tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post6645971345097272482..comments2024-03-27T07:18:39.229-05:00Comments on In Medias Res: And Now...My TakeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-48040561389536450112007-12-12T18:07:00.000-06:002007-12-12T18:07:00.000-06:00It's a good deal more trivial than the other comme...It's a good deal more trivial than the other comments, but did you really mean that the occasion was precipitous, or was that a slip for propitious?<BR/><BR/>Gene O'GradyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-32328743300030457412007-12-08T14:16:00.000-06:002007-12-08T14:16:00.000-06:00Sorry, that last commment is from Jeremiah J.Sorry, that last commment is from Jeremiah J.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-77027862314443798792007-12-08T14:15:00.000-06:002007-12-08T14:15:00.000-06:00I understand your point better now Russell, and re...I understand your point better now Russell, and realize that what I said doesn't necessarily contradict it.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps the most important significance of Romney's speech will turn out to be political (rather than as an argument about the founding, American history, etc.). Romney is perhaps trying to argue that Mormons should be admitted as full participants in the American democratic order, *and* that they should be admitted as full partners in the anti-secular culture war. So naturally the left will be against that, especially people like Yglesias (an erstwhile fan of Romney) who has publicly wished that Romney would embrace his status as non-Christian and join the fight against Christian political hegemony in America, rather than add another division to the armies of the religious right. And you can see by the positive reaction, especially among the likes of Limbaugh, etc, that the right agrees that this is what is going on (though of course they're all for it). But admitting Romney and the Mormons (*as* Mormons) will once again moves the stakes out wider. The speech excluded atheists, and even non-religious believers, but it *included* Muslims, something that Limbaugh, Coulter, and others from the crudest forms of religious conervatism, would not do.<BR/><BR/>On Yglesias, I'll grant the Romney comments about Lutherans and Jews were a bit lame. But Yglesias wildly opining that the Mormon emphasis on Gethsemane makes Mitt's professions of Christianity deeply fraudulent, is well, about twice as lame. Mitt was "papering over" something that a non-Christian liberal believes should really drive a wedge between Mormons and Christians? It reminds me of Hitchens speculating that a Garden of Eden in Missouri should be really offensive to Christians in America. See, people who care little or nothing about theology or Christianity are still willing to use the former against Mitt Romney in an effort to prevent him from being viewed as a Christian. In Hitchens' case the motives were pretty bad (pushing for Guiliani), in Yglesias' a bit more understandable (wishing that Romney doesn't become another arrow in the quiver of the religious right).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-60394436113242517362007-12-08T11:48:00.000-06:002007-12-08T11:48:00.000-06:00Russell,Sorry, sort of lost my temper there. Obvi...Russell,<BR/><BR/>Sorry, sort of lost my temper there. Obviously you won't agree with everything I said -- and I'd probably use a different tone if I wrote with more consideration. (I don't think I even realized how strongly I felt until I wrote that.)<BR/><BR/>But I think where we differ is this: I don't think that line was a "bone" thrown to right-wing culture warriors, nor do I think it was thrown casually or forgetfully: I think it was the whole point. Romney's running as the religious right candidate: it's central to his appeal. His whole run is based on stoking the culture wars; unfortunately for him, for many of those who feel most strongly about them (on the right), his Mormonism puts him on the wrong side of the culture wars, however much he might agree with them on other issues. His response is to thus ramp the culture wars up further -- against secularists.<BR/><BR/>So while Romney may himself not hate secularists (a moot point in my view, just as it's moot whether George Wallace was a racist or just pretended to be to get votes), he's most definitely playing to those who do -- or, at any rate, see them as the enemy in the culture wars, O'Riley-war-on-Christmas style. Perhaps the point will be clearer if I put it slightly less strongly: Romney's trying to use the culture war to win votes, hoping voter's prejudice against secularists will trump their prejudice against Mormons. It's not just that he thinks he won't get secularist votes; he thinks that he <I>will</I> get (Republican-base) <I>religious</I> voters by appealing specifically and deliberately to their anti-secular feelings. A different thing altogether.<BR/><BR/>I don't think, btw, that you have to be a secularist to see this: for example <A HREF="http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2007/12/mitt-vs-atheist.html" REL="nofollow">Fred Clark's take</A> was very much mine.<BR/><BR/>(I apologize for opening the whole abortion/gay rights can of worms; this is probably not the context to discuss it. Let's focus on the content of this speech -- which was, in my hearing (and in to the hearing of a lot of others, secular & liberally religious alike), a deliberate attempt to play us-vs-them, while simply re-structuring the who is and isn't part of "us" for his audience.Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16524368948187746248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-90959182103473836242007-12-08T10:48:00.000-06:002007-12-08T10:48:00.000-06:00Stephen,Wow, a harsh judgment there. But I suppose...Stephen,<BR/><BR/>Wow, a harsh judgment there. But I suppose a reasonable one; the people who Romney is courting really do believe in the culture war, and intend to keep it going. I don't like the culture war, mostly because I don't think the people pushing it even have a very good understanding of how cultures work in the first place. But, if ones cards must be place on the table...well, let's face it: I'm a believing Mormon like Romney, and I'm basically unhappy with unrestricted abortion rights--as I've written before--and I prefer civil unions to gay marriage--as I've also written before--and so as banal and ill-informed as I think the speech was, "grotesque" is just a little bit further than I'm willing to go. I'd rather not consider myself a homophobic and sexist culture warrior and I don't vote for those who clearly are, but I think you're looking for more contempt from me for all those sorts of people and everything they believe in than I'm able to muster. <BR/><BR/>As for your assessment of his "freedom requires religion" line...well, I thought I made it pretty clear that I thought the best sense that could be made of it was as a bone thrown to those who "rejected the individualistic 'natural liberty' that has been long accepted as basic to American pluralism." It is that pluralism which has given atheists and others the rights and respect they have today (though I suppose who might argue--not without cause--that those rights are not yet at all what they ought to be). So, in however casually dropping that line, he's forgetting nonbelievers place in the American community, as even David Brooks noted. Does that equal "hate"? Again, that's a culture war term that I prefer not to too easily assign to any number of candidates and groups, or to fulminate about in general. Maybe Romney hates the nonbelievers; I suspect more likely that he just assumes (rightly) that they won't ever vote for him, so he can drop them. Shows a lack of imagination and compassion, but not, I hope, necessarily hate. Your mileage may vary, of course.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-7724317433157354932007-12-08T10:20:00.000-06:002007-12-08T10:20:00.000-06:00Oh, and Jeremiah: I'll grant that Matt Yglesias pr...Oh, and Jeremiah: I'll grant that Matt Yglesias probably went too heavy on the mockery in referring to Romney's praise of other religions; I mean, really, what else is a civic religion supposed to be? But then again, give me a break: "the confident independence of the Lutherans"? What does that even <I>mean</I>? And Matt rightly slammed his "ancient traditions of the Jews": so...only the traditionally observant orthodox count? I mean, sure, broadly speaking it is an "ancient religion," but honestly, those Jews who take seriously the "unchanged through the centuries" traditions Romney refers to all live in isolated communities in Israel and Brooklyn; actual Jews--even orthodox like Senator Lieberman--are the inheritors of change, not unchanging ritual.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-62056429855194676432007-12-08T10:12:00.000-06:002007-12-08T10:12:00.000-06:00Anonymous and Jeremiah,You both seem to assuming t...Anonymous and Jeremiah,<BR/><BR/>You both seem to assuming that I think there's something wrong with John Adams's point about the need for a "moral and religious people." But I don't think there's anything wrong with the claim he made; on the contrary, I call his words "completely accurate," and I have no problem with Romney using them. What I'm bothered by is the way he immediately moves from Adams's claim to what I would insist is an, at best, fairly puerile statement about freedom in general and religion in general. That's NOT what Adams had in mind; what he had in mind was a host of religiously informed classic republican assumptions about virtue, interest, community, and so forth. Plugging the constitutional framework Adams praises into such a broad presumption, while at the same time only having advocated just the simplistically "republican" policies, suggest to me that it's either pure pious boilerplate or it's red meat thrown to the theocons--a culture war stab against atheists and others. Jeremiah, you make a good point about religion and those behaviors presumably necessary for freedom, but again, what you're really talking about is the <I>fruits</I> of morality and religion. Sure, maybe you can't have those fruits without some serious theology--and I would almost agree with that, so long as I could insist in that what we're talking about is actually the <I>contestation</I> over serious theology. But since I don't see Romney talking about contestation and pluralism, but rather congenially-but-perhaps-not-really talking about how all faiths support a common moral tradition, I can only assume that, again, he's aping theocon language, which has unfortunately become pretty prevalent amongst Christian conservative primary voters.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-36779146018012122822007-12-08T09:37:00.000-06:002007-12-08T09:37:00.000-06:00I think you're being way too kind here. I'd say (...I think you're being way too kind here. I'd say (and I'm hardly alone -- this is the reaction of most of the left blogs I've seen) that Romney was pretty blatantly trying to re-draw the lines of bigotry. He couldn't just take the individual conscience route, because he's explicitly trying to appeal to the religious right, for whom imposing their conscience on others is fundamental.<BR/><BR/>So he had to try and frame things so that one group the religious right hates (Mormons) is in but another (secularists) is out. He won't talk theology (because that would remind his audience of what they dislike about him)... except precisely where convenient.<BR/><BR/>And his "Freedom requires religion" line may be patriotic piety, but it's hardly anodyne: it's an attempt to say, hey, at least we all hate the atheists, right? Without drawing a comparison between the level and nature of discrimination (historically or currently) otherwise, it's like saying, hey, we may be Catholics, and you may hate Catholics... but at least we all hate the Jews! (Of course Romney was drawing the lines to include Jews... just exclude atheists and, <A HREF="http://www.samefacts.com/archives/religion_and_politics_/2007/12/more_on_mitt_the_bigot.php" REL="nofollow">probably</A>, polytheists like Hindus. But it's just as odious.) <BR/><BR/>And, of course, my outrage -- like the outrage of Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein and all the others I've seen -- is probably just what Mitt wanted: by outraging secular liberals, he helps show the non-Mormon religious right that he's "really one of us". Our howls are music to his ears.<BR/><BR/>I always like your writing, and you always take an interestingly contrarian point of view: but I feel you're loosing the essence here, which is to try to smooth over one group hate by appealing to another. (More than one if you count the homophobia he's courting as part of his religious appeal, and the sexism inherent in his anti-choice position, etc.) It's a grotesque performance, and I'd hope to see you acknowledge as much.Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16524368948187746248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-48138228052598347172007-12-07T19:25:00.000-06:002007-12-07T19:25:00.000-06:00I know I'm a Mormon, with all the in-group affecti...I know I'm a Mormon, with all the in-group affection that that entails, but I was quite taken aback by Yglesias's respose. It really is horribly uncharitable--it's "just silly" to say you respect the frequent prayers of Muslims? This is after all one of the five pillars of Islam, and something quite distinctive. What's so silly about saying you admire that?<BR/><BR/>Your point about the context and philosophical background of Adams' claim is very important, but I think that there is a more general sense in which people can still think that the Constitution was made for a moral and religious people, and that freedom requires religion. That's true even when it's not specifically the freedom to do good, but merely the freedom to do what you want, consistent with the same freedom of everyone else. Perhaps libertarian freedom needs religion, too. For example, the staggering percentage of Americans in prison (which isn't a good thing for freedom, whether it's liberal, republican, or some other version), does perhaps have something to do with many Americans failing to be a "moral and religious" people. At least that's a plausible interpretation of the situation, even if we've gone beyond classic republicanism and aren't about to bring it back.<BR/><BR/>The strange thing to me is that saying the Constitution is made for a moral and religious people is perhaps only given evidence in the text itself by the fact that Constitution makes no positive mention of religion, and no mention of morality, natural law, human rights, the family or other associations (i.e. the Constitution *needs* morality, religion, the family, etc. because it does nothing by itself to promote or provide for these things!). One could look at say, the German constitution and this difference becomes quite striking. You could also go directly to Madison, who rejects out of hand morality and religion as possible checks on factional strife.<BR/><BR/>Jeremiah J.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-64454846813854256612007-12-07T17:47:00.000-06:002007-12-07T17:47:00.000-06:00Russell,It's not clear to me how you feel Romney i...Russell,<BR/><BR/>It's not clear to me how you feel Romney is misreading Adams. In his disagreements with Franklin and Jefferson while the French Revolution was ramping up, one of the points of contention was whether the anti-clerical component would result in a more complete and pure revolution (where the American Revolution stopped short) or whether it would throw the baby out with the bathwater, producing a moral groundlessness that would welcome anarchy and/or despotism. Whether he was right or wrong, Adams felt that a religious population was a necessary concommitant with political liberty. <BR/><BR/>That doesn't mean that Adams would necessarily favor school prayer, nativity scenes outside courthouses, and "In God We Trust" on the currency. But the idea that a secular society would equally (or better) secure liberty is something he'd almost certainly deny, along with Romney.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com