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Regarding: How to care in a culture war
Let's take a break. :) This is a ramble that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stephantravels posted a little while ago that I quite enjoyed reading. With his permission, I've edited it mildly for typos and grammar and am reposting it here, because I think it's worth a read. Sedentary progressives, enjoy. :)
***
We aren't always right, and the Right isn't wrong for once. Teaching evolution in school is part of a values war; it's just not a new one. They want to roll back the gains of the 60s... the 1360s.
I was rereading a post about the evolution debate...or rather a post about why the debate is ridiculous, and it struck me: the right wing is right; there is a culture war going on. I am on what is currently the losing side: secular reformation values. The French Revolution is in decline. Evolution is attacked. Bush is reelected. There is a fight going on, an attack not on "values" by liberals, but to use the power of conservatives beholden to Capital and the reactionary (not conservative!) Right who want to repeal the secular enlightenment and base life on a particular extreme version of Faith.
The Left, the scientists, the writers at the New York Times all sit there thinking, "What is wrong with these ignorant people?" "How can they not understand the truth?" Maybe it's because I am faith-based and skeptical of scientific "truth" that I see the Right as having successfully reopened this war, and their opposition is still too stunned to see that their limited gains are being rolled back.
Hear this, evolution proponents, abortion rights activists, leftists, liberals, social democrats, secularists: Being shocked and being patronizing will not save you. We need to start fighting back with a whole new recognition that ours is an uphill battle. Our society is dominated by conservatives on both sides, shocked by the changes of the sixties (1360s and 1960s) and conservatives so set in belief that science has the answers that they haven't realized that people (all of us) have needs and questions that science (empiricism, positivism, mechanism, observation and inference) cannot answer. We need to take seriously the challenge presented by those people who want to ban abortion/evolution/etc., not disdainfully, but by realistically making sure our message is as clear and open about its basis in faith and observation as theirs is in Faith and an old book.
It won't be an easy fight. Keep in mind that it's an easier sell for them; that's why they are gaining ground
- everyone has read their book (one with 2,000 years of refinement), whether directly or in late movies, wheras few have read Darwin, let alone Gould.
- everyone wants simple answers in our society, and theirs are simpler ("God did it") than ours ("Here is a 24-page summary of evolutionary science which most scientists agree on").
- they have the organizational stability of being the backbone of many communities, whereas secular pluralistic society in the U.S. and Europe is in a shambles.
We can't make the welfare state work, we can't provide basic stable communities, and they have won the propaganda war so far. Our communities aren't falling apart cause they have lost sight of values. They are falling apart because the structures (community, joint work, social life, play, supporting each other) that hold society together are almost gone... we just work, pay, work, pay, rest. And they have for 20 years provided the dominant response: the Church, social clubs, social workers in collars peddling simple answers and an informal safety net that no matter how fucked you get, you'll get pie in the sky. So now we need to strike back and say that if we cannot provide answers simply, we had better admit that ours is a faith; if we can't provide for basic needs (physical and emotional), we had better have a better alternative to alms and Heaven; if we cannot explain why science makes sense as a faith, then we'd better start learning from the Jehova's Witnesses and selling it, because otherwise big box reactionary churches have the advantages and the momentum to take us out.
Let me suggest a lesson I learned for when your ideas are on the decline: don't take the logic for granted. Don't think that just because your faith is strong that others will understand the logic or agree with the results. Yes, have a clear and strong faith that you hold to; that is the strength of proselytizing. Ask a Jehova's Witness or a Mormon; most people don't listen, but to grow, to push, to argue is the only way not to shrink. Say proudly, "This is what we believe!" Explain why you are right and push. Don't just sit there thinking you're superior; that's how state religions died out. The good news is that people love an underdog. They love to feel subversive and put upon. Convincing people that science is under attack is a hard sell, but it's getting easier.
Hell, personally a long time ago I gave up thinking that, just because I was a socialist/social constructivist/knight in shining armor, I was right and therefore those who disagreed with me were wrong, and that was the debate. I'm in a minority. I deal. I justify my beliefs. I accept that anything I say must be proved, whereas the opposition is in the position to dismiss me. But I keep fighting, because otherwise we slide even faster the opposite way.
stephantravels posted a little while ago that I quite enjoyed reading. With his permission, I've edited it mildly for typos and grammar and am reposting it here, because I think it's worth a read. Sedentary progressives, enjoy. :)***
We aren't always right, and the Right isn't wrong for once. Teaching evolution in school is part of a values war; it's just not a new one. They want to roll back the gains of the 60s... the 1360s.
I was rereading a post about the evolution debate...or rather a post about why the debate is ridiculous, and it struck me: the right wing is right; there is a culture war going on. I am on what is currently the losing side: secular reformation values. The French Revolution is in decline. Evolution is attacked. Bush is reelected. There is a fight going on, an attack not on "values" by liberals, but to use the power of conservatives beholden to Capital and the reactionary (not conservative!) Right who want to repeal the secular enlightenment and base life on a particular extreme version of Faith.
The Left, the scientists, the writers at the New York Times all sit there thinking, "What is wrong with these ignorant people?" "How can they not understand the truth?" Maybe it's because I am faith-based and skeptical of scientific "truth" that I see the Right as having successfully reopened this war, and their opposition is still too stunned to see that their limited gains are being rolled back.
Hear this, evolution proponents, abortion rights activists, leftists, liberals, social democrats, secularists: Being shocked and being patronizing will not save you. We need to start fighting back with a whole new recognition that ours is an uphill battle. Our society is dominated by conservatives on both sides, shocked by the changes of the sixties (1360s and 1960s) and conservatives so set in belief that science has the answers that they haven't realized that people (all of us) have needs and questions that science (empiricism, positivism, mechanism, observation and inference) cannot answer. We need to take seriously the challenge presented by those people who want to ban abortion/evolution/etc., not disdainfully, but by realistically making sure our message is as clear and open about its basis in faith and observation as theirs is in Faith and an old book.
It won't be an easy fight. Keep in mind that it's an easier sell for them; that's why they are gaining ground
- everyone has read their book (one with 2,000 years of refinement), whether directly or in late movies, wheras few have read Darwin, let alone Gould.
- everyone wants simple answers in our society, and theirs are simpler ("God did it") than ours ("Here is a 24-page summary of evolutionary science which most scientists agree on").
- they have the organizational stability of being the backbone of many communities, whereas secular pluralistic society in the U.S. and Europe is in a shambles.
We can't make the welfare state work, we can't provide basic stable communities, and they have won the propaganda war so far. Our communities aren't falling apart cause they have lost sight of values. They are falling apart because the structures (community, joint work, social life, play, supporting each other) that hold society together are almost gone... we just work, pay, work, pay, rest. And they have for 20 years provided the dominant response: the Church, social clubs, social workers in collars peddling simple answers and an informal safety net that no matter how fucked you get, you'll get pie in the sky. So now we need to strike back and say that if we cannot provide answers simply, we had better admit that ours is a faith; if we can't provide for basic needs (physical and emotional), we had better have a better alternative to alms and Heaven; if we cannot explain why science makes sense as a faith, then we'd better start learning from the Jehova's Witnesses and selling it, because otherwise big box reactionary churches have the advantages and the momentum to take us out.
Let me suggest a lesson I learned for when your ideas are on the decline: don't take the logic for granted. Don't think that just because your faith is strong that others will understand the logic or agree with the results. Yes, have a clear and strong faith that you hold to; that is the strength of proselytizing. Ask a Jehova's Witness or a Mormon; most people don't listen, but to grow, to push, to argue is the only way not to shrink. Say proudly, "This is what we believe!" Explain why you are right and push. Don't just sit there thinking you're superior; that's how state religions died out. The good news is that people love an underdog. They love to feel subversive and put upon. Convincing people that science is under attack is a hard sell, but it's getting easier.
Hell, personally a long time ago I gave up thinking that, just because I was a socialist/social constructivist/knight in shining armor, I was right and therefore those who disagreed with me were wrong, and that was the debate. I'm in a minority. I deal. I justify my beliefs. I accept that anything I say must be proved, whereas the opposition is in the position to dismiss me. But I keep fighting, because otherwise we slide even faster the opposite way.