Comments on: Postmodern Conservatism and the Problem of God

By: James Williams

James Williams — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:29:56 +0000

The key move with Rawls is not — decidedly not — that religious premises are _false_, mere “fantasies” to be played with only safely in private. It is that such premises, where they are not shared — that is, where they are not part of the “overlapping consensus” — are thus inappropriate for deployment in the political sphere. Religious doctrines are just of a piece with _all_ comprehensive doctrines, including, say, atheistic forms of ethics such as utilitarianism. There is no special negative or positive status that adheres to religious views _qua_ religious views in Rawls’ framework, and, again, certainly no such status in virtue of their being considered a “private fantasy”.

(Fwiw, when I said “the author” in my earlier comment I had in mind Murray, not you, as I thought that the bit on Rawls was taken from him; though looking back at the main post now I see that that would not have made sense, chronologically.)

By: peter lawler

peter lawler — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:50:30 +0000

I’m sticking with my statement of a key Rawlsian tendency, and I’ve read Rawls, if only to find out what the cool kids think they know. The same tendency is expressed more honestly and ironically by Rorty. Rorty, of course, outed the utter conventionalism or basic willfulness of Rawlsian liberalism. And Rorty knew that as a self-proclaimed postmodern bourgeois liberal he was not really postmodern. Neuroskeptic may well know himself, although, and this is praise, he seems more of an aristocratic than bourgeois atheist to me. So does Francis, who forgot to talk about what people say and do. All these guys may or may not be conservative, but they’re certainly not postmodern.

By: Neuroskeptic

Neuroskeptic — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:18:48 +0000

“The thought that our misery without God is readily cured by the chemicals remedies of coffee or jogging is “bourgeois bohemian” atheism.”

Well then chalk me up as a bourgeois bohemian atheist. :P

What I was saying was that people aren’t, on the whole, miserable – no more so than they always have been, anyway.

I think what many intellectuals find it hard to understand is that most people aren’t intellectuals. I’ll admit to spending hours biting my nails over the problem of free will, and a lot of philosophers would too, but I realise that this makes me, and philosophers, pretty unusual by normal standards. I hope I don’t come across as elitist when I say that most of what intellectuals, philosophers and theologians talk about would leave 99% of people cold. Most people’s happiness is centered around their family, their friends, their health and their work. Most people, religious or not, don’t think about God much, and are better for it.

By: James Williams

James Williams — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:18:03 +0000

“And we even have our Rawlsians or soft political atheists. They say that religion is nothing but a private fantasy that has no place in “public reason.” They wouldn’t kill those who speak as if God is real, but they would marginalize or ostracize them.”

As an attribution of views to Rawls, this is spectacularly false, and seems to me to indicate that the author hasn’t actually _read_ any Rawls.

By: Francis

Francis — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:48:14 +0000

“aristocratic atheism.” That’s the intention of a philosophical elite to explain everything without the “hypothesis” of God.

well, except for problems with dark matter, dark energy and a workable quantum theory of gravity, they have. There is not a single issue where the hypothesis that goddidit has been useful.

“bourgeois atheism.” Its intention was to show that people could live happily and comfortably without God.

I do very nicely, thanks. But more importantly, correlation does not equal causation. Some of the happiest people I know are as dumb as posts. So, to make more humans happy, the state should pass around lobotomies?

It’s a lot easier to be happy if one has Faith. God will provide; if he doesn’t, then He works in mysterious ways. Personal responsibility is much more tiring.

By: James Poulos

James Poulos — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:28:31 +0000

The big point for me here is that Freud (and Nietzsche) were right about suffering and misery, and that the cashout for anxious moderns is a therapy of ACTING in a way happy people supposedly act in order to prove that they are FEELING happy. This is not a silly concept, and not just atheist bourgeois types have recognized its power and implemented it accordingly. But there is something extra silly about the way in which all those passing joggers, for instance, seem to simultaneously have so much and so little invested in their happy-habit. The embarrassment of our anxious moderns is that we have lowered the stakes among some long-important things so as to raise the stakes among trivial things. It might be a WORKABLE tradeoff for some extended period of time, but the real issue is whether it’s WORTH keeping up the effort…or how much of a choice we have about it. Also, the point about these sorts of problems totally preceding the modern scientific project seems huge.

By: Ivan Kenneally

Ivan Kenneally — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:57:37 +0000

I know that Peter wasn’t intentionally making a theistic argument based on utility but still, we often have a tendency to dismiss that line as theoretically empty though it can actually be instructive. If at the heart of the modern project is a radically new reconception of the individual who is either radically at home in nature or capable of making nature hospitable through technological means then the failure of that project tells us something about the kinds of beings we are. Tocqeville described the eros for personal transcendece towards the divine as an “invincible inclination”, one written into our nature in a way that simply couldn’t be erased…this brand of longing isn’t demonstrable evidence of God, but it is, at the very least, suggestive of some of the limitations on a purely atheistic account of human life and experience. Muchh of the New Agey religious stuff, which Tqville discussed as pantheism, is borne of out an attempt to square our deeply human spiritual needs with a modern worldview largely hostile to them..to reflect on the stubborn resistance of those needs to either elimination or satisfaction by other means, or to reflect on what counts as “utility” for us, is to reflect on the nature of our being and the way that nature points beyond itself…anyway, the book, I think, is Murray at his best

By: peter lawler

peter lawler — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:53:10 +0000

Thanks to Robert and Sam for their unwillful or postmodern responses–which I will get to later. Sam, I think, is right about the modern condition or pretense. “I should certainly read this” is, of course, what you all should have said. Paul, I didn’t mean to make an argument from utility at all, I just wanted to say all the evidence suggests that the problem is still with us. The “Jewish fairy tale” comment is nothing but modern aristocratic atheism–willful snottiness without any real argument. The thought that our misery without God is readily cured by the chemicals remedies of coffee or jogging is “bourgeois bohemian” atheism. Joggers don’t look so happy to me; otherwise, I might join them. And coffee is less mood control than a desperate way (believe me, I know) to let moods unnaturally run amok. Weak theology–in my view–is also characteristically modern–such as the theology of Locke, Jefferson, and today’s New Agey Unitarian/Episcopalians. It’s basically also bourgeois bohemian. So I’m perplexed by all these modern comments on a “postmodern conservatism” blog, which is not to say, of course, that I’ve proven any of them untrue.

By: Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:52:36 +0000

Sorry, should have said modern, not postmodern, in the last graph.

By: Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:51:27 +0000

I should certainly read this. But I can think of two immediate problem with the argument.

First, seems to conflate theism with traditional religion. Most protagonists of at least the first two waves of atheism did not think of themselves as atheists. They thought of themselves as critics of superstition and dogmatism, which would all the better allow them to defend true or natural religion. In most cases, the justification for this position was not metaphysical amour de soi. It was epistemological and political contradictions of Western Christianity, which for various reasons became intolerable in the 16th century.

Second, as Neuroskeptic and Paul suggest, Murray’s view sounds pretty Epicurean. Whether or not it’s true, the argument from the misery of disenchantment to the choice of faith is still focused on human will to satisfy human need.

One might characterize the postmodern condition as one in which it’s very difficult, without serious cognitive dissidence, to regard revealed teachings as simply true. Would it be wrong to say that Murray agrees with that?