The most prominent critics of religion currently active roll off the tongue: Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, Harris, etc. I myself am often a critic of religion, but whenever I watch, listen to or read the works of one of these men, I never find myself in full agreement. Don't get me wrong, I respect some of them greatly. Hitchens I find an infinitely entertaining journalist and speaker. Professor Dawkins was kind enough to sign my copy of The Selfish Gene. But for me, religion's biggest crime today is the promotion of ignorance, not the causing of conflict, whereas the common assertion seems to be that everything from the Inquisition to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Irish Troubles is in some way its fault.
The common response: what about Hitler? Stalin? Pol Pot? These arguments are, of course, deficient. At least on the surface. Totalitarian systems, and these included, so often exploit religious iconography and convention that to call any of these 20th century examples atheist would be absurd even before we look at the connections between Stalin and the Russian Orthodox Church, between Nazi-brand fascism and Catholicism. However, they were not theocracies, either: this I am sure we can agree on. But where do the similarities come from?
Watching 2001: A Space Odyssey is a fascinating experience as it charters man's regression through progression. We discover tools, yes, and use them to murder in order to master the world. In space we are infants once more, needing to be potty trained and taught how to eat and walk again. Finally, our tools rebel, and our next stage of evolution is into a state of innocence from rationality: we return to the Garden of Eden. Whilst nobody would pretend this is a realistic portrayal of man's evolution, it is at least a symbolically sound one. What's worth noticing in this instance is not the fact the Monolith inspired the apes to use tools, but that the film post-Monolith deliberately sets up a far clearer tribal divide between the species. The fight over the watering hole becomes more obviously a battle, with well-defined armies driven by testosterone and territorial awareness.
This pattern is recurrent throughout nature. Compare the ant colony or the wolf pack with a group of sports fans. They have no real discernible difference with fans of another sports club, yet meetings often erupt into disputes and even violence. I have often found myself making derogatory comments towards fans of Newcastle or Spurs, but what really separates us in general? Upbringing and location, and no more.
This should instantly remind you of nationalism and, of course, religion. Why? Because they are essentially the same thing. The belief that one thing is inherently superior to another because of personal affinity or kinship. The killing of something by a member of its own species may seem negative and deficient in an evolutionary sense, but this is simply a fire man had to stoke in order to master the world. Through loving one thing he neglects another, and through conflict he thrives. So many medical, technological and cultural advances could not have taken place where it not for this vestigial territorialism or tsambouka, of which nationalism, family, regional identity and religion all result.It is no wonder nobody can make up their minds whether the Israeli-Palestine conflict is a religious, cultural or territorial one: they are all essentially the same thing. We are misunderstanding when we hope for an IRA gunman to read Jesus' messages of peace. Do we really believe he will shoot someone for not accepting the succession of bishops, or acknowledging the divinity of the host? No. The words "Catholic" or "Protestant" or "Unionist" or "Loyalist" or "middle-class" or "Arab" or "kike" or "nigger" or "fag" simply mean "you're on the other team." They are the Other in the Lacanian sense.
This isn't a religious trait. Nor is it merely a human one. It is rather an animalistic attribute. Religion is simply one of the many excuses for this sort of behaviour. The irony is that in setting themselves up as separate (Dennett and Dawkins are patrons/founders of the Brights movement, an attempt to assign a positive moniker to atheism in the way that "gay" was to homosexuality) intellectually and philosophically, these "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" are behaving in the same way. No, they aren't, as is often claimed by asinine critics, priests or prophets, but they are very proud of what sets them apart: McDonald's theology. As much as I like Dawkins and Hitchens, they more and more seem to fit G.K. Chesterton's description of "the village atheists shouting at the village idiots."
Tuesday 21 October 2008
Saturday 18 October 2008
The Church of Everything
Slavoj Zizek, the Marxist philosopher and critic of, well, just about everything, is fond of pointing out the oppression of today's society, but I personally feel it's a point that is often missed. Surely today's society is less oppressive than, say, Soviet Russia? Or totalitarian European states that existed prior to the English Civil War?
A western society like the United Kingdom can be represented as much as anything by the outcome of the Hegelian dialectic, the equation put forward by the German philosopher Johan Fichte that reads thesis + antithesis = synthesis. One of the most common misunderstandings about the theory of evolution is the belief that there is a difference between transitional species and the species we see around us today, this arrogant worldview that we are in some way the finished product of a previous equation. This is simply incorrect: the process is still ongoing with no end in sight, and it is equally important to remember that the synthesis of the Hegelian dialectic is always a thesis and an antithesis in a successive equation; indeed, to do otherwise is dangerous (as it among other things leads to apathy). To write the Hegelian dialectic out in full would require a blackboard the length and width of the universe itself, so for the sake of limitation we must start with a synthesis and work backwards. This is easy with Britain, as it is so obviously a halfway house between authoritarianism and anarchism, a great example of a Western libertarian society because the vestigal organs are still alive in Buckingham Palace. We enjoy many freedoms and support sensible limitations: we can dress how we like (to a point), we can speak our minds (to a point), we can have sex with whatever we want (to a point), we can marry whom we please (to a point). But again human arrogance arises: 21st century liberal democracy is right, everything that led to it is wrong.
It is easy to look back and criticise from a position of hindsight. We see Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany as the ultimate dystopias, and criticisms of them that are too late to be relevant are held up as anti-establishment thought (see V For Vendetta). In my previous posts I have mentioned how apathy posits a political problem today, but there is a philosophical assault by the liberal democracy championed by the likes of Francis Fukyama: the oppression of tolerance. It was his criticism of tolerance that first drew me to Zizek, as tolerance has always struck me as an unpleasant word, and indeed it is also an unpleasant concept.
Since I am unashamedly ripping Slavoj off here, I will use his example: a classic, authoritarian father might say to you, "You are going to visit your grandmother today, whether you like it or not." The postmodern, liberal democratic father you might find today is far more likely to say, "You don't have to visit your grandmother, only go if you want to." The obligation to go is still there, but you have to like it, too. On a larger scale, whereas in the past homosexuality was illegal, now it is "tolerated," along with criticism of it. Yes, you can go out and say queering doesn't make the world work, but you will be frowned upon. We are no longer kept in place by armed police, but by society's expectation and the inner pain it can inflict.
Is this a good thing? Well, it means that the target has moved from the homosexual to the homophobe, which is a positive. But the enforcing of it is extremely dishonest. And it is only through conditioning that we even see this as positive. The late, great pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty noted that as a teacher he was no different from the progandists that were employed in Nazi Germany. He conditioned his students so that they were no longer bigots because he believed, as do I, that it was right to do so, just as a Nazi teacher would have conditioned his students to be bigots because he believed it was right to do so. Who has the moral advantage? It lies only in the balance of the synthesis.
I once ridiculed Ann Coulter for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. In fact, she had an excellent point, whether she knew it or not. However preferable a secular democracy seems to us compared with a fascist theocracy, the enforcement of the former at the expense of what had gone before is as ironic as it is unjustifed. It's worth noting that there was never an explicit rule in Soviet Russia about criticising the communist society, but if you did you would undoubtedly disappear. Now? There is no criticism of the liberal democracy. Why? Because we no longer pander to utopias. Why? Because the 20th century seems to have borne out Antonin Artaud's belief that, since suffering is vital to human existence, utopias must always become dystopias. The truth is that nothing has changed as much as we'd like to think it has. We are still on leashes, they're just invisible now. And we are all still very, very partial to indoctrination.
A western society like the United Kingdom can be represented as much as anything by the outcome of the Hegelian dialectic, the equation put forward by the German philosopher Johan Fichte that reads thesis + antithesis = synthesis. One of the most common misunderstandings about the theory of evolution is the belief that there is a difference between transitional species and the species we see around us today, this arrogant worldview that we are in some way the finished product of a previous equation. This is simply incorrect: the process is still ongoing with no end in sight, and it is equally important to remember that the synthesis of the Hegelian dialectic is always a thesis and an antithesis in a successive equation; indeed, to do otherwise is dangerous (as it among other things leads to apathy). To write the Hegelian dialectic out in full would require a blackboard the length and width of the universe itself, so for the sake of limitation we must start with a synthesis and work backwards. This is easy with Britain, as it is so obviously a halfway house between authoritarianism and anarchism, a great example of a Western libertarian society because the vestigal organs are still alive in Buckingham Palace. We enjoy many freedoms and support sensible limitations: we can dress how we like (to a point), we can speak our minds (to a point), we can have sex with whatever we want (to a point), we can marry whom we please (to a point). But again human arrogance arises: 21st century liberal democracy is right, everything that led to it is wrong.
It is easy to look back and criticise from a position of hindsight. We see Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany as the ultimate dystopias, and criticisms of them that are too late to be relevant are held up as anti-establishment thought (see V For Vendetta). In my previous posts I have mentioned how apathy posits a political problem today, but there is a philosophical assault by the liberal democracy championed by the likes of Francis Fukyama: the oppression of tolerance. It was his criticism of tolerance that first drew me to Zizek, as tolerance has always struck me as an unpleasant word, and indeed it is also an unpleasant concept.
Since I am unashamedly ripping Slavoj off here, I will use his example: a classic, authoritarian father might say to you, "You are going to visit your grandmother today, whether you like it or not." The postmodern, liberal democratic father you might find today is far more likely to say, "You don't have to visit your grandmother, only go if you want to." The obligation to go is still there, but you have to like it, too. On a larger scale, whereas in the past homosexuality was illegal, now it is "tolerated," along with criticism of it. Yes, you can go out and say queering doesn't make the world work, but you will be frowned upon. We are no longer kept in place by armed police, but by society's expectation and the inner pain it can inflict.
Is this a good thing? Well, it means that the target has moved from the homosexual to the homophobe, which is a positive. But the enforcing of it is extremely dishonest. And it is only through conditioning that we even see this as positive. The late, great pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty noted that as a teacher he was no different from the progandists that were employed in Nazi Germany. He conditioned his students so that they were no longer bigots because he believed, as do I, that it was right to do so, just as a Nazi teacher would have conditioned his students to be bigots because he believed it was right to do so. Who has the moral advantage? It lies only in the balance of the synthesis.
I once ridiculed Ann Coulter for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. In fact, she had an excellent point, whether she knew it or not. However preferable a secular democracy seems to us compared with a fascist theocracy, the enforcement of the former at the expense of what had gone before is as ironic as it is unjustifed. It's worth noting that there was never an explicit rule in Soviet Russia about criticising the communist society, but if you did you would undoubtedly disappear. Now? There is no criticism of the liberal democracy. Why? Because we no longer pander to utopias. Why? Because the 20th century seems to have borne out Antonin Artaud's belief that, since suffering is vital to human existence, utopias must always become dystopias. The truth is that nothing has changed as much as we'd like to think it has. We are still on leashes, they're just invisible now. And we are all still very, very partial to indoctrination.
Monday 13 October 2008
A Tale of Two Countries
I must say, with all the excitement generated by our pals across the pond I almost forgot that we had politics of our own. The US elections are fascinating to watch because of how backwards they seem to us. This is not at all to say that the British governmental system is superior (see my earlier posts), but that what is and what isn't a contentious point in the US makes the candidates seem immensely prosophobic. For instance, Barack Obama was labelled a radical by Sarah Palin for taking a stance that would allow a failed abortion to continue. Going back a bit, Dennis Kucinich has long been pinned by similar labels for, among other things, advocating a national heath service. This, I was made to believe, made him among the most socialist of candidates and therefore unelectable.
I wonder how these people would respond if they were to discover that the UK, one of their greatest foreign allies, has been a socialist country since at least 1948 (and indeed one might contend that the Liberal party that was voted in in 1906 was actually a late comer in taking advantage of Keir Hardian socialist ideas). I don't remember any serious political figure even suggesting the NHS should be privitised, let alone got rid of completely. And the right to buy handguns? You'd be laughed out of the Commons.
Abortion, of course, is a contentious issue whichever side of the Atlantic Ocean it rears its head, but at least both major parties over here support a woman's right to choose. There seems to be no consensus between Republicans on this, and indeed even individuals have trouble making their minds up. Does anyone know what Rudy Giuliani's stance was in the end? Say what you like about New Labour and the Third Way, but after following American politics for a while it seems ludicrous to imagine a Catholic-sympathising (and later convert) leader of a conservative political party, as Tony Blair was, championing pro-choice and gay rights, yet an eyebrow was hardly raised in the UK because it seemed sensible. Last year was the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act (the UK's version of Roe vs Wade in that it didn't overturn a previous ruling but rather clarified it) and the resultant protesting by pro-lifers was generally regarded to be the actions of outsiders, projecting images onto the Houses of Parliament and distributing leaflets that compared abortion to the Holocaust (if memory serves, 6 million abortions had taken place in the UK since 1967). It was rather telling when the campaigners couldn't muster a single woman to represent them in a BBC interview.
But this is simply evidence of how stagnated British politics has become. We're at a key stage of ecomonic interest, Labour having in the past few months nationalised two banks, first Northern Rock and then Bradford & Bingley, yet where is the ideological bickering? I can only imagine the uproar that would have resulted in the US, judging by how every "socialist" movement (at least by the Democrats: George W. Bush, if you remember him, has just agreed to the largest socialist suggestion in US history) is treated with extreme scrutiny and suspicion. Naturally, there was criticism by the Conservatives (in the Commons and through soundbites), but it was hardly vociferous enough to be newsworthy. In fact, I had to sit through the Tory Conference in Birmingham a few weeks ago before I heard a soapbox-worthy whisper about it.
Urgh, I sort of wish I hadn't. It was one of the most patronising experiences of my life (and I realise this blog is on the verge of being purely criticism of the Tories). Highlights included banter between Boris Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a hall full of senile upper class toffs trying to figure out why there were black people blowing into their hands on stage, and Andrew Mitchell (I think, they all sort of look the same) wheeling out Uncle Tom, MP, who had a double-barrelled surname, presumably to show they weren't racist. They also played The Killers during intervals to show how this party is so, like, with it. But it was George Osborne, and only George Osborne, who led me to believe he had read a newspaper in the past four months. Unfortunately, his contest, whilst delivered with a clear, self-righteous tenor, was too contradictory to clarify anything for me. On one hand, he asserted that ten years of Labour's irresponsible free-market policies were to blame for this economic crisis. On the other, he decried the nationalisation of banks and warned of the idiocy of the Left. So not only are Labour decadent ultracapitalists, but also fiendish Marxist dogs at the same time. The crowd applauded wildly at this concise summing up of Comrade Brown and Comrade Darling, whilst I changed the channel to Fox News.
Perhaps I just enjoy being outraged. But with all the idealism gone from British politics, it's no wonder how apathetic we are. And who would have thought that apathy, rather than war, could lead to a country's downfall? Surely, not even Orwell. In my last post of this nature, I warned that the BNP is the fastest growing party in Britain. A few months down the line and Stoke seems to be the first city in England to be within Nick Griffin's conceivable grasp. A warning to any Americans: the grass may be greener over here, but it so very, very dry.
I wonder how these people would respond if they were to discover that the UK, one of their greatest foreign allies, has been a socialist country since at least 1948 (and indeed one might contend that the Liberal party that was voted in in 1906 was actually a late comer in taking advantage of Keir Hardian socialist ideas). I don't remember any serious political figure even suggesting the NHS should be privitised, let alone got rid of completely. And the right to buy handguns? You'd be laughed out of the Commons.
Abortion, of course, is a contentious issue whichever side of the Atlantic Ocean it rears its head, but at least both major parties over here support a woman's right to choose. There seems to be no consensus between Republicans on this, and indeed even individuals have trouble making their minds up. Does anyone know what Rudy Giuliani's stance was in the end? Say what you like about New Labour and the Third Way, but after following American politics for a while it seems ludicrous to imagine a Catholic-sympathising (and later convert) leader of a conservative political party, as Tony Blair was, championing pro-choice and gay rights, yet an eyebrow was hardly raised in the UK because it seemed sensible. Last year was the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act (the UK's version of Roe vs Wade in that it didn't overturn a previous ruling but rather clarified it) and the resultant protesting by pro-lifers was generally regarded to be the actions of outsiders, projecting images onto the Houses of Parliament and distributing leaflets that compared abortion to the Holocaust (if memory serves, 6 million abortions had taken place in the UK since 1967). It was rather telling when the campaigners couldn't muster a single woman to represent them in a BBC interview.
But this is simply evidence of how stagnated British politics has become. We're at a key stage of ecomonic interest, Labour having in the past few months nationalised two banks, first Northern Rock and then Bradford & Bingley, yet where is the ideological bickering? I can only imagine the uproar that would have resulted in the US, judging by how every "socialist" movement (at least by the Democrats: George W. Bush, if you remember him, has just agreed to the largest socialist suggestion in US history) is treated with extreme scrutiny and suspicion. Naturally, there was criticism by the Conservatives (in the Commons and through soundbites), but it was hardly vociferous enough to be newsworthy. In fact, I had to sit through the Tory Conference in Birmingham a few weeks ago before I heard a soapbox-worthy whisper about it.
Urgh, I sort of wish I hadn't. It was one of the most patronising experiences of my life (and I realise this blog is on the verge of being purely criticism of the Tories). Highlights included banter between Boris Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a hall full of senile upper class toffs trying to figure out why there were black people blowing into their hands on stage, and Andrew Mitchell (I think, they all sort of look the same) wheeling out Uncle Tom, MP, who had a double-barrelled surname, presumably to show they weren't racist. They also played The Killers during intervals to show how this party is so, like, with it. But it was George Osborne, and only George Osborne, who led me to believe he had read a newspaper in the past four months. Unfortunately, his contest, whilst delivered with a clear, self-righteous tenor, was too contradictory to clarify anything for me. On one hand, he asserted that ten years of Labour's irresponsible free-market policies were to blame for this economic crisis. On the other, he decried the nationalisation of banks and warned of the idiocy of the Left. So not only are Labour decadent ultracapitalists, but also fiendish Marxist dogs at the same time. The crowd applauded wildly at this concise summing up of Comrade Brown and Comrade Darling, whilst I changed the channel to Fox News.
Perhaps I just enjoy being outraged. But with all the idealism gone from British politics, it's no wonder how apathetic we are. And who would have thought that apathy, rather than war, could lead to a country's downfall? Surely, not even Orwell. In my last post of this nature, I warned that the BNP is the fastest growing party in Britain. A few months down the line and Stoke seems to be the first city in England to be within Nick Griffin's conceivable grasp. A warning to any Americans: the grass may be greener over here, but it so very, very dry.
Sunday 12 October 2008
Poem to Commemorate Liverpool, 2008 European Capital of Culture...
...(and The Fantastic Work Done By City Officials to Tackle Social Problems in Poor Areas and to Thus Ensure The Award Was Not Focused on Silly Fireworks Displays in the City Centre)
Around my berd deh do dere stand
Fellas from every city
From Bermingham to London town
And they do all smell quite shitty.
But itud be a crime to start,
To do them in right now
Aside from the fact the busies are here
Shes a ugly fuckin cow.
So me mate I only see
One possible course of action
I might end up in the nick
But at least I won’t be in traction:
Al wait until we get home
Where there won’t be quite so many
Al start a row, she’ll throw a plate
An al kick’er in the fanny.
Around my berd deh do dere stand
Fellas from every city
From Bermingham to London town
And they do all smell quite shitty.
But itud be a crime to start,
To do them in right now
Aside from the fact the busies are here
Shes a ugly fuckin cow.
So me mate I only see
One possible course of action
I might end up in the nick
But at least I won’t be in traction:
Al wait until we get home
Where there won’t be quite so many
Al start a row, she’ll throw a plate
An al kick’er in the fanny.
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