A Charter of Kumbaya

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

The myth that all religions are basically the same—and basically benign—is a nonsense that could only flourish in a society that has little knowledge of the past and, for that matter, of the nature of religious belief. Naturally it’s an idea that is being actively peddled in both Europe and America today.

For a truly nauseating example of this phenomenon at work, pour yourself a calming drink and check out former nun Karen Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion (it’s no great surprise to discover that the persistently irritating Ms. Armstrong is behind this venture). On the home page we read:

“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves…We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies…”

And so on.

We also are given the opportunity to watch a video which, as an example of moral preening and smug self-regard really does take some beating. As acerbic British blogger Mr. Eugenides notes:

If you’re not on your knees after that, praying to your God for the cleansing hellfire to engulf all the simpering cretins in that advert, you’re spiritually dead inside.

It’s difficult not to agree.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Compassion is a marvelous thing and it’s splendid if people of different faiths are able to get along together. I’d add that so far as the latter is concerned, I’m profoundly skeptical that the constant ironic references to “the religion of peace” (complete with scare quotes) that we often see elsewhere achieve very much that’s very constructive. That said, the idea that the challenge of Islamic extremism (because that’s what this Charter is really about) can be defused with ahistorical mush of the type that Armstrong is promoting is dishonest, delusional and, I suspect, ultimately very dangerous.

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Salem’s Lot

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Over at the Corner yesterday, I linked to Dorothy Rabinowitz’s fine WSJ piece on the involvement of Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate in the Massachusetts senate race, in the persecution of the Amirault family, the true victims of a now notorious sex abuse trial. What Ms. Rabinowitz has to say is, as so often, a must-read. She concludes as follows:

Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was “formidable” and that she was entirely convinced “those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants.”

What does this say about her candidacy? (Ms. Coakley declined to be interviewed.) If the current attorney general of Massachusetts actually believes, as no serious citizen does, the preposterous charges that caused the Amiraults to be thrown into prison—the butcher knife rape with no blood, the public tree-tying episode, the mutilated squirrel and the rest—that is powerful testimony to the mind and capacities of this aspirant to a Senate seat. It is little short of wonderful to hear now of Ms. Coakley’s concern for the rights of terror suspects at Guantanamo—her urgent call for the protection of the right to the presumption of innocence.

If the sound of ghostly laughter is heard in Massachusetts these days as this campaign rolls on, with Martha Coakley self-portrayed as the guardian of justice and civil liberties, there is good reason.

There are a couple of good books on the topic, but I’ve always been surprised about how little historians have had to say about the American abuse panics of the 1980s and early 1990s. They were in many ways a reincarnation of the witch trials of an earlier era, complete with junk science (the conjuring up of ‘repressed memories’ in particular) and religious hysteria (the belief in widespread Satanic cults) and, as such, a terrifying reminder of the persistence of irrationalityand superstition in the most advanced of societies as well, of course, as the willingness of the ambitious to exploit it.

But if the silence of the historians is striking, so was the reluctance of the politicians of that time to take a stand against what was an extraordinarily destructive phenomenon. Cowardice is also, it seems, a permanent value.

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Magical thinking watch: Eternal, unchanging racism chapter

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Heather Mac Donald

New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman seriously considers whether President Obama’s failure to enthusiastically back three black politicians–David Paterson, William Thompson, and Harold Ford–shows “how much remains to be done” regarding civil rights.   Maybe Obama has “a problem with blacks,” Haberman speculates.  Haberman acknoweldges that “there are those who see it as healthy that an African-American leader does not feel reflexively that he must support African-American candidates”   and ultimately seems to agree with such iconoclasts, but not after demonstrating how insanely dug in the racial industry is.

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Health care favoritism

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Heather Mac Donald

Having initially cast aside their usual view that “from those to whom much is given, much shall be taken away” in battling the tax on Cadillac health insurance plans, government and private sector unions have now won a five-year exemption from that tax for their members in an extraordinary show of political clout.  I have been wondering recently why there hasn’t been a grass-roots revolt against the favoritism shown public sector unions in the various pseudo-stimulus initiatives.  If the unions can get away with this patent injustice towards non-unionized workers, the conundrum only deepens.  (The print version of the New York Times’ article on the deal, by Robert Pear and labor reporter Steven Greenhouse, amusingly delays any mention of the union carve-out for four windy paragraphs while extolling the marvels of health “reform,” and then initially only mentions it in the vaguest of terms: “The changes would lessen and delay the impact of the tax on workers.”  Um, not all workers.  The web version of the article does not bury the lede quite as flagrantly.)

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Pat Robertson: Politically, but also theologically incorrect?

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Heather Mac Donald

Human compassion has produced the usual generous outpouring of aid to devastated Haiti.  Meanwhile, Obama has shown himself in a statement today to be a standard American politician, having included among the admirable qualities of the Haitians the fact that their faith has been unwavering.  Why is holding on to religious faith in the face of contradictory evidence a virtue?  In any other field—climatology, say–maintaining a belief despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary would be seen as a lamentable failure of rationality.  If a human being had foreknowledge of, and the capacity to prevent, a coming disaster like the Haitian earthquake and yet did nothing, he would be viewed as a monster.  Pat Robertson’s interpretation of the Haitian earthquake as divine punishment for voodoo and for an alleged  “pact with the devil” has been universally mocked, but it at least represents an effort to explain why God, who had both knowledge of the earthquake and the capacity to prevent it, nevertheless chose not to act in this particular instance, though he  acts to save other lives all the time, such as when keeping America safe since 9/11 or answering a family’s prayers for a cancer victim.  Interpreting the source of divine displeasure that gave rise to natural disasters was a regular function of preachers before secularism cut religion in the West down to size (on May 26, 1703, for example, during the most destructive storm in British history, the vicar of Cheshunt preached a sermon entitled: “The Necessity of Repentance Asserted: In order to Avert those Judgements which  the Present War, and Strange Unseasonableness of the Weather at Present, Seem to Threaten this Nation with.”).  Obviously, anyone who interprets God’s will is going to fill it in with his own biases (if seeing retribution for breaking the first two commandments is a bias).  But I’d rather have consistency in the inclination to ascribe meaning to events in God’s universe than a retreat into obscurantism–“the human mind cannot fathom God’s reasons”–when the candidates for a meaning are unacceptable.  The mind cannot supply any possible reason for God’s inaction here that doesn’t either grotesquely violate one’s sense of fairness or imply fault on the side of the sufferers, yet a reason there must be, according to our demand for a God who rules the world not by caprice but according to good cause.   And however politically incorrect Robertson’s interpretation of the consequences of idolatry currently is, that interpretation has an impeccable pedigree in the Bible and has never been officially repudiated.  Contrary to the assertions of believers, it is easier to understand how unmerited suffering can arise in an undirected universe than in a directed one and requires less torturing of reason and perverse implication of fault.  And though we may live in a universe of random injustice, the human capacity to conquer such injustice grows by the day, thanks to the tireless application of the scientific method to nature. 

Many are undoubtedly now praying to God to save the earthquake victims, an act of empathy arising out of human love that thousands of other humans, believers and unbelievers alike, are acting on.

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Haiti & charity

Posted on January 13, 2010 by David Hume

A reader asked about donating to alleviate the suffering in Haiti. In particular, making sure that the donations don’t go toward religious or Leftist ends. My own personal assumption is in line with the recommendations of the The GiveWell Blog:

A few notes:

What do readers think about this? It seems that the Haitian Earthquake is a major disaster in part because of long-term structural issues. On the other hand core human nature compels us to act in the interests of alleviating proximate suffering.

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Differential Earthquake Mortality

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Bradlaugh

From the Yahoo News report on the Haiti earthquake:

Even relatively wealthy neighborhoods were devastated.

That is an odd thing to say. It was a commonplace in the ancient world that earthquakes differentially afflicted the rich. Those who lived in fine stone houses or apartment blocks (ancient Rome had ’em, complete with atriums and doormen, so I suppose other cities did too) were much more likely to be killed than the poor in their huts of mud or sticks.

From the little I know of Haiti, I should guess that some similar calculus applies. Actuarially one would expect the death toll to be highest among those in shoddily-built concrete structures — non-elite office buildings (the quake hit around 5 p.m.), hospitals, schools, second-quartile slums. Next worse afflicted would be people in well-constructed buildings, which I suppose means a few rich people and high government functionaries. (Though I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that there are no well-constructed buildings in Haiti.) Least afflicted would the the bottom-quartile shanty poor. Having a shanty come down on your head is surely an unnerving experience, but not likely fatal.

If anyone with good civil-engineering knowledge want to chime in on this, I’d be interested to hear their opinions.

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The Confucian conservatives

Posted on January 13, 2010 by David Hume

I highly recommend John Keay’s China: A History to any readers who wish to familiarize themselves with this civilization. Keay’s narrative is aimed at the general reader. Specialists will no doubt find themselves irritating by the simplifications, or even errors (I’m not a China specialist but even I picked out a factual error here and there), but I’m always impressed by Keay’s ability to interject a great deal of erudition and social history into a relatively fast paced political narrative (his India: A History is of similar quality).

Of course China matters. It matters now, and it has mattered in the past. To a great extent much of human history is Chinese history. It is amusing for example when Keay’s points out that China has always been characterized by export surpluses over its history; the world has long craved the goods of the Middle Kingdom, which in return demanded specie or vice. But more interestingly for readers of this weblog is the fact that between 200 BC and 1900 AD the Chinese political-cultural system maintained a high level of continuity and stability. A scholar who flourished during the reign of Hanwudi could have made himself understood with ease to a mandarin serving under the Dowager Cixi over 2,000 years later. It is true that in the 19th century much of the Western elite had familiarity with the classics of the Greeks and the Romans, but I think the analogy is broken because the resurrection of a civilian elite versed in the literature and values of the ancients was a reconstruction of the Renaissance. By contrast, the Confucian literati had maintained a chain of transmission back to antiquity.

Today we in a world dominated by Whiggish technocratic sensibilities are wont to denigrate the achievements of Imperial China, and characterize it as a regime of reflexive adherence to blind protocols and exhibiting a cultural torpor. And yet what would we say if Rome and arisen multiple times and revived its ancient forms for thousands of years? One might wonder if Roman ways were robust and congenial to human flourishing. The Confucian idolatry of antiquity seems backward looking to us today, but in a Malthusian world they made the best of it, and rested their philosophy upon concrete realities of family, custom and tradition. Lived human existence and not abstractions. I suspect there is much we could learn from their long record of success, and I believe, and yes hope, that China might learn something from its own cultural past as it surges toward material affluence.

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Terrorism and opportunism

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Heather Mac Donald

I recall a time in the not-too-distant past—just over one year ago, say–when being a “war-time president” carried a certain aura of sanctity, lest criticism of the Commander-in-Chief demoralize the troops fighting that “war.”   Times have changed along with the administration.  Such is the way of politics.  But the implication that decisions taken by the Obama administration contributed either to the hatching of the 12/25 plot or to the failure to detect it strikes me as particularly opportunistic.   Any alleged failures in the intelligence community were a long time brewing; the idea that bureaucracies as large and sclerotic as those governing intelligence gathering and analysis suddenly took a new direction after January 2009 is absurd.  Yet here is former Navy Secretary and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman alleging that:

The president [that would be President Obama, BTW, not Bush] has ignored the 9/11 Commission’s report.  This whole idea that we can fix things by jumping higher and faster is ridiculous. The fact is that the system worked just like we said it would work if the president failed to give the Director of National Intelligence the tools he needs: it’s bloated, bureaucratic, layered, and stultified.

The 9/11 Commission report came out in 2004; any failure to “give the Director of National Intelligence the tools he needs” or to fix bureaucratic bloat would have happened on the last watch.  If Lehman was aware of intelligence tools that the DNI needed that Obama was withholding, he should have spoken up before this. Continue reading →

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Don’t be an infidel?

Posted on January 7, 2010 by David Hume

Interesting possibility that Google is engaging in self-censorship in regards to Islam. If true the motive is likely more profit that fear (via Abhi).

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