Now that I've covered the issue of media ethics, I turn my attention to what, for the rest of the world, is making #GamerGate infamous - that is, its treatment of women.
This, itself, is in two parts: a fear of a changing games culture and vicious attacks on women themselves.
Again, most of the people involved are not directly attacking women. A very small subset of the Internet has focused its energies on this task and is brutally efficient in doing so. Case in point: Felicia Day posted on the subject and had her personal information leaked within an hour.
This constitutes a brutal attack because it seems to be done with the specific intent of giving people a way of harassing her that goes far beyond the Internet and into real life. Internet harassment is difficult enough, but it seems even more dangerous when real-life information is obtained - in the former case, attacks can be so painful that they drive a person to suicide, but in the latter case stalkers can literally wind up on a person's doorstep and kill them.
And more than that, it is an attempt at intimidation, literally telling the person, "I know where you live," as if the person releasing the data and making the intimidation will actually follow through and attempt to attack their victim at home. It is, in the modern vernacular, terrorism, in that it uses terror as a weapon.
Ironically, perhaps, it was that very fear that Day proclaimed she would no longer be subject to, that she did not appreciate what the fear did to her, and what the attacks did to her community.
As the time article notes: Chris Kluwe - who admittedly is not as famous to gamers as Day, but is, nevertheless, famous - did not get attacked in the same way. The attacks are reserved for women, because the intent to cause fear is reserved for women, and that's all because women are seen as weaker and more able to be controlled through fear. That is part and parcel of misogyny culture.
We've been controlling (or attempting to control) women through fear for thousands of years. Case in point: while some men have experienced street harassment (sexual harassment from random strangers), a vast majority of women have.
I would argue that in any situation where we (all humans) have the ability to hold power over another human being, we're tempted to do so. Societal bonds (including laws and ideological instructions from churches and schools) can help to limit the extent to which we do, but they can also exacerbate the problem. What misogyny culture means is that those bonds exist in our culture to structure our interactions in such a way that the idea of women as being weaker and the idea that it's OK to exert power over weaker gender forces are empowered and codified. In our society, it's not only OK but good to be a man, which doesn't mean to possess a penis, but does mean to be physically stronger than everyone else and to exert your power willingly over everyone else and not be ashamed of it. It's the essence of Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross, in all the heroes of Ayn Rand's shitty stories and Terry Badkind's shittier stories, in all Fox News interviewers, and in the ideas that I've been writing against since the beginning of this blog: that those who are powerful deserve their power and should use it, and those who are not powerful do not deserve a voice. It's what Colbert mocks by co-opting that dominating interview personality.
That's the light side of misogyny, if you will - I don't mean the good side, I mean the fluffy side, the easy-to-take side, the attractive-to-some side. We can almost all of us agree that beating women is bad, but we can't seem to agree that creating a culture conducive to the beating of women is bad, and that's because that culture is attractive to so many.
And it lurks most easily in the dark corners of the Internet, where people laugh about misogyny and talk to others who share their beliefs, their anger at their own subjugation to greater powers building off one another to form a perfect storm of hate and resentment of another social group. Don't get me wrong - this happens on the left, too, but fortunately our cognitive dissonance over that hate helps to constantly deflate the balloon.
Ok... let's get back to the other part of the #GamerGate debate that I said still regards misogyny - game culture. One of the great concerns of #GamerGate is that games culture is changing.
First of all, I don't believe that's true. A quick glance around modern games proves that with few exceptions, women character models are still crafted off the law of inverse armor coverage - that while armor suits for men are better if they're bigger, armor suits for women need to show as much skin as possible to be effective. The only MMO game I can think of in the past 7 years, at least, that hasn't followed that rule is Lord of the Rings Online, which covers women just as much as men (and has perhaps the largest female-to-male ratio of any MMO as a result).
But let's examine the problem a little more closely. First of all, games culture didn't start as the highly-misogynistic dynasty it would later become. Lara Croft could not exist in the early games culture for many reasons, not the least of which being that graphics weren't up to snuff. But most of the earliest games were puzzle or limited competition games that gave not one crap about the gender of the players. Ironically, the emergence of Facebook gaming has actually gotten us back to our earliest games culture, rather than subverting the games culture.
Zork was relatively gender-neutral, for instance. Pong (1972) certainly was. Pac-Man (1980) was gender-irrelevant until they made Ms. Pac-Man (1982) as an attempt toward inclusivity, simply by sticking a bow on the top of Pac-man.
As soon as games could be usurped by misogyny culture, however, they were. The first pornographic games were already rolling out by 1981, and even titans of porn like Playboy have added their moniker to games. Of course, we all know that sex sells, and soon game makers were putting sexy women on everything. There is no logical reason, for instance, why Lara Croft would have increasingly-large bra sizes over the years, and skimpier outfits, other than to attract men who would enjoy watching her breasts bounce.
But perhaps this isn't the "games culture" that these protestors are referring to. Perhaps they mean, instead, the games culture that produces domination games.
Remember that being the dominant, "I can do anything I want" person is a highly socially-masculine role. This type of character was popular in movies and literature already, as in the case of the gunslingers of Old West novels and movies. For more in-depth explanation of that, check out my article about Firefly. This ideology, in basic, says that a good man with a gun can stop an entire invading horde of bad guys. If the games stopped the moment you got shot, then perhaps they would be more representative of real life - but instead, since they allow for saving the game and trying again, they create an effectively-immortal main character whose job is simply to unleash destruction on those he or she perceives as evil.
They allow the players to step into that fantasy and unleash destruction on others, as well.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of First Person Shooters (FPSs). FPSs have been around since 1973, but it wasn't until Wolfenstein 3D (1992), and shortly thereafter Doom (1993), that the genre really took off. I knew it would be a popular medium when I first learned about Dennis Fong (Thresh) winning a Ferrari in a Quake tournament in 1997.
Side note: I've dueled Fong exactly once. He's every bit as good as you'd expect based on that tournament win. I died, a lot. But I killed him a few times, too. Not enough to win by a long shot.
I say that because I, too, was a member of this culture. I'd like to think I still am. FPSs can allow their players to live out a fantasy of murderous rampages, but for those of stouter psychologies, they are simply fun and competitive sports.
And the FPS genre hasn't gone anywhere. It is, perhaps, more popular today than ever before.
FPSs are, traditionally, masculine games. They represent that culturally-masculine mindset very well. But they can also be traditionally feminine games, as with Quake's old Capture The Flag mode, which allowed users to participate on a team. Some players would take point and have the most damaging bonuses to allow them to strike hard and fast. Some players would guard the base and have the most defensive bonuses to let them stay alive while incoming enemies stormed the place to grab the flag. Everyone had a role to play. Today's shooters are similar - online play pits teams against each other, and while it's possible to hop in a game or on a team where the roles don't matter and everyone's job is to simply shoot at everything, there are also team matches where teams are prebuilt and members still have important roles to fill.
They are no longer strictly stereotypically-masculine ideals. They've evolved, offering roles for everyone, regardless of how they identify.
And that's important, because these changes didn't scare anyone into thinking that gaming culture was changing in some horrible way - it simply changed, slowly but surely, and people either changed with it or got out of the way. And this popularity of modern shooters has occurred simultaneously with other gaming advancements such as Candy Crush and Farmville and, yes, Depression Quest. These games have proven for years that traditional gaming can still be going strong while newer non-traditional gaming styles can well up from needs the world didn't even know it had yet, and no one has to be threatened by that.
I have no doubt that there will remain websites devoted to the more traditional games. I have no doubt that some news sources will talk about newer games.
So no - the idea that the culture is changing is bullshit, covering up a fear of being emasculated by other changing elements of the culture at large.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Thursday, October 23, 2014
#GamerGate, Part 1
So, I'm going to post my own thoughts about #GamerGate. This is a very emotional topic for a lot of people, so I ask that you hold judgment until you've read the full thing - and if you think you can't, then don't read it.
This post is simply part 1.
The reason for breaking it up has to do with a suggestion I heard on NPR yesterday; during an interview segment, a caller suggested that the issue should be broken into two pieces:
As I say, try to reserve judgment.
For those unfamiliar, the extremely-reduced version of events is basically this: A woman who designed a video game was reportedly dating a writer at an online game journal, and the attacks initially stated that her game would not have received the kind of hype it did had it not been for journalistic bias toward it by that journal. Some of those attacks focused on her as a woman, and some the defenses posted by various different people assumed that folks were attacking her because she is a woman, or that people were attacking "female game design." One female writer posted on a completely different site about the misogyny inherent in such attacks, and suddenly Intel pulled its advertising from that site.
To go into it any further is to muddy the water. That's not fair to muddy water - it's rather like watering the mud.
Since then, the gamer world has lost. its. shit. To the extent that women who've simply commented on the scandal have received death and rape threats.
This post is not about the misogyny element, whether it exists or not, etc. And believe me, it's taking a lot of restraint not to comment on that piece yet. That's the next post.
This first post is about media ethics.
Now, I can't speak for what actually occurs in the games industry, but I do know what I've experienced writing music reviews for a local music magazine. There's a feeling that true criticism of musicians and venues is not only unwarranted, but also dangerous. The venues pay our bills by posting advertisements in our paper. Events give us free entry into the event in exchange for covering it.
To talk badly about these things is to bite the hand that feeds you.
I'm not talking about editorial censorship - rather, I'm talking about my own self-censorship. When I write about an event, I feel like I have to pull my punches, because I know that that's what is expected. The result is that our articles have no teeth; rather than salacious, they're fellatious.
Here's the thing, though: this is nothing new. I'm glad gamers are finally waking up to a fact that has been around as long as media has been around, but this property of news is literally that old. Noam Chomsky went into great detail about what it is and why it happens way back in 1988 (in Manufacturing Consent, which I would quote from if I could find it in the boxes of books I haven't shelved yet after my last move).
I do remember that Chomsky notes that there is a respect among journalists for their sources, such that they'll often simply publish directly whatever they're asked to (press releases from companies and government offices, for instance) rather than digging into the story. It has to do with the need to continue having access to such information.
Or, as Stephen Colbert put it in his White House Correspondents Dinner address:
So, what's the answer? If I knew the answer entirely, I'd be rich - it has plagued mankind as long as newspapers have been a thing.
However, I think that to an extent the Internet is already an answer - that is, if a game reviewer reviews a game positively, and that game turns out to be shit, then the tide of public opinion will swing very rapidly against it and it will be obvious to a great many people that the review is crap. If bloggers take advantage of that situation to point out when reviewers are wrong, to compare the scores various reviewers give to games to the scores that those games eventually get from the general public, perhaps we can come up with some standards for reading reviews, and call out especially bad reviewers.
I think the answer is also that if we want well-done reviews, we need to be willing to shell out the cash for them. A subscription-based game news outlet would be free to review whatever it wants however it wants without risk of advertiser reprisal. If gamers truly want journalistic integrity, they need to put their money where their mouths are.
The answer is certainly not, however, sending threats to the authors... (continued hopefully tomorrow)
This post is simply part 1.
The reason for breaking it up has to do with a suggestion I heard on NPR yesterday; during an interview segment, a caller suggested that the issue should be broken into two pieces:
- A discussion of media ethics
- A discussion of misogyny in gamer culture
As I say, try to reserve judgment.
For those unfamiliar, the extremely-reduced version of events is basically this: A woman who designed a video game was reportedly dating a writer at an online game journal, and the attacks initially stated that her game would not have received the kind of hype it did had it not been for journalistic bias toward it by that journal. Some of those attacks focused on her as a woman, and some the defenses posted by various different people assumed that folks were attacking her because she is a woman, or that people were attacking "female game design." One female writer posted on a completely different site about the misogyny inherent in such attacks, and suddenly Intel pulled its advertising from that site.
To go into it any further is to muddy the water. That's not fair to muddy water - it's rather like watering the mud.
Since then, the gamer world has lost. its. shit. To the extent that women who've simply commented on the scandal have received death and rape threats.
This post is not about the misogyny element, whether it exists or not, etc. And believe me, it's taking a lot of restraint not to comment on that piece yet. That's the next post.
This first post is about media ethics.
Now, I can't speak for what actually occurs in the games industry, but I do know what I've experienced writing music reviews for a local music magazine. There's a feeling that true criticism of musicians and venues is not only unwarranted, but also dangerous. The venues pay our bills by posting advertisements in our paper. Events give us free entry into the event in exchange for covering it.
To talk badly about these things is to bite the hand that feeds you.
I'm not talking about editorial censorship - rather, I'm talking about my own self-censorship. When I write about an event, I feel like I have to pull my punches, because I know that that's what is expected. The result is that our articles have no teeth; rather than salacious, they're fellatious.
Here's the thing, though: this is nothing new. I'm glad gamers are finally waking up to a fact that has been around as long as media has been around, but this property of news is literally that old. Noam Chomsky went into great detail about what it is and why it happens way back in 1988 (in Manufacturing Consent, which I would quote from if I could find it in the boxes of books I haven't shelved yet after my last move).
I do remember that Chomsky notes that there is a respect among journalists for their sources, such that they'll often simply publish directly whatever they're asked to (press releases from companies and government offices, for instance) rather than digging into the story. It has to do with the need to continue having access to such information.
Or, as Stephen Colbert put it in his White House Correspondents Dinner address:
Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's "The Decider." The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know: fiction!I don't say these things to say they're not valid, but rather to say that they are! Our media is and always has been unethical, and it seems to be a necessary trait of media. As long as media is at the mercy of advertisers, it is always having to juggle that balance between ethical reporting and survival. Only advertising-free journalism is safe, and even then that journalism has to negotiate the boundary between access and story, between what is expected of them culturally and what is desired of them. We rue the loss of reporters like Woodward and Bernstein, but the fact is that there have never been such reporters - they are a part of our American mythos, a belief that times were better "back in the day." Reporters have always only been able to turn against administrations and corporations when the tide of public opinion was already turning that direction, giving them the safety of popularity.
So, what's the answer? If I knew the answer entirely, I'd be rich - it has plagued mankind as long as newspapers have been a thing.
However, I think that to an extent the Internet is already an answer - that is, if a game reviewer reviews a game positively, and that game turns out to be shit, then the tide of public opinion will swing very rapidly against it and it will be obvious to a great many people that the review is crap. If bloggers take advantage of that situation to point out when reviewers are wrong, to compare the scores various reviewers give to games to the scores that those games eventually get from the general public, perhaps we can come up with some standards for reading reviews, and call out especially bad reviewers.
I think the answer is also that if we want well-done reviews, we need to be willing to shell out the cash for them. A subscription-based game news outlet would be free to review whatever it wants however it wants without risk of advertiser reprisal. If gamers truly want journalistic integrity, they need to put their money where their mouths are.
The answer is certainly not, however, sending threats to the authors... (continued hopefully tomorrow)
Monday, October 13, 2014
So what is right and what is wrong? Gimme a sign.
To die, to sleep--Hamlet reflects on suicide, and realizes that the reason more people aren't afraid to do it - the reason why people instead "bear the whips and scorns of time" is that they fear for what will happen to their souls after their deaths, which he calls "the undiscovered country."
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. [...]
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, [...]
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns [...]
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
[...] Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered. (Hamlet, III.I.71-97)
It is this place after death that Christianity fills with the rolls of Heaven and Hell, and the fear of the latter is what is used to urge people to fight against sin, to instead choose to live righteous lives. I'm a bit reductive here, as there are positives noted in Scripture as well; but, we would be remiss not to acknowledge the role that sin and the fear of sin take in our spiritual lives.
We sin, we go to Hell.
We have forgiveness of sin, we go to Heaven.
That's the extent of it. There is no in-between for believers. And, since our default position is sin, we start out going to Hell. This is more than a bit troublesome for many believers, especially in light of 2,000 years of high infant mortality. If a human being starts out having a sinful nature derived from his or her parents, then if he or she dies before that sin can be forgiven, he or she will be doomed to Hell.
In Protestant Christianity, we fumble around this one by saying that a human can't be a sinner until he or she has learned the difference between right and wrong. In Catholicism, they just baptize babies and are done with it.
(As an aside: this could be the reason Catholicism is so adamant about abortion - anyone conceived and then aborted could be in spiritual jeopardy. In “No Embryos in Paradise,” found in his collection, Inventing the Enemy, Umberto Eco explains Thomas Aquinas's description of how an embryo forms a soul, and it turns out that Aquinas thought its human soul wasn't complete until fairly late in the process and thus there was nothing to either be condemned or saved. Catholics who find themselves torn between abortion viewpoints might want to check out that essay to help support a pro-choice stance, though Eco himself doesn't specify a stance either way.)
But let's go back to that idea. We sin, and we start out in sin. Paul says, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23), and it's from there that we assume babies, too, are tainted with sin.
But none of it says what sin is.
That's the weird thing. We define sin not by any verse of the Bible. Instead, we seem to define it in abstract ways.
For the legalistic among us, we describe it as breaking God's law. It's why, when some on the right claim that homosexuality is immoral, they refer to laws of the Old Testament - because those laws are sacrosanct. They represent clear delineations of right and wrong. Except when those delineations aren't clear, and then there's a huge profit to be made in writing books commenting on the Bible and teasing out justifications for various different things. For instance, the Old Testament clearly says "Thou Shalt Not Murder" - and then God's chosen people turn around and brutally slaughter surrounding tribes. The apologists argue that murder is OK in cases of war, self defense, and legal discipline (though they might try to rephrase it as "killing" or "execution").
In such a case, both murder-apologists and anti-murderers claim to hold the moral high ground. In Romans 14, Paul showed us another situation where two different camps interpreted scripture differently, and thus this could provide us insight into this murder issue.
I already provided some background on this in my Shades of White article, but let's go further into the exact reasoning behind it:
Paul spoke to Christians who held different beliefs on the practice of eating meat. Some I've heard interpret this scripture do so to say that Paul was not referring to vegetarianism per se, but that those who chose not to eat meat were concerned that the meat had been sacrificed to pagan gods. Nothing in Romans 14 indicates this strictly, but the passage closely parallels 1 Corinthians 8, which does specifically call out food sacrificed to idols.
Using that argument, we see a potential point of view that goes something like this: "I can't be certain whether this meat was sacrificed to pagan gods or not. If, by eating that meat, I'm reminded of those gods whom I used to worship, I might be tempted away from God. Ergo, I should not eat that meat." It probably wasn't so clearly stated, but the intent seems to be the same.
Paul, for his part, thought that the meat itself shouldn't be such an icon and shouldn't cause such temptation. He couldn't personally relate to the effect it had on those who were tempted away from God by it. But, he could understand their argument, could place himself in their shoes. In so doing, he realized that to keep pressuring them to eat meat might, in fact, pull them away from God. The result - they'd be sinning.
(Even assuming Romans 14 stands alone and is talking about vegetarianism, the result of the argument is the same - by trying to force something on people who aren't able to handle it, you might cause them to sin.)
It's interesting to me that this argument takes place at the end of the book of Romans, because throughout that letter, Paul had been trying to explain to the Romans about sin and the law. Here, finally, he lays out an argument that has nothing to do with the law - in fact, Christ had already abolished the law on unclean meat by saying that it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean. Paul reveals that sin doesn't have to be tied to the law, just as righteousness is not tied to the law.
In Romans 14, as in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul describes sin as something that happens not as the result of acting against the law, but instead acting in a way that threatens our relationships with God. That is, by eating the potentially-idol-sacrificed meat, a Christian who might find him/herself straying to other gods was knowingly risking his/her relationship with God. Acting in such a way that you open yourself up to separation from God, being willing to make such an action without regard to that relationship, is sin.
There's a corollary as well - acting in such a way that you put another Christian's relationship with God in jeopardy.
And thus, the definition of sin is not acting against God's law, but acting against God's love - either personally with God, or tangentially with another believer.
There's another way to arrive at the same conclusion, which is fortunate - if my hypothesis about sin is correct, it must fit other arguments that are Biblically-sourced.
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”We know from Christ's own words that the law can be broken down based on what's most important for believers - and that the two most important parts are the commands He quoted: "Love the Lord your God" and "Love your neighbor as yourself." These quotes come from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, respectively. According to Deuteronomy, "Love the Lord your God" was the first commandment given to the Jews. Interestingly, though, the command to love our neighbors was buried deep within the commands given only to the Levites, shortly before the command not to wear linen and wool blends and to execute anyone who engages in adultery, and shortly after the command to pay employees on time.
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:34-40)
Christ really had to understand the law deeply to see that as the second greatest commandment. Had He not taught it to us, we might have ignored it as simply a line in the midst of a lot of other lines about treating people fairly. And, and I say this to shame those who take this tack, we might have simply discarded it as a command given only to the Levites, the priests of God's people. A 3-second-long Google Search will prove to you how often we currently do that regarding other commands in that book we don't like (it's why I pointed out the linen and wool blends command and the adultery command - those are two that apologists have argued away by saying they were "only for the Levites").
But not only does Christ point out these two laws as being "greatest," He further goes on to say that "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." What could that possibly mean?
With the Ten Commandments, at least, the answer is usually easy:
- "You shall have no other gods before me" - loving God with everything we are means loving Him more than anything else, including other gods.
- "You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below" - loving God means recognizing God and not the symbol or sign of God (the writer of Exodus understood Saussure?).
- “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God" - loving God means respecting the name of God (but that writer didn't understand Saussure that well).
- “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy" - loving God means taking one day a week to remember Him.
- “Honor your father and your mother" - this is the start of the "love your neighbor" section. Your father and mother are closer than neighbors, and have sacrificed much for you, more than neighbors generally will. Ergo, you should love them by keeping their commands (within reason - the "honor" command is awfully vague).
- “You shall not murder." - Obviously, committing violence against someone is not a loving act. Love demands you recognize the right of other people to live.
- “You shall not commit adultery." - When a couple have pledged themselves to each other, coming into that relationship and tearing it apart is an unloving act. It hurts both of the people in that original relationship, and will probably hurt you as well. Ditto if you are one of the people in that relationship - you are violating your partner's trust in the most extreme of ways.
- “You shall not steal." - When someone owns property, and you take that property from them, you're declaring that you have a greater right to that property than they do - and they paid for it, whereas you did not, so that not only are they out the property, they're out the original money for the property. It's a bum deal. Love demands respecting other people's property.
- “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." - When you testify that your neighbor has done wrong he/she has not done, that can cause extreme distress, jail time, even death for your neighbor. False testimony can only be driven by hate.
- “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” - Well, first of all, people aren't property in a civil society. That out of the way, this seems to be in-line with the later postulations of Jesus when He said that it wasn't enough not to murder but also not to think angry thoughts at someone. This is the only thought crime of the Ten Commandments, and the only one that is only inwardly-driven. Remember that the command is "love your neighbor as yourself" - that is, you also have to love yourself. When you love yourself, you recognize that coveting someone else's property or relationships is painful, it causes you to feel bad about yourself, it causes depression, anxiety, and so on. It can also lead you to doing the four things in the list above coveting - murdering, stealing, cheating, and lying in testimony.
That said, once people learn to love, they no longer need law.
That's what Paul seems to be trying to say in Romans:
So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Romans 7:4-6)We are now dead to the law - that is, we no longer need the law to inform us, because we have the Love of Christ. The Love of Christ drives out sin, it prevents it and purifies us. Paul tries to explain that the law can lead us to sin, and the reason is simple: when we only live by a standard of "do this" or "do not do this," we have no reason for it, no understanding behind it. If we don't have love for one another in our hearts, we can see someone else's property and think "I shouldn't take that, because it's against the law," but, the moment we think we can do so without anyone noticing, the moment we think that we can get away with it, we'll steal. The evil that lurks within all of us can be somewhat controlled by the law, but it is not perfect. But, when we love, we don't need the law to tell us not to steal - we know that by stealing, we would be hurting that other person, and our love will not even allow us to consider the concept.
So then, if we have the love of Christ, we are free from the law. We are not bound to do what it says. Christ showed us this Himself when He healed a man and a woman on the Sabbath:
On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (Luke 13:10-16)
One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.In each case, Jesus called people out for being willing to do for themselves what they were unwilling to do for others, citing the law. The Pharisees were using the law as a shield to prevent them from having to show love - that is, if they had the power to heal, they would still hold it back, as they sought to hold Christ back, and would proclaim that this was simply God's will. But God's will is love, and loving means sometimes breaking God's law in order to achieve God's love.
Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say. (Luke 14:1-6)
As Paul notes, that does not mean we can do whatever we want. Or, rather, we aren't free to sin in whatever ways we would like. We cannot use the love of Christ as a writ saying that we have complete freedom to do anything without repercussions. But, if we actually have the love of Christ, we are free to do whatever we want - because what we want will always be what's loving.
The challenge is that we don't always love. Even Paul notes that he has problems with that:
For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. (Romans 7:18-19)That is, we must be careful and evaluate each thing to know whether it is the love of Christ that compels it, or our sinful nature. But, if we are sure that what we do is good, then we should do it without regard to whether or not the "law" says we should not.
Paul gives us a test by which we can know whether something is part of the love of Christ or the sinful nature:
All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. (1 Corinthians 6:12, KJV)If something is not beneficial, it is controls us, if it does not help build us up, if it is only for our own good and not for the good of others, then it is not done with the love of Christ.
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth. (1 Corinthians 10:23-24, KJV)
Many scholars have claimed that Paul was either sarcastic with his "I have the right to do anything" comments. In fact, the NIV added in the words "you say" so that he's shown to be quoting an audience and reflecting what they're claiming; which is why I quoted the KJV instead, to show that that isn't apparent in the original. I would argue, instead, that Paul does actually believe that "all things are lawful" - that is, because he is no longer bound by law, he can do anything he wants. But, he applies this test, of whether or not something controls him, whether or not something is edifying, etc., to see whether he should do it or not.
Finally, we find that homosexuality - and indeed, anything - is "good" so long as it is beneficial, does not master us, and so on. "Sexual immorality" is dangerous not because it acts against the will of God, but because it's such an intimate act and has the potential to hurt people in ways that other activities do not. It also has the ability to control us ("I will not be mastered by anything," as Paul says), as an addictive activity.
But if two people, regardless of their gender, love each other, are honest with each other and with themselves, are open and communicative in discussing their needs, then they are showing love toward one another. They can do anything within the bounds of that relationship that they both agree upon, so long as they aren't being mastered by those things. If those two people happen to share the same gender, that's OK - if they act with love toward one another, they are doing more good than a heterosexual couple behaving unlovingly toward one another.
Which is worse, my fundy readers - a gay couple who stay devoted to each other for 30 years; or straight couples who divorce and remarry constantly, who cheat, who lie about themselves and their needs to keep their partners happy, who stay in unhappy relationships for "the sake of the children," who abuse each other, and so on? One is loving, the other is not. We should never promote an unloving relationship above a loving one.
Love never fails.
Friday, October 10, 2014
It's an Institute You Can't Disparage
On October 6th, the Supreme Court declined to review the decisions by federal courts that overturned gay marriage bans in Oklahoma and several other states. The result: by that same afternoon, Oklahoma had its first same-sex wedding. As far as I know, it's the one that occurred on the steps of the Tulsa County Courthouse at 5pm. There were many others that same day and the following day.
I have thus far been fairly silent on the issue of gay marriage, but I think this is the right time to talk about it. Rather than lay out an argument about it, I'd like to take you through the thought process that led me to where I am today.
When I was a child, I had no idea that people could be gay. I was attracted to girls from the time I was 3, and had my first girlfriend while still in preschool. I knew I was rare among boys - most wanted nothing to do with girls until they were older (4th grade seemed to be the turning point). This actually meant that I had way more girlfriends than average before then.
It wasn't until I was a freshman in high school that I even knew homosexuality was a thing. I still was (and am, in case anyone's worried about my use of past tense) attracted to girls and girls only, so from that perspective it didn't make any sense. I had also been raised in, as I've said before, a very conservative home, and around the same time we started getting lessons about how homosexuality was an abomination, etc. So, before I even met anyone who was gay (and out), I already had been turned against it.
The first gay man I knew was a guy in orchestra with me. His boyfriend was in band, and I saw the two of them quite often. They were both way more effeminate than other guys I knew, tending to wear tight shirts and sparkly earrings, and rainbow necklaces. I experienced cognitive dissonance around them - for they seemed perfectly nice and friendly, and I didn't feel comfortable making fun of them due to the things I had experienced in school myself, but at the same time they didn't fit my model of expected masculinity. Others made fun of them in secret, and so I did, too, and felt bad about it the entire time, even while feeling weirded out.
I never really felt hate toward gay people, however. I felt that it was icky, that it was sinful, and that I should work to try to rescue people from homosexuality, but I felt my actions were loving, that they were done with a genuine worry about the final destination of their souls rather than anger.
I remember well one time when a friend came out to me. She was a Christian, and was dating a guy, a preacher's kid, and said he was the first guy she had ever felt attracted to. She told me she was only otherwise attracted to women, and until then had dated nothing but women. She just knew that she was violating God's will, and so she forced herself to date guys. She was impressed and surprised that when she told me she liked women, I didn't react with saying "can I watch?" - which, she said, is what every other guy did. I was the first who didn't.
I still thought it, of course. I just didn't say it.
Over the next few years, I doubled down on my beliefs, arguing that I was still loving gay people by insisting that their actions were evil, etc. I argued that if someone could actually be born gay, that they were still required to follow God's will as I saw it laid out in the Bible. I backed it up with scriptures that called it out as an abomination. When people complained that homosexuals weren't being allowed to love, I busted out this scripture from 1 Cor 7:
Unwittingly, I was calling all gay men to become priests and gay women to become nuns (in the Catholic church) or priests (in pretty much all of the rest of the church).
It was not, of course, a loving position. I was single most of my life, and miserable about it. I questioned whether I would ever be married. How could I expect a gay person would feel any better having to avoid love?
During my liberal conversion, before it was complete, while still in the midst of it - and, possibly, as part of the cause for pushing it out of the starting gate - I had a realization about marriage. Those around me decried marriage as an institution that could be extended to gays because it was a holy Christian institution. I did, too.
Until, one day, unbidden, I was faced with the prospect of atheists getting married.
Who were they married by, if not God? Who were Buddhists married by, if not God? Who were Hindus and Bahá'Ãs and Sikhs and any number of hundreds of other faiths married by if not the Christian God? From my Christian perspective, certainly, God was the one joining their eternal souls, but to insist that that was happening in a legal sense was, I knew, wrong. That is, if I insisted that the Christian God was joining the souls of non-Christians in Heaven, and that was the basis of law on Earth, that would be forcing Christianity onto non-Christians. These people all held their own views about gods (or the lack thereof) and, just as I wanted my own views protected, I believed it was important that they have their views protected, too. Even if I didn't agree with them.
It was important enough to me that I could continue believing as I wanted that I would extend those rights to others. And, as a result, I had to allow them to believe that their marriage was blessed by whatever institution they believed (or didn't believe).
After all, if Buddhists could get married without acknowledging the Christian God, if Hindus could, if atheists could, then marriage itself is not a Christian institution. My beliefs about marriage only apply to marriage within a Christian church, and not those marriages that take place outside of the church.
Once I realized that, there were suddenly no more objections I could throw up against gay marriage, at least outside of the Christian church. From a legal perspective, I had to accept it. Granted, I could have doubled-down on gay marriage laws and chosen to eschew my beliefs about religious freedom, but I felt like that would be a road to certain persecution in the future for myself... and I could not abide that.
Still, accepting it in a legal sense is far from believing it to be "good." It was simply legally allowed. I still insisted homosexuality was evil, and that it should not take place within the Christian church.
Most recently - perhaps only 2 years ago - I still held to that claim, although I began to believe that there could be Christians who accepted it. As I've mentioned before regarding Romans 14, I learned to believe that many things could be accepted as morally right, and that salvation was up to each individual person to work out with God. That meant that I had arrived at the point where I wouldn't directly judge, I wouldn't tell gays that I thought they would burn in Hell, but I still didn't personally think it was OK. It was a 'live and let live' approach, and that's it.
I liked to say that since I'm not tempted by homosexuality myself, that it wasn't important to me, that my beliefs about whether it was morally right or wrong didn't matter, because they couldn't in any way affect my eternal salvation.
It wasn't until I started going to my current church that I was really forced to face it. My first day there, an older lady in the church, who was one of three ordained pastors in the congregation (that I'm aware of), leaned over to me and said, not unquietly during a quiet part of the service, "Do you see those four men up there? (pointing to the four guys a few rows ahead of us.) Those are two gay couples, and I married them in this church!" My first thought, "Why are you telling me this?" (Having been hit on by many gay men, I had to assume that she thought that was my reason for attending the church.) My second thought, "Uh... that's nice?"
But then I had to decide how comfortable I was with that idea. Because here was a church that openly welcomed homosexuals, both singles and couples, and yet I knew from the friendliness of the congregation and from the absolutely phenomenal, research-driven sermons from the pastor, that I had to attend.
Fortunately, about 4 years ago, I developed a new philosophy, which I'm actually surprised to discover I haven't posted about yet. I will in my next post...
I have thus far been fairly silent on the issue of gay marriage, but I think this is the right time to talk about it. Rather than lay out an argument about it, I'd like to take you through the thought process that led me to where I am today.
When I was a child, I had no idea that people could be gay. I was attracted to girls from the time I was 3, and had my first girlfriend while still in preschool. I knew I was rare among boys - most wanted nothing to do with girls until they were older (4th grade seemed to be the turning point). This actually meant that I had way more girlfriends than average before then.
It wasn't until I was a freshman in high school that I even knew homosexuality was a thing. I still was (and am, in case anyone's worried about my use of past tense) attracted to girls and girls only, so from that perspective it didn't make any sense. I had also been raised in, as I've said before, a very conservative home, and around the same time we started getting lessons about how homosexuality was an abomination, etc. So, before I even met anyone who was gay (and out), I already had been turned against it.
The first gay man I knew was a guy in orchestra with me. His boyfriend was in band, and I saw the two of them quite often. They were both way more effeminate than other guys I knew, tending to wear tight shirts and sparkly earrings, and rainbow necklaces. I experienced cognitive dissonance around them - for they seemed perfectly nice and friendly, and I didn't feel comfortable making fun of them due to the things I had experienced in school myself, but at the same time they didn't fit my model of expected masculinity. Others made fun of them in secret, and so I did, too, and felt bad about it the entire time, even while feeling weirded out.
I never really felt hate toward gay people, however. I felt that it was icky, that it was sinful, and that I should work to try to rescue people from homosexuality, but I felt my actions were loving, that they were done with a genuine worry about the final destination of their souls rather than anger.
I remember well one time when a friend came out to me. She was a Christian, and was dating a guy, a preacher's kid, and said he was the first guy she had ever felt attracted to. She told me she was only otherwise attracted to women, and until then had dated nothing but women. She just knew that she was violating God's will, and so she forced herself to date guys. She was impressed and surprised that when she told me she liked women, I didn't react with saying "can I watch?" - which, she said, is what every other guy did. I was the first who didn't.
I still thought it, of course. I just didn't say it.
Over the next few years, I doubled down on my beliefs, arguing that I was still loving gay people by insisting that their actions were evil, etc. I argued that if someone could actually be born gay, that they were still required to follow God's will as I saw it laid out in the Bible. I backed it up with scriptures that called it out as an abomination. When people complained that homosexuals weren't being allowed to love, I busted out this scripture from 1 Cor 7:
8: Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do.
27: Are you pledged to a woman? Do not seek to be released. Are you free from such a commitment? Do not look for a wife.
32-35: I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.So, to Paul, being single was better than getting married. This is the Scriptural basis behind priests and nuns of the Catholic church remaining single. In my mind, if a man were untempted by women, that simply meant that he was perfectly created to remain single.
Unwittingly, I was calling all gay men to become priests and gay women to become nuns (in the Catholic church) or priests (in pretty much all of the rest of the church).
It was not, of course, a loving position. I was single most of my life, and miserable about it. I questioned whether I would ever be married. How could I expect a gay person would feel any better having to avoid love?
During my liberal conversion, before it was complete, while still in the midst of it - and, possibly, as part of the cause for pushing it out of the starting gate - I had a realization about marriage. Those around me decried marriage as an institution that could be extended to gays because it was a holy Christian institution. I did, too.
Until, one day, unbidden, I was faced with the prospect of atheists getting married.
Who were they married by, if not God? Who were Buddhists married by, if not God? Who were Hindus and Bahá'Ãs and Sikhs and any number of hundreds of other faiths married by if not the Christian God? From my Christian perspective, certainly, God was the one joining their eternal souls, but to insist that that was happening in a legal sense was, I knew, wrong. That is, if I insisted that the Christian God was joining the souls of non-Christians in Heaven, and that was the basis of law on Earth, that would be forcing Christianity onto non-Christians. These people all held their own views about gods (or the lack thereof) and, just as I wanted my own views protected, I believed it was important that they have their views protected, too. Even if I didn't agree with them.
It was important enough to me that I could continue believing as I wanted that I would extend those rights to others. And, as a result, I had to allow them to believe that their marriage was blessed by whatever institution they believed (or didn't believe).
After all, if Buddhists could get married without acknowledging the Christian God, if Hindus could, if atheists could, then marriage itself is not a Christian institution. My beliefs about marriage only apply to marriage within a Christian church, and not those marriages that take place outside of the church.
Once I realized that, there were suddenly no more objections I could throw up against gay marriage, at least outside of the Christian church. From a legal perspective, I had to accept it. Granted, I could have doubled-down on gay marriage laws and chosen to eschew my beliefs about religious freedom, but I felt like that would be a road to certain persecution in the future for myself... and I could not abide that.
Still, accepting it in a legal sense is far from believing it to be "good." It was simply legally allowed. I still insisted homosexuality was evil, and that it should not take place within the Christian church.
Most recently - perhaps only 2 years ago - I still held to that claim, although I began to believe that there could be Christians who accepted it. As I've mentioned before regarding Romans 14, I learned to believe that many things could be accepted as morally right, and that salvation was up to each individual person to work out with God. That meant that I had arrived at the point where I wouldn't directly judge, I wouldn't tell gays that I thought they would burn in Hell, but I still didn't personally think it was OK. It was a 'live and let live' approach, and that's it.
I liked to say that since I'm not tempted by homosexuality myself, that it wasn't important to me, that my beliefs about whether it was morally right or wrong didn't matter, because they couldn't in any way affect my eternal salvation.
It wasn't until I started going to my current church that I was really forced to face it. My first day there, an older lady in the church, who was one of three ordained pastors in the congregation (that I'm aware of), leaned over to me and said, not unquietly during a quiet part of the service, "Do you see those four men up there? (pointing to the four guys a few rows ahead of us.) Those are two gay couples, and I married them in this church!" My first thought, "Why are you telling me this?" (Having been hit on by many gay men, I had to assume that she thought that was my reason for attending the church.) My second thought, "Uh... that's nice?"
But then I had to decide how comfortable I was with that idea. Because here was a church that openly welcomed homosexuals, both singles and couples, and yet I knew from the friendliness of the congregation and from the absolutely phenomenal, research-driven sermons from the pastor, that I had to attend.
Fortunately, about 4 years ago, I developed a new philosophy, which I'm actually surprised to discover I haven't posted about yet. I will in my next post...
Sunday, October 5, 2014
Ain't no hate like Oklahoma hate.
I love Oklahoma. I sometimes dislike Oklahomans. The last three posts I've made, which are about Islam and our response to it and beliefs about it, stem as responses to comments I've seen on the Tulsa World Facebook page.
For some background, this wave started with the beheading committed by Alton Nolen on September 24th. You can read the Wikipedia page on the incident for yourself, although at this point I think everyone in the country is familiar with what happened.
In response to that, 8 Oklahoma legislators who call themselves the "Counterterrorism Caucus" issued a statement that sought to create a “public discussion about potential terrorists in our midst and the role that Sharia law plays in their actions.” (I cannot find the original text of that statement. It was first reported in the Oklahoman.)
Immediately, on the Tulsa World Facebook page, I pointed out the irony that this supposed Counterterrorism Caucus would assume terrorist = Muslim when the very building these legislators work in is 2 miles from the site of the worst incident of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, an act of terrorism perpetrated by Christians.
Yet the posts on the TW FB page are simultaneously encouraging and disheartening. Some of the ones that encourage me:
I left out the commenters' names in case they are later embarrassed about those remarks and want to change them. I can hope. Anyway, let's go back to that first one I quoted - religion is a tool.
It is, but not quite the way you're thinking. Religion can be a beautiful thing, when it helps someone learn to love his fellow human beings, learn to function as a healthy adult in a human community, learn to treat every day and every event as a blessing rather than taking things for granted.
Unfortunately, it also can be used in negative ways - by religious leaders to control a population and by people who are filled with hate to justify hateful actions. It seems to me that the two desires are related. If a religious leader is only in that role because he or she wants to control people (which could be part and parcel to simply wanting to be wealthy, but that wealth requires that people turn over their wealth to the leader, and that requires control), then that religious leader has a vested interest in preaching hate. Yes, we see this in Muslim regimes, where the religion of Islam is used to justify violence against women, child rape, beheadings, etc. We also see it in Christian regimes and in atheistic regimes.
Let's go back to that idea of control. If you've ever set foot in a bar, chances are you're familiar with a Bloody Mary - a drink made from tomato juice, vodka, and various seasonings. But did you know that the original Bloody Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII? Here's some fun for you:
Or, perhaps it's because of the religions of the people involved. Mary was horrible because she murdered protestants. Elizabeth was good, but she murdered Catholics. In the U.S., we executed Clayton Lockett in a horribly painful way, but that's OK because we're Christians implementing "justice." Saudi Arabia is doing just fine because they're only executing other Muslims. When it's a Christian that is executed, though... HOLY SHIT. That's an act of persecution. It's an act of war.
But all of these executions - those of Mary I and those of other monarchs of that past era, and those of Saudi Arabia and even of the U.S. - all are based on the premise that by executing people, you can scare the rest of your population into doing what's right. It's why executions in the middle ages and in many not-quite-first-world countries today are done so publicly - because we want people to see the execution and learn to behave from it. As if seeing someone murdered could somehow prevent you from making the same mistake.
That means it's really about control, and about who controls your body and your life. Do you control it, or does the government? That's what Foucault taught us, at least. He also taught us that in the modern world, it's not really necessary - because, by putting inmates into a prison where they can be monitored all day, they implement their own control. We believe in that prison system today unconsciously, and can't understand when another country wouldn't use the same system to implement its own justice.
By the way - when Clayton Lockett was executed, many people on the Tulsa World facebook page called for more painful, more public executions, still basing their belief in that outdated idea that witnessing an execution could make people behave. It's not a Muslim idea. It's an idea many in the U.S. share, while pretending we're better than "those people."
So is Alton Nolen a terrorist? Do we need to investigate that connection?
It's certainly a question we could consider if there was any indication that his actions were taken to try to scare people into adopting a particular view or making a particular change in their society. When Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building, he did it both to retaliate for various federal raids, but also "to send a message to a government that was becoming increasingly hostile..." Al-Qaeda has stated numerous times their efforts are an attempt to send a message about American aggression against Muslims around the world. In both cases, these attackers chose methods of attack that were intended not only to kill many people, but also to use those deaths and the fear they would inspire as part of that message. These attacks took extensive planning to carry out, because planning is necessary to create the maximum amount of terror.
By definition, Nolen could only be a terrorist if he also was engaging in such an attempt to send a message. By all accounts, there was no message present - instead, he was a deranged man obsessed with beheadings and a distorted view of Islam who struck out at the company that had just that day fired him. It was not a planned attack, it was simply retaliatory.
And this is blatantly obvious to anyone who understands the meaning of the word "terrorist." Which leaves us with one conclusion: that all of the people who think he might be a terrorist are conflating that definition with what they observe that word entails, its unintended corollary meanings. Since most terrorists we are told about today are violent Muslims, all violent Muslims are necessarily terrorists. For people who think that all Muslims are violent, therefore, all Muslims are terrorists.
But anyone who studies history for even 5 minutes can determine that's not a necessary correlation. We've had Christian terrorists, and Atheist terrorists, and Buddhist terrorists, and Hindu terrorists, and Jewish terrorists, and terrorists of other religions you've probably never even heard of. It just so happens that the Muslim terrorists got to us most recently, and inspired the biggest reaction. None of those religions necessarily caused the terrorism, but certainly someone somewhere has used that religion to defend those terrorist actions.
Because sometimes, human beings are dicks.
For some background, this wave started with the beheading committed by Alton Nolen on September 24th. You can read the Wikipedia page on the incident for yourself, although at this point I think everyone in the country is familiar with what happened.
In response to that, 8 Oklahoma legislators who call themselves the "Counterterrorism Caucus" issued a statement that sought to create a “public discussion about potential terrorists in our midst and the role that Sharia law plays in their actions.” (I cannot find the original text of that statement. It was first reported in the Oklahoman.)
Immediately, on the Tulsa World Facebook page, I pointed out the irony that this supposed Counterterrorism Caucus would assume terrorist = Muslim when the very building these legislators work in is 2 miles from the site of the worst incident of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, an act of terrorism perpetrated by Christians.
Yet the posts on the TW FB page are simultaneously encouraging and disheartening. Some of the ones that encourage me:
"Religion is like money: You can use it to do good or use it to do bad.I like that comment, and I'll talk about it more in a moment.
Some of my closest friends are Muslim and actually feel like part of my family. Once you meet and get to know people who are different from you, it's hard to demonize them. In fact, you'll find the differences are superficial."
"A building is built one brick at a time. The sooner we embrace our Muslim brothers, the sooner all the hat [sic] will stop. Yes, it will take a long time ... but we must work diligently to build a better world for our children."
"Assuming a minority of a much larger group is representative of the whole is wrong. It's like assuming the KKK represents the rest of Christianity."But, of course, there were quite a lot of negative comments, too:
"How about gtfo of our country you sicko heathens." (got 8 likes that I could see)
"All Muslims please leave now." (7 likes)
"lol, if you want to bridge the gap of hate, if you want to show that 'we are peaceful and loving.' then YOU as muslims need to stand up against the radicals of your own religion. They are the one propagating the hate." [all SIC] (11 likes)
"Let them prove it some place els [SIC]." (1 like)
"peaceful til you strap a bomb on your goat fucking ass." (3 likes)
"No thank it's their way to get into our community and use that against us when the time comes to attack us" (3 likes)
"Islam isnt peaceful. the Koran tells them in no uncertain terms they must convert everyone in the world or kill them. it's black and white. there is no getting around this fact." (6 likes)And finally...
"Let's talk about Taqiyya."Well, funny you should mention that. That's what my first blog post on this topic was about.
I left out the commenters' names in case they are later embarrassed about those remarks and want to change them. I can hope. Anyway, let's go back to that first one I quoted - religion is a tool.
It is, but not quite the way you're thinking. Religion can be a beautiful thing, when it helps someone learn to love his fellow human beings, learn to function as a healthy adult in a human community, learn to treat every day and every event as a blessing rather than taking things for granted.
Unfortunately, it also can be used in negative ways - by religious leaders to control a population and by people who are filled with hate to justify hateful actions. It seems to me that the two desires are related. If a religious leader is only in that role because he or she wants to control people (which could be part and parcel to simply wanting to be wealthy, but that wealth requires that people turn over their wealth to the leader, and that requires control), then that religious leader has a vested interest in preaching hate. Yes, we see this in Muslim regimes, where the religion of Islam is used to justify violence against women, child rape, beheadings, etc. We also see it in Christian regimes and in atheistic regimes.
Let's go back to that idea of control. If you've ever set foot in a bar, chances are you're familiar with a Bloody Mary - a drink made from tomato juice, vodka, and various seasonings. But did you know that the original Bloody Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII? Here's some fun for you:
- Henry VIII beheaded two of his wives. He was not a Muslim.
- Mary's mother, Catherine of Aragon (not Aragorn. This isn't Lord of the Rings. You are not an elf.), was Henry VIII's first wife, although he was not her first husband - that was Henry VIII's own brother.
- Henry VIII started the church of England at least in part because the Catholic Church wouldn't allow him to get divorced from Mary's mother (and the Pope himself refused to annul their marriage).
- Mary was Catholic. At this point in English history, the battle between Catholics and Protestants was more than a little bit rocky. Mary tried to return the Church of England into the fold of Catholicism, and began persecuting those who refused to join. Real persecution. Not "you can't call it 'Christmas'" 'persecution.'
- The persecution of protestants was called The Marian Persecutions. Mary executed over 300 protestants during the 3 years these took place.
- These executions notably included burning at the stake and beheadings.
- Her successor, Elizabeth I, is widely remembered as being a good queen. She also brutally executed many people, including Mary Queen of Scots (not the same person as Mary I), her own cousin. That was also a beheading.
Or, perhaps it's because of the religions of the people involved. Mary was horrible because she murdered protestants. Elizabeth was good, but she murdered Catholics. In the U.S., we executed Clayton Lockett in a horribly painful way, but that's OK because we're Christians implementing "justice." Saudi Arabia is doing just fine because they're only executing other Muslims. When it's a Christian that is executed, though... HOLY SHIT. That's an act of persecution. It's an act of war.
But all of these executions - those of Mary I and those of other monarchs of that past era, and those of Saudi Arabia and even of the U.S. - all are based on the premise that by executing people, you can scare the rest of your population into doing what's right. It's why executions in the middle ages and in many not-quite-first-world countries today are done so publicly - because we want people to see the execution and learn to behave from it. As if seeing someone murdered could somehow prevent you from making the same mistake.
That means it's really about control, and about who controls your body and your life. Do you control it, or does the government? That's what Foucault taught us, at least. He also taught us that in the modern world, it's not really necessary - because, by putting inmates into a prison where they can be monitored all day, they implement their own control. We believe in that prison system today unconsciously, and can't understand when another country wouldn't use the same system to implement its own justice.
By the way - when Clayton Lockett was executed, many people on the Tulsa World facebook page called for more painful, more public executions, still basing their belief in that outdated idea that witnessing an execution could make people behave. It's not a Muslim idea. It's an idea many in the U.S. share, while pretending we're better than "those people."
So is Alton Nolen a terrorist? Do we need to investigate that connection?
It's certainly a question we could consider if there was any indication that his actions were taken to try to scare people into adopting a particular view or making a particular change in their society. When Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building, he did it both to retaliate for various federal raids, but also "to send a message to a government that was becoming increasingly hostile..." Al-Qaeda has stated numerous times their efforts are an attempt to send a message about American aggression against Muslims around the world. In both cases, these attackers chose methods of attack that were intended not only to kill many people, but also to use those deaths and the fear they would inspire as part of that message. These attacks took extensive planning to carry out, because planning is necessary to create the maximum amount of terror.
By definition, Nolen could only be a terrorist if he also was engaging in such an attempt to send a message. By all accounts, there was no message present - instead, he was a deranged man obsessed with beheadings and a distorted view of Islam who struck out at the company that had just that day fired him. It was not a planned attack, it was simply retaliatory.
And this is blatantly obvious to anyone who understands the meaning of the word "terrorist." Which leaves us with one conclusion: that all of the people who think he might be a terrorist are conflating that definition with what they observe that word entails, its unintended corollary meanings. Since most terrorists we are told about today are violent Muslims, all violent Muslims are necessarily terrorists. For people who think that all Muslims are violent, therefore, all Muslims are terrorists.
But anyone who studies history for even 5 minutes can determine that's not a necessary correlation. We've had Christian terrorists, and Atheist terrorists, and Buddhist terrorists, and Hindu terrorists, and Jewish terrorists, and terrorists of other religions you've probably never even heard of. It just so happens that the Muslim terrorists got to us most recently, and inspired the biggest reaction. None of those religions necessarily caused the terrorism, but certainly someone somewhere has used that religion to defend those terrorist actions.
Because sometimes, human beings are dicks.
The "Muslim World" - Reza Aslan
Reza Aslan explains things to CNN better than I possibly could; and yet, they still don't get it. Take a gander, and hopefully you'll get it. And if you don't - comment and let's talk about it.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
A Response to Misunderstanding
My response to a Tulsa World article, Roger D. Williams: Questions For Muslim World:
I'm not Muslim, but I take issue with his arguments. Not being Muslim, hopefully my answers will carry a bit more weight to those people who think all Muslims lie (and you can Google me and find my blog on that subject).
"Having never read the Quran," - first mistake. You cannot debate an ideology without understanding it, and you cannot understand Islam without reading the Qu'ran. At least read quotes related to the statements you're about to make.
"this is a classic example actions speaking louder than words." You perceive that all Muslims are violent because ISIS and Al-Qaeda are/were violent. There are over a billion Muslims in the world, and the vast majority of them are not psychopathic killers.
"Why was there rejoicing and dancing in the streets in some Muslim-dominated nations when the twin towers went down with the attending loss of thousands of innocent lives?" I submit a few possible answers:
"Also, explain fatwas from Muslim clerics..." Ok. We have jerks for Christian priests, too. Remember Terry Jones? Some people take attacks against their religion to unbelievable extremes, and Muslims are not the only ones who do that.
"Why are there death sentences, often by stoning, for such 'crimes' as adultery and abandoning Islam for a different religion?" You do know Christianity tells us we are to take adulterers into the middle of the city and drive a spear through both of them, right?
"Why do some Muslim schools and mosques teach that Jews are descendants of apes and pigs and should be killed at every opportunity and such humanitarian arts as suicide bombing?" Some. Not all. Not most. Few. Racism is everywhere, and as I noted above in the comment about "innocent lives," some people take that to extremes.
And should you think we're better, considering Jews in Christian history. I'm not even talking about the Nazis, here. Christians literally believed that Jews stole babies in order to drink their blood. The Shakespearean comedy "The Merchant of Venice" rigorously compared Jews to dogs (again, you can Google me to find out more about that topic).
"What is the Islamic justification for the general degradation, subjugation and virtual enslavement of women?" What is the Christian justification for the same? Women are still paid only 77 cents on every dollar that men are paid, so...
"It is my understanding that these things are not the exclusive domain of terrorists and radicals, but are fairly routine in many Muslim-dominated nations." You should have stopped with that first point. They are fairly routine all over the world. They are more famous in Muslim-dominated nations because we know more about those nations, but if you actually looked into other nations, you'd find some shocking realizations. Many Muslim-dominated nations are third-world countries that have large oil and mineral reserves, and as a result we have a vested interest in them. Third-world countries often have violent regimes, who use physical power over the body to reinforce their power. Consider how Christians behaved in the middle ages and renaissance - we committed capital punishment in ridiculously violent ways in the middle of town squares, in the hopes that people would see that violence committed on other bodies and internalize it and avoid violating the laws in the same ways. We *STILL* do that, calling capital punishment a method by which we might show potential murderers that they shouldn't commit murder, and I see comments on Facebook all the time that we should behave more violently and more publicly to other offenders in order to prevent more crime. Third-world regimes control women in the same way - because that control helps them maintain their control over the rest of the population.
"in today’s world almost all terrorists are Muslims." Now, see, the problem is in the definition of the word "terrorist." We seem to apply that word only to Muslims. A terrorist is someone who attempts to use fear to achieve political change or to hold onto power they already have, apparently, but using only that definition, everyone at Fox News would be a terrorist. It's not enough that they use fear, but that they must also be someone we're already afraid of; that is, there must be a chance for their use of fear to succeed in our own world. That can only happen with people we're irrationally afraid of. It is necessarily bound up in racism.
If we didn't have that racist filter on the word, we'd see that terrorism is part of all military actions in the world, regardless of who commits them. By bombing key ISIS locations and portraying those victories across the TV, the US itself is engaging in terrorism - striking terror into the hearts of the people in ISIS-held regions.
"Don’t use the standard dodge of justifying the misdeeds of the Muslim world today by pointing to the sins and misdeeds, of which there are many, of other cultures and religions in this or by-gone ages..." Why not? There's literally no reason not to be. History is the filter by which we understand the present.
I'm not Muslim, but I take issue with his arguments. Not being Muslim, hopefully my answers will carry a bit more weight to those people who think all Muslims lie (and you can Google me and find my blog on that subject).
"Having never read the Quran," - first mistake. You cannot debate an ideology without understanding it, and you cannot understand Islam without reading the Qu'ran. At least read quotes related to the statements you're about to make.
"this is a classic example actions speaking louder than words." You perceive that all Muslims are violent because ISIS and Al-Qaeda are/were violent. There are over a billion Muslims in the world, and the vast majority of them are not psychopathic killers.
"Why was there rejoicing and dancing in the streets in some Muslim-dominated nations when the twin towers went down with the attending loss of thousands of innocent lives?" I submit a few possible answers:
- some people are jerks.
- some news agencies are jerks who want to milk the story by showing a few dozen protesters and pretending it's the entire country.
- all humans are inclined to make "us v. others" judgments that are
necessarily reductive. There are certainly people in the world - and
not just in the Muslim world - that believe that America and its
policies are subjugative; that is, that we intentionally meddle into
other countries' affairs and build up massive corporate institutions
with unregulated power that are able to go into those countries and buy
up the police and military and get away with literal murder. In "us v.
others" beliefs, we see the entire nation as being collaborators in
those policies, and the result may be a belief that bringing down
massive icons of those policies would be a joyous occasion.
Remember with that that just two years prior to 9/11, a movie came out in which the heroes brought down those very same buildings for the very same reasons, and we all cheered and still cheer, because we feel the oppression of those corporate regimes ourselves. (I'm talking, of course, about Fight Club).
"Also, explain fatwas from Muslim clerics..." Ok. We have jerks for Christian priests, too. Remember Terry Jones? Some people take attacks against their religion to unbelievable extremes, and Muslims are not the only ones who do that.
"Why are there death sentences, often by stoning, for such 'crimes' as adultery and abandoning Islam for a different religion?" You do know Christianity tells us we are to take adulterers into the middle of the city and drive a spear through both of them, right?
"Why do some Muslim schools and mosques teach that Jews are descendants of apes and pigs and should be killed at every opportunity and such humanitarian arts as suicide bombing?" Some. Not all. Not most. Few. Racism is everywhere, and as I noted above in the comment about "innocent lives," some people take that to extremes.
And should you think we're better, considering Jews in Christian history. I'm not even talking about the Nazis, here. Christians literally believed that Jews stole babies in order to drink their blood. The Shakespearean comedy "The Merchant of Venice" rigorously compared Jews to dogs (again, you can Google me to find out more about that topic).
"What is the Islamic justification for the general degradation, subjugation and virtual enslavement of women?" What is the Christian justification for the same? Women are still paid only 77 cents on every dollar that men are paid, so...
"It is my understanding that these things are not the exclusive domain of terrorists and radicals, but are fairly routine in many Muslim-dominated nations." You should have stopped with that first point. They are fairly routine all over the world. They are more famous in Muslim-dominated nations because we know more about those nations, but if you actually looked into other nations, you'd find some shocking realizations. Many Muslim-dominated nations are third-world countries that have large oil and mineral reserves, and as a result we have a vested interest in them. Third-world countries often have violent regimes, who use physical power over the body to reinforce their power. Consider how Christians behaved in the middle ages and renaissance - we committed capital punishment in ridiculously violent ways in the middle of town squares, in the hopes that people would see that violence committed on other bodies and internalize it and avoid violating the laws in the same ways. We *STILL* do that, calling capital punishment a method by which we might show potential murderers that they shouldn't commit murder, and I see comments on Facebook all the time that we should behave more violently and more publicly to other offenders in order to prevent more crime. Third-world regimes control women in the same way - because that control helps them maintain their control over the rest of the population.
"in today’s world almost all terrorists are Muslims." Now, see, the problem is in the definition of the word "terrorist." We seem to apply that word only to Muslims. A terrorist is someone who attempts to use fear to achieve political change or to hold onto power they already have, apparently, but using only that definition, everyone at Fox News would be a terrorist. It's not enough that they use fear, but that they must also be someone we're already afraid of; that is, there must be a chance for their use of fear to succeed in our own world. That can only happen with people we're irrationally afraid of. It is necessarily bound up in racism.
If we didn't have that racist filter on the word, we'd see that terrorism is part of all military actions in the world, regardless of who commits them. By bombing key ISIS locations and portraying those victories across the TV, the US itself is engaging in terrorism - striking terror into the hearts of the people in ISIS-held regions.
"Don’t use the standard dodge of justifying the misdeeds of the Muslim world today by pointing to the sins and misdeeds, of which there are many, of other cultures and religions in this or by-gone ages..." Why not? There's literally no reason not to be. History is the filter by which we understand the present.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)