{"id":4432,"date":"2010-08-01T20:07:51","date_gmt":"2010-08-01T20:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=4432"},"modified":"2010-08-01T20:07:51","modified_gmt":"2010-08-01T20:07:51","slug":"karen-armstrong-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/karen-armstrong-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen Armstrong, Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The absurdity of Karen Armstrong is a phenomenon that never ceases to amaze, and, in its own way, amuse. Here<\/a> she is in this weekend\u2019s Financial Times<\/em>, beginning her latest piece in that cracking style that is all her own:<\/p>\n

I was fully engaged with this book from the very first sentence \u2013 \u201cThis book is a journey and an initiation\u201d \u2013 because an initiation is exactly what we need at this perilous moment in history. Like so many religious terms, the word initiation has lost much of its force in modern times. But in all the great spiritual traditions, initiation signified the creation, often painfully acquired, of a new self. Classical yoga, for example, was not an aerobic exercise but an initiation that consisted of a systematic dismantling of egotism. Those yogins who succeeded in extracting the \u201cI\u201d from their thinking found that, without the distorting filter of selfishness, they perceived the world quite differently.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Somehow that brings us to Tariq Ramadan, a saint of sorts in Armstrong\u2019s PC pantheon:<\/p>\n

Tariq Ramadan, Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University and author of The Quest for Meaning, is convinced that we are all experiencing a profound loss of confidence. \u201cFear, doubt and distrust are imperceptibly colonising our hearts and minds. And so the other becomes our negative mirror, and the other\u2019s difference allows us to define ourselves, to \u2018identify\u2019 ourselves,\u201d he writes. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To which one can only retort, \u201cspeak for yourself, chum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then we get to the point and away from the Enlightenment:<\/p>\n

The \u201ctoleration\u201d that was the watchword of the Enlightenment philosophers is not enough, Ramadan argues. Toleration literally means \u201cto suffer\u201d or \u201cto endure\u201d the presence of others and implies a relationship of domination; the powerful are requested \u201cto moderate their strength and to limit their ability to do harm\u201d. But such grudging acceptance is detrimental to both the person who tolerates and the one whose presence is merely endured. What is required is respect, based on a relationship of equality. Tolerance can \u201creduce the other to a mere presence\u201d but \u201crespect opens up to us the complexity of his being\u201d.
\nIt is always a temptation to imagine that my truth is the only truth. But, Ramadan insists that there are universally shared truths that are arrived at differently in many systems of thought, secular and religious. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cUniversally shared truths\u201d. I doubt it. <\/p>\n

The rest of the piece is the usual faintly pernicious mush: the \u201cpluralism\u201d of Islam, the nastiness of \u201cegotism\u201d, the \u201cunique sacredness of every human being\u201d, \u201cglobal community\u201d, well, you know how it goes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The absurdity of Karen Armstrong is a phenomenon that never ceases to amaze, and, in its own way, amuse. Here she is in this weekend\u2019s Financial Times, beginning her latest piece in that cracking style that is all her own: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[335,442,591],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4432"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4440,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4432\/revisions\/4440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}