Insult yourself

Here and here.

Pickles and Warsi on secularism

In an earlier post I discussed Cameron’s speech on a Christian Britain. Now Eric Pickles and Baroness Warsi have made similar noises. Pickles said that under labour ‘Political correctness replaced common sense, people were left afraid to express legitimate concerns and frustrations.’ ‘We must be unafraid to insist on the common ground and common values that we all share.’

What’s good about this is the idea of mutual criticism, dialogue and interaction. What’s bad is assuming that the common ground and common values that do exist should be based on Christianity. This conflates the holding of the same view with the deriving of the same view in different ways. Rawls’ hope was that different individuals and groups could sign up to the same values but justify them from their own point of view. Greater dialogue and mutual criticism may generate that. For instance, many, though not all, religious people would support human rights by reference to their religious beliefs. As a result of Britain’s history, its values were derived largely from Christianity but in contemporary society how, if at all, would people justify their beliefs in values that are widespread, such as fairness, honesty, the right to a fair trial? Probably not from Christianity. Thus, to suggest that a return to Christianity will ground or secure a common set of values is a mistake because it fails to appreciate the extent of secularism.

To be fair to Pickles, having a high incidence of religion in a culture does not necessarily produce intolerance or oppression, though it certainly can. The Queen’s remarks that the Church of England is supposed to ensure religious freedom for all religions is an example of religious support for religious freedom (insofar as Anglican see their institution that way, which many do). A state government that understood itself to be religious could also legislate religious freedom as part of its belief-driven policy. It is increasingly recognized, of course, that religion and politics (and morality) are impossible to separate completely. Yet they are significantly separate in Britain, and whilst it is a good idea to seek to increase religious and moral considerations within politics, it is wrong to impose religion or to be blinded to the minority position that religion is in Britain.

Pickles wants to allow prayers at the beginning of council meetings, which is a point in favour of religious freedom but it seems a confused application of his principles: how does re-instating prayer at council meetings help? That is the least bit of common ground you could find in a largely secular country. I suspect Pickles’ confusion arises from the way in which the government and the judiciary seem to regard religion as primarily about beliefs. It isn’t. It is primarily a set of practices and a belonging to a religious community. Religious beliefs, like philosophical beliefs, are difficult to understand and make coherent, and most religious believers don’t have the time or energy (or ability in some cases) to hold to anything more than a relatively straightforward account of some beliefs. Many religious believers have at least this conceptual advantage over (often more educated) government ministers and judges: they know that in religion practice matters more than belief. Whilst beliefs and values, especially moral ones, may be shared quite widely, practices tend not to be. Atheists and Muslims can agree on the value of generosity, but not on praying five times a day. Christians and Buddhists may even agree on the importance of meditation, but they will do it in quite different ways. And so on.

Now onto Warsi’s speech. Warsi wants to promote social harmony and ensure faith has a ‘proper space in the public sphere’. Fine. Her method for achieving this is doubtful however: ‘People need to feel stronger in their religious identities, more confident in their beliefs. In practice this means individuals not diluting their faith and nations not denying their religious heritage. If you take this thought to its conclusion then the idea you’re left with is this: Europe needs to become more confident in its Christianity.’

As long as the majority faith and culture still make ‘equality and space for minority faiths and cultures’ then justice is being done in that respect. Secularism can do this, and so can many forms of religion. Equally, some forms of secularism and some forms of religion can suppress minority rights. At the risk of sounding parochial or nationalistic, the current British settlement strikes me as preferable to France’s more aggressive secularism or the near conflation of religious and national identity prevalent in America. We should be able to have our identities, but also recognize that we have multiple identities. Warsi seems to appreciate the first point but not the second. In France, national identity overpowers religious identity (from a policy viewpoint). In America, religious and civic identities are conflated or get along too easily. Rather, what is needed, as Andrew Shanks has suggested, is more of a dialectical relation between identities, not just religious and national but also gender, racial, class, membership in charities or parties, etc. This is not a dialectic that reaches a synthesis, but a dialectic that recognizes that our efforts will never be perfect, but keeps trying to improve or change as necessary. Warsi is right that confidence in identity can help fuel tolerance, but it can also fuel intolerance as the 19^th century American-Christian imperialist-missionary approach shows. We need not just confidence in identity but a way of being able to doubt it and question it, too. Again, that is what Shanks suggests.

Warsi doesn’t want religious discrimination against the ‘majority religious heritage’. Not wanting discrimination against the majority religion is fine – no faith should be discriminated against. And in some cases opting for current values or practices rather than accepting the values or practices of another religion or culture is also legitimate, for instance, refusing to accept forced marriage or honour killings, or allowing abortions. In order to do that, however, we need some justification for why we prefer our cultural values and practices, and for the vast majority of people in Britain that will not be based on Christianity but on secular arguments, even if the values in question have initially come from Christianity (though they may not have). For example, autonomy and the value of the individual are arguably nascent within Christianity, but it took the 18^th century revolutions and the Enlightenment to enable Christians to see that. So does valuing autonomy come from Christianity or the secularising Enlightenment?

I agree that we shouldn’t cover up our religious history but I’m  not convinced by her claim that ‘what drives us, what binds us and what inspires us is a history we are in danger of denying’. I don’t think most contemporary people are driven or inspired by the history of Christianity. Also I’m not convinced that secularism is as bad as she makes out: it’s telling that she didn’t give examples of this so-called ‘militant secularism’. But it is true that religions don’t understand themselves as private assent to a list of propositions; she does better than Pickles on that point.

CFP: Dictatorship of Failure

The interdisciplinary academic e-journal COLLeGIUM, hosted by the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki, is announcing a call for contributions for a special issue on the theme:

 

Dictatorship of Failure:

The Discourse of Democratic Failure in the Current European Crisis

 

 

Description of the General Theme:

The current Portuguese prime minister recently declared that ‘we [i.e. the Portuguese people] will only get out of this situation [i.e. the current crisis] by becoming poorer’. That statement sought to justify the implementation of so-called austerity measures agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission in order to make the Portuguese economy more competitive, while allowing for the hope that one day economic progress would return. That particular way of formulating an economic program in times of crisis has at least three interesting aspects. First, there is the rhetorical use of ‘we’, which suggests that sacrifices are abstractly requested from all individuals as citizens, even though as tradition has it, and as specifically proposed financial measures are designed, only part of society is targeted, with a recurrent emphasis on civil servants, pensioners, and so on. Large corporations, banks, and generally individuals and entities at higher levels of the socio-economic ladder seem to largely escape the new austerity measures. Along the same lines, a second element in that general picture consists then in demanding, in a rhetorical manner similar to that expected in times of war, extreme hardship from a few for the sake of the prosperity of all, and particularly future generations. And thirdly, the statement is notable for the economic model it offers: national poverty, as opposed to a more usual focus on job creation or increased purchasing power, is the way to solve the problems in the long run for debilitated European economies. That in turn suggests a novel approach to economic ills, on the model of “creative destruction”, which takes economic misery not only as a problem but as part of the solution, and which sounds thus at odds with the traditional political outlook of recounting social and economic progress that has been achieved and further prosperity that needs to be promised. In general terms, the statement assumes poverty not to be a fact, but an acceptable and desirable way of existence of some for the greater good of the collective. The political outlook behind the economic plan thus brackets the project of the Welfare State and points to other conceptions of the role of the State in the economy, as well as different ideas about the relationship of democracy to political legitimacy in times of financial hardship.

The bluntness of that political vision finds echoes nowadays in a type of political rhetoric at work in many European countries facing the current continent-wide financial and political crisis. We think that it expresses in a particular way a wider picture of what is going on in Europe at the moment, when the possibility and the necessity of dictatorship seem to be pervading in increasingly explicit fashion mainstream political discourse at various levels of the European governance architecture. The dictatorial model comes in different guises, and is variously suggested or implied, if not openly discussed, as a suspension or paralysis of electoral legitimacy and the democratic process, sometimes imposed by extraneous factors and sometimes demanded as a voluntary abdication of democratic control, but always based on technocratic expertise assumed to be beyond popular deliberation. Democratically elected governments have been quite openly forced to resign by unelected European officials. Similarly, the sovereignty of national states is being openly questioned or bypassed by “financial markets” now omnipresent as a reference for the trustworthiness of political programs. A notion of democracy’s inability to serve the demos in the face of economic trouble is prompting people throughout Europe to become confident enough to start toying with the idea of bracketing democracy, bypassing it or supplementing it with technocratic powers of a higher order, in order to restore order in Europe, solving the financial crisis and possibly returning then to democracy. All of it is, however, openly pronounced to be for the general welfare and future of the “people”, a generally undefined “we” of a national or transnational nature.

The normalization of that type of discourse in Europe is sufficiently worrisome from a historical perspective. But what does this say more generally about Europe as a political project, about democracy as a form of government and about democracy as it is practiced in western European countries? Why, and on what grounds, have people become openly skeptical of how modern parliamentary democracies work, regardless of party lines? Is it because political parties seem to be unable to find middle paths between their practical or ideological commitments? Is it on the contrary because party politics has lost much of its appeal in becoming precisely devoid of contrasting ideological visions and programmatic innovations, while the democratic process is focused on short-term electoral schedules, political scandals, and media sensationalism? On the one hand, it seems that many citizens of democratic states doubt the ability of their political representatives to find ways to solve serious crises in a plurality of voices, and respond to the seductive appeal of reverting instead to one voice above and beyond the polyphony of democracy. On the other hand, in a time when individuals are becoming more politically aware and involved, the technocratic elements of supranational organizations, backed by the general sense of economic emergency, are promoting restrictions on access to democratic government in the full sense. The tendency, especially within “debtor countries”, to replace party politics with a general recourse to supposedly neutral economic expertise seems to be a sign of the same phenomenon.

The suspension of any normal democratic process, and the subtle questioning of democracy’s “efficiency” as a managerial model, seems to be a danger in itself, as the temptation of suspending liberal rights in order to keep freedom has showed in recent and less recent times. The immediate backdrop to the current wave of democracy fatigue, as represented by the pervasive war-time rhetoric of national sacrifice while others decide and others prosper, is provided by the now normalized question as to whether we should temporarily soften the prohibition of torture in order to keep our democracies and liberal freedoms safe. The expanded version of that same logic comes today in the form of whether democratic legitimacy should not yield to a higher form of legitimacy, which justifies imposing selective sacrifices in the name of an abstract good and an abstract people, described in a discourse beyond political contestation, but also imbued with a form of populist nationalism that seeks allegiance across ideological fault lines. Symptomatic of that situation is the fact that to an increasingly shameless undemocratic discourse corresponds also a wave of extra-parliamentary political opposition and civil unrest presenting itself, among other things, as following in the steps of protests that have now been challenging and weakening dictatorships in the Arab world. In other words, an open dictatorial ethos of national and supranational governance meets the perception of democracy as already perverted by forces that stand in the way of social and economic progress, thus converging in a dire picture of the current faith in parliamentary democracy. Among the most worrisome signs of an assumed decline or failure of democracy is the posture of pride and satisfaction of both political leaders and “financial markets” when governments are revamped to explicitly exclude “politicians” and replace them with “experts”. In other words, the crisis opens up the possibility not only to suspend democracy but, in the minds of some, including politicians, to bracket politics and the political themselves as essentially superfluous, or even noxious, elements of social life.

These are trying days for Europe and for the world, and what makes them so is that we seem to have allowed for the thought of a  destruction, or temporary suspension, of the democratic ideal to enter the political discourse as a normal fact, in the same way as we seem to have accepted that our proudly proclaimed western model of life – more individual rights, family rights, social protection – can be, and should be, junked in order to be able to keep up with models of society that are more competitive because they do not spend resources with such kind of values. It is of course problematic to emphasize a Eurocentric model of society in the abstract, but the issue lies precisely in the adoption of a political rhetoric by mainstream political actors that questions the adoption of such a “model” not on the basis of its desirability but rather its feasibility. Ideas of respect for the individual, gender equality, non discrimination along arbitrary lines, right of free expression and free movement, right to education, personal advancement, social and labor rights are now increasingly presented as a burden, especially if people take that model literally to mean a project for each and every member of the polity. The main questions posed in this context are therefore: in the name of what is this destruction being proposed, what makes it worth it, who is the imagined beneficiary of admitting the defeat of democracy, and what is imagined to be outside of the democratic ideal? Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures, but despite the proliferation of the discourse of sacrifice (give up your rights, give up your pensions, give up your hopes), it remains unclear what the goal is that “we”, beyond socio-economic differences and political opinions, are asked to pursue on the other side of controlled inflation and balanced budgets, with those sacrifices and even a clear awareness of what we are willing to pay. The suspension of democracy, and especially the hope in democracy, seems to have exceeded in this rhetoric the bounds of a “state of emergency”, in that the collective goal of selective sacrifice, the preservation of a model of society, is precisely being put in question by a pervasive erosion of faith in its worth as a dispensable tool for the economic welfare of an undefined “we”. We thought these questions should be asked and we thought we should ask them now.

 

Call for contributions

The editors of the special issue are seeking contributions from all disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives around the general theme described above. We are looking in gathering perspectives from and on different countries in Europe, as well as different institutions involved in the handling of the economic crisis. The overall objective is to present a varied and critical picture of the situation concerning the relationship between the economic crisis and the crisis of democratic legitimacy on the continent. Interested contributors are asked to submit a 300 to 500-word abstract to jose.pereiradasilva@helsinki.fi and lorite.escorihuela@helsinki.fi by March 15, 2012. Selected articles will be expected to be submitted by August 30, 2012, to be peer reviewed. The special issue of COLLeGIUM is expected to be published by November 2012.

COLLeGIUM is a scholarly, open-access series of interdisciplinary publications by the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, a research institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences at the University of Helsinki. The series consists of electronic volumes written or edited by the Fellows of the Collegium. All studies published in the series are internationally refereed. The first volume appeared in June 2006 and nine other volumes have been published to date. The list of volumes and their contents are accessible on the website of COLLeGIUM at: http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/e-series/volumes/index.htm.

 More information on the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies can be found on the website of the Collegium at: http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium

 

 

José Filipe Silva

Alejandro Lorite Escorihuela

Guest editors

Insole on Burke and natural law

I attended recently a paper given by Christopher Insole (one of my supervisors) on Burke. I was surprised by how much the Burke that emerged reminded me of Hegel (or some versions of Hegel at least). I’ve not read Burke but I was impressed: he is a thinker who gives particulars great weight, who is very focused on time and experience, who thinks reason is contextual and tradition based but also capable of reflecting critically on that tradition; who is aware of the unintended consequences of social action; who was willing to change his mind. Those familiar with Insole’s book The Politics of Human Frailty will know some of the story he tells here, a story about an alternative version of liberalism, one that is neither Hobbesian nor Kantian, one that is aware of human weakness and has a mistrust of power and so wants it to be dispersed, but also one that thinks policy should be tested by the subjects not the rulers. This is an important addition to the stories that are told about liberalism and modernity, especially in theological circles. Insole is very good about being fair to the different ‘textures’ within genealogies (his phrase) and I felt in this case it was particularly important because it appears (to me at least) there’s still so much in Burke that could be appopriated now that would improve things.

At some point this year the Cambridge Companion to Burke will be released that Insole has co-edited and his chapter will focus on Burkes natural law heritage. Before I’d encountered Insole’s work the only Burke I knew was the Tory Burke and so I had an unfavourable knee-jerk reaction to him. I’ve now discarded that attitude. This paper also addressed Burke’s natural law and it made me re-think my attitude to natural law. Burke’s natural law was integrated with a teleological view of anthropology but emphatically not of history; it was very flexible but also provided a way of critiquing state violence (Burke worked very hard to curb British oppression in India, America and Ireland).

A new article in Political Theology

My article ‘Andrew Shanks’s Civil Theology’ is in the current issue (13.1) of Political Theology.