Matters of Context
GeoffP said:
... unless religious conservatism itself is insanity.
There is certainly a point past which we can reasonably assert that a paradigm reliant on
faith—here defined as a persistent belief in aspects of reality that defy mundane demonstration and definition—will coincide, with some significant tributary causal relationship, with delusional deviation.
Discussing perceptions of reality with people of enlightened faith, including many of that nebulous designation, "liberal Christianity", is a bit like discussing whether it's
barley or
food, or perhaps
what food eats.
But discussing perceptions of reality with conservative faith, at some point, becomes almost literally a question of whether it's
beer, a
fermented grain beverage, or
evidence of the Devil.
At the point we countenance such violence in the name of Islam, there is much we can do to contribute to longer-term solutions. The problem is that it is originally reactionary; Martin Riesebrodt's
analysis of fundamentalism holds.
It may well be that the current generation is lost to the fight, and we must guard against them for a long time to come, but the reason it is important to consider, say, the American or Western contribution to the scourge of this murderous movement wearing Quranic vestments, is that perceptions of injustice, persistent economic inequality, and other factors associated with conditions that Americans have helped maintain in the name of our national interests not only give these people a target for their reaction, it helps motivate it.
And that fact exists regardless of what we think of its moral value. But at the same time, while we resist the urge to give over to terror, if the terrorists compel us to avoid actions that are in our long-term interests, anyway, because we stubbornly don't want to be seen as giving over to terror,
they win that point.
The phenomenon exists in a specific context associated with specific conditions.
What elevated Christianity out of barbarism was a sense of having something to lose. For the Western heritage, that meant empowerment; for the Islamic heritage, that has meant a good deal of subjugation in recent decades. And while that oppression is both external and internal, it doesn't help to be seen as the empire "propping up dictators".
Looking ahead, the American future is most secure in any context as the world comes to equality and justice. These ought to be our better interests, regardless of the fact of terrorism. But it is true that we have brought our focus a little too near, so that we are pursuing immediate and middle-term rewards at the expense of long-term security, be it military, economic, or otherwise generally societal.
That the effects of this focus sometimes coincide with the presence of militant response is predictable is not specifically an indictment. Rather, as we achieve various degrees of idyllic justice—peace and prosperity for all human kind, or something like that—we remove aspects of whatever perceptions of inequality and injustice contribute to the spectre against which this reactionary movement reacts.
What we are witnessing is taking place in a specific context. If it wasn't religious violence, it would be labor violence, or trade violence, territorial pissings, resource monopolization, or even flat-out attrition. The general context of what we are witnessing occurs amid a range in which some manner of violence will occur within some part of the broader societal marketplace.
That it has gone this far establishes that this particular context of conservative religion exists well beyond the threshold for insanity.
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Notes:
Riesebrodt, Martin. Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran. Trans. by Don Renau. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
