Positive Liberty

Welcome to the February 28, 2007 edition of carnival of citizens. The theme of this edition is “church and state,” and many of the contributors indeed wrote on topics touching on religion and government. Many others didn’t. That’s okay; I’ve tried to include one post from all contributors, usually on the topic I liked the best in the cases where I had to decide.

At least, I included every post that wasn’t obviously spam. (My god, people spam blog carnivals?)

Update: Somehow I missed a post, from longtime blog neighbor Mark Olson, no less.

Olson writes in response to Richard Chappell (below) on religion, reason, and the public square. It’s a provocative challenge, I think, and I look forward to Chappell’s response:

Christianity for example has (at least) two major arcs of theological thought. One via Clement, Augustine, and Aquinas is in basic agreement with Mr Chappell, that the Christian faith is amenable to reason. Another current, via Irenaeus, the Cappadocians (Basil, Gregory, Gregory, and John), Dionysus, Maximus disagree (disclosure here, I’m a recent convert to this second current). Faith for them is not amenable solely to nous (reason). Does it therefore follow that the Eastern tradition is not permitted in the public square? The second problem is this, is that my guess would be that Mr Chappell probably does not include Roman Catholicism, Augustine/Aquinas notwithstanding, into the subset of religions which are “based on public reason”. If not, what religions practiced today are so included? If that set is null, then this argument is dishonest one, proposing that for religious believers to debate in the public square they must adhere to a religion not practiced by men.

I would hazard a guess, though it’s only a guess, that religions are only genuinely participating in public discourse to the extent that they are able to reach out to people who do not share these ineffable insights: If we already share them, then we are participating with you in a set of private discourses, or in a set of private meanings that can’t be expected to appeal to people with a different (but no less strongly held) set of private and ineffable beliefs.

Carnival of Citizens founder Richard Chappell presents Religion and Deliberation at Philosophy, et Cetera. He writes,

As a deliberative democrat, I hold that we should promote informed deliberation among citizens, in hopes that the best-justified positions will ultimately carry the day.

Receptivity is a key value here: it’s vital to note that public debate is not merely another instrument of power, manipulating others to do as you want. Rather, it is seen as a co-operative, rational enterprise…

So, where does religion fit into all this? I guess that depends on the nature of the religion, and the way one tries to bring it into politics. If one’s religion is based on public reason, then I see no problem in principle. For example, if you think that God’s hand is evident in nature, and his perfect character transparent to reason, then you may try to bring me to see this. If there are good reasons to think that scripture provides an accurate moral guide, then you can share those reasons with me. We might argue about the correct interpretation, or even about whether the purported Holy Book is a relevant guide at all, but those are issues to be settled through deliberation; the answers are not “given”, or something we can know prior to inquiry. They are entirely appropriate for public debate.

On the other hand, the more dogmatic forms of religion have no place here, for they are inconsistent with civic respect.

I might add that many — including the American founders — seemed to believe that, while God’s hand was certainly evident in nature, human beings were often quite bad reading it. The “perfect” character of the Deity, “transparent to reason” sounds much more like the French Revolution’s idea of the Supreme Being than like the American Revolution’s providential but distant and enigmatic God.

Adam presents Radical Islam in the UK posted at Sophistpundit.

It’s an important subject, and the role of radical Islam is one of the key questions in church/state relations today.

This is a good time to note in passing the debate taking place over Ayaan Hirsi Ali among a group of high-caliber intellectuals: American historian Timothy Garton Ash takes a somewhat condescending view, suggesting that Enlightenment fundamentalism is not necessarily any better than other fundamentalisms. French philosopher Pascal Bruckner begs to differ, writing,

The difference between her and Muhammad Bouyeri, the killer of Theo Van Gogh, is that she never advocated murder to further her ideas…. It’s not enough that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has to live like a recluse, threatened with having her throat slit by radicals and surrounded by bodyguards. She… has to endure the ridicule of the high-minded idealists and armchair philosophers. She has even been called a Nazi in the Netherlands. Thus the defenders of liberty are styled as fascists, while the fanatics are portrayed as victims!

Very true. Bruckner covers a lot of territory in the essay, and I’m not sure I can agree with him on the advantages of the French church/state relationship, which is centralizing and often compulsorily secular — but if you want a good solid aphorism, the kind that makes you read philosophy in the first place, it’s hard to do better than his “In politics as in philosophy, the equals sign is always an abdication.” The rest of the debate can be found here.

On a closely related note, Madcap presents Multiculturalism: Islam’s WMD, posted at The Global Conservative. He suggests that liberalism — not just identity politics, but even open-borders cosmopolitan liberalism — is the unwitting tool of jihadists. It’s a strong rebuke to someone like me, though I’m not sure I qualify as a “gnostic,” a term he also invokes. A subject for further reading, I think.

Phil B. offers Recycle a Penny for Two Cents « Phil for Humanity at Phil for Humanity, saying, “The United States of America spends 1.73 cents to make a one cent coin and spends 8.74 cents to make a five cent coin. That’s right, it costs more money to make a penny and nickel than they are worth!” It’s a topic I’ve covered myself — though Phil does not consider my own pet solution, which is to let the value of the penny and the nickel float. (Totally unworkable in most practical cases, yes, but it would illustrate many interesting principles about commodity and fiat money and be a field day for Austrian economists, who at long last deserve one.)

Jack Yoest presents Exxon and Global Warming and Capitalism posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, “‘Exxon, the sign of the double cross,’ quipped one leftist wag. The oil energy giant is often maligned by anarchists, non-capitalists and environmentalists. No matter what a Fortune 500 does, it will be maligned by socialists.”

Since I’ve outed myself as a moderate on global warming — I think it’s real but am uncertain of its extent and doubt that we should act immediately — I don’t have a lot to say. I’m not strongly motivated on the issue as some people are, just doggedly skeptical.

John considers Prince’s Subtle Anti-War Statement During Halftime at The Largest Minority. I didn’t see the halftime show — didn’t see the Super Bowl, come to think of it — so I can’t really comment. The close reading of pop lyrics, though, is interesting in its own right.

Rickey Henderson presents Shhhh! He’s Pondering! posted at Riding with Rickey, attempting to get into President Bush’s head regarding the troop surge and why such a small decision took so long to make.

Omyma presents The Opium of the Cheap Shot posted at thinkbridge. He comments, “This article is not philosophical in presentation, but does present a philosophical argument regarding the relationship between religion and politics. If it seems too flip, I can do a much more academic version of the same idea: the co-dependence-plus-necessary-independence of religion and government.”

I have to confess that I found the writing rather stream-of-consciousness and that I didn’t understand a lot of it.

Credo writes on Barack Obama and Illinois’ segregationist history at Fort Wayne African-American Independent Woman. I’ve often seen the claim that there need to be more local-interest blogs, and that we could learn many interesting things from citizen-journalists with an eye to local events. This is just one example of what I hope will be a trend in that direction.

In another example of localblogging, Riversider presents Riverworks, Who Stands to Gain: Property Consultants or the Environment? at Save The Ribble, a single-issue blog opposing development on its eponymous river.

And, in a third piece of localblogging, Steve Faber presents When Will It All Stop??? at DebtBlog, about a 20-time convict who is still out on the streets.

Barry Leiba recommends Reality-Based Government at Staring At Empty Pages. He addresses the issue of what it means to have a president who believes himself to be chosen by God. Bonus: Monty Python. Yes, I suppose you can see where this one is going….

Shankar presents Freedom for Blasphemy at Shankar. In a series of short observations and aphorisms, he makes the case that religious freedom, moderation, and even progress all depend on blasphemy:

When blasphemy is banned the moderatists will lose, and the fanatics will win. The fanatics will narrow and narrow their world view as their power grows to such an extent that the slightest disagreement from the moderatists will result in the killing of the moderate who disagrees with them.

RuthJoy at Detocqueville’s Daughter argues that Democracy Needs Religion. The heart of her post seems to be the following argument:

The Judeo-Christian tradition recognizes the dignity of each human person – believer or nonbeliever– as a creature of God. Without religion, we are left only with dignity by virtue of our citizenship, a dignity that is granted by the state. And a dignity that is granted can be withdrawn or withheld.

I agree entirely that a dignity granted is a dignity that can be withdrawn. Yet I can’t quite agree that we citizens get our dignity from our government.

In Lockean systems like ours, the citizens invest the government with whatever dignity it may possess. We don’t obtain our dignity through citizenship; we have it by the natural fact of being human. We extend this respect, or this worth, to the government insofar as the government acts to secure our rights and not to violate them egregiously. You and I may disagree about whether human dignity comes from God or from some other fact about life. For that matter, I may find religious forms of dignity unconvincing or even downright undignified. But as long as we accept that our government is merely an instrument of the people, it can neither confer nor withdraw any real dignities.

While we’re on the subject of Locke, and of the right of citizens to alter or abolish their governments, consider the following provocative introduction:

An attempt to take the life of a maniacal dictator and mass murder is just one of the many dilemmas that pose a serious challenge to one of the main aspects of modern ethical theory: the dichotomy between consequential and non-consequential approaches to ethics. Consequential ethical theories quite simply focus on the consequences of decisions as the most important factor in deciding correct actions, while non-consequential theories focus on the actions themselves, not the consequences. What should be more important, the ends or the means of an action? The theology and ethical theory of the Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) connect the two seemingly contradictory approaches to ethics into a practical Christianity that is involved in the present reality of this world.

Bryan Norwood examines the historical plot on the life of Adolf Hitler in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theology and Ethics posted at Movement of Existence. How should a Christian approach assassinations, coups, and revolutions? He makes the case for Bonhoeffer’s radical political engagement under some of the most extreme conditions imaginable.

J.C. Wilmore explores the ugly side of the Republicans’ “southern strategy” in Confederates in the Attic, posted at The Richmond Democrat. More and more, the southern strategy looks like a losing proposition to me, I have to say.

D.A.N. discusses what it means to respect the U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq, even if one doesn’t agree with the war or its conduct. His post is called “Respecting those Affected by War,” and it’s posted at Sights & Sounds from the Fifth Column.

Rick Pearcey presents O’Reilly, Letterman, and the Culture War at The Pearcey Report. He argues that the United States is in a war for its survival against secular liberals, and he uses the confrontation between Bill O’Reilly and David Letterman to demonstrate it. Yes, even “nice” people like David Letterman:

It is also important to understand that even nice secularists can become part of the problem, as it were, because the more consistent they are with their inadequate worldview, the less humane they will be in their societal interactions and politics. Thus, otherwise reasonable people can become the social equivalent of destructive fanatics insofar as they are committed to, or in the grasp of, an unfortunate vision of life. Those secularists who have imbibed their worldview from the surrounding naturalistic consensus will nevertheless find themselves drifting downstream with the current of the culture. And they may not like what they see drifting along with them in the water.

Human flotsam?

Jeffrey offers some policy suggestions in Top 5 Reforms Nobody’s Talking About, posted at The Soggy Liberal. He veers off into hyperbole at the end, but I do think his suggestion #2 is both reasonable and achievable.

Jon Swift takes a look at his Blogrolling habits over at that reasonable, conservative blog known as Jon Swift. He writes, “A couple of years ago New York Magazine examined who linked to whom in the blogosphere and they discovered that A-list blogs tend to link mostly to other A-list blogs. This elitism strikes me as strangely un-liberal and un-democratic. Ironically, major conservative bloggers are on average more inclusive of smaller blogs than major liberal bloggers.”

Charles H. Green presents The Cost of Freedom, the Savings of Trust posted at Trust Matters, saying, “Half the US economy is nothing but transaction costs, because we don’t trust each other. If we don’t learn how, those costs could eat us alive.”

It’s far from clear to me, initially, that we would want to dispense with the economy of trust. After all, trust is an economic value, just like any other, and I might well want to pay good money for it, even if it means accepting the security of, say, a brand name, and foregoing the possibly “better” product just down the road.

Obadiah Shoher gives us Bold Face, posted at Samson Blinded. It argues that European nations still owe America a debt from World War II, and that the goodness we extended to them in the 1940s was perhaps overgenerous — It certainly hasn’t produced reliable allies:

The US fought essentially for Britain in WWII, the European war of no particular interest to America. Hitler, if anything, praised America for successful racial segregation. Germany economically cooperated with America and provided bulwark against communism better than any Latin American dictatorship the US courted after the war. Still, the US entered the war on Britain’s side. Now the UK pulls its troops out of Iraq – admittedly, a lost venture, but a venture with the best partner Britain could get. Instead of slapping the UK with revocation of its status of “America’s man in Europe,” the United States government welcomes the British move as a sign of successful pacification of Iraq. Who is expected to buy that lie?

The politically correct American empire shies from demanding loyalty, and receives none.

To this I have to point out that Hitler did declare war on us, just four days after his allies attacked U.S. territory. It wasn’t as if we sat down and chose sides on that one; even if it had been more expedient, in the name of anti-communism, to side with Germany in World War II, that option was hardly available.

Gella Solomon sure knows how to make me sit up and take notice. She writes as follows:

What really gets me is that people can one minute be going on and on about how I am one of the most intelligent and aware people that they have ever met, and the second they catch wind of my politics, they immediately jump to “How could you believe something so ridiculous and stupid?” rather than, going by their previous, supposedly objective assessment of my intelligence and awareness, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I have good reason to think the way that I do.

Her post is called Sic Temper Tyrannis, and it can be found at Beyond The Near. She concludes with the following, which might just be a credo for the Carnival of Citizens as it was first envisioned:

I’m tired of it. I’m tired of assumptions and labels… I’m tired of making the arguments and then having them not refuted but ignored. I’m tired of pointing out the misinformation and still seeing it disseminated as fact. I’m tired of slogans and “Who can shout loudest” competitions, of “everybody scream if you think I’m right” and “Put your fist in the air if you agree” with no thought for the fact that someone might actually dare to have a different thought. What makes me the most tired is that I have no reason to think that this will change any time soon.

Her particular apostasy? Being a Republican.

This concludes the Carnival of Citizens, and I hope you found many posts that were worth your time. I’m closing the comments on this post so that you’ll leave your replies at the authors’ sites instead. Many discussions are underway already.

Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of citizens using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags:

carnival of citizens, blog carnival.

Trackback URI |