From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sun Feb 23 2003 - 11:32:28 GMT
Hi David,
I'll respond to the points about ritual/social level separately. I wanted to
pick up on what you said about the Church/State division.
> DMB says:
> I think its WAY too much of a stretch to call "Reason" a god and thereby
> describe the separation of church and state as a theocratic. The idea is
to
> allow any and all theologies to exist, to favor none in particular and
> remain neutral. What we're talking about here, is the first amendment to
the
> US Constituion. Its the highest law of the nation and it asserts religious
> freedom and part of the freedom of expression and conscience. To construe
> this as theocratic,.. boggles the mind.
I suspect my use of theological language is 'raising grim shades' in your
reactions. So let's see if I can put my point across in a slightly more
secular way.
The Church/State division is not neutral between all competing accounts of
the world. If we accept something like my division of sense1/sense2
metaphysics then we can distinguish between an account of the world which is
intellectually speculative, and an account of the world to which people are
passionately committed, are prepared to die for. The first sense is an
account of the world which makes intellectual sense; the second one is an
account which primarily makes emotional sense (which I take to be more
fundamental - Hume: reason is the slave of the passions)
Clearly the Church/State division is something that falls under 'Sense 2' -
it is something to which people are passionately committed, it is something
that was fought for and which people died for, and it is based in an account
of the world (roughly speaking, a Lockean account of the respective roles of
reason, religion and government, which is predicated on a divison between
intellect and religion in particular).
As such, the Church/State division is 'non-negotiable', as it is one of the
foundation pillars of the public sphere within the US. In making this
element non-negotiable, that element becomes absolute and hence - as I
understand the term - it becomes philosophically equivalent to a theology,
and the system which supports it is theocratic in an analogous sense.
This can only be seen as a criticism if you are 'within' that particular
intellectual system, so that you don't see it as a particular system but
rather as 'the Truth' or some other
essentialist/foundationalist/metaphysical stance. (If you don't see the
Church/State division as the outcome of embracing one particular painting in
the gallery). It is perfectly possible to defend the Church/State division
by saying that it is of higher quality than alternatives - which I think I
would accept. I just think that it is philosophically naive to say
"theocracy is right up there with monarchy, serfdom and slavery; precisely
the kind of thing that the advocates of intellectual freedom would like
least of all. These are the kinds of things intellectually guided societies
are supposed to cure." Seems to me that freedom of speech, assembly,
teaching etc etc can be given a fully coherent religious account. Which
shouldn't be that surprising - the notion of Quality driving these
Enlightenment developments was religiously conditioned after all (you can't
have human rights unless you see the human being as important - which is why
human rights thinking developed in a Christian culture, not anywhere else.
[Doubtless that'll provoke a few furies <grin>.])
I think this is another instance of the basic distance between our two
perspectives. I see religion and intellect as wholly compatible - indeed, I
think the intellect can only function properly in a religious context, hence
my disagreements with Pirsig. You see the two as wholly distinct, and
intellect as engaged in a life and death struggle with religion, trying to
free itself from religious control.
Sam
"Only the Americans could save us from annihilation. If they do not come,
there will soon be no Muslims left in the former Yugoslavia. The Europeans
will debate until we are all dead."
(Alija Izetbegovich, then the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1993)
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