Are fundamentalists rational?

First of two posts I have been working on on the topic of religion and how our understanding of religion and religious liberty relates to radical Islam in today's context.

Shortly after it came out I read this piece What ISIS really wants  by Graeme Wood in the Atlantic.  It was the first piece I had read on ISIS that felt like a thorough effort to understand what the group was about and what motivated them.  Nearly all of the writing and news coverage about ISIS I have encountered before and since takes little time to try and understand ISIS, but seems assume that ISIS is either 'just another terror group that hates America and the West' or 'just another group of thugs and warlords twisting a religion to their own nefarious ends'.  I don't think either of those two explanations are adequate.  Several months ago I read The Way of the Strangers , also by Graeme Wood and in many ways an expansion of his Atlantic article,  I found the book fascinating and I would highly recommend that you read it.

One of my major take aways from the book was how rational the behavior of people within ISIS is.  I realize that probably sounds odd, so let me expand.

We all have a 'woldview'; a conscious and unconscious mashup of our education, social interactions, and unique experience that frames the way that we think about life and the world.  For argument's sake, imagine that your framework has three facts at its core, that Allah is God Omnipotent, that Mohammed was his prophet, and that the Quran consists of the literal and inerrant words of Allah.  To those of us who are not Muslim, these three things seem like wild leaps of faith.  It is more comfortable to explain the actions of an ISIS suicide bomber or executioner as simply deranged if we imagine that they are 'religious fanatics' completely devoid of the ability to reason, but it is not reflective of reality to act as if basic worldview shaping beliefs like these are simply chosen off of a menu of options after rational debate.  The process by which we come to foundational beliefs like these is messy, evolutionary, and often transparent to us as it happens.  Of course we are capable of rationally assessing our beliefs.  Of course we are capable of changing based on experience or the assimilation of new information, but if we are honest there are probably things that we believe that we have never truly questioned or subjected to rational assessment.  If you grew up in the USA, you probably place a high value on the rights of the individual, and you probably believe that the right of the government to govern flows from the consent of the governed.  Did you come by this belief by sitting down one day in your adult life and weighing the merits of this part of your worldview against one that included the divine right of kings?  

 So if we grant that certain beliefs can be present in our worldview without undergoing a strict assessment of their rationality, we see how someone might build an internal system of beliefs that is entirely consistent, rational and logical within itself, although it is based on a foundation that might be completely irrational.  If you believe those three fundamental ideas about Islam, there are a whole list of behaviors that are perfectly logical and consistent within that framework that are pretty incomprehensible to those of us who do not have those facts at the core of our framework.  If you believe that those things are truth, fact, like gravity, then it is feasible to build an understanding of the world where the actions of ISIS are not only justified, but good and right.

Let me be clear here, I believe ISIS is evil.  I'm perfectly at peace with the fact that the work I do every day directly enables the delivery of US bombs to ISIS positions in Iraq and Syria.

My discussion of the 'rationality' of a worldview like that of ISIS is not an attempt to legitimize it, but to understand it more thoroughly in order to effectively combat it.  Inadequate understandings of an enemy and what motivates them can only lead to policies and decisions that are ineffective at best and massively harmful at worst.  US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 is full of examples of this.

All that to say, the first major conclusion I took from Wood's writing was that ISIS is an inherently religious movement, one that is animated by the belief that what they do they do because it is right in the eyes of their god.  That understanding should be given adequate weight in the formation of US policy and strategy.            

The second thing that struck me as I read this book was the similarity between the arguments, language, and hermeneutics (props if you don't have to google that word;) that the ISIS scholars Wood writes about used, and those I grew up immersed in.

Pause to breathe, I am not saying that my rural american christian Church of Christ upbringing is the same as being brought up in the faith that motivates ISIS, but I am saying that there are certain ideas, concepts, ways of looking at scripture (the Bible or Quran as the case may be) that were almost indistinguishable between the two.

Religion has a tremendous power to motivate, as history bears out, and that power is subtle.  We just discussed how certain beliefs can enter a worldview without strict scrutiny, and with that context I think the motivating power of 'fundamentalist' religious movements (like ISIS in this case) comes not from their tendency to forsake reason, but their seeming eagerness to embrace simplicity, reason, and logic in their interpretation of their faith.

Here is the specific concept that struck me as most similar between the ideology that I was brought up in and that that Wood describes from ISIS scholars.  The simple idea that scripture is literal, it is the word of god, it means what it says, and it does not require complex, nuanced interpretation.

A common phrase in the tradition I grew up in was 'the Bible requires no interpretation'.  While I now believe that assertion to be laughable for a number of reasons, there is something extremely attractive about an understanding that is this straight forward.  If god says 'stone the adulterer' in scripture, then it means that if I want to do his will, I should stone adulterers.  I don't need to create a system of increasingly ambiguous interpretations by which I turn the literal meaning into something different and more culturally palatable.  This simple approach to scripture was the crux of what I found so similar between the religion that Wood describes and the one that I was raised in.  I think even a completely non religious person can understand and appreciate the attraction of a system that says, it doesn't matter what other people think, it doesn't matter what is appropriate, what is culturally acceptable, this is the RIGHT thing, this is TRUE, do it this way.  A simple understanding of scripture feels honest, it feels genuine, it feels empowering.

So what do you believe that you haven't assessed rationally?  Is it worth our effort to diligently and continually scrutinize everything we believe?  Is 'human reason' an adequate tool to decide what to believe?    

Is Healthcare a right?

Tons and tons of info, argument, fantasy and rhetoric floating around out there right now with regard to healthcare, so lets ask some questions that inform the foundation of how we think about this.

I don't hear these questions directly addressed that often, but the answers to them are important to and implicit in the arguments that are currently being thrown about.

A few of what I think are the basic questions that underlie this debate.  How do you answer these?


- Is access to healthcare a fundamental right?

It's not explicitly addressed in the constitution or the Bill of Rights, should it be?

-Does the state have any appropriate role in the healthcare system?

- Should healthcare be a completely free market?

The Senate is struggling, maybe we should we let Mr. Smith's invisible hand fix Obamacare.

- Should hospitals/healthcare providers be allowed to turn people away based on their ability to pay for services?

We're talking the ER turning away gunshot wounds and impoverished children with broken limbs here.  Market forces?

- Do you believe that a person's means/income level/social class should dictate (or limit) the quality of healthcare they have access to?

- Is healthcare an 'industry'? If it is an industry, is it fundamentally different than other industries (i.e. agriculture, manufacturing) in the way it responds (or doesn't) to market forces?

-Whether or not healthcare is a fundamental right, does the state have a compelling interest in investing in the health/well-being of its citizens?

-If the state has an obligation to provide access to healthcare, how should it appropriately ration scarce resources?

Pragmatism & Principle

I read two articles on Wednesday that caught my attention and made me think about this topic.  What particularly caught my attention was that these are two opinion pieces from the same publication with pretty dramatically different understandings of the same set of issues.

Now I've heard that in the internet age people don't have the attention span to click on multiple links let alone read multiple articles, but that is stupid, and we are 'raising the level' here on Arrogant Musing, so put on your big boy/big girl pants and take 10 min to go read these articles so we can talk through this....

                                                  Nolte                                Shapiro

Now that you have read those, a couple caveats to start off.  Yes, I realize that these articles are from the Daily Wire.  Yes, I read the Daily Wire.  No, I am not endorsing any positions taken by that publication or any of its contributors.  Yes, I know Shapiro has a bit of a controversial reputation.  No, I don't agree with everything Ben Shapiro says.  No, I don't think Shapiro is an idiot and dismiss anything he says out of hand.

It's important to expose yourself to a variety of opinions, actually seek out people who disagree with you, and then listen to what they say and why they say it.  I'm tired of the tendency I see recently to look at where a particular article, opinion, or comment comes from, and then without even reading it decide whether or not it is correct, or biased, or crazy.  Read stuff.  Let yourself be surprised.  Admit when you find yourself agreeing with something that doesn't come from your 'tribe'.  That little rant is going to show up again on here...

Ok, so now hopefully we have dispensed with distracting questions regarding the provenance of these articles.

The basic question that I have in my head today is this, Pragmatism and Principle, what is the right balance?

I realize that this is a basic ethics question, and hardly an original one.  I'm sure if all the philosophy seminar term papers in the world of which this was the  required topic were stacked up, it would be a big pile.  Though it's not new, and though I know we wont answer it definitively here, I do think it's interesting to think about what this question means in our current political context.

Nolte essentially argues that in the most recent election (and in the current political climate generally) that the ends justify the means.  He specifically says that a team "...  who will do anything — ANYTHING — to win, and as long as it remains legal, those are my kind of Republicans."

Implicit in the Nolte article are two basic premises on which I strongly disagree. Namely, that the election of Hillary Clinton would have represented an existential threat to values like individual liberty, religious freedom, and the institution of western civilization, and that the election of Donald Trump will serve as a victory in the fight to preserve those same values.

I'm definitely interested  to hear opinions on this specific case, but I also want to think about the generic question.  In a political context, when IS the right time to do 'ANYTHING'?  To what standards should we hold those who would lead us?  Is there an ethical 'no-go' zone short of illegality? Or, like Nolte asserts, should we applaud our candidates for getting as close as possible to that line of illegality in pursuit of victory? If there is an ethical zone that we should'nt venture into, are we willing to back it up with our voice and our vote? Are we still willing to cast that vote when it's 'our guy/girl' who has stepped into the zone?

It seems to me that the the behavior of both presidential campaigns in 2016 pushed those ethical zones (if they even exist) much further than they have been pushed before.

Shapiro argues (and I agree) that using the kindergartenish “but he did it, too”  defense can easily devolve into a club to destroy the principles that we love rather than a shield to defend them.  I appreciate Shapiro's argument here even more because I know that he is strongly conservative and is calling out other conservatives to be honest with themselves.      

I also find it very interesting to think of how different the question looks when applied on a personal level vs. on a national/political level.

I know many people who would consider themselves 'on the Right' who would hold themselves to an incredibly strict understanding of this ethical question on a personal level.  These people would say that the ends NEVER justify the means, that any attempt to argue that means should be compromised based on an outcome is a step onto the slippery slope of 'moral relativism'.  However, these same people when confronted with this question on a national/political level tend to be much more flexible, supporting a muscular foreign policy, military solutions sooner than later, and, like Nolte, cheering that all available means were used to defeat HRC in 2016.

On the flip side, I know many people who would consider themselves 'on the Left' (more on 'Right' and 'Left' in a later post) who entertain a much more flexible 'morally relativistic' outlook in their personal life, but when confronted with this question in a national/political context are incredibly rigid.  These people tend to hate the idea of anyone making a 'moral judgement' toward anyone else on a personal level, but are then incredibly rigid with respect to the moral obligations that the believe the country has. How dare the US defend it's interest with it's military? How dare policy makers shirk their moral obligation to mankind by even considering anything less than 'throwing open the gates' to any refugee, economic immigrant, or asylum seeker?

How do we separate these contexts? Why are we willing answer the ethical question of the ends and means so differently in different contexts?

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Stalling

Working on a new post, "pragmatism and principle".  Apparently writing things that don't just sound like a chaotic stream of consciousness takes a minute..... 

In the meantime, I'm sure a lot of you that might read this are already acquainted with Brendan Leonard, but if you're not, you should go over to his blog semi-rad and check it out.  His infographics are particularly hilarious IMHO, and there is a ton of other cool stuff over there.  

Apparently that is what a legit blog looks like, don't start building expectations for this one....


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Is it arrogant to write a blog?

Maybe. Probably. I'm gonna do it anyway.

I've thought about it for awhile, what will the theme be? What do I have to say that is so important that the whole of internet connected humanity just NEEDS to hear it?  What could I say that any of the great thinkers past or present haven't already more eloquently addressed? Will it just be an excuse to present the world with the version of myself that I want to be? Probably. Will it make a valuable contribution to important discussions that shape ideas, policy, and worldviews? Probably not.

Here's a justification I could use...  I have a colleague (who has become a friend) to whom life has dealt a particularly tough hand, namely, that he is obligated every day to share a 12' square cubicle with me.  This physical proximity makes it inevitable that on any given morning he will be regaled with all manner of sarcasm, snark, poorly thought-through outrage, and incomplete thoughts regarding whatever I happen to have read, heard on the news, or just be annoyed about that day.

".....So I'm reading this book, have you read (whatever random book I most recently got from the library)? It's about (Blah blah blah). You HAVE to read it ASAP so we can talk about it....."

I know that many of the other people in my life bear this burden as well,  although maybe none so tangibly as my cube mate.  The need to be prepared at any moment of the day to endure some political pontification or pseudo-philosophical rant that comes into my head is a high price to pay for being my friend, I guess I should value those people.

There we go, it's not arrogant, I'll be doing it for my friends.  I'll do it to bleed off a little of the mental pressure that causes those verbal eruptions, then at least people can interact with them on their own terms, voluntarily when (if) they want to actually go read this blog.

What will the theme be? I have no idea.  No, scratch that, the theme is going to be  whatever I want to talk about on that day.  I just noticed that I wrote 'talk' and not 'write' in the previous sentence.  I do want it to be 'talking', as in, a dialogue.  I have been accused of being naive and idealistic.  I'm the kind of idealist that gets grabbed hard by the the quixotic theme in 'The Newsroom', who gets worked up about how things 'are supposed to be'.  With that admission, there is part of me that hopes this blog might turn into a constructive forum to learn about and discuss a variety of topics.  To have intelligent debate, to engage with and learn from people who disagree with you, to challenge you to think...

So there we go, the backdrop, the reasoning, the compelling argument that leads to no other conclusion than that I must write this blog.  It's for my friends, it's to elevate the debate, it's to make conversation on the internet more productive, I hope it ends up being a little funny, and it's definitely not a cleverly camouflaged text selfie to show the world how deeply thoughtful I am.....


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