Toleration
Recently, I have been thinking about the issue of toleration. It is very interesting being a Christian thinking about this topic because the church, it seems, has been on every conceivable side of this issue over the years. At the very beginning, the church was a persecuted minority. Occasionally, Christian thinkers wrote treatises about the practices of the church to show authorities that they were not downright evil people as some were saying (there were some rather disturbing rumors going around about what happened during the Eucharist, for example).
Later in Western history, you had the Protestant Reformation, where various secular leaders aligned themselves with different religious leadership, effectively choosing what brand of Christianity their domain would practice. Those who dissented from the majority made appeals for toleration, that they might be able to continue practicing the religion they chose.
Now we find ourselves in the modern day, in a country that, in so many ways, was founded on the idea of religious toleration (or at least, such an idea was close to the main few ideas included in the Bill of Rights). And yet, it feels like there is just as little toleration as there has ever been. Sometimes, it is the church that persecutes people of other religions or people of no religion at all. Sometimes, even, the persecution goes the other way. What is fascinating to me as a Christian leader is to see that Christianity can be seen simultaneously as the dominant religio-cultural influence in America and yet also be a persecuted body, perhaps in some instances, as a persecuted minority, depending on the context.
When one glances back over Western history, the cry for toleration has been nearly ever-present. Somebody always wants to be tolerated by someone else and does not feel like they are being so tolerated. However, it has not always been the same groups. What that means is that, as persecuted minorities become tolerated and eventually become more and more dominant, there seems to be a trend that they then deny other groups the toleration they battled so hard for. Why should that be? Should not those who have yearned for tolerance be that much quicker to show it? Or perhaps, to be somewhat cynical, do those who have more acutely felt the need for toleration withhold it precisely because they were denied it in the past, a kind of “I’ll do unto you as they did unto me,” attitude?
There is much that could be said on this topic, and I do not pretend to have studied this particular issue as deeply as I might, but I have a few thoughts to share. It seems that, when people refuse to tolerate others, it is because, to their mind, those others are wrong. To tolerate people who are wrong, it would seem, is a disintegrating force in our society at its most basic level. When people are tolerated, it is as if we are saying, “We don’t agree with you, but you might possibly be right.” This is, of course, perhaps part of the reason why many people do not want to tolerate others in the first place. Toleration can easily be read as tacit approval, and, if the opposing group is wrong, they ought not to be approved.
I think that this has done tremendous disservice to the idea of toleration. It seems that to tolerate someone is precisely to tolerate them as someone who is wrong, at least from your point of view. If I think that you might be right, it would seem that it is best to say that I conditionally accept you rather than say that I tolerate you. But once I have conditionally accepted you, toleration is really not the issue.
It might seem that I am asking for people to be more harsh with one another, since I am not necessarily advocating “conditional acceptance” for all, but rather “toleration.” The reason for this is because to insist that we all “conditionally accept” one another is, in practical terms, to superimpose a kind of uniformity (or at least a meta-uniformity) that just does not exist in everyday experience. I think that, in order to really find unity among people, we need to allow the differences to be what they are so that those differences can be in dialogue with one another as differences.
What this means is that I still reserve for myself the right to think that someone else is wrong, but it also means that I reserve for others the right to think that I am wrong. What it also means is that I will tolerate you, not because I secretly think that you are more right than I am, or that I, deep down inside, wish I could think like you do, but because you are another human being for whom Christ died. It means that I don’t want you to tolerate me because you think that I have some secret key to happiness that you have missed, but simply because I am another human being, even if, from your point of view, I am completely wrong.
It is simply foolish that Party A should persecute Party B, then tolerate Party B so that it can gain a foothold in the culture and even rise to prominence or dominance, only for Party B to deny toleration to Party A because they are “wrong.” Since when did “right” and “wrong” enter into the rules of toleration? A toleration that says, “I will tolerate you so long as you fit into my definition of ‘right,’” is not toleration at all.
Let us strive for genuine toleration, that we might join together to seek genuine truth.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Some Reflections on Understanding People
Some Reflections on Understanding People
Something that has driven me crazy for some time within the church is the way we treat the Pharisees in the Gospel narratives. I would hear sermons and other messages that would talk about how hypocritical the Pharisees were and that they were people who spent all their time trying to earn their way into heaven while, at the same time, imposing unbearable requirements on the people, seeking to eliminate the people who got in their way rather than give up their power.
What particularly bothered me is that it seemed clear to me that the problems that we see in the Pharisees have not gone away. They are everywhere, perhaps more in the church than anywhere else. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that these were not two isolated facts, but were deeply related to one another. The prevalence of Pharisaic problems in the church makes perfect sense because they are problems that religious leaders are more likely to have than anyone else, precisely because of their status as religious leaders. If this was indeed true, it seemed that our tendency to demonize the Pharisees did nothing but blind our eyes to seeing how we are just like they are.
After that, I felt I could no longer treat the Pharisees that way. I began to realize that, just like most people who act like the Pharisees in our own day don’t realize they are doing it (and I can give you many examples from my own life where the same has been true of me), it is entirely possible that the Pharisees themselves did not understand the sinfulness of their behavior. In fact, the more I got inside their heads, the more I realized that they weren’t being evil for evil’s sake, but were trying to act with integrity within their tradition as best they could.
This does not, however, mean that the Pharisees were any less wrong. What it did, though, was help me to understand not only what they were saying and doing but why they were saying and doing it. More than ever, it has taught me to see where I do exactly the same things, where I wasn’t able to see it before when I behaved as if there was no similarity between them and myself.
This has taught me the evils of demonizing people. It has become more and more clear to me that a large part of our problem today is that we cannot have honest conversations with people and a large part of why we cannot do that is because we tend to demonize the people with whom we disagree. So long as we refuse to understand why someone might come to a different conclusion than we do, we will never be able to take them seriously. We will develop a caricature, a straw man, and then ruthlessly cut it down, without taking account of the fact that it bears no relation to reality, or, at least, not much of one.
Let me use as an example the issue of abortion, as the opposing sides, as I see it, are rather clearly expressed. Those who think that abortion is always wrong call themselves “pro-life.” Those who think that abortions are acceptable in one form or another call themselves “pro-choice.” Now, pro-lifers will say that pro-choicers are “anti-baby” or something along those lines as, the argument goes, such people advocate the killing of babies (It must be noted that those who are pro-life often work with an understanding of embryonic and fetal life as equal to life outside of the womb, an understanding that is not shared by everyone else). Pro-choicers, on their part, tend to say that pro-lifers are “anti-women” or something along those lines as, the argument goes, the forcing women to have their baby forces women to give up their dreams and is a financial burden (It must be noted here that the battle often rages the hardest over the issue of pregnancies that result from rape or incest, where the mother had no real choice in the preventing of the pregnancy).
The problem with this way of thinking is that it does not reflect the truth, or at least only a partial rendering of the truth. It is entirely possible that some pro-life people are truly anti-women and some pro-choice people are anti-baby. However, I have serious doubts that people lay awake at night thinking, “I really hate babies. How can I act on this intense hatred of babies? I know, I’ll support abortion!” Or, conversely, “I really hate women. How can I oppress women as best as I can? I know, I will refuse to let them get abortions!”
This way of thinking emphasizes only the positive aspects of each view (that life and/or choice is good) and attacks only the negative aspects of the other (that there are bad side-effects that can arise from these views). In practice, this completely eliminates any hope of real conversation and dealing with issues. If a pro-lifer calls a pro-choicer a “baby killer,” how likely is that pro-choicer going to want to have real dialogue? Indeed, how likely is that pro-lifer to want to have real dialogue? After all, they have resorted to a caricature.
Why are do we do this to each other (and here I have stepped away from the specific issue of abortion)? I think it is because we are desperately afraid. In our increasingly polarized culture, to take a position that is not on one extreme or the other is to be seen as a traitor to both sides. To take the opposing side seriously means to treat the people as if they may truly be human and, thus, may have some things in common with well-grounded, sensible people like us, which makes it much harder to take a hard line against them. To really listen always carries with it the possibility, no matter how small, that we may be convinced by what we hear, or at least that we may begin to see varying shades of grey where we used to see nothing but black and white.
It is difficult to toe the middle line when all around seem to be running as far from that middle as possible. And yet, though I surely try to live in this tension and I certainly advocate that others do so as well, I do not think we should pursue moderation as if it were a kind of replacement ideology, as if an ideology of the middle is any better than an ideology of the left or the right. I think that the reason that the extreme positions are destructive is because they are not true, because they distort the facts and then use power to try and enforce conformity to that particular distortion. I think that we should see shades of grey, not just because I wish we could stop the bitter fighting but because I am convinced that the shades of grey are real and that thinking in terms of black and white forces us away from what really is. I think that we need to stop demonizing people because it prevents us from experiencing them as they really are.
Something that has driven me crazy for some time within the church is the way we treat the Pharisees in the Gospel narratives. I would hear sermons and other messages that would talk about how hypocritical the Pharisees were and that they were people who spent all their time trying to earn their way into heaven while, at the same time, imposing unbearable requirements on the people, seeking to eliminate the people who got in their way rather than give up their power.
What particularly bothered me is that it seemed clear to me that the problems that we see in the Pharisees have not gone away. They are everywhere, perhaps more in the church than anywhere else. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that these were not two isolated facts, but were deeply related to one another. The prevalence of Pharisaic problems in the church makes perfect sense because they are problems that religious leaders are more likely to have than anyone else, precisely because of their status as religious leaders. If this was indeed true, it seemed that our tendency to demonize the Pharisees did nothing but blind our eyes to seeing how we are just like they are.
After that, I felt I could no longer treat the Pharisees that way. I began to realize that, just like most people who act like the Pharisees in our own day don’t realize they are doing it (and I can give you many examples from my own life where the same has been true of me), it is entirely possible that the Pharisees themselves did not understand the sinfulness of their behavior. In fact, the more I got inside their heads, the more I realized that they weren’t being evil for evil’s sake, but were trying to act with integrity within their tradition as best they could.
This does not, however, mean that the Pharisees were any less wrong. What it did, though, was help me to understand not only what they were saying and doing but why they were saying and doing it. More than ever, it has taught me to see where I do exactly the same things, where I wasn’t able to see it before when I behaved as if there was no similarity between them and myself.
This has taught me the evils of demonizing people. It has become more and more clear to me that a large part of our problem today is that we cannot have honest conversations with people and a large part of why we cannot do that is because we tend to demonize the people with whom we disagree. So long as we refuse to understand why someone might come to a different conclusion than we do, we will never be able to take them seriously. We will develop a caricature, a straw man, and then ruthlessly cut it down, without taking account of the fact that it bears no relation to reality, or, at least, not much of one.
Let me use as an example the issue of abortion, as the opposing sides, as I see it, are rather clearly expressed. Those who think that abortion is always wrong call themselves “pro-life.” Those who think that abortions are acceptable in one form or another call themselves “pro-choice.” Now, pro-lifers will say that pro-choicers are “anti-baby” or something along those lines as, the argument goes, such people advocate the killing of babies (It must be noted that those who are pro-life often work with an understanding of embryonic and fetal life as equal to life outside of the womb, an understanding that is not shared by everyone else). Pro-choicers, on their part, tend to say that pro-lifers are “anti-women” or something along those lines as, the argument goes, the forcing women to have their baby forces women to give up their dreams and is a financial burden (It must be noted here that the battle often rages the hardest over the issue of pregnancies that result from rape or incest, where the mother had no real choice in the preventing of the pregnancy).
The problem with this way of thinking is that it does not reflect the truth, or at least only a partial rendering of the truth. It is entirely possible that some pro-life people are truly anti-women and some pro-choice people are anti-baby. However, I have serious doubts that people lay awake at night thinking, “I really hate babies. How can I act on this intense hatred of babies? I know, I’ll support abortion!” Or, conversely, “I really hate women. How can I oppress women as best as I can? I know, I will refuse to let them get abortions!”
This way of thinking emphasizes only the positive aspects of each view (that life and/or choice is good) and attacks only the negative aspects of the other (that there are bad side-effects that can arise from these views). In practice, this completely eliminates any hope of real conversation and dealing with issues. If a pro-lifer calls a pro-choicer a “baby killer,” how likely is that pro-choicer going to want to have real dialogue? Indeed, how likely is that pro-lifer to want to have real dialogue? After all, they have resorted to a caricature.
Why are do we do this to each other (and here I have stepped away from the specific issue of abortion)? I think it is because we are desperately afraid. In our increasingly polarized culture, to take a position that is not on one extreme or the other is to be seen as a traitor to both sides. To take the opposing side seriously means to treat the people as if they may truly be human and, thus, may have some things in common with well-grounded, sensible people like us, which makes it much harder to take a hard line against them. To really listen always carries with it the possibility, no matter how small, that we may be convinced by what we hear, or at least that we may begin to see varying shades of grey where we used to see nothing but black and white.
It is difficult to toe the middle line when all around seem to be running as far from that middle as possible. And yet, though I surely try to live in this tension and I certainly advocate that others do so as well, I do not think we should pursue moderation as if it were a kind of replacement ideology, as if an ideology of the middle is any better than an ideology of the left or the right. I think that the reason that the extreme positions are destructive is because they are not true, because they distort the facts and then use power to try and enforce conformity to that particular distortion. I think that we should see shades of grey, not just because I wish we could stop the bitter fighting but because I am convinced that the shades of grey are real and that thinking in terms of black and white forces us away from what really is. I think that we need to stop demonizing people because it prevents us from experiencing them as they really are.
Strong Feelings in Our Contemporary Culture
Strong Feelings in Our Contemporary Culture:
We live in a culture today where many people have extremely strong feelings about various topics. That’s fine. Not only do I believe that people should have strong feelings about things, I myself have very strong feelings about certain issues. However, what inevitably happens is that a person comes into contact with another person, or especially another organization, that disagrees strongly on the same issue. This is where the problems come in.
Let’s say we have a person, let us call them “Person A” who has strong feelings in favor of an issue, let’s say, “Issue B.” Eventually, Person A meets someone or reads an article or even just hears through the grapevine that some organization, “Organization C” is very much Anti-Issue B (Whatever issue B happens to be), ostensibly because of their own deeply held, strong feelings about the issue. What is Person A to do? They are now faced with something or someone who disagrees with their strong feelings. Surely, they cannot simply remain silent about it.
So they write an article, or post a link to an article that someone else (who agrees with them) or just even a strongly worded status update on Facebook denouncing Organization C for taking a stance that deviates from the opinions of Person A. However, this seems to seldom take the form, “I do not think that you should support Organization C because they are against something that I am in favor of or because they are in favor of something I am against.” Rather, they are usually much more pointed than that. Often, the strong feelings underlying the position of Organization C are acknowledged simply to be dismissed or, what is more often the case, demonized. Words like “hate” and “evil” are thrown around with alarming frequency. The impression one gets after reading something like this is that, if I find myself either agreeing with Organization C or even simply deviating slightly from the rigid position of Person A, then I must be equally hated by Person A and therefore am equally dismissed or condemned by them. The other potential conclusion is that I may find myself completely in agreement with Person A and the writing has further empowered me to continue to hold my own strong feelings and condemn those of others without feeling the need to understand the other person. This particular point is deeply related to the content of my previous note (Some Reflections On Understanding People).
It is important to point out that there are both liberal and conservative forms of this situation. I have seen countless appeals from one group to completely boycott or fight against another group because of the views they hold. I say this because, though it might seem that I am particularly picking on one side or the other, I am fully aware that this is a widespread issue and cannot be pinned only on one side of the political spectrum.
The question that I believe needs to be raised is, “How can we, in good conscience, do these kinds of things?” I cannot express how many times I have seen someone write words to the effect of, “This person/organization supports/is against this particular issue. They are so arrogant, closed-minded and exclusive. You should avoid them or write letters of protest against them.” How is this tactic any less arrogant, closed-minded and exclusive? How is it that I can, on the basis of my own strong feelings, condemn someone else who, on the basis of their own strong feelings, acts accordingly? Does that not seem as though I am doing precisely the same thing that I am condemning them for? How are my own exclusive actions and words more noble than those I condemn? Is it because the other group or person is wrong while I am right? If so, how am I so sure that I am right? I fear that, all too often, the determining factor of whether I am “right” or not is simply because I choose to believe that I am right.
This leads me to say a few words about what has developed in Western culture, particular in America, which I like to call the ideology of inclusivity or the ideology of pluralism, as the two ideas are deeply interrelated (There is some overlap here with a previous note on pluralism).
Inclusivity is something that is prized very highly within the various mainline denominations in America, not least the United Methodist Church, of which I am a minister. There is a deep conviction that the church ought to be inclusive. The rationale for this is that Jesus was remarkably inclusive, eating with sinners and Gentiles, ministering to women and the poor. So far as we remain rooted in Christ, I have no problem with being inclusive. However, when we take the statement, “Jesus was inclusive and we are called to be like Jesus, so let us be inclusive like Jesus was,” and transform it into, “Jesus was inclusive so inclusivity is a goal in and of itself,” insurmountable problems arise.
What does it mean to be inclusive in an ideological sense, that is, being inclusive for the sake of being inclusive? Perhaps this can be best expressed by taking a look at the cognate idea of “pluralism” that has developed. I am a Christian. Someone who is a pluralist in the popular sense would say to me, “It is fine that you are a Christian. However, you must not make any claims that Christianity is true, unless you limit it and say, ‘Christianity is true for me.’” The reason for this is because it is clear that not everyone in the world is a Christian and to say that “Christianity is true,” is to say to the non-Christian, “Your religious convictions are wrong.” This implication, that someone else might have a wrong opinion, is deemed as “not loving” and “exclusive,” and must therefore be eliminated.
This seems to be a consistent view at first, because it advocates and actually insists upon making room for other views. However, it is, in practice, almost never consistent. What does the ideological pluralist do, for example, with the neo-nazi or the member of the KKK? If we are to make room for everyone’s convictions, religious or otherwise, on what grounds can we say that some people are wrong? Those who advocate pluralism or inclusivity as an end in itself, find themselves condemning people, in spite of their own philosophy. What began as a view that allowed everyone to have their own opinions and lifestyles transitions into a view that says that at least some opinions and lifestyles, are not allowable.
Why are some lifestyles allowable and others not? It cannot be on any pretence to “truth” because the ideological pluralist or inclusivist is too postmodern to think that any community can have a monopoly on truth and that we must allow for those who disagree with us. However, radically intolerant groups, if left unchecked, will tear society apart. They must be opposed. But on what grounds? What seems to be put forward most often is an ideal that is stated with such confidence that it must not be questioned, “Ideas and lifestyles are alright if they do not hurt other people. If they do, they are not acceptable.” This is so widely believed, but on what is it based? At best, purely Western values such as are enshrined in the American constitution; more often, simply on the whim of the speaker, who does not want to be hurt by others.”
The problem with this is that, once you have said that something is wrong and it is always wrong, regardless of the community to which a person belongs, a standard has been made by which every other view is judged to be acceptable or not acceptable. In spite of the alleged “humility” that presses someone into a radically pluralist or inclusivist view, it actually becomes very paternalistic and judgmental because it claims that the radically pluralist or inclusivist view is “right” and any group that is exclusivist is “wrong.”
Let us put this into its clearest form. Those who wish to be radically inclusive realize they must take a stand against those who are radically exclusive, so they take the stand, “Everything is relative, but pluralism is true!” This solves their moral problem by condemning any person or group who is exclusive in their eyes. However, this statement has shown that the radical inclusivist is indeed exclusive of exclusivists and therefore must be excluded by their own ideology. If one must be exclusive of those who are exclusive, that same person is automatically excluded.
Professor Alan Torrance at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, has written a profoundly insightful essay called “Toward Inclusive Ministry: The Logical Impossibility of Religious and Theological Inclusivism, Pluralism and Relativism.” Torrance, a committed Christian, begins by explaining the famous threefold typology of “Inclusive, Exclusive, and Pluralistic” popularized by Gavin D’Costa. However, in the years following the publication of his book, D’Costa has completely changed his mind on this issue and now contends that it is only possible for human beings to have an exclusive stance, inasmuch as it is logically impossible to truly follow the implications of an inclusive or pluralist ideology.
Without going into all the details of this excellent essay, what is important for this discussion is that Torrance questions what we mean when we say that we should be “inclusive.” Do we mean that we must be inclusive of ideas or that we must be inclusive of persons? This is a significant distinction. If we wish to be inclusive of all persons, we must consider certain ideas to be out of line, such as genocide and all forms of abuse. However, if we wish to be inclusive of ideas, we cannot be inclusive of persons, as some ideas are defined by their stance against certain persons. Torrance concludes by upholding this understanding of inclusivity, which is markedly different than the word is popularly understood, but as, he believes, is much more consistent with the gospel and much more productive of actual conversation with people of differing opinions.
To bring this back to the original point of this writing, our strong feelings are not intrinsically evil. However, what ends up being destructive is our determined ignorance. If I criticize someone else for running roughshod over my cherished beliefs and, by doing so, run roughshod over their cherished beliefs, I am just as much to blame as they are. To complain that a person or organization is being closed-minded and discriminatory in such a way as to use primarily emotionally charged words without actually engaging in the issue in a calm and clear way is to be equally closed-minded and discriminatory. Nothing will change so long as we continue to insist that we are always right and that any deviation is grounds to brand the other as “evil” or “hateful” or “closed-minded” or similar things. We have to be the ones who take the lead, who treat others with love, even when we are not treated in a loving manner. We must be the ones who allow our strong feelings to be what they are but refuse to let them isolate us from others, but put them to the test in dialogue with those who disagree with us.
We live in a culture today where many people have extremely strong feelings about various topics. That’s fine. Not only do I believe that people should have strong feelings about things, I myself have very strong feelings about certain issues. However, what inevitably happens is that a person comes into contact with another person, or especially another organization, that disagrees strongly on the same issue. This is where the problems come in.
Let’s say we have a person, let us call them “Person A” who has strong feelings in favor of an issue, let’s say, “Issue B.” Eventually, Person A meets someone or reads an article or even just hears through the grapevine that some organization, “Organization C” is very much Anti-Issue B (Whatever issue B happens to be), ostensibly because of their own deeply held, strong feelings about the issue. What is Person A to do? They are now faced with something or someone who disagrees with their strong feelings. Surely, they cannot simply remain silent about it.
So they write an article, or post a link to an article that someone else (who agrees with them) or just even a strongly worded status update on Facebook denouncing Organization C for taking a stance that deviates from the opinions of Person A. However, this seems to seldom take the form, “I do not think that you should support Organization C because they are against something that I am in favor of or because they are in favor of something I am against.” Rather, they are usually much more pointed than that. Often, the strong feelings underlying the position of Organization C are acknowledged simply to be dismissed or, what is more often the case, demonized. Words like “hate” and “evil” are thrown around with alarming frequency. The impression one gets after reading something like this is that, if I find myself either agreeing with Organization C or even simply deviating slightly from the rigid position of Person A, then I must be equally hated by Person A and therefore am equally dismissed or condemned by them. The other potential conclusion is that I may find myself completely in agreement with Person A and the writing has further empowered me to continue to hold my own strong feelings and condemn those of others without feeling the need to understand the other person. This particular point is deeply related to the content of my previous note (Some Reflections On Understanding People).
It is important to point out that there are both liberal and conservative forms of this situation. I have seen countless appeals from one group to completely boycott or fight against another group because of the views they hold. I say this because, though it might seem that I am particularly picking on one side or the other, I am fully aware that this is a widespread issue and cannot be pinned only on one side of the political spectrum.
The question that I believe needs to be raised is, “How can we, in good conscience, do these kinds of things?” I cannot express how many times I have seen someone write words to the effect of, “This person/organization supports/is against this particular issue. They are so arrogant, closed-minded and exclusive. You should avoid them or write letters of protest against them.” How is this tactic any less arrogant, closed-minded and exclusive? How is it that I can, on the basis of my own strong feelings, condemn someone else who, on the basis of their own strong feelings, acts accordingly? Does that not seem as though I am doing precisely the same thing that I am condemning them for? How are my own exclusive actions and words more noble than those I condemn? Is it because the other group or person is wrong while I am right? If so, how am I so sure that I am right? I fear that, all too often, the determining factor of whether I am “right” or not is simply because I choose to believe that I am right.
This leads me to say a few words about what has developed in Western culture, particular in America, which I like to call the ideology of inclusivity or the ideology of pluralism, as the two ideas are deeply interrelated (There is some overlap here with a previous note on pluralism).
Inclusivity is something that is prized very highly within the various mainline denominations in America, not least the United Methodist Church, of which I am a minister. There is a deep conviction that the church ought to be inclusive. The rationale for this is that Jesus was remarkably inclusive, eating with sinners and Gentiles, ministering to women and the poor. So far as we remain rooted in Christ, I have no problem with being inclusive. However, when we take the statement, “Jesus was inclusive and we are called to be like Jesus, so let us be inclusive like Jesus was,” and transform it into, “Jesus was inclusive so inclusivity is a goal in and of itself,” insurmountable problems arise.
What does it mean to be inclusive in an ideological sense, that is, being inclusive for the sake of being inclusive? Perhaps this can be best expressed by taking a look at the cognate idea of “pluralism” that has developed. I am a Christian. Someone who is a pluralist in the popular sense would say to me, “It is fine that you are a Christian. However, you must not make any claims that Christianity is true, unless you limit it and say, ‘Christianity is true for me.’” The reason for this is because it is clear that not everyone in the world is a Christian and to say that “Christianity is true,” is to say to the non-Christian, “Your religious convictions are wrong.” This implication, that someone else might have a wrong opinion, is deemed as “not loving” and “exclusive,” and must therefore be eliminated.
This seems to be a consistent view at first, because it advocates and actually insists upon making room for other views. However, it is, in practice, almost never consistent. What does the ideological pluralist do, for example, with the neo-nazi or the member of the KKK? If we are to make room for everyone’s convictions, religious or otherwise, on what grounds can we say that some people are wrong? Those who advocate pluralism or inclusivity as an end in itself, find themselves condemning people, in spite of their own philosophy. What began as a view that allowed everyone to have their own opinions and lifestyles transitions into a view that says that at least some opinions and lifestyles, are not allowable.
Why are some lifestyles allowable and others not? It cannot be on any pretence to “truth” because the ideological pluralist or inclusivist is too postmodern to think that any community can have a monopoly on truth and that we must allow for those who disagree with us. However, radically intolerant groups, if left unchecked, will tear society apart. They must be opposed. But on what grounds? What seems to be put forward most often is an ideal that is stated with such confidence that it must not be questioned, “Ideas and lifestyles are alright if they do not hurt other people. If they do, they are not acceptable.” This is so widely believed, but on what is it based? At best, purely Western values such as are enshrined in the American constitution; more often, simply on the whim of the speaker, who does not want to be hurt by others.”
The problem with this is that, once you have said that something is wrong and it is always wrong, regardless of the community to which a person belongs, a standard has been made by which every other view is judged to be acceptable or not acceptable. In spite of the alleged “humility” that presses someone into a radically pluralist or inclusivist view, it actually becomes very paternalistic and judgmental because it claims that the radically pluralist or inclusivist view is “right” and any group that is exclusivist is “wrong.”
Let us put this into its clearest form. Those who wish to be radically inclusive realize they must take a stand against those who are radically exclusive, so they take the stand, “Everything is relative, but pluralism is true!” This solves their moral problem by condemning any person or group who is exclusive in their eyes. However, this statement has shown that the radical inclusivist is indeed exclusive of exclusivists and therefore must be excluded by their own ideology. If one must be exclusive of those who are exclusive, that same person is automatically excluded.
Professor Alan Torrance at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, has written a profoundly insightful essay called “Toward Inclusive Ministry: The Logical Impossibility of Religious and Theological Inclusivism, Pluralism and Relativism.” Torrance, a committed Christian, begins by explaining the famous threefold typology of “Inclusive, Exclusive, and Pluralistic” popularized by Gavin D’Costa. However, in the years following the publication of his book, D’Costa has completely changed his mind on this issue and now contends that it is only possible for human beings to have an exclusive stance, inasmuch as it is logically impossible to truly follow the implications of an inclusive or pluralist ideology.
Without going into all the details of this excellent essay, what is important for this discussion is that Torrance questions what we mean when we say that we should be “inclusive.” Do we mean that we must be inclusive of ideas or that we must be inclusive of persons? This is a significant distinction. If we wish to be inclusive of all persons, we must consider certain ideas to be out of line, such as genocide and all forms of abuse. However, if we wish to be inclusive of ideas, we cannot be inclusive of persons, as some ideas are defined by their stance against certain persons. Torrance concludes by upholding this understanding of inclusivity, which is markedly different than the word is popularly understood, but as, he believes, is much more consistent with the gospel and much more productive of actual conversation with people of differing opinions.
To bring this back to the original point of this writing, our strong feelings are not intrinsically evil. However, what ends up being destructive is our determined ignorance. If I criticize someone else for running roughshod over my cherished beliefs and, by doing so, run roughshod over their cherished beliefs, I am just as much to blame as they are. To complain that a person or organization is being closed-minded and discriminatory in such a way as to use primarily emotionally charged words without actually engaging in the issue in a calm and clear way is to be equally closed-minded and discriminatory. Nothing will change so long as we continue to insist that we are always right and that any deviation is grounds to brand the other as “evil” or “hateful” or “closed-minded” or similar things. We have to be the ones who take the lead, who treat others with love, even when we are not treated in a loving manner. We must be the ones who allow our strong feelings to be what they are but refuse to let them isolate us from others, but put them to the test in dialogue with those who disagree with us.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The American Political System
The American Political System
Those who know me know that I don't usually like to talk about politics. I find myself fitting neither with the general stance of the Republican party, nor with that of the Democratic party. I feel that, in my experience, the moment a hot topic in contemporary politics gets brought up, both sides retreat to their talking points, which is an incredibly defensive position. There are people with whom I am friends on Facebook who are otherwise calm and considerate people who try to understand issues from every point of view who I am hesitant (not to say frightened) to engage in dialogue on political issues as I have found that they tend to gravitate, just like most people, into extreme positions.
One day, I found myself wandering on a YouTube trail (where one video leads to another, without any overarching goal in mind), which I usually try to avoid and I ended up watching part of a video of a presentation by Christopher Hitchens. The presentation in question took place during the Clinton administration and Hitchens (who is British) was functioning as a journalist and cultural commentator and not primarily as a militant atheist (which he also does from time to time). How I ended up on this particular clip, I cannot explain, especially as it was only one part out of ten or so, and the only one I watched was somewhere in the middle. I do not know exactly what issue was going on at the time that prompted the observation, but Hitchens made an incredibly insightful comment. He said (words to the effect of), "In America, I have noticed that the word 'partisan' has a distinctly negative connotation, whereas 'bi-partisan' has a distinctly positive connotation." He ultimately concluded by saying, "I think that America is afraid that it might one day become a two-party system."
Now, this comment got some laughs from the (American) audience, because, as everyone in America knows, we do have a two-party system. We have some other parties that show up every once in a while, but they tend to not do very well. Even though we may have more than two parties on paper, in practice, there are two parties in America.
But Hitchens' comment cuts deeper than that. In spite of the fact that, in America, we have two parties that hold opposite views on a multitude of issues, the idea that we ought to strive for truly bi-partisan politics as the ideal, whereas partisan politics is a problem is very much the product of the Enlightenment. Hitchens, who is from England where there are many viable political parties, sees the truth perhaps a bit more clearly than we Americans do.
I think that we in American desperately want to believe that there is one position that is objectively and completely "right," and that, if we all just got together and shared all our opinions and brought forward all the arguments and checked all the facts, we would all come to the same conclusion, we would all agree on what is right, what is wrong, and how we should proceed so that we can be right and not wrong. The contemporary issues surrounding taxation of the wealthy and organized labor, among other things, seems to operate with the presupposition that, if all the facts could be on the table, nobody would be confused as to what we should do. We would all agree. There is clearly a "right" way to go about these things and a "wrong" way to do so. What we need is to get beyond all our political platforms and discern this together.
But there is a problem with this. The fact of the matter is that, while a good portion of Americans can get along most of the time and make compromises on most things, there are certain communities that simply cannot get along. To give some fairly extreme examples, radical Fundamentalists simply cannot get along with the homosexual community (and vice versa) without in some significant manner changing who they are and what they believe. Another example is the KKK and the African-American community. These are two communities that, because of who they are and what they believe, simply cannot exist side by side, short of bloodshed, without some kind of external restraint.
But what happens in the application of external restraint, which must be applied, if for no other reason, than to keep the peace? One group is given privilege over the other, at whose expense this privilege is purchased. Now, the question is, which side do you choose? In the examples I have provided (which are extreme to make the point clearer, though this happens on smaller scales as well), most contemporary people would say that we ought to side with the homosexual community and the African-American community, respectively, if for no other reason than because those groups have tended to be less driven to violence toward their opponents, but, though this is firmly in line with our constitution as classically interpreted (you have rights until your exercise of them infringes on the rights of others) it is still the prioritizing of one community's desires over another.
By the way, we can see, especially in the case of the KKK, where the de-facto decision was in favor of the more violent group and was only later overturned. There is nothing in our law or society that guarantees that we will always operate in the same way.
The reason why I bring up these issues is that there are certain communities that no amount of conferencing and "compromising" will yield a solution that is fully acceptable to both parties (think, for example, about whether it would be possible to find a solution that is fully acceptable to both the KKK and the African-American community). Decision between such communities always has to be made, and made by a third party, who does not necessarily agree completely with either party.
I think that this is the case more often than we would like to admit. If I am particularly wealthy, I am likely (though not guaranteed) to oppose high taxes on the wealthy. Yes it is true that such taxation might be aimed at the greater good, but my willing participation is based on a few presuppositions. First, I would have to believe that the taxes actually do aim at the greater good. It is entirely possible that I might conclude that what we call "the greater good" might actually simply be "what is good for this community in which I do not find myself," only with an absolutized name and a noble sound. Secondly, I would have to believe that this is actually the best way to reach this greater good. Third, I would have to believe that the elected officials would know better how to spend my money than I do for the greater good they are seeking. Fourth, I have to actually believe in this greater good exists and agree that it is something worth striving for. None of these is guaranteed, and the absence of any one of them (let alone more than one) could result in the opposition of such taxation in the defense of self-interest (which, by the way, is what Adam Smith says is the driving force behind capitalism. It seems to be built into our economic system, that we dogmatically export all over the world).
In a similar way, one could easily make the argument that organized labor is not for the greater good, but for the good of those engaged in labor. On some levels, it is not good, or at least is perceived not to be good, to certain businesspeople. If this were not so, there would be no argument about it. A victory for upper management is paid for by labor, but it is equally true that a victory for labor is paid for by upper management. Perhaps we can dress it up in noble garments, that it is the right thing to do, that really, it is the best for everyone involved, or at least the best for enough of a majority (or supermajority) to make it worthwhile. It might also be claimed that upper management can afford to pay for this victory, whereas the opposite cannot be said. All these things might be true, and might be judged as true by those who get to make such decisions, but it does not change the fact that no statement of "better" or "worse" political decisions is made in a vacuum, but reflects the interests of a certain community.
The point that Christopher Hitchens saw so clearly is that we in America want desperately to believe that, if we just work together, we will come to a conclusion that satisfies everyone involved, that, even if we have to settle for something less than our personal ideal, it is acceptable because our desire for the best for the totality of our society is our primary concern. It is a kind of political pluralism. We sincerely hope that both political parties are equally dedicated to independent "ideal" political decisions, but are simply talking past one another, or are momentarily distracted, but can and should be set right. Hitchens was able to see what we often cannot: We are different people with different interests, some of which are mutually exclusive. A victory for one community carries with it the defeat of another community. No political gain is made without a corresponding political loss somewhere else. Nobody gains power unless someone else loses power.
I think that, until we can throw off the mask and see how our own interests color the whole political process, we will never be able to see other people as real human beings, albeit human beings with different, sometimes mutually exclusive, interests and desires, but human beings who are just as self-consistent and just as passionate about their convictions as we are. And I believe it is only when we can do this that we can really move forward in civility and love.
Those who know me know that I don't usually like to talk about politics. I find myself fitting neither with the general stance of the Republican party, nor with that of the Democratic party. I feel that, in my experience, the moment a hot topic in contemporary politics gets brought up, both sides retreat to their talking points, which is an incredibly defensive position. There are people with whom I am friends on Facebook who are otherwise calm and considerate people who try to understand issues from every point of view who I am hesitant (not to say frightened) to engage in dialogue on political issues as I have found that they tend to gravitate, just like most people, into extreme positions.
One day, I found myself wandering on a YouTube trail (where one video leads to another, without any overarching goal in mind), which I usually try to avoid and I ended up watching part of a video of a presentation by Christopher Hitchens. The presentation in question took place during the Clinton administration and Hitchens (who is British) was functioning as a journalist and cultural commentator and not primarily as a militant atheist (which he also does from time to time). How I ended up on this particular clip, I cannot explain, especially as it was only one part out of ten or so, and the only one I watched was somewhere in the middle. I do not know exactly what issue was going on at the time that prompted the observation, but Hitchens made an incredibly insightful comment. He said (words to the effect of), "In America, I have noticed that the word 'partisan' has a distinctly negative connotation, whereas 'bi-partisan' has a distinctly positive connotation." He ultimately concluded by saying, "I think that America is afraid that it might one day become a two-party system."
Now, this comment got some laughs from the (American) audience, because, as everyone in America knows, we do have a two-party system. We have some other parties that show up every once in a while, but they tend to not do very well. Even though we may have more than two parties on paper, in practice, there are two parties in America.
But Hitchens' comment cuts deeper than that. In spite of the fact that, in America, we have two parties that hold opposite views on a multitude of issues, the idea that we ought to strive for truly bi-partisan politics as the ideal, whereas partisan politics is a problem is very much the product of the Enlightenment. Hitchens, who is from England where there are many viable political parties, sees the truth perhaps a bit more clearly than we Americans do.
I think that we in American desperately want to believe that there is one position that is objectively and completely "right," and that, if we all just got together and shared all our opinions and brought forward all the arguments and checked all the facts, we would all come to the same conclusion, we would all agree on what is right, what is wrong, and how we should proceed so that we can be right and not wrong. The contemporary issues surrounding taxation of the wealthy and organized labor, among other things, seems to operate with the presupposition that, if all the facts could be on the table, nobody would be confused as to what we should do. We would all agree. There is clearly a "right" way to go about these things and a "wrong" way to do so. What we need is to get beyond all our political platforms and discern this together.
But there is a problem with this. The fact of the matter is that, while a good portion of Americans can get along most of the time and make compromises on most things, there are certain communities that simply cannot get along. To give some fairly extreme examples, radical Fundamentalists simply cannot get along with the homosexual community (and vice versa) without in some significant manner changing who they are and what they believe. Another example is the KKK and the African-American community. These are two communities that, because of who they are and what they believe, simply cannot exist side by side, short of bloodshed, without some kind of external restraint.
But what happens in the application of external restraint, which must be applied, if for no other reason, than to keep the peace? One group is given privilege over the other, at whose expense this privilege is purchased. Now, the question is, which side do you choose? In the examples I have provided (which are extreme to make the point clearer, though this happens on smaller scales as well), most contemporary people would say that we ought to side with the homosexual community and the African-American community, respectively, if for no other reason than because those groups have tended to be less driven to violence toward their opponents, but, though this is firmly in line with our constitution as classically interpreted (you have rights until your exercise of them infringes on the rights of others) it is still the prioritizing of one community's desires over another.
By the way, we can see, especially in the case of the KKK, where the de-facto decision was in favor of the more violent group and was only later overturned. There is nothing in our law or society that guarantees that we will always operate in the same way.
The reason why I bring up these issues is that there are certain communities that no amount of conferencing and "compromising" will yield a solution that is fully acceptable to both parties (think, for example, about whether it would be possible to find a solution that is fully acceptable to both the KKK and the African-American community). Decision between such communities always has to be made, and made by a third party, who does not necessarily agree completely with either party.
I think that this is the case more often than we would like to admit. If I am particularly wealthy, I am likely (though not guaranteed) to oppose high taxes on the wealthy. Yes it is true that such taxation might be aimed at the greater good, but my willing participation is based on a few presuppositions. First, I would have to believe that the taxes actually do aim at the greater good. It is entirely possible that I might conclude that what we call "the greater good" might actually simply be "what is good for this community in which I do not find myself," only with an absolutized name and a noble sound. Secondly, I would have to believe that this is actually the best way to reach this greater good. Third, I would have to believe that the elected officials would know better how to spend my money than I do for the greater good they are seeking. Fourth, I have to actually believe in this greater good exists and agree that it is something worth striving for. None of these is guaranteed, and the absence of any one of them (let alone more than one) could result in the opposition of such taxation in the defense of self-interest (which, by the way, is what Adam Smith says is the driving force behind capitalism. It seems to be built into our economic system, that we dogmatically export all over the world).
In a similar way, one could easily make the argument that organized labor is not for the greater good, but for the good of those engaged in labor. On some levels, it is not good, or at least is perceived not to be good, to certain businesspeople. If this were not so, there would be no argument about it. A victory for upper management is paid for by labor, but it is equally true that a victory for labor is paid for by upper management. Perhaps we can dress it up in noble garments, that it is the right thing to do, that really, it is the best for everyone involved, or at least the best for enough of a majority (or supermajority) to make it worthwhile. It might also be claimed that upper management can afford to pay for this victory, whereas the opposite cannot be said. All these things might be true, and might be judged as true by those who get to make such decisions, but it does not change the fact that no statement of "better" or "worse" political decisions is made in a vacuum, but reflects the interests of a certain community.
The point that Christopher Hitchens saw so clearly is that we in America want desperately to believe that, if we just work together, we will come to a conclusion that satisfies everyone involved, that, even if we have to settle for something less than our personal ideal, it is acceptable because our desire for the best for the totality of our society is our primary concern. It is a kind of political pluralism. We sincerely hope that both political parties are equally dedicated to independent "ideal" political decisions, but are simply talking past one another, or are momentarily distracted, but can and should be set right. Hitchens was able to see what we often cannot: We are different people with different interests, some of which are mutually exclusive. A victory for one community carries with it the defeat of another community. No political gain is made without a corresponding political loss somewhere else. Nobody gains power unless someone else loses power.
I think that, until we can throw off the mask and see how our own interests color the whole political process, we will never be able to see other people as real human beings, albeit human beings with different, sometimes mutually exclusive, interests and desires, but human beings who are just as self-consistent and just as passionate about their convictions as we are. And I believe it is only when we can do this that we can really move forward in civility and love.
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