Reading over this article from Jewcy while I was looking for updates on the recent Israeli elections about the proported rise in anti-semitism in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez and Chavez’s support for groups like Hamas, I was struck by a question: is it intellectually and morally acceptable to attempt to understand where groups like Hamas are coming from and cultivate a certain degree of sympathy/empathy for the circumstances that have given rise to them?

This question is distinct from the notion of supporting a group like Hamas, which, by my lights, is a pretty difficult move given that one of its core principles is the complete annihilation of another state and its people. I believe pretty firmly that I would feel the same if that state weren’t Israel, so let us jettison both the “blind love of Israel” and “ignorant romanticizing of Hamas” arguments alike. I should also clarify that I am talking about finding sympathy and empathy in one’s heart for Hamas, as distinct from doing the same for Palestinians in Gaza generally — I don’t want to overstate my suggestion here, but neither do I want to falsey sugar-coat it.

The more I’ve thought about the question, the more I’ve come to the conclusion that finding such sympathy/empathy is a key component in understanding and successfully seeking a resolution to the generations long conflict in the region. For all my recent talk about cultivating a better interventionism, I continue to believe that there is no real military solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, there is only a human solution (call it a political solution if you like, but what I’m pointing to is human beings figuring out a way and cultivating an openness to living together). That there will by necessity, given the players in this conflict, be a military component to the lead up to such a resolution, as has already been abundantly demonstrated, is a sad fact, but I don’t think it detracts from the reality that at the end of the day the military elements of this conflict will eventually have to become exhausted and some kind of human solution will have to emerge if there is ever going to be a “just and lasting peace”. To perhaps assuage some of my interlocutors on interventionism, I don’t take that to be an isolated incident in the Israel-Palestine conflict. I think it is true broadly that there are no real military solutions to what generally in geo and regional politics boil down to human conflicts, but I’m also aware that there are times when use of force becomes sadly necessary (so my whole track on interventionism is trying to formulate a better version thereof). [Read more →]

A while ago I attempted to wade through some of the differences I noticed between Cultural or Civilization Conservatives, and Fundamentalist Social Conservatives, perhaps because I was worried that too often members of both groups were being labeled erroneously as part of the political Religious Right and wanted to better show how not all religious conservatives are fundamentalists or part of the politically driven “Christianist” movement.

In my initial post I discussed Civilization Conservatives (which I use as synonymously with Cultural Conservatives) who took into account a larger historical and spiritual cultural reality, and Fundamentalists (for my initial purposes, interchangeable with Social Conservatives)  who did not.

Initially, Helen Rittelmeyer took issue with this distinction, claiming that I was painting the wrong picture of many Fundamentalists, many of whom were actually far from the strict, unyielding Christians that I sketched them as, and that there is a certain liberation involved in adhering to dogma, claiming that “this fealty supersedes…private opinions and judgments, and thank God for that; deliver me from the prison of my own subjectivity!”

Now, initially, I glossed over this term – dogma - in my response to Helen.  In that piece I realized my initial argument had fallen victim to gross generalizations, but I didn’t really get to the heart, I think, of the question of dogma vs fundamentalism, perhaps the fatal flaw in my initial argument.  In other words, perhaps my concern with fundamentalism wasn’t misplaced, but rather my use of the term dogma to explain it.

Enter Larison:

The key characteristic of a genuinely fundamentalist mentality is its hostility to complexity, historical context and the possibility of a text being multivalent; fundamentalists are to some extent the terrible simplifiers of rich dogmatic traditions. I assume Kain uses dogmatic here to mean inflexible or uncompromising, but this does not take into account the inherent flexibility and minimalism of dogma. Dogmas are minimal statements that provide correct guidance regarding religious matters, most of which are ultimately mysterious and not fully comprehensible. Given the nature of their subject, they cannot always be exhaustive, but they can nonetheless provide the right guidance and serve as sign-posts to the proper destination of the believer. A fundamentalist is like someone who tries to navigate using a map without ever looking at his surroundings. Someone instructed in a dogmatic tradition will pay attention to those surroundings and understand how to relate the map to those surroundings.

Now, Larison is correct, I used dogma rather flippantly to mean “inflexible or uncompromising” but immediately in Helen’s response (I think) one can see how this lack of specificity, this careless diction, can cause unintended disputes.  It certainly doesn’t further a conversation.  This fits in fairly well with my recent discussion of generalizations, but I think goes a bit further.  First of all, it belies a certain lack of knowledge on my own part regarding religious terminology, which can only call to question my relevance as a commentator on religious questions.

Similarly, when we hear the talking heads and political types upbraiding liberals or chastening Obama for wanting to spread the wealth around one wonders to what degree do they actually understand the economy?  It’s one thing, after all, to point to specific aspects of the bailout, or of a spending policy, or a tax policy, and say, “This is why such and such policy will have a bad outcome” and quite another to merely pull at the heartstrings with words like socialist or terrorist or Christianist even.  Inevitably someone more knowledgeable than the speaker will be able to cast aside this gross generalization for what it is: either an honest mistake born out of a lack of knowledge, or a rhetorical tactic used to instill fear or anger or some other reaction in its intended audience. [Read more →]