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The Spectacle Blog
Kathleen Parker has a major case of secular reason sickness and it needs to be cured. I’ll keep this short and simple. Here is an offensive line from one of Kat’s latest columns:
How about social conservatives make their arguments without bringing God into it? By all means, let faith inform one’s values, but let reason inform one’s public arguments.
Problem #1: Social conservatives very rarely argue for their public policy positions on the basis of straight-up revelation. It is much more common to hear them talk about scientific evidence that life begins from conception (which could be found in an embryology textbook, for example) than to hear a scriptural exegesis of, say, Jeremiah 1. If anything, American social conservatives have worked quite assiduously to persuade their fellow citizens without direct appeal to revelation.
I think the Yale Law professor Stephen Carter was more correct several years ago when he complained conservative Christians relied on a platform that lacked spiritual distinctives and simply mimicked Republican positions. See, Kathleen, Mr. Carter is a scholar in the area of law and religion. His observation runs completely counter to yours, which you have seemingly formed on the fly in response to your personal Sarah Palin fiasco.
And let us not forget that when some Christian leaders hid behind the separation of church and state to avoid addressing topics like Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and nuclear proliferation, their liberal colleagues were applauded for highly public spiritual approaches to those controversies. When liberals do it, we call it “speaking truth to power” or “speaking prophetically.” When conservative religionists enter the political process, everyone suddenly frets about impending theocracy.
Problem #2: Ms. Parker acts as though everything we discuss in politics can be parsed scientifically. This is the same sort of casual toss-off we get when some self-satisfied personage says, “You can’t legislate morality.” Really? Hate crimes? The illegality of segregation? A welfare state? Human rights?
The simple fact is that politics concerns itself with the realm of value as well as the realm of fact. There are both religious and philosophical approaches to questions of value. Is there any compelling reason to commit epistemological segregation, Ms. Parker? Must the religious contestants sit at the back of the bus to satisfy you?
View all comments (14) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Hunter Baker
http://spectator.org/blog/2008/12/08/kathleen-parker-and-secular-re
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Cliff| 12.8.08 @ 12:58AM
The entire question is stupid. Yes, social conservatives rarely start taking about the Bible, but ultimately, EVERYTHING is a values question. Even legislating 60mph speed limits is informed by values.
The entire idea that such decisions need to be based on "reason" and "science" is idiotic. DUH, you need to use reason and science in achieving policy objectives. But to what ends? Science doesn't tell you what is valuable.
In the question of abortion, science proves absolutely that there is a separate, viable living being well before 9 months is up. Nobody can seriously dispute that and if they do, they are either ignorant or liars. The question is do we believe life is worth protecting if it's inconvenient. Pro-lifers say yes, pro-"choice"ers say no. It's that simple.
Gene car| 12.8.08 @ 8:00AM
I find Kathleen Parker embarrassing (to think she found Sarah Palin 'cringe-inducing'), but, fair is fair, there is something to ponder in her argument. And as Governor Palin has generously stated on numerous accasions on the trail, we shouls not ask people to check in their opinions at the conservative door. Aquinas, hardly an agressive secularist insisted that, in public debate, the Christian must seek some common foothold with an opponent if debate is to take place at all. Thus with a Jew or a Muslim it might start with the Jewsish scriptures, with a pagan with a common belief in God. With and athiest or agnostic it might bebased on some common acceptance of reason, experience and science. The method should be appropriate to the task in hand.
Bob| 12.8.08 @ 8:18AM
Another non-thinking blog here at AmSpec? Hunter, you miss the point completely. It is not that so-cons have an irrelevant point of view, it's that they have veto power, mostly on the basis of their religious beliefs about abortion, in the Republican party. It is not the beliefs of so-cons, it is the intolerance of so-cons.
Your "reason" argument is flawed in many respects. First, the argument that so-cons argue on the basis of science is a sham. Intelligent design is profoundly NOT science -- it is more correctly the absence of science. It leads to displays of people riding dinosaurs. Yes, so-cons have TRIED to put forth a non-religious argument, but they all fail in that having a different religious belief nullifies those conclusions. It makes them feel better which is quite ironic if you think about it.
Secondly, it inserts a specific religion, Christianity, into policy making in the public sector. Why then not insert Judaism, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian Science, etc.? There is a significant danger in propounding a specific religion as can be seen in many fundamentalist religion driven nations.
Your "legislating morality" argument is also highly flawed. Society has the responsibility of propagating itself. One of the natural scientific laws is one of preservation. If someone is killing off people, they are making our country weaker and thus laws need to be made to protect the growth of the society. Laws also create order so that we can improve our efficiency. The saving life argument has a religious component to some people and a "conservation" aspect to non-religious individuals.
Where I agree with Parker is that so-cons have a religious veto in a political party that limits the people that can be chosen on a national basis. There are certainly exceptions in the Northeast where a more libertarian Republican exists, but not nationally. There are excellent public servants like Tom Ridge or Colin Powell that could never get elected because of the veto power of so-cons. The point of all of this is that it makes the Republican party weaker, not stronger.
The big problem for me is that I want limited government, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense, but do not want anyone to tell me how to run my life or control what I do or who I associate with. So-cons are for intervention in my life just like those on the hard liberal left. Extremists on any side of the political spectrum always want to limit the freedoms of others.
The other major problem with your argument is that it has forced the Republican party to promote anti-intellectual (i.e., not smart/knowledgeable) candidates. This weakens our country because most of the decisions made in government are based on one's ability to analyze the data and apply theories.
Do so-cons have a place at the table? Certainly -- they are citizens. Should they have veto power in the Republican party? If your answer is yes, then you are relegating the party to a minority position now and in the future. To believe otherwise requires a fool or incompetent.
R. Dittmar| 12.8.08 @ 9:44AM
Can't we just go back to ignoring Kathleen Parker at this point? I'm all for reasoned debate, but Parker isn't. It's clear at this point that she's a publicity-hungry poseur desperate for the scraps of attention she gets from poking religious conservatives in the eye. To take her seriously not only feeds and fuels her pathological addictions, but also risks lowering the collective IQ of the nation.
After all, do we really want to start addressing all the narcissistic anti-religious grandstanders now? What’s next? Do we have to responsd to the searing theological/sociopolitical critique of Christianity that comes from Serrano’s p****ing on a crucifix? And what does Madonna’s hanging on a neon cross and wearing big pointy breast cones tell us about the abortion debate?
Hunter Baker | 12.8.08 @ 10:04AM
Mr. Dittmar, your question interests me the most. I tried ignoring Ms. Parker, but her point of view gains traction with some in the party and in the movement. It is important that they realize this whole idea of reason separated from religion is a chimera. The only way that works is if we all commit to being positivists. We can't do that and we won't do it.
sardu| 12.8.08 @ 10:15AM
It's 25 degrees outside today, unbelieveably cold for the southern state where I live. And based on the fact that bob has posted an articulate response with which I totally agree I have to worry that it's because hell is freezing over *g*
notmypresident09| 12.8.08 @ 11:43AM
Kathleen Parker is at 14 minutes and 45 seconds. Just ignore her and she will be gone soon.
Anthony Mirvish| 12.8.08 @ 12:29PM
Mr. Baker,
Could you explain what you mean (or understand is meant by) positivists? Could you also explain why, if an idea or value commonly seen as religious idea has an objective basis in reality independent of belief, anyone would rely on the religious argument for it?
I'm also curious about the business of values being divorced from reason. If by reason one means secular but arbitrary assertions based on a view of how reality "ought" to be (e.g. the views of the French Revolutionaries who created a Goddess Reason or Marxists), then I would be inclined to agree with you. If you mean general moral values for living as human beings on earth, I'd think it self-evident that there are good reasons for values totally independent of faith. People will listen to those arguments. Margaret Thatcher said it best, "The facts of life are conservative."
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