A Challenge to Modern Gnostics: What's the Problem?
Faith and Philosophy
| November 2, 2006
| Tim
Lately, Random Observations (thanks primarily to Ryan's doings) has seen a number of parallel debates about Gnosticism; ancient and modern.
So, in the spirit of debate and free inquiry, I'm opening up this thread to discuss the core beliefs of modern Gnosticism. And I'd like to open up the topic by quoting this assertion:
Gnosticism is a pre-Christian syncretic religious tradition defined primarily by the belief that salvation comes through gnosis, or knowledge... what [ancient Gnostics] meant by Christianity was very different from what we know of as Christianity today. For them, salvation wasn't through the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross, it was through direct, experiential divine knowledge -- gnosis. The primary problem was not sin, it was ignorance, and the remedy was gnosis.
For the record, my interest here is not to ask whether the author is correctly characterizing any or all flavors of ancient Gnostic belief. Rather, I want encourage debate on the nature of the human condition, by asking:
Is the core problem sin (meaning a will to do wrong), or ignorance?
To start things off, I'll give my own position: I'd argue that the core problem is sin, not ignorance. Since I am writing on a blog on the Internet, I must now necessarily invoke... the Nazis! (It'll save people from having to mention it later in the comment threads...)
Germany was one of the most learned and technologically developed nations on earth. If you wanted to study chemistry or math, you learned German. And Germans were not slackers in biology or the social sciences either.
So why did the Germans end up slaughtering six million Jews? Did Nazi party members not realize that Jews were human beings? Had they missed the obvious biological signs? Or didn't they realize that it was wrong to kill humans?
I'd argue that the problem here wasn't ignorance, but simply our own propensity to do wrong, even when we know better. Certainly, ignorance is a problem, but I find that even after I know, full well, that something is bad for me or harmful to others, I often wish to do it anyway.
(What, do we think thieves have never heard it was wrong to steal?)
So I'd be glad to hear a competing perspect on this, or any other philosophical question you'd like to raise.
G'day!
Shadow projection is explained by Jung as a process by which we dissociate from our own darkness and project it outside of ourselves, whereby we see our enemy as the embodiment of evil. Once this is done any kind of atrocity can be justified.
What makes this process so insidious is that even the worst tyrants and most cruel murderers can actually believe that their actions are justified, and that they are doing the "right" thing when they commit genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Thus the Germans could claim "Got Mit Uns" and actually believe that what they were doing was god-ordained. We can find many examples of the same behavior in Exodus, Numbers, etc.
1 Samuel 27:8-9:
"And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites ... And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel. And David saved neither man nor woman alive"
Its difficult to know what to say about cases in which entire societies are swept along by this sort of regression and atavism. One person can own their own darkness I think but when an entire society abdicates resposibility and exteriorizes instead then terrible things can and do happen with tragic results.
Germany was one of the most learned and technologically developed nations on earth.
I'm not sure that Germany's academic excellence pre-WWII is a good support for the "knowledge doesn't stop genocide" argument.
If we're going to use the Nazis as an example here it's noteworthy that after the Nazis, German was no longer the scientific lingua franca. The Nazis did fight a war against prior German academic works. Nazi race science replaced biology classes. Politically inconvenient books were burned. The Nazis certainly saw a wide swath of German learning as somthing that was in their way.
Change the children first: "The Nazi leadership appreciated the difficulty of indoctrinating the older generation.... They were all the more determined to mold the new generation along Nazi lines. As the leader of the Nazi Teacher's League, Hans Schemm, put it: 'Those who have the youth on their side control the future.'"
...
New courses were introduced in such fields as racial studies, eugenics, and defense studies and there was a new emphasis on pre-history... Law and political science courses were adapted to fit in with the changes introduced by the regime.
link
Similarly, imaging of fetuses in early stages of development has had an impact on the abortion debate. The standard for when human life begins had at one time been 'quickening' in many US states. Knowledge motivated at least a few people to move the bar to conception. It motivated others to give up the notion that sperm were little homunculi
with the moral conundrums that went with that view.
I find the dichotomy of "sin vs. ignorance" to be the equivalent of asking "would you die quicker if I removed your heart or your brain."
This is even more true if you define "Sin" as "alienation from God" and "ignorance" as "a lack of experiential knowledge of God" then you're talking about the exact same thing.
Probably this is a misrepresentation of the view of some gnostics. If so, I hope to hear from them. Otherwise, the debate, as phrased, seems destined to be unproductive.
Wow! Some great, thoughtful responses.
In response to "Rev Max"...
Shadow projection is explained by Jung as a process by which we dissociate from our own darkness and project it outside of ourselves, whereby we see our enemy as the embodiment of evil.
I definitely agree with you that "projection" is a big factor -- but I don't agree that it provides the origin of much or all evil, which your answer seems to imply. (Correct me if I'm mistaken.) It seems you're implying that if we think Saddam or Kim Jong Il is evil, then well, that's really because that evil belongs to us.
You mention, for example, that the Germans Nazis claimed "God" was "with them" and thus were led to commit all sorts of atrocities. But you don't mention that the Allies also thought they were doing the right thing, and certainly had many prayers and appeals to God. Yet they destroyed the Nazi regime, destroyed Japanese facism, and left these countries better than they found them -- which most would agree was a very very good thing.
Were they merely "projecting" their own evil onto the Nazis? Did their apparent moral certainty lead them to commit many atrocities? Would it have been better if the Allies had stayed home? As far as I can see it, the answers are "no", "no", and "no".
So I don't see a feeling of moral certainty (or belief in "evil" or morals) as being the primary problem. Instead, I would argue that it also matters whether one is actually right or wrong -- not just whether one has such feelings or convictions.
Yes, I'm saying there are moral absolutes. Quite unapologetically. And that they are necessary for drawing the kind of moral distinctions the criteria above precludes: Hitler said the Jews were immoral, and a threat. He was wrong. Churchill said the Nazis were immoral, and a threat. History has vindicated Churchill and condemned Hitler, though both sounded equally sure of themselves and located an evil outside themselves and their group.
Thus it isn't the belief in evil which causes problems -- it's being wrong about it.
I'd also point out that projection has two sides: It can also result in seeing the some very bad people as "better than us", "good", or at least "not so bad".
Consider the way certain people went berserk when Bush suggested North Korea and Iran were part of an "axis of evil." Reagan received the same reaction when he called the USSR an "evil empire." I just heard UW Madison professor Kevin Barrett claim that most well-known Islamic terrorists are all US-created CIA agents. And Michael Moore's films depict pre-Saddam Iraq as a virtual paradise (which it certainly wasn't, especially if you weren't Sunni) while depicting his fellow Americans as living in poverty and huddling in fear behind the bars of gated communities.
I think this happens because some personally dislike the idea of morality (or at least traditional morality) because they fear they'd have to confront evil within themselves. They ignore or defend bad actions in others, and fight the very idea of drawing (traditional) moral judgements because they don't want their own actions to be judged in that manner.
So "evil", for them (which they still, strangely, believe in), becomes something very trivial, something they aren't easily tempted to do -- such as voting for the wrong political party or espousing the wrong beliefs.
George Soros, for example, fights "evil" politically, but says his own business actions -- which have literally bankrupted whole nations (and injured many poor people) -- have no moral dimension -- none at all.
As you imply, it's much harder to first look for the plank in our own eyes before looking for the mote in others. (And some aren't even sure what the definition of "plank" is or should be.)
What makes this process so insidious is that even the worst tyrants and most cruel murderers can actually believe that their actions are justified, and that they are doing the "right" thing when they commit genocide and ethnic cleansing.
This lack of introspection is not because people cannot see that what they are doing is wrong, but because they will not allow the possibility. It is caused by ego, by will, by pride, not because the idea has never flitted across the mind. It has, but was promptly swatted.
True, on some level, they may think (or at least say) they're doing the right thing. But long, long ago the conscience screamed, and was snuffed out. Castro speaks about how good he is for Cuba. But at some point, he must have noticed the grinding poverty his rule has brought.
To quote M. Scott Peck:
The central defect of 'the evil' is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it. More often than not these people will be looked at as solid citizens....
Evil deeds do not make an evil person. Otherwise we would all be evil. If evil people cannot be defined by the illegality of their deeds or the magnitude of their sins, then how are we to define them? The answer is by the consistency of their sins. While usually subtle, their destructiveness is remarkably consistent. This is because those who have "crossed over the line" are characterized by their absolute refusal to tolerate the sense of their own sinfulness." ....
A predominant characteristic of the behavior that I call evil is scapegoating. Because in their hearts they consider themselves above reproach, they must lash out at anyone who does reproach them. They sacrifice others to preserve their self-image of perfection.
This tendency, I believe, is what is responsible for so much evil in the world. Stalin silences his opponents because he cannot stand criticism. Democrats demand total control of the media for the same reason -- even one dissenting network (Fox) drives them insane. And yes, by the same token, some people can't stand to have you question their religion: they're not open to being wrong.
This focus on our own errors is one of the things I value in Christianity, which teaches that our primary problem is our own evil. We must first admit we, ourselves are quite capable of evil, have committed it (in thought and deed), and that we need to be "saved" from that tendency and its consequences.
(The Jews hoped for a saviour to free them from the external political threat of the Romans. What they got was a savior who told them they needed to examine their own bad motives and tendencies and be saved from those.)
It is not an easy thing to do: it's not the same thing as admitting you've made this or that mistake, or just lacked enough knoweledge (which necessarily implies the problem is no fault of your own). It requires serious self-examination, inspection of motives, and admission of willfull wrongdoing and personal guilt.
And, yes, there are indeed Christian hypocrites. Of course! And there are good, introspective people outside of that belief system. (You, for example, sound like a thoughtful, serious, introspective person.) But overall, one is more likely to consider and oppose one's own internal evil (called "sin") if one (a) believes in it and (b) is frequently reminded of the need to watch for and repent of it.
Ryan!
Hello, old friend. I hope you are enjoying this bit of chaos -- I'm simply glad I didn't write about Satanism, Scientology or radical Islamic extremists, none of whom would be as thoughtful, well-reasoned, and generally tolerant as the Gnostics you have invited here.
But I'm enjoying it too, so I can't complain. :-)
As usual, you and I disagree a bit about the nature of the Nazis. In particular:
... after the Nazis, German was no longer the scientific lingua franca. The Nazis did fight a war against prior German academic works. Nazi race science replaced biology classes.
In any age, there is much that is passed off as "science" which is not scientific -- or not viewed as "scientific" fifty years later.
Though Hitler himself could be a bit anti-intellectual at times, the Nazis weren't, as you imagine, against the science of their day. In particular, you make a huge error with your statement about textbooks.
In reading Corrie ten Boom, I remember a comment where her brother discussed the terrible things which were commonly being taught in European Universities (particularly Germany) at the time. The Nazis didn't corrupt biology with their eugenic focus, that was pretty much the standard "scientific" view at the time.
(Does "survival of the fittest" ring any bells?)
For example, in the US, those who want to use "science" and particularly "evolution" as a bludgeon against Christianity point to the "Scopes Monkey Trial", in 1925, as being victory of science and "reason" over "ignorance."
But those people know very little about what "evolution" meant at the time. Civic Biology (published in 1914), the biology textbook in question (which the ACLU was defending) taught "science" that sounded exactly like the stuff Nazis would be saying later.
For example the chapter entitled "Evolution" taught students (emphasis added):
The Races of Man. -- At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in insticts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America. (p. 196)
And elsewhere, referring to alcoholics, epileptics, and the mentally retarded:
Parasitism and its Cost to Society. -- Hundreds of families such as those described above exist today, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.
The Remedy. -- If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with some success in this country.
Again, may I remind you that this was a 1914-edition United States biology textbook, defended by the ACLU. Right there is the seeds for the Nazi push to separate out society's most undersirable elements.
The accompanying lab book "asks students to use inheritance charts '[t]o determine some means of bettering, physically and mentally, the human race'." [1]
This was nothing unusual: you can see the same emphasis and thrust, during the same era, in the writings and programs of Planned Parenthood's founder Margaret Sanger.
Eugenics was a common feature in college curricula. Universities "offering courses in eugenics increased from 44 in 1914 to 376 in 1928." A recent analysis of 41 high school biology textbooks used through the 1940s revealed that nearly 90% of them had sections on eugenics. Major figures in education were attracted to eugenics and wrote books for teachers and the general public... [2]
Hitler was not bucking the trend, he was very much going with the flow.
Perhaps, some day in the future, two people will look back on the trend towards growing and harvesting human fetuses, and have a debate about how that went wrong. And, perhaps like today, some future "leftists" will insist that, no, they certainly would have been opposed to human embryonic research -- and all that false "science" -- and that it was their conservative, religious opponents who were the kind who were in favor of it. After all, the National Council of Churches of Christ ultimately came out in favor of it, right? (Never mind that these Christians are just as theologically "liberal" as those who supported and worked with Sanger.)
I'm not sure the Nazis were completely wrong biologically: Perhaps there really are some differences among the "races" -- some evidence does suggest the Chinese (for example) are, on average (not individually), smarter than ethnic Europeans like myself. But they were completely wrong ethically, because they believed that the worth of an individual was determined by how much they could contribute to society.
Catholics (which I am not) are very much alone in opposing that idea: On that topic, for example, John Paul II faced constant criticism in the press. Meanwhile, euthanasia is already starting up in Europe again, in the most left-leaning, "tolerant", and "enlightened" societies like the Netherlands (more here), just as eugenics was also a "progressive" belief in Hitler's day.
But I digress.
In any age, there is much that is passed off as "science" which is not scientific -- or not viewed as
"scientific" fifty years later.
I agree. And the odd beliefs of a particular generation are usually not an accident either
Though Hitler himself could be a bit anti-intellectual at times, the Nazis weren't, as you imagine, against the science of their day.
I'd argue they were opposed to some parts of it, and at least intent on politicisizing the whole of it (i.e. Biology classes were used to indoctrinate students into National socialism link. ) Politicizng the creation of scientific information often has the same result as opposing it more directly. You could argue that this is occasionally required, but it's generally true. I agree that the racial ideas Hitler employed were found in America as well to a frightening degree, right down to aboriginal Australians being kept in zoos and the 'ranking' of people by race. The tendency for racial classification was pre-Darwinian. Linneaus catagorized different races based on behavioral characteristics, taking care to extol his own people. (As an aside, the ACLU left Tennessee alone once it changed its laws to say that applying evolutionary theory to human beings could not be taught. The ACLU's original concern was with the Butler Act mandating that biblical creation be taught. In other words, there's no clear demonstration that I can see that the ACLU went into Scopes to promote or defend the specific passages that you cite.)
Heinrich Himmler employed entire seminars of scientists to prove scientifically that the Himalayans were Aryan. Scores of German physicists signed a petition condemning as false the ‘Jewish’ ideas of Albert Einstein (Einstein famously answered, “If I had been wrong, one would have been enough.”)
link
Recent historical work has shown that while certain kinds of science were destroyed under the Nazi regime, other kinds flourished. Sciences of an applied nature were especially encouraged, as were sciences that fit within the larger program of Nazi segregation and extermination.
link
Perhaps, some day in the future, two people will look back on the trend towards growing and harvesting
human fetuses, and have a debate about how that went wrong.
Quite possibly. I don't claim to know which way popular opinion is likely to swing. If it comes
to pass that a technology becomes obsolete or a line of research no longer helpful, I imagine people's will be far less likely to defend it. Likewise, if it comes to pass that forming what amounts to an embryo from a stem cell is required as part of the process for growing new organs, those people who need the organs or who think they might need them are probably going to be quite vocal. And those voices, along with the industries who service them and the polititians who service those industries, will probably weigh on public notions of morality. Perhaps changes in in-vitro fertilization techniques will mean that creating a number of embryos and destroying a few, all for the purpose of reproduction, will no longer be commonplace. Not to make another comparison between stem cells and slavery to add to the pile (framing has never been my strong suit), but I've always found it interesting that the abolition of slavery conincided so neatly with the rise of the industrial revolution in both Great Britain and the US.
People's economic needs were huge in influencing their moral beliefs.
Perhaps there really are some differences among the "races"
I'll buy the notion of slight racial IQ differences and certain traits tending to be more prevalent among certain groups of people. I see this as a far cry from either American or German race science, however. Though the fact that IQ correlates with height in the US, and that those differences disappear when you
correct for nutritional deprivation and social background, indicates to me that a large part of the IQ differences are environmental (i.e. caused by certain environmental deficits, possibly including in-utero and neonatal care and nutrition, exposure to disease, etc, which can be corrected.) In keeping with this, IQ gains made by the lower quartile of the population seem to be outpacing gains made by the upper portion.
Though some have disputed this. (I have no idea how this person gets their definitions for their various classes.
The Flynn effect is the year-on-year rise of IQ test scores. Some studies focusing on the distribution of scores have found the Flynn effect to be primarily a phenomenon in the lower end of the distribution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
While Japan's IQ scores might stand on their own, China's are still a little murky.
Regarding the book IQ and the Wealth of nations;
For People's Republic of China, the authors used a figure of 109.4 for Shanghai and adjusted it down by an arbitrary 6 points because they believed the average across China's rural areas was probably less than that in Shanghai. Another figure from a study done in Beijing was not adjusted downwards. Those two studies formed the resultant score for China (PRC).
link
Most of the testing I know of done on the Chinese occurrs either in cities or else happens in the US. In both cases, a sort of 'screening' process exists. The Average Chinese person moving to america earns more than the average American. But because of the difficulty of moving from China to the US, many of the less talented individuals are filtered out. The same is true of movement to China's cities. Similarly, Mexican immigrants who manage to go from S. Mexico to the US are typically more successful than those whose journies are not as lengthy. The larger barrier serves as a filter for less motivated individuals. An interesting measure of discrimination is that the victimized group tends to have above-average ability compared to their coworkers, since discrimination predominantly filters out poorer candidates.
Regarding Gnosticism These conversations have been quite illuminating, thanks to the wisdom of all involved and I've been trying to research a bit on my own. Jung's archetypes are platonic forms, which seems painfully obvious in retrospect, though I never made the connection before. As another aside (staying on topic has never been my strong suit either) the notion of 'forms' seems to dovetail pretty nicely with modern descriptions of how neural nets function. In the same way that early scientists attempting to measure the speed of light measured their reaction times, Plato's forms might really have just been descriptions of the workings of his own mind.
I'm still trying to understand the application of gnosticism, and whether or not it's a mystery religion and what 'gnostic salvation' is supposed to look like.
If a key is required to unlock a certain gnostic text, would some gnostics be obligated to withold such an interpretive key from the uninitiated?
I'd agree that there are some abuses recorded in the Old testament. However I thought at first you (Tim) were going a different direction with your Nazi analogy. And perhaps it still wasn't by chance that you made it. The gnostic belief is that the OT God is equivalent to Satan/Samael/the Demiurge, correct? This would seem to lead gnostics to label those who worshiped according to the old testament as satanic, right? The swastika is a form of gnostic cross, and many of the folks over at neo-nazi Stormfront seem to use gnostic crosses as their symbols. The page you cited explicity says "Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead, active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined upon every man." Which is enough to at least bring up the question of whether some gnostics really were in opposition to the Nazis at all. I don't mean for this to come off as an accusation against the gnostics, but it does seem like quite a disturbing trend. And it's at least worth asking of any particular belief system what kind of society it creates for its adherants. Do the experiment, check the results. Or we can say "know them by their fruits" if those here prefer that phrase. If I'm mischaracterizing things, I thought it'd be good to express the notion out loud so someone, likely Rev Max, could set the record straight.
Thanks!
Incidentally, I'm not sure if the article you cite is realy fair to Sanger. I don't want to defend her too much since she is a racist and has some nutty ideas. But at the same time, it seems to ascribe to her notions that she might not have held.
I can't find any evidence that her comment that she "did not want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," was anything more than an honest concern though it's used to imply that she's keeping some secret. While she seemed to believe in a racial hierarchy I can't see anything in a quick scan of documents on her that indicates she wanted to wipe out any particular race.
Heya again Ryan,
Well, we're supposed to be discussing Gnosticism, and here we are, hacking at the Nazis some more. But it's understandable: those who fail to learn history are bound to repeat it, and if one can't draw a few object lessons from the Nazis, one must be a very dense scholar indeed.
(Of course, by any token, Communism was far worse.)
I'd argue they were opposed to some parts of [science], and at least intent on politicisizing the whole of it...
Of course. Likewise, I can't speak about science, but we had plenty of the same thing going on here: once you're in a war (or so it was then, anyway) everything was marshalled to the cause.
(More on this in a moment...)
But we see plenty of "politicizing" of science today. Global warming, embryonic stem cells (absurd promises being made), fossil fuels, alternative energy research, air pollution, food scares, DDT, "root causes" of terrorism (hint: not poverty), bad economics, nearly anything Al Gore says, "Gaia" -- the number of "junk-science" driven, myth-ridden scares which are being foisted on us -- usually for political gain -- are truly alarming.
Biology classes were used to indoctrinate students into National socialism...
The link you've supplied was to textbooks being produced during the war. I don't disagree -- but my point here is that the relevant acceptance (and teaching) of core eugenic philosophies happened long before the war and long before the Nazis rose to power.
Yes, once they were in power, they were able to tailor the curriculum to produce even more specific justifications, but my core point is that these ideas preceeded the Nazis, and paved the way for their philosophy. Later, they simply sharpened the focus and extended the method.
These ideas weren't discredited because the Nazis corrupted them, but because people finally understood their final, logical consequences -- much as the Soviet Union did with socialism.
A classic example is Brave New World which, I understand, was originally written in all seriousness, but after WWII, Aldous Huxley claimed had been written as a parody of eugenic ideas.
... aboriginal Australians being kept in zoos...
I'm not familliar with this, and would like any documentation if you have it.
I realize you're referring to the US, but you might find some of Keith Windschuttle's work interesting.
The tendency for racial classification was pre-Darwinian...
As I've hinted previously, nothing Darwin said, scientifically, was new. But it was Darwinism as a philosophy which gave these ideas a newfound intellectual legitimacy.
Darwin wasn't initially, as you might believe, the bane of Christendom. But it was the need some felt to create that conflict which drove so many people to call their (generally anti-theistic) philosophical ideas "science" and drape them with a veneer of false legitimacy. The fictional story of the debate between Wilberforce and Darwin gives a classic illustration.
As leading sociologist of religion Rodney Star (an agnostic) noted:
When The Origin of Species was published it aroused immense interest, but initially it did not provoke antagonism on religious grounds. Although many criticized Darwin's lack of evidence, none raised religious objections. Instead, the initial response from theologians was favorable. The distinguished Harvard botanist Asa Gray hailed Darwin for having solved the most difficult problem confronting the Design argument--the many imperfections and failures revealed in the fossil record. Acknowledging that Darwin himself "rejects the idea of design," Gray congratulated him for "bringing out the neatest illustrations of it." Gray interpreted Darwin's work as showing that God has created a few original forms and then let evolution proceed within the framework of divine laws.
When religious antagonism finally came it was in response to aggressive claims, like Huxley's, that Newton and Darwin together had evicted God from the cosmos. For the heirs of the Enlightenment, evolution seemed finally to supply the weapon needed to destroy religion. As Richard Dawkins confided, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."
Atheism was central to the agenda of the Darwinians. Darwin himself once wrote that he could not understand how anyone could even wish that Christianity were true, noting that the doctrine of damnation was itself damnable. Huxley expressed his hostility toward religion often and clearly, writing in 1859: "My screed was meant as a protest against Theology & Parsondom...both of which are in my mind the natural & irreconcilable enemies of Science. Few see it but I believe we are on the Eve of a new Reformation and if I have a wish to live 30 years, it is to see the foot of Science on the necks of her Enemies." According to Oxford historian J. R. Lucas, Huxley was "remarkably resistant to the idea that there were clergymen who accepted evolution, even when actually faced with them." Quite simply, there could be no compromises with faith.
(The whole thing is worth a read.)
Then, as now, we see people whose first agenda is a philosophical/theological one, who want to turn science into a philosophy and use it to advance "progressive" ideas, and fight to remove traditional structures and limits.
The ACLU's original concern was with the Butler Act mandating that biblical creation be taught...
Incorrect.
"Christian fundamentalism" (i.e. Biblical literal creationism), was not "technically an issue in the case," since "The Tennessee statute did not mandate the teaching of fundamentalism or of any other theory that might explain the origin and subsequent diversification of life on earth," and "merely barred the teaching of evolution" (Sisson, 2004, p.94). But the evolution side's lawyer, Clarence Darrow, "wished to make fundamentalism the issue..." [1]
I agree completely that it was a stupid law (though it had been completely unenforced), but it's important to get the details right. Again, seeing what "evolution" entailed (see excerpts above, please) it is understandable how decent people could object on something quite other than scientific or religious grounds.
In other words, there's no clear demonstration that I can see that the ACLU went into Scopes to promote or defend the specific passages...
I don't recall trying to demonstrate any such thing, Ryan. Where are you getting this?
While I can't tell you for sure what the ACLU's motivations were, but it seems clear that for Darrow, their lawyer, it was certainly not about an abstract commitment to academic freedom.
And, though it doesn't shed any light on this case in particular, I always enjoy a quote or two from the ACLU's founder, Roger Baldwin:
I am for Socialism, disarmament and ultimately, for the abolishing of the State itself ... I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.
Finally, I'd gently remind you that this idea of separating eugenics from Darwinism is very much a modern idea. At the time, they were part and parcel of the same package. Sure, Darrow or the ACLU may not have been specifically defending those exact passages, but to the extent anyone generally accepted evolution, such beliefs generally followed during that era.
Again, I think the quotes and surveys I've cited above demonstrate that point quite clearly.
Heinrich Himmler employed entire seminars of scientists to prove scientifically that the Himalayans were Aryan...
Heinrich Himmler was no more a scientist than Al Gore. And his science is similarly suspect, as it serves a similarly political end.
(I'm not saying Al Gore is a Nazi. But he's a politician who dabbles in fringe science, cites evidence extremely selectively, talks about "the goddess" frequently, and apparently looks to figures like Baba Ram Dass for spiritual guidence.)
Again, I agree with you that the Nazis played fast and loose with science -- even "science" by their contemporary standards. And yes, in wartime, everything serves the needs of the state. (Look at how long the USSR held onto Lamarkian genetics, for example, because it fit their political outlook.)
But my agreement with you in this area doesn't negate my core point about how their general outlook regarding eugenics and survival of the fittest was in step with the "progressive" fads of the day. You can't explain their rise by appealing to specific spins they promoted internally, or after they rose to power: clearly, there was something making those ideas acceptable in the first place.
I don't claim to know which way popular opinion is likely to swing...
Neither do I, frankly. It swings back and forth. Perhaps I'll be right in 30 years, not 50, and wrong at the 50 year mark. Or perhaps I'll be on the side of those, like Marx, who missed the boat entirely. (But obviously, I personally wouldn't bet on it.)
I'm betting where incentives exist, and government oversight is weak, people will do all kinds of things -- including some rather horrifying one. And already, we see that many of the key proponents of this technology -- all science aside -- are some of the most unethical people I've seen in science, so I can't imagine they'll be vastly more restrained henceforth.
I've always found it interesting that the abolition of slavery conincided so neatly with the rise of the industrial revolution in both Great Britain and the US.... People's economic needs were huge in influencing their moral beliefs.
I don't see a strong link, personally -- at least not on the abolition side. England made quite a bit of money of the slave trade; there was no financial incentive at all I could when Wilberforce et al pricked the nation's conscience and had it stopped.
And certainly the South's embrace of slavery could be explained by greed (that I agree with), but I don't think the North would have, somehow, made more money by forcing the South to change.
Also, I'd point out to you that the practice of slavery was actually first abolished in Europe before 1000AD, back when slaves were still quite useful, and long before the industrial revolution.
I'll buy the notion of slight racial IQ differences...
I suspect you're wrong here, but it's an area I don't care that much about either way. People go on endlessly about this subject. Functionally, it was only a lead-in to the second half of the sentence.
Perhaps another day.
Jung's archetypes are platonic forms, which seems painfully obvious in retrospect, though I never made the connection before...
Interesting.
Plato's forms might really have just been descriptions of the workings of his own mind...
That was, in my opinion, certainly true of Freud, Jung's mentor.
I'm still trying to understand the application of gnosticism, and whether or not it's a mystery religion and what 'gnostic salvation' is supposed to look like.
I agree with "sparkwidget": I don't think the early Gnostics had one neat view. As I've said before, it was a highly schismatic movement; I see a lot of different views in their materials. As someone else joked, many ancient Gnostic authors were "a guy with a pen and no followers." Not exclusively true, of course. (Marcion, Valentinus are good counter-examples.)
Look at the New Age movement today for a parallel: There are "Christian" flavors (which appear "Christian" superficially, but at the core are entirely different, theologically), "Buddhist" flavors, some who say they're talking to aliens, some who claim they're communicating with angels, or one's "higher self" (done with psychological overtones)... they draw on whatever tradition works to attract followers into many small independent groups.
(But, unlike the Gnostics (as far as I can see) they at least share one thing in common: the variations in details appear custom-designed to draw people with varying, diverse needs and backgrounds into a single political goal: a "new age", of course. (To state the obvious.))
If a key is required to unlock a certain gnostic text, would some gnostics be obligated to withold such an interpretive key from the uninitiated?
I couldn't tell you, especially concerning the present.
But my gut sense is that, while some ancient Gnostics were clearly thoughtful, some were simply trying to hide in dense technocratic prose, much as (say) Chomsky does today. I suspect the content documents themselves were the hidden revelation, which is why they took such pains to preserve them.
The gnostic belief is that the OT God is equivalent to Satan/Samael/the Demiurge, correct?
Again, I'm admittedly only a fellow dabbler, but: Many would, some wouldn't. Marcion probably would have, as would some later gnostics. Some say Valentinus wouldn't have.
But yes, as I understand it, that's at least the common popular understanding of the ancient belief. And there's also the idea that the "real" (good) God (Sophia, or wisdom) who created everything non-material, and the Demiurge (YWHW) the source of Error, created this universe. Jesus, then, came from beyond this place (e.g. "the Immortal Realm of Barbello") to help free people from bondage to this realm via gnosis.
I'd agree that there are some abuses recorded in the Old testament...
Hmmmm... did I say this? I'm not seeing that topic, anywhere above. Forgive my bad memory.
However I thought at first you (Tim) were going a different direction with your Nazi analogy...
No, I don't see any especially strong parallel between Nazis and Gnostics, if that's what you're hinting at, or thought I was hinting at. The Nazis just a great example of smart, learned people who did incredibly immoral things.
Which is enough to at least bring up the question of whether some gnostics really were in opposition to the Nazis at all...
I'm certainly not going to issue a blanket condemnation against modern Gnostics, many of whom I don't know personally. But I do have something to say, which you're reminding me of.
One of the things which puzzles me is this bit about being drawn to "evil" or "bad" archetypes. For example, consider Satanism: Some try to give Satanism a very ancient history, with a string of dark masters (Illuminati), etc. Frankly, I'm quite skeptical of all that.
Consider the Gospel of Judas. In the author's time, Judas was surely considered a bad figure. It doesn't matter who Judas really was or wasn't, this is not about that. But my point is that a group of people were drawn to a "dark" image, and felt compelled to make that image in particular, among so many other options, stand for "good".
And, conversely, you also see this bit about twisting or inverting symbols (or codes) of goodness: Upside-down crosses, bent crosses, masses said backwards, the ten commandments as evil, blah, blah, blah, etc.
Again, this isn't about the truth of the symbol itself: be it Satan, or Judas, or Hitler, or Set. Its the psychological angle that interests me. What is it that makes a man (or woman) need to see symbols of "evil" as "good" and symbols usually associated with "good" as "evil?"
I can see three reasons:
(1) External reasons: a person might get into, say, Kalachakra Buddhism not fully knowing what they're getting into, and not realizing they'll need to eventually embrace the doctrine of moral inversion. The person is attracted for another reason, not primarily by the inversion itself.
(2) Contrarian fun, like kids who get into heavy metal with Satantic symbols mostly as a form of rebellion, and to create an in and out group.
(3) Another group are attracted, I believe, because of deep inner wounds or ego needs. This, I think, can be a profoundly unhealthy tendency. I'm not just saying that out of some theological bias: ignore my own beliefs and look a the "fruit" (as you mentioned) of many groups which seem motivated by such tendencies. Alastair Crowley (sp, sorry) was a notorious liar and jerk, and so was L. Ron Hubbard who (yes) seems to have been into some kind of "Satanism" before he started Dianetics.
Interestingly enough, said Gnostics and I would agree with one thing: the ruler of this world is indeed evil. But I don't see the "ruler" and "creator" as being the same being. And yes, this place does seem to be ruled by an "insane fallen angel." Between us, it's just a matter of who you think the angel is, YHWH or Satan.
(Oh, and interestingly enough, the Gnostic view is largely the same angle taken by Phillip Pullman in his stories for children -- though Pullman is pro-materialism.)
And yes, some modern Gnostics may just think that's all simply an allegory: I recognize that. (And perhaps some don't: similarly, there are "religious" Satanists who actually believe they're worshipping a real spiritual entity, and others who simply revere "Satan" as a symbol of individualism or non-conformity.)
I'm not sure if the article you cite is realy fair to Sanger...
Scroll down here to read Sanger's "A Plan for Peace". She states President Wilson should "give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization."
Yes, you read that right: Either be isolated into, I dunno, what could we call them? "Concentration camps", perhaps? Or be forcibly sterlized. (She's not referring to specific ethnic groups, but this gives us some kind of idea of her desired tactics.)
I don't think Sanger specifically had it in for all black people. But it's not hard to see that they tended to fit into the categories she hated most: poor, religious, less educated, and having large families.
Remember, her initial goal in recommending eugenics was to keep the least desirable stock from reproducing. So do a bit of research into what groups she tended to focus on later, with birth control and abortion. Look where she put her clinics, in what section of town.
It's not hard to get a creepy feeling about that.
But we see plenty of "politicizing" of science today. Global warming, embryonic stem cells (absurd promises being made), fossil fuels, alternative energy research, air pollution, food scares, DDT, "root causes" of terrorism (hint: not poverty), bad economics, nearly anything Al Gore says, "Gaia" -- the number of "junk-science" driven, myth-ridden scares which are being foisted on us -- usually for political gain -- are truly alarming.
How much of that occurrs in our schools, though? When I had a "natural systems" course in college and they covered the issue of global warming. I think the issue was fairly evidence based. They discussed the failure of earlier models which predicted 10 inches of sea level rise, effects of continents on environment, nature of earth as a carnot (heat) engine etc. The professor had worked at McMurdough station in Antarctica and confirmed the melting of some permafrost there. I took that course about 7 years ago. Perhaps things are different in High Schools and colleges now. I'm not sure what you mean by "air pollution" and "food scares" exactly. By the second do you mean GMO crops? I think the model holds here anyways. To the degree that these things are driven by politics rather than science, they interfere with scientific advancement. The harms of DDT were overstated, but I'd still prefer some less-environmentally-persistant methods for spraying. The effect on developing fetuses is still unclear and they're probably more susceptible to DDT given that their blood brain barrier is much weaker than in adults. If you're dealing with something that will creep into every corner of the food chain, your standard is the suceptibility of the most vulnerable consumer of the substance. International bodies all made their bans of DDT conditional (i.e. Not on agriculture but only for mosquitos, and you can use DDT till somthing better comes along and in emergencies.) Probably many philanthropists were discouraged from donating DDT to nations in Africa since it wouldn't have helped their public image as much. Proponents of DDT seem to give a lot of credit to pesticides for eliminating mosquito borne diseases and while they played (and still play) a role, very little attention is usually given to the invention of air conditioning and better housing which broke the cycle of transmission from mosquito to human. Malaria was on the decline in the US without DDT except in some impoverished rural pockets in the US South.
A classic example is Brave New World which, I understand, was originally written in all seriousness, but after WWII, Aldous Huxley claimed had been written as a parody of eugenic ideas.
I'm curious why you say that. You might be right, but the novel seems pretty dysutopain so I'm just curious.
Re: Human Zoos
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/10/news/zoo.php
Though it's noteworhty that Ota Benga wasn't simply caged like an animal
Ota Benga was free to wander the zoo as he pleased. Sometimes he helped the animal keepers with their jobs. He spent a lot of time at the Monkey House, caring for Verner's one surviving chimp and bonding as well with an orangutan named Dohong.
However the dispay was regarded as racist by many and protested by members of the African-American community.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo
... and work calls. I'll read, parse and respond to the rest of your comment when I have the chance. I might be immersed for a little.
How much of that occurrs in our schools, though?
Lots. I was taught, for example, that monotheism was produced by theological evolution. I was never taught basic economic principles, or how wealth was created. I can't pinpoint the source, but I came out accepting Malthusian views of hunger and need.
And today, I've seen writings which imply that many public school kids think the environment is in grave, immediate peril...
When I had a "natural systems" course in college and they covered the issue of global warming. I think the issue was fairly evidence based...
Good! I have a friend who has her Master's degree in environmental science. She remarked that the "global warming" course was very unlike the others in that very little evidence was presented, and nobody was allowed to debate or question the material.
Again, this was the education recently given to a friend who is an environmental scientist by profession.
By ["food scares"] do you mean GMO crops?
I was thinking about the way we keep hearing this or that food is a huge danger to us and needs to be regulated. When my father had a heart attack, they warned him to avoid fats, eat more cereal products, and do primarily aerobic exercises. And of course he gained weight instead of losing it. And he was frightened away from saccarine which, it turns out, was relatively harmless.
And so we hear coffee is bad for us. Or good for us. And that wines are bad for us. Or good for us. And that we should avoid fats. Or that we need fats. I'm not quibbling with the basic evidence, I'm quibbling with the way these things are sold with such certainly and sensationalism. (I'm mainly referring to the media here.)
But, now that you mention it, GMO certainly fits. As does the incessant dire prediction that mass starvation awaits around every corner. (Except that now we're also being told that "obesity" is the horrifying plague of the poor...)
The harms of DDT were overstated, but I'd still prefer some less-environmentally-persistant methods for spraying.
I don't think you're at all addressing what modern advocates contend and recommend, but just to humor you here:
I think we should let the people who are most likely going to die of malaria decide where to make that trade off. I'm sure they'd gladly accept the possibility of "environmental persistence" in return for living past 10 years old.
This is an example of swallowing camels and straining out gnats. What's the point of the "persistent environmental" argument? Generally, I expect, that it ultimately hurts people. Er, perhaps, but I would note that death hurts people more.
That said, I also disagree with the science the argument implies, and also think it's a straw man.
... very little attention is usually given to the invention of air conditioning and better housing which broke the cycle of transmission from mosquito to human.
That's probably because air conditioning wasn't a big factor in South Africa and Africa, which were the hardest-hit areas, and which thus benefitted the most from pesticides like DDT.
As far as Brave New World, I agree, it is dystopian. Perhaps I'm wrong about Aldous: it's been a while since I read BNW, and can't remember where I got that impression. But certainly, his family seemed to have, particularly Julian and Thomas.
But that wasn't really my point was it?
So I'll retract this little example for the moment, and perhaps revisit it later -- I don't have time at this very moment to sort through my former impression there. Instead, if I can substitute, I'd refer one to Planned Parenthood's behavior regarding Margaret Sanger.
I might be immersed for a little.
Happy immersion!
I read through about half the link re: Keith Windschuttle. While some of the falsifications that he pulls up are interesting, I don't agree that making history less focused on 'great men' and 'the millitary' is in any way inherantly tied to or related to falsification of history, or that focusing exclusively on millitary history is in any way more honest than other forms. Relying solely on the "Great Man" view of history lends itself to a certain myopia. Without at least a little "identity politics," political movements are often seen as stepping into power fully formed rather than having been created and refined over long periods.
The article notes; The pre-eminent position is now held by the new field of social history, which celebrates the achievements not of great men but of ordinary people, especially those minority or disadvantaged groups supposedly outside the mainstream such as women, homosexuals, blacks and immigrants.
There was a time when Christians were one of those marginalized groups. What would Christianity look like if the historical account of it focused only on powerful millitary men and ignored the concerns of those who didn't actually hold power? Alternately, influential female writers were seen as simply springing up around the 18th and 19th centuries, when their ideas actually drew on earlier unrecognized female-authored literature. (This was a thesis of an ex-girlfriend of mine. I don't know the actual works involved.)
One of my favorite quotations (I'm not sure who said it) is; "History is a selective interpretation of events intended to justify those currently in power. Memory is the same thing on an individual scale."
'History' is so vast that even if you're dead level honest, any narrative that you construct, however factual, is going to suffer from a selection bias. You can't avoid this, you can only be aware of it and account for it. (The same is true of memory.)
Again from the article;
if we can no longer have any concept of truth, that is, if there are no truths, then the statement "there are no truths" cannot itself be true.
Moreover, this is not a statement that is dependent upon some particular cultural vantage point. It is true in American culture, Australian culture, Japanese culture, indeed in every culture on the planet. There is nothing relative about historical truths of this kind.
What's relative, as far as I can see, is not what is true but rather what counts as a legitimate topic for historical study.
The ACLU's original concern was with the Butler Act mandating that biblical creation be taught...
Incorrect.
While I can't tell you for sure what the ACLU's motivations were, but it seems clear that for Darrow, their lawyer, it was certainly not about an abstract commitment to academic freedom.
Most of what I've seen suggests that there were differences of intent between the ACLU and Darrow, and that Darrow was Scopes choice, not the ACLUs. I'll certainly agree with your assessment of Darrow. I just don't think it can be applied to the ACLU.
The announcement by Darrow, along with New York lawyers Dudley Malone and Bainbridge Colby, that they intended to offer their services to the defense team might have seemed like a godsend, to an outsider. In reality, though, the ACLU didn't want Darrow or Malone anywhere near the defence team, either at the original trial or at the appeal. But Darrow wasn't particularly concerned with what the ACLU wantedlink
"Christian fundamentalism" (i.e. Biblical literal creationism), was not "technically an issue in the case,"
When the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the law, Epperson appealed to the US Supreme Court, which ruled in 1968 that all state monkey laws were unconstitutional, on the grounds that they served to establish a state-supported religion and eroded the separation of church and state.source
The ACLU had originally intended to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that it violated the separation of Church and State within the public education system and was therefore unconstitutional. Mainly due to Clarence Darrow, this strategy changed as the trial progressed, and the earliest argument proposed by the defense once the trial had started was that there was actually no conflict between evolution and the creation account in the Bible. link
Darrow induced his client to readily admit his violation of the Tennessee statute, but argued that the law violated the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state as well as Scopes’ academic freedom to express his professional views. Darrow argued further that evolution in the minds of many ministers and theologians was consistent with some interpretations of Scripture.
In other words, there's no clear demonstration that I can see that the ACLU went into Scopes to promote or defend the specific passages...
I don't recall trying to demonstrate any such thing, Ryan. Where are you getting this?
...
Civic Biology (published in 1914), the biology textbook in question (which the ACLU was defending...
You said the ACLU wanted to defend the textbook in specific (as opposed to defending a particular right.) Or perhaps I'm misreading the ACLU's motives?
Again, seeing what "evolution" entailed (see excerpts above, please) it is understandable how decent people could object on something quite other than scientific or religious grounds.
I haven't said otherwise.
Interesting Baldwin quote, but while a quick search suggests he was socialist for most of his life, he eventually turned strongly against his communist sympathies.
In St. Louis, Baldwin became greatly influenced by the radical social movement of the anarchist Emma Goldman. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World and developed a sympathy for the Soviet Union and for Communism that lasted until 1939 when he was disillusioned by the Nazi-Soviet Pact and broke off all radical ties. In 1927, he had visited the Soviet Union and wrote a book, Liberty Under the Soviets, which contained extensive praise for the Soviet Union. However, he later denounced communism in his book, A New Slavery, which condemned "the inhuman communist police state tyranny." In the 1940s, Baldwin led the campaign to purge the ACLU of Communist Party members.link
Finally, I'd gently remind you that this idea of separating eugenics from Darwinism is very much a modern idea.
Granted. Or at least a religiously affiliated one.
From the Supreme court decision; "Evolution, like prohibition, is a broad term. In recent bickering, however, evolution has been understood to mean the theory which holds that man has developed from some pre-existing lower type. This is the popular significance of evolution, just as the popular significance of prohibition is prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating liquors. It was in that sense that evolution was used in this act. It is in this sense that the word will be used in this opinion, unless the context otherwise indicates. It is only to the theory of the evolution of man from a lower type that the act before us was intended to apply, and much of the discussion we have heard is beside this case."link
I don't disagree with the intent of the law that brought about the Scopes trial. Just with how people tried to impliment that intent.
Of course, eventually human beings found out that they're rather bad at using eugenics to actually improve the gene pool. The landmark case of Buck v. Bell, where Carrie Buck was raped and then sterlized as a promiscious imbecile is a sterling example of this.
But my agreement with you in this area doesn't negate my core point about how their general outlook regarding eugenics and survival of the fittest was in step with the "progressive" fads of the day.
While I see what you're saying, I personally have a lot of trouble with terms like "left and right" or "conservative and liberal." They seem Marxist and mostly serve to prevent rather than facilitate comparing one time period to another by assuming inevitable progress that often doesn't materialize. I'll go into that some other time.
No, I don't see any especially strong parallel between Nazis and Gnostics, if that's what you're hinting at, or thought I was hinting at. Okay. If nothing else, neo nazis tend to use gnostic symbols extensively. And I'd assume a war against the laws of the OT and related diety would translate pretty easily into anti-semetism.
Though perhaps the symbols were misappropriated.
External reasons: a person might get into, say, Kalachakra Buddhism not fully knowing what they're getting into, and not realizing they'll need to eventually embrace the doctrine of moral inversion. The person is attracted for another reason, not primarily by the inversion itself.
I apologize. I only have a superficial superficial understanding of Buddishm. So how does Kalachakra Buddism relate to inversion?
Interestingly enough, said Gnostics and I would agree with one thing: the ruler of this world is indeed evil. But I don't see the "ruler" and "creator" as being the same being. And yes, this place does seem to be ruled by an "insane fallen angel." Between us, it's just a matter of who you think the angel is, YHWH or Satan. Makes sense.
Okay, I guess at some point Sanger went beyond advocating voluntary birth control and wanted the state to impose measures. Good to know.
Sorry about the messed up tags on my previous comment. This blog doesn't close blockquotes at a carriage return like it does with other tags.
Hopefully this will be easier to read...
I read through about half the link re: Keith Windschuttle. While some of the falsifications that he pulls up are interesting, I don't agree that making history less focused on 'great men' and 'the millitary' is in any way inherantly tied to or related to falsification of history, or that focusing exclusively on millitary history is in any way more honest than other forms. Relying solely on the "Great Man" view of history lends itself to a certain myopia. Without at least a little "identity politics," political movements are often seen as stepping into power fully formed rather than having been created and refined over long periods.
The article notes; The pre-eminent position is now held by the new field of social history, which celebrates the achievements not of great men but of ordinary people, especially those minority or disadvantaged groups supposedly outside the mainstream such as women, homosexuals, blacks and immigrants.
There was a time when Christians were one of those marginalized groups. What would Christian history look like if the historical account of it focused only on powerful millitary men and ignored the concerns of those who didn't actually hold power? Alternately, influential female writers were seen as simply springing up around the 18th and 19th centuries, when their ideas actually drew on earlier unrecognized female-authored literature.
(This was a thesis of an ex-girlfriend of mine. I don't know the actual works involved.)
One of my favorite quotations (I'm not sure who said it) is; "History is a selective interpretation of events intended to justify those currently in power. Memory is the same thing on an individual scale."
'History' is so vast that even if you're dead level honest, any narrative that you construct, however factual, is going to suffer from a selection bias. You can't avoid this, you can only be aware of it and account for it. (The same is true of memory.)
Again from the article;
if we can no longer have any concept of truth, that is, if there are no truths, then the statement "there are no truths" cannot itself be true.
Moreover, this is not a statement that is dependent upon some particular cultural vantage point. It is true in American culture, Australian culture, Japanese culture, indeed in every culture on the planet. There is nothing relative about historical truths of this kind.
What's relative, as far as I can see, is not what is true but rather what counts as a legitimate topic for historical study.
Ryan:The ACLU's original concern was with the Butler Act mandating that biblical creation be taught...
Tim:Incorrect.
Tim:While I can't tell you for sure what the ACLU's motivations were, but it seems clear that for Darrow, their lawyer, it was certainly not about an abstract commitment to academic freedom.
Most of what I've seen suggests that there were differences of intent between the ACLU and Darrow, and that Darrow was Scopes choice, not the ACLUs. I'll certainly agree with your assessment of Darrow. I just don't think it can be applied to the ACLU.
The announcement by Darrow, along with New York lawyers Dudley Malone and Bainbridge Colby, that they intended to offer their services to the defense team might have seemed like a godsend, to an outsider. In reality, though, the ACLU didn't want Darrow or Malone anywhere near the defence team, either at the original trial or at the appeal. But Darrow wasn't particularly concerned with what the ACLU wanted link
"Christian fundamentalism" (i.e. Biblical literal creationism), was not "technically an issue in the case,"
When the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the law, Epperson appealed to the US Supreme Court, which ruled in 1968 that all state monkey laws were unconstitutional, on the grounds that they served to establish a state-supported religion and eroded the separation of church and state.source
The ACLU had originally intended to oppose the Butler Act on the grounds that it violated the separation of Church and State within the public education system and was therefore unconstitutional. Mainly due to Clarence Darrow, this strategy changed as the trial progressed, and the earliest argument proposed by the defense once the trial had started was that there was actually no conflict between evolution and the creation account in the Bible. link
Darrow induced his client to readily admit his violation of the Tennessee statute, but argued that the law violated the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state as well as Scopes’ academic freedom to express his professional views. Darrow argued further that evolution in the minds of many ministers and theologians was consistent with some interpretations of Scripture.
Ryan:In other words, there's no clear demonstration that I can see that the ACLU went into Scopes to promote or defend the specific passages...
Tim:I don't recall trying to demonstrate any such thing, Ryan. Where are you getting this?
...
Tim: Civic Biology (published in 1914), the biology textbook in question (which the ACLU was defending...
You said the ACLU wanted to defend the textbook in specific (as opposed to only defending a particular right or standard (i.e. separation of Church and State), with the textbook being involved in the case.)
Though I've never gone through and read the court transcript so I might be misreading things.
Again, seeing what "evolution" entailed (see excerpts above, please) it is understandable how decent people could object on something quite other than scientific or religious grounds.
I agree.
Interesting Baldwin quote, but while a quick search suggests he was socialist for most of his life, he eventually turned strongly against his communist sympathies.
In St. Louis, Baldwin became greatly influenced by the radical social movement of the anarchist Emma Goldman. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World and developed a sympathy for the Soviet Union and for Communism that lasted until 1939 when he was disillusioned by the Nazi-Soviet Pact and broke off all radical ties. In 1927, he had visited the Soviet Union and wrote a book, Liberty Under the Soviets, which contained extensive praise for the Soviet Union. However, he later denounced communism in his book, A New Slavery, which condemned "the inhuman communist police state tyranny." In the 1940s, Baldwin led the campaign to purge the ACLU of Communist Party members.
link
Finally, I'd gently remind you that this idea of separating eugenics from Darwinism is very much a modern idea.
Granted, though evolution is very much a modern idea as well. I'd agree that the idea has gathered a much larger following post WWII. It was the means of separating the two (via a biblically rooted standard) that the seemed to ruffle the ACLU.
Of course, eventually human beings found out that they're rather bad at using eugenics to actually improve the gene pool. The landmark case of Buck v. Bell, where Carrie Buck was raped and then sterlized as a promiscious imbecile is a sterling example of this. Given how clumsily governments have conducted eugenics campaigns, even someone who was amoral might be humbled simply on practical grounds.
But my agreement with you in this area doesn't negate my core point about how their general outlook regarding eugenics and survival of the fittest was in step with the "progressive" fads of the day.
While I see what you're saying, I personally have a lot of trouble with terms like "left and right" or "conservative and liberal." The terms seem Marxist and functionally serve to prevent rather than facilitate comparing one time period to another. During the French revolution, where the terms originate from, those in favor of democracy were considered "Left" and those in favor of monarchy were considered "Right." I'll go into that some when the topic is more relevant, though, since I'm sure the issue will come up again. But I'll buy your point that the science of the day was much more accepting of applying eugenics to people than in modern times.
No, I don't see any especially strong parallel between Nazis and Gnostics, if that's what you're hinting at, or thought I was hinting at.
Okay. If nothing else, neo nazis tend to use gnostic symbols extensively. And I'd assume a war against the laws of the OT and related diety would translate pretty easily into anti-semetism. But that wasn't your point. I hear you.
External reasons: a person might get into, say, Kalachakra Buddhism not fully knowing what they're getting into, and not realizing they'll need to eventually embrace the doctrine of moral inversion. The person is attracted for another reason, not primarily by the inversion itself.
I apologize. I only have a superficial superficial understanding of Buddishm. How does Kalachakra Buddism relate to inversion?
Interestingly enough, said Gnostics and I would agree with one thing: the ruler of this world is indeed evil. But I don't see the "ruler" and "creator" as being the same being. And yes, this place does seem to be ruled by an "insane fallen angel." Between us, it's just a matter of who you think the angel is, YHWH or Satan.
Makes sense.
Okay, I guess at some point Sanger went beyond advocating voluntary birth control and wanted the state to impose measures. Good to know.
I read through about half the link re: Keith Windschuttle. While some of the falsifications that he pulls up are interesting, I don't agree that making history less focused on 'great men' and 'the millitary' is in any way inherantly tied to or related to falsification of history...
He's simply saying that a disdain for the "great men" approach brings about a temptation to bring the "great men" down -- which can, in unethical cases, lead to fabricated evidence of that particular variety.
He's never said there was no fabrication on the other side (George Washington and cherry tree, etc.), he's simply setting the stage for the fraud he's about to expose, and explaining his view of the motivation.
You often seem to be reading things into a document, and then refuting the very views you yourself just added to it. Be careful that way, Ryan.
There was a time when Christians were one of those marginalized groups. What would Christianity look like if the historical account of it focused only on powerful millitary men and ignored the concerns of those who didn't actually hold power?
I'm not sure I understand your point, since that's exactly what happened. Most histories of those times focused on leaders and wars, not the small Christian movement.
One of my favorite quotations (I'm not sure who said it) is; "History is a selective interpretation of events intended to justify those currently in power. Memory is the same thing on an individual scale."
Then it's surely true of the one who said it.
I don't think objectivity is completely possible. I also don't think it's possible for people to be perfectly good. But that does mean we can give up the struggle, nor dismiss all differences with a hand-wave, as you seem to be doing here.
Such maxims assume a radically relativist position: it's all just narratives. Well, true, but there was and is a reality, and some things are almost certain, some less so, some are unlikely, and some are plain fraud.
'History' is so vast that even if you're dead level honest, any narrative that you construct, however factual, is going to suffer from a selection bias.
The answer to bias is to point out counter-example, not retreat into broad maxims about the impossibility of complete and total objectivity. If I say: "Only atheists killed people: look at Communism" you can simply refute my by pointing out medieval witch-burnings or jihad. Not just cop out and say: "Well, history's all bunk anyway."
Like history, the universe is vast also, but that doesn't mean there aren't immutable laws operating beneath the surface, which apply and shape one time and place as much as the next.
What's relative, as far as I can see, is not what is true but rather what counts as a legitimate topic for historical study.
When you use the word "legitimate" you're simply appealing to someone's opinion. You're stating a tautology here: of course "legitimate" is opinion, and opinion is relative.
But I'm not sure why you're bringing 'legitimate' into this anyway: Is there a Global Board of Historical Legitimacy against which you inveigh? What on earth are you on about here, Ryan?
I don't personally see any need to argue this or that is an "illegitimate" area to study. In my opinion, if it happened in the past, it's a fine topic for study. Do you disagree? If not, why are you on about "legitimacy"? Who'se raising that issue then, if not you?
Most of what I've seen suggests that there were differences of intent between the ACLU and Darrow...
Granted: I agree, and stated as much. But this doesn't refute my answer to your contention about the Butler act.
Ryan: In other words, there's no clear demonstration that I can see that the ACLU went into Scopes to promote or defend the specific passages...
Tim: I don't recall trying to demonstrate any such thing, Ryan. Where are you getting this?
Ryan (quoting Tim): "Civic Biology (published in 1914), the biology textbook in question (which the ACLU was defending..."
Ryan: You said the ACLU wanted to defend the textbook in specific...
No, I've never said such a thing. Please look carefully at what you and I are actually saying, and the vast difference between them.
I said that the ACLU "defended" the textbook because that's what happened. Not "wanted to defend" (your words) but "defended". The Butler Act specified what could be taught, the content of Civic Biology violated that, so the ACLU defended the use of said textbook, acting as defense, in court.
Unless there's a grand conpsiracy operating here, these are simple historical facts.
Your statements, and the statements you place in my mouth, are focused entirely on people's underlying motivations or plans: you talk about what they "wanted to" do, what they were (or weren't) trying to "promote", and single out this textbook "in specific" as though I was saying cared about this particular biology textbook above all others.
And you read my single use of the word "defended" as meaning, apparently, that I wish to say they agreed with every single sentence within. How odd! It's as though, if I said: "Cochrane defended OJ" -- I must have meant that Cochrane agreed with every single thing OJ did and said in his life -- rather than arguing he hadn't violated the law.
And regarding this bit about "in specific" -- where would you get that? My whole point about Civic Biology is that there was nothing unusual about it: that it was part and parcel of what passed for "progressive" thinking at the time.
Side note: These days, I increasingly think it isn't helpful to focus too much on "intent"... you can't know much about what's in people's heads, unless they tell you or indicate otherwise. Liberalism seems obsessed with guessing people's inner motives...
I don't disagree with the intent of the law that brought about the Scopes trial...
Speaking of focusing on "intent", what did this law "intend" to do, in your opinion, which you find agreeable? Conversely, what was wrong with how people "tried to implement that intent"?
While I see what you're saying, I personally have a lot of trouble with terms like "left and right" or "conservative and liberal."
Human beings move in flocks, Ryan, and the flocks really do have common differences. It's not a mere co-incidence that the people who oppose capital punishment generally also favor abortion, or that the people who oppose gun control also favor lower taxes.
From 40,000 feet, these would appear to be unreleated issues. But deep down, the two groups are having a philosophical, religious disagreement, and these issues are mere symptoms, as those philosophies clash in the public square.
The terms didn't create the group. The assumptions created the groups, which the terms named. That conflict is very, very old.
And I'd assume a war against the laws of the OT and related diety would translate pretty easily into anti-semetism. Though perhaps the symbols were misappropriated.
I'd agree with you on this point.
But again, you and I keep getting hung up on intent, and your guesses about it. You were saying my intent was to draw a parallel between Nazis and Gnostics. Then I responded by saying, no, that was not my intent. But you act here as though I said there was no such parallel, or none could be drawn.
In fact, Gnosticism has had rather anti-semitic aspects at times: Marcion. (And Christianity has had such aspects too at some times.) But there was much more to Nazism than antisemitism.
So how does Kalachakra Buddism relate to inversion?
Every type of passion (sexual pleasure, fits of rage, hate and loathing) which is normally considered taboo by Buddhist ethical standards, is activated and nurtured in Vajrayana with the goal of then transforming it into its opposite. The Buddhist monks, who are usually subject to a strict, puritanical-seeming set of rules, cultivate such “breaches of taboo” without restriction, once they have decided to follow the “Diamond Path”. Excesses and extravagances now count as part of their chosen lifestyle. Such acts are not simply permitted, but are prescribed outright, because according to tantric doctrine, evil can only be driven out by evil, greed by greed alone, and poison is the only cure for poison....
As a tantric saying puts it, “What binds the fool, liberates the wise” (Dasgupta, 1974, p. 187), and another, more drastic passage emphasizes that, “the same deed for which a normal mortal would burn for a hundred million eons, through this same act an initiated yogi attains enlightenment” (Eliade, 1985, p. 272). According to this, every ritual is designed to catapult the initiand into a state beyond good and evil. [1]
I guess at some point Sanger went beyond advocating voluntary birth control and wanted the state to impose measures.
Sanger started with recommending coercive state measures, and only then embraced voluntary means when Wilson didn't act on her suggestions.
Best to you!
Hi Tim
This is a serius subject I would love to (and will) return too in a more thoughtful manner. I just wanted to drop a brief note and let you know that since I posted this (above) I had to refinance our house, renegotiate my contract, was laid low with the flu, etc... I felt bad about not following up and so will try to later this weekend.
Happy belated thanksgiving, early merry Christmas!
Max
Happy Holidays Rev Max! And thanks for all you've written.
"Rev Max"!
Good of you to drop by. I thank you for your candor, and: Don't worry, it's the holiday season, and we're all busy with a lot of stuff. (My own workplace has gotten crazy too...)
In the mean time, I've also tried to read your blog and seriously consider some of the things you write there.
Hope things go well with your house, and I'm sorry to hear you've got the flu. Get enough rest, and try not to be stressed (depresses the immune system).
Best to you,
- Tim
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Shadow projection is explained by Jung as a process by which we dissociate from our own darkness and project it outside of ourselves, whereby we see our enemy as the embodiment of evil. Once this is done any kind of atrocity can be justified.
What makes this process so insidious is that even the worst tyrants and most cruel murderers can actually believe that their actions are justified, and that they are doing the "right" thing when they commit genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Thus the Germans could claim "Got Mit Uns" and actually believe that what they were doing was god-ordained. We can find many examples of the same behavior in Exodus, Numbers, etc.
1 Samuel 27:8-9:
"And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites ... And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel. And David saved neither man nor woman alive"
Its difficult to know what to say about cases in which entire societies are swept along by this sort of regression and atavism. One person can own their own darkness I think but when an entire society abdicates resposibility and exteriorizes instead then terrible things can and do happen with tragic results.
Posted by: Rev Max on November 3, 2006 06:27 PM