Sunday, April 04, 2004
Never Give Up On A First-Rate Mind
Truly first-rate that is. Not first in his class first-rate. Top-drawer first-rate. Someone like Leon Wieseltier.
No one could be more surprised than am I to find myself praising either Mr. Wieseltier or his mind.
It was not always thus. When he first began to make his presence known at The New Republic back in the early eighties, I was among his most devoted admirers. I looked forward to finding his name in the Table of Contents. But by the nineties I'd begun to dread seeing it there.
I'm not sure if I changed, or Mr. Wieseltier changed. I think it was the issue of race that ultimately divided us, as more and more he seemd to became comfortable with the Peretz apostasy on that and related matters; no, it wasn't a case of Wieseltier revealing himself to be a racist, only that he was too ready, like so many of TNR writers nurtured by Mr. Peretz, to accept a critique of liberal positions on race that were less a critique than an unearned assumption of intellectual and moral superiority, especially in regards to the issues of affirmative action, poverty, and "welfare." Wiseltier's pieces increasingly became jeremiads, his tone. scourging, as this or that Democratic policy position, this or that feminist, this of that black intellectual was shown to be a worthless fool. Occasionally, I would return to check out what he had to say and be rewarded with calm insight. Then I stopped even doing that; it was too painful to read his wrathful excoriations of anyone who didn't view the Israeli/Palestine horror the way he does.
Today, I noticed a Wieseltier piece online at TNR about the recent Supreme Court hearing, on the constitutionality of that magical phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, with this intriguing title and subtitle, "Under God And Over" "What America Can Learn From Its Atheists." The article does not disappoint. This is Leon Wieseltier at his best, wry, brilliant, insightful, the writing itself, majestic without being full of itself. Something else it is; unafraid to take on the fuzzy religiosity of so many of the voices one hears on this topic of what should be the church/state relationship in a secular democracy. Unfortunately, the article resides behind a subscriber wall, although I do think TNR has some form of day pass, so let me urge you to find a way to read it by giving you a brief sense of what Wieseltier has to say.
He starts with this brilliantly funny unlikelihood.
The "it" refers to Wieseltier's presence in the chamber during oral arguments, those for the government handled by our old friend, Ted Olson, whose positions Wieseltier pretty much flays to the bone, and those for the plaintiff handled by the plaintiff, "Michael A. Newdow, the atheist from California who was defending his victory in a lower court..." whom Wieseltier ends up admiring, with a few reservations of course, but whose challenge to an official government vision of an America "under God" Wieseltier ultimately finds " terrifically stirring."
Wieseltier gives us as stirring an account of what it was like to be there at the Supreme Court that day, interwoven with a nuanced, learned, commentary on religious meaning, religion vs. morality, the founder's Deism, and the ways in which a defense of religion can become a denial of religion.
And take a look at this wonderful reminder of the centuries-long tradition of religious leaders being among the most insistant supporters of a separation between religion and government.
As Wieseltier reminds us, those ten commandments are not suggestions. Why oh why aren't any of those thirty-two members of the clergy ever invited on any of the cable/broadcast news shows to be the countervailing guest to the inevitable Christian fundamentalist, instead of or in addition to the inevitable Barry Lynde? Could it be because all that talk about Americans and their deeply held religious beliefs has the effect of denaturing them?
I'm among those who, while knowing that Michael Newdow is absolutely right about the Pledge of Allegiance, had wished he'd not brought his suit. Reading Leon Wieseltier, I too experienced "a constitutional thrill" along with a realization of how wrong and how cowardly is such a position.
Find a way to read the whole essay. It's a wonderful basis for initiating a discussion of how to craft better arguments in support of the church/state separation doctrine, and how to better frame our response to the right's organized insistence that their own constant efforts to undermine one of our most basic constitutional principles is only a response to some sort of left-wing secularist attack on religion in general, and Christianity in particular.
No one could be more surprised than am I to find myself praising either Mr. Wieseltier or his mind.
It was not always thus. When he first began to make his presence known at The New Republic back in the early eighties, I was among his most devoted admirers. I looked forward to finding his name in the Table of Contents. But by the nineties I'd begun to dread seeing it there.
I'm not sure if I changed, or Mr. Wieseltier changed. I think it was the issue of race that ultimately divided us, as more and more he seemd to became comfortable with the Peretz apostasy on that and related matters; no, it wasn't a case of Wieseltier revealing himself to be a racist, only that he was too ready, like so many of TNR writers nurtured by Mr. Peretz, to accept a critique of liberal positions on race that were less a critique than an unearned assumption of intellectual and moral superiority, especially in regards to the issues of affirmative action, poverty, and "welfare." Wiseltier's pieces increasingly became jeremiads, his tone. scourging, as this or that Democratic policy position, this or that feminist, this of that black intellectual was shown to be a worthless fool. Occasionally, I would return to check out what he had to say and be rewarded with calm insight. Then I stopped even doing that; it was too painful to read his wrathful excoriations of anyone who didn't view the Israeli/Palestine horror the way he does.
Today, I noticed a Wieseltier piece online at TNR about the recent Supreme Court hearing, on the constitutionality of that magical phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, with this intriguing title and subtitle, "Under God And Over" "What America Can Learn From Its Atheists." The article does not disappoint. This is Leon Wieseltier at his best, wry, brilliant, insightful, the writing itself, majestic without being full of itself. Something else it is; unafraid to take on the fuzzy religiosity of so many of the voices one hears on this topic of what should be the church/state relationship in a secular democracy. Unfortunately, the article resides behind a subscriber wall, although I do think TNR has some form of day pass, so let me urge you to find a way to read it by giving you a brief sense of what Wieseltier has to say.
He starts with this brilliantly funny unlikelihood.
It was the first time that William Rehnquist ever put me in mind of Søren Kierkegaard.
The "it" refers to Wieseltier's presence in the chamber during oral arguments, those for the government handled by our old friend, Ted Olson, whose positions Wieseltier pretty much flays to the bone, and those for the plaintiff handled by the plaintiff, "Michael A. Newdow, the atheist from California who was defending his victory in a lower court..." whom Wieseltier ends up admiring, with a few reservations of course, but whose challenge to an official government vision of an America "under God" Wieseltier ultimately finds " terrifically stirring."
Wieseltier gives us as stirring an account of what it was like to be there at the Supreme Court that day, interwoven with a nuanced, learned, commentary on religious meaning, religion vs. morality, the founder's Deism, and the ways in which a defense of religion can become a denial of religion.
The discussion that morning fully vindicated the majesty of the chamber, as legal themes gave way to metaphysical themes and philosophy bewitched the assembly. But something strange happened. Almost as soon as philosophy was invited, it was disinvited. It seemed to make everybody anxious, except the respondent. I had come to witness a disputation between religion's enemies and religion's friends. What I saw instead, with the exception of a single comment by Justice Souter, was a disputation between religion's enemies, liberal and conservative. And this confirmed me in my conviction that the surest way to steal the meaning, and therefore the power, from religion is to deliver it to politics, to enslave it to public life.
Some of the individuals to whom I am attributing a hostility to religion would resent the allegation deeply. They regard themselves as religion's finest friends. But what kind of friendship for religion is it that insists that the words "under God" have no religious connotation? A political friendship, is the answer. And that is precisely the kind of friendship that the Bush administration exhibited in its awful defense of the theistic diction of the Pledge. The solicitor general stood before the Court to argue against the plain meaning of ordinary words. In the Pledge of Allegiance, the government insisted, the word "God" does not refer to God. It refers to a reference to God.
(edit)
At the Christian demonstration outside the Supreme Court that morning, one of the speakers remarked, as she reminded her listeners that "the Soviet Union was definitely not a nation under God," that "I guess it's not a surprise that if you don't acknowledge God you don't care about lying." Are there no religious liars? Not if you hold that religion and morality are the same; or if you deem a statement to be true because it includes a mention of God.
(edit)
Justice Breyer wondered, in a challenge to Newdow, whether the words "under God" referred only to a "supreme being." Citing United States v. Seeger from 1965.....Breyer suggested that the God in "under God" is "this kind of very comprehensive supreme being, Seeger-type thing." And he posed an extraordinary question to Newdow: "So do you think that God is so generic in this context that it could be that inclusive, and if it is, then does your objection disappear?"
Needless to say, Newdow's objection did not disappear, because it is one of the admirable features of atheism to take God seriously. Newdow's reply was unforgettable: "I don't think that I can include 'under God' to mean 'no God,' which is exactly what I think. I deny the existence of God." The sound of those words in that room gave me what I can only call a constitutional thrill. This is freedom.
(edit)
And there is another problem. It is that nobody worships a "very comprehensive supreme being, Seeger-type thing." Such a level of generality, a "generic" God, is religiously senseless. Breyer's solution was another attempt to salvage religious expression by emptying it of religious content. But why should a neutralized God be preferred to a neutral government? The preference is attractive only if religion is regarded primarily from the standpoint of politics.
(edit)
There is no greater insult to religion than to expel strictness of thought from it. Yet such an expulsion is one of the traits of contemporary American religion, as the discussion at the Supreme Court demonstrated. Religion in America is more and more relaxed and "customized," a jolly affair of hallowed self-affirmation, a religion of a holy whatever. Speaking about God is prized over thinking about God. Say "under God" even if you don't mean under God. And if you mean under God, don't be tricked into giving an account of what you mean by it. Before too long you have arrived at a sacralized cynicism:
And take a look at this wonderful reminder of the centuries-long tradition of religious leaders being among the most insistant supporters of a separation between religion and government.
Justice Stevens recalled a devastating point from the fascinating brief submitted in support of Newdow by 32 Christian and Jewish clergy, which asserted that "if the briefs of the school district and the United States are to be taken seriously," that is, if the words in the Pledge do not allude to God, "then every day they ask schoolchildren to violate [the] commandment" that "Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord in vain."
As Wieseltier reminds us, those ten commandments are not suggestions. Why oh why aren't any of those thirty-two members of the clergy ever invited on any of the cable/broadcast news shows to be the countervailing guest to the inevitable Christian fundamentalist, instead of or in addition to the inevitable Barry Lynde? Could it be because all that talk about Americans and their deeply held religious beliefs has the effect of denaturing them?
For the argument that a reference to God is not a reference to God is a sign that American religion is forgetting its reasons. The need of so many American believers to have government endorse their belief is thoroughly abject. How strong, and how wise, is a faith that needs to see God's name wherever it looks?
I'm among those who, while knowing that Michael Newdow is absolutely right about the Pledge of Allegiance, had wished he'd not brought his suit. Reading Leon Wieseltier, I too experienced "a constitutional thrill" along with a realization of how wrong and how cowardly is such a position.
Find a way to read the whole essay. It's a wonderful basis for initiating a discussion of how to craft better arguments in support of the church/state separation doctrine, and how to better frame our response to the right's organized insistence that their own constant efforts to undermine one of our most basic constitutional principles is only a response to some sort of left-wing secularist attack on religion in general, and Christianity in particular.
