obnoxious and unfunny (just like every other zany comedy radio morning show I’ve ever heard).
But it’ll take more than a morning show asshole to get me to believe in a “Progressive Penchant for Self-Destruction”.
A lot of the thread has been about comments because the original post said "If you don’t believe that, try reading the comments following Kevin’s post—starting with the very first one."
Mark asks "If they [the radio Djs] don't speak for us, why are they on Air America?" I was unaware that I had voted for Marc Moron to be my official liberal representative. I thought that he was, you know, an entertainer hired by a private company. And what exactly am I supposed to do about this? Denounce him? Isn't that kind of a bad joke in a world where the Bush Administration is killing hundreds of Iraqis a week?
Anticorium: sorry for the name choice trouble.
All right spent evening talking about this with people from the french INALCO, and it seems that to most of the students, whatever country they were from, the image of the US righ wing being mildly to deeply religious, and its left wing in majority ranging from agnostic to atheist seems deeply rooted.
I think there IS a deep rooted image problem to fight off.
As for humour at the expense of religion, I'd say as long as it's not done in order to harm I'm all for it. I'd like to properly quote Pierre Desproges on the subject, but I'm not good enough for a good english translation, so I'll leave it in french for now and try to deliver an english version later:
"Peut-on rire de tout ? Peut-on rire avec tout le monde ?
A la première question, je répondrai oui sans hésiter. S’il est vrai que l’humour est la politesse du désespoir, s’il est vrai que le rire sacrilège blasphématoire que les bigots de toutes les chapelles taxent de vulgarité et de mauvais goût, s’il est vrai que ce rire-là peut parfois désacraliser la bêtise, exorciser les chagrins véritables et fustiger les angoisses mortelles, alors oui, on peut rire de tout, on doit rire de tout. [...]
A la deuxième question, peut-on rire avec tout le monde ? Je répondrai : c’est dur."
Looking at the situation, from both countries and perspective, I notice a disquieting increase in the pattern of community compartmentalization, or at least that's the way I perceive it.
Talking about proselitism: isn't anti-religious humour a twisted form of non-religious proselitism itself ? At its lowest point.
Maybe not everytime.
Sometimes I fear there's a kind of distrust, even contempt, ingrained in environmental non-religiosity. As if religion was felt a barbarous thing of the past best left forgotten.
I shared with a friend the address to Making Light. He enjoyed and respected the place until he read the Things I believe thread, at which point he told me he hadn't realized Ms Hayden was a religious person. It was not that much the comtempt in his voice as much as the realization I had had analogous, if far less violent, feelings that hurt me.
It's an old, old argument, which I remember first having seen in the Nation's lettercol about twenty years ago (guess which columnist was being denounced for his gratuitous potshots against religion --hint: he's not on the Left any longer). And the anti-religious vitriol gets really intense over at Atrios and Political Animal --not that their comment threads are ever paragons of civility. But blogovians should know better, what with Fred Clark, Jeanne D'Arc, Donald Johnson, et al to remind us that there's a vocal Christian Left out there. As one of Kevin Drum's commentors hinted, notwithstanding the number of powerful Jewish rightniks, you rarely see Lefties denouncing Jews and Judaism --it's always either Christians or religion in general. Not only should the rest of us want to avoid alienating our Christian allies and recognize the power of Christian rhetoric and values for progressive causes, we could stand to be a little humbler when confronting smart and compassionate people whom we disagree with on theological issues: heaven knows what planks we're unaware of in our own eyes.
Lenny, I'm really reluctant to put Phil Ochs in the even mildly "bitter anti-
Christian" category: I think he makes it clear in "Cannons of Christianity" and "Chaplain of the War" exactly what category of Christians he's talking about and to what ends they put their religion, and they ain't Dorothy Day or MLK (The greatest living interpreters of Phil Ochs songs, Kim and Reggie Harris, are very active in the Catholic Church --I'll ask them what they think when I next get the chance).
Brent:My point remains, that there is no real evidence that this hatred or lack of respect extends beyonds the attitudes of a small minority.
This is interesting, because that argument, that group A (let's say fundamentalist Christians, of the American stripe) represent a small portion of the Group Uber-A to which they belong, is often made (It can be seen in the argument that the Republican strategy doesn't pander to rascists, it just happens they benefit from the effects).
In the case of the Fundamentalist Christians, that groups seems to have taken the public's mind as the defining persons of the Uber-group. Which is why so many find Slacktivist, and The Right Christians so refreshing, and amazing.
The risk is that the sub-group, of religion haters, will (as they are presented by the Fundamentalists) become seen as the Uber-group.
Terry
Okay, here's my problem with this discussion and the one on Washington Monthly. I'm seeing a lot of back-and-forth about whether or not it's okay to mock "religion" (which is being used as code for "Christianity"). I'm seeing discussion about whether the choice is to mock or to pander. I'm seeing questions of what is most useful, or least damaging to the left, and who is calling who names.
I just searched the whole thread for the word "respect" and basically never found it used in a positive fashion. I see "lack of respect;" I see "views we don't respect;" I see "respectability."
Speaking as more of a secular humanist than anything else, I have a deep respect for the religious beliefs of the people I know: Christian, Jewish, Islamic, pagan, roll-your-own. I've been known to envy them ...
I also have a deep and abiding belief (you could call it a religious belief, I suppose) that no one ever benefits from a conversation in which they are not approached with respect. Want to change someone's mind? Don't approach them with that want on the table. Approach them to find out, from a position of respect, what drives the way they feel. Offer them your position as a gift, or a specimen for them to examine. Let them look at it from all sides. Do the same thing with their position with open mind, value for how they got where they are, and (yes) respect.
Maybe they'll change your mind. Maybe you'll change yours. Most likely you'll both stay right where you've been. But you'll feel better about the other position and a tiny bit of common ground will have been reached.
It's not only not about mockery, it's not about pandering either. If God doesn't speak to me (and he doesn't), how could I possibly know whether or not he speaks to you?
"Honestly, I'm stunned by the hostility provoked by the suggestion that progressives and liberals might want to dial down their tolerance for a certain kind of gratuitous abuse of people who are trying to be their allies."
Allies? You really don't see that they are NOT allies of liberals? They ARE liberals.
Allies sounds like a code phrase for useful idiots.
In the case of the Fundamentalist Christians, that groups seems to have taken the public's mind as the defining persons of the Uber-group. Which is why so many find Slacktivist, and The Right Christians so refreshing, and amazing.
I agree with Arlen that many of us are misusing the term "fundamentalist" here, but I think this post and Arlen's are directly on point. That is to say, in one way or another, we are arguing from a set of assumptions concerning the larger public perception of various Uber-groups -- to use your term. My issues are 1) are those negative assessments really the public perceptions of liberalism or of religious belief and 2) to the extent that they are, how much does anyone help themselves by spending their energies trying to prove to others what they are not?
I am not saying I know the answer to either of those questions for sure, just that I really don't believe the general assumptions are foregone conclusions. There are a lot of liberals in the world. Does the public, of which we form a large opinion block, really accept the image of god-hating hippies? Similarly, as Avram has pointed out a couple of times, far more people are religious than not. So how can we really say with any certainty that the prevailing assumptions concerning people of Faith are particularly negative? Indeed this is similar to Avram's point in the very first post on this topic.
Of course, I have no doubt of the need for any group to combat its negatives in the public. I just wonder, and I really am asking, if associating ourselves with the rantings of some purposefully offensive radio entertainer in order to refute him, is the best battle we can pick.
As a practicing Muslim and a moderator of a few progressive Muslim discussion lists as well as an extremely liberal/left Democrat (who voted Nader in 2000 and will vote ABB in 2004) I am finding this discussion very interesting and timely.
I tend not to feel personally slighted by the anger that a lot of progressive/liberal people feel against religion per se that they express in comments. This is because I automatically assume that they are, as someone upthread eloquently described, sort of going through a 7-stage process after having been indoctrinated by some form of extreme religion and are still in "anger" or "blame".
Also if I heard a radio person referring to religious wackos or something like that I would not automatically assume that they are referring to religion (e.g., mine) or the religious (e.g., me) per se; but that they were referring to the people that I also find scary (like Falwell, or Osama Bin Laden, etc).
That said, I think a lot of religious people are a lot more sensitive than me (for their own reasons and based on their own experiences) and that their sensitivities deserve consideration.
The solution, as I see it, is that it would be ideal if all of us, the religious and the non-religious, would try to practice actually listening / hearing / understanding the other person rather than starting out on the attack based on our assumptions, which may very well be wrong.
Thinking of religious people as allies of liberals, or as being able to be liberal despite their religious beliefs, is a rather arse-over-tit viewpoint. In "An Intelligent Person's Guide to Liberalism" (which I strongly recommend to absolutely everybody), Conrad Russell explains how the liberal tradition is founded in religious thought. In particular, the liberal championing of diversity, tolerance and freedom of expression began with the struggle of minority religions against persecution by offically-sanctioned religion, and the liberal concern for fair treatment of the disadvantaged has obvious religious roots.
I'm an atheist, whose secular liberal beliefs come from J. S. Mill, not Jesus Christ. But many of my fellow Liberal Democrats are deeply religious people, active and committed lay members of their various churches, for whom political work is another aspect of loving their neighbours. Their liberalism is not second-rate, neither is their faith a matter for derision. If anything, an atheist like myself is the interloper, coming via secular philosophy into a much older tradition.
It's true that, particularly in the US, the authoritarian fundamentalists are the most obvious religious figures. These are exactly the kinds of people that religious liberals have always fought against, and against whom liberalism was founded. Religious liberals, in my experience, generally don't feel the same need to tell you about how holy they are, and so their religious faith can often go unremarked.
Rich, whether or not any of us voted for Marc Moron or any of the rest of them, they're on Air America, which is certainly being billed as "our" radio network. You think people _don't_ associate the people on Air America with the American Left? I thought that was the whole point?
That Iraq is currently going to hell in a handbasket doesn't mean that other things aren't also worthy of at least some attention and comment. I don't think tunnel vision is helpful here.
Patrick,
Had you read Allen Brill a little more carefully, you would have found that this particular thread originated with me, I passed it to Allen and then Kevin picked it up. This is a theme on which Allen and I comment often. We are both pointedly ignored by the secular left as a result.
Iain, I'm grateful for your eloquent reminder of what we all have in common.
Very good comments from Debbie Notkin and Iain Coleman. (Good comments from others, too, but those two stuck in my brain.)
There's been a fair bit of comment to the effect that some people are sick-and-tired of demands for liberals to police their ranks. Rich Puchalsky's remarks seem representative:
"I was unaware that I had voted for Marc Moron to be my official liberal representative. I thought that he was, you know, an entertainer hired by a private company. And what exactly am I supposed to do about this? Denounce him?"It's an understandable sentiment, but I'm not sure what on earth I said to bring it on. I and a few others have pointed out that there's some persistent friction on this issue, and that often left-leaning people who are also religious feel disrespected or unwelcome in leftish circles. When even friends of mine respond to this with (1) suggestions that this is akin to Glenn Reynolds demanding that left-wingers police themselves according to his script, and (2) insistent claims that oh no this isn't a problem, I really have to wonder if maybe I've been absent-mindedly speaking Chinese. Fortunately, from their very different perspectives, Lis Carey's and Debbie Notkin's posts reassure me that I haven't.
In another post, Smitty demands:
Allies? You really don't see that they are NOT allies of liberals? They ARE liberals.
Allies sounds like a code phrase for useful idiots.No, I don't think religious people are "useful idiots." Perish forbid that anybody should ever credit me with having written something sloppily.
Elsewhere, here's what seems to me a rather smart post about all of this, from a blog I've never read before.
Melanie, sorry I missed that. I'm still getting the hang of Brill's new site.
Nugget for discussion: Neal Stephenson in his recent Salon interview.
"The fundamentalist churches nowadays do a much better job of promulgating their views and are much more vocal and outspoken, and if you're a secular person who doesn't have much interaction with organized religion, then the only time you ever see a Christian, it's someone saying that evolution is a lie and the world is only 6,000 years old. It's very easy to miss the fact that the Catholic Church and all the mainline Protestant denominations long ago accepted evolution and have no problem with it at all. I frequently run into militantly secular types who think that all Christians, for example, deny the theory of evolution. That accounts for a certain amount of the militancy of secular types in public discourse. They just can't believe people believe this stuff. It seems patently idiotic to them."
Here's what I just posted in Kevin Drum's thread:
This is stupid. Would you rather have Bush and his cronies out of the White House, or would you rather hang on to your habit of spouting weary cliches about religion?Not all the posts over there are stupid by any means, but there have been moments of abyssal idiocy.And believe me, 90% of remarks I hear are weary, and they are cliches. If religion is an important subject, good or bad, it deserves more thought than it's generally being given. Some new sentences would be nice.
If religion isn't an important subject, then absentmindedly slagging it off is a trivial habit you can well afford to lose, given how much it costs you in political support.
Debbie, thanks for mentioning respect. I've noticed for a long time that a lot of liberals use conservative and Republican as terms of abuse, and I've wondered how they expect to recruit people they're insulting. (Yes, I've noticed the same is true in reverse on the right.)
Mary Kay, in re that Octocon panel:
Probably something near the same percentage of people in Ireland believe in God, although fewer would pray regularly or go to Mass. That statistic about US religious observance is usually trotted out to counterpoint the popular culture image of the USA as largely secular and hedonistic.
The members of Octocon would be less religiously inclined than non-fans and more likely to be among the group of Irish people scornful about religion. We've had our own version of the cruelty masquerading as religion that Sylvia talks about.
There's a debate at the moment as to whether there should be a reference to God in the preamble to the proposed EU constitution.
"Arlen, secularists make up at best about 10% of the American population. How the heck can our beliefs constitute “public perception of Christianity”?"
My apologies, Avram, for the vagueness of the "you" in my comment. The referent for "you" was the "public" in "public perception." I wasn't singling out non-believers with that. I was just pointing out that the public at large will believe the worst. It's human nature, and I understand it (though my understanding is rooted in my religion, so I'm sure others out there won't agree with the reasoning, I think the preponderance of the evidence will support the effect). It seems that something analogous to Gresham's Law operates in humanity's views of Those Different From Me; bad impressions drive out good.
My main point was that since we can't control the impression other people have of us, many (perhaps even most) have decided that trying to do so simply drains energy away from What Really Matters, so we don't bother.
"Similarly, as Avram has pointed out a couple of times, far more people are religious than not. So how can we really say with any certainty that the prevailing assumptions concerning people of Faith are particularly negative? Indeed this is similar to Avram's point in the very first post on this topic. "
I understand Avram's point, and there's some benefit to asking the question. I guess it depends upon the circles you move in. My answer may be laden with religion (how can it not be?) so if that bothers any of you, stop reading now.
Jesus said that the well don't need a doctor, that a doctor should spend his time among the sick. In the context, that means that Christians should spend at the least the majority of their time among non-Christians.
The effect of that upon those who follow the principle, is that they spend all or most of their time interacting with people who don't feel that Christianity is worth believing in. A side effect of that is that many Christians develop a bit of a persecution complex. Maintaining one's beliefs while surrounded by those who do not share them can produce a sort of "me against the world" attitude in us that can appear as arrogance to others (and I won't candy-coat this, in some of us it flat-out does turn into arrogance).
This is why nearly every Christian will tell you they feel the world is biased against them. That is our perception, based upon our own experiences. We go among the non-believers, and we spread our Good News, as is our duty. Those who do not share this belief naturally enough are often irritated, but to stop doing it would be tantamount to giving up our religion, a point which seems to escape the Freedom From Religion folks.
Avram's question is valid, though, because our perception may not be accurate, given the skewed sample we're basing it upon. We get the backlash from the community of non-Christians that we travel within; others of other beliefs will get the same, though, so perhaps that may be why we all feel biased against?
As long as freedom endures, non-Christians will have to put up with me using opportune moments to share what God has done for me with them, and I will have to put up with the proselytizing efforts of other religions, including atheism.
Do I wish sometimes that folks both in my own group and in other groups would sometimes be a bit more reticent? Of course. But I also realize that the world would be a boring place indeed if everyone behaved the same way. Just looking around supplies proof enough for me that God values diversity; who am I to disagree with Him?
Apropos Mary Kay's point about Europeans being more relaxed about sex and religion than Americans.
A few years back, my wife and I were having lunch in a small Florence restaurant--and we got to chatting with a middle-aged couple on the bench next to us. The husband didn't speak English, so his wife acted as interpreter: "My husband is curious about two things," she said. "1. Why do sex scenes in American movies always take place near a window, and 2. What is it with ice? Americans always like their drinks with ice...."
So...while I'm persuaded by the observation that Europeans are indeed more relaxed about sex and religion than we are...it seems there's at least one European who thinks Americans are obsessed with...cold drinks and good lighting.
I know I am.
There's a debate at the moment as to whether there should be a reference to God in the preamble to the proposed EU constitution.
Which is no small thing, given how Europe was once synonomous with Christendom.
Patrick again: "left-leaning people who are also religious feel disrespected or unwelcome in leftish circles"
Most of us don't travel in such circles, and are therefore noting that we're being tarred by Brill (and Melanie, who declares herself "pointedly ignored by the secular left ") in a manner that they or you would rightly find offensive if we lumped you in with the "Xian right."
Why, to be blunt about it, should we spend our most valuable resource (time) dealing with people who declare loudly and publicly that we don't want them?
This is stupid. Would you rather have Bush and his cronies out of the White House, or would you rather hang on to your habit of spouting weary cliches about religion?
Speaking only for myself, I would rather people be honest, whatever it is they believe. I think that what makes it so difficult to foster a real public debate on any of the important issues of the day is that so few parties intend to approach the debtate honestly. Of course, I would much rather people be respectful of other's beliefs, but not if it just pretend. That would really seem to be more like pandering or condescension.
Fortunately, at least to my way of thinking, we are not really faced with that choice. When voters are faced with a choice, they would be hard pressed to find a progressive candidate that doesn't respect a wide range of belief systems, whatever their faith. Lets keep in mind that for all of the talk of the schism or tensions between liberalism and religion, it is still essentially impossible in this society for a viable liberal candidate to be anything other than deeply religious. I don't want to downplay the influence of blogs like Political Animal or of Air America but in perspective, and especially on an issue like this, I really think that we are overestimating their influence and relevance to the larger public debate.
Patrick Neilsen Hayden quotes me as being reprepresentative, and then writes:
"It's an understandable sentiment, but I'm not sure what on earth I said to bring it on."
Well, here's what brought it on. I've added emphasis:
"Self-inflicted wounds. Allen Brill and Kevin Drum discuss one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing—a problem largely of our own making."
Why are all of us suddenly responsible for Marc Moron? I've never dissed religious people as a group, and neither have most of the liberals I know. Why was this directed to all of us rather than to the specific subset of us, or to the individuals, who are responsible? Why are we supposed to believe that this is a problem that affects all of us because someone chose to write something in Kevin Drum's comments?
The answer, according to some commenters here, appears to be that it is a problem for all of us because those of us who do not diss religion are supposed to police those who do. Sorry, but I have better things to do than to call on people to change what they say so that a group of people who they do not speak for will look good. It is futile, because you can't control everyone and it only needs a few contrarians to exist anywhere in the U.S. to provide examples that the right wing will seize on.
Sorry, but I have better things to do than to call on people to change what they say so that a group of people who they do not speak for will look good.
Cancer won't cure itself, after all. (Actually, I'm curious, what do you have to do that will go undone if you actually say "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" when someone says that all Christians are schizophrenic fascists?)
But if you want to consider this as some sort of election strategy or police action instead of respect for some of your fellow human beings, fine. The funny thing about not bothering to correct Christian-bashers is that it's a horrible election strategy too! I see a lot of harm done to liberalism when a right-winger says "I can honestly say that when Marc Moron said all Christians are brain-damaged schizophrenics, nobody on the left disagreed. I want you to remember that in November, my fellow parishoners." To my admittedly-amateur eye, it might even help tilt a close election or something.
If the right wing is going to "seize" on "examples", I'd rather not stand aside while people who are putatively my allies hand them shiny, flawless examples on a silver platter, and count on the decency and intellecutal rigor of your average conservative commentator compelling them to preface their remarks with "Now, I can only assume there is a large silent majority of liberals who disagree but anyway."
The effect of that upon those who follow the principle, is that they spend all or most of their time interacting with people who don't feel that Christianity is worth believing in. A side effect of that is that many Christians develop a bit of a persecution complex. Maintaining one's beliefs while surrounded by those who do not share them can produce a sort of "me against the world" attitude in us that can appear as arrogance to others (and I won't candy-coat this, in some of us it flat-out does turn into arrogance).
This is why nearly every Christian will tell you they feel the world is biased against them. That is our perception, based upon our own experiences. We go among the non-believers, and we spread our Good News, as is our duty.
Arlen, this is also true of those of us who never interact with outsiders at all, and who have no personal experience of non-Christians (or real live liberals) other than those mediated by Christian Right media. Those of us who only attended Christian schools, (or were homeschooled) including college, watched no TV, or only approved family friendly shows, no secular books, or very few, and go on to work at Christian companies or in ministry. This is the world I (mostly) grew up in, and the perception of persecution, and that the liberals were going to take away our (or us) kids, ban prayer, mandate sterilzation for Christians and force euthansia upon the elderly, along with mandatory homosexuality, as a way to eradicate humanity and give the planet back to nature, was stronger there than among those who actually interacted with the secular world on a regular and free basis.
I see this on the web, too. I also see a lot of Christians "evangelizing" by telling people they're wrong, wrong, wrong, and appealing to authority to prove why - authorities which those they are trying to convert don't recognize, which is the problem - and not being able to understand why this doesn't work. Then giving up with a patronizing "I'll pray for you to change your mind and be saved," and not seeing why this doesn't go over well either.
Antocorium responds: "Cancer won't cure itself, after all. (Actually, I'm curious, what do you have to do that will go undone if you actually say "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" when someone says that all Christians are schizophrenic fascists?)"
What better do I have to do? Just about anything. I guess I'm just not the kind of person who enjoys snapping "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" off whenever any one of a nationwide group of other liberals writes or says something crazy. I assure you that if anyone prioritized this activity above a few others, they could easily find themselves engaging in full-time unpaid employment as a public scold. And the worst kind of public scold; one who is most offended by deviations from purity by those on their own side.
Antocorium adds:
"But if you want to consider this as some sort of election strategy or police action instead of respect for some of your fellow human beings, fine."
I was unaware that I showed respect for other human beings by looking out for people expressing opinions in order to say "You're wrong, and you don't speak for me" even when the person in question made no claim to speak for me.
Ken Houghton demands:
"Why, to be blunt about it, should we spend our most valuable resource (time) dealing with people who declare loudly and publicly that we don't want them?"I dunno, Ken. Let's take a look at the post in which someone made such a terrible, bullying, oppressive demand on your personal and moral resources. Oh, wait. There was no such post. Say, have you stopped beating your wife?
Rich Puchalsky says, in a similar vein:
Patrick Nielsen Hayden quotes me as being representative, and then writes:
"It's an understandable sentiment, but I'm not sure what on earth I said to bring it on."
Well, here's what brought it on. I've added emphasis:
"Self-inflicted wounds. Allen Brill and Kevin Drum discuss one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing--a problem largely of our own making."
Why are all of us suddenly responsible for Marc Moron? I've never dissed religious people as a group, and neither have most of the liberals I know. Why was this directed to all of us rather than to the specific subset of us, or to the individuals, who are responsible? Why are we supposed to believe that this is a problem that affects all of us because someone chose to write something in Kevin Drum's comments?
The answer, according to some commenters here, appears to be that it is a problem for all of us because those of us who do not diss religion are supposed to police those who do. Sorry, but I have better things to do than to call on people to change what they say so that a group of people who they do not speak for will look good. It is futile, because you can't control everyone and it only needs a few contrarians to exist anywhere in the U.S. to provide examples that the right wing will seize on.Oh please. I could have used the headline "Self-Inflicted Wounds" on a post about the deficiencies of arts education in American public schools. In such a post I might well have referred to the resulting ignorance as "a problem of our own making." How many of you people taking offense at this discussion would have gone to equal trouble to vent about how you're not responsible for the problems of our educational system, you've done your part, how dare I make such a generalization? And repeatedly slapped me with the charge that I'm demanding that somebody "police" somebody else?
It's very true that the hard-right 40% of America will despise us whether or not secular progressives are polite about religion or not. Blaming ourselves for the most of the hatred being pumped out of that end of our screwed-up political discourse would be a real mistake. My reasons for thinking that this is a real problem and worth addressing have to do with our mental health, not with what the committed head cases of Linmbaughland are going to think of us.
I made a general observation about a problem of American left/progressive subculture--a subculture in which I grew up and of which I consider myself part. I'm not, last time I checked, a right-wing provocateur trying to play gotcha games. Nor do I think the existence of a problem obliges everyone to devote their lives to it. What I really want to know is when "Fuck you, not my problem, I've got mine, Jack" became a reasonable response to mildly-phrased criticism of left/liberal/progressive culture and behavior by people inside that culture. If you think this amounts to a demand that anyone "police" anyone, I suggest that you might want to take a step back and ask whether this remarkably nasty charge is really appropriate.
The fact that a bunch of formerly lefty hacks have made a comfortable living in recent years proclaiming their apostasy and retailing themselves as diagnosticians of What's Wrong With The Left does not, last time I looked, excuse us from occasionally taking a critical look at ourselves. Or maybe it does. Maybe we're perfect, and we treat one another and our fellow Americans just fine, and anybody who says otherwise is advocating "policing." After all, I'm fine. I didn't create the problem. As a matter of fact, there aren't any problems. So screw the critics! Hey, this is fun.
The fact that a bunch of formerly lefty hacks have made a comfortable living in recent years proclaiming their apostasy and retailing themselves as diagnosticians of What's Wrong With The Left does not, last time I looked, excuse us from occasionally taking a critical look at ourselves.
I don't read anyone's comment on this thread as really disagreeing with this. I think the disagreement is really over how widespread or serious this problem really is. I mean is it really "the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern right wing." The fact is, I am all for debating this issue. Disrespect and intolerance are always matters of serious concern. I am merely unconvinced, at least not by the evidence cited, that the left as a movement is fomenting anti-religious sentiment in some significant way or even that the swing voters who count really believe that we are.
Look, if there was some sort of democratic sponsored anti-religion legislation or a significant anti-religion lobbying group out there that made a point of attacking people of faith, maybe this would be a different discussion. If some major political figure or 527 organization were out there advocating disdain for the devout, then maybe. But some jackass on the radio? This signifies nothing to me except what I already know which is that there are idiots of all political persuasion. Should we confront these people? We should and we do... all the time. Should we take responsibility for these people as indicative of some larger scale problem in our political ranks? In my opinion at least, the jury is still out on that question.
PNH wrote:
'What I really want to know is when "Fuck you, not my problem, I've got mine, Jack" became a reasonable response to mildly-phrased criticism of left/liberal/progressive culture and behavior by people inside that culture.'
It wasn't particularly mildly phrased. You called it "one of the biggest political problems facing those of us opposed to the modern Right Wing", which makes it sound like a pretty big fucking deal.
Is there any evidence that anyone actually votes against their interests or principles because someone else on that platform is rude about religion?
It certainly doesn't seem to work that way on the right, where right-wing atheists who think the Republicans will limit government and taxation wink at their candidates pandering to the lowest common religious denominator.
Or is it only religious people who are incapable of joining a coalition where their beliefs get less than 100% respect?
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
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