Tuesday, June 12, 2012
I Aim to Misbehave: A Comment on Humanist Communities
Over at Almost Diamonds and Temple of the Future respectively, Stephanie Zvan and James Croft, two people whose work I think very highly of, are having a discussion on Humanist communities. James and I have previously had discussions on the language use around the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy (now Community, I see), but I have not yet really written my thoughts on the idea of such communities, as counters to the religious variety. I'll do that here, as well as in the future, I'm sure.
I'm going to start with a film reference. In Joss Whedon's Serenity, the movie made to round up some plot lines from the utterly brilliant yet cruelly canceled Firefly, main character Captain Mal Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion, has a superb monologue. Without going into too much detail for the philistines among you who have not seen it, it comes after a revelation of a massive coverup by the Alliance, the authoritarian ruling government of the galaxy. It's a horrific tale, and Mal decides that the crew have to reveal it to the people; he says [emphasis mine]
I worry about this quite a bit. One of the things that I have seen over and over again as I have been a secular activist is that atheists and rationalists will use their criticisms of religion to create a new dogma on their own, another set of principles that set up an unchallengeable belief system: as I have learned previously, to criticize Richard Dawkins in this movement is akin to stealing groceries from little old ladies, in terms of the righteous backlash.
Though James will certainly argue otherwise, I worry that this kind of thing is what would happen in a Humanist community like those he wants to set up. When he says things like he did to Crommunist, about not being bothered about accepting everyone, he is inevitably setting up a binary of right and wrong. And, to borrow from Thedor Adorno, we must be wary of creating collective ethos, of setting up hierarchies of morality; collective ethos are almost always conservative ones, which Judith Butler characterizes as postulating a "false unity that attempts to suppress the difficulty and discontinuity existing within any contemporary ethos" (Giving an Account of Oneself, p. 4).
I encourage James and all other secularists to apply the same rationality and skepticism that they prize to their own views. Hierarchical divisions, based on virtue or reason or whatever, will break this movement as sure as anything.
I'm going to start with a film reference. In Joss Whedon's Serenity, the movie made to round up some plot lines from the utterly brilliant yet cruelly canceled Firefly, main character Captain Mal Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion, has a superb monologue. Without going into too much detail for the philistines among you who have not seen it, it comes after a revelation of a massive coverup by the Alliance, the authoritarian ruling government of the galaxy. It's a horrific tale, and Mal decides that the crew have to reveal it to the people; he says [emphasis mine]
"Sure as I know anything, I know this - they [the Alliance] will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."The bolded segment here is the heart of my problem. It was further enforced when Crommunist posted this piece the other day in which he detailed a conversation he and James had had over ostracizing potential attendees from Humanist communities, which James apparently has no problem with doing.
I worry about this quite a bit. One of the things that I have seen over and over again as I have been a secular activist is that atheists and rationalists will use their criticisms of religion to create a new dogma on their own, another set of principles that set up an unchallengeable belief system: as I have learned previously, to criticize Richard Dawkins in this movement is akin to stealing groceries from little old ladies, in terms of the righteous backlash.
Though James will certainly argue otherwise, I worry that this kind of thing is what would happen in a Humanist community like those he wants to set up. When he says things like he did to Crommunist, about not being bothered about accepting everyone, he is inevitably setting up a binary of right and wrong. And, to borrow from Thedor Adorno, we must be wary of creating collective ethos, of setting up hierarchies of morality; collective ethos are almost always conservative ones, which Judith Butler characterizes as postulating a "false unity that attempts to suppress the difficulty and discontinuity existing within any contemporary ethos" (Giving an Account of Oneself, p. 4).
I encourage James and all other secularists to apply the same rationality and skepticism that they prize to their own views. Hierarchical divisions, based on virtue or reason or whatever, will break this movement as sure as anything.
Suggestion: The One Book High Schoolers Should Read
This is part of my blogathon for SSA Week. Donate, and suggest topics for me, here!
This suggestion comes in from Heather, who asks "If you had the opportunity to choose one book to be required reading in American high schools, which one would it be?"
This is a ridiculously hard question because I am such a book nerd, but I think my answer would ultimately be The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.
I debated in my head some more typical answers, like Huck Finn, The Great Gatsby, something Shakespeare, the like, but Chana said that it needs to be something that completely changes the way that you think, and I agree.
Zinn's book is a tome, and an absolute classic. It starts with Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean and continues through to the present day, presenting a narrative of the history of America not through the old rich white men who are all anyone focuses on in high school history classes, but instead takes his readers to the plantations, coal mines, and picket lines of the working classes. For most readers, it is their country seen in an entirely new light; not the land of the free, home of the brave, democracy and apple pie national legend that we all have shoved down our throats from day one, but instead one where the haves exploit and oppress the have nots to maintain their privilege and wealth.
I think Zinn himself described his work best of all.
My history, therefore, describes the inspiring struggle of those who have fought slavery and racism (Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses), of the labor organizers who have led strikes for the rights of working people (Big Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, César Chavez), of the socialists and others who have protested war and militarism (Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, Cindy Sheehan). My hero is not Theodore Roosevelt, who loved war and congratulated a general after a massacre of Filipino villagers at the turn of the century, but Mark Twain, who denounced the massacre and satirized imperialism...
I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for human rights or constitutional liberties. Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which says that all of us have an equal right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The history of our country, I point out in my book, is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make those ideals a reality — and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that.
Schooling, particularly high school, should be about free thought and critical investigation. I think Zinn's book is one of the best catalysts for this that is available.
Habermas and Taylor, Part 1: Political Theology and the Public Sphere
This is part of my blogathon for SSA Week. Donate, and suggest topics for me, here!
In any case, it has been my intention for a long time to write more philosophically on this blog, largely inspired by Dan Fincke of Camels With Hammers, who somehow manages to write long posts with very sophisticated but clear arguments damned near every day when he isn't grading. I don't want superpowers, I just want to be able to do that.
So, here's my first musing of the day.
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I've recently been reading quite a lot of theory on secularism and religion in preparation for writing my undergraduate thesis next year, which will be on the topic of apathy and political engagement in a contemporary context, namely in the fact that I think there is an essential dearth of action inherent in liberal secular democracies that allows those in power to continue to rule, even through the tenures of many "elected" officials; I refer to the "smoke-filled room" types, corporate bosses and bankers et al., that seem to be the ones really making the decisions.
In this paper, I want to formulate an argument towards regaining a spirit of activism in the modern world; one of the points of this will be an extended analysis of religious and secular worldviews as motivators. In this post, via Jurgen Habermas and Charles Taylor, I want to take my first step in defining the kind of secularism I think will be needed to make this happen.
The encompassing concept that seems to be defining current debates on secularism and religion in philosophical circles is that of "political theology," or the concept that postulates that religious ways of thinking are prevalent throughout political, social, and economic theories. The classic example of this is Carl Schmitt, who wrote an entire book on the topic: he argued that all political theories relate to government in the same way that theology relates to religion, and particularly used the concept of Original Sin, our old friend, to argue for authoritarianism.
The premise we have here is that politics is propped up in the same way that religion is; through dogmatic ways of thinking that exist to maintain order. Nationalism in particular comes to mind here as a notion of the political acting like the religious.
Contra this, Habermas, one of the more prominent political philosophers of the past few decades, makes the case that the revival of political theology and this notion of "the political" is to attempt to make the state out to be a totality, a historical notion of the nation-state not terribly dissimilar from a Rousseauian social contract, where all citizens of the nation buy into a narrative of power that is based on smoke and legend; such a conception, Habermas contends, has been rendered obsolete by the revelation of state power through what he terms "the public sphere."
Now, however, in a society where the capitalist economic "juggernaut" reigns more than any political philosophy, he sees the resurgence of political theology as an attempt to return the control over these forces to "human agents." This, he argues, is just more smoke and mirrors, and so a new, "postsecular" stance is required, one which has a handle on the continued vitality of religion in public life; it has not gone away, and shows little sign of doing so in a global sense. In a turn that reminds one of Quine, he says that religion is part of the bond of society, but that its language must be secularized into a "universally accessible language," understandable by all, not just the religious or the secular.
In my next post, I will turn to Charles Taylor's critique of Habermas, and offer my own analysis.
The Greatest Live Performance in History
This is part of my blogathon for SSA Week. Donate, and suggest topics for me, here!
So, while I do a bit of philosophizing, feast upon this performance by The Who, which I truly believe to be the best live rock and roll performance ever. Not only because it's awesome, but because Mick Jagger wouldn't release the footage for years, as The Who completely blew the Stones off stage. Ah, jealousy.
So, while I do a bit of philosophizing, feast upon this performance by The Who, which I truly believe to be the best live rock and roll performance ever. Not only because it's awesome, but because Mick Jagger wouldn't release the footage for years, as The Who completely blew the Stones off stage. Ah, jealousy.
An Update on Bradley Manning
This is part of my blogathon for SSA Week. Donate, and suggest topics for me, here!
For those of you who read my work over at In Our Words, you might remember that a couple of months ago I wrote a novel on the case of Private Bradley Manning, a US Army soldier who was arrested when it was discovered that they had leaked data to an information broker of sorts, which included footage of US soldiers killing innocents and claiming they were terrorists as well as thousands of cables detailing diplomatic operations. I argued that the way they have been treated is unconscionable and horrifying, especially given the crime supposedly committed.
Since I wrote that piece, Manning has been moved out of the prison where he was held in isolation and apparently, been treated better, probably as a result of the UN Rapporteur on Torture reporting that the US' treatment of Manning, as well as their efforts to obstruct his investigation, constituted violations of UN regulations.
Now, Private Manning is on the verge of going before a full military trial. However, there are possible bright spots, namely that the military and Obama administration are actually allowing Manning's defense team to have full access to government documents relating to the case, an act of fair play that seems odd for our government.
So, Manning is not out of the woods, but there is a slight chance that justice may be served in this case. We cannot forget the injustice of this case, nor what it represents: that our government, despite trying to argue otherwise, is more and more trying to become less transparent. If we want to live in a free and open society, we have to fight against such authoritarian moves, or we're acquiescing to, for lack of a better term, letting the bad guys win.
For those of you who read my work over at In Our Words, you might remember that a couple of months ago I wrote a novel on the case of Private Bradley Manning, a US Army soldier who was arrested when it was discovered that they had leaked data to an information broker of sorts, which included footage of US soldiers killing innocents and claiming they were terrorists as well as thousands of cables detailing diplomatic operations. I argued that the way they have been treated is unconscionable and horrifying, especially given the crime supposedly committed.
Since I wrote that piece, Manning has been moved out of the prison where he was held in isolation and apparently, been treated better, probably as a result of the UN Rapporteur on Torture reporting that the US' treatment of Manning, as well as their efforts to obstruct his investigation, constituted violations of UN regulations.
Now, Private Manning is on the verge of going before a full military trial. However, there are possible bright spots, namely that the military and Obama administration are actually allowing Manning's defense team to have full access to government documents relating to the case, an act of fair play that seems odd for our government.
So, Manning is not out of the woods, but there is a slight chance that justice may be served in this case. We cannot forget the injustice of this case, nor what it represents: that our government, despite trying to argue otherwise, is more and more trying to become less transparent. If we want to live in a free and open society, we have to fight against such authoritarian moves, or we're acquiescing to, for lack of a better term, letting the bad guys win.
Why The High School Movement is Awesome
This post is a suggestion from August Brunsman, the awesome and adorable Executive Director of the Secular Student Alliance. Don't forget to donate and suggest topics for me here!
I tended in high school to generally be a pretty terrible person. I was dealing with lots of shit, most down to my brain being cut open twice (that's a whole other story. Maybe later...), but I just was not very nice. Had there been an SSA in my awful bourgie Cincinnati suburbs white peoplesville school, I may not have been so terrible.
See, a few weeks ago, Kate Donovan of the Northwestern SSA, JT Eberhard of Clan Badass, Arthur Wawrzyczek who is DAFT's vice president, and I made our way an hour northwest of Chicago to a place called Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville for an activism fair being put on by a teacher there named Bruce Taylor, who is the advisor for their branch of the Youth Labor Committee (!!). This was my first sign that this school was magic.
See, as most of us know (or are currently going through), high school sucks. It's a place where artifice rules, where if you don't win the popularity lottery, your life will be miserable. Some of us fought against this, and managed to survive it (in my case, thanks to lots of books, old movies, and my father's scotch). However, from all appearances, Dundee-Crown has none of that. When we got there and set up the SSA table, I was blown away first of all by how diverse the school is. Being in Chicago's suburbs, which are notoriously whitewashed and soul-crushing, I expected that to be the case here, but, though I have no demographic information to back this up, it looked to me like, gender and race wise, there was damned near equal representation. Also, I expected the kids to view the activism fair as a chore, something Mean Mr. Taylor (who by the way every year for this gets Noam Chomsky on the line for a conference call with students. I know, right?) was making them do. But no: attracted to our table by the magic and singing skills of JT, who was trading magic tricks if the students would wear SSA swag, knew their shit. They were down with politics, economics, all that good shit.
Which leads me to my final point about D-C's awesomeness: within the first hour we were there, two students came up to the table and asked what we were all about. After hearing from us and asking more questions, they asked immediately if they could form a high school group at Dundee-Crown. We obviously said yes, JT gave them his card, and told them to e-mail him when they got a faculty advisor.
Three hours later, they were back with a prospective faculty advisor.
Fuck yeah, right?
Many other awesome things happened that day, but it was this that still stands out in my mind as the best part of the day. Not because I was representing the SSA, but because it took these students THREE HOURS to find a faculty member when it seems at most other schools JT deals with the students are forced to fight against the administration tooth and nail to just start a group.
Dundee-Crown is DEFINITELY out of the ordinary, in that it is a warm, nurturing public school; I'm pretty sure still it's the only one. It's the kind of environment where an SSA affiliate can thrive, in an atmosphere of open intellectual discourse. For the schools who try to pick fights with JT, though, I think that the SSA can be a huge influence on making those schools better places for students and faculty alike. In a time of life that emphasizes sticking with the herd, not acting out, and generally forming you into nice little productive automatons, a group dedicated to free thought might be the most radical outlet possible.
Forward the Secular Student Alliance. Liberate ALL the high schools!
I tended in high school to generally be a pretty terrible person. I was dealing with lots of shit, most down to my brain being cut open twice (that's a whole other story. Maybe later...), but I just was not very nice. Had there been an SSA in my awful bourgie Cincinnati suburbs white peoplesville school, I may not have been so terrible.
See, a few weeks ago, Kate Donovan of the Northwestern SSA, JT Eberhard of Clan Badass, Arthur Wawrzyczek who is DAFT's vice president, and I made our way an hour northwest of Chicago to a place called Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville for an activism fair being put on by a teacher there named Bruce Taylor, who is the advisor for their branch of the Youth Labor Committee (!!). This was my first sign that this school was magic.
See, as most of us know (or are currently going through), high school sucks. It's a place where artifice rules, where if you don't win the popularity lottery, your life will be miserable. Some of us fought against this, and managed to survive it (in my case, thanks to lots of books, old movies, and my father's scotch). However, from all appearances, Dundee-Crown has none of that. When we got there and set up the SSA table, I was blown away first of all by how diverse the school is. Being in Chicago's suburbs, which are notoriously whitewashed and soul-crushing, I expected that to be the case here, but, though I have no demographic information to back this up, it looked to me like, gender and race wise, there was damned near equal representation. Also, I expected the kids to view the activism fair as a chore, something Mean Mr. Taylor (who by the way every year for this gets Noam Chomsky on the line for a conference call with students. I know, right?) was making them do. But no: attracted to our table by the magic and singing skills of JT, who was trading magic tricks if the students would wear SSA swag, knew their shit. They were down with politics, economics, all that good shit.
Which leads me to my final point about D-C's awesomeness: within the first hour we were there, two students came up to the table and asked what we were all about. After hearing from us and asking more questions, they asked immediately if they could form a high school group at Dundee-Crown. We obviously said yes, JT gave them his card, and told them to e-mail him when they got a faculty advisor.
Three hours later, they were back with a prospective faculty advisor.
Fuck yeah, right?
Many other awesome things happened that day, but it was this that still stands out in my mind as the best part of the day. Not because I was representing the SSA, but because it took these students THREE HOURS to find a faculty member when it seems at most other schools JT deals with the students are forced to fight against the administration tooth and nail to just start a group.
Dundee-Crown is DEFINITELY out of the ordinary, in that it is a warm, nurturing public school; I'm pretty sure still it's the only one. It's the kind of environment where an SSA affiliate can thrive, in an atmosphere of open intellectual discourse. For the schools who try to pick fights with JT, though, I think that the SSA can be a huge influence on making those schools better places for students and faculty alike. In a time of life that emphasizes sticking with the herd, not acting out, and generally forming you into nice little productive automatons, a group dedicated to free thought might be the most radical outlet possible.
Forward the Secular Student Alliance. Liberate ALL the high schools!
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