By Norman E. Anderson
A new and disturbing trend is occurring in America's religious right these days, a trend with social and political consequences. I won't attempt to document the trend. Suffice to say that I have detected it in recent books, lectures, sermons, and informal conversation. It even surfaced in a church I visited last Sunday, and that occasion prompted me to write this piece.
The trend I'm referring to is an increasingly concerted attack upon the "confessional culture," "toleration as indifference or acceptance," and the "rights way of thinking." These are often cited as contributing to the decay of society.
The problem isn't that good points aren't being made. Some are. Rather it is that an imbalance is developing, an imbalance that is due to a neglect of history in the rhetoric.
The confessional strains of Western culture have many touchstones in history, among them the likes of Sappho, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine of Hippo, Rousseau, Emily Dickinson, and, in the Twentieth Century, Rainer Maria Rilke, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton.
This strain has enormously benefited humankind. It has explored the inner regions of our humanity in such a way that discovery can be passed on to others; it has taught us that the individual is much more than just a member of a group but is, in fact, a being; and it has allowed us to touch the inner chords of other lives with empathy.
It is in part upon this basis that, as a culture and not merely as a few spiritually gifted individuals, we look upon the agonies of others not with indifference, but with compassion. It is in part upon this basis that we manage to transcend ideology and to recognize in each other a common humanity. It is in part upon this basis that we have learned to accord each other respect, whatever our backgrounds or beliefs. It is in part upon this basis that we recognize the individual and not groups as the foundation of our politics. Without the confessional strains in our heritage, we would be deeply impoverished.
Now, of course, as with every other human product, there is that which is of high quality, that which belongs on the trash heap, and everything in between. Self-absorption, self-promotion, and the exploitation of the private life for titillation and shock value are among the many factors that pollute and dilute the confessional heritage. It is entirely appropriate to criticize that which is bad by way of doing honor to that which is good; but to attack our confessional heritage as a whole is not only to disregard the good, but to sin against our very humanity as it has emerged into the light over the last few thousand years.
I must be careful about ascribing motives and I would certainly not characterize the whole religious right this way, but I have noticed that attacks upon our confessional culture sometimes come from quarters with a seemingly congenital unwillingness to open up and to show doubt and struggle, as though a show of certainty were a secure foundation. It is not. However, a valuable ground for our life together and for dialog on practically any issue can be found in the commonality of our doubt and struggle.
William [Waddell], lived in Galloway [Scotland], in 1656, and was one of those who were persecuted for non-conformity in the reign of Charles II [who was King from 1649-1685], and sentenced to be transported to Botany Bay [on the northern outskirts of London]. They were put on board of a vessel at Leith [Scotland], which was driven by contrary winds into the northern isles, where they were abandoned by the captain and crew, who left the ship in the long boat after fastening down the hatchways, leaving the prisoners to perish. While they were being secured one of the sailors threw a broad axe and an adz down into the hold. With these tools Waddell cut a hole through the vessel's side, between wind and water, through which 75 persons got upon the rocks, while the ship was being broken up by the violence of the waves. They eventually reached the mainland, where they were kept in hiding till after the persecution, while William Waddell settled in Erskine, and before the end of the persecution, he was frequently pursued by the King's troops, and would have been shot had he been found.
Assuming certain family history books to be correct, William Waddell was a direct ancestor of mine. He was one of many of my ancestors to have suffered religious persecution.
In those days and the immediately preceding centuries, the prevailing view on all sides was that toleration in religious matters is the work of the devil. However, after two centuries of recurrent and often chronic religious warfare in Europe and Great Britain, that idea temporarily exhausted itself; and voices were heard, some of the foremost among them even religious voices, that freedom of conscience should be protected. In the American colonies, election sermons frequently became the occasion for presenting carefully constructed arguments for a new politics, a politics of freedom and toleration.
For the idea of toleration to flourish, many distinctions had to be drawn. Religionists generally went at least as far as admitting to a practical tolerance, whereby, as the Dictionary of Moral Theology (1962) later put it, "failure to impede error by law and coercive provisions can be justified in the interest of a higher and greater good" even if "that which is not true or moral has no objective right to existence, promotion, or practice" (p. 1237). (I take issue with certain premises underlying the second quotation, but I will refrain from digressing.)
Among the many other distinctions that have become part of the warp and woof of modern society are these:
Such distinctions may seem obvious to some of us, but they took centuries to develop; and it would probably be safe to say that without such distinctions, social toleration would not exist. In other words, intellectually speaking, distinction is the very stuff of toleration.
Nowadays, some who are part of the religious right are attacking the idea of toleration as indifference and even more so the idea of toleration as acceptance. This attack has roots in another important and reasonable distinction, that between practical tolerance, as defined above, and dogmatic tolerance, which is the idea that all doctrines are equally good or, to put it another way, that ultimately how people believe does not matter. As I said at the top, the problem isn't that good points aren't being made. Indifference to morality is no virtue.
The problem is that this attack is typically being conducted without reference to the distinctions so necessary to toleration, without conveying any sense of the enormous cost our society has paid for toleration, and without affirming the continuing value of toleration. Thus, for instance, some people may well feel urged on to overturn state indifference to beliefs and private practices, this in a globalized society where toleration is fragile and in many places non-existent. Distinctions being the stuff of toleration, if they are slighted, I fear the reemergence of religiously motivated uses of power on behalf of intolerance, even in North America.
There is another problem with this attack, which is that it is often speaking past issues. Sometimes the phrase "toleration as indifference" is code for the unacceptability of sex education that is neutral with regard to sexual morality or for the unacceptability of abortion and homosexuality. However, often what is involved on the side being attacked is not indifference at all, but something else, such as:
Those who are taking a stand against toleration as indifference should make sure, first, that they are not undermining toleration more generally and, second, that they are speaking to the actual concerns on their hearts.
When I was in my teens and twenties, I developed an elaborate social experiment in the form of a fantasy nation, called Ilithia. Among other efforts on behalf of that fantasy, I drew maps and portraits and composed a chronicle and, most significantly for my later thought, drafted a code of laws.
These laws were based solely and exclusively upon an open-ended list of rights. Some of these rights, such as the right to privacy, limited the power of others, not just government, over the individual. Other rights, such as the right to health care, obligated members of the Ilithian society both individually and corporately.
To my amazement, a beautiful scheme of laws emerged, which was fully adequate, within the mental experiment at least, for a society to function well. The vision of that scheme has stayed with me through the years, enriching my political ideas and enabling me to offer a distinctive perspective in some of my social critique.
As a consequence, one of my most cherished amendments to the Constitution of the United States is Article IX, which states that "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Now much has to be sorted out. Are the rights retained by the people just collective rights, such as the right of self-government, or do they also include individual rights? I think the latter. Are these rights self-evident truths and unalienable, as are those rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence, and thus to be protected by the courts; or are they rights that the people grant to themselves through legislation? I do not think the Ninth Amendment is limited to one or the other. How are these rights to be determined -- by metaphysical argument? common law principle? tradition? assertion? public debate? I think the answer depends on the kind of rights being talked about.
The vision of a nation struggling with these questions and shaping its laws around the answers is inspiring to me; however, after two centuries, we as a nation have made little progress in answering them.
Instead what we see is a muddle. The foundation of human rights has lost all consensus, except, perhaps, consensus itself, partly because rationalistic modernism has been supplanted by post-modernism. The precise distinction between types of rights, such as human rights and civil rights, is elusive. Group rights are in contention against individual rights. Some people claim rights and entitlements that others regard as silly or as an imposition upon society. And in some situations, the concern for rights has been perceived as impeding goodness, whether that be the improvement of society or doing what is best for, say, an incapacitated individual.
Furthermore, people have lost track of when and where rights apply. Do they apply only relative to governmental interference? What about with regard to other forms of power, such as the power held over individuals by businesses and institutions? And what about between people?
If one looks to the law, one can say, "Oh, yes, there is a right here; and there's not one there." But where do we look to find a coherent philosophy of government and law that makes sense of rights in the context of contemporary thought, that allows for a vigorous application of the Ninth Amendment, and that can persuade a society? Certainly some individual thinkers have much to contribute on that score; but, as I said, American society as a whole is in a muddle.
Out of that muddle arises a backlash against rights, quite understandably. Some people among us have antiquarian notions of how societies ought to conform to rightness even if coercion is required. Anyone can see both self-interests and supposed best-interests clashing with rights. And many are apprehensive that some types of rights are not only in conflict with one another, which is natural, but are fundamentally incompatible. Thus the so-called "rights way of thinking" is perceived as clashing with traditional standards of morality, with individual interest, and even with certain particularly cherished rights; and so it is regarded with suspicion and often verbally attacked.
Sometimes this attack strikes at the heart of classical liberalism itself, that is, the philosophy of rights propounded by Thomas Jefferson and other Founders of the American republic. But even when it does not go so far and focuses merely upon contemporary issues, the overtones can be disturbing. For the effort is seldom to secure, without dross, the appropriate rights vaguely spoken of in the Declaration of Independence and the Ninth Amendment. Rather it is usually to say, "No more! Expand rights no further. Leave room for us to impose our values on others, at least if we can manage a majority."
Naturally, battling over values is what politics is largely about; but we are discussing a subclass of values, those where the values of a majority may conflict with either natural rights or the formation of a sound doctrine of how rights are to be established. Here the attack upon rights can have untold consequences for the future of America and the world.
Just an aside: In the previous segment we saw that distinctions have a tendency to strengthen toleration. In this segment we have seen that distinctions can often have the effect of weakening rights, for instance when rights are understood as applying to individuals in relation to the state and not to individuals in relation to other custodians of power. But perhaps we are now speaking not of distinctions, but of unnatural divisions.
The confessional culture, toleration as indifference, and the rights way of thinking are often cast as signs of social decay.
Now it is true that self-absorption, indifference to morality, and silliness with regard to thought on rights are not healthful signs. But I would make three points:
The third point calls for some elaboration.
It has long been recognized, although not often mentioned, that social decadence has been a main theme of reactionary forces in society. Progress typically entails some sort of departure from tradition and an upsetting of established power structures. In other words, it means some break-down of the old and displacement by the new. The cry is that both the break-down and the displacement are the equivalent of decadence.
This reaction in defense of tradition and prevailing power structures dovetails with two images, one the decline of the Roman Empire, the other a premillennial view of the end times.
The decline of the Roman Empire and, for that matter, of just about every other civilization that ever existed is supposed to have been due to moral corruption. This supposition is arrived at not by careful historical analysis according to the highest standards of scholarship, nor is it held either as a hypothesis or as a piece of the puzzle, rather it is something akin to an article of faith, especially among social conservatives.
Leaving aside questions of historical method, notice the linkages being made in this image.
Each of these linkages can and should be challenged, but let me just point out that not one of them is susceptible to historical proof. They derive not from history, but from our will to read history as a moral tale. This insistent way of reading history collapses as soon as we realize that sometimes the good are punished and the evil rewarded with no rectification in this life. Morality is not enslaved to historical consequences, rather it has a higher obligation.
Now for the premillennial view. That view or, actually, set of views typically envisions worsening physical and moral conditions for humankind until God intervenes and establishes direct rule. This is hardly the only religious or even Christian idea of the end times. Some visions project generally upward progress for humankind as the reign of God takes greater and greater hold. However, in these days of rapid change and moral pluralism, it is premillennialism that finds ready compatibility with reactionary forces and social conservatism, so much so that adherents frequently fail to distinguish doctrinal views from social views.
For purposes of discernment, among other reasons, some premillennialists are forever trying to fit current events into a grand scheme of the end times. When developments prove them wrong, they are generally undaunted and try to fit the next set of events into their scheme. Broad social criticisms of the confessional culture, toleration as indifference, and the rights way of thinking lend themselves easily to the dire schematic and require little adjustment in the short term.
Whether one takes these confluences together or separately -- I'm referring now to reactionary views, social conservativism, and premillennialism -- the idea that society is in decay is hardly an accurate reflection of all that is happening or even of the main currents in society, at least not necessarily so. Typically, in fact almost always, it is based on a selected group of facts and projections; and it is informed by an attitude and world-view. In the present day, whether the basis is a view of tradition and power, assumptions about civilization in relation to morality, or a grand scheme of history and the end times, these criticisms reinforce a perspective, an identity, and a political alliance, not a keen and balanced perception of objective truth.
Several points can be derived from this analysis:
It is my sincere hope that this essay will help serve as a corrective, so that great ideas will continue to work their way upon culture unimpeded and never be thrown out with the dross.
My Take: NEA Editorial, no. 11
Written February 16-22, 1999; posted, February 22, 1999; new url, Janaury 28, 2004; last modification, January 28, 2004
Copyright ©1999-2004 by Norman E. Anderson
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