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  • aziz 7:07 am on August 13, 2011 Permalink
    Tags: , , Enlightenment, , , , ,   

    European Christians allying with secularists against Islam are basically dupes. The secularists want to destroy us all. If anything, they are the common enemy against our shared values.

     

    • Mc Kiernan 10:15 pm on August 13, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Yer pushing the envelope or maybe the envelope is pushing you.

    • Hitch 7:11 am on August 16, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I guess I am your enemy. If only I knew. ;)

      No secularism is your friend. Secularists wrote the treaty if Tripoli for example, but it’s long been forgotten what kind of religious toleration was expressed in that text.

      But I am quite aware that there is an odd boogey-man forming under the label “secularism” and that there is an attempt to organize a movement that indeed sees it as the problem, and tries to counter it. Some of the “interfaith” movement is in that category. It’s actually quite troubling, because it’s just yet another form of “otherization”. Given that non-believers are already heavily stereotyped in the US for example it’s warrant a little more reflection than just state that “secularists want to destroy us all”.

      • aziz 6:54 am on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        This is a classic case where you are simply applying a label monolithically. Would you prefer I write, instead of the term secularist, “persons who object to any spirituality on display in the public square”? How about “people who condescend on theists as intellectual pygmies to be marginalized politically for the Greater Good”? How about “so-called defenders of Enlightment Values who have wrongly interpreted the Enlightment as a validation of Reason as a truly objective process” ?

        I mean, take your pick, and tel me what YOU want me to call these people. Obviously they aren’t you, but since you insist on calling yourself a secularist, AND you absolutely refuse to allow me to use the term because you insist that my usage of it to describe the people above MUST also include YOU with no possible nuance opr distinction permissible, I await your pedantic instructions.

        Or maybe, you can cut me some slack and understand the obvious context of my use of the word secularist, just as I would be willing to cutt you slack on using the words Islamist, Jihad, Fundamentalist, Shariah, etc.

        • Hitch 8:12 am on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          I wasn’t applying the label at all. I was quoting you use the label. But let me address this in turn:

          “persons who object to any spirituality on display in the public square”

          Ok let’s get this right. In the US secularity simply means that the STATE cannot create, fund, or give any other space, visibility or support to any religious display. But note that to say “public square” serves as a beautiful confusion. This is only stuff that the state has anything to do with. On any land that anyone but the state owns, and that space can be as public as can be, everything can be displayed. And yes that is precisely what secularism is and should be. So why not describe this as what it is: Simply the establishment clause of the 1st article of the bill of right of the US constitution, which does not contain a word about “public square” (for good reason, because that “public square” thing is just a meme to misconstrue what secular means).

          “people who condescend on theists as intellectual pygmies to be marginalized politically for the Greater Good”

          Aww. Yeah another stereotype. No secular says nothing about people’s attitudes towards other’s points of view. They may think what you say or not. But yeah, religion is hardly marginalized anywhere I have ever lived. But let’s get real again. You don’t like to be marginalized? I don’t like to receive death penalties. Reality is that people like me have historically been subject to death penalties and in some countries still are subject to such. And you get upset because someone may think your ideas are bad and don’t want them to have weight in the marketplace of ideas? Well I sympathize, but it’s not the kinds of problems actual critics of religion face.

          “so-called defenders of Enlightment Values who have wrongly interpreted the Enlightment as a validation of Reason as a truly objective process”

          What are enlightenment values? Freedom (liberte)? Equality (egalite)? Toleration? “Brotherly” Love (fraternite) (today we’d call it empathy, solidarity). Yep, these are “horrible” values to defend.

          No the problem is that some sectors of society and some intellectual strands fail to live up to these good standards. Freedom only for some, equality in an Orwellian sense (some are more equal than others), toleration with a footnote (we are tolerant, except when you criticize us), and empathy and solidarity, but only for the in-group.

          So what should you call “these people”. Well how about friends? How about human? How about critics? And certainly not people who want to “destroy us all”. At best they disagree with aspects of your world view, and allowing that is what a free society allows.

          As for cutting slack, don’t cut me slack. If I misuse a word in your view, please do issue your perspective or correction.

          • aziz 1:20 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            the Enlightenment values I referred to are the ones that place human reason as the ultimate, objective ideal of human thought, that value empiricism over spirituality. There are aspects of the Enlightenment with which I agree strongly, but they were never unique to eth Enlightenemnt and found expression in Islamic societies as well – partuicularly the value of free thought and reason as a means towards Truth. The difference is that the Enlightenment era equated reason *with* truth. The simple truth about Truth is that it’s not true – and now we are going back to the old “super-rational” debate which I’ve linked before and represents a true tangent: http://superrational.blogspot.com

            • Hitch 1:45 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink

              Yes, it’s an interesting topic. Before the enlightenment the public was not expected to participate in democratic decision making. What we forget about these ideas of the Enlightenment is context. The whole point of telling everybody that they need to reason is precisely because deliberation, evaluation of the facts and data and a joint decision is what underlies the process. It’s no longer an authority (monarch, church) who decides this for you. So what is the process to make those decisions. Enlightenment philosophers were concerned to educate the public about being those decision makers. To be “enlightened” simply means you are capable of that participation. It’s the “age of reason” not because reason is a dogma, but because if you are not used to reason through a situation you won’t be helping the democratic process.

              As for “truth” with all sorts of capitalizations, Yes the enlightenment has allowed that we challenge each other’s notion of truth. If you know a better way to allow a market-place of ideas and pluralism, again I’m happy to hear how to do it better.

    • Arwi 10:37 pm on August 16, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      You frequently use “secularist” to mean atheist or agnostic, but that is not right at all, secularism is about the relationship between religion and the state. Plenty of pious people are secularists, Soroush for example favors secularism on teh grounds that state power corrupts piety.

      (posted this in the wrong thread a few seconds ago, you can delete that one)

      • Hitch 11:42 pm on August 16, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        But even if we substitute secularism with atheism it’s still not correct to say that “atheists want to destroy us all”… just saying , but yes the problem that secularism and non-belief is conflated is problematic. Secularism simply means that your state concept is not theocratic, but decided by some mechanism through the voting citizen and nothing more.

        • aziz 6:55 am on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          no, the peo;ple we are worried about are the ones who do not advocate freedom of religion, but the ones who advocate freedom FROM religion. And don’t pretend that the latter types arent disproportionately powerful and motivated. The hijab and minaret bans are irrefutable evidence.

          • Hitch 8:13 am on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            You are aware that Sarkozy is catholic. The party who spearheaded the minaret ban in Switzerland? Eidgenössisch-Demokratische Union. Right wing Christian(!) party.

            No my friend. What is going on here is not secularists wanting freedom from religion. It’s right wing religious people defending their “values”. Much of the left parties that work hard on integration and toleration in Europe are actually the secular parties. The president of Austria? Atheist. And 60% of Austrians _oppose_ minaret bans. Yeah, “horrible” secularism.

            You attack a boogey-man my friend, not understanding what actually happens.

            But let me keep it real, some new right wing demagogues do call themselves secular. Just like not all Christians are right wing, so are not all Secularists left wing. But your narrative of what drives those bans is plainly false and it mostly refutes that you don’t understand what is going on.

            The truth is that the trouble is the intolerant right wing, which is largely (though not exclusively) religious (in the case of Europe, Christian). Even populists who pose as secular, like Geert Wilders make appeal to “judeo-christian” values. Why? Because that’s the crowd and the mind-set he looks to appeals to. He is not really a secularist because he DOES want to wield state power to limit religious expression.

            The insane murderer Brevik? Christian wielding heavy Christian symbolism (crusade, templar, etc) and advocated for a reconversion of protestant churches to Catholicism. Right win violent anti-immigrant groups in both Europe and the US (EDL, BNP, … David Duke…)? Christian. Check into the background of the most fervent political islamophobes in the US, especially congressmen. You guessed it…

            There is a duped narrative here about that the problem is “secularists”. But it’s false.

          • thabet 8:21 am on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            “but the ones who advocate freedom FROM religion. And don’t pretend that the latter types arent disproportionately powerful and motivated. The hijab and minaret bans are irrefutable evidence.”

            This is just plain wrong — see what Hitch said with respect to the parties which are pushing against banning Muslim “symbols”.

            • aziz 1:16 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink

              it may be that hijab bans and minaret bans are being driven on the ground by tapping into rightwing (and religious) xenophobia, but the framework under which they are even remotely legal is the european style secularism. France is the most extreme with Laïcité

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%C3%AFcit%C3%A9

              The language of secularism, like any -ism, is an absolutist one. That it enables religious xenophobes to further persecute religious minorities is a feature, not a bug, and that is why I called those same xenophobes “dupes” in my original comment.

            • Hitch 1:31 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink

              I think it is historically relevant to understand why France and the US are not carbon copies in this domain. The one line summary is that Europe had strong and dominant and constantly interfering churches that undermined pluralistic democracy, a problem that the US did not have to content with as they were able to actually escape that predicament.

              But let’s take away Laicite. You think it would be any better? No. The same religious right wingers would oppose minarets but just be openly religious, perhaps worse, force muslim kids into christian conversion or prayers, force that christian church authorities have legal and legislative power or influence.

              Yes secularism is an -ism. If you have a better system to have multiple world view coexist I’m happy to hear it. But by better I mean better for all, not better for one doctrine.

              So the idea that secularism enables religious xenophobia is basically ahistoric. In fact the inverse is true. European enlightenment has lead to a range of improvements, such as the Jewish emancipation that were strictly unthinkable before.

              In fact I said it before but let me say it again. Secularism even in the sense of Laicite means (your source): “absence of government involvement in religious affairs” and what is the problem here is that governments, under the pressure of Christian right wing politicians _fail_ that principle.

          • thabet 3:42 pm on August 20, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            We had this debate at e dot org once.

            ‘Secularism of the right’ vs ‘secularism of the left’.

            • aziz 6:53 am on September 8, 2011 Permalink

              sigh. I feel like TI perpetually lives in e-org’s shadow. sadly I cannot maintain (nor deserve) the same cult of personality that matching e’s success would require.

              Still, TI has certainly outlived its predecessor. The big flaw is the reliance on any one person. I’d hoped that by broadening the base of who contributes, we’d avoid that problem.

    • Abu Noor 10:30 am on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I am a little confused as to what we are actually disagreeing about here, but as far as I can tell I am generally with everyone else in thinking that Aziz is off base in the way he thinks about the alliance between Christians and anti-religous people. Further confusing me is that HItch’s comments about atheists and secularists appealing to or working in coalition with right wing religous followers seem to support Aziz’s contentions more than disprove them.

      At the same time, I agree completely with Aziz that you guys are being slippery in your use of “secularism.” It is well know that secularism means different things in different contexts and one cannot simply say things like “secularism means this and not this…”

      Also, there are definitely real issues with people who nominally belong to a religion themselves but are still anti-religion or anti-some religions in the public sphere.

      • Hitch 1:13 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Two points as I see it. One is that alliance. The second is clarity of terms. I do not think that you can address this if we are not clear in terms.

        But I’m sorry that if someone says “The secularists are going to destroy us all.” I will have a reaction because I am in a sense of it a secular humanist (not that labeling works too well in that arena).

        In many ways this is no better than saying “The islamists are going to destroy us all.” It’s sloppy and stereotypical language and it is not me who chose the sloppiness.

        So let’s address the latter first. The word secular has indeed two meanings. Both of them I think are understood. The problem is of course that the two meanings superficially have an overlap and that being unclear what one means is problematic. I have actually extensively addressed the elaborations that Aziz gave what what he means to be secular and I think it is quite obvious that his description of secular is not at all far from me. Yes I do criticize religions and think we all are in the marketplace of ideas. Yes I do defend enlightenment values. Yet I do not advocate for a secular society to destroy diversity of viewpoint. In fact I advocate the exact opposite, and further I claim that enlightenment values too advocate the opposite.

        So the twisting and confusion of terms is actually not isolated with the word secular. What enlightenment means too is contested and confused, in fact what disbelief means too is often confused.

        But let’s actually take secularist to mean a person who thinks that a society is best in which political discourse is dominated by reflection and deliberation and advocacy of citizens needs. I.e. religion is either private or plays no other particular role.

        Who are the people who hold this? Well it is people on the demagoguic end (typical far right, populist right etc), but it is also people on the end of multiculturalism, toleration, integration, pluralism etc.

        That is you both have people who indeed could be argued to want to “destroy” one world view or another, and you have people who actively oppose said destruction.

        But that is not the lone part of the narrative here. Aziz basically claims that the attitude of the “secularists” is the problem and Christians are somehow tempted into a dangerous alliance with those. What I think is evident if people actually look at the players, the truth is much more complex. Large swats of motions that demonize Muslims are Christians and they demonization is not driven by some secular notion at all.

        Aziz paints those Christians as dupes. In reality they are the main faction of the ring leaders. People like Breivik are not atheists inviting in Christians. He’s a Christian inviting in atheists (if they adopt and fight for Christian values).

        But I get where the stereotypes come from. People in the US like Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins criticize Islam and write op-eds on hijabs. Leave alone that some of these are demonized in their own ways with claims that indeed they want to literally destroy Muslims, when in reality they of course want no such thing.

        That image is transplanted into Europe, as if that drive what is going on there. The European reality is grossly misunderstood by doing this though.

        Now reality is complex and I do not deny that there are right wing anti-pluralistic secularists. But the idea that Christians get duped into allying with folks who want some destruction is basically wrong. It’s these right wing Christians who themselves have those sentiments. Further it denies reality to define secularism around those particular people. As said, most of the pluralistic attitudes in Europe are carried by secular folks. To recognize that is just reality and a reality on which I challenge Aziz’s narrative.

        So to paint secularism with this brush basically serves to demonize secularism, and yes I will be damned with I just let that slide. Frankly I know this narrative. I see it quite a bit by some. Eboo Patel can fall into this though he has complexified his position (it seems). John Esposito at times will paint secularism as the problem, not unlike the Pope… but it’s easy to forget what the Pope says about Christianity and Islam in turn later. And such are the narratives formed what the supposed problem is. It’s “secularism” that we ought to be afraid of (because “they want to destroy us all”). In fact it’s a boogey-man that many like. Christians are happy to off-load blame. So much so that you can hear people claim that European fascism was secular (a cruel joke at best, it was in fact right-wing Christian). Further it is a narrative that is sellable as a kind of pan-abrahamic bulwark against those wicked seculars. And as it further actually synergizes with some aspects of varied Islamic thought, one can construct this strawman of an enemy: the disbeliever. But it is a strawman. So question is, do we want to discuss reality or do we want to live by some stereotypical narratives that defy it?

        I have no problem with criticism or debate on what secularism means. In fact I am positive that we don’t have the same or likely compatible world views. But if there is that debate, we should have it on what is real.

        • aziz 1:18 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          I’ll re-read your arguments Hitch and reconsider. But you say that it’s obvious that what I painetd as secular and what you claim as secular are the same thing. If that is so then you would agree that hijabs and minarets be banned. If so, then yes, I guess we are enemies. If no, then you’ve written a lot of words that obfuscate rather than elucidate.

          • Hitch 1:35 pm on August 17, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            No I do not agree that hijabs or minarets should be banned. There are limits to liberty, and those start where people are discriminated or harmed, but none of these come even close.

            We may well be enemies, but it’s only if you chose to advocate against freedoms that a person of conscience should have. I have yet to see that.

            What I do think is at play are bad stereotypes. These are things that well meaning people can discuss.

      • Arwi 12:41 am on August 20, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        there are definitely real issues with people who nominally belong to a religion themselves but are still anti-religion or anti-some religions in the public sphere.

        There are real issues with people who claim that secularism is only supported by atheists and the ‘nominally religious’. I think I have mentioned and linked Soroush’s work several times, for what good it does.

    • Abu Noor 10:09 am on August 21, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Arwi,

      Never said “only supported by” so I’m not sure who you are arguing with here or why you quoted me before making your statement.

      Salaam.

      • Abu Noor 10:17 am on August 21, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        To clarify Arwi, I am just saying that I of course agree that there are sincerely religious people who support secularism, but in some ways that still goes back to a definition of what is secularism. I surely understand how a sincerely religious person can be wary of government involvement in religion, in fact I would expect it. But I do not understand a sincerely religious person who is opposed to supporting and accomodating religious expression in the public sphere.

  • thabet 9:15 am on October 11, 2009 Permalink
    Tags: , Enlightenment, , , , , ,   

    Rough and ready view of the Enlightenment and religion:

    1. French Enlightenment: Eliminate or replace religion.

    2. English Enlightenment: Politically control religion.

    3. Scottish Enlightenment: Ignore or dismiss religion.

    4. German Enlightenment: Rehabilitate religion.

    This is a very simplistic view (I can see many weaknesses), put up largely to provoke discussion.

     

  • aziz 8:04 am on December 17, 2008 Permalink
    Tags: Enlightenment,   

    Notions of Everything and Nothing is a Journal here authored by a close friend of mine from graduate school. Like Razib, he’s an atheist, and he has been blogging diligently about his quest to formulate a rational framework for examination of reason and thought. His latest entry, Truth, is really a fun read, building on the previous posts in the series – I recommend starting at the beginning, though.

     

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