The low road to the high road

I think I’m a tolerant kind of guy.

I’m not anti-immigration. I prefer integration to assimilation (the former meaning only minimalist changes in host and integrated culture, the latter meaning a kind of cultural cloning.)

I don’t want to take away anyone’s bibles. Or crosses. I don’t want the burqa banned (because a ban isn’t morally prescriptive to women, right?)

I even think that comparative religion has a place on public television (although not religious proselytism.) Naturally, that at least puts religion into public discussion.

Now, if something is in public discussion to be discussed by the citizenry, the notion that any particular perspective on that public discussion that is argued in good faith, should abstain from participation, must necessarily presuppose that members of the public taking that perspective must have a second class citizenship. That’s not very tolerant.

It’s not just public television that brings religion into public discussion obviously (proselytes do it quite a lot themselves), but can you imagine if Compass ran a forum with a policy of making participants second class citizens (note – I don’t mean virtual second class citizens – Compass runs on public television?) “Moderator’s note: You make interesting points Jane/John Q. Public, but as your viewpoint is deemed contrary to those accepted, it has had to be removed.”

“Intolerant” is in my opinion, one of the most important words one can use in discussion of civics and to see it used as a mere substitute for viewpoints “contrary to those accepted”, is both subversive in a bad way, and serves only to mask more deeply rooted intolerance. People holding deeply rooted intolerances tending to prove intolerant of having them criticised.

It happens in so many ways. The bad faith proselyte literalist who tries to politically undermine science, never undertaking a single experimental project while claiming their political machinations are genuine scientific methodology and that if they aren’t, then the definition of science is wrong – when they claim “intolerance” for having their shady political maneuvers criticised, it’s a joke. A joke at the expense of tolerance.

But it’s a cheap joke. An easy joke to make.

It doesn’t take consideration of your interlocutor, analysis of their arguments or a grasp of the context. All you have to do is allege, treat it as a priori truth and you can position yourself as the tolerant one! One can simultaneously claim to criticise “intolerance” at so little expense while at the same time, thanks to the deserved currency of the word, obtain premium moral posturing.

It’s taking the low road to the high road.

In my experience though, literalist creationists haven’t been the predominant users of this moral-rhetorical exploit. Indeed, I can remember when such nihilistic, “anything can mean anything” relativism was criticised as an artifact of a secular left elite. I can remember when members of the Christian right would openly claim on Web 1.0 websites in the days of the Clinton administration, that hate wasn’t forbidden, was a right and was when correctly applied, a virtue.

It’s a rhetoric that seemed to die away after 9/11 for some reason. Perhaps because it didn’t sit to well with the denialist line of “I don’t hate them. I just want them to stay in their country so my kids can be safe!” I suspect with the paranoia about Obama, and the (not entirely deserved – see DOMA) association drawn between him and tolerance, the love of hate will regain currency somewhat amongst the far right.

Anecdotally, it seems to me that most of the unfounded accusations of intolerance tend to come from moderate-conservative to near-radical left theists. With a special section in the choir singled out for pseudo-intellectualizing atheists.

Almost always, at least, very, very often the accusation comes with an accompanying straw-man for justification. Now, forgive me if I am wrong and please do explain in detail how I am wrong, but the civil notion of tolerance, I thought, was bound to concepts of natural justice. At least in theory if not legislated into practice.

Prosecution of accusations without evidence being persecution and also being rather prone to facilitating out-group biases. Substitute “witch” for any other Other, if you don’t see what I mean. Political witch hunts, witch hunts against “youth gone wild”, witch hunts against modern artists, witch hunts against witches – the presence of a target group, or at least a targeted, representative member of such, would be conspicuous by its absence.

To those who allege “intolerance” so quickly, relying on distorted evidence, I ask how does your tampering of the evidence sit with your notion of tolerance?

Such considerations are difficult and as is often the case, not popular. Attention span, the tyranny of the mob and a host of possible rewards, political and material, make such short cuts all the more tempting. The low road to the high road is well travelled.

How easy is it? Let me show you.

“Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them.”

(Sam Harris, ‘The End of Faith’, 2004)

Sam Harris wants to kill people for thinking the wrong thoughts! Religious thoughts! Intolerance!

If you weren’t willing to investigate and were willing to pass judgement without critical analysis of the evidence, you would think that Sam Harris was talking about ideological purging. Madeleine Bunting, Theodore Dalrymple and theologian Catherine Keller (writing in ‘On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process‘), all make use of this line of Harris’ to make him out as anything between a mere intolerant bigot and a pre-genocidal nut. Bunting draws allusions to the Inquisition (which is still an in-tact organisation in her church – can you smell the projection?) while Keller draws our attention to a threat to the Jeffersonian wall between church and state.

In context, Harris was making a point about the relationship between belief and behaviour (which incidentally, I do think he exaggerates a little – bit I digress) and its application to policy. The example he uses is the war in Afghanistan – where the religious beliefs (along with overlapping motivations – my point – again, I digress) of the Taliban drive their members to commit crimes and to fire upon US and allied troops.

Obviously these motivations, as with any discernible motivations, must inform strategy and this extends to the point of deciding when to kill someone or not.

In principle, Harris’ point applies to situations such as the Waco disaster. Or any hypothetical crisis situation where one may have to decide upon killing another/others, where motives are concerned. Hostage crisis? Relevant. Theatre of war? Relevant.

Jeffersonian wall between church and state? Important but not relevant to these situations – war, security and law enforcement are state matters. When someone threatens violence using religion as a justification, church has already jumped the wall. It’s why the hypothetical idea of the state preventing the blood sacrifice of a child, is uncontroversial.

Would Catherine Keller consider state intervention to prevent the sacrifice of someone’s daughter, a threat to her supposedly Jeffersonian values? Such intolerance of those poor child killers!

Whether Harris’ speculation (“it may even be ethical” – “may even be” not “is”) leads anywhere, is besides the point. The point is that Harris is not saying what Bunting, Dalrymple and Keller attribute to him. He’s not even saying something even remotely as controversial, nor even dare I say, particularly new.

Then there’s the pre-emptive nuclear strike straw-man.

Chris Hedges damns Harris and Hitchens for bloodthirsty calls to a nuclear first strike against Muslim countries, citing the end of the former’s first book The End of Faith. “Harris, echoing the blood lust of Hitchens, calls, in his book The End of Faith, for a nuclear first strike against the Islamic world. “

The problem with these claims is that Harris doesn’t call for a nuclear first strike at all. He acknowledges the problem of a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy getting the bomb, a problem for both the west and the people living in said theocracy, and states that a solution is needed. He doesn’t propose a solution, much less a violent one.

As for Hitchens, if you follow his commentary on Islamic theocracies and the bomb, you will be hard pressed trying to find advocacy for a first strike. I suspect that if you find a discussion of his on first strikes, it will be along the lines of that observed in game theory – an unpleasant lesser of two evils within the bounds of a thought experiment. Pop quiz – Does Hitchens call for a nuclear first strike against Iran, or does he advocate firm cooperation in Iran’s nuclear energy goals? Does Hitchens think that Iran would attack the West with ICBMs, or rather hold their neighbours to nuclear ransom?

Questions so easy that Hedges could have found an answer using Google.

Even when Hitchens was first supporting the idea of an Iraq War, he was cautious about the perils of pre-emptive conventional warfare (citing Iraq as an example), and far less impressed by the idea of pre-emptive nuclear strikes. Don’t believe me? Don’t think that Hitchens is that reserved? Read on.

I challenge you to read God is Not Great and tell me that it advocates a first strike. I challenge you to read God is Not Great and tell me that it doesn’t present the rhetoric of first strikes as demented and troubling.

Hedges straw-men about Hitchens and Harris leaning towards reactionary politics were stupid because they were obvious distortions. One need only be familiar the texts he cites to see the trickery, much as in the case of the likes of Bunting et. al. It’s when Hedges doesn’t cite the texts and starts broadly attributing various beliefs to do with naturalism, ethics (on which he’s really off on a tangent) and Darwinism, that he exposes another shortcoming – he’s obviously unfamiliar with the very concepts he’s alluding to.

It’s real stream-of-consciousness, paranoid, flight-of-fancy, word-salad. “Oppressive, Utopian Darwinists, oppressing with the promotion of science! Arrrrhh!” I paraphrase of course – the copious hysteria is far more dilute within an even larger solution of waffle. Go on. Read it! (No refunds for brain damage caused.)

Of course, this kind of conspiracy-minded out-grouping of the “New Atheists” (yawn!), as with all kinds of conspiracy-minded, out-groupings, smacks of bigotry.

Conversely, Hitchens and Harris, being more guilty of philosophical essentialism*, than bigotry, aren’t engaging in conspiracy-minded slanders. It’s easy to do avoid a conspiracy plagued mind when criticising the various forms of militant Islam – look for the dead bodies, the people who killed them and the justifications rolled out when they clamber over each other trying to take credit. It’s not conspiracy-minded when there’s no secrecy!

Through their essentialism (more Harris than Hitchens) and rhetoric (more Hitchens than Harris), Harris and Hitchens make themselves easy targets for theists of a bigoted persuasion to project their bigotry upon.

There’s that word again – “easy.”

Much was made of how many liberal theists in public intelligentsia felt aggrieved by the “New Atheists” when they were treated like they were as sophisticated as Kent Hovind, Ray Comfort or Ken Ham, even when implicitly or explicitly, it was apparent that they weren’t even being talked about. Dawkins use of the word “religion” excluded the liberals from most of his criticism, Harris explicitly excluded the liberals from his terminology.

The “New Atheists” were treating the Hams, Comforts, Hovinds and their ilk as Hams, Comforts and Hovinds. Apparently, Bunting, Hedges, Keller and the others are now operating under the assumption of double jeopardy – but that only works if you were but on trial the first time around.

Not that they invite comparison, these public intellectuals. They invite the observation that there is no meaningful epistemic difference between them** and the creationists. I can remember when it was just the creationists that used to cop it for being caught misquoting.

They drive down the same low road to take the same high road. If we value honesty, and a genuinely tolerant discussion on these matters, someone’s going to have to install a road block. When the obviously intolerant pass themselves off as tolerant, genuine pluralistic tolerance is cheapened.

~ Bruce

* Which I do think problematic at least, and a pre-condition to various modes of bigotry when identity is an issue (e.g. the denial of Australian Aboriginality based on skin colour.) Harris’ use of the term “Christian” is very much essentialist, whereas Hitchens’ lapses into essentialism seem too rhetorical to be clearly identified as necessarily being an articulated philosophical position – or at least that’s what it looks like from where I’m standing. Not that I discount the possibility that Hitchens and Harris may genuinely hold bigoted ideas – the only “proof” I’ve ever been shown so far, has been contorted or misunderstood.

** “Them” being the specific public intellectuals in question – not dealing in generalisms, thanks.

Update: Yes, I am aware that Harris advocates what he calls “conversational intolerance”, which he identifies as an intolerance of ideas. In other words, he calls the criticism of religion a form of intolerance. I don’t. I think he is wrong in that the criticism of ideas doesn’t seem to me to be a form of intolerance. At least not in as far as the word resembles the “tolerance” belonging to any sensible civic theory. So, in short, I don’t think Harris genuinely advocates intolerance, I just think he thinks he does.