Someone should do an epic rap battle on Roslyn Fuller's essay, Democracy — Too Much of a Good Thing?, a pointed rebuttal of Andrew Sullivan's Democracies End When They Are Too Democratic. Fuller argues that Sullivan's application of Plato's polemic against democracy (from The Republic) is inapt.
Fuller notes that the American republic is modeled not after the Athenian democracy of Plato's time but explicitly and intentionally after the Roman republic. Thus, whatever the reasons for our conflict, they cannot be about too much democracy, because we don't have any democracy. Instead, surprisingly enough, our problems closely resemble the problems of the Roman republic around the time of Julius Caesar. In Caesar's time, the republic was not democratic, but had some public participation in elections. The elites became out of touch with the common people, and Caesar was charming enough to harness their dissatisfaction to use the elections to gain control of the Roman state, and his heir was able to overthrow the republic. (Note that the Roman Empire lasted undivided for more than 400 years, and the eastern empire lasted another millennium; the fall of the republic does not necessarily entail collapse.)
In contrast to Fuller's direct and compelling comparison, Sullivan's analysis is vague and theoretical. Indeed, in his defense of his original analysis (appended to Fuller's essay), Sullivan explicitly disclaims attempting any historical analysis whatsoever. Sullivan further specifies that what he means by democracy is the "the very recent democratization of online media." But online media, however open to the public, is not democracy: it is not state power held directly by the people. If online media is Sullivan's "hyper-democracy", then it is difficult to see Sullivan's argument as anything but that the people should not even have an independent voice not carefully crafted by the neoliberal ruling class.
It is also important to consider Plato's criticism of democracy in its context: Plato argues that even his ideal republic (which is a "republic" only in the loosest sense that it is without an actual monarch) will eventually become corrupted, leading to a process of degeneration and renewal, in which democracy is but a single step along the way. Even if Plato were correct (and I don't think he is), using Plato to condemn democratization is like using Newton to condemn gravitational acceleration: yes, if you are falling, gravitational acceleration will have very bad consequences, but Plato claims that the process of political corruption is just as inevitable.
We must keep in mind that Andrew Sullivan is a neoliberal, and if successful, the neoliberal project must necessarily end in the absolute disempowerment of the people. Any actual power must be stripped from the people — they will simply use it unwisely — and the people must be left with only the illusion of power. Even the kind of individual power the various capitalist ruling classes thought would perpetuate their rule — the power of whites over blacks, natives over immigrants, men over women, parents over children, law-abiders over law-breakers — just fuels fascism, which the neoliberals fear almost as much as they do democracy and socialism. Any "democracy", any actual power held by the people, is too much democracy.
Showing posts with label Andrew Sullivan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andrew Sullivan. Show all posts
Friday, July 01, 2016
Friday, January 02, 2015
Mark Ames does not like Andrew Sullivan
If Andrew Sullivan Is The Future of Journalism Then Journalism Is Fucked: "Why would subscribers pay to support one of the most colossal serial-failures in American journalism of the past two decades?"
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Fisking Andrew Sullivan
Amicus's blog, Bootstrapping Andrew Sullivan, deserves a plug. If you've ever wondered why Sullivan doesn't allow comments on his blog, this might be why.
But dude: Fix your layout!
But dude: Fix your layout!
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Sullivan on Coulter
Sullivan gets it right:
Conservatism is as conservatism does. Sullivan was right the first time: Ann Coulter really is the heart and soul of conservatism; her only sin is being too blatant about what the base of the conservative movement really believes.
There's a reason people such as Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, CharlesEdwards Johnson, not to mention George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, etc. ad nauseam have chosen the conservative movement as the venue for their vitriol and outright evil. (And don't even start with me about how liberals are "just as bad." That's arrant bullshit and you know it.)
There comes a time when one has to say, "I approve of justice for the working class, but the slaughter of tens of millions makes it impossible to call myself a 'communist'." There comes a time when one has to say, "I'm all for spirituality, but the Inquisition, the Crusades, the persistent and present-day misogyny and homophobia makes it impossible for me to call myself a Catholic." Were it not for Godwin's law, I might provide additional examples.
There is no more room for principled and dissenting political Conservatism than there is for principled and dissenting political Communism. Andrew Sullivan is entitled to hold and express his views, but to label them "conservative" is to place himself in the same box as Coulter.
When you see [Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot"] in such a context [at the Conservative Political Action Conference], you realize that she truly represents the heart and soul of contemporary conservative activism, especially among the young. The standing ovation for Romney was nothing like the eruption of enthusiasm that greeted her. One young conservative male told her he was single and asked for her cell-phone number. Other young Republicans were almost overwhelmed in her presence. "When are you going to get your own show?" one asked, tremulously. Then there's her insistence on Christianism as the central message for Republicans: "There are more people voting on Christian moral values than on tax cuts." This from an unmarried woman who wears dresses that are close to bikinis on the morning news. Hey, it's Democrats who are Godless. [emphasis added]and then loses his nerve an hour later:
The most painful thing for me was the sight of so many young people growing up believing that this is conservatism.
Conservatism is as conservatism does. Sullivan was right the first time: Ann Coulter really is the heart and soul of conservatism; her only sin is being too blatant about what the base of the conservative movement really believes.
There's a reason people such as Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, Charles
There comes a time when one has to say, "I approve of justice for the working class, but the slaughter of tens of millions makes it impossible to call myself a 'communist'." There comes a time when one has to say, "I'm all for spirituality, but the Inquisition, the Crusades, the persistent and present-day misogyny and homophobia makes it impossible for me to call myself a Catholic." Were it not for Godwin's law, I might provide additional examples.
There is no more room for principled and dissenting political Conservatism than there is for principled and dissenting political Communism. Andrew Sullivan is entitled to hold and express his views, but to label them "conservative" is to place himself in the same box as Coulter.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Liberals are irresponsible, profligate, godless, selfish, bed-hopping cowards
Andrew Sullivan gives us a particularly loathsome example of his smug self-righteousness:
Although I'm an atheist and not a churchgoer (but many liberals do go to church), this "liberal"[1] is a responsible person, is employed, has a savings account and (soon) investments, is married, and contributes to charity. I never served in the military (and neither has Sullivan, to the best of my knowledge), but I pay my taxes and I recognize at least in theory that we must have a military to protect our nation. (The military has not, however, actually been used for such a purpose since 1944, or perhaps 1812, or perhaps even 1776. But that's another story.)
None of this has anything at all to do with "conservatism", "liberalism" or anything in between.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I believe that I have a positive obligation to actively promote the happiness of my fellow citizens and my fellow human beings, and this responsibility is by virtue of my citizenship, not just my particular preferences.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I believe that as much as I admire what's good about my country, we have no sort of obligation whatsoever to promote our values at gunpoint; indeed we have an obligation to the contrary.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I do not become paranoid and delusional and see existential threats in a few criminal acts, however horrific, perpetrated by cave-dwelling religious fanatics.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I figured out that "compassionate conservatism" is an absurd oxymoron; and I figured it out in 1999.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I recognize and reject the conservative dog-whistle of "personal responsibility" as "I've got mine, Jack."
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I do not ask for whom the bell tolls: It tolls for me. Every time.
Update: (25 Feb 07) This little rant is getting a fair amount of press. I think it's worthwhile to make my position crystal clear in simple declarative sentences.
I don't object to Sullivan drawing a distinction between conservatism and liberalism on moral grounds; I agree that the distinction is indeed moral. I don't object to Sullivan (or anyone else) presenting the moral distinction in a way favorable to his own position; this is the function of any advocate, including myself. I find Sullivan's appropriation of ordinary civic virtues to the position of conservatism to be objectionable and intolerably sanctimonious.
All of the distinctions I myself draw between liberalism and conservatism relate to actual differences between how I see liberalism and how I see the stated positions of many conservatives. I may be mistaken, but some of the comments seem to indicate that I have indeed hit points of real controversy.
[1] Technically "anarcho-humanist"; I'm using "liberal" here to mean just "not a conservative".
Personal responsibility is also one [reason to vote conservative]. When I think of a gay person who lives responsibly, saves his or her money, goes to church, contributes to charity and settles down in a stable relationship, I think: conservative. When such a couple wants to get married, I think: conservative. When such a person decides to serve his country in the military, I think: conservative.Sorry, Andrew. These are not "conservative" virtues or characteristics, they are characteristics of most ordinary, civilized people. The implication that liberals--gay or straight--are irresponsible, profligate, godless, selfish, bed-hopping cowards is insulting and base.
Although I'm an atheist and not a churchgoer (but many liberals do go to church), this "liberal"[1] is a responsible person, is employed, has a savings account and (soon) investments, is married, and contributes to charity. I never served in the military (and neither has Sullivan, to the best of my knowledge), but I pay my taxes and I recognize at least in theory that we must have a military to protect our nation. (The military has not, however, actually been used for such a purpose since 1944, or perhaps 1812, or perhaps even 1776. But that's another story.)
None of this has anything at all to do with "conservatism", "liberalism" or anything in between.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I believe that I have a positive obligation to actively promote the happiness of my fellow citizens and my fellow human beings, and this responsibility is by virtue of my citizenship, not just my particular preferences.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I believe that as much as I admire what's good about my country, we have no sort of obligation whatsoever to promote our values at gunpoint; indeed we have an obligation to the contrary.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I do not become paranoid and delusional and see existential threats in a few criminal acts, however horrific, perpetrated by cave-dwelling religious fanatics.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I figured out that "compassionate conservatism" is an absurd oxymoron; and I figured it out in 1999.
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I recognize and reject the conservative dog-whistle of "personal responsibility" as "I've got mine, Jack."
I'm a liberal because, unlike conservatives, I do not ask for whom the bell tolls: It tolls for me. Every time.
Update: (25 Feb 07) This little rant is getting a fair amount of press. I think it's worthwhile to make my position crystal clear in simple declarative sentences.
I don't object to Sullivan drawing a distinction between conservatism and liberalism on moral grounds; I agree that the distinction is indeed moral. I don't object to Sullivan (or anyone else) presenting the moral distinction in a way favorable to his own position; this is the function of any advocate, including myself. I find Sullivan's appropriation of ordinary civic virtues to the position of conservatism to be objectionable and intolerably sanctimonious.
All of the distinctions I myself draw between liberalism and conservatism relate to actual differences between how I see liberalism and how I see the stated positions of many conservatives. I may be mistaken, but some of the comments seem to indicate that I have indeed hit points of real controversy.
[1] Technically "anarcho-humanist"; I'm using "liberal" here to mean just "not a conservative".
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Where is Sullivan's God?
One thing that just struck me (blinded until now, I'm sure, by Sullivan's rhetorical prowess), is just this: Where is Sullivan's God?
Sullivan has prattled on ad nauseam about his spirituality, but spirituality is just another word you can find in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Sullivan hasn't said anything that I haven't heard from every garden variety New-Age woo woo with a thousand-dollar collection of healing crystals.
Where is God? What can Sullivan get from God that any thinking, feeling atheist cannot get? Where is a single proposition that cannot be established without God? Not mealy-mouthed vacuity that God is love, not philosophical doubletalk like God is the ground of all being, not crypto-atheism (Sullivan needs to read all of Hume) that God is a mystery.
Sullivan might be able to fool some of his readers, he might even be able to fool himself (this is, after all, a man who was fooled by George W. Bush), but he's not fooling me.
Where is your God, Sullivan?
Sullivan has prattled on ad nauseam about his spirituality, but spirituality is just another word you can find in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Sullivan hasn't said anything that I haven't heard from every garden variety New-Age woo woo with a thousand-dollar collection of healing crystals.
Where is God? What can Sullivan get from God that any thinking, feeling atheist cannot get? Where is a single proposition that cannot be established without God? Not mealy-mouthed vacuity that God is love, not philosophical doubletalk like God is the ground of all being, not crypto-atheism (Sullivan needs to read all of Hume) that God is a mystery.
Sullivan might be able to fool some of his readers, he might even be able to fool himself (this is, after all, a man who was fooled by George W. Bush), but he's not fooling me.
Where is your God, Sullivan?
Genius or error?
In the Sullivan/Harris debate, Sullivan has time and again--at least to the careful reader--exposed the utter vacuity of his specifically theistic belief. Having transferred his superstitious magical thinking to conservatism, Sullivan has left to "God" specific ideology, no actual content at all, just feel-good platitudes. Sullivan can have his private "truth" about God, and allow others their private "truths" about God, because none of these truths actually matter.
But most readers have neither the time nor the inclination to read so carefully, and Sullivan is almost unmatched for his talent in making the vacuous sound good, very good. Even when he's right, as on gay marriage and torture, he's right about the blatantly obvious, where sincerity and rhetoric count for so much and analysis for so little. At the end of the day, I don't think Harris is a good enough writer to overcome Sullivan.
Someone in the atheist camp needs to match Sullivan's sincerity and rhetorical force. More importantly, we need to perform some emotional and psychological judo. We need to warmly accept all the lovey-dovey feel-good emotionalism, and show how it's not only compatible with atheism, atheism makes it better.
I'm doing my best, but my talent and training are less oriented to singing rhetoric and more to computer manuals, and I need years more practice.
We need a poet. Sam Harris is a lot of things, many of them good, but he's not a poet.
But most readers have neither the time nor the inclination to read so carefully, and Sullivan is almost unmatched for his talent in making the vacuous sound good, very good. Even when he's right, as on gay marriage and torture, he's right about the blatantly obvious, where sincerity and rhetoric count for so much and analysis for so little. At the end of the day, I don't think Harris is a good enough writer to overcome Sullivan.
Someone in the atheist camp needs to match Sullivan's sincerity and rhetorical force. More importantly, we need to perform some emotional and psychological judo. We need to warmly accept all the lovey-dovey feel-good emotionalism, and show how it's not only compatible with atheism, atheism makes it better.
I'm doing my best, but my talent and training are less oriented to singing rhetoric and more to computer manuals, and I need years more practice.
We need a poet. Sam Harris is a lot of things, many of them good, but he's not a poet.
The Clean Glass
In his latest entry in his debate with Sam Harris, Sullivan trots out the tired old standard: science not only needs just as much "faith" as religion (Sullivan is apparently unaware that the philosophy of science has advanced just a tiny bit since Hume), it's a poorer faith, poorer precisely because it seeks the truth.
I don't know how much clearer Sullivan can be: The search for truth--at least on earth--is foolish and dangerous, it leads to atrocity; we must wait on heaven for the truth. Sullivan, blinded by religion and his conservatism, cannot see the struggle against religion to be anything but the violent imposition of yet another arbitrary superstition. But that's how Sullivan's church operates, how Sullivan's politics works, not how we work.
The "clean glass" that Harris wants, that I want, is not the clean glass sought by the fanatics of every religion, including Sullivan's own, the glass purged of those not force-fed a particular brand of Mystical Mumbo Jumbo. It is not the clean glass so desired by the fanatics of Sullivan's own conservative movement, a glass purged of those who would question the right of the United States to enslave every nation, every person, on the Earth (treating, of course, the white slaves a little better). It is not the clean glass of the Communists, atheists only on the technicality of Marx being a little too recent to make completely divine.
It is not belief in God which is the dirt on the glass. "God" is just one of the many names for this dirt, the dirt for which Sullivan hungers for, the dirt which he cannot bear to lose, the dirt which he insists that the rest of us cannot do without. The dirt is the dirt of superstition, of private truth which can be promulgated only by force, never by reason. This is the dirt which makes "God" possible.
This is not dirt which can be eliminated by killing people. Indeed when one's glass is clean the idea of killing anyone is abhorrent: "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent," sayeth Saint Asimov. We need only teach people clear, logical, rational and sensible thought. Anyone can learn it, nobody needs to be killed. The only killing that's being done is by those whose ideology cannot be rationally persuasive, that can be promulgated only by killing those who do not believe or will not submit.
Sullivan, having a couple of IQ points and decade of education on the average Christian fundamentalist--not to mention being a gay Catholic--has figured out that the particular forms of his Catholic religion are not worth killing for. But Sullivan has not renounced the Catholic way of thinking; he has just transferred his religion to conservatism, with Mammon as his God and Goldwater and Reagan as his prophets, the war in Iraq his Crusades and the demonization of liberals his Inquisition. Sullivan lacks only spine to be a good fanatic; he has the self-righteousness, faux humility, doublethink and superstition down pat.
The place you are seeking - this "contingency-free" place where no specifics exist but pure truth and a clean glass - is something we people of faith call heaven... [O]nly the truly foolish among us have ever mistaken it for earth, or human life. And when those truly foolish people have attempted to replicate this heaven on earth, they have been responsible for the worst atrocities religion has produced.
I don't know how much clearer Sullivan can be: The search for truth--at least on earth--is foolish and dangerous, it leads to atrocity; we must wait on heaven for the truth. Sullivan, blinded by religion and his conservatism, cannot see the struggle against religion to be anything but the violent imposition of yet another arbitrary superstition. But that's how Sullivan's church operates, how Sullivan's politics works, not how we work.
The "clean glass" that Harris wants, that I want, is not the clean glass sought by the fanatics of every religion, including Sullivan's own, the glass purged of those not force-fed a particular brand of Mystical Mumbo Jumbo. It is not the clean glass so desired by the fanatics of Sullivan's own conservative movement, a glass purged of those who would question the right of the United States to enslave every nation, every person, on the Earth (treating, of course, the white slaves a little better). It is not the clean glass of the Communists, atheists only on the technicality of Marx being a little too recent to make completely divine.
It is not belief in God which is the dirt on the glass. "God" is just one of the many names for this dirt, the dirt for which Sullivan hungers for, the dirt which he cannot bear to lose, the dirt which he insists that the rest of us cannot do without. The dirt is the dirt of superstition, of private truth which can be promulgated only by force, never by reason. This is the dirt which makes "God" possible.
This is not dirt which can be eliminated by killing people. Indeed when one's glass is clean the idea of killing anyone is abhorrent: "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent," sayeth Saint Asimov. We need only teach people clear, logical, rational and sensible thought. Anyone can learn it, nobody needs to be killed. The only killing that's being done is by those whose ideology cannot be rationally persuasive, that can be promulgated only by killing those who do not believe or will not submit.
Sullivan, having a couple of IQ points and decade of education on the average Christian fundamentalist--not to mention being a gay Catholic--has figured out that the particular forms of his Catholic religion are not worth killing for. But Sullivan has not renounced the Catholic way of thinking; he has just transferred his religion to conservatism, with Mammon as his God and Goldwater and Reagan as his prophets, the war in Iraq his Crusades and the demonization of liberals his Inquisition. Sullivan lacks only spine to be a good fanatic; he has the self-righteousness, faux humility, doublethink and superstition down pat.
Friday, February 09, 2007
My gracious! He said "fuck"!
I guess now Andrew Sullivan will never work as a presidential blogger.
I give Sullivan a hard time here because I think he's often wrong, gravely wrong. But when he's right, he's right, and very few but Sullivan have been so insistently, eloquently, firmly, decisively and uncompromisingly correct as he has been about torture.
I greatly and without reservation admire Andrew Sullivan for his stand against torture. That this issue has isolated him is terrifying evidence of how quickly and to such depths the moral standards of this, his adopted nation have fallen.
I give Sullivan a hard time here because I think he's often wrong, gravely wrong. But when he's right, he's right, and very few but Sullivan have been so insistently, eloquently, firmly, decisively and uncompromisingly correct as he has been about torture.
I greatly and without reservation admire Andrew Sullivan for his stand against torture. That this issue has isolated him is terrifying evidence of how quickly and to such depths the moral standards of this, his adopted nation have fallen.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Monday, February 05, 2007
How religious moderates can help
Religious moderates can truly help against fundamentalism by undercutting the epistemic basis of fundamentalism. Stop attaching the words "truth", "knowledge" and "reality" to what are fundamentally opinions, and which religious moderates actually treat as opinions in the moral sense, i.e. without a moral duty to believe.
As much as we all dislike fundamentalism, it's not enough to be against fundamentalism only because we don't like it. We need to take a principled stance against fundamentalism. Fundamentalists believe their beliefs to be true, and and they promote their beliefs precisely because they take that truth-belief seriously in the moral sense as entailing a duty to believe. We can undercut them only by excluding religious belief from the realm of truth.
It's a simple request, but I understand it's hardly easy. Never having been religious, I simply cannot evaluate how difficult it would be to retain the positive aspects of one's religious while abandoning the belief in its truth. But if religious moderates honestly want to help, I cannot see an alternative.
This is about it for this morning; I apologize to those awaiting a response, but it'll have to wait until this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
As much as we all dislike fundamentalism, it's not enough to be against fundamentalism only because we don't like it. We need to take a principled stance against fundamentalism. Fundamentalists believe their beliefs to be true, and and they promote their beliefs precisely because they take that truth-belief seriously in the moral sense as entailing a duty to believe. We can undercut them only by excluding religious belief from the realm of truth.
It's a simple request, but I understand it's hardly easy. Never having been religious, I simply cannot evaluate how difficult it would be to retain the positive aspects of one's religious while abandoning the belief in its truth. But if religious moderates honestly want to help, I cannot see an alternative.
This is about it for this morning; I apologize to those awaiting a response, but it'll have to wait until this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
Because they're not helping
Andrew Sullivan posts his latest entry in his debate with Sam Harris: Faith Unchosen.
This will probably be my last post about this debate; both of the participants are now repeating themselves (as am I). I don't think there's much new remaining for any of us to say in this context.
I very quickly skimmed through most of Sullivan's post. It's just a restatement of the position he established earlier: He builds his personal narrative around some vague notion of "God", and that's just the way he is. Somewhere in there he throws in some unspecified notion of "doubt". Fine. Whatever. We get it.
Towards the end, though, Sullivan asks,
The conflict is between rationality and superstition. Sullivan defends his unquestioning superstition with the considerable eloquence at his disposal. He compromises the only tool available to rationalists: reasoned, principled discourse based on fact. He begs for a tolerance of his superstition which, for any principled person, ought equally to apply to the fundamentalists.
And he asks us why we don't want his help.
I want to ask Andrew Sullivan the following question, and I hope he will consider it deeply:
Why have fundamentalists in the West so successfully hijacked conservatism and religion, the foundations of Sullivan's belief system, instead of atheism, secularism, and/or liberalism?
I submit is is precisely the tendency of both religious moderates and moderate conservatives to confuse truth, fact and reality with opinion and preference which has rendered these movements vulnerable to the fundamentalists.
Update: How religious moderates can help
[1] Sullivan throws "reason" in that list, but he's been utterly silent in this debate about how he actually employs any sort of reason in his religious beliefs.
This will probably be my last post about this debate; both of the participants are now repeating themselves (as am I). I don't think there's much new remaining for any of us to say in this context.
I very quickly skimmed through most of Sullivan's post. It's just a restatement of the position he established earlier: He builds his personal narrative around some vague notion of "God", and that's just the way he is. Somewhere in there he throws in some unspecified notion of "doubt". Fine. Whatever. We get it.
Towards the end, though, Sullivan asks,
In fact, people of faith who are not fundamentalists may be the most important allies you've got. Why don't you want us to help out?We'd love for religious moderates to help out, but they're not helping. By using the words "truth" and "reality" to label opinion, which is not and cannot be rationally substantiated (and for which Sullivan disclaims rational substantiation), moderates such as Sullivan make it that much harder to insist on rational discourse on the basis of fact. Religious moderates, according to Sullivan, rely on scripture, religious authority and spiritual experiences[1] to establish truth and reality. But these components are the exact same components which fundamentalists rely on to establish their truth, their reality. And the fundamentalists' case is far stronger than the moderates'.
The conflict is between rationality and superstition. Sullivan defends his unquestioning superstition with the considerable eloquence at his disposal. He compromises the only tool available to rationalists: reasoned, principled discourse based on fact. He begs for a tolerance of his superstition which, for any principled person, ought equally to apply to the fundamentalists.
And he asks us why we don't want his help.
I want to ask Andrew Sullivan the following question, and I hope he will consider it deeply:
Why have fundamentalists in the West so successfully hijacked conservatism and religion, the foundations of Sullivan's belief system, instead of atheism, secularism, and/or liberalism?
I submit is is precisely the tendency of both religious moderates and moderate conservatives to confuse truth, fact and reality with opinion and preference which has rendered these movements vulnerable to the fundamentalists.
Update: How religious moderates can help
[1] Sullivan throws "reason" in that list, but he's been utterly silent in this debate about how he actually employs any sort of reason in his religious beliefs.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Glenn Greenwald on The Conservative Soul
Glenn Greenwald discusses The Conservative Soul. Greenwald is always good, and this post is no exception.
Updated: fixed the link
Updated: fixed the link
Friday, January 26, 2007
Rational Discourse
Andrew Sullivan's latest post in the Sullivan/Harris debate, Truth and Consequences, is out. And Sullivan simply falls flat on his face.
We have two kinds of beliefs: Beliefs that ought to be the same for everyone, and beliefs that do not need to be the same for everyone. We have perfectly good words which denote these categories: truths and facts in the first sense, and opinions, attitudes, and feelings in the second. It is precisely because we have a moral duty to believe the truth that religions have placed their claims firmly in that category.
Every church, every religion--including the Catholic Church--has for millennia insisted that their claims have the moral status of truth: that you ought to believe them.
The insistence that religious beliefs are truth is always toxic. Either we take seriously (and this, I think, is the sense that Harris originally meant) the notion that our beliefs are true, that everyone ought to believe them, or we vacate our notion that there are any beliefs at all that everyone ought to believe, that there is no moral duty to believe the truth.
That religion might somehow be true but "incomprehensible" or unknowable doesn't help. The rational response to an unknown or incomprehensible truth is agnosticism and skepticism, not arbitrary belief. I don't know whether there's non-terrestrial life. Arbitrarily deciding to believe or disbelieve the claim would be equally irrational, so I remain skeptical and agnostic.
Even that religion might not be known with "certainty" doesn't help. We don't know anything with certainty. (Although, according to Sullivan, the beliefs we know with the highest confidence, mathematics, "may even be the closest to divine truth that human beings can achieve.") If certainty is the standard, then nothing is true, and we're back at epistemic nihilism.
In one sense, no, nobody ever has to justify any idea at all to anyone else's satisfaction ever, at least not in the United States. You can believe the Holocaust never happened, that Kennedy was assassinated by the Bavarian Illuminati, that the moon landings were a hoax. You can believe in ESP, tinfoil hats, timecubes, shape-changing lizard beings, a 6,000 year-old universe and even the causal efficacy of prayer. You can believe--and even publicly discuss--just about anything at all and you can rest assured that neither I, nor Sam Harris, nor Andrew Sullivan will punch you in the nose because of your belief. More importantly, you can rest assured that neither the FBI, the ATF, the Secret Service nor your local police department will come and arrest you and put you in jail. No matter how weird, misguided, insane or just plain stupid I think your ideas are, you have a political right to believe them and a political right to freely discuss them.
But if you're petitioning the community of rational human beings to accept the legitimacy of your beliefs, if you think you have something to say about the truth, then yes, you do have an obligation to justify your beliefs. If that's "intolerance", so be it: I'm not going to "tolerate" Gene Ray, Paul Rassinier, Uri Geller, Kent Hovind or Sylvia Browne as members in good standing of the community of rational human beings. Not because I happen to disagree with their conclusions, but because they do not use anything even remotely resembling reason in coming to their conclusions. I don't want them arrested or assaulted--I'll tolerate them to that extent--but I'm not going to tolerate giving them the slightest bit of standing, legitimacy or seriousness in the forum of rational discourse.
Sure, we'd love to have strong scientific, empirical justification of religious truth claims (I'm not holding my breath). But hey, we rational people are open minded, we'll settle for something else, so long as it's at least within spittin' distance of scientific or even historical[1] rigor. We want something more than just Making Stuff Up.
But Sullivan gives us nothing. His entire argument is nothing but an elaborate version of the "deconstructionist" theme of, "Science doesn't explain everything, therefore anything I say is just as truthful and rational as science."
Sullivan actually admits that religious faith is irrational; quoting Hobbes, "For the nature of God is incomprehensible;" and quoting himself, "God must, by definition, surpass our human understanding." It is entirely absurd to believe one can speak the truth about what one doesn't understand. By that standard, I'm an expert on medieval French poetry.
Sullivan gives us another laundry list, "We have Scripture; we have reason; we have religious authority; we have our own spiritual experiences of the divine," but yet again he fails to explain how any of these items do anything at all to establish truth in any sort of rational manner. He might as well list dance, song, sitting in a circle and holding hands, chanting 'om mani padme om', speaking in tongues or handling snakes. Even the UFO nuts and crop circle faithful have a more explicit and detailed (although still entirely irrational) methodology.
If Sullivan's admirable secularism and pluralism do not allow him to "force or even rig laws to encourage others to share my [truthful] faith", if the truth of his faith deals "with matters that cannot be subject to common consensus," then one has to ask: If not on truth, on what basis should we create our laws? Maybe there are two kinds of truth, truthful truths and non-truthful or less-truthful truths? It's absurd.
The epistemic relativism, subjectivism and deconstructionism of this latest epistle (including the irritating "spaces" trope) might earn him a graduate degree in "leftist academia". But without any sort of explanation of his supposed methodology, a rational person is entirely justified in considering religion to be inadmissible in (rational) public debate, ludicrous, irrational, and--while the charge of "lying" is unjustified--most definitely deluded.
After all, this is precisely the sort of rational "intolerance" that Sullivan applies to liberalism.
I want to separate out this section because the points here peripheral to the main point above.
Sullivan appears to consider some controversial philosophical points as being settled and obvious[3].
The historical sciences, including the study of recorded human history, archeology, paleontology, criminal forensics and physical cosmology, are fully scientific and emprical. Both rely on the same fundamental methodology: to construct the most parsimonious falsifiable logical explanation for a given set of empirically verifiable facts. In the case of the the terrestrial historical sciences, the facts are most often written texts and artifacts; cosmology relies on the facts of astronomical observation.
Historical and forensic sciences seek to establish a different kind of truth than "universal" sciences, such many physical sciences. Universal sciences are concerned with finding universal relationships, relationships which are true independent of any particular state of the universe. (Controlled experiments are a particularly effective technique of finding these sorts of truths, but they're not a metaphysical necessity.) Historical and forensic sciences, on the other hand, are concerned with finding a particular past state of the world, usually assuming arguendo our current best understanding of scientific universals.
The goals are different, there are a few techniques peculiar to one class of sciences or the other, but the fundamental methodology is the same.
There's an enormous philosophical controversy about idea that mathematics are or are not truth-apt (capable of being true or false), beyond the trivial observation that it is true that some theorem is derivable from some set of axioms.[4]
Materialism is not a necessary metaphysical presupposition for any empirical science. Most scientists take one or another kind of materialism for granted, but only on the massive weight of evidence of the efficacy of materialistic explanations.
Sullivan also throws in an outright howler. He quotes Harris:
It boggles the mind that Sullivan draws this irrational conclusion from Harris's remark. Harris himself does not draw any conclusion at all in his comment; he expresses only skepticism. Even if one reads in some implied conclusion, Harris does not at all state that he has come to that conclusion by any method other than scientific, empirical investigation. Even Sullivan's confusion about the relationship of empiricism to materialism fails to excuse this failure of rational analysis.
Moreover, why would Sullivan consider Harris's comment to represent such a big concession? Very few people--even religious people--consider religion to be specifically scientifically and empirically justified. The whole point of the debate is to challenge Sullivan to offer an alternative justification for religious truth (with empiricism serving as a template); just by participating Harris evidences open-mindedness about at least the possibility of such an alternative. But the burden is still on Sullivan to explain and justify his alternative. It is precisely because Sullivan considers this comment such a big concession that I'm rationally justified in interpreting Sullivan's argument in the logically invalid sense.
[1] The historical method is entirely scientific and empirical. See the section after the break.
[2] Sullivan uses weaselly phrasing here: He might be taken literally as uncontroversially allowing only the possibility that religion might be true; this sense, however, would be more clearly phrased as, "... allowed for the possibility..." I think the rest of the essay easily substantiates my stronger interpretation.
[3] To be fair, I don't think that any philosophical controversy at all has ever been resolved. Philosophers are still arguing over ideas that Socrates introduced almost three thousand years ago.
[4] See The Scientific Method (part 1) for more information.
We have two kinds of beliefs: Beliefs that ought to be the same for everyone, and beliefs that do not need to be the same for everyone. We have perfectly good words which denote these categories: truths and facts in the first sense, and opinions, attitudes, and feelings in the second. It is precisely because we have a moral duty to believe the truth that religions have placed their claims firmly in that category.
Every church, every religion--including the Catholic Church--has for millennia insisted that their claims have the moral status of truth: that you ought to believe them.
The insistence that religious beliefs are truth is always toxic. Either we take seriously (and this, I think, is the sense that Harris originally meant) the notion that our beliefs are true, that everyone ought to believe them, or we vacate our notion that there are any beliefs at all that everyone ought to believe, that there is no moral duty to believe the truth.
That religion might somehow be true but "incomprehensible" or unknowable doesn't help. The rational response to an unknown or incomprehensible truth is agnosticism and skepticism, not arbitrary belief. I don't know whether there's non-terrestrial life. Arbitrarily deciding to believe or disbelieve the claim would be equally irrational, so I remain skeptical and agnostic.
Even that religion might not be known with "certainty" doesn't help. We don't know anything with certainty. (Although, according to Sullivan, the beliefs we know with the highest confidence, mathematics, "may even be the closest to divine truth that human beings can achieve.") If certainty is the standard, then nothing is true, and we're back at epistemic nihilism.
In one sense, no, nobody ever has to justify any idea at all to anyone else's satisfaction ever, at least not in the United States. You can believe the Holocaust never happened, that Kennedy was assassinated by the Bavarian Illuminati, that the moon landings were a hoax. You can believe in ESP, tinfoil hats, timecubes, shape-changing lizard beings, a 6,000 year-old universe and even the causal efficacy of prayer. You can believe--and even publicly discuss--just about anything at all and you can rest assured that neither I, nor Sam Harris, nor Andrew Sullivan will punch you in the nose because of your belief. More importantly, you can rest assured that neither the FBI, the ATF, the Secret Service nor your local police department will come and arrest you and put you in jail. No matter how weird, misguided, insane or just plain stupid I think your ideas are, you have a political right to believe them and a political right to freely discuss them.
But if you're petitioning the community of rational human beings to accept the legitimacy of your beliefs, if you think you have something to say about the truth, then yes, you do have an obligation to justify your beliefs. If that's "intolerance", so be it: I'm not going to "tolerate" Gene Ray, Paul Rassinier, Uri Geller, Kent Hovind or Sylvia Browne as members in good standing of the community of rational human beings. Not because I happen to disagree with their conclusions, but because they do not use anything even remotely resembling reason in coming to their conclusions. I don't want them arrested or assaulted--I'll tolerate them to that extent--but I'm not going to tolerate giving them the slightest bit of standing, legitimacy or seriousness in the forum of rational discourse.
Sure, we'd love to have strong scientific, empirical justification of religious truth claims (I'm not holding my breath). But hey, we rational people are open minded, we'll settle for something else, so long as it's at least within spittin' distance of scientific or even historical[1] rigor. We want something more than just Making Stuff Up.
But Sullivan gives us nothing. His entire argument is nothing but an elaborate version of the "deconstructionist" theme of, "Science doesn't explain everything, therefore anything I say is just as truthful and rational as science."
My point here is to say that once you have conceded the possibility of a truth that is not reducible to empirical proof, you have allowed for the validity of religious faith as a form of legitimate truth-seeking in a different mode.This is a pure non sequitur. The incompleteness of empirical proof, even accepted arguendo, does nothing to establish or even "allow" the validity of religious faith.[2]
Sullivan actually admits that religious faith is irrational; quoting Hobbes, "For the nature of God is incomprehensible;" and quoting himself, "God must, by definition, surpass our human understanding." It is entirely absurd to believe one can speak the truth about what one doesn't understand. By that standard, I'm an expert on medieval French poetry.
Sullivan gives us another laundry list, "We have Scripture; we have reason; we have religious authority; we have our own spiritual experiences of the divine," but yet again he fails to explain how any of these items do anything at all to establish truth in any sort of rational manner. He might as well list dance, song, sitting in a circle and holding hands, chanting 'om mani padme om', speaking in tongues or handling snakes. Even the UFO nuts and crop circle faithful have a more explicit and detailed (although still entirely irrational) methodology.
If Sullivan's admirable secularism and pluralism do not allow him to "force or even rig laws to encourage others to share my [truthful] faith", if the truth of his faith deals "with matters that cannot be subject to common consensus," then one has to ask: If not on truth, on what basis should we create our laws? Maybe there are two kinds of truth, truthful truths and non-truthful or less-truthful truths? It's absurd.
The epistemic relativism, subjectivism and deconstructionism of this latest epistle (including the irritating "spaces" trope) might earn him a graduate degree in "leftist academia". But without any sort of explanation of his supposed methodology, a rational person is entirely justified in considering religion to be inadmissible in (rational) public debate, ludicrous, irrational, and--while the charge of "lying" is unjustified--most definitely deluded.
After all, this is precisely the sort of rational "intolerance" that Sullivan applies to liberalism.
I want to separate out this section because the points here peripheral to the main point above.
Sullivan appears to consider some controversial philosophical points as being settled and obvious[3].
The historical sciences, including the study of recorded human history, archeology, paleontology, criminal forensics and physical cosmology, are fully scientific and emprical. Both rely on the same fundamental methodology: to construct the most parsimonious falsifiable logical explanation for a given set of empirically verifiable facts. In the case of the the terrestrial historical sciences, the facts are most often written texts and artifacts; cosmology relies on the facts of astronomical observation.
Historical and forensic sciences seek to establish a different kind of truth than "universal" sciences, such many physical sciences. Universal sciences are concerned with finding universal relationships, relationships which are true independent of any particular state of the universe. (Controlled experiments are a particularly effective technique of finding these sorts of truths, but they're not a metaphysical necessity.) Historical and forensic sciences, on the other hand, are concerned with finding a particular past state of the world, usually assuming arguendo our current best understanding of scientific universals.
The goals are different, there are a few techniques peculiar to one class of sciences or the other, but the fundamental methodology is the same.
There's an enormous philosophical controversy about idea that mathematics are or are not truth-apt (capable of being true or false), beyond the trivial observation that it is true that some theorem is derivable from some set of axioms.[4]
Materialism is not a necessary metaphysical presupposition for any empirical science. Most scientists take one or another kind of materialism for granted, but only on the massive weight of evidence of the efficacy of materialistic explanations.
Sullivan also throws in an outright howler. He quotes Harris:
I do not think that the utter reducibility of consciousness to matter has been established. It may be that the very concepts of mind and matter are fundamentally misleading us.and concludes that Harris has conceded a big point:
So you allow for a space where the logic of science and of materialism does not lead us toward truth, but may even mislead us about it, and lead us away from it.
It boggles the mind that Sullivan draws this irrational conclusion from Harris's remark. Harris himself does not draw any conclusion at all in his comment; he expresses only skepticism. Even if one reads in some implied conclusion, Harris does not at all state that he has come to that conclusion by any method other than scientific, empirical investigation. Even Sullivan's confusion about the relationship of empiricism to materialism fails to excuse this failure of rational analysis.
Moreover, why would Sullivan consider Harris's comment to represent such a big concession? Very few people--even religious people--consider religion to be specifically scientifically and empirically justified. The whole point of the debate is to challenge Sullivan to offer an alternative justification for religious truth (with empiricism serving as a template); just by participating Harris evidences open-mindedness about at least the possibility of such an alternative. But the burden is still on Sullivan to explain and justify his alternative. It is precisely because Sullivan considers this comment such a big concession that I'm rationally justified in interpreting Sullivan's argument in the logically invalid sense.
[1] The historical method is entirely scientific and empirical. See the section after the break.
[2] Sullivan uses weaselly phrasing here: He might be taken literally as uncontroversially allowing only the possibility that religion might be true; this sense, however, would be more clearly phrased as, "... allowed for the possibility..." I think the rest of the essay easily substantiates my stronger interpretation.
[3] To be fair, I don't think that any philosophical controversy at all has ever been resolved. Philosophers are still arguing over ideas that Socrates introduced almost three thousand years ago.
[4] See The Scientific Method (part 1) for more information.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Back At Him
Sam Harris comes out swinging. He's not going to win on finesse, but he has the brute force of reason and facts on his side.
Andrew Sullivan, interestingly enough, reproduces only Harris's rebuttals to Sullivan's own points. I don't think Sullivan has accurately reproduced the "flavor" of Harris's comments, but he does honestly reproduce a substantive rebuttal.
The actual truth of Sullivan's religious beliefs is, of course, indefensible. Nor has Sullivan (to compliment him) even begun to master the sort of philosophical doubletalk[1] under which theistic philosophers--especially Christian theistic philosophers--bury their underlying irrationality.
It's still kind of irritating reading Harris's work, though. Harris is good at compling lists of religious stupidity, irrationality, hatefulness and violence. But he seems to have a hard time focusing on what I see is the fundamental point: That the (relatively) mild irrationality of moderate religion[2] just feeds and supports the virulent, severe irrationality of fundamentalist religion.
Moderate religion relies on the exact same epistemic basis (scripture and tradition) as fundamentalism; on that basis, fundamentalism has a stronger case. The only bases a moderate could possibly distinguish himself from a fundamentalist are conscience and skepticism, which lead inexorably to epistemic relativism or nihilism.[3]
[1] I.e. bullshit.
[2] In just the same way as the mild irrationality of moderate conservatism just feeds and supports the virulent irrationality of neo-conservatism, and sometimes as moderate leftism feeds fundamentalist leftism.
[3] I personally hold ethical epistemic nihilism and meta-ethical relativism: We can't know that any moral belief is true just because moral beliefs are not truth-apt. Lacking any epistemic basis, we have no choice but to rely on the relativistic meta-ethical techniques of propaganda and negotiation. Then again, I'm an liberal atheist, not a conservative moderate Catholic.
Andrew Sullivan, interestingly enough, reproduces only Harris's rebuttals to Sullivan's own points. I don't think Sullivan has accurately reproduced the "flavor" of Harris's comments, but he does honestly reproduce a substantive rebuttal.
The actual truth of Sullivan's religious beliefs is, of course, indefensible. Nor has Sullivan (to compliment him) even begun to master the sort of philosophical doubletalk[1] under which theistic philosophers--especially Christian theistic philosophers--bury their underlying irrationality.
It's still kind of irritating reading Harris's work, though. Harris is good at compling lists of religious stupidity, irrationality, hatefulness and violence. But he seems to have a hard time focusing on what I see is the fundamental point: That the (relatively) mild irrationality of moderate religion[2] just feeds and supports the virulent, severe irrationality of fundamentalist religion.
Moderate religion relies on the exact same epistemic basis (scripture and tradition) as fundamentalism; on that basis, fundamentalism has a stronger case. The only bases a moderate could possibly distinguish himself from a fundamentalist are conscience and skepticism, which lead inexorably to epistemic relativism or nihilism.[3]
[1] I.e. bullshit.
[2] In just the same way as the mild irrationality of moderate conservatism just feeds and supports the virulent irrationality of neo-conservatism, and sometimes as moderate leftism feeds fundamentalist leftism.
[3] I personally hold ethical epistemic nihilism and meta-ethical relativism: We can't know that any moral belief is true just because moral beliefs are not truth-apt. Lacking any epistemic basis, we have no choice but to rely on the relativistic meta-ethical techniques of propaganda and negotiation. Then again, I'm an liberal atheist, not a conservative moderate Catholic.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Andrew Sullivan Scores
Sam Harris lets down his guard, and Andrew Sullivan lands some substantial blows. I don't think it's a knockout, but Sullivan will win on points if Harris can't find some opening to wrest the focus of the debate back to the truth without appearing churlish or dismissive. And Sullivan is a pro; he doesn't often lead with his chin as Harris has done.
One simply cannot give a pro like Sullivan the kinds of openings Harris provides. Of course Sullivan understands religious fundamentalism, of course he takes his scripture "seriously"; saying that he doesn't just gives him the opportunity to change the subject away from the truth of his beliefs towards the importance and seriousness he attaches to them.
And it's simply an inexcusable blunder in a debate to accuse anyone, anywhere of deliberately lying. There's such a high burden of proof that even perjury is rarely prosecuted.[1] It's trivial to avoid this blunder: "delusion" has the same sense of astonishing incorrectness without the pejorative and difficult-to-substantiate sense of intent to deceive.
Sullivan uses these openings to duck and weave and avoid the question of the truth of his beliefs. Happily, though, he does more: He reinforces an important and serious issue in the debate.
Religious belief, according to Sullivan, really is important. And I have to agree. Religious narratives have not persisted in every human society for millennia just because people are stupid or evil. Nor can one simply abandon the idea that these narratives are somehow true in a way that mere opinion is not; without such truth, religious narratives dissolve into insubstantial Unitarianism.
It's not enough to get me to just give up my car to tell me that it's helping to destroy the planet. It's not enough to completely and thoroughly convince me that it's true that my car is helping to destroy the planet. I still need to get to work and buy groceries; I'm not going to sit and starve just for the sake of the planet. You have to give me an alternative; not necessarily even as good an alternative, but you have to give me something.
I still think Harris is right that the truth claims of the religious moderates rest on ground no more rigorous and substantial than intuitive "truthiness". I still think Harris is right that these insubstantial grounds help intolerant and violent fundamentalists more than they help humanity at large.
But Sullivan is right too: If you're going to do away with religious truth, what's the alternative?
Not since Robert Ingersoll has the atheistic community had any sort of powerful spokesman delivering a compelling narrative that pointedly excluded God. Secular liberalism has lost its thread. But even Sullivan's sort of ecumenical conservatism is in serious trouble, having ceded considerable control over the conservative narrative to religious fundamentalists and neoconservatives. Atheists are becoming aware of the issue, but there is still no coherent narrative.
But give us time. It's still been only about 150 years since Darwin put the final piece of the puzzle in place to render atheism more than weakly-justified optimism; Christianity required almost 300 years to get real traction.
[1] In his own response, Sullivan--unlike the anonymous reader I criticized Sullivan for publishing--uses a legitimate basis to change the subject; he walks through a door which Harris himself opened. And my charge of hypocrisy applies to Sullivan's own accusation rather than to his complaint about Harris's missive.)
One simply cannot give a pro like Sullivan the kinds of openings Harris provides. Of course Sullivan understands religious fundamentalism, of course he takes his scripture "seriously"; saying that he doesn't just gives him the opportunity to change the subject away from the truth of his beliefs towards the importance and seriousness he attaches to them.
And it's simply an inexcusable blunder in a debate to accuse anyone, anywhere of deliberately lying. There's such a high burden of proof that even perjury is rarely prosecuted.[1] It's trivial to avoid this blunder: "delusion" has the same sense of astonishing incorrectness without the pejorative and difficult-to-substantiate sense of intent to deceive.
Sullivan uses these openings to duck and weave and avoid the question of the truth of his beliefs. Happily, though, he does more: He reinforces an important and serious issue in the debate.
Religious belief, according to Sullivan, really is important. And I have to agree. Religious narratives have not persisted in every human society for millennia just because people are stupid or evil. Nor can one simply abandon the idea that these narratives are somehow true in a way that mere opinion is not; without such truth, religious narratives dissolve into insubstantial Unitarianism.
It's not enough to get me to just give up my car to tell me that it's helping to destroy the planet. It's not enough to completely and thoroughly convince me that it's true that my car is helping to destroy the planet. I still need to get to work and buy groceries; I'm not going to sit and starve just for the sake of the planet. You have to give me an alternative; not necessarily even as good an alternative, but you have to give me something.
I still think Harris is right that the truth claims of the religious moderates rest on ground no more rigorous and substantial than intuitive "truthiness". I still think Harris is right that these insubstantial grounds help intolerant and violent fundamentalists more than they help humanity at large.
But Sullivan is right too: If you're going to do away with religious truth, what's the alternative?
Not since Robert Ingersoll has the atheistic community had any sort of powerful spokesman delivering a compelling narrative that pointedly excluded God. Secular liberalism has lost its thread. But even Sullivan's sort of ecumenical conservatism is in serious trouble, having ceded considerable control over the conservative narrative to religious fundamentalists and neoconservatives. Atheists are becoming aware of the issue, but there is still no coherent narrative.
But give us time. It's still been only about 150 years since Darwin put the final piece of the puzzle in place to render atheism more than weakly-justified optimism; Christianity required almost 300 years to get real traction.
[1] In his own response, Sullivan--unlike the anonymous reader I criticized Sullivan for publishing--uses a legitimate basis to change the subject; he walks through a door which Harris himself opened. And my charge of hypocrisy applies to Sullivan's own accusation rather than to his complaint about Harris's missive.)
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Yet another potshot
Andrew Sullivan's latest reply in his debate with Sam Harris is out. One statement jumps right out at me:
What you are doing here by the use of the word "lying" is imputing to the believer an insincerity you cannot know for sure.
Sullivan would never accuse someone of lying when he didn't "know for sure."
Oh wait... "[Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales is a liar..." Presumably Sullivan has developed psychic powers and is absolutely certain that Gonzales is being insincere.
What you are doing here by the use of the word "lying" is imputing to the believer an insincerity you cannot know for sure.
Sullivan would never accuse someone of lying when he didn't "know for sure."
Oh wait... "[Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales is a liar..." Presumably Sullivan has developed psychic powers and is absolutely certain that Gonzales is being insincere.
Why Doubt is Important
Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan agree that the biggest issue that we face today is "fundamentalism". Fundamentalism of any stripe, Islamist, Christianist and neo-conservative, threaten sensible, intelligent people of any ordinary political persuasion, liberals and conservatives (at least conservatives like Sullivan).
There will always be a core of people who are going to embrace some sort of fundamentalism. Fundamentalists can be effective, however, only if they can persuade a fairly large number of people who are not "naturally" fundamentalist to support their programs. Just as the core of truly fundamentalist Islamists have persuaded millions of otherwise peaceable and tolerant moderate Muslims to support or at least tolerate their activities, the core of truly fundamentalist neo-conservatives and Christianists have persuaded millions of otherwise peaceable and tolerant moderate conservatives and moderate Christians to support or at least tolerate their own programs--at least through the first six years of George W. Bush's presidency.
It is precisely the sort of epistemic vagueness, confusion and indecisiveness we see in religious moderates which renders them susceptible to persuasion by fundamentalists.[1] When fundamentalists claim to know the truth, moderates are left without a principled response because they don't have a clear, rigorous, principled method for evaluating the truth of religious or moral statements--for knowing religious and moral truth.
Of course religion is not the only source of epistemic confusion. But there are two reasons why I think religion, especially moderate religion, deserves special attention in this kind of debate. First, although religion doesn't have a monopoly on the kind of bullshit which preys on epistemic confusion, historically it's far and away the biggest and most prominent supplier.
More importantly, religions, especially the Abrahamic religions, rest on scriptures that were created during extremely authoritarian, oppressive and violent eras of human history. These scriptures were created in eras when activities considered today to be obvious moral evils--wars of aggression and conquest, slavery, oppression of women, absolute monarchical authority--were commonplace and unquestioned. There can be no doubt that a literal reading of these scriptures, even the Christian New Testament, support these moral evils. Moderates will thus always be at an enormous disadvantage trying to employ scriptural authority: Fundamentalists need only point to the text; moderates have to invent all sorts of fanciful hermeneutics to extract a modern morality from these scriptures.[2] One cannot help but think it is fundamentalists who are at least being more intellectually honest: They at least assert (usually) that the Bible means exactly what it says; moderates seems all too often to claim the Bible means the opposite of what it says.
By lending scripture any authority, religious moderates fail to undercut the fundamentalists' moral basis. And, since fundamentalists can use scriptural authority better than moderates, lending even a little bit of authority to scripture can only support fundamentalism. Rhetorically, as well the moderates' wishy-washy responses fall flat next to the fundamentalists' confident certainty.
Religious moderates cannot just eliminate scripture entirely. Without scripture (or at least some sort of authority), one's beliefs about God cannot be anything more than pure individual conscience. Moderates appear to be even more uncomfortable with such relativism and subjectivism than they are with fundamentalism.
Talking about "doubt" is just another way of talking about what it means to know something. Because scientific doubt is both clear and testable, scientists are clear about what they mean both when they claim to doubt a statement and when they claim to know it. If one scientist says he knows something, we can rationally evaluate whether he really does know it, independently of whether we like or dislike the content of what he claims to know.
Lacking a clear notion of doubt, though, the religious moderate can answer the fundamentalist's assertion of certainty only with, "Well, you can't really know anything at all," (i.e. nihilism) or with, "Well, I personally disagree," (i.e. relativism). If ethics really is a matter of truth, not opinion, and if ethical truth really does have a religious foundation, then the half-hearted nihilistic "doubt" of religious moderation does nothing except to strengthen fundamentalism.
[1] To be fair, there is no lack of this sort of epistemic confusion on the left, which renders liberal moderates just as susceptible to persuasion by leftist fundamentalists. It's interesting, though, to note that "leftist" fundamentalist totalitarianism has prospered best in Russia and China. One can reasonably conclude that Russian and Chinese totalitarianism is due as much or more to their their well-documented history of authoritarianism in general--and the concomitant lack of resistance to argument from "scripture"--as to any inherent fault in leftist ideals.
[2] Of course, even soi disant fundamentalists engage in their own fanciful hermeneutics. It's risible to imagine Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson taking Matthew 19:21 literally.
There will always be a core of people who are going to embrace some sort of fundamentalism. Fundamentalists can be effective, however, only if they can persuade a fairly large number of people who are not "naturally" fundamentalist to support their programs. Just as the core of truly fundamentalist Islamists have persuaded millions of otherwise peaceable and tolerant moderate Muslims to support or at least tolerate their activities, the core of truly fundamentalist neo-conservatives and Christianists have persuaded millions of otherwise peaceable and tolerant moderate conservatives and moderate Christians to support or at least tolerate their own programs--at least through the first six years of George W. Bush's presidency.
It is precisely the sort of epistemic vagueness, confusion and indecisiveness we see in religious moderates which renders them susceptible to persuasion by fundamentalists.[1] When fundamentalists claim to know the truth, moderates are left without a principled response because they don't have a clear, rigorous, principled method for evaluating the truth of religious or moral statements--for knowing religious and moral truth.
Of course religion is not the only source of epistemic confusion. But there are two reasons why I think religion, especially moderate religion, deserves special attention in this kind of debate. First, although religion doesn't have a monopoly on the kind of bullshit which preys on epistemic confusion, historically it's far and away the biggest and most prominent supplier.
More importantly, religions, especially the Abrahamic religions, rest on scriptures that were created during extremely authoritarian, oppressive and violent eras of human history. These scriptures were created in eras when activities considered today to be obvious moral evils--wars of aggression and conquest, slavery, oppression of women, absolute monarchical authority--were commonplace and unquestioned. There can be no doubt that a literal reading of these scriptures, even the Christian New Testament, support these moral evils. Moderates will thus always be at an enormous disadvantage trying to employ scriptural authority: Fundamentalists need only point to the text; moderates have to invent all sorts of fanciful hermeneutics to extract a modern morality from these scriptures.[2] One cannot help but think it is fundamentalists who are at least being more intellectually honest: They at least assert (usually) that the Bible means exactly what it says; moderates seems all too often to claim the Bible means the opposite of what it says.
By lending scripture any authority, religious moderates fail to undercut the fundamentalists' moral basis. And, since fundamentalists can use scriptural authority better than moderates, lending even a little bit of authority to scripture can only support fundamentalism. Rhetorically, as well the moderates' wishy-washy responses fall flat next to the fundamentalists' confident certainty.
Religious moderates cannot just eliminate scripture entirely. Without scripture (or at least some sort of authority), one's beliefs about God cannot be anything more than pure individual conscience. Moderates appear to be even more uncomfortable with such relativism and subjectivism than they are with fundamentalism.
Talking about "doubt" is just another way of talking about what it means to know something. Because scientific doubt is both clear and testable, scientists are clear about what they mean both when they claim to doubt a statement and when they claim to know it. If one scientist says he knows something, we can rationally evaluate whether he really does know it, independently of whether we like or dislike the content of what he claims to know.
Lacking a clear notion of doubt, though, the religious moderate can answer the fundamentalist's assertion of certainty only with, "Well, you can't really know anything at all," (i.e. nihilism) or with, "Well, I personally disagree," (i.e. relativism). If ethics really is a matter of truth, not opinion, and if ethical truth really does have a religious foundation, then the half-hearted nihilistic "doubt" of religious moderation does nothing except to strengthen fundamentalism.
[1] To be fair, there is no lack of this sort of epistemic confusion on the left, which renders liberal moderates just as susceptible to persuasion by leftist fundamentalists. It's interesting, though, to note that "leftist" fundamentalist totalitarianism has prospered best in Russia and China. One can reasonably conclude that Russian and Chinese totalitarianism is due as much or more to their their well-documented history of authoritarianism in general--and the concomitant lack of resistance to argument from "scripture"--as to any inherent fault in leftist ideals.
[2] Of course, even soi disant fundamentalists engage in their own fanciful hermeneutics. It's risible to imagine Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson taking Matthew 19:21 literally.
Doubt and Faith
It occurs to me that the whole Harris/Sullivan debate is going to hinge on what Sullivan means by the word "doubt".
Doubt has a very rigorous, precise and unequivocal meaning to the rational scientific mind. It's more than a just vague admission that one might be wrong. Because scientific truth is established by evidence, there's always in principle the possibility that some future evidence might falsify what we believe to be true. More importantly, because evidence is central to scientific doubt, it has physical, perceptual meaning.
It is the clarity and physicality of scientific doubt which allows us to have a rational basis for belief in scientific statements. We can test any particular doubt, and by examining the evidence, decisively dispel it. General relativity predicts that a clock on the ground will run more slowly--by a definite amount--than a clock in orbit. If we doubt General Relativity in this way, we need merely to put a clock in orbit and compare it to a clock on a ground. We can do so, we have done so, the clocks are different, this doubt is rationally dispelled, and we have yet another rational justification to have confidence in General Relativity.
We can collect only a finite amount of evidence, but one can imagine an infinity of doubt. We can doubt even the rock-solid scientific principle that the laws of physics are the same at all times, a principle that has been scientifically tested a quintillion times: Every time anyone turns on a light switch, expecting the room to become illuminated today just the same as it was yesterday, and confirms that the room has indeed become illuminated, they are testing and overcoming a doubt. But tomorrow, eh? Tomorrow the light might not come on, the kettle might not get hot, not because the bulb will have burned out or the gas will have been turned off, but just because the laws of physics might be different tomorrow than they were today, and yesterday. It's logically possible.
So yes, we can always doubt in principle any scientific belief. On the other hand, precisely because scientific doubt is both unequivocal and physically meaningful, every time we do overcome a doubt, we gain rational confidence in the statement we are doubting. After we've tested a principle a quintillion times, we achieve a level of confidence that indistinguishable in practice (although not in principle) from certainty.
The whole point of scientific doubt is to establish a rational basis for decisiveness even given the lack of absolute certainty. Scientific doubt is all about evidence that we can, by definition, look at. It is precisely to because doubt has rigorous physical meaning that scientists can insist that any statement must have doubtable implications to have scientific meaning. And it is precisely because doubt has rigorous physical meaning that overcoming doubt can establish rational confidence any decision based on science.
What does "doubt" mean, though, to the religious moderate? It's not possible to doubt religious statements in the same sense as a scientist doubts scientific truth. Religious statements aren't established by evidence, so it's not possible that the actual evidence we see with our eyes might not match what the religious statements entail.
How does a religious moderate construct "doubt", not just to achieve a superficial feeling of humility, but to establish a rational basis for making decisions?
I think it's completely uncontroversial to say that Andrew Sullivan--as well as most self-described religious moderates--would reject the label of "moral relativism": Moral truth, in their view, really is truth, not merely opinion. And religious belief is the foundation of that moral truth.
Even absent perfect certainty, how specifically does their construction of "doubt" provide a rational basis for confidence and decisiveness in any way at all? "Truthiness" just doesn't cut the mustard: It is not a rational basis to believe a moral proposition actually is true just because it somehow "feels" true--even if one admits with faux humility that one might be "wrong" in some vague, unspecified manner.
The "room" for doubt in any scientific statement is in its epistemic basis: the connection between the scientific statement and the evidence it entails. Without this connection, there is nothing to doubt in the scientific sense. Where's the room to doubt for religious statements? You can't doubt the epistemic basis of a definition ("God is definitionally the Creator of such a universe" [emphasis added]) per se; a definition (by definition) doesn't have an epistemic basis.
Finding room to doubt religious statements, on some basis more rational and principled than arbitrary truthiness, is the challenge that Andrew Sullivan will have to rise to. To be honest, I don't think he will, because I don't think he can.
Doubt has a very rigorous, precise and unequivocal meaning to the rational scientific mind. It's more than a just vague admission that one might be wrong. Because scientific truth is established by evidence, there's always in principle the possibility that some future evidence might falsify what we believe to be true. More importantly, because evidence is central to scientific doubt, it has physical, perceptual meaning.
It is the clarity and physicality of scientific doubt which allows us to have a rational basis for belief in scientific statements. We can test any particular doubt, and by examining the evidence, decisively dispel it. General relativity predicts that a clock on the ground will run more slowly--by a definite amount--than a clock in orbit. If we doubt General Relativity in this way, we need merely to put a clock in orbit and compare it to a clock on a ground. We can do so, we have done so, the clocks are different, this doubt is rationally dispelled, and we have yet another rational justification to have confidence in General Relativity.
We can collect only a finite amount of evidence, but one can imagine an infinity of doubt. We can doubt even the rock-solid scientific principle that the laws of physics are the same at all times, a principle that has been scientifically tested a quintillion times: Every time anyone turns on a light switch, expecting the room to become illuminated today just the same as it was yesterday, and confirms that the room has indeed become illuminated, they are testing and overcoming a doubt. But tomorrow, eh? Tomorrow the light might not come on, the kettle might not get hot, not because the bulb will have burned out or the gas will have been turned off, but just because the laws of physics might be different tomorrow than they were today, and yesterday. It's logically possible.
So yes, we can always doubt in principle any scientific belief. On the other hand, precisely because scientific doubt is both unequivocal and physically meaningful, every time we do overcome a doubt, we gain rational confidence in the statement we are doubting. After we've tested a principle a quintillion times, we achieve a level of confidence that indistinguishable in practice (although not in principle) from certainty.
The whole point of scientific doubt is to establish a rational basis for decisiveness even given the lack of absolute certainty. Scientific doubt is all about evidence that we can, by definition, look at. It is precisely to because doubt has rigorous physical meaning that scientists can insist that any statement must have doubtable implications to have scientific meaning. And it is precisely because doubt has rigorous physical meaning that overcoming doubt can establish rational confidence any decision based on science.
What does "doubt" mean, though, to the religious moderate? It's not possible to doubt religious statements in the same sense as a scientist doubts scientific truth. Religious statements aren't established by evidence, so it's not possible that the actual evidence we see with our eyes might not match what the religious statements entail.
How does a religious moderate construct "doubt", not just to achieve a superficial feeling of humility, but to establish a rational basis for making decisions?
I think it's completely uncontroversial to say that Andrew Sullivan--as well as most self-described religious moderates--would reject the label of "moral relativism": Moral truth, in their view, really is truth, not merely opinion. And religious belief is the foundation of that moral truth.
Even absent perfect certainty, how specifically does their construction of "doubt" provide a rational basis for confidence and decisiveness in any way at all? "Truthiness" just doesn't cut the mustard: It is not a rational basis to believe a moral proposition actually is true just because it somehow "feels" true--even if one admits with faux humility that one might be "wrong" in some vague, unspecified manner.
The "room" for doubt in any scientific statement is in its epistemic basis: the connection between the scientific statement and the evidence it entails. Without this connection, there is nothing to doubt in the scientific sense. Where's the room to doubt for religious statements? You can't doubt the epistemic basis of a definition ("God is definitionally the Creator of such a universe" [emphasis added]) per se; a definition (by definition) doesn't have an epistemic basis.
Finding room to doubt religious statements, on some basis more rational and principled than arbitrary truthiness, is the challenge that Andrew Sullivan will have to rise to. To be honest, I don't think he will, because I don't think he can.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
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