About Rationally Speaking


Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Monday, July 08, 2013

Democracy: the Egyptian conundrum

by Massimo Pigliucci

Back in 1992, Francis Fukuyama famously argued that the advent of Western liberal democracy spelled nothing less than the endpoint of sociocultural evolution: we have finally discovered the best way to govern people and organize society, and that’s gonna be it.

Very clearly, that wasn’t it at all. The United States, the self-professed “best” democracy in the world, has engaged in a massive program to spy on its own people, conjuring ominous 1984-type scenarios that go beyond the wildest fantasies of the craziest Faux News commentator. European democracies are struggling (and likely will be for a long time) with both internally and externally generated economic woes that may lead to the collapse of their common currency, thus dealing a potentially fatal blow to the European project of political union. The only rising superpower in the world is China, most certainly not a democratic country, though one whose citizens (by and large) seem surprisingly (to a Western eye) content to abdicate civil rights in exchange for better financial terms. And then there is the mess in the Middle East, with the Turkish elected leader ordering the beating of his fellow citizens because they dare engage in civil protests, Palestine split into two democratically elected factions that do not respect the rights of their own people and that are making any prospect of peace with Israel increasingly remote (not that Israel itself has been helping anyway), and now Egypt on the brink of chaos because of a popularly acclaimed coup (not an oxymoron, it appears) against its first democratically elected leader. Bet you didn’t see any of that coming, dear Francis!

I’ve recently commented on the challenge from China over at The Philosophers’ Magazine, explaining why Eric Li’s famous essay in Foreign Affairs — which argues that China has successfully shown how one can have a thriving country and reasonably happy citizenry without democracy — is deeply flawed and dangerously wrong headed. But what about cases like Egypt (or Turkey, or Palestine), where democracy quickly turns into that very tyranny of the (sometimes slim) majority that Plato so abhorred?

What’s happening in Egypt has put the Obama administration in a really awkward position, as noted by a number of commentators. The US has not as yet acknowledged that what happened was a coup, and Obama has called for the restoration of “a” (not “the”) democratically elected government. Justifiably, supporters of the deposed President, Mohamed Morsi, and his Muslim Brotherhood party, are claiming that the US is not serious about democracy in the Middle East, but only wants governments that serve American interests.

They have a point. A quick glance at recent and not so recent American history quickly reveals even more egregious instances of US interference in other countries’ affairs that can hardly be characterized as championing democracy or the interests of the countries involved: Syria (1949), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958), Democratic Republic of Congo (1960-65), Iraq (1960-63), Dominican Republic (1961), South Vietnam (1963), Brazil (1964), Chile (1970-73), Turkey (1980), Nicaragua (1980-81), Angola (1980s), Venezuela (2002, attempted), and Gaza (2006, attempted), to mention only the major episodes. There are more benign cases, of course, such as the US forcing dictator Ferdinand Marcos to step down in the Philippines, which led to the election of a democratic government in 1986. Too bad that the US had previously supported Marcos for decades. The point is that for the US to be so squeamish concerning the unfolding events in Egypt is seriously hypocritical, given its own well established record of supporting other countries for its own reasons, quite regardless of whether that support was being given to a democracy or a tyranny.

The big deal with Egypt, of course (and, to a lesser extent, with the similar situation in Palestine and Turkey) is that much ink and diplomatic effort has gone into convincing Islamist movements that they have just as much to gain as other parties when they accept the rules of democracy. Indeed, Turkey was — until recently — one of the few good examples of an essentially Islamic country where a secular type of democracy works well. Not coincidentally, the trouble started precisely when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan began to push a religiously conservative agenda on behalf of his Islamist Justice and Development Party. The same pattern is at the root of the unrest in Egypt, where Morsi did win the elections fair and square, but soon began to implement the priorities of the Muslim Brotherhood in a way that was glaringly inconsistent with the sort of respect for pluralism that we in the West associate with the idea of democracy.

This particular quote from the New York Times seems to me to capture an essential aspect of the problem: “Didn’t we do what they asked,” asked Mahmoud Taha, 40, a merchant. “We don’t believe in democracy to begin with; it’s not part of our ideology. But we accepted it. We followed them, and then this is what they do?” Notice the “we don’t believe in democracy to begin with” part of it. Yes, they did accept it nonetheless, but apparently only as a vehicle to gain power and then act as if they were in charge of a theocracy.

Lest I be accused of Islamophobia, however, let me add that the very same attitude can be found among a number of Christian fundamentalists in the United States (and, arguably, among some Jewish fundamentalists in Israel). So the problem isn’t Islam per se, it is the fundamentalist religious mindset, which cannot truly embrace the type of constitutional democracy that arguably is the best system of government (as faulty as it often is) that human beings have been able to devise so far. That’s because in a constitutional democracy (unlike, say, in the mob-ruling type of democracy of ancient Athens, which drew the ire of Plato) rights and minorities are protected from too much change imposed by the particular majority who happened to have won the latest elections. What the Muslim Brotherhood and similar outlets don’t seem to see is that having won an election is not carte blanche to reshape the country according to whatever doctrinal dictates the winners subscribe to.

The turmoil in Egypt, Turkey, Palestine and other places highlight what may be a fundamental incompatibility between strong religious doctrines and the concept of secular democracy, which is why the Enlightenment-inspired Founding Fathers of the United States instituted a solid (if increasingly permeable, these days) wall of separation between Church and State. I would go even further and suggest that any strong ideology is incompatible with democratic government, even if such ideology has nothing to do with religion — witness the failure of the various Marxist-inspired governments throughout the 20th century.

Does it therefore follow — as perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and other groups (including the extreme Christian right in the United States) are contemplating — that there is no room for religion in a secular democracy? Of course not. The term “secular,” in this context, does not at all mean non-religious. It simply means neutral with respect to any particular ideology, political or religious. The problem lies rather in two aspects of constitutional democracies that are hard to relate to for fundamentalists of any stripe (again, political or religious): respect for pluralism and ability to articulate one’s positions in neutral language.

The quotation above from a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood summarizes the problem with pluralism that a lot of fundamentalists have: “we don’t believe in this system, but we’ll play by the rules (until we get the upper hand and can proceed to do whatever we want).” This attitude is radically incompatible with the idea of constitutional democracies, and it is up to the ideological radicals to find a way to come to terms with the problem. As far as I can see, however, this is always going to be very difficult, because we are talking about people whose entire worldview has a built-in sense of certainty, superiority, and purity which will perennially be in tension with the democratic practice. Ideally, we can educate people out of any kind of fundamentalism, but it will be a long, tortuous and possibly never quite ending road to get there.

The second problem is, I think, a bit easier to deal with, as suggested by John Rawls. Contra what many of my secular humanist and atheist friends seem to think, it is not necessary for religious discourse to be sealed off from the public square. It is perfectly all right — indeed, inevitable — for politicians, say, to be guided in their thinking by their religious faith. What is not acceptable is the advancement of religious arguments when it comes to policy debates. Rather, the religious person needs to translate his objections (or positive proposals) into neutral language that can be debated on secular (in the sense above, not as in “secular humanism”) terms.

For instance, take the issue of abortion. It is legitimate for someone to hold that abortion is immoral because his god says so. But that “argument” won’t carry any water within the context of a pluralistic society where some people believe in other gods (with other dictates) or in no gods at all. So the objection needs to be reformulated — translated, in Rawlsian terms — in a way that can be engaged with by all parties concerned. The reformulation could take the form of talk about the balance between the rights of the mother to control her body and reproduction and the rights of potential persons to live and flourish. Which will bring to the table naturally complex discussions of rights, personhood, and so forth. Now both parties can engage in an open debate and attempt to reach compromises based on facts and reason.

Doing so, by the way, does not have to constitute an instance of hypocrisy on the part of the religious: presumably, god has some reason to decree that abortion is immoral, and the religious are simply attempting to articulate those reasons to people who are not willing to accept their god’s word at face value. This way of doing things also does not constitute a built-in advantage for “the  secularist” because in an open society we are all secularists: remember that the word doesn’t apply just to people who don’t believe in gods, but to all members of a diverse society who are willing to engage in the democratic discourse and its continuous give and take.

None of the above, of course, is going to help Egyptians in the next few days, nor is it going to make it easy for the Obama administration to pick a course of action concerning the unfolding events. But it does constitute a broad framework for how to think about these sorts of issues, issues that recent history has clearly shown will keep coming up again and again in the near future.

44 comments:

  1. Very good thoughts, Massimo, above all that the US (and you could have listed even more examples - Greece, El Salvador) and Islamists (you also could have listed more examples, specifically Algeria, implicitly Pakistan) are the primary fault-bearers in this case.

    Given that Islamists are on record as using democracy as nothing more than a tool to their own ends and even the seeming democrat Erdogan has called it a bus that takes him to a destination until he gets off, why should we support pseudo-moves toward democracy that we expect will be hijacked at some point?

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  2. Outstanding post Massimo. Bringing the discussion to a more general level and pointing out that this is not isolated to Islamic fundamentalism, but is inherent in fundamentalism in general is brilliant. I wish that concept was more prominent in the "debates" in the mainstream media about this situation.

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  3. Translate? Put forward one's religious views in a non-religious way? Disguising them as non-religious in other words, but then don't all representatives in a democratic forum already lie on behalf of both themselves and their constituents? Why not get back to the philosophical drawing board and help the public understand that there are advantages to being honest with each other that we haven't tried.
    Of course we have Obama who has translated his secular views into religious ones, so maybe what we really need is to teach each other to be better liars.

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  4. Interesting article, but I think, in the case of Egypt and similarly in Pakistan, we have to also focus on the dominant roles played by their militaries to better understand democracy's apparent lack of traction :

    L'Etat, C'est Nous: Who will control the Egyptian state?

    "The present situation, in which the military has deposed a Brotherhood President, was not inevitable. Had Morsi not done such an abysmal job as President, the military and the deep state it shepherds would have lived quite happily under a constitutional system that left its power and budgets largely outside the bounds of the emerging religiously-grounded political system, whose imposition of a conservative vision on society served the interests of the power elite as a whole much as the rise of social conservatism in the United States has served its economic elite quite well."

    "The military's broad control of Egyptian politics for half a century, it's huge role in the economy - including in the transition to a neoliberal order that was supposed to weaken the grip of the old elites but broadly strengthened it, its highly authoritarian and patriarchal nature, and its guaranteed support from its major Western and Arab sponsors, all left it with little incentive or even ability to move the country along a path that would actually produce freedom, dignity, social justice, and an overall better life for most Egyptians."

    "Egypt has a long and ruinous history of technocratic rule, from British colonialism to USAID [at least 1 billion annually for the military] and IMF, who have in the guise of a supposedly apolitical and scientific agenda ensured the ever greater concentration of wealth and power among a small elite and the marginalisation and immiseration of the mass of Egyptians."

    "The problem was, and remains, that the only way for the revolution [the push for democracy] to achieve its core goals would be literally to create a new state - a new set of power relations and institutions through which they flow that would profoundly redistribute social, economic and political power throughout Egyptian society. But to do this they would have to take on, and defeat, the military and the order it represented. As long as the military controls the political and economic process in Egypt, the vast majority of Egyptians will live well below their economic and political potential."

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  5. Is Democracy freedom?

    Can One be governed and at the same time free? What does the Declaration of Independence truly mean? Wasn't it written to free ourselves from government? Isn't democracy a government of the people. Why did we free ourselves from government only to govern ourselves again? Is that the flaw?

    I ask all of you, do you need to be governed, ruled-over or controlled? Would any of you descend into chaos if there were no rules? Government is rule. Does government keep us from self-destruction, the abyss? Or is government that engages us in wars of destruction? Who is killing who? Is that what mankind is afraid of? Are we not taught that democracy or government is the best and for the good? Is it? Are we afraid of freedom?

    Does democracy equal freedom?

    Government or true freedom, that is the fight, and that is the question. I think it is time for a new independence day, time to re-evaluate just, time to end the fight, time to try real freedom.

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  6. Very good, Massimo, but I can't see how such a common tongue for religious pluralism can exist if religious people put their tenets before any secular constitution - and this seems to be the point, I mean, the way fantasies prevail instead of good reasoning (perhaps because philosophy didn't yet tell what good reasoning is, at least as convincingly as prophets and saints defined faith - this is just a guess). In view of this, how could we honestly suppose that a politician would go over beliefs that most certainly helped him to be elected? From my part, I don't dream of that anymore, keeping myself stuck to the certainty that politicians, no matter their honesty, only votes in their own cause (that meaning they might prioritize their career, otherwise they won't be able to vote anything else; true?). I believe that if something is to be done toward a real secular state, this must start from deeply understanding why religion precludes secularization (I greatly appreciate Feuerbach's efforts, although no one pays attention to him anymore, I suppose that due to either be wrongly associated with Marx or have nothing to do with Marxism while dealing with religious matters).

    Something says to me - and most certainly to you too - that the way out of this mess is education. But again: what kind of education? W. Godwin, in one of his late essays gives us a tip: we're educated to hold (more or less) fixed posts in society, not to think, not to criticize the way we live together (not, at least, in an efficient way), for instance - and he says more. Perhaps our urges determine the way these matters are usually dealt, as the satisfaction of basic (but often base) necessities is likely to preclude a good debate on what would be better to our flock. This leads me to tolerance, a concept stolen from philosophy by religion (another guess of mine) and now in the headings of its sermons, but to be forgotten after the hearers step out of the churches. Although not sure about how, we surely need to rebuild education toward a real, open debate, which entails tolerance, a secular one, I mean (a process to consume generations, I fear). And a crucial issue in this conversation is, for sure, economy. Else, we must keep enduring - unfortunately with the help of the religious tolerance - even continuous changes in our constitutions .

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  7. Very interesting post. The problem seems to be putting limits on the scope of political power, so that rulers are not able to impose laws or restrictions which go beyond the requirements for maintaining conditions conducive to peace, security and general well-being. The trouble with Islamic and other fundamentalists is that their goal is always going to be to promote (and impose) their view of the world. This could be seen as a kind of unconstrained ultra-politics, politics as salvation, politics as religion (or as a politico-religious amalgam).

    In the West, the mainstream churches gradually came to an accommodation with secular powers, but this hasn't happened to anything like the same extent in the Islamic world.

    We are now seeing, however, an expansion of the scope of centralized political power in Western countries as governments intrude into more and more areas of life. Once, other bodies – like churches, educational institutions and professional associations, not to mention the family – were more independent and played more significant roles, but their roles (in welfare, aged care, education, regulation, etc.) have to a large extent been taken over by government.

    This concentration of power makes it very difficult to put limits on government and maintain that private space that we in Western countries have long enjoyed (and, on the whole, taken for granted).

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  8. The tendency to "cling" (as Obama might put it) to the Koran or the Bible is strong there and here, respectively. I really don't know why this is, but it's a hindrance for sure.

    I'm interested in promoting my own "religion", Codifism: "The universe is made of code."
    Can that help? Who knows.

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. Vasco, your comment leads me into thinking that this abortion issue has become a real thorn in ethics in a general sense: what's to be preserved, life in every sense - and so the fetus' - or life under certain conditions - and, so, the women's self determination, if not their lives? Let's keep in mind that human kind progressed a lot since we considered children as persons only after they endured their first years, thus proving to be resistant enough to reach adolescence and adulthood: perhaps it's time to see the fetuses as persons as well. And considering what is sometimes said during the discussion, it seems at first sight that what's at stake around abortion liberation is an idea for which we westerns fought long, sex freedom (Foucault corrected the sense of 'freedom' in the expression saying that it didn't refer to the practice of sex - a thing humankind never forwent -, but the right to speak freely about it): but free sex revealed itself as an enemy in the world's demographic picture (along with longer life expectancy) and to a lot of women's remaining claims. From this point of view, if we consider that pregnancy can be avoided by avoidance of sex or still by the modern concept of safe sex, the fight for abortion rights looks a luxury. But if we think that sometimes things in several ways don't go as expected, from a simple neglect to serious biological, social or moral constraints, well, abortion seems to be an issue to be globally debated. So, I think that good-minded people wouldn't ever claim for abortion in the name of sex freedom, but in the name of a better life, once the newborns can be a real concern in our inegalitarian way of life, in which more than food, medical care is scarce, for example.

      Well, I didn't consider all the sides in the debate; there's no need to do it in order to show you how difficult is to evaluate someone else's moral values just because he/she doesn't take in it the side you expected, and particularly when honestly thinking in doing the best and, sometimes, providing the best reasons too. I don't really intend to even seem rude, especially by suggesting that we should try to play the fairest possible game, always, never forgetting that it's supposed, while exchanging ideas, some kind of (kind) agreement, at least in this level. Cheers.

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    2. Waldemar,

      My comment was addressed to Massimo just to call the attention that the abortion issue is slightly more complicated than Massimo states in his post and that the people claiming that the abortion is immoral, addressed their claims to other reasons than merely "that abortion is immoral because his god says so", mainly concerning the defence of life and human dignity. This view of the immorality of abortion does not deny the “rights of the mother to control her body and reproduction”, but considers that the women have the right to seek the creation of a new life, as they see fit, however they must be considered and treated as rational and responsible for their actions, and must not be treated as fools, or people with diminished dignity. But then maybe it is a sign of progress that people must be treated as fools, I don’t what Plato had to say about this (probably nothing, or that moral is whatever pleases our desires and contingent moods).

      Anyway Massimo made it very clear that this was a side joke (or a minimal thought to illustrate his point), and I agreed with him that there was no point in debating the morality of abortion (here and now), as it (the abortion issue) was only mentioned just as an illustrative example (with a poor taste, in my opinion) in the post about the recent troubles in Egypt (and the problems with democracy and the secularization of the Egyptian society).

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    3. I just want to stress that when we talk about morals, we refer to a code of conduct (that is suppose to reflect the limits of our behaviour in a human society) that in a way or another we are bound to fail (unless we were perfect, which is not the case).

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  10. Waldemar,

    > how could we honestly suppose that a politician would go over beliefs that most certainly helped him to be elected? <

    But Rawls’ point is not that said politician would have to deny or ignore such beliefs. He would simply have to translate them into neutral language, apt for secular discourse. People do that all the time, just read any of Scalia’s opinions at the Supreme Court for instance. They are always couched in neutral language, even though you know he gets much of his beliefs from his faith.

    > if something is to be done toward a real secular state, this must start from deeply understanding why religion precludes secularization <

    But it doesn’t. Plenty of religious people have no trouble at all living in secular states, and we see examples all over Europe and some Asian countries.

    I completely agree on your points abut education. To me the answer is to reverse the damage that Republicans have done to public education and to the idea of comprehensive (as opposed to trade-focused) college education.

    Mark,

    > The problem seems to be putting limits on the scope of political power, so that rulers are not able to impose laws or restrictions which go beyond the requirements for maintaining conditions conducive to peace, security and general well-being. <

    Exactly. That’s what distinguishes a constitutional, rights-based democracy from the type of mob ruling that Plato justly criticized.

    > other bodies – like churches, educational institutions and professional associations, not to mention the family – were more independent and played more significant roles, but their roles (in welfare, aged care, education, regulation, etc.) have to a large extent been taken over by government. <

    It depends on what you mean. I am certainly against, say, the NSA surveillance program. But I *want* the government to be providing health care, education, pensions, and so on, because those are necessary elements for eudaimonic flourishing, as Aristotle had already observed.

    Philip,

    > I'm interested in promoting my own "religion", Codifism: "The universe is made of code."
    Can that help? Who knows. <

    Not unless your Code answers to prayers and provides eternal salvation... ;-)

    Vasco,

    I have absolutely no interest in debating abortion with you. Apparently you don’t grasp that my example was a minimalist one in the broader context of the post. Of course there are many more reasons and issues that can be brought to the discussion table, on both sides. But this post was not about abortion.

    > in an open society some may be theists (or religious) and other secularists <

    Which shows that you entirely missed my point. As I clearly wrote in the post, “secular” here doesn’t mean non-religious, it means any citizen of a society that is not ruled by religion. That citizen may or may not be religious, but he cannot impose laws based on a particular faith.

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    1. Massimo, first, my limitations: my mother tongue, Brazilian Portuguese, so, if I'm used to follow Supreme Court's affairs, it is Brazilian's, essentially similar to USA's, but in practice very idiosyncratic. Finally, be sure I'm doing my best to agree with you in those points (I really need some hope!).

      For a member of supreme court it's mandatory to stick to the letter of the Constitution. I did a little research on Scalia. Amazing: I'd like to know what's Pope's opinion on such a figure. Well, better be in the Index than be argued, as a Supreme Court Judge, for not watching the Constitution, I suppose. Perhaps this is the proof that in fact religious canons don't rule over secular ones, although I am not mistaken by stating that religions followers behave as if they do.

      If we think that ethics in general has its principles pinned on religious dicta and that politics is essentially ethics, how can an elected politician - 'somewhat' different from an appointed judge - betray the only practically accepted code he knows? Let me stress that a secular Constitution, although built on any secular ethics, cannot very carefully watch over religious intrusions, especially because both secular and religious codes share a great deal of principles that each obeys in its own way.

      Notwithstanding a thorn in our recent conversation here, the abortion issue is also one of the best examples of what I said above: if both codes protect life, each one does it in a particular instance (the religious in a more general sense - at least in theory). And as far as I can see, they are irreconcilable: in this case a catholic Supreme Court Judge would have to make 'decisions' he 'deplores' (Scalia's words) - and with some luck become a martyr of his own conscience before Rome.

      A last point, this time on the "necessary elements for eudaimonic flourishing": I see the State as a provider as a solution after the fall of monarchy in Europe and the raise of a republican concept somewhat modulated by a handful of leftist concepts that captured the ideal of a crowd aiming compensations for centuries of submission and lack of assistance: not a surprise that the XX century awakes together with national socialisms all around. And I cannot stop believing that national (and, in a less strong sense, even international) socialism deformities come from the opposition between the private sector and a government trying to answer to the voters, an opposition that occasionally wears the mask of cooperation...

      Well, I'd like to say that until this opposition is resolved we'll be under a constant threat of those deformations: and he's a dreamer who believes that 1984 started inside westerns democracies after 1984; it happens that the Brother conceals himself when the private sector works successfully abroad, although in lean times it has to come back home as a last resort, and must thrive no matter how. In times of global market, the picture varies a little, perhaps just in the speed both situations alternate one another. And as this happens, there's no hope for due assistance from the government to the State (us), and so, no eudaimonia in sight.

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  11. Massimo,

    Sorry, I deleted my comment in order to make a few corrections (it may be out of place now).

    I agree with you that we are not going to debate abortion, or anything else for that matter. I understand that your examples are minimalist and sometimes just humorous, I have no problem with that. However I find that these spirituous remarks you often make to illustrate your positions reflect your disdain about religion, and it may be offensive to a variety of people that don’t share this disdain on religion and the lack the amusement you pretend to share.


    I did not miss your point (although you seem to think that I may have a propensity to miss with you mean). I agree that the legislator can't impose laws based on a particular faith, however these laws are imposed on people that may or not have faiths (and that can not de dismissed, as it happens frequently on western societies on a path of affirming secularization).

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  12. "Code answers to prayers and provides eternal salvation..."

    Codifism does have a Devil: The Flying Spaghetti Code Monster.

    As for eternal salvation, there's the promise that at some point we can transfer the contents of our brain to a more permanent robot's code (with all the attendant technical and philosophical issues at stake).

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  13. Vasco,

    > I understand that your examples are minimalist and sometimes just humorous, I have no problem with that. <

    Yes, though the one about abortion wasn't a joke, just - as you put it - a minimalist example to help make my broader point.

    > I did not miss your point (although you seem to think that I may have a propensity to miss with you mean). <

    Forgive me, but I think you did. You re-defined "secular" in precisely the way I was at pain to avoid: secular, in this context, has nothing to do with secular humanism or atheism, it simply means any person living in an open society rather than a theocracy.

    > I agree that the legislator can't impose laws based on a particular faith, however these laws are imposed on people that may or not have faiths <

    Correct, that's the whole idea of constitutional democracies: we all get "imposed" laws we don't like. We then organize, go to the ballots, and try to change them. But the idea is that no party gets to impose a whole different way of doing things just because they won the majority at the latest elections.

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  14. "But the idea is that no party gets to impose a whole different way of doing things just because they won the majority at the latest elections."
    No? It would seem to give them a very strong head start. Democracy's big weakness is the distinct possibility that a majority of its eligible voters will be the more ignorant rather than the less so.

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  15. QUOTE:
    >So the problem isn’t Islam per se, it is the fundamentalist religious mindset, which cannot truly embrace the type of constitutional democracy that arguably is the best system of government…<

    What evidence do you have that the “fundamentalist religious mindset” IS the sole problem, as opposed to culture, geography, economics, personalities, recent history, big-power politics, military power plays, etc.?

    While differences in strongly held beliefs may indeed be a source of friction, (as they are in the U.S.), it is superficial analysis to ascribe unrest in Egypt as being due solely to religious influence, when the causes may be and probably ARE due to numerous other sources.

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  16. Massimo,

    I am sorry but I did not re-define secular as you claim I did. That is the way things (secularism and secular societies) are, and they are already quite twisted those days, in clear contradiction to your presumptions. I understand that atheists may cultivate a romantic view of considering themselves as rebels and revolutionary fighting tyranny and obscurantism (that was a reasonable view in the XVII or XIX century), however we live, for quite some time in secular societies, where the current presumption is that people don’t have religious believe, or if they have it is irrelevant. Today in the western countries, it doesn’t matter if people have religious beliefs, if their culture has (or doesn’t) religious beliefs. In these secularized societies people are expected to have no religion whatsoever.

    Just a few examples, in spite of the Christian cultural heritage and a significant number of people still hold religious beliefs, religious symbols are being suppressed (in schools and public buildings), people can be fired for wearing a cross, religious obstetricians in some countries are expected to perform abortions (with the menace of being fired) or religious hospitals are forced to provide family planning services to the people working for them (in spite it may contradict their beliefs), school teachers are fired by saying that homosexuality is a sin. The infamous totalitary regimes of the XX century tried to use violence against people conscious (religious or otherwise) with poor success. The secularization you stand for (it is not that I understand you poorly) seems to be much more effective. The strange thing however is that all this is happening even in countries with a majority of religious people, through the hands of the politician they vote for (and seem to trust).

    I have to recognize that in some twisted sense this absurd view of secularization was supported mainly by religious people, not realizing that it would lead to an attack on religious freedom. Not that there is some rule forbidding religion (no problem with religion), it is just that people are not expected to hold religious beliefs.

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  17. Baron,

    > Democracy's big weakness is the distinct possibility that a majority of its eligible voters will be the more ignorant rather than the less so. <

    That’s why I made a distinction between simple democracy (the kind that Plato didn’t like) and constitutional democracies (where the rights of minorities are protected from too intrusive actions of temporary majorities).

    Tom,

    > What evidence do you have that the “fundamentalist religious mindset” IS the sole problem <

    What’s your evidence that I think this is the *sole* problem? Just because I focused on that aspect in a blog post? Did you want me to write a book instead?

    Vasco,

    now I get where you are coming from. Well, that’s a whole separate discussion (and I seriously disagree with statements like “the current presumption is that people don’t have religious beliefs” — it certainly doesn’t apply to the United States!). My point was simply that secular states are not atheists states, see for instance, Turkey. And that’s because secularism, in this sense, is simply the idea that people can hold to whatever ideology or faith they like, but they do not get to impose it to the rest of society as the only viable option to run the country — which is what the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has come pretty close to doing.

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    1. Massimo,

      I must say that, besides the disagreement about the abortion issue, I pretty much agree with you. In a modern society there must be a complete separation between the state and religion (and that the God argument must be dismissed in justifying other issues). However I think that religious freedom is fundamental and must be insured (we may disagree on this however).

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    2. Is Turkey even a secularist state, or just a quasi-Islamist state in some sort of drag? (That said, Erdogan has, so far, accepted recent court rulings against his developmental plans, but, let's see how the next year or two play out.)

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  18. Massimo, note that I also wrote that winning a majority by the ignorant "would seem to give them a very strong head start." In other words we've had in many ways a temporary majority of unusually ignorant congresspeople for what is coming to be a very long temporary time.

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  19. One may not easily disentangle a society's religion, culture, and politics. In creating a secular society, there is the hindrance of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Christian Reconstructionism* in the US. People may have various religious beliefs in a secular society, but they realize that a secular society is a cosmopolitan society: one that works for the common good and is open to all cultures.

    (* "a decentralized political order resulting in laissez-faire capitalism" combined with enshrining conservative Christian "values" into law)

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  20. @Massimo
    Quote: > Did you want me to write a book instead?<

    No, I'd just like you to view the problem in its wider context instead of just playing to popular prejudices of barbaric Arabs who don't understand democracy.

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  21. Tom,

    > I'd just like you to view the problem in its wider context instead of just playing to popular prejudices of barbaric Arabs who don't understand democracy. <

    You seem far too quick to accuse people of Islamophobia. And apparently have not read my post carefully enough. I explicitly state that this isn’t just a problem with Islam, but with any fundamentalist ideological attitude, including secular ones.

    Vasco,

    > However I think that religious freedom is fundamental and must be insured (we may disagree on this however). <

    Nope, no disagreement at all from me on that one. I want to eliminate religion through education, not by forcing it out of the public square.

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    2. Massimo,

      With all due respect, I did not accuse you of Islamophobia. I did write the your most recent post played to current popular prejudices against Arabs.

      I wrote that because the post focused mainly on the shortcomings of Muslims with only passing reference to others – imagine a post centered on the shortcomings of Judaic-influenced leaders with only a stray line that included criticism of “ARGUABLE SOME Muslims” as an afterthought.

      Your analysis (mainly of Egypt) took place in the context of the U.S. currently taking military action in several Muslim countries with the consequent demonization of the enemy that inevitably occurs, and in an atmosphere of Islamophobia by many prominent writers whom you have mentioned in your blog without criticism of their prejudicial views about Muslims (even to the point of Sam Harris aligning himself with fascists in Europe, and suggesting that it would be acceptable to kill people solely for their beliefs).

      The post blamed religion (Islam as the focus) for strife in the region without taking note of many other factors that may have been responsible.

      The post seemed to blame the Koran for something the Koran explicitly tells its believers NOT to do. On the basis of flimsy evidence (random quotes by individuals) the post accused (Morsi? The Muslim Brotherhood members?) of pretending to believe in democracy merely to gain power. But the Koran enjoins its believers to always speak the truth and to deal honestly with others. Thus, it would be antithetic for a believer to dissemble by faking belief in democracy in order to gain power. If the commitment to democracy by Egyptians is any more fake than that of Obama or of Netanyahu, it is being perpetrated by people who don’t believe in the precepts of the Koran any more than they believe in democracy. As I’ve noted before, other factors are clearly in play, so laying the problems at the doorstep of religion (with Islam as the primary focus and only parenthetical mention of others) is unwarranted and not supported by the evidence.

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  22. Massimo,

    That is good, however education won't be able to eliminate religion (as you forsee), it will lead people to religion (even if it is a long term effect, as in short term religion will pay the price for centuries of co-habitation with the secular power). Although if we are separate on this, I guess we both value and cherish education.

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  23. You correctly point to the incompatibility of fundamentalism to pluralism and democracy. Unless a person can compartmentalize their fundamentalism, no mean feat, it is difficult for them the accept that views opposed to theirs can be expressed.

    One small challenge though about ideology: you wrote "I would go even further and suggest that any strong ideology is incompatible with democratic government, even if such ideology has nothing to do with religion — witness the failure of the various Marxist-inspired governments throughout the 20th century."

    An ideology is like an accent -- we all have one (though we may *think* we don't). Therefore, ideology, per se, is not the problem, strong or not. If ones ideological framework is that democracy is an inherent good, and one believes that strongly, that is not incompatible with democratic government. Rigidity is the problem, and that is often (though not always) synonymous with fundamentalism. One can be a strong socialist, and yet accept that other views deserve their chance. One can be a strong capitalist while defending the rights of those who disagree.

    I guess you could say that the principles of skepticism should always be applied in the political realm, just as in other fields. But that does not preclude having strong ideological frameworks.

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  24. With regard to "what may be a fundamental incompatibility between strong religious doctrines and the concept of secular democracy" consider the possibility that the concept of a secular democracy could and should include the identification of any doctrine's source, and to hide the fact that one's ideas are religiously inspired, is, as I've suggested, not strictly honest. Their inspiration in and of itself doesn't disqualify the ideas as being secular. You can't argue that ideas are made secular by hiding their religious sources while at the same acknowledging that such sources are just as likely to exist as not.
    And you can't expect to translate these ideas honestly while hiding the very language that you're supposedly "translating."
    Separation of church and state does not seem to be option in the operation of an Egyptian democracy. Thus if the majority of Egyptians want to legalize their religious proscriptions democratically, those that disagree have met democracy's so far unsolvable problem: How to modify a religious doctrine without at the same time modifying its unmodifiable source.

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  25. It's a pity that our conversation on so important matters cools down with no substantial agreement in sight. No, I'm not intending to start a plot to change once and forever the political face of the world, however tempted...:) I only hoped we could agree on two key points of this discussion. So, if I understood which they are, I'll try to list them below and to stress some of their aspects focused here.

    Fundamentalism: what's really that? If a physician sticks to the fundamentals of the sciences that support the cure, I can't see how can we accuse him of being a fundamentalist in the bad sense, no matter how debatable is the technique he's employing in a particular case. If he doesn't succeed, this can be explained as his fault in misinterpreting the mentioned fundamentals or even as the basis of the sciences supporting his practice is wrong - and, in this case, must be revised. What I'm trying to say is that the concept 'fundamentalism' is not that easily grasped (like, perhaps, any concept). In the case of Scalia, Massimo, although I didn't go much further than Wikipedia in my research, I found there that he proudly calls himself a 'originalist', an observant of the original sense - whatever it may be - of the Constitution: it seems that this is another issue on fundamentalism; but is it a bad or a good one? And from what you, Massimo, say, "I explicitly state that this isn’t just a problem with Islam, but with any fundamentalist ideological attitude, including secular ones", it seems that there could not be hope in this opposition of religious and secular fundamentalisms. Perhaps here too it is possible to apply what I said above, on the fundamentals of the cure: isn't it the case to raise doubts on the fundamentals of both positions? Well, not an easy task for the religions, I admit. And what about secularism? I understand it as a sort of environment where people can live together, provided they let out their religious views, as well as any other tenets obstructive of their coexistence. Is this possible? If so, how could a fundamentalist approach of secularism be harmful? Back to religion, it seems that 'fundamentalism' is a term coined to differentiate from others the Protestants claiming to preserve the letter of the Bible: in my view, just a game with words, as I don't know any Christian sect that takes any part of the Bible as false or as deserving less attention; so, in practice, no matter the sect, all are fundamentalists, anyway, however the distinction easily applies to the non-strict observants of their sects' tenets. Perhaps this is the case of the great mass of supporters of a non fundamentalist secularism (please, google 'irreligion' and try it's world map).


    On the 'translation' topic: in matters like abortion, euthanasia and others, a religion-oriented parliamentarian could 'translate' his opposition to them by using, for instance, some serious scientific concerns that are just the sole rational way of implementing them. In the end this person would be betraying his religion if it prohibits abortion, euthanasia etc. I mean that it seems there's no way to some religious tenets feel comfortable in a true secular State. And this happens because we haven't a widely accepted secular ethics to provide him the elements for his opposition. So, I can't see any hope toward a real, smooth secular State - and not just in Egypt - in the absence of a truly, widely convincing ethics.

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    1. The problems in the middle east countries (and in the muslim world in general) are essentially political (having little to do directly with religious fundamentalism) and this is not new, it is like that for decades, even after a variety of these countries once constituted secular regimes (Turkey, Syria, Iraq, …) typically not democratic (with the exception of Turkey), the emergence of religious fundamentalism was a response to the failure of the secular regimes in general (usually supported by the military, supported either by the Americans or by the Russians), and to an excessive intervention of western countries (in local political and economic issues). These countries still a long way ahead of them, and the main problem is not religion but the inability of the regimes to hold and secure basic human rights (however I have to recognize that the religious fundamentalism in some way made things worst in this respect). Religious fundamentalism, in some sense, provides a “flag” (that can be used by politicians), which is used to separate and distinguish the people from their enemies (the western infidels).

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    2. It is interesting that you mention “secular ethics”, however I guess no one really knows what that is exactly, although each and every one can guess that it is something (it would be interesting to know what one means with that expression).

      But then there may be other issues to be considered first, like what is it that makes us humans?

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    3. Cool, Vasco, at least we,together with =MJAm strive to keep this talk alive.

      By 'secular ethics' I intended to mean a set of concepts obtained from observation of the world, not from 'inside information' provided by people who is able to contact superior beings and bring to us their commandments. There are several approaches to 'secular ethics' since at least Socrates and they share a pretty high number of concepts; from these, some endorse a few religious statements. I guess that the wide adoption of religion-based over the secular ethics is due the fact that the former is given as sets of permitted and allowed actions, while the latter tends to be presented as principles and discussions on their applications: in short, one requires continuous thinking and the other only a good memory.

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    4. Waldemar,

      By secular ethics you mean ethics (for a moment I though you meant something different, and I got carried away, far away, to non sense, …).

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    5. Waldemar,
      I saw your blog, looks interesting, congratulations.

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  26. E- Whatever is a wonderful development. However, I will want to stress that in most countries of the south - developing societies - priority should be hinge on first of all putting infrastructure in place. More So education and economic development will to a greater degree leverage the utilization of these electronic inventions. See also, University of Nigeria, Nsukka or http://www.unn.edu.ng
    Commando171379.UNN

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  27. The problem is government and the solution is freedom. =

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  28. Vasco,

    > It is interesting that you mention “secular ethics”, however I guess no one really knows what that is exactly <

    You are kidding. Much if the literature in moral and political philosophy counts as secular ethics. And on it are based many of our laws, including the US Constitution and the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

    Tom,

    > With all due respect, I did not accuse you of Islamophobia. I did write the your most recent post played to current popular prejudices against Arabs. <

    I think you came pretty darn close, despite my mention of other religions as well as secular ideologies. Of course I was talking primarily about Islam, the post was about Egypt!

    > The post seemed to blame the Koran for something the Koran explicitly tells its believers NOT to do <

    We're do I even mention the Koran?? And the same can be said for Christianity: Jesus (allegedly) said many things that his most unworthy followers flagrantly violate. So what?

    More generally, I do think that fundamentalist Islam is clearly a major problem worldwide at the moment, but that's not because there is anything specific about Islam that makes it so. It is an accident of historical contingency. Had we had this conversation in another historical time we would have talking about the evils of Christianity, Judaism or Marxism.

    > the post accused (Morsi? The Muslim Brotherhood members?) of pretending to believe in democracy merely to gain power <

    No, the post was simply observing what seems to be a repeated pattern (again, across fundamentalist ideologies, not just Islam): these are people who don't really believe or understand democracy, but occasionally follow the rules as an instrument to eventually impose their totalitarian way of life. Look at many similar instances by Christians in the US.

    > the Koran enjoins its believers to always speak the truth and to deal honestly with others. Thus, it would be antithetic for a believer to dissemble by faking belief in democracy in order to gain power <

    Yes, it would. And it would be shocking if someone professed to believe in a religion and yet flaunt some of its basic tenets. Shocking, I tell you.

    > As I’ve noted before, other factors are clearly in play <

    As I noted before, I never pretended otherwise. Typically our blog posts are about 2000 words long, hardly the format to provide an exhaustive analysis, of anything.

    Gadfly,

    > Is Turkey even a secularist state, or just a quasi-Islamist state in some sort of drag? <

    Well, it's complicated. I have Turkish friends, and they see it as a secular state that has been sliding toward an Islamic one (again, as I mentioned to Tom, because that's a likely outcome when fundamentalist ideologues get to power). Which is of course the root case of the protests to begin with.

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    1. @Massimo

      >We're [where] do I even mention the Koran??<

      Come, come. You are being deliberately obtuse. We are talking about religious fundamentalism in the context of Egypt. The Koran would be the central text guiding that thought -- not the Book of Mormon.

      > And the same can be said for Christianity: Jesus (allegedly) said many things that his most unworthy followers flagrantly violate. So what?<

      > And it would be shocking if someone professed to believe in a religion and yet flaunt some of its basic tenets. Shocking, I tell you. <

      You can be as smugly sarcastic as you like, but the fact remains that the “so what” of this point is that it completely undermines your argument. If you truly are concerned about people being insincere vis-à-vis democracy, then the solution would be MORE religious fundamentalism, not less (as you prescribe) – because fundamentalism means a literal interpretation of a holy text (in this case the Koran that you never mentioned) and that particular holy text advises its believers not to dissemble.

      Thus, anyone who says that a fundamentalist approach to the Koran would lead a person to lie about his beliefs towards democracy is just full of beans and doesn’t know what he is talking about.

      >Typically our blog posts are about 2000 words long, hardly the format to provide an exhaustive analysis, of anything.<

      Once again, you are being obtuse. No one is asking you to “write a book” or to provide “exhaustive analysis”. It just takes one sentence to write: “By the way, the events discussed here could have just as easily been caused by 17 other factors – thus, completely invalidating my thesis that the events were caused by factor ‘x’”.

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  29. Massimo,

    I would like to say that I was kidding, but that is not the case, I was just wrong.

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  30. Maybe you should take the time to read this Massimo. I've read similar articles but this is the most in-depth I've come across that covers many of the points raised in other articles. http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/19/the-grand-scam-spinning-egypts-military-coup/

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