Nemesis II: The Footnote
Damon Linker has a followup to Ross’s reaction to the original post that I remarked on below. I recommend this followup post highly. Linker is right about intellectuals and distinctions, in a way that can be extended to emphases. I wouldn’t make some of the emphases Linker makes, but I am on record in various places arguing, in good pomocon fashion, on behalf of a foundationalist culture and a nonfoundationalist politics, so this bit struck me as extra important:
…Moralistic Therapeutic Deism looks like a comparatively promising alternative. But only if we assume the United States can’t get along without any civil religion at all.
Yet Ross’s own post hinges on the insight that at least one prominent strain of MTD tends especially to colonize politics. In the mind of, say, a Michael Gerson, the reality of human suffering, and the guilt associated with recognizing that reality, is unbearable without throwing ourselves into the arms of a moralistic, therapeutic Leviathan. Thus Ross’s critique of Bush’s Second Inaugural.
But there are details going obscured here. MTD can be more or less Christian. Some might look upon Joel Osteen as one of America’s foremost practitioners of MTD; others (ahem) might be a lot more concerned that, say, Richard Rorty’s vision of pragmatism as romantic polytheism comes much closer to realizing the full potential of MTD:
A Christianity that was merely ethical — the sort Jefferson and other Enlightenment thinkers commended and was later propounded by theologians of the social gospel — might have sloughed-off exclusionism by viewing Jesus as one incarnation of the divine among others. The celebration of an ethics of love would then have taken its place within the relatively tolerant polytheism of the Roman Empire, having disjoined the ideal of human brotherhood from the claim to represent the will of an omnipotent and monopolistic Heavenly Father (not to mention the idea that there is no salvation outside the Christian Church).
Linker’s brief against MTD hinges on his contempt for its ‘anemic’ theology. But moralistic deism that isn’t therapeutic would revolt Linker as equally anemic (right?) — while it would, in fact, carry a whole different set of cultural and political implications. Our American heritage of moralistic untherapeutic deism points toward a cultural life that prizes personal nobility over a political life that prizes universal dignity. I am guessing that Ross, Linker and I all agree — along with more radical critics of this business like Daniel — that the thing to be avoided, politically speaking, is seizing upon the state as the most powerful tool to save us all from cruelty and suffering. I’d agree with Linker that not all varieties of MTD always seek to commandeer politics in this way. But I’d do so in order to underscore what seems like the as-yet-unspoken heart of the matter: the real problem with MTD is not in its political side effects but in its cultural primary effects — and not because it’s moralistic, or because it’s deist.
Not being a religious person, I don’t share a lot of the assumptions that undergird this conversation. But I do find this post puzzling. A major turning of Western society toward an “ethics of love” in the late Roman era would have been…a bad thing? Does the Christian really have to elevate the value of the spread and cultural success of Christianity so far above other values (other Christian values, even) like love, peace, and the free development of the human person that such a turning would have been a net negative for the world? Or am I missing your meaning?
— Christopher M · Apr 15, 02:08 PM · #
Being a somewhat religious person, albeit a humanist first, I’ve got to say Christopher M’s point makes a lot of sense. I go with Christianity because I like the emphasis on forgiveness and I’m a bit biased since I was raised in it. That said, I do think there are risk in MTD at least since they can miss out on the hard but ethical parts of religion.
I don’t claim to speak for Linker, or anyone else, but my take is that a religion, or a philosophy, is anemic if it doesn’t confront you or throw any hard stuff your way. I tend to get a bit annoyed with attempts to find the real religion that just write-off all the bits they don’t like. I find it highly possible that exclusivity was a part of original Christianity, I reject it because after having grappled with it I think it’s ethically wrong. In addition, unlike Abraham haggling with God over Sodom and Gommorah, I can easily come up with a good number of righteous non-monotheists to support my case.
All that said, I’m definitely enjoying watching this particular debate. Thanks for the thoughtful and interesting reading material.
— Greg Sanders · Apr 15, 02:56 PM · #
“A major turning of Western society toward an “ethics of love” in the late Roman era would have been…a bad thing?”
I think it would have been an impossible thing. The opposite ethics of cruelty, domination, and statism were too entrenched. There would not have been a way to subvert or replace that ethical system with any alternative that did not in some way assert stronger metaphysical claims than those asserted by late Roman polytheism.
I think this is born out by the experience of the early Christian martyrs. The Roman State recognized that their ethical claims subverted the cultural ground for unlimited Imperial authority, just as Judaism always had in Palestine.
I can’t imagine a moralistic therapeutic deism that would have been capable of withstanding the persecution inflicted by the Romans. It seems to me that the early accounts indicate that Christians were only able to withstand it because they believed that their religion was not merely useful, but true.
— Ethan C. · Apr 16, 01:57 AM · #
that the thing to be avoided, politically speaking, is seizing upon the state as the most powerful tool to save us all from cruelty and suffering.
How nice that you all agree on teh Stupid.
Government is the only thing that can issue a brake on homosapiens sapiens’ natural hardwired tribalism.
In the EEA human socialization emerged as tribes of consanguinous kin. Later religions emerged as a means of promoting kinship selection benefit for members among a wider memetic tribe.
Governments arose as aggregates of co-geolocated genetic and memetic tribes.
No tribe advocates for the distribution of resources to other tribes. Even soi disant “christians” only pay lip service to the “brotherhood of man”.
Government is necessary to insure the equal distribution of resources between local tribes, and that more populous tribes do not oppress the less populous.
Religion of any sort is memetic tribalism.
Useless for promoting freedom and liberty for extra-tribal individuals.
Also, the Friendliness Problem is unsolveable for homosapiens sapiens.
Because we are all tribal under the skin.
— matoko_chan · Apr 17, 02:02 PM · #
James, color me unimpressed with the Linker stuff you mention above: the original, the responses to, and his follow-ups. I mean, no-one in these discussions, as far as I can tell, has given a defintion of what MTD is, (a list of beliefs avoids the key issue of HOW does it, or would it, function as a civil religion) but here Linker and Douthat (the latter of whom I do respect) are going to town about what set of civil religion beliefs Bush held, what policy commitments this led to, and what set of beliefs would have been better. “Bush did hold MTD, therefore, X.” “No, he held evangelico-something civil religion, therefore X.” I mean, come on.
Bush is an evangelical Christian. He was sold on a particular political philsophy that had a way of bringing his religious beliefs together with foundational statements about the inalienable right of all to liberty, and thus it added impetus (besides national self-interest) for old-fashioned but now more forthrightly stated American democracy-favoring. Thus, Bush, who didn’t want to excise God-talk from presidential speech, had certain patterns of publically invoking God that at least implied a civil religion that Americans could agree on. And the various hubrises of Bush’s second innagural were couched in these patterns, although again, the imprudent rhetorical choices of Bush were the main cause of this, not the natural rights philosophy he was attracted to. Or more accurately, his excesses were those that only someone half-educated in that natural rights philosophy would commit. Conservative critics like Charles Kesler and Daniel Mahoney have shown what the serious shortcomings of that speech were, and how they were linked to the fuzzy progressivism of certain neo-cons and Fukuyamans. But the shortcomings there weren’t in the civil religion of Bush, but in his political philosophy, esp. foreign-policy wise.
However, the North Korean communist regime stands today, armed with whatever its armed with, in part because Bush, contrary to the logic many would read (not Mahoney and Kesler) into the second innaugural, decided to let it stand. Ditto with the Iranian regime. Syria. Etc. Bush was more often than not a prudent democracy-promoter in act, whatever he was in speech. That is, he did not look upon foreign policy questions and see only the liberty issue. He nonetheless did not see as well as he should have, but that’s another story.
Now I admit that speeches matter. And whatever civil religion they can at best only imply matters to. But these policy-heavy prouncements of Linker, and Douthat, are a bit ridiculous. Iraq was not invaded, and a surge was not approved because Bush accepted and promoted this civil religion or that.
Two bottom line truths cannot be evaded here.
First, American military power is going to be called upon by those suffering various injustices around the world. No American president, atheist, MTD-ist, or Christian, is going to be able to avoid weighing questions of justice. Since foreign-policy of 100% realism is simply not possible, there will be times when we commit troops to conflicts based on a mix of self-interest and justice.
Second, the idea that Christian (and otherwise theist) Americans are going to disconnect the belief they generally have in natural rights, from whatever beliefs they have about God, is simply preposterous. One may say the same about the belief they generally have in interests-and-borders-transcending natural justice. But Linker at times talks as if presidents would be better off never again to talk as if there is a connection. It’s as if he’s saying “Bush God-talk sucked, therefore, let us never say again, ‘In God We Trust.’” It’s as if he’s saying, “Presidents might talk about rights the way the Declaration does, but in doing so they shouldn’t imitate its God-talk.” Right.
I’m an evangelical Christian who thinks a presidential rhetoric more Lincolnian in restraining God-talk to certain key, crisis, or ceremonial ocassions would be better than the higher level of God-talk the Bush administration employed. However, his counselors on this issue had their reasons, I am sure, and I just can’t get that exercised over the whole issue. Of course, Linker, and surely many of those who buy his book, get quite exercised about it. Bush’s God-talk, unlike, say, FDR’s, enraged many because they suspected he really beleived it and that a substantial segment of his electoral bases did so also, and that he and they wanted more Americans to really beleive in it. For such reasons things had changed since FDR’s day—it was now deemed offensive to bring the suggestion of Christian faith into the public square in the way almost all the older presidents had done. But even if Bush’s refusal to cave in advance before this sort of offense-taking told us something admirable about his character, and even if the refusal was (as I think) nonetheless overdone(i.e., too obvious, too forced), did it really lead to/demand ANY of his key policy decisions? But since Linker’s sort of people were mighty offended by it, well, by-Gum, it must have meant something pretty heavy policy-wise. That in essence is the thinking here. The fact that it DID wind up meaning something popularity-wise is another matter. The Bushies bet too heavily on an American tolerance of and desire for old-fashioned American God-talk. Had they been more together in other areas, this perhaps would not have mattered electorally.
The conversation that starts from confusion only gets more entangled in confusion, even the good parts of it (e.g., Ross, James, perhaps myself). MTD is not a terribly helpful concept as Linker has articulated it. Thus, what it might signify about the present or future state of Christianity in America, or of civil religion in America, is rather hard to say. It is easy to see, however, that it is a most unhelpful concept for evaluating the decisions of the Bush administration.
Finally, while I’m in broad sympathy with James’ focus on the culture, he should realize that American culture shall ever remain tethered to some pretty darn foundational American political statements.
— Carl Scott · Apr 19, 08:19 PM · #