Robinson On Sullivan And Religious Tolerance

by tristero

Sara Robinson on Orcinus has weighed in on Amy Sullivan’s New Republic piece. I wrote about it here and don’t want to repeat what I said there. But I do want to respond to this passage that Sara wrote, as well as some others:

“…studying fundamentalist theology is almost entirely beside the point. On the other hand, studying their psychology and sociology — which a great many people have already done — and using that information to understand what they value and how they communicate will get us much, much farther.”

I strongly disagree that “studying fundamentalist theology is almost entirely beside the point.” One of the most important ways available to understand what makes christianists tick is to read and listen to what they have to say. You simply cannot understand their psychology or sociology -which certainly are extremely important – without also understanding their belief system.

Another reason to study fundamentalist theology is in order to counter it. Not to convert true believers, of course, which Sara also recognizes. No, the real audience we must persuade are the mainstream media outlets who have provided the christianists with a free pass mostly because they have been virtually unopposed theologically. They have declared themselves not fundamentalists but simply “Christians,” which they most certainly are not, and until recently, no one knowledgeable enough and articulate enough has called them on it.

In short, the mainstream media are the audience for persuasive tactics based on reason. But to persuade them is difficult, especially if you don’t know your opponent’s position in detail.

A prime example of this was the coverage of “intelligent design” creationism in the New York Times. For years, both under Raines and Keller, the Times gave these unscrupulous extremists a free pass. Kent Hovind had an admiring profile of his now defunct creationist theme park splattered all over the Times’s front page, with hardly a word of objection permitted in the article’s text by scientists, and with no indication that, among other things, Hovind had been videotaped extolling the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as a serious work. Another frontpager was when a Times reporter took some rafting trips in the Grand Canyon, one run by a creationist and another by scientists, and typed up a he said/she said, giving both views equal weight.

I’m sure I’m not the only reader who wrote in strongly objecting to this coverage. More importantly, scientifically knowledgeable opponents of creationism got their act together and studied the creationists’ “science,” amassing hoards of evidence to address the specific issues raised by the IDiots. It was made clear, not to the proponents of “intelligent design” creationism but to the reporters and editors at the Times, that there was no there there. A turning point was the verdict in the Kitzmiller trial. Since then, it is all but impossible to find in the Times any remarks by creationists that aren’t immediately caveated.

My point is this: without specifically addressing the issues raised in a knowledgeable way, which requires studying your opponent’s position and beliefs with great care, there is no way to persuade others that your opponent is worthless.

Now there are very good reasons why many good people should not bother to address creationism in a serious fashion. But someone has to. And someone must study and address the incoherent and repellent theology of christianism in a direct way. You not only provide the media with compellling reasons to marginalize these genuinely marginal beliefs, but you also publicize alternative theologies that do not hold as their goal the establishment of an American theocracy. Furthermore, you shift the locus of dispute from a defensive fight on the worthiness of enlightenment values. Instead, by knowledgeably disputing christianist theology, you place christianists on the defensive, forcing them to defend their radical theocratic beliefs. Again, the audience we’re trying to persuade is not christianists, but those who give them enough stature to advance their cause in the mass media.

Another example of why it helps to know what your opponent believes if you want to discredit them is that it can provide more fodder for important rebuttals. Here’s one case in point.

With all due respect, in her post, Sara doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that “tolerance” is a technical word within the worldview of christianist theology and they often pun between the technical and commonsense meaning. As a result, we get much eloquent prose defending the importance of speaking out in dissent of christianism (some of which is discussed below), which is certainly stirring but besides the point.

“Tolerance” to a christianist means several things, most of which they oppose. One example: When a state “tolerates” a religion, it means (to them) that the state has usurped the power to be the sole arbiter of whether a religion should be permitted (ie, tolerated) to practice without restrictions. In short, the problem with the notion of tolerance for christianists is that it is a codeword for the licensing of religious belief. The state may tolerate a religion today, but tomorrow may decide to revoke the state’s license. Christianists argue that the state has no business tolerating (ie licensing) religion, because the state derives its power from God, from whence comes all authority both spiritual (through the church) and secular (via civil government).

In short, christianism is a direct challenge to the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. It is as anti-American as Stalinism or the divine right of kings.

Now, this is an extremely powerful argument to make if your goal is not to convert the hardcore but rather make christianism a more marginal influence on American mainstream politics. In order to do so, you must convince mainstream reporters and news outlets not to be gulled into thinking these people are anything but radical extremists. And in order to do that, you simply must study works like Reverend [sic] Joseph Morecraft’s With Liberty & Justice for All: Christian Politics Made Simple or the writings of Rushdoony.

In her eloquent advocacy of speaking up to christianist nonsense, Sara writes:

Well, damn it — sometimes, people who are in error should be made to squirm a little. They should be called to account for their views, and queried thoroughly on what their agenda is for the rest of us. There comes a time when politeness has to take a back seat to the larger interests of the country…

Well, yes, of course. But then again, no christianist would disagree with what she’s written here, either. The only difference is that they think you and I are the ones who should be held to account. And they are prepared to argue that. Here is part of they waythey do that:

Christianists, like other rightwing extremists, have studied non-christianist American society very carefully. Proof? Their utilization of liberal phrases, like “free expression” or “equal rights” is one example. They then upend the conventions, throw in some obscure facts, sprinkle it with lies, and poof, they’ve given the impression that they know what they’re talking about and that their position has been thoughtfully considered. The result: they confuse the news media into permitting them to spew their propaganda unimpeded, as the media has a bias towards presenting all points of view that appear to have stature.

Finally, I genuinely have no idea what utility Sara find in Lakoff’s parent frames, which are a misleading oversimplification of what is going on. Discussed in relationship to her reactions to the sentimental scenes of Gore down on the farm in “An Inconvenient Truth” Sara fails to take into account that perhaps she found the farm life scenes ineffective in the Gore film not because they were emotional but because they were genuinely ineffective. And likewise, perhaps the reason the charts were effective was because they simply were compelling data compellingly displayed.

In other words, I’m suggesting that her reaction had nothing to do with the privileging of one Lakoffian frame over another, but simply with the limited artistic talent of the filmmaker. Sara claims that the charts meant something to her because of their intellectual appeal and the farm scenes meant little because they were an appeal to emotion. Nonsense.

I guarantee that if she saw Ingmar Bergman’s Shame, with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman, she’d walk out as shattered as everyone else who has seen it, far more emotionally moved about the horrors of war than she ever could become from a mere graphic of rising casualty rates in Iraq.

Don’t get me wrong. That is not to say that such a graphic is cold, it most certainly isn’t, but the invoking of emotional response is a complex skill, one that the filmmakers in the case of Gore simply don’t have in much abundance. Sara was unmoved not because of an unwillingness to ascribe value to an emotional frame, but because the artistry in those scenes was sub-standard. (Much of the Gore film, of course, was brilliant and deeply moving, however.) As for the Gore film being in any serious way an influence on far right evangelical environmentalism, well…I’ll believe it when I see some evidence that makes that plausible.

Lakoff is, however, correct that liberal rhetoric must be improved and drastically so. Unfortunately, vacuous notions like “nurturing parent” are part of that problem, not the solution.

I’ve criticized Sara a great deal, but I also must acknowledge that I agree with her on these points. It is vitally important that christianists never get a free pass in the media. Since their politics are central, they don’t deserve respect when they try to fend off criticism by claiming liberals, of all people, are intolerant (in our sense of the word). Christianism must be disputed. Always. We also both agree that there is no point in debating christianists although we disagree on why. Sara believes it is hopeless as you will never convince them. I believe it is not only hopeless, but it is talking to the wrong audience. I further believe an effective opposition to christianism requires a deep knowledge not only of their psychology, their sociology, and their history, but also of their beliefs, because, among other reasons, it gives opponents the opportunity to take the fight into the churches and provide congregants with a wider assortment of theologies to embrace, including ones that aren’t as ominously anti-American as christianist ones.

I’d like to reiterate what I’ve said in numerous other posts. Religion is the macguffin here. This is not a dispute about religion but politics. It is vitally important that whenever political operatives manipulate religious belief in order to deflect criticism, they be opposed. With strength and knowledge.

[A few quick updates after the original post.]