Thursday, November 04, 2004
garry wills, who has written some very interesting things in the field of classics, has some astoundingly silly and reprehensible views in today's new york times (link via memeorandum). after the william jennings bryan/scopes set up, he goes on to talk about how ignorant those crazy superstitious religious folks are. but i think he feels pretty good, because he's got the dalai lama's backing to disestablish religion. that brings wills to a question:
the question belies a certain amount of ignorance on wills' part--especially the inclusion of the word 'still'. he implies that america was originally an 'enlightenment nation', but now has given that up to become a nation of religious fanatics. mr. wills might want to try doing a little reading in early american history, where he will find a great amount of religious faith. moreover, believing or disbelieving the theory of evolution has nothing to do with america's 'enlightenment heritage', since it was a theory developed after the enlightenment and after the establishment of the united states. could we have a little chronological consistency, please? a demonstration of the awareness of the context of the american revolution? i realize that he is using evolution sipmly as an instance of the 'non-reason' of faith, but it is still a silly point; there are many intelligent and reasonable people who hold wildly different positions on the biological creation and/or development of the human species.
wills goes on to say something else quite skewed:
first of all, i'm not quite sure what he means by the 'first real democracy in history'. secondly, he expresses his love for the enlightenment in almost religious terms--'respect' for evidence, 'regard' for the secular sciences. i can almost envision him placing these items on his own little altar and paying them homage, and i'm sure he fully concurred in john edwards' and john kerry's 'belief' in science. but the most important thing he fails (or refuses) to recognize is that america was a product BOTH of enlightenment ideas AND of its religious heritage. their shared values were not solely linked to 'modernity', just as the shared values of many today are not solely linked to (post-)modernity.
anyway, his lament for america's tragic enlightenment loss allows him to lambaste conservatives:
crazy religious zealots!
but then he goes on to make an inexcusable move, appealing to our european superiors:
makes me wonder where the europeans were during the 18th and 19th centuries. anyway, we've moved from religious conservatives to fundamentalists. i always nearly laugh at this move, simply because it is false and remarkably stupid. a lot of people do the same thing with pres. bush himself. someone really should get these guys a memo--pres. bush is not a fundamentalist (if people knew what they were talking about, the differences would be obvious); he is arguably not even an evangelical. but no matter--wills can now make his predictable pronouncement:
right--so now we're more like islamic fundamentalists than westerners. he goes on:
really? do europeans fear that Christians will blow themselves up on a street corner for religious ends? do they fear that Christians will fly planes full of civilians into buildings for religious ends? if he were making a reasoned argument [what was that about the enlightenment and evidence again?] instead of a rhetorical point via equivocation, it might be worth disputing at greater length. but he's not. he ends by once more referring to american Christians as jihadists:
yes, yearning back toward the enlightenment, in whose wake, to take one exapmle, people still owned other people as property, and, even after they didn't anymore, blacks were not allowed to drink out of the same drinking fountains as whites. thank goodness the theory of evolution changed all that. oh, wait--i think there were a lot of religious people involved, including a preacher named martin luther king, jr.
what was that about tolerance again?
UPDATE: see also this remark:
and this comment on that post:
Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?
the question belies a certain amount of ignorance on wills' part--especially the inclusion of the word 'still'. he implies that america was originally an 'enlightenment nation', but now has given that up to become a nation of religious fanatics. mr. wills might want to try doing a little reading in early american history, where he will find a great amount of religious faith. moreover, believing or disbelieving the theory of evolution has nothing to do with america's 'enlightenment heritage', since it was a theory developed after the enlightenment and after the establishment of the united states. could we have a little chronological consistency, please? a demonstration of the awareness of the context of the american revolution? i realize that he is using evolution sipmly as an instance of the 'non-reason' of faith, but it is still a silly point; there are many intelligent and reasonable people who hold wildly different positions on the biological creation and/or development of the human species.
wills goes on to say something else quite skewed:
America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values -critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity.
first of all, i'm not quite sure what he means by the 'first real democracy in history'. secondly, he expresses his love for the enlightenment in almost religious terms--'respect' for evidence, 'regard' for the secular sciences. i can almost envision him placing these items on his own little altar and paying them homage, and i'm sure he fully concurred in john edwards' and john kerry's 'belief' in science. but the most important thing he fails (or refuses) to recognize is that america was a product BOTH of enlightenment ideas AND of its religious heritage. their shared values were not solely linked to 'modernity', just as the shared values of many today are not solely linked to (post-)modernity.
anyway, his lament for america's tragic enlightenment loss allows him to lambaste conservatives:
Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.
crazy religious zealots!
but then he goes on to make an inexcusable move, appealing to our european superiors:
The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past.
makes me wonder where the europeans were during the 18th and 19th centuries. anyway, we've moved from religious conservatives to fundamentalists. i always nearly laugh at this move, simply because it is false and remarkably stupid. a lot of people do the same thing with pres. bush himself. someone really should get these guys a memo--pres. bush is not a fundamentalist (if people knew what they were talking about, the differences would be obvious); he is arguably not even an evangelical. but no matter--wills can now make his predictable pronouncement:
In fact, we now resemble those nations less than we do our putative enemies.
right--so now we're more like islamic fundamentalists than westerners. he goes on:
Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.
really? do europeans fear that Christians will blow themselves up on a street corner for religious ends? do they fear that Christians will fly planes full of civilians into buildings for religious ends? if he were making a reasoned argument [what was that about the enlightenment and evidence again?] instead of a rhetorical point via equivocation, it might be worth disputing at greater length. but he's not. he ends by once more referring to american Christians as jihadists:
The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.
yes, yearning back toward the enlightenment, in whose wake, to take one exapmle, people still owned other people as property, and, even after they didn't anymore, blacks were not allowed to drink out of the same drinking fountains as whites. thank goodness the theory of evolution changed all that. oh, wait--i think there were a lot of religious people involved, including a preacher named martin luther king, jr.
what was that about tolerance again?
UPDATE: see also this remark:
The reality is that, even when they were winning, the Rationalist recognized that most of the country despised them, as witness Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, written in 1963 at the height of the Intellectual epoch. Mr. Wills seems to have forgotten the most salient fact about America, Bryan won the Scopes trial.
and this comment on that post:
What they don't understand is that more than 25% of the people voting said they were concerned with moral issues. But about 75% went against gay marriage. Plenty of people who voted for Kerry voted to define marriage.
