A different, but
structurally similar, scenario the failure of a predicted messiah to appear
would be taken to mean (and has in history been taken to mean) that the
faithful had been judged unworthy. If the belief is strong enough, if it is the
cornerstone of oneÕs world-view, it will be no trick at all to re-characterize
facts that others might see as a devastating challenge to it. (Thus in his ÒOn
Christian Doctrine,Ó St. Augustine advises scripture readers who find parts of
the Bible pointing a bad moral to work the text over until Òan interpretation
conducing to the reign of charity is produced.Ó) We
donÕt ÒembraceÓ information that supports our beliefs; we see the information
delivered by our beliefs.
June 10, 2007, 7:16 pm
Writings against God and religion have been
around as long as God and religion have been around. But every so often an
epidemic of the genre breaks out and a spate of such writings achieves the
status of notoriety (which is what their authors had been aiming for). This has
now happened to three books published in the last three years: Sam HarrisÕs
ÒThe End of Faith: Religion, Terror and The Future of ReasonÓ (2004,
2005), Richard
DawkinsÕs ÒThe God DelusionÓ (2006) and Christopher
HitchensÕs ÒGod is Not Great: How Religion Poisons EverythingÓ (2007).
(Were this the kind of analysis performed in Lancelot
AndrewesÕs sermons, I would note the fact that the names of all
three authors end in Òs,Ó signifying, no doubt, the presence of Sin and Satan.)
The books differ in tone and emphasis.
Harris is sounding a warning against the
threat of Islam and inveighing against what he regards as the false hope of
religious moderation. ÒWe are at war with Islam,Ó he announces, and he decides
that, given the nature of the enemy — religious zealots informed by an
absolute and terrifying faith — torture Òin certain circumstances would
seem to be not only permissible but necessary.Ó (This from someone who
denounces religion because it is used as a rationalization for inhumane deeds!)
Dawkins doesnÕt single out Islam for
particular negative intention; in his eyes all religions are equally bad and
equally absurd; and he wonders why obviously intelligent men and women canÕt
see through the nonsense, especially given that so many of the questions
religion canÕt answer have clearly been answered by the theory of natural
selection.
Hitchens, the wittiest and most literate of
the three, is a world traveler and will often recount the devastating arguments
against religion he has made while lunching with a very important person in
Belgrade, Bombay, Belfast, Beirut, the Vatican, North Korea and Washington,
D.C., among other places.
Still, as distinct as the personalities and
styles of the three are, they share a set of core arguments. (And they toss
little bouquets to one another along the way.)
First, religion is man-made: its sacred
texts, rather than being the word of God, are the ÒmanufacturedÓ words of
fallible men.
Moreover (and this is the second shared
point), these words have been cobbled together from miscellaneous sources, all
of which are far removed in time from the events they purport to describe.
Third, it is in the name of these corrupt,
garbled and contradictory texts, that men (and occasionally women) have been
moved to do terrible things.
Fourth (and this is the big one), the
commission of these horrible acts – Òtrafficking in humansÉethnic
cleansingÉ slaveryÉ indiscriminate massacreÓ (Hitchens) – is justified
not by arguments, reasons or evidence, but by something called faith, which is
scornfully dismissed by all three: ÒFaith is what credulity becomes when it
finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse
– constraints like reasonableness., internal coherence, civility and
candorÓ ( Harris). ÒFaith is an evil precisely because it requires no
justification and brooks no argumentÓ (Dawkins). ÒIf one must have faith in
order to believe something,Éthen the likelihood of that something having any
truth or value is considerably diminishedÓ (Hitchens).
ItÕs time for an example of the kind of
thinking Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens find so contemptible. At the beginning of
BunyansÕs ÒThe
PilgrimÕs Progress,Ó the hero, named simply Christian, becomes aware
of a great burden on his back (it is Original Sin) and is desperate to rid
himself of it. Distraught , he consults one named Evangelist who tells him to
flee Òthe wrath to come.Ó
Flee where, he asks.
Pointing in the direction of a vast expanse,
Evangelist says, Do you see the Wicket Gate out there?
No, replies Christian.
Do you see a shining light?
Christian is not sure (ÒI think I doÓ), but
at EvangelistÕs urging he begins to run in the direction of the light he cannot
quite make out. Then comes the chilling part: ÒNow he had not run far from his
own door, but his Wife and Children perceiving it, began to cry after him to
return, but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying Life! Life!
Eternal Life.Ó
So what we have here is a man abandoning his
responsibilities and resisting the entreaties of those who love and depend on
him, and all for something of whose existence he is not even sure. And, even
worse, he does this in the absence of reason, argument or evidence. (Mark TwainÕs
Huck Finn said of ÒThe PilgrimÕs ProgressÓ: ÒAbout a man who left his family;
it didnÕt say why.Ó) At this point, Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens
would exclaim, See what these nuts do at the behest of religion – child
abandonment justified by nothing more substantial than some crazy inner
impulse; remember Abraham was going to kill his son because he thought the
blood-thirsty god he had invented wanted him to.
I have imagined this criticism coming from
outside the narrative, but in fact it is right there on the inside, in the
cries of ChristianÕs wife and children, in the reactions of his friends (Òthey
thought that some frenzy distemper had gotten into his headÓ), and in the
analysis they give of his irrational actions: he, they conclude, is one of those
who Òare wiser in their own eyes than seven men that can render a Reason.Ó What
this shows is that the objections Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens make to
religious thinking are themselves part of religious thinking; rather than being
swept under the rug of a seamless discourse, they are the very motor of that
discourse, impelling the conflicted questioning of theologians and poets (not
to mention the Jesus who cried, ÒMy God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?Ó
and every verse of the Book of Job).
Dawkins asks why Adam and Eve (and all their
descendants) were punished so harshly, given that their ÒsinÓ – eating an
apple after having been told not to – Òseems mild enough to merit a mere
reprimand.Ó (We might now call this the Scooter Libby defense.) This is a good
question, but it is one that has been asked and answered many times, not by
atheists and scoffers, but by believers trying to work though the dilemmas
presented by their faith. An answer often given is that it is important that
the forbidden act be a trivial one; for were it an act that was on its face
either moral or immoral, committing it or declining to commit it would follow
from the powers of judgment men naturally have. It is because there is no
reason, in nature, either to eat the apple or to refrain from eating it, that
the prohibition can serve as a test of faith; otherwise, as John Webster
explained (ÒThe Examination of Academies,Ó 1654), faith would rest
Òupon the rotten basis of humane authority.Ó
Hitchens asks, ÒWhy, if God is the creator
of all things, were we supposed to ÔpraiseÕ him incessantly for doing what
comes naturally?Ó The usual answer (again given by theologians and religious
poets) is, what else could we do in the face of his omnipotence and
omnipresence? God is the epitome of the rich relative who has everything;
thanks and gratitude are the only coin we can tender.
Or can we? The poet George Herbert reasons
(and that is the word) that if it is only by the infusion of grace that we do
anything admirable, praising God is an action for which we cannot take credit;
for even that act is His. ÒWho hath praise enough?Ó, he asks, but then
immediately (in the same line) corrects himself: ÒNay, who hath any?Ó
(ÒProvidenceÓ) Even something so minimal as praising God becomes a sin if it is
done pridefully . Where does that leave us, Herbert implicitly asks, a question
more severe and daunting than any posed by the three atheists.
Harris wonders why the Holocaust didnÕt
Òlead most Jews to doubt the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent God?Ó
Behind this question is another one: where does evil come from, and if God is
all-powerful and has created everything, doesnÕt it come from Him? Again there is
a standard answer (which does not mean that it is a satisfying one): evil
proceeds from the will of a creature who was created just and upright, but who
corrupted himself by an act of disobedience that forever infects his actions
and the actions of his descendants. It is what MiltonÕs God
calls ÒmanÕs polluting sinÓ (ÒParadise Lost,Ó
X, 631) that produces generations of evil, including the generation
of the Holocaust, for, as MiltonÕs Adam himself acknowledges, Òfrom me what can
proceed, / But all corrupt, both mind and will depravÕd?Ó (825).
But, Harris , Dawkins and Hitchens object,
if God is so powerful, why didnÕt he just step in and prevent evil before it
occurred? Not judge slavery, but nip it in the bud; not cure a blind man, but
cure blindness; not send his only begotten son to redeem a sinful mankind, but
create a mankind that could not sin? And besides, if God had really wanted man
to refrain from evil acts and thoughts, like the act and thought of
disobedience, then, says Hitchens, Òhe should have taken more care to invent a
different species.Ó
But if he had done that, if Adam and Eve
were faithful because they were programmed to be so, then the act of obedience
(had they performed it) would not in any sense have been theirs. For what they
do or donÕt do to be meaningful, it must be free: ÒFreely they stood who stood
and fell who fell / Not free, what proof could they have given sincere/ Of true
allegiance?Ó (ÒParadise Lost,Ó
III, 102-104).
I have drawn these arguments out of my small
store of theological knowledge not because they are conclusive (although they
may be to some), but because they are there – in the very texts and
traditions Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens dismiss as naive, simpleminded and
ignorant. Suppose, says Hitchens, you were a religious believer; you would then
be persuaded that a benign and all-powerful creator supervises everything, and
that Òif you obey the rules and commandments that he has lovingly prescribed,
you will qualify for an eternity of bliss and repose.Ó
I know of no religious framework that offers
such a complacent picture of the life of faith, a life that is always presented
as a minefield of the difficulties, obstacles and temptations that must be
negotiated by a limited creature in his or her efforts to become aligned (and
allied) with the Infinite. St PaulÕs lament can stand in for many: ÒThe good
that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, I doÉ. Who shall
deliver me?Ó (Romans, 7: 19,24).
The anguish of this question and the incredibly nuanced and elegant writings of
those who have tried to answer it are what the three atheists miss; and it is
by missing so much that they are able to produce such a jolly debunking of a
way of thinking they do not begin to understand.
But I have not yet considered their prime
objection to religious faith: that it leaves argument, reason and evidence in
the dust, and proceeds directly to the commission of wholly unjustified (and
often horrific) acts. It is that issue that I will take up in the next column.
June 3, 2007, 10:05 pm
In the past year I have come to expect that
the respondents to these columns will be learned, eloquent and precise in the
articulation of their positions. (I have also learned that, no matter how
remote the connection, they will be able to use whatever I write as a
springboard to a denunciation of the Bush administration.) But my expectations
were exceeded by the comments posted to my last piece on the impossibility of
avoiding ÒspinÓ in a world (our world) where perception and expression
necessarily proceed from some angled perspective or point of view. With passion
and precision (and often at some length) the authors of these comments alerted
me to at least two mistakes.
The first is the more serious: I was using
the word ÒspinÓ in two different senses and my failure to distinguish between
them led to a slippage in the argument of which I remained unaware until it was
pointed out by literally dozens of readers. One sense of ÒspinÓ – the
commonsense sense that is the subject of Brooks JacksonÕs
and Kathleen Hall JamiesonÕs new book, ÒunSpunÓ – is the
effort to deceive either by omitting relevant facts or by drawing suspiciously
large conclusions from small amounts of data or by regarding disputed evidence
as authoritative – or by any of the hundreds of other techniques by which
someone labors to Òput something overÓ on someone else.
The other sense of spin I employed in the
column is more philosophical: it is a response to the argument, made at times
by Jackson and Jamieson, that one antidote to deception – either
deception imposed by others or the self-deception imposed by oneÕs own desires
and inclinations – is to carefully monitor oneÕs own thought processes
and to be especially alert to the human tendency to Òembrace information that
supports our beliefs and reject evidence that challenges them.Ó
Jackson and Jamieson cite as a cautionary
example a group that had gathered to await the appearance of a UFO that would
rescue its members from a flood of biblical proportions. Neither the flood nor
the UFO arrived, but, rather than abandoning the convictions that had led them
to the prediction of both, the faithful Òbecame even more committed to their
cause after seeing what any reasonable person would conclude was shattering
proof that they had been completely wrong.Ó What they should have done, say Jackson
and Jamieson, is reduce Ò their dissonance by abandoning their religious
beliefs.Ó
The model here is of a mind stocked with
beliefs and an independent world the facts of which could serve either to
confirm or disconfirm them. They believed X, but then Y happened (or in this
case didnÕt happen), and the rational (reasonable) thing would have been no
longer to believe X. In the original column I challenged this model and
asserted that facts, rather than standing in a relationship of distance to
belief – a distance that allowed them to perform the service of check or
correction – were a function of belief. That is, the facts of a situation
are not just sitting there waiting to be spotted by a perceptive apparatus free
of biases and prejudices; the facts of a situation will take the shape they do
– will become facts – by virtue of the grounding beliefs of
interested observers ( there are no other kind). That is why the leader of the
group in JacksonÕs and JamiesonÕs example declared that the Òcataclysm had been
called off because of the believersÕ devotion.Ó
In a different, but structurally similar,
scenario the failure of a predicted messiah to appear would be taken to mean
(and has in history been taken to mean) that the faithful had been judged
unworthy. If the belief is strong enough, if it is the cornerstone of oneÕs
world-view, it will be no trick at all to re-characterize facts that others
might see as a devastating challenge to it. (Thus in his ÒOn Christian
Doctrine,Ó St. Augustine advises scripture readers who find parts of the Bible
pointing a bad moral to work the text over until Òan interpretation conducing
to the reign of charity is produced.Ó) We donÕt ÒembraceÓ information that
supports our beliefs; we see the information delivered by our beliefs.
And it doesnÕt have to be a religious belief
that is productive of facts confidently seen. Many who raised objections to my
argument were especially bothered by what they regarded as my letting Karl Rove
off the hook when he cited a statistic to support his claim that under
President Bush the United States economy had improved. It was their belief that
anything Karl Rove said was a lie – Òa statement is a lie if it
comes out of RoveÕs mouthÓ – and it is within that belief,
unshakable by anything offered as counter-evidence, that they will assess an
analysis of a Rovian utterance, mine or anyone elseÕs.
But why not come to a situation with no
beliefs, or with the beliefs you have held in abeyance or bracketed, and take a
good, hard look at the facts? Aside from the point I have already made (that
any facts we look at will be available and perspicuous only from the
perspective of some belief or other), what is it exactly that we would be
looking with? Unless there is a corner of the mind that observes purely –
and if there were all disputes could be settled by just going to it – we
can only look with or within the convictions that anchor our minds and provide
the possibility of judgment. It is within a conviction or belief that some
assertion or description will seem to us to be right or wrong, adequate or
inadequate. Absent a belief that grounds it and gives it a direction, the mind
would be rudderless and incapable of going anywhere.
That is what I meant when I said that an
open mind was an empty mind. There is of course a perfectly good and
uncontroversial sense of having an open mind: being receptive to new ideas in
the hope that we might learn something or revise an opinion (see comments #125 and #129); but even
that possibility will be shaped by the opinions we already hold, for it is from
their vantage point that an idea will be received as new and worthy of
consideration. Open-mindedness, insofar as it exists, is itself a constrained
condition. There is no such thing as really being open-minded Again this is a
distinction – between open-mindedness in a perfectly ordinary but
uninteresting sense and open-mindedness as an epistemological state no human
being could achieve – that I failed to articulate, just as I failed to
articulate the difference between spin as deception and spin as the name of our
inescapable condition, and for these failures I should certainly be faulted.
I should not be faulted, however, for
maintaining that Òthere are no
factsÓ or for declaring
that Òreality is
subjectiveÓ or for Ògiving up the search for
truthÓ or for saying that Òthere is no shared truth let
alone an absolute truth.Ó I did not say and would never say those things.
In most if not all cases there is certainly a fact of the matter, but just what
it is will be worked out within the vocabularies or Òdimensions of assessmentÓ
(J. L. AustinÕs term in ÒHow To Do
Things With WordsÓ) that at once limit and enable what we can see
and say. And if two accounts of the fact of the matter are in competition,
there is no algorithm or decision procedure independent of any dimension of
assessment whatsoever that will tell us which is the correct one.
And as for reality, it is not subjective (a
word I never use); it is out there prior to any of our efforts to describe it.
But what we know of it (a knowledge constantly changing as our descriptive
vocabularies change) will only be known through the medium of our descriptions;
and disputes about it will be disputes about the adequacy of different ways of
describing, again without the possibility of something that is not a
challengeable mode of description settling the dispute once and for all. And
the search for truth? It is the business we all should be in, but it is a line
of work that can only be pursued within the linguistic and technical resource
history affords us. There is an absolute truth, but short of achieving a point
of view that is not a point of view–achieving, that is, godhead –
it cannot be absolutely known.
The bottom line is that it is no
contradiction at all to assert the firm existence of fact, truth and reality
and yet maintain that they can only be known within the human, limited
vocabularies we have built in the endless effort to get things right. Truth
claims are universal, but their justification and elaboration take place in
time and within revisable, contingent discursive structures.
This is hardly a new insight. Thomas Hobbes
put it this way in his ÒLeviathanÓ
(1651): ÒTrue and False are attributes of Speech, not of Things. And where
Speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood.Ó That is to say, our
judgment as to whether an assertion is true or false will be made by seeing how
it fits in (or doesnÕt fit in) with other assertions the truth of which are, at
least for the time being, warranted. We do not compare the assertion with the
world but with currently authoritative statements about the world. The world
itself – unmediated by any system of statements – is forever
removed from us. As Richard Rorty says, in an update of Hobbes, ÒThe world is
out there, but descriptions of the world are notÓ (ÒContingency,
Irony, and Solidarity,Ó 1989). The world, Rorty adds, does not have
its own language, does not make propositions about itself. We do that, and it
is the propositions we hazard, not the world as it exists apart from
propositions, that we affirm, reject, argue about and believe in.
If that is so, propositions –
assertions that this or that is or is not the case – are the vehicle of
thought and Hobbes can be emended to say, Òwhere Speech is not, there is no
Thought.Ó Words come first and make thought – propositions –
possible. This is what I was getting at when I said we canÕt think without them.
I should have added (another failure to clarify) that by thinking I meant
making propositions about the world. I was not thinking about the kind of
thinking (if that is the word) that goes on in music or dance (see comments #79, #108 and #129).
Fortunately, I was rescued from my imprecision by S. Mckenna and Ben Murphy, who
make the point I should have made: ÒÔthoughtÕ here is being used in the Fregean
sense of something that can be true or false, something that can serve as a
premise or conclusion in a deductive argument.Ó
And finally there is the matter of George
Orwell. Kenny asks that
I back up my judgment that ÒPolitics and
the English LanguageÓ is a silly, terrible essay with analysis and
reasons. Well, that would take more than a column, but I could just cite
OrwellÕs advice Òto put off using words as long as possible and get oneÕs
meaning clear as one can through pictures and associations.Ó I had thought that
the last word on this fantasy had been written by Jonathan Swift in ÒGullliverÕs
Travels.Ó Swift describes a society so distrustful of words that its
members carry packs upon their backs, and when they want to communicate they
just pull out things and point to them. (Try that with a Hummer or a big-screen
TV.) James Johnston predicts that
in 50 years people will still be reading Orwell and I will be just a
footnote, if that. That sounds right. George Trail wonders
what I think of Ò1984Ó. I think that Ò1984Ó and ÒAnimal FarmÓ and many other
writings by Orwell are accomplishments way beyond my abilities. I also think
that ÒPolitics and the English LanguageÓ is way below my abilities.
May 6, 2007, 8:41 pm
When Aristotle comes to the topic of style
and persuasion in Book 3 of his
ÒRhetoric,Ó he draws back in distaste from a subject he considers
ÒvulgarÓ and Òunworthy.Ó The only reason I am talking about this stuff, he
says, is because men are so susceptible to artfully devised appearances. In the
best of all possible worlds we would Òfight our case with no help beyond the
bare facts,Ó for after all, Ònothing should matter except the proof of those
facts.Ó
Unfortunately, Aristotle laments, both our
political institutions and the citizens who populate them are ÒcorruptedÓ by
passion and partisan zeal, with the result that the manner of delivery counts
more than the thought that is being delivered. It is therefore necessary to
catalog the devices by means of which audiences are ÒcharmedÓ rather than truly
enlightened. We must know these base arts, Aristotle asserts, so that we will
not be defenseless against those who deploy them in an effort to deceive us and
turn us away from the truth.
AristotleÕs ÒRhetoricÓ may be the first, but
is certainly not the last treatise that performs the double task of instructing
us in the ways of deception and explaining (regretfully) why such instruction
is necessary. The Romans Cicero and Quintilian took up the same task, and they
were followed by countless manuals of rhetoric produced in the Middle Ages, the
Renaissance, the 18th and 19th centuries and down to the present day. A short
version of the genre – George OrwellÕs ÒPolitics and the English
LanguageÓ – has been particularly influential and is still often cited 60
years after its publication.
And now in 2007 comes ÒunSpun,Ó
by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. The bookÕs subtitle tells it all:
ÒFinding Facts in a World of Disinformation.Ó Once again (for the
umpteen-thousandth time) we are given a report on the sorry state of things
linguistic – ÒWe live in a world of spinÓ – and a promise that help
is on the way, in this case in the form of a few brief precepts employed as
section headings: ÒCheck Primary Sources,Ó ÒKnow What Counts,Ó ÒKnow WhoÕs
Talking,Ó ÒCross-check Everything That Matters,Ó ÒBe Skeptical, But Not
Cynical.Ó The idea is that while Òwe humans arenÕt wired to think very
rationallyÓ and are prone to Òletting language do our thinking for us,Ó we can
nevertheless become Òmore aware of how and when language is steering us toward
a conclusion.Ó In this way, Brooks and Jamieson promise, we can learn Òhow to
avoid the psychological pitfalls that lead us to ignore facts or believe bad
information.Ó
April 29, 2007, 8:47 pm
Under FIRE: Campus Speech Regulations Once Again
Last week saw the end of a little drama that
had been playing out on the campus of the University of Rhode Island for some
months. On April 26 the student senate turned back a committee recommendation
to ÒderecognizeÓ the College Republicans because the group refused to apologize
for one of its actions. What the College Republicans had done was invite
applications for the ÒFirst Annual White Heterosexual Male Scholarship,Ó
otherwise known by the acronym WHAM. Applicants were asked, first, to certify
that they were indeed white, heterosexual, American and male and then to answer
two questions: ÒIn 100 words or less, what does being a White Heterosexual
American Male mean to you? As a White Heterosexual American Male, what
adversities have you had to deal with and overcome?Ó
Many of the 40 or so who sent in
applications recognized the satirical intention (to ridicule and parody raced-based
scholarships and other forms of campus affirmative action) of the obviously
bogus scholarship and wrote in the same spirit. But the student senate was not
amused, and in February the Student Organizations Advisory and Review Committee
demanded that the College Republicans: A) not award the $100 scholarship, B)
apologize in writing for having violated the anti-discrimination section of the
senateÕs bylaws, and C) seek permission from the senate before mounting any
programs in the next 12 months. The group cheerfully agreed to A – why
not? – and declined to comply with B and C.
In response the Advisory and Review
Committee exercised the nuclear option and voted to derecognize the group, in
spite of the fact that Robert Carothers, the universityÕs president, had
declared on April 6 that it was unconstitutional to require the College
Republicans to Òmake public statements which are not their own.Ó (The relevant
First Amendment category is Òcompelled speech.Ó) Given CarothersÕs unequivocal
position, it was only a matter of time, and the time arrived last Thursday,
before the Senate backed down, asking only that the College Republicans issue
an explanation of the point they were trying to make. The group is reported to
be satisfied with this condition, as well it might be, since it now has another
(and mandated) opportunity to get its point of view out to the public.
There is nothing particularly interesting or
edifying about this incident. One could accuse the College Republicans of bad
taste and the Senate committee of overreacting and of failing to understand
what the First Amendment protects (since Hustler v.
Falwell, it protects political satire no matter how crude or
offensive), but that is more or less par for the course in such matters.
What is interesting, however, is that at
least part of the credit for the resolution of the controversy belongs to an
outside agency, FIRE, the Foundation for Individual
Rights in Education, a campus watchdog group founded by free speech
activists Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate, authors of ÒThe Shadow
University: The Betrayal of Liberty on AmericaÕs Campuses.Ó FIRE
wrote one letter to the student senate president, and two letters to President
Carothers. The second of those letters ended by reminding the president that
ÒFIRE is prepared to use the full extent of its resources to see this matter
through to a just and moral conclusion.Ó
April 22, 2007, 8:54 pm
Why Was Imus Fired? Just Do the Math
Early on in the Don Imus firing controversy
I took an abstinence pledge, vowing never to write anything about it. I now go
back on that pledge, not because I have anything to say, but because there
isnÕt anything to say, although almost everybody in the world has been saying a
great deal. What I mean is that there are no serious issues that might be
appropriately – as opposed to opportunistically – attached to this
incident. The story should not be filed under Òfree speechÓ or Òracist speechÓ or
Òthe culture of indecencyÓ or Òdouble standardsÓ; it should be filed under
Òblunders with unexpected consequences,Ó the subject of an earlier column about
men and women who say or do something apparently small and even casual and
find, sometimes within minutes, that their public lives are over.
In Mr. ImusÕs case, what followed his
disparaging of the Rutgers women basketball players was unanticipated not
because he had intended no insult, but because intending insults has always
been his line of work, and he had no reason to believe that this five-second
instance of his ordinary practice would bring everything crashing down. Many
commentators have said that Imus should have distinguished between his usual targets
– Hollywood celebrities, politicians, sports icons – and 10
innocent and vulnerable young women. But this criticism assumes that behind
what Imus said over the years was some kind of social or moral or philosophical
calculation. There was nothing at all behind his daily performances; he was
just occupying a professional niche – Don Rickles with a network –
and doing exactly what he was paid to do.
If calculation had nothing do with his
remarks, miscalculation had nothing to with their effects, which were, quite
literally, incalculable. Mr. Imus could not have known (no one could have) that
Rutgers University would be capable of mounting a press conference of stunning
impact. (Whoever orchestrated it should be snapped up by a presidential
candidate; he or she is a genius.) No one could have anticipated the e-mail and
Internet frenzy that led in a few days to a level of news coverage usually
reserved for presidential elections or national disasters. And no one, in
advance of the event, could have connected the dots in a way that led –
now it seems inevitably – to Sumner Redstone, the chief executive of
CBSÕs parent company, Viacom, who dropped Tom Cruise because he jumped up and
down on Oprah WinfreyÕs couch. A guy who is willing to cut loose the biggest star
in the world is going to have no trouble ordering the dismissal of an over-age
enfant terrible who wears long hair and cowboy boots. (When Redstone told
Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, to Òdo the right thing,Ó everyone
knew what he meant.)
April 15, 2007, 8:24 pm
Religion Without Truth, Part Two
In a March 31st Op-Ed column
I critiqued Professor Stephen ProtheroÕs claim (quoted in Time magazineÕs April
2nd issue) that the Òacademic study of religion É takes the biblical truth
claims seriously and yet brackets them for purposes of classroom discussion.Ó I
questioned how anyone could take something seriously by leaving it at the door
or putting it on the shelf. And I said that in the absence of its truth claims
– claims like salvation is through belief in Jesus Christ who rose from
the dead and redeemed us by taking upon himself all our sins – a religion
was nothing more than a set of stories and ritual practices bereft of any
transcendent meaning of which they would be the expression. You can teach those
stories and practices – just as you might teach the stories and practices
of baseball (which is, I know, the religion of some people) – but you
wouldnÕt, I insisted, be teaching religion, only its empty shell.
Of the hundred or so comments I received, only a few
indicated agreement with my point. The others raised a number of objections,
and among those objections three were prominent: 1) I fail to understand that
one can teach the truth claims of religion as historical and cultural facts
without either believing or disbelieving in them: ÒTo understand the works of
Christians such as Chaucer, Dante, Milton or Shakespeare, one must understand
something of Christianity. One must not, however, become
a Christian.Ó 2) Teaching the exclusive truth claims of a religion
as matters of fact goes against the principles of liberal democracy and liberal
education: ÒTeaching
religious thought as dogma is not education, but theocracy.Ó 3) What
I said in this column is contradicted by what I said in earlier columns: ÒThe
argument you present seems to run counter to your prior claim
that any potentially controversial topic can and should be studied within
ÔacademicizedÕ grounds.Ó
April 8, 2007, 9:12 pm
The political polling season is already upon
us (a bit prematurely, but everything is ahead of itself these days), and polls
taken in the past couple of weeks reveal a pattern that commentators are busy
explaining. When the question asked is, which party do you trust to do a better
job with the economy, the war, global warming, the environment, education, the
deficit, immigration, reputation abroad, the administration of justice, the
rebuilding of New Orleans?, the Democratic party wins — and in some categories
by impressive margins. The same polls show that 60 to 70 percent of the
American people believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, and
there is no doubt that President BushÕs rating numbers are also headed in the
wrong direction. Why then do Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama
consistently lose to Rudy Giuliani and John McCain in head-to-head matchups?
(The three Democrats do outpoll Mitt Romney, but who wouldnÕt?)
The answer usually given is that itÕs early.
Two years out voters are reacting to personalities, or rather, to their
perception of personalities. When things get more serious, and the candidates
are put under the lens of relentless scrutiny and have to answer hard questions
about hard issues, the ratings, we are told, will turn less on personality and
more on policy, and the numbers will change.
Maybe so, but I suspect that in 18 months
the personality profiles now given to us by the media will still be in place
and remain the focus of political commentary. WeÕll still have Giuliani, the
stalwart 9/11 hero and crime-fighting mayor (a little tainted by Bernard Kerik
and the messiest personal life this side of Britney Spears); John McCain, the
stalwart Vietnam War hero and straight shooter (a little tainted by claims that
Baghdad is a nice town for an afternoon stroll); Hillary Clinton, the smart,
well-organized, effective senator (a little burdened by baggage she is unlikely
ever to shed); Barack Obama, the charismatic, eloquent harbinger of a new day
(a little suspect because the glittering facade seems unaccompanied by even one
substantive idea); and John Edwards, the up-from-poverty trial lawyer and
former senator with an inspiring wife (a little defensive when he is asked why
a self-advertised candidate of the people has recently built himself a
mansion.) When September 2008 rolls around, two of these characters – or
perhaps a dark horse drawn from the current list of Bill Richardson,
Christopher Dodd, Joe Biden, Al Gore, Fred Thompson, Sam Brownback, Tommy Thompson
and Newt Gingrich – will be paraded before the citizenry, which will be
asked (endlessly), ÒWhom would you rather have running the country, protecting
our troops, educating our children, and throwing out the first ball on opening
day?
March 30, 2007, 8:38 pm
Stanley Fish has written an Op-Ed
for The Times that appears in print and online today. Post a comment about it
below. — The Editors
In 1992, at a conference of Republican governors,
Kirk Fordice of Mississippi referred to America as a ÒChristian nation.Ó One of
his colleagues rose to say that what Governor Fordice no doubt meant is that
America is a Judeo-Christian nation. If I meant that, Fordice replied, I would
have said it.
I thought of Fordice when I was reading Time
magazineÕs April 2 cover story, ÒThe Case for Teaching the Bible,Ó by David Van
Biema, which also rehearses the case for not teaching the Bible. The arguments
are predictableÉ Read the column
È
March 28, 2007, 10:29 am
Stanley Fish has written an Op-Ed
for The Times that appears in print and online today. Post a comment about it
below. — The Editors
YouÕre at the mystery section of an airport
bookstore and the loudspeaker has just announced that your flight is in the
late stages of boarding. You have maybe three or four minutes to make a choice.
(That is your assignment, if you choose to accept it.) How do you go about
deciding? É Read the column
È
March 23, 2007, 9:24 pm
Stanley Fish has written an Op-Ed
for The Times that appears in print and online today. Post a comment about it
below. — The Editors
When a bill before a state legislature bears
a womanÕs name, it is usually because someone has been abducted or raped or
murdered. But in Missouri, House Bill 213, or the Emily Brooker Intellectual
Diversity Act, is under consideration because someone was given an assignmentÉ Read the column
È
About Stanley Fish
Stanley Fish is the Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University
Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University, in Miami,
and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University
of Illinois at Chicago. Mr. Fish has also taught at the University of
California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and Duke University. He is the author of
10 books.