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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 10 |
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