i think that's great, obviously. it just leaves me confused about what he means when he says the things he says about confrontation and free passes. but if he's doing that, then i guess i don't care how he talks, as long as no one else thinks it's a good idea to kick the crap out of theist leftists simply for being theists (which it sure looked like was what he was advocating).
>
> I pointed out to him, offlist, and what I'd wanted to point out on list,
> that politician in the "Straw in the Wind" post from Marvin Gandall? Did
> you read the last line:
i've not been following the thread at all, so . . .
>
> "If doing what's right means I don't return to Congress, then it's God's
> will," he says. "And God knows my heart."
who's "he" here? i'm guessing barack obama? but i've not read the thread, so that's a wild guess.
>
> So, one o' them thar dead guy on a stick worshippers, full of despair :),
> is our new hero of the moment. And, who knows? he may actually do a good
> deal to win certain people over. I have a lot of searingly critical
> thoughts about the shock expressed recently that the tide is turning --but
> I know I'm a little too peeved about it to bother writing about it. My
> peeve is mostly from disappointment in people I think should know better.
>
> The problem with Chuck is that he's interpreting these discussions as
> arguments for conceding ground to the religious right or that we should
> moderate 'our' anti(fundamentalist)religious activism. He's wrong, of
> course, that this is what anyone's doing. Although, from Michael Pollak's
> perspective, it appears that his is, whether directed so or not, an
> argument against being vocally critical of fundamentalists (wrong word, but
> shorthand) religions because then the progressives thing you're talking
> about them. Apparently, any discussion of what some of us might really
> think about religious belief or spirituality is going to make the religious
> and spiritual hide under a rock and move to the right or, at least, support
> the right. OR. like my students, they'll be offended if you simply discuss
> religiosity and spirituality from a social scientific point of view.
this is trickier. as i averred in an earlier post, i think humor and sarcasm and scorn and ridicule can be quite effective when deployed properly. it's about knowing your audience. i guess i just think the default should be on the strategically conservative side.
as for students, i get the same stuff in my classes. shit, our president apparently asked a couple of our majors if their classes with us had caused them to question their faith, so we get it from both sides.
frankly, i don't mind offending my students in the proper doses, because the situation is one where they're stuck with me. but again, this is a tactical issue. my job is to force them to think in ways they wouldn't otherwise. and humor is often great, here.
>
> That's where I get off the bus. When I'm pissy, I think: grow the fuck up.
well, that's my attitude about my students until they show me they're doing more than just refusing to think. if they're trying to think, i will think with them. if they're not, then they're not doing *their* jobs in class.
> If your attachment to your own belief system is so weak you can't bear
> another view, that you feel that the expression of these views is an attack
> on you or your religion, then maybe there's something else going on here.
precisely. that's precisely right. but when you don't have a captive audience (like, say, a class), they will walk away . . . unless you find some way to talk through that.
of course, i admit some people will probably never be reached and strategically speaking are probably not worth spending much time worrying about.
> For, in my estimation, the study of religion, the careful listening to what
> people are saying, etc. _is_ taking it seriously -- not necessarily as
> belief, but as social process. But, whatever.
i can't think of any way in which i disagree with you. our problem -- in the sense of "challenge" -- is communicating that.
>
> >so how DO we organize
> >ambivalent christians on an issue like gay marriage or gay rights
> >generally?
>
>
> I've come across some stuff on the 'net and spoken to my (not)MIL enough
> to learn that when it comes to proselytizing and testifying, they sit
> around and think, "How do we win over your son, who's living in sin with
> his gf? Do you talk about the 'end times' and how they won't be in god's
> good graces if they don't get married? Do we talk about all the economic
> and political crises in our society and show them how marriage gives you
> the fortitude and companionship needed to face them?" Which are things my
> (not) MIL, a devout Mormon, raises in our phone conversations.
>
> I didn't look in the archives, but I posted a link here to a page about how
> to win over people with nose rings and purple hair.
>
> Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not convinced by these approaches. In
> fact, I feel patronized.
>
> We don't have to organize them.
depends on what you mean by "we"? isn't organizing what we do?
> We create viable left organizations, we do
> what we can to bring issues to the forefront, we put our positions out
> there, we engage in agitation here 'n' there, we write books and articles
> and stand on street corners engaging others in arguments. Whatever. But
> what we do is focus on building a viable left organizational and ideational
> infrastructure.
and part of what we're talking about is the ideational infrastructure. but the rubber meets the proverbial road in organizing real individual people and keeping them on board, right?
>
> When people come around, they'll have somewhere to go. If we don't, they'll
> have nowhere to go --except to the groups who've been doing this work.
> Reaching out to them is, like, sooooooooooo unnecessary. The ones who want
> to advance their views, will do so. The middle, by its very definition,
> isn't much interested in getting involved in any kind of politics anyway --
> not right now at least.
i can't handle this, i admit. maybe it's my romantic streak (the same one that's sympathetic to anarchism, believe it or not) coming out, but i've always thought the whole "they aren't interested yet so there's no point" approach is essentially defeatist, like "it's not a revolutionary period". um, ok, conditions can be more or less conducive to organizing, but isn't our job to make it a revolutionary period, in some sense? not talking vanguard, i'm just saying we don't sit back and say people are unorganizable until they're organizable, and we'lll know when the tide has turned because they'll start tapping into our "just add people" ideational infrastructure.
i'm sorry. i don't mean to be snide. but this always gets under my skin. if there's a culture war going on, we can't just hide while the other guys fight it, and i feel like that's what's happening.
>
> And there's something else Carrol has said that's quite true. People will
> be won over by seeing people working together, building community and
> solidarity, and exemplifying what it means to be moral and have a sense of
> meaning in purpose in your life. I have a lot more to say about that, but
> I've got work to do.
i think there's a lot in that, as well. but having sat and argued about homosexuality in the bible, for example, and won, that stuff matters, too. here's where i'd go back above and say that it's all part of this ideational infrastructure . . . although now i'm wondering if i misunderstood you.
>
> this is probably incoherent. I'm not quite awake yet... ha.
well, and i'm probably not awake much longer, any more. :)
j
-- Among medieval and modern philosophers, anxious to establish the religious significance of God, an unfortunate habit has prevailed of paying to Him metaphysical compliments.
- Alfred North Whitehead