An Objectivist and a Relativist Walk into a Bar [Pt. 2]

On religion and reason: a request for clarification [Aug 29, 2006 11:27 PM]

Dear Adam,
I apologize for the tardiness of my reply. In no small part it has been because I have been busy adjusting to this program and this city, beginning my studies in Latin (to continue studying the Renaissance, incidentally) and finding a comfortable study routine, but this is not the primary reason that I have not replied. There are, of course, evenings and weekends when I am relatively free to pursue my fancies and I have spent several of these drafting an appropriate response to your last letter, but none of them were fit to send without first explaining my personal and professional dilemma over our dialogue, and asking for some clarification as to the definitions which orient our discussion. Today, upon receiving the message that Shane had received our conversations, I realized that we have an audience to inform, decided to ignore all previous attempts and start writing afresh.

As I am almost sure you know, I am professionally and personally dedicated to the study of religion and particularly to New Religious Movements (meaning ones from the last 200 years or so and usually American ones), which I argue have been grievously ignored in the academy. Thus any discussion of what religion is and how it affects (and effects) human life is of great importance to me. So if you want to keep discussing this topic I might, with occasional pauses for moral panic, continue discussing it with you forever. I am, in fact, happily (though involuntarily) taking one of my graduate seminars in the history of the field with a professor who is almost obsessively dedicated to examining the wildly divergent definitions of religion which have been posed by scholars of religion since the discipline took its earliest recognizable form some time in the mid-nineteenth century.

There is one article on this subject written in 1901 by James Leuba which I recently read and which I think may interest you. It proposed that even at that early date definitions of religion had spiraled out of control. In the attempt to find what made every one of the things which seemed to be religions fit under one heading (particularly particular forms of Buddhism and certain indigenous practices which do not have spiritual concerns as we tend to discuss them, points to which I will return often) a ridiculous variety of divergent and imperfect definitions had already emerged. His appendix, the part I think youll enjoy most, includes 50 some of them. Following his criticism of the field, some more recent scholars like J. Z. Smith have proposed that because this category of religion-in-general was created by people working to compare religions, it is a category that is ours to debate, without reference or responsibility to religious people and their perspectives, a nexus for in-fighting and nothing more.

From your previous letter you seem to have a clear category for religion-in-general in your head, and while I am somewhat less confident than you in this, I will also not follow the Smiths and Leubas in giving up so easily. Nor, as it turns out, will the professor of the class who characterizes himself as a moderate realist. I think there is a general range of human tendencies which makes most sense when clustered together as separate from others, and which contains all of what is commonly thought of as religious, though, as I will explain, it also contains some surprises, a few of which are very relevant to our discussion.

In trying to find a definition which encompasses indigenous religion in Nepal, the Pope's Catholicism, Transcendentalism, and American Buddhism (only half of which appeal to any unseen order, and only one of which has a God as we might recognize it) I have found a provisional definition which seems to circumscribe my subject matter. Though I am fond of Paul Tillich's definition of religion as "ultimate concern," this seems to leave out so much that could be well contained in a pithy phrase, like the fact that religions are dynamic entities, and that they motivate more than just "concern." As far as I can tell there is a clear category of "communities in embodied dialogue on significance." As far as I can tell, this circumscribes the four movements listed above and all of the others that seem to me importantly religious. I will admit, though, that I am a rank novice, still very much a graduate student, and this is only the definition which I am currently testing against my data. I will find another if it falls apart, or reject the enterprise of definition entirely if I must, though I, like you, believe that the category does make sense under some rubric.

Though epistemologically valuable, for my work this sort of definition is somewhat ethically problematic because I am studying groups like the Kabbalah Centre and the Ordo Templi Orientis, neither of which claim to be religions. I bring all of this up because though, like Marxist discourse, Objectivist discourse defines its work against religion, I find it impossible to discuss it as anything else. I realize that you will contend that Objectivism is not a religion because it is based on pure reason, and I will not debate that here, but only add that irrespective of what its origins were, it functions as a religion in the lives of its adherents.

But you see, because I am slowly becoming an ethnographer of religion, I usually operate under the assumption that the terms which people apply to their own world are very useful in understanding those worlds, and tend even to say things like true in the eyes of the believers, though I suspect that this is only padding and I will soon give it up. So I didn't know how to say that I can only understand your anti-religious discourse as religiously motivated. But in the end I realized that the discussion is too valuable to end in silence (yet, at least), and as someone dedicated to philosophy I trust that you will be discursively offended at worst. But I would have the issue resolved if I could, so if you have a definition of religion which would include all of the groups which you would classify as such but which would exclude Objectivists, I would appreciate it if you would send it to me as the basis for further discussion.

For now I have decided to enter the moral and professional gray-area of attempting to contradict what seems to be a religious statement, even a doctrine. My paradoxical and temporary pardon is in the fact that if I were to take you at your word and agree that you were not in fact a member of a particular religious group, I would have no professional obligation to accept your terminology, but I will, of course, explain why I would make such a claim and in doing so I will attempt only to reference a group which I suspect you will agree is a religion: Catholicism.

First of all, I suspect that you will acknowledge that Objectivists form a rather different sort of social group than Hegelians or even Foucaultians (though on that second point I would not be surprised by a refutation which would render myself at least a very lax believer). There are discussion forums for Objectivists both in person and online which return in their discussions to the writings of one writer more than any other, and when they leave these forums, many of their participants use the ideas gained in these closed dialogues to make and understand their decisions. Objectivism is a dialogue around a shared set of terms, themes, and important questions which informs nearly every aspect of many peoples lives.

I am reminded how in previous letters you employed many arguments which began by defining words, for instance "morality," and "art" in terms which, though I am not certain if they were quoted directly from Rand or not, were traceable with relatively arm chair research to fairly insular circles of inter-Objectivist discourse. More importantly, though, your practice of posting press releases from the Ayn Rand institute directly in the shared myspace seems to indicate that you understand these as of general interest and importance, not only valuable for your life, but for life in general. You seem to enter inter-Objectivist dialogue to learn things which help you understand every possible facet of life.

Though you might contend that each of the quotations which you employ has been rigorously evaluated irrespective of your historical fondness for Objectivist thought, and that it is thus not a manifestation of religion, I think any Catholic would assert the same. (If you also reject the term Objectivist as accurately descriptive of your life conducted in dialogue with Rands writings, please tell me. Not knowing better I am only using it as a shorthand here.) A Catholic is not, of course, some one who thinks that every Papal Bull is absolutely correct, but someone who lives a life which these documents and the traditions surrounding them help to orient, someone who has not rejected so many Papal Bulls that they stop caring what the Pope wants. I assume of your tendency to consult Rands writings and those of those who tend to agree with her, just as I assume of any Catholics Catholicism, that it could end gradually or abruptly through a series of disagreements. But it seems that you have located the community of thought by which you orient yourself, and that it is the first place you look when making decisions large (career choices or voting, perhaps) or small (the selection of images for your myspace profile).

I think it is important, as well, that these communities of dialogue motivate bodily action. Though this includes typing and mouse-using, I suspect that it encompass much more in your life, and am certain it does for others. I know you have been reading, defending, and living through Objectivist thought at least intermittently since high school. If your reflections and behaviors regarding sex, art, economics, and politics have been overwhelmingly oriented around the writings which have collected in one group of people, I have a very hard time understanding that as anything but religious behavior, unless we are going to release the Catholics from the category as well.

Of course, I am not suggesting that you stop orienting yourself in this way any more than I would attempt to convince a Catholic not to do as they do. In fact, I am a small to medium sized fan of Objectivism and have had to repeatedly defend Rands writings as coherent, viable, and valuable, though I disagree on several critical points.

By tracing further these sort of indices for life lived in communal dialogue, I tend to disagree with your contention that the Renaissance and Enlightenment were some how counter-religious. Of course, there are those scholars who would claim that no such periods ever took place, or took place to any great effect, but I agree with your assessment of these as periods of great change. As you may have noted, the Renaissance Humanist Johannes Reuchlin is the only hero I listed on my myspace profile. I am personally convinced that both his work and that of the period he exemplified are foundational to the best of our world today. I think Humanism is good. For better or worse, though, it cannot be divorced from the religious worlds of those who participated in it, and in much more overt ways than I have just argued regarding your life.

But I will return to my hero in a moment. I cannot say very much on the Enlightenment because it just isn't my area, though I hope I will have some more to say after this semester. It is well known that there were efforts of Deists and others to remove religion from the sphere of politics (and thus to define a sphere of politics), and even a great outcry in this period against "priestcraft" as a deceiving force, but it is also fairly clear that several of these voices emerge from, and all of them were in constituative dialogue with the religious movements of their time period. There is no Spinoza without his Jewish background, and there is no Jefferson without his blasphemously (and I think brilliantly) chopped Bible. Religion gave these people a set of important questions and a canon of acceptable sorts of evidence, and they gave answers which transformed those religions, and for the most part the major thinkers of that period retained world-views which referenced the super-human in very real ways. That much I could footnote. If you would like me to give more specific data on the subject, though, I heard a fantastic lecture on the topic by David Sorkin while at Emory and would be glad to scan you a copy of the accompanying article, though I would ask that you not distribute it for copyright reasons.

The Renaissance I know a little better. Consider Reuchlin. The very image of the Renaissance scholar, Johannes was one of the most visible exemplars of the trilingual ideal which had so much to do with the emergence of the philologically driven academy, and thus with the philological critiques of the Bible later advanced by Higher Criticism. He was also dedicated, with Erasmus and against Luther, in following the upwelling of interest in Greek philosophy in the Muslim world over the preceding centuries. He argued, in fact, that many facets of the truth once known by the Greeks were now buried under superstition and institutional detritus. Following Pico della Mirandola (who would also make the hero list if I wanted to be a little less conservative), he sought out even those philosophers shunned by the Church in his attempt to find a great Truth, and praised the intellectual and moral capabilities of the human. And progressing far beyond his mentors, Reuchlin vocally and practically opposed attempts by the Church to suppress other religious groups. In 1510 a Dominican monk and convert from Judaism, Pfefferkorn, attempted to have all Jewish books (at least, in conservative attempts, all Talmuds) confiscated and destroyed under trumped up and already worn-out charges of blasphemy. In opposing this injustice, Reuchlin employed fact-driven arguments crafted in rigorous reference to Greek philosophy, and was victorious. This attempt has been well defended as the opening of an Inquisition that never happened. There can be no discussion of Renaissance resistance to religion without reference to this sort Humanist, and I would argue, this one in particular. But it was an effort which he conceived of as an advancement of Christianity, an effort to make the Church better, and not to destroy it: "I have suffered innocently for many years because of my very great wish to strengthen the orthodox faith and my most ardent desire to enlarge the Catholic Church, because I felt that those who were outside the faith, the Jews, Greeks and Saracens would not be attracted to us by insults. I consider it unbecoming of the Church to drive them to holy baptism by tyranny or severity." This is Renaissance Humanism, a movement within a larger, and distinctly religious, discourse, apart from which it is meaningless.

It is possible, of course, that this letter was duplicitous and that he was in fact trying to forward a Humanism which had no need for the Church, but given the date of the letter (1518) one would expect him to at least reject Rome and join the early Protestants if that was his intent, if not proclaim Atheistic Reason.

Sadly, Reuchlin is, for the very religious drives which I have cited, so often denounced as "not a philo-Semite," and not really a Humanist at all. Perhaps not, but he drove the Humanist enterprise forward, and for that I think he deserves praise even beyond that due to more or less decent people. Personally, I refuse to abandon the humanism of the periods which you have rightly praised just because they were not motivated by miraculously objective and non-constituted logics. Whether or not these were rational moments or Enlightenments, these were certainly periods of "rationalism," and good came out of them, but rationalism is a tendency within the sort of insular discourses which I characterize as religious ,and which I think you would also find religious at least in this period.

Also, in reference to your previous letter, there were certainly periods in Muslim history marked by great, if also religiously driven and oriented, rationalism. My personal favorite thinker is al-Farabi, particularly as reflected and refuted in the work of the 12th century Jewish philosopher Maimonides. But I am biased. I just really love Maimonides.
Again, my premise is that religions are "communities in embodied dialogue on significance," not that it necessarily involves a supernal world (without which many Buddhisms and even a few Judaisms can thrive), or even "the reflections of [humans] in their solitude," and under this heading as well as several others I take seriously I think Objectivism should be classified. And again, if you have a better definition please offer it. (If you give me your non-myspace email address I will happily send you the Leuba article, it is a century old, but it is a fine place to start if only for its perhaps comical cataloging of definitions.) Rand's definition in whatever form you think best, as the resident expert, would certainly be interesting.

To be fair, and to avoid a reductio ad absurdam rejoinder, I think I should also explain that locating religion as I have does not mean that everything whatsoever is a religion. For instance, I would not claim that institutionalized sports, American Football, or even the NFL are religions. Though acted out in people's bodies and though they exist in a constant state of dialogic flux as people come and go and practitioners change, and though the collective tendencies of the group can greatly impact individual participants, these movements do not represent coherent discourses on the significance of life-events. However, in smaller subsections of these, perhaps as strangely constituted as "committed Greenbay Packers fans," I would not be surprised to find a recognizably religious character.

To answer another possible rejoinder in advance, the category of religious is not one in which I classify everyone except myself. I certainly have communities which orient my understandings and way of life, but to be fair, if pressed I may consider everyone except for abandoned babies and the insane religious somehow.

A last note: I agree with you that there is a standard for judging human behavior and beliefs, if I didn't think so I would not engage in these discussions. Personally, I think behavior and belief which facilitates engagement in these sort of discussions may in fact be that standard, but I am not sure yet. I am committed to dialogue beyond the self-referential community, and for that reason I find my heroes among the Humanists, but it seems fair to take care to check carefully before proclaiming that one has corralled the Good and the Right.

Seeing as you sent our previous letters to mutual friends and I sent them to an exclusive friend, I think it may be interesting to post our ongoing discussion to one or both of our blogs. I think people may learn something, or, who knows, everything.
Thanks for the letter and I look forward to your reply,
Vincent

[This next message I sent unheralded and (as you can see) unedited, but I wanted to make sure that he had something to respond to even if my theory was too abstruse. To date I have received a response which promised a further response within a few weeks. The last words in that letter were: Regards, Adam.]

Optional addendum [Aug 31, 2006 1:37 AM]

Adam,

Sorry for the late addition, but in my late night reading I just came across two defininitions of religion which came after the article which I mentioned, and which I thought might be interesting fodder for further discussion, if only because they illustrate (and caricaturize) the diversity of the available definitions.

One of my long time favorites and one which orients a great deal of my thought, is the definition forwarded by Clifford Geertz. Though I have some small but serious issues with it, it is actually close enough to my position that you may choose to address it instead of the one I proposed. I would have, in any case, made approximately the same arguments had I been apply it alone:

"1) a system of symbols that act to 2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men, by 3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence, and 4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality, that 5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."

And on an equally important though less serious note, Henry Fielding (through the satirical voice of Parson Thwackum, a common reference point for the most institutionally bound definitions): "When I mention religion I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England. And when I mean honor, I mean that mode of divine grace which is not only consistent with, but dependent upon, this religion; and is consistent with and dependent upon no other."
Again, I will not attempt to unpack my own definition further, but I thought these may be of interest. Do with them what you might. This was the last out of turn.
-Vince

[To which he replied:]

Sep 16 2006 6:04 PMFlag spam/abuse [ ? ]
Subject: RE: On religion and reason: a request for clarification
Body:
Vince,

Conspicuously absent from your ostensibly thoroughgoing discourse on the the proper definition of religion is any treatment of the most blatant essential that distinguishes all religious ideology--faith.
An epistemology of faith is an essential characteristic of any form of mysticism.

The process of definition is fundamental to the conceptual method, and because a definition is a statement of the *essential* nature of a concept, to ignore the approach to knowledge that is the essence of religion--faith and "revelation" over facts and reason--is worse than inaccurate. It is an exercise in obscurantism.

In disregarding, not only mysticism's distinctive epistemology, but every fundamental area of philosophy, what you offer are definitions by non-essentials. Neither the social habits of their followers nor vague jargon like "ultimate concern" and "communities in embodied dialogue on significance" remotely address the actual content of the ideas you're attempting to define. But religion--all religion--holds specific, definite views on the most basic foundational categories of philosophy.

In metaphysics, religion upholds idealism--the view that reality is ultimately composed of consciousness. This is the meaning of any belief in a spiritual realm that transcends nature, since the "spiritual" simply refers to an aspect of consciousness. It is immaterial whether the particular mythology holds that an omnipotent, disembodied consciousness lords over existence, whether there is a 2nd, magical dimension inhabited by immortal fairies, or whether there are simply demonic spirits infused in the rocks and trees. Every religion denies fundamentally the laws of identity and causality--religion denies that an objective reality exists independently of any consciousness, and that reality consists of specific entities acting according to immutable laws of nature. Simply put, religionists are systematically unable or unwilling to distinguish between reality and their own mental states--between fact and fiction.

The result of this principle in metaphysics, which Ayn Rand called the primacy of consciousness, is an epistemology that holds that knowledge is gained, not by identifying and integrating the facts of reality through sense perception and the method of logic, but by consulting one's inner whims, feelings, and fantasies. In the broadest sense, "faith" means belief on the basis of feelings instead of facts and evidence. It means believing in that for which there is literally no evidence (the arbitrary) and in that which directly contradicts the evidence (the false). This meaning of faith encompasses all forms of mysticism--of the view that man possesses a means of knowledge other than reason, such as divine revelation, ESP, intuition, instinct, innate knowledge, etc.--all these are equivalent to treating ones own subjective whims as the standard of knowledge. This is nothing more than the method of believing it because you want to.

These are the most *essential* elements of every kind of mysticism and hence of every religion--the primacy of consciousness in metaphysics and the method of faith in epistemology. These ideas are the foundation of the entire religious worldview, and any definition of religion must include them at its base. Objectivism is the diametric opposite of religion in these most basic areas of philosophy, and only a completely non-essentialized approach could possibly conflate the two.

Beyond these fundamentals, precisely defining religion in a way that differentiates it from all closely related varieties of mysticism is a comparatively academic and secondary issue. Religion is typically distinguished by its particular source of anti-rational knowledge--divine revelation, spiritual communion, miraculous visions, or the consulting of magical books. This is the meaning of a narrower sense of faith as it relates specifically to religion--not just feelings, but arcane, supernatural, hallucinogenic feelings as the standard of knowledge. Further, it could be argued that religion should refer to the more *systematized* forms of mythology--those that attempt a more structured, integrated view of the universe. This might set it apart from crude, tribal forms of animism, for instance, or from nihilistic Eastern mystery cults that simply preach the annihilation of the mind. Indeed, Ayn Rand gave religion a certain historical credit as a rudimentary form of systematic philosophy--mans primitive, pre-scientific first attempt to grasp an integrated and comprehensible view of his existence. But the point here is that this further precision in sorting religion as such apart from alternative creeds of mystical dogma is completely incidental to *the* critical and necessary step in defining religion--the recognition that all religion is *essentially* a doctrine of mysticism.

But the definitions you offer do not deal in essentials. Clearly, you are merely attempting to replace the concepts of worldview or philosophic system with the word religion. By this scheme, *any* attempt to order ones view of existence into a consistent, intelligible whole--by whatever method, whether it be the unwavering application of mans rational faculty to grasping the nature of existence, or whether it be the systematic evasion and dogmatism of medieval madmen, Middle-Eastern savages, or murderous communists--all these are equivalent. They are equivalent because they all (nominally) represent the hubristic pretense that man can claim to know and make sense of reality, that he can arrogantly presume to impose his concepts on the ineffable noumenal world.
This is just the standard fetish of the skeptics against system-building, whereby the lifting of ones mental functioning above the level of a pre-conceptual infant or postmodern professor is viewed as naïve, impossible, even depraved.

How, except on this view, could you regard such fundamentally opposed philosophies as religion and Objectivism as the same--on the utterly non-essential grounds that their respective adherents each regard their ideas as *important*, as saying something meaningful about reality? How could you propose that if an individual guides his life by a system of ideas, if he actually *acts* with any degree of consistency on some view of existence, that renders his ideas religion--except on the view that *any* claim to knowledge is the equivalent of blind faith, and that any formulation of ethical *principles* must be as arbitrary as divine commandments or intrinsic categorical imperatives.

In true postmodernist fashion, you are dealing with ideas as merely social constructs--as collectively held floating abstractions, disconnected from any meaning in or reference to reality. You offer surface-level sociological analysis of a movements culture *as a substitute* for an understanding of the nature and content of the ideas themselves. It is irrelevant, on this approach, what a philosophy holds about the very nature of existence, the relationship of consciousness to external reality, the means by which human beings can understand the world, and the principles by which an individual should guide his life.
What actually matters is that enough people get together to form a collective, talk about their ideas with each other, and act on them--this is supposed to be the essence of religion. These are your communities in embodied dialogue on significance.

That is absurd.

But it is perfectly consistent with the approach to ideas that dominates academia today. Ideas are regarded as a game of the intellect, with no relevance to practical life on Earth. Concepts are viewed, not as the assessable product of an individual mind, but as collective cultural constructs unsusceptible to objective validation. Philosophy is simply an esoteric pastime the modern scholastics enjoy arguing about. And it serves as the academic fig leaf the subjectivist-altruist-collectivist establishment uses as cover to justify their nihilistic assault on the Enlightenment, on reason, individualism, science, capitalism, America--on human values as such.

Vince, you claim to be looking for a standard by which to judge human behavior and human beliefs, and you offer, as your provisional heuristic, behavior and belief which facilitates engagement in these sort of discussions.
Polemics is not the purpose of philosophy. Ideas are not mere linguistic baubles that serve to fuel the great intersubjective Discourse of your professors.

Philosophy is the indispensable conceptual means by which the human mind grasps existence--it is a power from which no human being can escape, and its consequences are literally life or death. The standard of any ideas validity--its truth or falsehood--is *the facts of reality*, and the method of determining those facts is empirical reason. The moral standard of human action and human thought, the ultimate standard of value, is mans life. Whether any volitional human action objectively promotes or harms the long-range existence of a rational being, as determined by the facts of reality--that is the standard that ties ethics to facts. If we want to live, then because we exist in an objective reality--because of the laws of identity and causality--we must pursue only those actions which will *actually* result in the promotion of our long-term existence.
For a more detailed explanation, I refer you to the Objectivist literature, specifically Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff.

Adam

[His final addendum:]

Sep 16 2006 11:59 PMFlag spam/abuse [ ? ]
Subject: RE: On religion and reason: a request for clarification
Body:
A further point:
Consider a man dying of some terminal brain-atrophying disease, and suppose that advanced medical science is applied to cure the disease. It is in the nature of this treatment that the cure is not effected instantaneously--there is a protracted period of gradual recovery, wherein many of the agonizing symptoms remain despite the presence of the health-promoting drug.

Would you agree that it would be spectacularly fallacious to assert, when the man eventually gets better, that we really need to give a good deal of credit for the cure to the lingering pain, debilitation, and dementia--that the really essential good of the treatment was due to its harmonious mixture of suffering and healing? That in the future, if we want to promote general well-being we should in fact induce those same crippling symptoms in healthy subjects?

The actual state of Western culture before its partial recovery, during the Renaissance and Enlightenment, from the mind-rotting effects of a culture ruled by religion resembled the condition of a deformed invalid reduced to a near-comatose state for a full millennium. The tortuous, halting and circuitous path the West traveled to arrive at the pinnacle of the Enlightenment was only impeded by the continued dominance of religion. To attribute to the antithesis of reason the very success of a period in which the rise of reason stood as a radiant contrast to the unrelieved horror of the Dark Ages that preceded it--that is a fallacy.

The issue here is one of evaluating history in terms of essentials, and of retaining the full historical context. If a period, or an individual in that period, retained the vestiges of faith in a contradictory mixture with reason, that simply means that reason cannot be expected to take hold overnight, given the historical context of a millennium of religion.

I am well aware of the fact that many of the intellectual figures I regard as heroic champions of reason still retained elements of irrationality, even to the point of considering themselves devoutly religious and aiming to advance Christianity. Ayn Rand gave tremendous moral and intellectual credit to Aquinas, for instance, because he was absolutely pivotal in the historic rise of Aristotelian reason that led to the Renaissance. What was *essentially* heroic about Aquinas was his brilliant application of reason. This neither denies nor contradicts any of the context of his thoroughly religious side. A man with mixed premises can accomplish marvelous things when and to the extent that he applies his rational faculty. His irrational ideas, however, remain false, inimical to human life--evil.

The same is true of any other historical periods in which reason established a foothold in a culture. The "Islamic" golden age was an achievement *because* it was distinguished by its application of rational ideas, largely imported from the Greeks. Maimonides and al-Farabi were scholars of Aristotle, the father of reason and the philosophical precursor to Ayn Rand.

It would be nonsense to claim that the achievements of the period were due to the presence of religion. We have seen the cultural devastation that resulted when mysticism regained control and stamped out reason--a devastation which continues unabated to this day.

There is much more that could be said on this issue. I will not even discuss in any detail the revolting phenomenon, popular amongst the religious right, of claiming that the Founding Fathers were essentially religiously motivated, and that America is an essentially Christian nation. America is the crowning achievement of the Enlightenment. In its original founding principles, it is the greatest and most moral country in human history, *because* it is based on a secular philosophy of reason, individualism, and this-worldly happiness.

Adam

[Well friends, that is it for now, but when the next volley and return comes by, I will report again. -Cheers.]

An Objectivist and a Relativist Walk into a Bar [Pt. 1]

[So, friends, excuse the brackets, but I thought you might find this interesting. I have been in an on going discussion with a fellow named Adam, one I would call a highschool-friend, but whom I suspect would call me an unfortunately recurrent memory. Who can say, we so rarely ask people if they like us now, let alone whether they imagine that they once liked us. But I digress.

The following is a series of emails he and I have been sending back and forth in which we both speak very broadly, but which I think you may find interesting. If anyone thinks I have gone far astray, please post me. Aside, of course, from my spelling, which I think has gone haywire. Of course, if any of you think I am being embarrasingly stupid, please tell me with the same disgression you would apply if my fly were open in public, and I will quietly delete this.

The intial impetus was this, a "Bulletin" post which he sent to his myspace friends, among which I am numbered:]

----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Spong
Date: Aug 11, 2006 10:05 PM

Ayn Rand Institute Press Release
http://www.aynrand.org/
August 11, 2006

Irvine, CA--Following news of the foiled plot to bomb airlines, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) criticized President Bush for calling the would-be killers "Islamic fascists."

"CAIR is demanding that we evade the actual goal of those trying to kill us," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "Just as the Soviet Communists and the Nazis sought to impose their version of socialism on the world, so the new killers seek to impose their version of Islam on the world. They seek total power to enact the dictates of Islam. Theirs is an Islamic totalitarian movement.

"I wish Bush would take his own rhetoric seriously, because understanding this fact about the killers is crucial to achieving victory in the war. Only when the political aspiration of Islam--the imposition of its religious dogmas by force--has been shown to result in the deaths of Islamists, not their victims, will we be safe. Only when the cause of Islamic totalitarianism has been thoroughly discredited, will victory be achieved.

"CAIR's demand that we evade the role of religion in this conflict is undermining America's self-defense. For this, the group should apologize to all Americans."

...... ...... ......


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[And this was my answer:]


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: "The Bible" [Pseudoeponymous]
Date: [Aug 12, 2006 10:38 AM ]

Dear Adam,
I find it rather surprising that you would repost this press release. I presume, of course, that you read it carefully before placing it here, and cannot imagine in what sense you thought it would be helpful. Honestly, I expect more philosophically and historically honest releases from the ARI.

The issue is that President Bush called the terror suspects in Britain "Islamic fascists" and CAIR complained that this phrase "equated the religion of peace with the ugliness of fascism." For this complaint Dr. Brook of the Ayn Rand institute demands an apology. Clearly, CAIR overstated the problem of Mr. Bush's statement. If this action demands an apology, however, none will be brought about by statements like the one you posted here. If anything, this press release illustrates the kind of prejudice against which CAIR was created to protect American citizens.

The first paragraph is fine. Dr. Brook, like Mr. Bush, evokes the commonplace that imperialist totalitarianism must not be tolerated. I, like most readers, agree, and need little further persuasion. Certain Muslim people seek to impose their version of Islam on the world just as "Soviet Communists and the Nazis sought to impose their version of socialism on the world" and Brook and Bush both call these people fascists. I am not quite sure if the descriptor is as precise as it is evocative, but it works. There is a threat from certain types of Muslims and something must be done. Point well taken.

To this point it is notable that both men have allowed that this is a problem with fascist contingents within Islam, those with a particular and particularly dangerous "version" of the religion. There are, of course, other versions. Groups ranging from CAIR itself (to cite only the most spectacularly divergent cases) to the Bahai faith are also promoting versions of Islam, both of which envision democratic inter-religious harmony. CAIR's biggest mistake was ignoring President Bush's syntax. He is clearly indicting only a version of Islam, only the fascist variety, and not the religion as a whole. Whether or not that is consistent with his private opinions and his larger policy decisions is not the issue here. This is an indictment of Fascist Islam and not an equation of Islam and fascism, and the statement is valuable.

Because there are groups, however, which fail to recognize diversity, potential and actual, within Islam, perhaps we can understand why CAIR would overreact. Passages of the Quran and ahadith which call upon Muslims for military action are too often cited by politicians and pundits of varying stripes as proof that the peaceful Muslim is a contradiction in terms. Of course, I will not claim that this literary tradition does not exist. It does. There is unarguably violence in these texts, and at certain points in history it has become quite manifest. However, the only way these passages could demonstrate an inevitable tendency towards violence within Islam would be if religious history tended to show that violence in scripture correlates with violence in reality. Even the most cursory survey of the history of religions makes it clear that this is not the case.

For instance, within in Judaism, there is sufficient Biblical basis for a surprising amount of violence. The leadership tactics of Moses and military record of Joshua alone, as two of the earliest types for the Messiah present models for the Messianic future which are driven by merciless human action. This is the vision of the Messiah to which Jesus was heir, but it was on the way out. When historical circumstances made a vision of violent change through human actors dangerous and inefficient, a new vision emerged. It was in the image of the military Messiah that the Bar Kokhbah revolt rose and fell in the second century. But soon after this monumental failure and the tragic death toll it brought upon the Jews, a new vision for the Messiah emerged. The Mishnahs vision of him tends towards the supernatural and discourages any effort to predict or speed up his reign, tendencies which are still more emphatic in the Talmud. These texts, though they can never have the official status of the Bible, form the official filter for interpreting the Bible within Judaism. The violent vision is now safely trapped behind their exegetical screen. Though scripture had created one image of the future, social change precipitated philosophical, and eventually scriptural, change.

And the case of Christianity is equally instructive. The New Testament is a work which gives quite nearly no defense for military action (even including the quite exceptional cases of Matt. 10:34 and Luke 22:36). Despite this, when historical circumstances have made military action desirable and feasible, Christianity has mustered its scant scriptural justification towards some of the most theologically oriented and wide ranging military campaigns in history. Christianity, like Judaism, has no monolithic version, but rather creates versions which are more or less violent by adapting scripture to make sense of changing historical circumstances. Some readings of any tradition, even CAIR must acknowledge, will be dangerous.

Unfortunately, the article you posted ignores the overwhelming evidence of history. Whereas President Bush (and Dr. Brook's first paragraph) called for action against a certain group within Islam, the end of the press release called for action against Islam as a whole, precisely the sort of unilateralism that CAIR is protesting and which I maintain can only be defended through ignorance (whether willing or not). That this press release would claim that "the imposition of its religious dogmas by force" is "the political aspiration of Islam" is a frightening overstatement which simply does not become the philosophically or historically minded. Islam does not have any aspirations, desires, or tactics. Perhaps Dr. Brook could have spoken on tendencies, historical records, or scriptures of Islam, all measurable phenomena, but as the press release stands, he does not. He is generalizing Islam as a necessarily fascist religion. With these sorts of voices in positions of power (and the head of the ARI is a position of some influence), is it any wonder that CAIR is easily spooked? Clearly, there are those who would eradicate Islam on the (amazingly anachronistic) notion that it is inherently fascist, and CAIR is a group which exists expressly to keep ammunition out of those people's hands.

So, if you are saying that CAIR should apologize for being Muslim, I understand and disagree, and if you are saying they should apologize for misunderstanding Bush's statement, it seems something of an overreaction. Most importantly, though, no such reaction will come about from Mr. Brooks press release. The question is what economic and political realities are contributing towards fascist readings of Islam. Dr. Brooks generalizations will also not lead to an answer to that most critical question.
So, what, if not philosophy or history, orients the press release? Perhaps you know, but I certainly do not, Adam. If the Ayn Rand institute is placing the political ambitions of some of its members before her highest charge of philosophical living, that is to say, if it is being run by conservatives and not Objectivists, then I think you should be careful what you repost. In any case, I look forward to further press releases.
Sincerely,
Vince


[To which he replied:]


RE: U.S. Muslim Group Should Apologize [Aug 14, 2006 3:59 AM]
Vince,

Leaving aside Dr. Brook's comments for the moment, consider the moral status of CAIR's objection to the use of the term "Islamic fascists" to refer to Muslim terrorists. You concede that the term accurately describes the fascist "contingent" within Islam. The fundamental nature of this movement is that it seeks to impose a totalitarian *Islamic* theocracy. "Islamofascism" therefore identifies the essential content of our enemy's ideology--it names a glaringly obvious and urgently important fact of reality. Yet CAIR is outraged that anyone would dare to acknowledge the facts, because they reflect badly on Islam. CAIR wants us to studiously evade the basic nature of an enemy that is systematically killing us--as such, CAIR's craven dishonesty goes far beyond mere political correctness--it is epistemological treason that severely undercuts our ability to defend ourselves and eliminate the threat to our lives.

Sadly, this evasion has been widely complied with in the West. It took Bush *years* to even suggest that Muslim terrorists and the states that support them are an essentially Islamic movement--prior to that he laced every speech, including the one immediately after 9/11, with abject appeasement of Islam, insisting that the terrorists' avowed religious motivation somehow had nothing whatever to do with Islam, and that we admire the great and peaceful Islamic culture (and despite some progress on naming the enemy, Bush's evasions largely continue). These sentiments are ubiquitous in our culture. The religious right wants desperately to avoid the conclusion that religion can lead to so massive and obscene an evil, and the relativist left is opposed on principle to judging any non-Western ideology as inferior, no matter how tyrannical, violent, or primitive.

The standard smokescreen tactic, which CAIR epitomizes, is to smear anyone who condemns Islam (or, if you like, the "influence" of Islam on its militant wing) as guilty of "ethnocentric" prejudice and bigotry, equivalent to racism. Yet this smear tactic is moral relativism at it's worst--its aim and its effect is to whitewash evil and destructive ideas, and to brand the exercise of objective judgment--the recognition of facts--as depraved.

Racism is irrational and brutish because race is objectively irrelevant to a person's character and moral worth--it is *unchosen*, and morality applies only to volition. Ideas, in contrast, are chosen--moreover, ideas have consequences. False ideas--those inconsistent with the facts of reality--are harmful to human life and human values. True ideas--those reached by using reason to identify and integrate the facts of reality--promote human life and values and thus are morally good.

Thus, contrary to your postmodernist literati, an objective standard exists--the standard of human life--by which one ideology, and one culture, can be shown to be inferior to another.

Islam--and religion as such--is demonstrably inimical to human life. The rejection of reason--man's only means of knowledge of reality--in favor of arbitrary mystical fantasy, has always led and will always lead to destruction, misery, and mass death. In politics, religion is incompatible with freedom and individual rights--ideas which only emerged from the rational thought of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, not from the millenium of religious barbarism that preceded them. The attempt to live by religion consistently is the attempt to sever the mind from reality--as such it can only destroy human life--it is therefore morally *evil.*

The many moderate religionists, Muslim or Christian, who are basically decent, who live and function in the modern world, and who reject the primitivism and oppression of religious fundamentalism, survive *in spite of* their religion--they are proof of the value of the Enlightenment ideas that have diluted their religious views. These people accept significant elements of a rational worldview, such as science and secular learning, political freedom, the pursuit of happiness here on earth, the enjoyment of sex, the production of wealth, etc. In the West, Christianity has been largely attenuated in this way. The Islamic world, sadly, never experienced an Enlightenment--with the result that we are confronted today with the obscenity of a medieval religious barbarism intent on returning us to the horrors of our own theocratic past.

So with regard to Dr. Brook's comments--it is entirely appropriate to identify Islam--and religion *as such*--as the essential source of the unreasoning ideology that threatens our freedom and our lives. It is important to distinguish between moderate Muslims and the more consistent fundamentalists. We are in a physical war with *Islamofascist* states, chiefly Iran, and their terrorist proxy groups. This movement, not Islam as such, is the enemy that we urgently need to destroy, militarily or otherwise, if we are to survive.
However, it is ultimately also of life or death importance to recognize that religion *as such* is the deadlly enemy of human life--and that any Muslims or Christians .

Should you want the full philosophic context validating reason as man's indespensible and sole means of achieving knowledge, happiness, and flourishing life on this earth, I refer you to the Objectivist literature, as against a brief press release, no matter how effectively it exposes the moral bankruptcy of the so-called moderates at CAIR .

See also:
America at War
A War against Islam

Regards,
Adam


[The following is a clarification from Adam to me.]


ommission from post [Aug 14, 2006, 4:19 AM]

The second to last paragraph should read:

However, it is ultimately also of life or death importance to recognize that religion *as such* is the deadlly enemy of human life--and that any Muslims or Christians who promote the fundamental ideas of mysticism, while they may stand with us against the literal barbarians, are still essentially promoting a contradiction that will inexorably destroy the achievements of our rational, Enlightenment civilization.


[More to come, friends!]