A Defense of Faith

The recent tussle over Barbara's guest post on Unclaimed Territory defending liberal religion has gotten me thinking. Given the extent to which the current political climate is split along religious lines, it is unsurprising that defense of an institution so closely identified with the worst of our opponent's excesses provoked such a vehement reaction. Personally, I hate the way religion is used by the right-wing, but I remain unconvinced that religion as a whole must be thrown out. The most vocal advocate of the "baby-too" school of thought is Pharyngula, who responded to Barbara's post with this no-holds-barred assault on religion.

The problem is faith.

Faith is a hole in your brain. Faith stops critical thinking. Faith is a failure point inculcated into people's minds, an unguarded weak point that allows all kinds of nasty, maggoty, wretched ideas to crawl into their heads and take up occupancy.

Here is where the anti-religion folks leave me behind. I am, I must say, a die-hard fan of faith. I think that faith is, really, quite a positive force in the world. Like, for example, I have faith that people can create a government that is fairer, kinder, and more efficient than any that exist today. I don't really have any reason for believing that this is so, and there is much evidence to the contrary, but I do anyway. I also variously believe in the power of love, the value of forgiveness, the capacity of science to better the human condition, and many other fluffy feel-good bits of utter nonsense for which I have no proof. I do not, by the way, believe in any form of higher divinity.

I am hard-pressed to imagine a world worth living in, devoid of faith. I would also be willing to wager that PZ Myers can't either. Faith gives everything meaning--without it, life is nothing but inhaling and exhaling, and then a stop.

Now, I am willing to bet also that at this point, PZ Myers would step in and tell me that this isn't what faith is, that this sort of faith isn't what he was talking about at all. He would of course be right. But why is that? Why is it that we can have entire arguments about this subject, and not even be able to agree on what our terms mean?

In every argument I have ever had about religion (and there have been many!), that is the turn the debate has taken. PZ's was no exception. He posted a follow up commenting on that very thing. He called it a "bothersome strategy," identifying it as "an attempt to defocus religious belief." I would dispute this: it was not an attempt to "defocus," it was an attempt to refocus. The problems PZ identifies and attacks are problems no reasonable person would deny are real and threatening. But calling them "religion," as though these odious tendencies are the single defining aspect of religiosity, is to grossly oversimplify.

PZ:

The other effect of this strategy is to turn religion into a completely empty word. When someone can say they don't believe in any deities, the supernatural, or any kind of afterlife, but that they are "religious", then religion is meaningless.

The problem isn't that the word "religion" is empty of meaning--the problem is that it is overfilled with meaning. The word "religion" is wildly overdetermined--it has hundreds of different and contradictory meanings; no one can agree on which is "right." This was the problem that PZ was facing, and was unable to deal with: when he calls religion a foul and corrupting thing, he is right. When others call it an uplifting and crucial aspect of life, they are right too. He looks in from the outside and sees blank-eyed robots marching in lock-step; others look from the inside and feel a holy joy.

To summarize: If you are making an argument about religion that presumes that religion is primarily a mechanism for social manipulation, and the person you are arguing with assumes that religion is primarily a method for personal spiritual growth, you are going to get exactly nowhere, and you are going to get there real fast.

Is PZ right that this makes religion a word worthless for arguments? Yes. But that is the way it is. PZ is right: words mean nothing but what we think they mean, and we don't always agree.

Practical Advice For Shrill and Uppity Democrats

(crossposted at dailykos)

In the comments following my post on how Republicans use typical patriarchal rhetoric to shut down Democratic challenges, user high5 mentioned a post of eirs in which eir had made the same realization while listening to an interview with a Norwegian social psychologist, Berit Ås. Ås had developed a typology of these masculine domination techniques, and how to counter them. Intrepid reader Halcyon found a copy of a speech in which she outlined these techniques, and tossed it to me with the suggestion that I diary it. Thanks, Halcyon! Anyway, sucker that I am, here is my attempt to apply these hard-won feminist lessons to the current political debate. This post is a bit long, please bear with me.

The first thing I noticed while reading this is, damn, was I right. No really--nearly every technique for shutting up opponents has an obvious parallel in the way Republicans and the media treat Democrats. It's astonishing. Of course, Ås is careful to note that these techniques aren't necessarily gendered. "Both men and women use them. The strong use them against the weaker." Just going to show that feminist perspectives aren't limited to use on women's issues.

Berit Ås highlights three areas where learning to recognize these techniques will help: First, it will help you realize that it isn't you who has the problem, it is them--and since these techniques work by convincing you you aren't worth listening to, simply realizing what is going on is very important. Second, it will (hopefully) aid you in combating the use of the techniques. Lastly, she emphasizes the importance of getting a dialogue going. The more these techniques are recognized for what they are, the less power they will have.

The five techniques she mentions are these:

1. Making invisible.
   
2. Ridiculing.
   
3. Withholding of information.
   
4. Double punishment.
   
5. Heaping blame and putting to shame.

1) Making invisible. The first is in many ways the most obvious. "Making someone invisible means that a person chooses to treat an individual or a group as if the person or group were not there," says Ås. If this doesn't immediately remind you of the strange absence of Democrats and liberals in the media as documented exhaustively by Media Matters, then hey, that's a nice rock you've got. Nice and comfy under there? It also reflects the utter railroading that had been going on in the House and the Senate under Republican control--Democratic amendments are simply ignored, and Democratic bills simply go nowhere.

"This really should be a bipartisan amendment," he says, as Linder[R] crosses his arms and frowns. "This gives powers to the secretary of defense to rewrite the rules governing civil service at the Department of Defense at any time!" Linder's eyes dart impatiently around the room. "It does threaten to undermine the credibility of our civil service as a nonpartisan body," Van Hollen[D] continues--but to little avail. Linder's thoughts are clearly someplace else, someplace where there are no annoying Democrats like Van Hollen. If Linder has listened to a word, there's no sign of it.

From Ås:

"Making someone invisible can sometimes be difficult to discern because it often happens “without words”. It is expressed through body language, for instance gestures or the lack of them. Notice how some people read papers when women are speaking, chat quietly to each other, yawn, roll their eyes at each other, wander around the room, collect something to drink, in fact do everything but listen."

This has gone so far it is almost ridiculous. Somedays it seems like the media interviews a far-right-wing nut, and then interviews a republican for balance. The number of "centrist" gutless wonders who are called upon to give the left's perspective are countless: Joe Klein and Thomas Friedman are just the most egregiously stupid of them.

Berit Ås on how to deal with this strategy:

By learning to recognise this domination technique, a woman can avoid the feeling of insignificance. She can make the world conscious of what is going on and demand with a good conscience that people listen when she speaks.

I think the blogosphere has figured this one out. Now only to pound it into the politicians' heads. Onward!

2) Ridiculing. Berit Ås:

Ridiculing occurs when a woman’s efforts are scorned, made fun of, or likened to
animals (e.g. chickens), when women are presented as being especially emotional or sexual, or when women are rejected as cold or manipulative.

Ridiculing Democrats has become a cottage industry on the right, so popular that even some Democrats join in. From the unrelenting attack on "politically correct"--a stalking horse for the right-wing from the very beginning--to the derision heaped on any Democrat foolish enough to back silly, utopian ideas like "universal healthcare," a laugh and a sneer has become an easy alternative to genuine engagement. Ås' critique can be seen just in the example of the Clintons: Bill is too sexual and uncontrolled, while Hillary is practically the dictionary definition of frigid--if you believe what you hear of the news, of course.

Every Democrat learns to fear the quote marks "heaped" "liberally" around any "positive" mention of a "Democratic" "politician." They are the mark of derision and contempt. From the patronizing "analysis" of Hillary Clinton's iPod playlist, to the "flip-flopping" dorks in dolphin suits during Kerry's campaign, to the media obsession with Bill's penis, the press is willing to examine everything Democratic at excruciating length--except their politics. The narrative suggests that Democrats may be good for some gossip-column-style entertainment, but are entirely unfit to run the country.

3) Withholding of information. The Republican party apparatus is a system built to exclude Democrats in every way possible. From the K Street Project, to lying about WMD, to keeping Democrats in the dark about warrantless wiretapping and who knows what else, to the mysterious Fellowship, GOP control is maintained by a careful curtailing of the spread of information and power. Ask yourself if this sounds familiar:

Withholding information occurs when men automatically take up matters only with
other men. This way, they deny women access to information about important issues at work or in politics. Particularly in political spheres we know that information is exchanged, opinions formed and decisions taken in restricted circles, like for example, when the boys go for a beer/drink after a meeting, are out for a “business dinner”, play football or quite frankly, pass information to one another before meetings. Women are not invited into these restricted circles or, purely and simply; women just do not have the same opportunities to join in.

The Fellowship, the fundamentalist Christian group to which a large number of influential Republican politicians belong to, is the best example of the good ol' boys club. Through the connections of the Fellowship, all sorts of political alliances are formed.

Seventy years ago, an evangelist named Abraham Vereide founded a network of "God-led" cells comprising senators and generals, corporate executives and preachers. Vereide believed that the cells -- God's chosen, appointed to power -- could construct a Kingdom of God on earth with Washington as its capital. They would do so "behind the scenes," lest they be accused of pride or a hunger for power, and "beyond the din of vox populi," which is to say, outside the bounds of democracy. To insiders, the cells were known as the Family, or the Fellowship....The group was all male and all Republican....Deals emerge not from a smoke-filled room but from a prayer-filled room. "Typically," says Brownback, "one person grows desirous of pursuing an action" -- a piece of legislation, a diplomatic strategy -- "and the others pull in behind."

Are you scared yet? You should be.

4) Double Punishment. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Whatever you do, it's wrong. Double punishment occurs when it’s wrong if a woman does something – and wrong if she doesn’t. This domination technique is used against the victims of prejudices and stereotypes.

There are several stereotypes that the Republicans use to put the Democrats in a double bind. Race is one--if the Democrats say anything negative about a black Republican, they are accused of racism. If they protest the Republican's racist statements, they are accused of playing the race-card. However, the biggest double-bind the Democrats find themselves in is regarding the military, and military service in particular. We all thought that Kerry's sterling war record would be an advantage for him--certainly the Democratic Party did, the way they played it up at his nomination. But in the Republican's hands, it became a weapon against him. If the Democrats protest pumping billions into the Defense Department, they are a bunch of hippies. If they support the military, they are just pale imitations of the Republicans. It's lose-lose.

5) Heaping of Shame and Putting to Blame. "It's those damn liberals that are making us lose in Iraq, by not supporting the troops enough!" "It's the media's fault, always reporting the BAD news from Iraq, damn their liberal bias!" Sound familiar? Of course it does; the only refrain that one hears more often is--oh wait, there isn't one. This is it. Anonymous Liberal at Unclaimed Territory caught a great example of this rhetoric at its most transparently ludicrous. Berit Ås explains how the other domination techniques are used to inflict guilt:

Blame and shame are inflicted through ridicule and double punishment. It occurs when women are told that they are not good enough - even if the reason for not being “not good enough” may be: (1) that they think they behave differently from men and in novel ways, or (2) that they haven’t had access to the information that men have controlled.

Liberals sure do "behave differently" from neo-cons, and "in novel ways." They critically examine their assumptions and the world around them, and when in doubt, they amend their assumptions, not the world. Pretty novel! As for (2), think of all the politicians who are still unable to admit that they shouldn't have voted for the war, even though they were lied to. They were denied the information they were needed, and despite that, the admission that they were wrong is still seen as too weakening to mention. And in all honesty, they are right, in part: any Democrat who says so will be jumped by the GOP noise machine, who will paint them as a flip-flopper and coward, using all the tricks of the Republican narrative of domination.

Those are the five domination techniques that Berit Ås identifies, and how they are used against Democrats to keep them safely corraled. Remember, the most effective technique in fighting this is to talk about it--bring all these subtexts to the surface, where they can be analyzed intellectually and discarded for the cheap parlor tricks that they are.