In the New York Times, Charles Blow discusses a survey which found that most Christians in the US believe that even non-Christians can be saved:
So in August, Pew asked the question again. (They released the results last week.) Sixty-five percent of respondents said — again — that other religions could lead to eternal life. But this time, to clear up any confusion, Pew asked them to specify which religions. The respondents essentially said all of them.
And they didn’t stop there. Nearly half also thought that atheists could go to heaven — dragged there kicking and screaming, no doubt — and most thought that people with no religious faith also could go.
I found that op-ed (pointed out in comments by Richard — thanks, Richard!) enormously cheering. A doctrine that says that God is good and just and intends to damn everyone who doesn’t come to the correct church is, frankly, ugly. The news that lots of the Christian majority is refusing to buy that doctrine is nothing but good.
I’ve never bought the idea that people — at least in a relatively free country — are helpless to resist accepting what their religion teaches them.1 By and large, if you believe that Jews or Muslims or Hindu or atheists or queers aren’t equal — and “will be sent to Hell by a just God” is a form of considering people less than equal — then that means you’re bigoted against them. You may not be hateful, you may personally be a swell person who genuinely loves your sister and her Jewish wife, but the fact that you’re willing to accept such a doctrine as true, means that it’s acceptable to you.
So, I was very happy to read Blow’s op-ed. Plus, as a Jewish atheist, I’m morbidly curious to know who thinks that Jews and atheists can (and can’t) go to Heaven.
Unfortunately, once I looked at the numbers, I think Blow was wrong to say “nearly half thought atheists could go to heaven.” Blow may have been looking at the table on this page, which says 41%, which is “nearly half.” But that table is only considering the 70% of U.S. Christians who agreed that multiple religions “can lead to eternal life.” So the actual number of U.S. Christians who “thought that atheists could go to heaven” was 41% of 70% — or 29%.2 Not even close to half.
I don’t blame Mr. Blow for his error; Pew presented the data so unclearly, I suspect they were trying to make Americans appear more tolerant than we really are.
Pew provided data on this matter for four groups: white evangelical, white mainline, black protestant, and white Catholic. In general, the White evangelicals believe in the most closed-off and exclusive Heaven, and Black protestants are nearly as exclusive in their beliefs. Catholics were the most liberal about who could go to Heaven, although mainline protestants weren’t far behind.3
All four groups agreed that atheists are the least likely group to get into Heaven, followed closely by Hindus and Muslims. Jews are seen as much more likely than other non-Christians to get into Heaven — but still not as likely as Christians.
So let’s look at the numbers.
JEWS
* 36% of white evangelicals think Jews can go to Heaven.
* 61% of white mainline protestants think Jews can go to Heaven.
* 37% of protestants at historically Black churches, think Jews can go to Heaven.
* 61% of white Catholics4 think Jews can go to Heaven.
ATHEISTS5
* 15% of white evangelicals think atheists can go to Heaven.
* 38% of white mainline protestants think atheists can go to Heaven.
* 39% of white Catholics6 think atheists can go to Heaven.
MUSLIMS
* 20% of white evangelicals think Muslims can go to Heaven.
* 46% of white mainline protestants think Muslims can go to Heaven.
* 34% of protestants at historically Black churches, think Muslims can go to Heaven.
* 49% of white Catholics7 think Muslims can go to Heaven.
CATHOLICS
* 43% of white evangelicals think Catholics can go to Heaven.
* 64% of white mainline protestants think Catholics can go to Heaven.
* 41% of protestants at historically Black churches, think Catholics can go to Heaven.
PROTESTANTS
* 66% of white Catholics8 think Protestants can go to Heaven.
The good news is that in every group — even among evangelicals — there are many believers in a universal heaven. Still, some of the findings — such as that among white evangelicals, only 20% say that a good Muslim can go to heaven — are distressing.
In comments, RonF wrote:
I belong to the Episcopal Church, which is about as “liberal” as it gets in Christianity. And even they make it real clear that it is faith, not works, that one’s salvation is dependent on. If people call themselves Christians and yet don’t understand that I’d have to say that either they’re not going to church much or they’re not listening while they’re there.
I have an alternative interpretation: Maybe some listen, and understand, but don’t agree. That’s what I hope.
- There are exceptions, of course — minor children, for example, may not be free to disagree with their parents. And there are any number of abusive situations in which the person being abused lacks agency. [↩]
- Following Mr. Blow’s usage, I’m going to use “eternal life” and “Heaven” as interchangeable terms, because it’s a pain to type “eternal life” over and over and over and over. [↩]
- My spell-checker wants “Catholics” capitalized, but not “protestants.” I’m not sure why. [↩]
- Does not include Hispanic whites. [↩]
- Pew didn’t list data on atheism for Black protestants. [↩]
- Does not include Hispanic whites. [↩]
- Does not include Hispanic whites. [↩]
- Does not include Hispanic whites. [↩]
Funny that Catholics are considered separate from Christians…since I was told in my youth that Catholicism is part of Christianity. Also funny that evangelicals would be only 40% to think Catholics go to Heaven.
Personally I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell, but I also believe that whatever religion anyone belongs to doesn’t prevent them from some form of afterlife, whatever that may be.
I don’t think it is counting Catholics as separate from Christians. It’s breaking down Christianity into subgroups; one of the subgroups is Catholicism.
Why would the % of Catholics going to Heaven be considered less than 100% by Christians themselves? Same for Catholics and Protestants going to Heaven (I missed that one before).
Now it feels like asking Quebec people if Ontario people are worthy of Heaven, and then asking Ontario people if Quebec people are worthy of Heaven, if they were sister religions in the sense that they are sister provinces.
I agree with Amp’s explanation here, but (as has been commented on in another recent religion thread) there are a lot of people who identify as christian who vehemently deny that catholics are also christian. That might have something to do with the low numbers there.
meh, as a catholic atheist i’m screwed anyway ;)
On Catholics being non-Christians — I once covered a fundraiser for a Christian group incognito; I bought my ticket and brought in a recorder to tape it. It was eye-opening; the group’s m.o. is to get booked as an anti-drug group in public schools, and then, once on site, start prostletyzing. (Incidentally, the group — You Can Run But You Cannot Hide — drew Roy Moore and former Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer [R-As if you had to ask] to headline that event, and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Crazytown, just issued a prayer for them.)
Anyhoo, long story longer, the minister in charge of the group gave a 20-minute sermon about the breakdown in society. And in that sermon, he said that the Pope was “a devil disguised as a minister of righteousness.”
There’s no real ambiguity there. Hardline protestants believe that Catholics made the wrong decision at the reformation, and that the Catholic church is no more Christian than the Mormon church. Granted, most protestants of the (Non-Missouri-Synod) Lutheran-Methodist-Episcopalian variety don’t hold to this belief, but Evangelicals by and large do.
Jeff, that reminds me of a “non-denominational” bible study I went to a couple times in college. 2 people there (the rest were pretty cool) decided to make it their personal mission to save me when they found out I was catholic. They all but told me I was going to hell unless I became a “real” christian.
And then there were the grown ass men and women who would practically spit in my face and tell me I worshipped Mary and the saints (claiming I was lying about being a catholic when I said I didn’t), along with the whole pope being evil thing.
I have an alternative interpretation: Maybe some listen, and understand, but don’t agree. That’s what I hope.
Well, fair enough, and that’s an alternative that I should have included. However, we then get to the question of whether one can be considered a Christian if you knowingly reject one of Christianity’s central beliefs. “You gotta believe!” isn’t just a sports slogan.
I never understood Catholic religion to be about the pope, or saints or whatever else. To me it was pretty standard old testament, new testament, be good to your neighbors, celebrate Easter and Christmas, yada yada, nothing else.
I don’t follow any of that anymore, but I’d probably still marry religiously because of the ceremony stuff.
I have an alternative interpretation: Maybe some listen, and understand, but don’t agree. That’s what I hope.
…
…we then get to the question of whether one can be considered a Christian if you knowingly reject one of Christianity’s central beliefs.
It’s funny: on reflection, I’m not sure where I picked up the idea that all people who are good at heart get an automatic ticket into Paradise whether they applied for one or not; I don’t have any specific memories of the ministers at the United Methodist church I was raised attending’s saying any such thing, but I think it was a pretty implict part of the inclusive theology you found there.
I do know that nobody there ever said Word One (as it were) about being Christian being the only way to get into Heaven — in fact, it was quite the opposite. I — not that I want to cause offense or start an argument, but I actually find the idea offensive, and antithetical to what I think Jesus of Nazareth taught.
(Now, that’s just my own personal belief. Neither the Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church or the Australia Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends should be held responsible for me possibly having my head up my ass.)
Still, the idea — “If you are a Christian, you must think that this is the only and exclusive path to Heaven, and that ipso facto all other paths are wrong and possibly evil” — is one that never resonated with me at all. I’m all but certain my own mainline protestant church never said such a thing, not in my time there.
well, certainly not every pope. but considering some of the stuff the current incarnation has been saying lately…
*GRIN*
My thoughts exactly. Let’s compromise. Can we agree that he’s Christian and evil?
—Myca
Heh. While I’m fully on board with the idea that Catholics are Christian (frankly, the idea that they wouldn’t be strikes me as vaguely insulting; I don’t think it’s the job of people to go around policing who gets to call themselves members of what group, as such) I’m also kind of perversely grateful to Benny XVI; every time he pops up in the news, he serves as a living, breathing reminder to me of why generations of my ancestors have told the Bishops of Rome to metaphorically piss up a rope because he’s not in charge of them.
Falstaff,
You might want to re-read your New Testament, especially the Book of John.
I find the choice of groups studied odd. Granted I have not read the report. But why query white Catholics but not African American Catholics of whom there are many in the U.S.? Why not question Muslim Americans (of all races) about who they believe goes to heaven? Also Evangelical is not the same as fundamentalist–Lutherans can be Evangelical but not fundamentalist.
I also think that one does not have to buy into every tenet of one’s chosen or born into religion to be a member of that religion.
Ah, yes, the Book of John. The one with all those marvelously specific statements that spell things out and don’t get all vague and harsh the mellow of the True Believer.
I don’t know. I think it’s possible for me, or anyone else, for that matter, to believe in the general program of Jesus of Nazareth without believing that there’s going to be a big party By And By In The Sky that some of us are going to be invited to, and some of us are going to be the entertainment, viz., we shall be tortured for eternity, hooray.
I do believe in Heaven, as it happens; I don’t believe in Hell. And here’s where you quote chapter and verse to point out that Hell’s in the Bible too. The thing is, the Bible also forbids me to be disrespectful to my father on point of death, commands me to kill gay people because they’re an affront to God, and forbids my grandfather and his descendants for nine generations to go anywhere near the Ark of the Covenant (or any other holy site) because my great-grandparents couldn’t keep it in their pants before they got married, and tells me I mustn’t eat shellfish because they’re dirty dirty dirty.
If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll make up my own mind there. I’m hardly the first Christian to feel that way.
(My above response, of course, is directed at PG. Sorry about that, PG.)
Christians don’t have to believe that you can only come to heaven through christianity? See, this is one reason why religion squicks me out: it’s just a bunch of people who are making up their own “suits me!” moral codes–which is not so bad–but then claiming some added nonsense about some godling that gives your morality some extra oomph.
I mean, if you want to make up your own moral codes, why throw god into it at all? Why include heaven? Doesn’t it seem a bit bizarre?
Sailorman —
Well, we could go on all day with this one, but the short version, at least for me, boils down to this:
I like Jesus of Nazareth’s social justice program. I like what he had to say about the proper way to treat others. And I think he had some very impressive things to say about gender relations, especially for a first-century man from the Near East.
I do believe in the supernatural stuff too — God and so forth — but I believe that most’ve it is, and is supposed to be, metaphorical: for example, there’s a passage in the Bible that describes the prophet Elijah parting the river Jordan. I don’t think he actually did that. I think the writer is slyly trying to explain to us that Elijah is like Moses, without actually having to say that.
I’ve said before in other fora that my natural inclination is stone atheist, but for some reason I do believe in God and can’t quite bring myself to want to let go of that belief. Eh. Figure that one out.
Falstaff,
That’s all Old Testament directives to Jews. If you consider yourself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, it doesn’t make much sense to stress out over a bunch of rules set down to help Jews survive as a race that everyone else was trying to exterminate (pork was not safe to eat back then, and homosexuality didn’t help produce more Jews to carry on the bloodline). It does, however, make sense to pay attention to the things Jesus himself said, one of which is that you MUST believe in him to have eternal life (i.e. in heaven). If you’re just picking and choosing the bits that appeal to your sense of morality, why not call yourself a Christ-admiring deist and ditch the title of “Christian”? Certainly at minimum, a Christian should believe that Jesus died, was resurrected and through his sacrifice humanity can be with God.
Well, I think something worth mentioning is the Catholic church’s stance through both John Paul II and even this latest Benedict (of whom I am generally not a fan, mind you) is that good people CAN get into Heaven without actually being Catholic or even (horror of horrors!!) Christian.
This is something that seems to send the Catholic-hating Evangelicals into epileptic fits. I mean, how dare the Catholic church be a little tolerant?
Wow… generalize much?
I mean, the fact that there are Christians out there that are NOT intolerant hatemongers just because of a likely misquoted or mistranslated piece of early hate-speech somehow offends your sensibilities?
“I mean, if you want to make up your own moral codes, why throw god into it at all? Why include heaven? Doesn’t it seem a bit bizarre?”
I think you’re talking about people getting on their high horses vs say atheists who “have no morals” or some such, while they themselves don’t fully understand or endorse their own religion.
The Catholic stance towards transsexuals through John Paul II, because of Paul McHugh, is pretty bad. I don’t know if it changed any since (that was in 2000).
Edit: I looked it up:
“Pope Benedict XVI has said that saving humanity from transsexual behavior is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.”
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1868390,00.html
PG:
I’m afraid I don’t have time right now to properly debate you — I have to go to work; I can return to the argument later — except to say… well, no offense or anything, but I don’t see what it is to you what I identify as, call myself, or any of that.
Hopefully I’ll be able to expand on that later tonight.
The good news is that in every group — even among evangelicals — there are many believers in a universal heaven.
Quibble — the survey didn’t ask about universal heaven, it asked about whether religious belief or non-belief is necessarily a barrier to going to heaven. So most of those Christians saying atheists can go to heaven mean “that Ampersand’s a nice, upstanding guy — I can’t believe God would send him to hell just for being an atheist.” But I wonder how many of them would say “Stalin was horrible, but even he doesn’t deserve to burn in hell.” As someone who’s a full-on universalist insofar as I believe in a knowable afterlife, I always find it weird how many atheists (not sure if Amp is among them) want Christians to adopt a strict salvation by works doctrine by which *good* heathens go to heaven.
I find it so strange that many people think morals are inseparable from religion. It seems that lots of folks with faith are perplexed about why atheists would ever be anything but self-serving.
I think of morals as a set of programming needed for a social animal to balance the needs of individual vs. the group: sometimes it IS better to be selfish, but most times it behooves you to be “alturistic” now . . . so that your group does well and you get some social capital to spend later. Morals tell us how to make that choice – when can I be selfish and when can I not – in order to optimize both individual and group well-being. And because morals are linked to our persistance on the planet, they’re wired in.
Scientists have found moral behaviors in our cousins . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?scp=1&sq=morailty%20monkeys%20religion&st=cse
But then, I’m just an evolution-loving biologist who thinks the evidence is just not in yet for knowing whether or not there is a supernatural entity out there . . .
I thank no longer believing that Jesus saves (he shoots, he scores — GO JESUS!) in some kind of absolutely guaranteed and exclusive manner for becoming Jewish.
Falstaff,
I don’t see what it is to you what I identify as, call myself, or any of that.
Because to the extent that you identify as Christian, despite not actually adhering to Jesus’s statements on the relationship between belief and the afterlife, you add yourself to the number of people who are labeled the “Christian majority.” Someone like Rick Warren, who does adhere to the standard theology that non-believers like Jews can’t go to heaven, is accepted in part because he is considered to be representing a majority sentiment. If all the people who don’t adhere to the standard theology broke away and called themselves something different, it would reveal the true minority status of such beliefs. So long as the non-adherents continue to call themselves by the same name as the adherents, however, such beliefs will be assumed respectable by sheer force of numbers.
Though your goal is admirable PG, your implementation is questionable.
I would compare your answer to asking Americans to identify themselves as something other than American in order to “out” a minority of Americans one doesn’t agree with (say, the Klan).
Or, maybe a more apt comparison in this case, it’s like asking a Muslim to no longer identify him/her-self as Muslim because s/he disagrees with terrorists and hate-mongers who claim to be following Islam.
It’s interesting to know that Origen was condemned to heresy (300 years after his death) along with his teachings that souls are pre-existent, even if that was consistent with platonic thought and the bible itself (Origen was a theologist in Alexandria). The church felt it would lose too much power if a narrative came to be mainstream that said salvation could be attained without it (the church).
MisterMephisto,
Except non-terrorist Muslims can argue from the text of the Koran that they are acting properly as Muslims, and that it’s the terrorist Muslims who are screwing it up.
Similarly, non-KKK Americans can argue from the texts of our founding documents that the equality of all people is a fundamental American belief (that’s why MLK Jr. said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'”) It’s really quite difficult for Klansmen to argue — particularly as the Constitution has been amended to include all Americans regardless of race and sex — that their ideas are in keeping with the texts that, in the American civic religion, hold the place of the Bible or Koran.
Falstaff said he was a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, and I pointed out that Jesus said that non-believers were condemned. If Falstaff can point to another part of the New Testament that says non-believers *aren’t* condemned, that actually would be comparable to the “is violent jihad necessary to be a good Muslim” debate, in which there seem to be conflicting verses from the Koran that can be interpreted in multiple ways.
If the Koran absolutely, unambiguously and consistently said that Muslims always are obligated to kill nonbelievers, I’d say Islam is a religion that should be marginalized, or at least should engage in some heavy editing of its major text.
Bringing this to the subject of christianism, as mentioned in the other thread:
If christians don’t share any particular philosophy;
if declaring one’s christianity does not give observers any fixed/guaranteed insight into one’s beliefs…
then where is the interchristian bond? if y’all disagree on core criteria, how can there be one?
i mean, if you’re one of the ‘christians’ who thinks that jesus may not have LITERALLY been the son of god, and may not have LITERALLY been resurrected; if you think that you mainly like to focus on the “be nice” part and sort of steer your own way through life following the golden rule… why call yourself a christian? In many respects your moral code is a lot closer to mine than it is to christianity: sure, i believe god is a delusion, but if god doesn’t affect your actoins then there’s no difference.
yet somehow many of the christians seem to stick together, at least to some degree. If you were raised protestant and have not rejected protestantism in favor of
sanityatheism, you probably feel that you have more in common religiously with a Lutheran or random protestant congregant than you do with a reform Jew. But that’s far from obviously the case.Perhaps the reason that christians and other religions bond together is that there’s a lot of strength and perhaps even pleasure in identifying the “other.” You may not know what you religion is; you may share very little with putatively “same religion” others, but you know what your religion ISN’T, right?
Yeah, PG, I have to agree with MisterMephisto here: it’s not that I don’t have many, many problems with the Rick Warrens of the world (or the U.S., which is what you seem to be talking about), but you’re advocating throwing a whole lot of babies out with not a lot of bathwater.
I’m not an orthodox Christian by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, as a Quaker, I’m not required to be — one of the things that drew me to the Society of Friends is the lack of dogmatic thinking. But even so, one of the things that’s really angered me over the last fifteen years or so (not that it wasn’t happening before that, but that’s when I started thinking about it in depth) is… well, not people like you, PG, because I suspect that we agree far more than we disagree, but people who’re saying something similar to what you’re saying from the other side.
I’ve watched — not at all passively, thank you — as rightwing religious conservatives started calling themselves simply Christians, as if they were the only ones; as if there hadn’t been divisions in Christianity along political and cultural lines for centuries now, and it makes me really, really angry.
They don’t have the right to kick me out of my belief-system. Nobody does. Like I say, I’m not orthodox; if I were a Catholic, say, or a member of a Christian sect that policed its members’ beliefs in ways that Quakers don’t, I’d probably be classified as a heretic. No matter. I’m not willing to cede the values and way of thinking that I was born into and continue to have as an adult.
The Rick Warrens don’t have the right to take that away from me. And, I submit, asking people to walk away from their belief-systems because other assholes are trying to steal it is counterproductive at best.
Falstaff,
I have a reply to MisterMephisto caught in the spam filter, which hopefully will be published. But I just want to point out that I am not “kicking you out of your belief system”; rather, I am questioning whether your belief system can be accurately labeled as “Christian.” By all means, stick to your belief system, as it seems like a good one. However, if you think the most fundamental precepts of Christianity, such as Christ’s teachings on how to obtain salvation, are erroneous, then I just don’t see the point in calling yourself Christian. So far, you haven’t presented any counter-evidence to my claim that Jesus said one must believe in him to be saved.
One can admire Jesus and think that he came up with lots of good ideas about peace, justice, charity, etc., without being a Christian. See, e.g., Gandhi for this kind of ecumenical thinking. But I find it unfair to Rev. Warren to act like his saying that non-Christians won’t go to heaven is some kind of crazy idea. If he’s crazy, then so was Jesus.
I’m not throwing out the baby with the bathwater; I’m pointing out that the baby is made of bathwater. How can you call yourself a Christian if you do not adhere to Christ’s own doctrine of salvation?
(My family’s religion, Hinduism, doesn’t really have this issue because of the belief in reincarnation gradually leading to heaven, instead of a heaven-hell binary. In Hinduism, you don’t have to believe in any of it for it to apply to you nonetheless, although certain practices identified with Hinduism, such as meditation, are considered ways to speed your progress toward Nirvana. But Hinduism is highly multi-textual and almost impossible to be a fundamentalist in; those described as “Hindu fundamentalists” actually are cultural conservatives who rarely can find any basis in Hindu texts for their antagonism to, say, kissing in public. I sympathize with the Dalits and others who have abandoned Hinduism because of its providing support for the caste system, but you don’t *have* to believe in caste to be a Hindu — there are plenty of sacred texts that don’t favor it. In any case, I’m an agnostic.)
Dude, come on. How is this different than being Feminist, a Democrat, a Republican, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, ‘Patriotic’, etc.?
There are always different factions within larger groups.
There are always some things that the different factions believe that other factions think doesn’t put them under the rubric of the larger group.
Are Catholics Christian? Are Lutherans Chrtistian? Are Mormons? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Branch Davidians?
I support the right of groups to self-define, sure, but the problem is that if you always go by the majority definition, then that nullifies the possibility of reform or change.
It’s a dynamic system. It has to be.
—Myca
I don’t think PG is actually advocating leaving one’s faith.
Instead he seems to be suggesting identifying one’s self under a different “group”. (Please correct me if I’m wrong, PG.)
The problem is, what do you call believers in the Christ-god? Well, we’ve got a term that people have been using for the better part of two-millenia. Should the more liberal-minded (and less literal-minded) followers of the Christ-god be forced to change what they call themselves because of a seemingly shrinking minority of intolerant people who misuse that faith as a weapon instead of a shield?
And what would these free-thinking Christ-god followers call themselves? Christ-ites? Jesus-ers? Post-Levitican Non-Jewish Transcendental Trinary-Monotheists?
Ultimately, “Christian” is a huge classification that embodies lots of different faiths. There are sub-classifications that better identify the specific socio-political and dogmatic bent of the followers: Unitarians and Quakers on a decidedly left-leaning curve, Evangelists and Baptists on a largely right-leaning curve.
While it would be nice to get a poll that actually paid attention to the specific sub-classifications a bit more (recognizing that they are not this monolithic entity known as “Christians”), I don’t think that paring it down so that it ONLY includes the jerks really helps or changes anything (except reinforce those same jerks’ “persecuted minority” complex).
I admit that I have not kept up on the Christianism thread. Are there people on that thread claiming to be Christians that don’t accept one, if not both, of those tenets? My understanding was that those were pretty much the definining portions of being “Christian”. But since I haven’t been one for so long, I may be mistaken.
I consider Jesus to be a wise philosopher with some really useful things to say that likely learned some of the basics from Buddhism. I neither affirm nor deny his divinity nor his resurrection. But I would never identify myself or anyone of a similar bent to be Christian.
But keep in mind that Falstaff never said anything about denying Jesus’ divinity or resurrection. He denied his faith in the absolute infallibility of the human-transcribed and human-translated text that is the Bible.
There is a VERY large difference there.
Sure, but how can you call yourself a Christian if you do not adhere to Christ’s own doctrine of abhorrence of wealth, embrace of the poor, and love of your enemies? (BTW, I love the bumper sticker: “When Jesus Said Love Your Enemies I’m Pretty Sure He Meant Don’t Kill Them”)
Part of my point here, PG, is that if we define the parts of Christianity that one can ignore with impunity as “all the right wing parts,” and all the parts that cannot possibly be ignored as “all the left wing parts,” then we’re making ourselves allies of the religious right.
Frankly, that’s not something good or decent or right, nor is it something I want to do.
—Myca
Yeah, this here is a big part of what I’m saying.
If we define Christianity as ‘just the jerks’, that’s not good for anyone.
Also a great point. Nothing says that belief in absolute biblical infallibility is a prerequisite for Christianity. Nor should they.
—Myca
MisterMephisto,
You’re correct that I don’t advocate leaving the faith; I advocate labeling one’s faith accurately (which is why I call myself a Hindu agnostic; I am not sure that there is any god or afterlife, but the Hindu take sounds the most reasonable to me).
Keep in mind, by the way, that my criticism of Falstaff’s comments began with his saying, “I do know that nobody there ever said Word One (as it were) about being Christian being the only way to get into Heaven — in fact, it was quite the opposite. I — not that I want to cause offense or start an argument, but I actually find the idea offensive, and antithetical to what I think Jesus of Nazareth taught.”
I pointed out that actually that’s *exactly* what Jesus of Nazareth taught. And if we’re to believe that Jesus was mistranslated there, how do we know which parts of the New Testament actually translated him correctly?
if you’re one of the ‘christians’ who thinks that jesus may not have LITERALLY been the son of god
I don’t think that’s a requirement. So far as I know, Jesus doesn’t claim to be the literal born-of-a-virgin son-of-god. But the resurrection is necessary, and I’d consider a belief in salvation through he-who-was-resurrected to be necessary.
Myca,
I think there should be reform and change, but I also think that at a certain point it makes sense to break off. The original Western Christian Church was trying to reform — Martin Luther’s theses were recommendations for reform — but eventually some people said, “I can’t hang with this ‘papal infallibility,’ ‘relate to God mostly through your local priest’ stuff anymore,” and they became Protestants. What’s wrong with that? These were customs that had developed in the Roman Catholic Church, but they were not requirements laid down by Jesus. When those particular customs no longer worked for people, they left that Church but continued to be Christians because they still adhered to what Jesus taught.
I would say with regard to feminism, the only belief it makes sense to consider “required” is the belief that women are not inferior to men. (From that, one can believe they are different, superior, whatever, but a belief in women’s inferiority to men is inimical to feminism.) If someone thinks women *are* inferior to men, let them hold that belief and come up with a new label (oh wait, we already have a label for that: patriarchy.)
Edited to add: But the right-wingers don’t say they’re ignoring the part of Christianity that advocates peace, justice and charity. They simply interpret that differently to mean peace through the Marines, justice in the afterlife, and charity through the crisis pregnancy center. I don’t think you can point to a right wing Christian who admits that he doesn’t believe in Jesus’s words on that topic.
PG Said:
I think that I can absolutely point to any number of right wing Christians who do not believe literally the thigns that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:
Jesus Said:
How could I point to these people?
By asking one what we ought to do about Osama or what we should have done about Saddam or Hitler or, heck Charles Manson. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.
By punching one in the face. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
By suing one. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.
By asking one for $50. Give to the one who asks you.
—Myca
Well, if we’re going to be very specific about it, you actually only pointed out what John claims Jesus said about non-believers being condemned.
Other portions of the Bible mention something about how (and I’m paraphrasing here) “no man may enter the kingdom of God except through me.”
Is it possible that John misparaphrased it himself based upon his miscomprehension of what Jesus actually said? I mean the part that I paraphrased above could easily be taken to mean what John says. But it could also mean:
A) “Women can worship anyone. Only men have to follow Jesus.”
B) “I’m Jesus. I’m the gatekeeper into Heaven. You don’t have to worship me, but you do have to NOT piss me off.”
I mean, most non-literalist Christians accept that there are discrepancies in the Gospels along with the rest of the Bible, most likely brought on by human error (via either errors of comprehension or memory on behalf of the original authors, whomever they actually were, or later errors , intentional or otherwise, in translation over 2000 years).
Official Catholic doctrine says that the Old Testament is largely a fable told by God to humans that couldn’t understand better. Hence their disinterest in refuting evolution.
Are you honestly saying that Catholics shouldn’t be considered Christian even though they believe the actual important parts (Jesus, his divinity, his resurrection, and most of his philosophy) without adhering to literalist dogma?
If that were the minimum requirement for qualifying as a feminist then such unlikely candidates as Glenn Sacks would be part of the movement.
Again, according to your definition, we might have the label, but if we live in a western democracy we don’t directly experience the thing: can you think of a single law or a single broadly-operating social convention which is predicated on the notion that women are inferior to men?
This is worse than the idea that being a Christian merely entails the belief that Jesus was a nice guy who had some progressive ideas before his time.
Myca,
I don’t think any right-winger would tell you that Jesus was wrong (or in MisterMephisto’s take, “mistranslated”) about the Sermon on the Mount. They’d just say that it doesn’t apply to whatever particularly situation for this or that reason. Seriously, hang out with some Republican Christians, and you’ll get used to this.
MisterMephisto,
As I pointed out to Falstaff earlier, it makes no sense to point to the Old Testament as determinative of what Christians are supposed to believe. The Old Testament was a fabulistic history of the Jews; hence the lengthy genealogies. The New Testament is about the life and sayings of Jesus, with some stuff from his Apostles (e.g. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and Romans) appended. Thomas Jefferson sensibly cut the whole mess down to just the “red letter” words of Christ himself and made a bible of that.
Tom Nolan,
1. Necessary =/= sufficient.
2. can you think of a single law or a single broadly-operating social convention which is predicated on the notion that women are inferior to men?
Yes: the law that does not allow women to officially be in combat positions (which assumes women are inferior in this role), and the social conventions that simultaneously assume women are to be caretakers while undervaluing care work.
“But the resurrection is necessary, and I’d consider a belief in salvation through he-who-was-resurrected to be necessary.”
As was said before, this can be interpreted differently than literally with “belief in Jesus”. It could easily mean “live a perfect saintly life as I did”, forgiving enemies and all that. That would be through his example in flesh, without necessarily believing in everything else.
Bible literalists have given us the 27 million $ monument to stupidity called Creation Museum. The builder of the museum said that he couldn’t do it in Australia, he had to do it in the US, where only half the population believes in evolution.
I pointed out that actually that’s *exactly* what Jesus of Nazareth taught. And if we’re to believe that Jesus was mistranslated there, how do we know which parts of the New Testament actually translated him correctly?
I can’t resist pointing out that we know nothing certain* about the life or teachings of this alleged “Jesus”. All the Gospels in our possession date from after the confirmed writings of Paul, long after in the case of “John”. Perhaps these universalist Christians have received some direct revelation like Paul’s.
*We have a pot that uses his name, along with the same root word that gave us the title of our most famous book of demon-summoning.
@hf
Ironically, the game Final Fantasy Tactics has the church of Saint-Ajora working with a godly figure (much like Jesus) and 12 followers, in their myths. And guess what, they end up all being demons, Saint-Ajora being the worst of them. The parallel drawn with Christian religions in the game are pretty hard to miss, they’re blatant.
PG
But you said it was sufficient, not just necessary. Let me refresh your memory:
(clearly it is necessary to be many things before one counts as a feminist: one must be a human being, must be sentient, and so on. You didn’t mention such things, though, because you wanted to find a characteristic sufficient to distinguish a feminist from someone else)
Isn’t it predicated on the notion that women are, on average, physically weaker than men? I suppose that is a kind of inferiority, but not, surely, the kind of inferiority (moral and mental) you were referring to? Men have a hard time getting employment as wet-nurses because they are inferior (to say the least) to women in the matter of producing breast-milk: does it follow that society regards men as inferior to women, or that we live in a matriarchy?
That care work is undervalued seems to me probable. That more women engage in it than men, certain. It doesn’t follow, however, that this state of affairs has its origin in the conviction that women are inferior to men.
Oh, I see, Tom: when you said “a single law or a single broadly-operating social convention which is predicated on the notion that women are inferior to men?,” what you meant was “a single law or a single broadly-operating social convention which is predicated on the notion that women are inferior to men, that can’t be rationalized away?”
To answer your question: No, there is absolutely no instance of broadly-operating social sexism against women, that I can think of, that cannot be rationalized.
Indeed, I am not aware of any sexist law, ever, which was not predicated on the belief that the law was in some way rational and therefore not unfair. And since social beliefs do not have a specific writer who articulates the reasoning for the social belief, you can always argue that the “origin” of the social belief is something other than sexism.
Orchestras abruptly became significantly more likely to hire women once the practice of “blind auditions,” in which the sex of a musician auditioning is hidden from the people deciding who to hire, became standard. I’d say that’s pretty good evidence that, at least subconsciously, there is a social belief that women are inferior performers. But that’s an exceptional situation — usually social bigotry is hidden and difficult to prove in that clear-cut a manner. (And even so, I’m sure that some MRAs out there, somewhere, have a rationalization explaining why blind orchestra auditions don’t prove that there was ever discrimination against women.)
That said, I tend to agree with Tom that the belief that women are not inferior to men is necessary, but not sufficient, for someone to be a feminist.
Three cheers for Catholicism! :P
I was basically taught that everybody goes to heaven after purgatory, unless you are world-class: Manson, Stalin, etc. (But even death-bed conversions accepted!)
And that is indeed the Evangelical/Fundamentalist line, about why we aren’t. Surprised to see it here!
Tom:
Synonyms for required: necessary, essential, obligatory.
Synonyms of sufficient: adequate, enough.
You see, required means necessary, not sufficient. I’m not sure what dictionary you’re using that it makes sense to read my saying a certain belief is “required” means that I’m saying it’s “sufficient.”
Also,
Sure, and we could prohibit men from being cold-water swimmers because men, on average, have less body fat and thus won’t do as well in cold water. Your comparison to wet nursing is pointless: that’s not a matter of averages, it’s a matter of near-absolutes. There are many more American women who qualify in physical strength to be in combat than there are men in all of history who lactate. And men never have been *prohibited* from being wet nurses — if a man can do the job, there’s no law keeping him from it.
Men can lactate given proper hormonal cocktails and stimulation. And it would be the exact same kind of milk (problem is, with so many hormones, it might be contaminated). If by stimulation alone, which is rarely undertaken, then it probably wouldn’t be contaminated.
I’m not sure what contaminates milk, or why high exogenous estrogen is more dangerous to health (even if its bio-identical) than hormones produced by the body, at similarly high doses.
PG, I agree with you regarding the wet-nurse comparison.
Regarding “required,” though, it seems to me that the word “only” changes the meaning.
If I read “X is required to be Y,” then I’d interpret that as X is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient.
But if I read “the only thing required to be Y is X,” then I’d interpret that as X is sufficient. If the only requirement of X is Y, then X is sufficient.
Obviously, that’s not how you intended it. But I think it was a reasonable way for Tom to interpret your sentence.
PG
As I pointed out (I hope, by the way, that this doesn’t get turn into one of those head-butting exercises I seem to get embroiled in from time to time) lots of things are necessary for one to be regarded as a feminist – one has to be a human being, for example, and have a functioning intellect. Those are not, however, minimum requirements for being regarded as a feminist, they are sub-minimum requirements: necessary but not sufficient. If, on the other hand, you make of “believing women to be not inferior to men” the minimum requirement for being a feminist, then anyone meeting that requirement is a feminist. Likewise, to say that the minimum requirement for something to be regarded as an automobile is that it must have four wheels and an internal combustion engine is to say that anything meeting those criteria is an automobile. It’s an incorrect definition, of course, as was yours of “feminist” (in my opinion) – but a definition is what it is.
As to your recourse to the dictionary: I really don’t see your point. If a requirement has been met by something, then that something is sufficient to the requirement. “Sufficient” and “required” are not semantic alternatives, they are semantic complements.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say on this matter. I might, if he doesn’t mind, come back on Ampersand’s comment 47 later.
I seem to recall that another reason for this has been that when you have mixed men and women together in combat the men will tend to assist and defend women to the detriment of the mission objectives.
RonF,
Has that been shown to be true for the Israeli military’s putting women in combat? They take defense *seriously* and require gays and women to serve. Or is there something different in the American male-female dynamic, such that this would be a concern for us where it doesn’t seem to be for the Israelis?
Amp,
I see what you’re saying, but it’s crucial that I didn’t say the only “thing” required to be a feminist was a belief in women’s non-inferiority; I said it was the only *belief* required. MRAs who claim to believe in women’s non-inferiority may be disqualified from being deemed feminists due to their speech or actions instead of by their purported beliefs.
Fair enough. (Although I don’t agree.)
However, I still think Tom’s (and my own) misinterpretation of what you wrote was understandable. Anyhow, I think it’s been clarified now, and hope we can all move on.
Of course I don’t mind. :-)
Amp
Very happy to agree on this point: there is indeed sexual prejudice working against women’s full and proper participation in certain fields. In this case, the prejudice that women make for inferior performers is proved beyond peradventure. However, as you say, it is unlikely that auditors responsible for the hiring ever admit to such a prejudice even to themselves.
Me neither – it is a tribute to the success of feminism (and other things too) that blatant affirmations of the purported inferiority of women are absent from our legislation and largely absent from our social conventions too. And this was my bone of contention with PG, who said
As you can see, the suggestion is that patriarchy is a matter of consciously subordinating women on the grounds of their inferiority, which is why I asked PG to come up with an example of either a law or a generally prevalent social convention explicitly predicated on such sexism. I stand by what I said, that neither of the examples s/he produced is altogether convincing. The purported reason that that women are not allowed to fight in the front line
is that they are on average weaker than men. I accept, of course, that some women are the bodily equal of the average man, and in my opinion it is altogether right that they should fight shoulder to shoulder with their male colleagues if they are physically up to the task. But it doesn’t follow, and it’s unlikely to be the case, that they are prevented from doing so on the grounds that women are viewed by the army as being generally inferior to men – the fact that it is prepared to employ them in many other, often vital, capacities strongly argues against such an assumption. As to my “male wet-nurse” analogy – it was admittedly extreme (no man, as PG rightly pointed out, and as I know to my cost, has the ability lactate, while women who are the physical equal of the average man are only very rare), but my point still stands: it isn’t sexist to acknowledge differences between the sexes – even average differences – which actually exist. If my sister had to take a lift home with an unknown man or with an unknown woman, I would unhesitatingly tell her to choose the latter, because I know that the likelihood of her being assaulted by the man is much greater than of her being assaulted by the woman (which is not to say, of course, that it is impossible for her to be assaulted by a stranger of her own sex.)
As to the fact that caregivers are poorly paid and mostly women, again, though this is regrettable and ought to be remedied, I don’t see that such a situation necessarily arises out of a belief that women are inferior. A young woman of my acquaintance, having achieved remarkable school grades, was determined to become a nurse despite her parents’ protestations that she could, with her marks, look forward to a career as a lawyer or a doctor if she wanted. She was not to be moved, however, and has since achieved her ambition.
Now, had she been influenced by sexist stereotyping which led her to believe that, as a woman, she had some kind of vocation to bring comfort to the suffering? Possibly. And such sexist conditioning might account for the prevalence of women as carers generally. But though she may have considered herself “different” on account of her womanhood, she certainly did not consider herself to be inferior, nor, I think, do her employers who pay her at precisely the same rate they do to men doing the same job.
Indeed, I am not aware of any sexist law, ever, which was not predicated on the belief that the law was in some way rational and therefore not unfair
Actually, the law can be predicated on the at-the-time-believed-rational belief that women were inferior to men. For example, many state legislators openly declared that women were incapable of the rational thought processes required to be voters and jurors, and therefore prohibiting them from those civic rights and responsibilities was rational. Women were comparable to children and thus it would irrational to have them participate as full citizens when they lacked the capacity to do so.
A law can be both rational and “unfair” in the sense of treating people differently, except that people don’t consider something “unfair” unless they believe the people who are being treated differently actually are situated similarly. It’s superficially “unfair” to let 21-year-olds but not 18-year-olds drink; however, we consider 18 and 21 year olds to be situated differently, and so the law is rational. In the same way, laws that distinguish between the sexes assume they are situated differently, and particularly historically assumed that women were inferior in some fashion.
Tom, would you consider a law non-racist if it said that on average, Asians are shorter than other races, and therefore all Asians are prohibited from playing pro basketball? Using averages to declare that a law isn’t discriminating is absurd. Every individual has a right to prove himself or herself, regardless of the “average” abilities of his or her race or sex. Again, the law doesn’t prohibit men from being wet nurses; it does prohibit women from being officially in combat. It isn’t sexist to acknowledge average differences; it is sexist (and racist) to use averages to prohibit people who are above-average for their race/sex.
“Again, the law doesn’t prohibit men from being wet nurses”
In theory the law doesn’t prohibit men from being daycare workers (who work with children, not paperwork), in practice there is widespread acceptable discrimination, from both men and women, to male caretakers.
I’m not trying to draw a parallel though, because well, there probably aren’t wet nurses that are male. And if one showed up, and was able to give milk normally, he probably would get problems (or outright rejection) unless the organization he applied to work at was extremely open-minded. In the mind of the people hiring, being female is a de-facto requirement.
Schala,
Except that the law prohibits discrimination based on sex in hiring care workers, including wet nurses. In contrast, the law specifically *requires* sex discrimination in assigning soldiers to combat positions.
And the law, in theory, prohibits discrimination for gender identity and expression in Canada (Canadian Chart of Rights and Liberties, as applied broadly – which is the norm of its application), but in practice, unless you’re in a financial and emotional position to sue an employer for not hiring you (as Micheline Montreuil did against National Bank of Canada, and the Canadian Army), they just won’t care, and do it anyways. They’re also not all that blatant about it – they never call you, or get you in for an interview, and no response, and they’ll never say why.
Micheline Montreuil was in a favorable position to sue them, being a lawyer and somewhat high-profile, and having the money for the procedures.
I’m not a lawyer, and I’m dirt poor, what can I do if an employer doesn’t hire me and I’m confident its for that reason? I was not hired in summer 2005 by a mall for janitor-at-night duties, something that is not beyond my physical capabilities, and I knew in exclusivity (before it was announced) that a post was free. I was told there would no doubt be try-outs for the position. I never got called. At the time, I was still presenting as male…with waist-length usually unbound hair, and nails of a rather ordinary length for a woman (I stopped biting them, that’s all).
It’s illegal to discriminate, but they still do it.
It’s been discussed here on this blog before, a phenomenon in daycare workers, for men, called the glass elevator. A play on words on the glass ceiling, but in reverse. The objective of promoting a man? That he not work with children directly.
PG
Naturally I would consider such a law racist. And I pointed out that the army chiefs who won’t let women physically capable of serving in the front line (i.e. strong enough to do what has traditionally been regarded as a man’s job) were, in my opinion, wrong. What I disputed was that they were motivated by a belief that women are inferior – except in a purely physical sense – to men, and I pointed out why I thought this was improbable.
Agreed, without reservation.
So you think that racism and sexism are not based on a belief that the discriminated-against group is inferior? If so, what do you think they are based upon? If I use averages to decide that Asians don’t belong in the NBA and women don’t belong in combat, you seem to be saying that I am indeed being racist and sexist, but that I’m not necessarily saying that Asians or women are inferior. What, then, is the force behind my racism and sexism?
I don’t know canadian law, but herein the U.S. it is perfectly legal to discriminate as a general rule, against a variety of groups and classifications. It is illegal to discriminate only if the discrimination is based on a protected group membership or classification. I would be surprised if Canada were much different
If you don’t like the look of long-nailed males with waist length unbound hair, you needn’t hire them. There’s nothing illegal about it. In fact, if you were presenting as male, then you probably made it much less likely that they were discriminating against you because they thought you were female.
Possibly, the issue is that, had I presented as female, they’d know my past due to documentation within minutes. I’m hard to “look up” in public databases and such (I’m simply not listed), but my social security number and other IDs are not hard to find, for an employer, or the government.
It is in fact illegal to discriminate. The Chart of Rights and Liberties, unlike Title VII or such in the US, is meant to be applied widely. So while in the US, it concerns itself with mostly overt discrimination based on sex – which doesn’t count the application of stereotyping a certain sex (as seen by that barmaid being fired for refusing to wear make up case) – in Canada, discrimination based on sex covers transsexual people, and/or people who have a different gender presentation than the norm (a male with waist-lentgh unbound hair).
So yes, it was illegal. If Micheline Montreuil was able to sue, *and win*, against the National Bank of Canada ( a private company), and the Army of Canada (a government organization), then no one is exactly protected.
Only the case of Vancouver Rape Relief (that ended in 2007) was ambiguous enough to rule on the side of transphobia. (Basically, in that case, it was said that the organization had the right to choose *which kind* of women it would hire – which leaves them free reign to only hire white feminine-looking Catholic women if they so please – the issue of contention was publicly that “she looked too much like a man”, but legally they argued they had the right to prefer only “women-born-women”).
PG
That’s perfectly possible in the case we’re discussing.
If the army’s ostensible reasons are its real reasons then the unfair exclusion of women from front-line fighting does not stem from a belief that they are generally inferior to men, only from the belief that they are on average physically weaker, and that it’s uneconomic to produce a whole new range of battle-kit for the very small number of women who would actually wear it. Even if the army is lying, it doesn’t follow that its sexist behaviour can be attributed to a belief that women are inferior: it might be, of course. Equally, it might be the case that the army fears that large numbers of women front-line casualties would be unacceptable to the home public, and thus interfere with the nation’s military readiness.
So, no, it absolutely doesn’t follow that all sexism is based on the assumption that those discriminated against are generally inferior. Is it not the case that quite a lot of discrimination is “protectionist” and derives from the belief, mistaken or correct, that some other body of people is actually superior to their persecutors? I think much antisemitism derives from such a conviction.
It should be noted that VRR was a special instance having some exemption from the Chart. Though I still disagree with the ruling. Their exemption says they can discriminate based on sex and hire women only – but not that they cannot hire a post-operative transsexual woman on grounds of a differing childhood (their legal argument) – or worst, because she doesn’t look feminine enough (their public argument, but I doubt it would have held in court).
Is it not the case that quite a lot of discrimination is “protectionist” and derives from the belief, mistaken or correct, that some other body of people is actually superior to their persecutors?
Could you describe such a phenomenon in Anglo-American law, either current or historical? There was tons of protectionist legislation in the U.S. to prevent women from being able to earn a living on the same terms and conditions as men, but it generally was based on women’s inferior physicality and the necessity of preserving their baby-making abilities. See, e.g., Muller v. Oregon.
I think much antisemitism derives from such a conviction.
I am confused as to how one can believe Jews are superior to other ethnicities/ religions while being actually anti-Semitic. I have seen the view that Israel ought to be held to a higher standard than its neighbors because it is not full of benighted Muslims, but that doesn’t strike me as an anti-Jewish belief, just a rather silly one. There are the anti-Semitic cliches about Jews’ controlling the money supply and all that, but those never are based on real superiority of Jews; they’re always about how Jews are conniving, sneaking, cheating, greedy, etc.
Minority groups are rational in reacting negatively toward negative stereotypes, and neutrally toward positive stereotypes.
Outside of law I can cite examples. I’m not knowledgeable enough about laws, especially in the US, to know.
For example, the notion that a man should and ought to protect a woman, wether she is smaller, just as big, or even bigger than him. Chivalry notions may have toned down, a lot, in every day life since Victorian times – nevertheless, those beliefs may well be part of the reason certain laws benefitting women exist and/or garnered superior support from legislators (who are mostly men).
VAWA probably is part of this. The notion that hurting a woman is something horrible, and hurting a man is something…well, boring, commonplace, normal.
As the Joker said in The Dark Knight:
“If I said a gangbanger was going to get shot, or a whole truck of soldiers blown up, no one would panic – because it’s all part of the plan. But take one tiny mayor and threaten him, and everyone loses their minds!”
Schala,
1. Canadian law would be included in the Anglo-American legal tradition, with the exception of Quebec (which I assume like Louisiana is based on French code law), although Canada in recent years has become more heavily influenced by Continental law (which is more code than common law).
2. The idea that men should protect women isn’t based on women’s being superior to men in the way that a mayor is higher up in a social hierarchy than a gangbanger or soldier. Chivalry, even the forms I support, is about the strong protecting the weak.
VAWA is based on the fact that women are assaulted in a way that prevents them from exercising full citizenship, particularly in the ability to move freely and participate in the interstate economy. For some examples of how sexualized assault in particular threatens women’s ability to support themselves, I recommend E.J. Graff at Slate’s XX blog.
Hurting men isn’t seen as “boring, commonplace, normal” — on the contrary, the idea of a man who can’t defend himself against physical assault goes against all our cultural stereotypes of masculinity.
No, I couldn’t, nor do I know of any.
But the calls for antisemitic legislation in, say, Wilhelmine Germany, were frequently justified with reference to the purported over-representation of Jews in the arts and in commerce. A large part of the appeal of such agitation was its promise to protect jobs for gentiles. “The Jews are smarter than you are, armer Michel, and they’ll steal all the jobs – they’ll steal the very job you have your eye on – if they aren’t put back in their place!” was the message.
PG, surely you don’t want to dispute that fear and envy, rather than a sincere belief in inferiority, lies behind much discrimination? If people had really felt that Jews were inferior – stupider, weaker, less ambitious – what would be the point of discriminating against them? Genuinely stupid, weak, unambitious people excite nobody’s fear and envy, and legislation to keep them out of top civil-service positions etc. would be singularly futile.
Exactly, so its his fault, his problem, and he shouldn’t have help for it. At least legislators seem to reason that way.
Incidentally, I am from Quebec province heh. Laws in Canada are usually interpreted more broadly for rights and protections, and more narrowly for the opposite – than the US who go apparently the opposite way (or at the very least, don’t consider using a broad approach to protections) – 2nd amendment excluded.
I’m saying that a probable reason of the endorsement of VAWA by many men, as opposed to say, a gender-neutral law, is because they care more about women being assaulted than they do about men being assaulted – or notions of chivalry.
The notion that women should be put on a pedestal and preserving their purity is Victorian in origin (or at least, became mainstream then). It may have some foundation on the idea that women are too weak to defend themselves – but instead of putting emphasis on teaching them how to defend themselves, it tries to eliminate the violence without women having to face it (more punitive rather than preventative approach).
The same concept as applied to men wouldn’t work. Because we DO expect men to face violence, wether they want to or not. We (as a society) want to prevent women from experiencing it. We also privilege children in the same way – saying they should not face violence. Children are often spared, along with women in war conflicts where rape isn’t used as a tool in a broad fashion.
They’re not considered “unworthy” (to fight) only, they’re also considered worth preserving – soldiers no doubt considering that they’d hate for that to happen to their own wives and children (but won’t have such cares for men because they, in general, don’t have husbands, and the attitude of male disposability).
Anyways, a long-winded argument to say that men in general are likely to favor pro-women legislation because they don’t want their girlfriends, wives and daughters to get hurt. Women are more likely to care about men being hurt (their boyfriends, husbands and sons) – but they’re not legislators in as big numbers, and are also in a world where male victims are considered a minority or a joke (so are less likely to care to the same extent).
PG
Yes, I can see you are – but that’s because you have conflated two distinct phenomena: (1) adverse discrimination and (2) the conviction of the injured party’s inferiority to the extent that you believe that you can’t have one without the other. Your confusion will cease the moment you grasp that they are in principle two separate matters (though in fact a belief, examined or unexamined, that a particular group is inferior is indeed often enough the motor of discrimination).
Tom,
Can you cite any Nazi propaganda that actually stated Jews were smarter than Aryans? The need for job protection just goes back to what I said before: the Nazis portrayed Jews as in some way cheating and not having earned what they had through real work. Some of this was grounded in resentment toward the cosmopolitan. Phoebe Maltz (a PhD student studying Jews in French history and culture) wrote some interesting posts about the ways in which Palin’s and other Republicans’ efforts to portray rural and small town America as the “real” America bothered Jewish voters, because of European pogrom propaganda that Jews, with their suspicious affinity toward the urban(e) life of art, education, commerce and so forth, were somehow less “real” members of the nation because they lacked the all-important affinity with the land.
Fear and envy may be the unconscious emotions behind discrimination, but they never seem to be the propaganda behind it. You can’t discriminate against someone and feel good about yourself unless you convince yourself that the person deserved it, and she hardly can deserve it unless she is inferior in some way.
PG, what’s all this about Nazi Germany? Wilhelmine Germany came to an end in 1918!
Yes, the propaganda appeals to the fear and envy which already exist and helps morally justify them: enterprise becomes ruthless striving, intelligence deviousness, etc. etc. I do take your point that persecutors like to “feel good” about themselves, and that propaganda efforts can help them do so – but the fact remains that the real motor of discrimination is often the fear and envy we feel towards a body of people whom we believe to be significantly superior to ourselves.
PG, are we in serious disagreement here?
Sorry, I read too quickly and thought you were referring to Weimar Germany and persecution of Jews in the early 1930s. The question is equally good for a period 15 years earlier, however: Can you cite any Wilhelmine Germany propaganda that actually stated Jews were smarter than Aryans?
If you agree that people feel the need to morally justify discrimination by declaring the victims of discrimination to be inferior, I’m still puzzled as to why you maintain that there’s not necessarily any idea of inferiority at work when people discriminate. You can claim that it’s not their “real” reason, but that’s spectacularly useless in fighting discrimination, because psychological analysis is a poor tool of public debate. (I’d certainly be infuriated if someone told me that I seek legal, social and economic equality of sexes merely as a proxy for the penis I never can possess.)
While I can prove that the existence of X individual proves that people in X group aren’t all inferior to people in Y group, and thus the claim of group inferiority fails, I’m not really sure how to use the fact that I know the discriminators are simply driven by their deep dark secret fear of X group to get them to change their minds. It’s a rather simple matter for them to deny that fear and envy are what drive their actions.
Our serious disagreement seems to be over whether I should say that discrimination is driven by a belief in the victims’ inferiority. You say that I can’t assume it is, because of your insight into the real psychological motives behind the discrimination. I say that I’d rather assume what people are telling me are their reasons instead of trying to delve into their hidden emotions. I don’t feel myself sufficiently expert in psychoanalysis to base my arguments on it.
I can’t off the cuff, no. I checked German wikipedia for this, but the monograph simply doesn’t go into that kind of detail. However, I have to say that I’ve met plenty of people (I lived in Germany for four years) from Germany itself and Eastern Europe who, when Jews are mentioned, react in the same way. Not with “Oh, the Jews, they’re so rascally and unclean” but rather with, “The Jews, eh? They work with this (taps forhead) and make a fortune, we work with these (flexes biceps) and make a pittance!” That sort of resentment lies behind a lot of antisemitism, and it has nothing to do with thinking the Jews inferior.
Because there isn’t a necessary connection. You can quite definitely have discrimination which is not based on a conviction that the victimized group is inferior. The army’s discrimination against women who want to fight in the front line is a case in point (comment 69). As I pointed out, you’re confounding two things which, though often found together, are nonetheless discrete.
Of course it is. The best way to fight against discrimination is to point out its injustice – the motives of those who discriminate (whether, that is, they consider their victims to be inferior or not) is a complete irrelevance.
I solemnly promise that I shall never do any such thing.
No, you can’t assume it, because it doesn’t follow.
So you believe the army when it tells you that its discrimination against women has nothing to do with a purported belief in their inferiority, right?
Anyway, I can feel my horns getting numb: enough head-butting for now! Last word to you, PG.
Tom Nolan wrote:
Actually, Tom, if you look at the intellectual history of antisemitism it has everything to do with the inferiority of the Jews, perhaps not intellectual inferiority, but moral inferiority, because the often unstated subtext of the trope you are talking about is almost alway that, while the Jews may be smart, they have no morals.
You’re both focusing solely on traits and I think you’re missing where you intersect.
It’s not just whether some group has traits which are considered superior, but also whether they have possessions or status which are considered either superior or “more than they deserve.”
So Jews for example may be simultaneously viewed as inferior (PG’s point, I think) and also viewed with envy because they possess wealth (Tom’s point, I think.) The former combines with the letter and the result is that Jews get discriminated against because they are perceived to “have more than they deserve,” and if they don’t have it yet, they are discriminated against so they won’t get it.
Sailorman and Richard,
Yes, I think you have hit upon it: that while Jews may be envied for their wealth, the reaction of anti-Semitism flows from that envy only when one also believes that the wealth is undeserved. For example, Tom says the farmers would complain that they work with their hands and get a pittance — but he doesn’t say that the farmers believe that wealth won with one’s head is as worthy as wealth won through hard labor. I have seen Asian immigrants speak enviously about what American Jews have achieved, but it’s always with a desire to emulate them: “look what this minority group has done, let’s do the same.” There’s no sense that the Jews don’t deserve what they have, but rather a sense that they have shown what is possible for us all.
But if you believe that what someone has is undeserved, then you are perceiving them as inferior, as not having won it fairly and properly. If I think the Jonas Brothers are undeservedly famous and wealthy, it’s because I think of their abilities as inferior to those of obscure and struggling musicians. The people who decide military policy (which is not just the military itself in a civilian-controlled society like ours*), specifically the democratically-elected Congress, does indeed consider women to be an inferior group for the purpose of combat positions, and I’ve never seen anyone who supports that policy claim otherwise.
* It’s actually become a standard response for people in the military, when challenged about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, to disclaim responsibility and say that this is Congress’s decision — which, technically, it is.
Another theory to that, is that you perceive them as:
1) outside your peer group
2) not you
Someone who discriminates usually perceives themselves as being more talented than just about everyone else (unless they admire someone – and if its related to wealth/talent in itself, of course).
If someone perceives someone else as inferior, they would beat themselves even harder for not thinking about it first – being so superior, they should have, no?
The Matrix series has humans try (and fail) to kill the machines, who remained peaceful for far longer than humans – because they envied their efficiency, their wealth and their technological advancements. It’s possible they also see machines as inferior to humans, but it’s not rational, or even empirical (considering machines are sentient). The humans were simply jealous of someone “who was not them or from their group” doing a lot better than them.
Making someone not-from-your-group into other, or even subhuman, is easy, without considering them rationally inferior. You just consider them an enemy to be eliminated (like gays, or transsexuals – who tend to be highly intelligent, or at least no more unintelligent than others).
Schala,
Except homo- and trans-phobes generally aren’t attacking the intelligence of homo- and transsexuals — the phobes are attacking their morality, their psychological soundness, their ability to exist without undermining foundational social concepts that the phobes deem central to the Good. I’ve never seen a phobe say that homosexuals have lower IQs, but it’s quite popular to say that homosexuals are more likely to be pedophiles, to be depressed or otherwise in poor emotional and mental health, to be attacking the biological and social meanings of sexual categories. When people make fun of the trans-man who had a baby, for example, they don’t make fun of him as “stupid”; they make fun of him as delusional. “Ha ha, thinks he’s a man but still getting pregnant — biology FTW!” All of this is describing homosexual and transsexuals as inferior to straights, just not in the particular area of IQ.
To come back to my less-loaded Jonas Brothers analogy: someone who thinks the Jonas Brothers don’t “deserve” their success because they are inferior musicians almost certainly would concede that the Bros. are superior at marketing themselves. Such a critic doesn’t believe that being good at marketing ought to determine whether one is a successful musician; the critic hews to the adorable belief that being good at music by measures of virtuosity, originality, etc. ought to determine commercial success. Being pro-capitalism and resigned to the buying power of today’s adolescents, I don’t have a problem with the superior marketers being the most successful in terms of fame and wealth. The Jonas Brothers work like dogs and embarrass themselves regularly — they deserve whatever they get out of it.