-.-
Well I've fallen out of the habit of writing regular posts and these last couple of months have been pretty quiet. Just to reassure you guys that I'm still alive and posting, some thoughts:
I ran 21km in 2 hours 12 mins woohoo! Alright it's not fantastic but I think it's pretty good for a first try.
-----People should be educated about the difference between (ethical) right and wrong and (factual) right and wrong. If you think about it, the confusion between the two is one of the main reasons why bigotry exists.
-----I'm very disappointed at the maturity of political and social discourse in Singapore. I read the Online Citizen (TOC) and some local blogs semi-regularly, and the comments are highly unedifying. Usually on one side it's just inane and unsophisticated government bashing, while on the other we have those equally mindless cult-of-PAP fanatics. Why is no more effort being expended in being thoughtful and reasoned?
I think Kenneth Jeyaratnam's National Day message was a step in the right direction: we have got to recognise that yes the PAP has brought us economic development but no there's more to it than just GDP.
-----Poets and authors and playwrights in Singapore have got to start asking the difficult questions: why else do they exist? Entertainment?
-----What on earth was our foreign ministry thinking when they said they were "happy" that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was granted amnesty for half her sentence (1.5 years now) and that she will be under house arrest instead of being imprisoned? Oh the tender mercies of Myanmar's military government. Is she now expected to be grateful?And does the foreign service not have the balls to tell Myanmar their conduct is unacceptable? Or do our arms manufacturers really need their dirty money?
-----I am absolutely enthralled by John Bayless's reinterpretations of Beatles songs in the style of Bach. Why is this genius not more widely heard?
-----I think TPO, OMM and re:mix have got to come together and talk. They're cannibalising players off each other, and there's no way our amateur music scene can support so many groups in the state it's in right now. Music-making here could be so much better.
-----From a comment I posted on someone else's blog some time ago:
Any particular set of values, of necessity, excludes others that don't agree with them. The point is that tolerance and secularism, by definition, exclude the least. Consider this statement: "the only thing I can't tolerate is intolerance".
To describe someone else as heathen is as good as saying: I am morally right, you are wrong, and therefore beneath me. It is an elitism of morality.
Labels: Life, The Universe
posted by Unknown at
10:43 am
11 Comments:
The reason the state of discourse is so dismal is pretty straightforward : Singaporeans really are that stupid. We are a nation of cud-chewers so vapid we don't even have the sense to stay out of politics if we don't understand it.
adam
why must tolerance and secularism be mutually inclusive? is it impossible for one to be both tolerant and still believe in an absolute truth (like as a devout follower of whatever religion)?
hi anonymous:
i hope you have some better moniker than 'anonymous' to get by. call me a bigot, but i don't like addressing vaporous non-entities.
it's indeed possible to be both tolerant and a devout believer in any religion. however there's often a disparity between a theoretical possibility and real life. for instance a devout muslim, however tolerant, may have problems (at the very least, a twinge of discomfort) with people eating pork and drinking alcohol next to her/him.
if we're talking about possibilities, yes it is possible. but consider probabilities, and i think to find someone who can reconcile tolerance with devout (define devout!) religious belief is improbable. not impossible, but improbable.
the problem with tolerance and religious belief is that the latter necessitates a compromise of the former. tolerance and secularism are much more natural partners than tolerance and religious belief.
Rayner, I agree with your sharp distinction between different sets of values (you say they are mutually exclusive). However I think the main point of contention is between the grounds for different values. In a secular mind, there is absolutely no barrier to choosing a different value sets, the ground is yourself, because you have the choice to choose values, or because you have not been able to see the Form of Good, or understand the categorical imperative.
Religiously, the absolute ground is God. I think the only principled religious way is to accept religious tenets in all their radicality. You have to believe that at some indeterminate point in the future the dead shall rise and be judged before God. You have to hate your father and mother and yourself to be a good Christian. Why? Because God has said so. Kierkegaard made this point very well:
"[The Greek mind] manages by saying: If a person does what is wrong, he has not understood what is right. [...] That is why Christianity begins in another way: man has to learn what sin is by a revelation from God; sin is not a matter of a person's not having understood what is right but of his being unwilling to understand it, of his not willing what is right." The Sickness unto Death, trn. Hong, p95
Christianity is a religion of the Bible. Living constantly within the many paradoxes and inconsistencies it throws up is the only principle, and to a devout Christian, his strong religious beliefs are a way of keeping personal Commandment with God rather than a social exclusion (which elitism in common usage surely means) [do you mean elitism in this sense?]
Now, as a naturalist with no belief in God, I would of course rather people did not hold such potentially anti-social beliefs, but I think religion has a consistent principle: the truth of the Bible, which comes from absolute grounds: God; and you perhaps do it a disservice if you categorically assume a naturalist view of things. I speak logically here, but I do realise the hugely anti-social view(Kierkegaard's, in truth) of religion I present here.
Now, clearly religious people and secular people are always going to be talking past each other when they logically speak of transcendence. For me as a secularist, it is always going to be about the principles of sufficient reason, Occam's razor and scientific hypotheses. For a devout man, it will always be about the Absolute Commandment of God, passed down to us through the Bible.
I think perhaps the only viable line of incursion by naturalism into religious radicality is an ability to fulfil the psychological need for transcendence.
Hope to hear your comments!
K
K, you have the advantage of me, I see. Oh well. Do introduce yourself!
The easiest point first: yes, I do mean elitism in the sense of social exclusion – a class above and separate.
I do not say that tolerance and religious belief are mutually exclusive. Tolerance is a scale, not an absolute, and some degree of tolerance is compatible with religiosity – up to the point where the religious person is blinded by his beliefs, refuses to engage in meaningful dialogue, and 'knows' that the unbelievers are destined for hell. That said, secularism and religious belief are not exactly polar opposites either, so we have both been rather lax with definitions.
I take issue with your assertion that "in a secular mind... the ground is yourself, because you have the choice to choose values, or because you have not been able to see the Form of Good, or understand the categorical imperative." A secular mind may also have a standard of morality external to and greater than himself – the good of humanity, for instance. I see it as no great loss if one were to take the substance of Christianity, replace everything about God with an impersonal Goodness, and dump all the allegory and dogma, while remaining a principled person. It is contended that by replacing God with Goodness one deprives such a system of values of any legitimacy or absoluteness. But since I'm not even sure a personal God exists, I'd much rather replace him with an impersonal Goodness that I can see as the fount of moral legitimacy, with less of the historical and religious baggage attached. At least this idea of Goodness has not been shaped by millennia of often petty and perverse doctrine.
I don't understand why Kierkegaard argues that man learns what sin is by a revelation of God, care to explain? Specifically I don't understand why it is necessarily true that it must be revealed by God – after all our understanding of God and God's will (such that it exists) is necessarily incomplete, subject to our own interpretation, and hindered by our imperfect contemplation of a perfect being.
Reining all that speculation in – hundreds and thousands of greater minds have walked similar paths and I am epically unqualified to follow in their footsteps – I should also point out that my remarks on tolerance and secularism and "elitism of morality" were made in the context of a reply to yet another George Lim letter. Unfortunately the original webpage is gone but a fellow connoisseur of idiocy has been good enough to create an archive of his forum page contributions. I refer to his 20 July 2009 letter where he says "The heathen attack religious people with the phrase: 'Get down from your high horse for we reject your holier-than-thou attitude.'" I characterised his use of the word "heathen" as an "elitism of morality", and I think you'll agree with me that it's an apt phrase.
Yes, on reflection I think Kierkegaard's argument that there are 2 contributing factors in sin – an unwillingness to do what is right and the understanding of what is right – is a great insight, whether it is true or false. The problem is very often we face imperfect people who nevertheless claim to understand what is right, such as many of the louder voices on the religious far-right.
(I also take issue with him characterising a sentence as a phrase, and for mashing up the two idioms "get off your high horse" and "holier-than-thou" in a highly unsatisfying way, but this is besides the point.)
(BTW I also think it a misnomer that they are called the "religious right"; the "religious wrong" or the "religious misguided" might be more correct - though I'm not arguing that all religious people are misguided! Some of my best friends are Christians! =P)
Though I have my own thoughts on transcendence I'm not going to address your remarks on that topic, since that's a whole different issue from what I was talking about originally (religion's place in society).
cheers!
Rayner, thanks for your detailed reply. Well, firstly I am just a passer-by, and I doubt you know me personally, so if you may I would prefer to skulk around in anonymity. :)
I agree that Mr George Lim is probably more of a moral elitist than a principled religious person. But this does not take away from the possibility of more principled forms of religious intolerance. My main contention is that given a coherent system of beliefs for both religiosity and tolerance, religious belief is incompatible with tolerance and vice versa, potentially. And I think that this potential is fulfilled time and time again.
If you may, I’d like to use these definitions
Religiosity: Belief in a divine Being/beings, and their alleged commands (e.g. Belief in God, and the Bible as his word)
Coherent/Principled religiosity: Absolute belief in a divine Being/beings, and their alleged commands. (No interpreting difficult passages like “hate your father and mother” to mean “love your father and mother less than God”.)
Secularism: Non-belief in God, or gods, or other divine entities (related to religiosity as A and not-A are related)
Naturalism: A belief that everything can eventually be explained by scientific explanation. (I’ve been using this and secularism interchangeably, as the secular non-naturalist case (say, a Platonist metaphysician) is irrelevant here)
Grounds for belief: How we obtain second-order reasons behind the first-order reasons for secular/religious actions. A grounds for belief is a method for obtaining a second-order coherent principle behind first-order reasons for actions.
As Kierkegaard says, the qualitative difference between Christianity and paganism (even Socratic paganism) is that in Christianity what is ethically wrong is readily available, revealed by God. Man either willing to obey, or is not willing to obey. In paganism, he has recourse to value-neutral reasons such as not understanding what is good, or not knowing. Christianity thus provides a very clear basis of whether one is ethically wrong or not.
Seen this way, one’s attempt to interpret the difficult statements in the Bible is really a lack of principle, because one now arbitrarily tries to make a first-order reason (radicality) override a second-order one (obedience). (This is the negative aspect of the argument) The positive aspect of this argument is that a second-order reasons (obedience to whatever religious injunction) cannot be overridden by first order ones like radicality. This positive assertion is my point. That is why tolerance cannot contain principled religiosity, because the second-order reason is to tolerate all assertions except those contradicting itself. Religion potentially contradicts this. This is why principled religiosity is potentially incompatible with tolerance, because the second-order reason is to obey the word of God, and God knows what that is!
I agree that the social religiosity in Singapore (where religion is seen mostly as a utilitarian means to strengthen the social ‘fabric’) does count as a form of religiosity. However I would like to highlight the lack of intellectual scruple in accepting this as a coherent/principled religiosity – because there are many anti-social statements against groups such as ‘idolators’ in the Bible, and the arbitrary choice of first-order reasons (e.g. social Cost-Benefit Analyses) are often used to compromise the total category of a second-order religious reason. Is a Big Mac without one beef patty, one bun and lettuce; and with added ketchup still a Big Mac? Or is it a cheeseburger?
Two aspects here: The negative aspect is that a Christian who does not believe whole-heartedly in the words of the Bible is not a principled Christian. The positive aspect is that tolerance and principled religiosity always has the potential to conflict, and indeed they often do in reality.
Now I apologise for my truncated Kierkegaard quote that may have led to some misunderstandings. In the full version Kierkegaard makes very clear that this revealed religion is the difference between Christianity and paganism, for which ethics is a matter of personal understanding. He goes so far as to assert that the paradox is a “knot” which will prevent such aberrations as speculative Christianity, for that is a pagan attempt to understand the mind of God.
I wholeheartedly agree that we can find our own Goodness apart from the whole baggage that Christianity lugs along. When I said the ground is ourselves, I should have said the second-order reasons are within our power to find or create, whereas the second-order reason for Christianity is God-given, and the only way we can appropriate is through a “leap of faith”. Secularly, the grounds/method is for ourselves to discover/create. Religiously, the grounds/method is faith in God.
Cheers!
K
Wow K this is going to be quite an epic thread by the time we're done.
Okay, first things first: definitions. Your "secularism" definition is what I'd call "atheism". A secularist merely seeks to keep government (and possibly social interactions) free from religious influence – this is the meaning that I've been referring to. I know secularism is sometimes taken in your sense as well, but since we have a more unambiguous word for it (atheism) I'd prefer we use it. I'll treat any occurrence of the word "secularism" as "atheism" in your comments.
I do see your point that "principled religiosity" as you define it and tolerance are incompatible. However most people do manage to work out some kind of compromise – I guess that's a part of not being a complete sociopath. And yes it is "intellectually unscrupulous" to call our Singaporean religious harmony claptrap "principled religiosity".
Thanks for clarifying the Kierkegaard quote. Yes indeed one defining feature of the Abrahamic religions (not just Christianity) is that they are held to be the "revealed" truth. Of course there are many problems with this – whose truth is more legitimate? How correct is our interpretation of revelation? Is the revelation to be trusted? – and one of the solutions to the last is Kierkegaard's "leap of faith". I find this no more satisfying than the "paganism" you refer to ("for which ethics is a matter of personal understanding").
Again, though, I'd like to pull the discussion away from Christianity and back to the focus on Singapore. For various reasons – rising education levels/intelligence, worldwide trends, response to terrorism/the global financial crisis/whatever – Singaporeans are generally getting more extreme in their religiosity (or indeed, lack thereof), and as you point out, "principled" religiosity is incompatible with tolerance.
What needs desperately to be pointed out is that all kinds of intolerance (principled religiosity or its counterpart, principled anti-theism) are incompatible with a society with a plurality of beliefs like ours. Intolerance is a particularly insidious and pathological form of social behaviour, because it masquerades in the respectable guise of "principled" religiosity, and because it is fatal to society.
Anyhow thanks for dropping by and leaving your thoughts!
cheers!
While flattering, I must decline the invitation to epic-ness, because I really don’t have much more to say.
Socially I agree with you wholeheartedly. A social life is a life of compromises, and to carry an idea beyond the OB markers will cause a fracture in society, especially when we are talking about something as divisive as religion.
The question I have raised is ethical in nature. How do we deal with people who we cannot reason as wrong? Where our own elimination of “an absolute being” is our own bias towards naturalism? I think one thing that follows is that we cannot claim a moral high ground over truly principled religious people, people who really live as the Koran or Bible (or L Ron Hubbard) prescribes. Whereas you have given tolerance as the necessary bias that allows for society, I think we also have a necessary bias in dealing with the principled religious. We must think of ourselves as contingently right (contingent on a naturalist world view) rather than absolutely right. We cannot untie the paradox of revealed religion anywhere, but it is especially galling to us naturalists, who want to conquer all other world views with the innate superiority of our rational tools.
The question of how ethics is to be reconciled with social pragmatism is up for debate. To deprive ethics of its prescriptive power is of course, to neuter it. But socially pragmatic goals like tolerance can be ethical. I for my part simply wish to point out that naturalists must constantly have religion as an irritating itch on the backside they cannot scratch – the moral bias towards naturalism.
Afraid it doesn’t take up the issue on the social pragmatic side of religion…I am unfortunately similarly epically unqualified to offer any opinion, but I think you are right in the analysis.
Cheers!
K
hey the very first anonymous was me, forgot to log in lol. i asked that question because i can see a certain perception of christianity (specifically) that is associated with intolerance and moral elitism, a view not helped at all by things like the AWARE saga and the debate on homosexuality in singapore.
i admit that my question wasn't a very objective one, being emotionally invested in the issue at hand, but i am currently at a hyperliberal school in the US so please forgive me for being defensive lol
heyo yihui. lol i suspected it was two different people. sign off even if you don't sign in! =)
well one problem with many christians is that they get very carried away with the advocacy of their value system (you might call it a kind of moral elitism). it gets people kinda uneasy.
to take over an avowedly secular NGO like AWARE... i think that was a huge intrusion into civil society's social space. certainly not the way to go about it even if you believe what the values they stood for were wrong. and i don't.
anyhow i've already addressed your question in the huge thread above so yeah =) hope you're having fun in your hyperliberal college!
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