UniBrow

Jay, still worrying about interventionist foreign powers, carries the homeland-security case for union into the 5th Federalist, and he brings gouty old Queen Anne (at left) with him. The paper opens with extracts from the Queen’s 1706 letter to the Scotch Parliament concerning the impending union between England and Scotland. Her message is essentially this: England and Scotland together people a land mass that is separated by water from either kingdom’s nearest adversaries. Owing to this fact alone the national-defense interests of the two kingdoms are identical, and only through union under a single standard can they protect their common island from “all its enemies.” Failing that, the debilitating jealousies and rivalries of the past will continue–disunity guarantees it–and will invite aggression by foreign powers whose “arts and policy and practices” (Jay’s words) will keep those jealousies in full flame.

This brief paper is a straight-forward and convincing argument from precedent, though the invocation of Queen Anne is curious. You wonder for a second at least why Jay would make any kind of appeal, however qualified, to the authority of the English Crown on a point so fundamental to sovereignty. The War for Independence is hardly a distant memory in 1787. Does the federalist cause really require the gaudy sponsorship of the English monarchy? Would any of Jay’s countrymen not already disposed toward union be impressed by this, scarcely a decade after shaking off their colonial oppressor?

On the other hand this appeal to Her Majesty’s authority–if that’s what it must be on some level–is very strictly limited. The Queen’s letter vindicates no distinctly monarchical principle; her lesson is a hard-boiled, unillusioned, geo-strategic one. And it’s a lesson that holds for America since it, too, enjoys terraqueous isolation from its principal adversary nations in Europe. A disunited America, Jay argues, would only re-enact the confusions and distresses of pre-unification England and Scotland.

[E]nvy and jealousy would soon extinguish confidence and affection, and the partial interests of each confederacy, instead of the general interests of all America, would be the only objects of their policy and pursuit. Hence, like most other bordering nations, they would always be either involved in disputes and war, or live in the constant apprehension of them.

Entanglement with foreign powers would succeed rapidly. European nations would easily and inevitably embroil themselves in American affairs as the separate American confederacies, riven by “invidious jealousies and uncandid imputations,” form alliances with them as bulwarks against each other. To believe that the confederacies would be more likely to form alliances with each other than with European powers is a utopian fantasy, Jay suggests. Each confederacy would be in effect an independent nation and would operate under its own distinct set of military and commercial treaties with other nations. And the determinative influence of commercial arrangements should not be overlooked. ”Different commercial concerns create different interests,” Jay writes, “and of course different degrees of political attachment to and connection with different foreign nations.” Americans must remember at all costs, Jay cautions, ”how much more easy it is to receive foreign fleets into our ports, and foreign armies into our country, than it is to persuade or compel them to depart.”

The fount of all this turmoil is inequality, Jay observes–inequality that is as natural and inevitable as it is ruinous if not properly channeled. ”For it cannot be presumed that the same degree of sound policy, prudence, and foresight would uniformly be observed by each of these confederacies for a long succession of years,” Jay writes. Should one confederacy rise in political importance or commercial strength over the others,

that moment would those neighbors behold her with envy and with fear. Both those passions would lead them to countenance, if not to promote, whatever might promise to diminish her importance; and would also restrain them from measures calculated to advance or even to secure her prosperity. … Distrust creates distrust. … Considering our distance from Europe, it would be more natural for these confederacies to apprehend danger from on another than from distant nations, and therefore that each of them should be more desirous to guard against the others by the aid of foreign alliances, than to guard against foreign dangers by alliances between themselves.

It’s while considering the potential occasions of inequality among the confederacies that Jay comes to an observation about North and South that’s worth pausing over in light of later events. Jay exposes a fault line that the union he’s arguing for couldn’t mend–one that had a lot to do, of course, with the difference in commercial interests between the two regions.

The North is generally the region of strength, and many local circumstances render it probable that the most Northern of the proposed confederacies would, at a period not very distant, be unquestionably more formidable than any of the others. No sooner would this become evident than the Northern Hive would excite the same ideas and sensations in the more southern parts of America which it formerly did in the southern parts of Europe. Nor does it appear to be a rash conjecture that its young swarms might often be tempted to gather honey in the more blooming fields and milder air of their luxurious and more delicate neighbors.

With that memorable image, Jay is pretty much done. He’s written the last four papers and needs to step out for a Chesterfield. He’ll return only once more, and not for a long while. We will be floating along the current of Hamilton’s uncompromising pessimism about human nature for the next several papers.

Apropos of Sam Harris, here’s a window onto the punishing terrain of religious moderation. The author of the article, Walter Ruby, interviews Sheikh Fadhel Al-Salani and struggles with what passes for moderation in the Islamic world. Here’s a thought-provoking extract:   

What about his endorsement of [Iranian President] Ahmadinejad’s call for a Holocaust conference in Tehran? Al-Sahlani affirmed he indeed believes such a conference would be useful “whether it is held in Tehran, Berlin or New York” because “for [non-Jews] who don’t believe in it, [holding a conference] will be helpful and supportive for them to believe in what happened, especially when it is done by the non-Jewish academic people, it will give more value to [the conference].” Al-Sahlani then said, “There are great scholars–specialists in the Holocaust–who do not believe what the other group of people believe…They say the number of victims is less than six million. Some of them say the reason for the Holocaust was [that it was] done by the Zionists.” Al-Sahlani said he could not remember the names of the scholars he cited as believing the six million figure is inflated, but when I brought up British historian David Irving, who was recently jailed in Austria for claiming just that, Al-Sahlani responded, “Yes, I believe that is the person, and probably there are others.”

Al-Sahlani said that unlike Ahmadinejad, who has called repeatedly for the destruction of Israel, he himself believes that, “We have now to accept the fact Israelis live there and have a government, so that whether or not we accept the history, it is a reality.” Yet he vigorously condemns Zionism, which he calls “a movement among part of the Jewish people that occupied the land of others and is therefore unacceptable to many Arabs and Muslims.” When I responded that attachment to the Land of Israel is not only an expression of Zionism, but a basic component of Judaism itself, Al-Sahlani responded, “We cannot deny the land of Palestine is a holy land for Jews, as well as Muslims and Christians….[Yet] the reality is that before 1914, that land belonged to Muslim Arabs…and the door was open for Jews or Christians to visit the Holy Land….[Today], we shouldn’t deny the right of Jews to visit that land and to worship God there, because they have a history there…but it doesn’t mean they have right to occupy the land.”

The breathtaking contradictions required of the “moderate” Muslim are on full view here, particularly in that last paragraph. Al-Sahlani, whom Ruby had previously seen as an ally in his effort to stimulate dialogue and greater understanding between Jews and Muslims, distances himself from Ahmadinejad’s call for Israel’s destruction, but then duly affirms the party line, saying Jews have no right to the land. I will need the difference explained to me.

Philip Roth’s new novel, Everyman, is out there now. It wasn’t supposed to appear until May, I thought, but I saw it yesterday. Here’s what Roth says about the book in an interview he gave to a Danish journalist:  

Roth goes and fetches a small black plate–the cover for his new book. It is completely black with a narrow red line framing the title: Everyman. “What do you think about it? It’s getting approved today,” he says. “It looks as if it’s about death,” I say. “Yes, you get your money’s worth, if you want death. Everyman is the name of a line of English plays from the 15th century, allegorical plays, moral theatre. They were performed in cemeteries, and the theme is always salvation. The classic is called Everyman, it’s from 1485, by an anonymous author. It was right in between the death of Chaucer and the birth of Shakespeare. The moral was always ‘Work hard and get into heaven’, ‘Be a good Christian or go to hell’. Everyman is the main character and he gets a visit from Death. He thinks it’s some sort of messenger, but Death says, ‘I am Death’ and Everyman’s answer is the first great line in English drama: ‘Oh, Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind.’ When I thought of you least. My new book is about death and about dying. Well, what do you think?”

“It’s black,” I say, and ask him if the publisher isn’t worried that people won’t want to buy it because of the colour. “I don’t care,” he says. “I just want it my way.”

I tell him it looks like a bible. “Ha! Wonderful. Perfect. I think it looks like a tombstone.”

Sounds damn good to me.

Paris Hilton, who has a CD coming out, to Elle UK:

I’ve always had a great voice. You either have it or you don’t. It’s something you’re born with. I’m a brand, a model, an artiste, an actress, a designer. I write books.

First, a word about my skimpy blogging over the past few days. My blogging has been skimpy over the past few days. I am host to a little prick of a virus that’s sapping my energy and draining my head of everything save a punctual throb. I hope to be back in form soon.

Meanwhile the colloquy with onan moley continues. He writes:

The sense of dogmatism I was referring to is the second listed in my DK Illustrated: …

“2. an arrogant declaration of opinion.”

…while we’re at it, “dogmatic” gives us:

“1a. (of a person) given to asserting or imposing personal opinions; arrogant.”

Inflexibility, irrationality, and a self-conferred immunity from evidentiary challenge are the principal (and massively overlapping) features of the idea of dogma that I’m working from. But even on the basis of the definition you supply above–in essence, that dogma consists of any arrogant assertion of merely personal opinion–I would still have to acquit Harris and send him away a free man. To the extent that his argument rests on evidence it isn’t merely personal–the marshalling of evidence is an attempt to give an argument an impersonal foundation–and also precisely to that extent it isn’t arrogant. Unlike religious dogma, Harris’s argument unfolds within the field of rational discourse, a field we all get to play in, and is therefore open to analysis, dispute, revision, etc. Anyone is free to bring his own reasoning powers to bear on the evidence and then challenge the conclusion, if he sees fit, with contrary evidence of his own. But this openness to contest, the implicit welcoming of interlocutors, is entirely absent from the dogmatist’s program. Harris’s argument need not be perfect in all its parts–nor, to take up your point about his Free Inquiry article, need it be wholly free of rhetorical flaws or manipulations–to keep it uncontaminated by dogma as I (and I think Harris) use the term; indeed, his argument is undogmatic precisely because of its availability to critique, refinement, and even wholesale discarding. And critique it, onan, you will:

And … about Harris’s rhetoric: watch in the paragraph below how “the claim” becomes “the thinking.” The “thinking” is of course a baggier concept than “the claim,” and affords Harris the opportunity to re-fill “the claim” with his own (comically?) exaggerated illustration. This is where I find him guilty of stuffing the muppet:

“One cannot criticize religious dogmatism for long without encountering the following claim, advanced as though it were a self-evident fact of nature: there is no secular basis for morality. Raping and killing children can only really be wrong, the thinking goes, if there is a God who says it is. Otherwise, right and wrong would be mere matters of social construction, and any society would be at liberty to decide that raping and killing children is actually a wholesome form of family fun. In the absence of God, John Wayne Gacy could be a better person than Albert Schweitzer, if only more people agreed with him.”

You begin to make my point for me when you refer to “Harris’s rhetoric.” Harris is manifestly attempting to persuade us, and he naturally supplements his presentation of evidence with any and all rhetorical arts that he’s able to muster. These arts may include hyperbole or caricature of the sort you detect in his FI piece. But of course his characterization of the opposing position is testable against your sense of it–and dogma doesn’t work that way. Harris may be wrong or unfair, but he’s not wrong in the way dogma is wrong. Dogma isn’t rhetoric. Dogma has no need of the techniques of verbal persuasion. Dogma simply issues its immaculate fiats and then falls mute. There’s no strategy of persuasion behind ”Thou shalt have no false gods before me.” To move from Harris to the Bible, or to the Koran, or to the sermons of John Donne (admirable as these are), is to exchange entire worlds.

onan continues:

I think that Harris does indeed want to impose beliefs — in particular, to the religious moderate. Those who have, as you put it, “slipped off the reservation.” This seems to be the whole thrust of his argument that the “doors of scriptural literalism do not open from the inside.”

If I have it right, his gambit is this: turn religious dogmatism on itself, and make those who declare themselves religious either choose to fully adopt, or give up, the absurdities of their faith. But isn’t this finally too simple? What he seems to ignore is that the “selectivity” he would take away from the religious moderate is a right they’ve always enjoyed, made use of. And it is a right, it seems to me, that has always been an essential component of our society’s freedoms.

One can subscribe to the “sermon on the mount” Jesus and downplay or ignore much of the rest (a great many do). I’m not sure exactly how he would have it otherwise..

This is why his endorsement of dictatorships and torture strikes me as characteristic of his argument — and why these elements of his program cannot be dismissed so easily. If he is not preaching a sort of reverse dogma, why avail himself of such luxuries as dictators?

Harris’s only beef with religious moderates is that they provide cover for extremists in the way I’ve described in earlier posts. As long as nobody imposes religious duties or restrictions upon people who don’t subscribe to the confession from which they issue, I don’t think Harris cares how anyone relates to his particular holy text. If everyone were a religious moderate, in other words, The End of Faith wouldn’t have been written. The problem arises when private belief becomes a public obligation–or, in the case of militant Islam, an ominous danger–for those who don’t share it. I think Harris would love it if everyone had the peaceful moderate’s selective relationship to holy writ. His point is that we can’t allow the example of moderates who don’t incinerate infidels to disguise the fact that those who do commit acts of this sort are motivated by the tenets of their faith. Harris demonstrates convincingly, with a wealth of empirical evidence, that jihadist violence is exactly that–holy war. It cannot be chalked up to politics, economics, or psychological dysfunction. I think this point is exceedingly well-taken.

As to “benign dictatorships” and so forth–and, again, I don’t go this far with him–Harris frames this as a temporary kind of police action necessary to neutralize a force of potentially devastating violence. And I’ll give him credit here, as you do, for refusing to flinch before a fantastically ugly reality, one that could very well entail painful solutions and mire us in grinding contradictions of principle. Which would totally blow. But is he imposing beliefs on others? Well, I’m not sure. He would be imposing tolerance, in a way. But that’s what tolerance does. Tolerance doesn’t tolerate intolerance–because that wouldn’t be tolerant.

I have to end there. My bug, a rank dogmatist, bids me cease. I don’t argue with the bug. 

onan moley writes:

I don’t want you to get off Harris, i just want you to turn the sharp side of your rhetorical scalpel on him.

Like that first paragraph of the FI article you provided the link to in this post — that qualifies as dogma in my book. (DK Oxford Illustrated Dictionary –what can I say? I like pictures….) He’s putting the words in the muppet all the bloody way…

First of all, many, many thanks to o.m. for reminding me of that incomparable character name (from DeLillo’s End Zone, I think, yes?)–and in a previous comment alluding to the moment in Underworld where someone says “juxt” instead of “gist.” (“That’s my whole juxt,” or something like that). It’s the kind of thing Zizek would climb all over: the accidental substitution of a word suggestive of relationality for one denoting stable meaning. Priceless.

Anyway, here is the paragraph from Harris’s Free Inquiry article in which onan discerns the malignant hand of dogma:

One cannot criticize religious dogmatism for long without encountering the following claim, advanced as though it were a self-evident fact of nature: there is no secular basis for morality. Raping and killing children can only really be wrong, the thinking goes, if there is a God who says it is. Otherwise, right and wrong would be mere matters of social construction, and any society would be at liberty to decide that raping and killing children is actually a wholesome form of family fun. In the absence of God, John Wayne Gacy could be a better person than Albert Schweitzer, if only more people agreed with him.

In the first place–and maybe it’s just the people I’ve been around–I’ve heard versions of this argument my whole life. Even Dostoyevsky said (or had a character say, and I forget which book it’s in) that without God, anything is possible. There is no question that there are people who maintain that unless one believes in God–further, that unless one believes in the specific God of a particular religious tradition–anything, absolutely anything goes. (This is also what George Eliot is getting at in the post I put up a few days ago.) I don’t necessarily think Harris ascribes this belief to every religionist; on the other hand, it’s a position that I think it would be hard for any member of at least the major religions to disown entirely. If the source of our behavioral norms is a text written by God, what happens if God is no longer there? It would follow that our norms and articles of faith are, as Harris says, “mere matters of social construction.” Recent exponents of that point of view include members of the Dover, Pa., school board, Tom DeLay, and even (see Harris) Antonin Scalia. 

I do substantially agree with Harris’s view of the predicament we are in with religion–if my earlier post didn’t make that clear–though I balk at some of the solutions he advocates, such as installing “benign dictatorships” in Muslim countries. That, it seems to me, would make the situation much worse. (What nation, after all, does bin Laden represent?) I don’t think he’s substituting one dogma for another by insisting that a religious argument with a public-policy end in view should be subject to the same reality-testing and evidentiary vetting that are applied to all other arguments with a similar object. There is nothing dogmatic, as I see it, in saying that no one’s liberty should be curtailed, and the furtherance of knowledge and general welfare should never be frustrated, by a religious tenet held by some of us only, and one whose truth cannot be established by reason or evidence. The line is crossed when faith-inspired obstacles to stem-cell research are thrown forward, or when public school districts are pressured to give “equal time” to creationism when teaching evolution, to name two examples. Harris gives many others.

We fall too easily into relativistic equivalencies these days. I would not call Harris’s essential position a dogmatic one, unless you would also call the establishment clause of the First Amendment dogmatic. And we shouldn’t confuse his call for “conversational intolerance” with actual intolerance. The former is actually a safeguard against the latter, a means of avoiding the imposition of purely sectarian duties and restrictions upon people who don’t share the tenets from which they proceed. That makes it the opposite of dogma.