Salvation After God

The Washington Post has run two quite different op-eds, one yesterday and the other today, that strike a synergy around some popular points of contention. In the first, Hitchens derides Gerson for his

appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship, which could read and condemn my thoughts and which could also consign me to eternal worshipful bliss (a somewhat hellish idea) or to an actual hell.

In the second, Uzodinma Iweala hopes that

people will realize Africa doesn't want to be saved.

What these things have in common is a profound discomfort with salvation. Both the idea of salvation and those who want to pull it off in practice appear to Hitchens and Iweala alike as irritating, misguided, and more than a little hypocritically self-gratifying. Iweala describes how

[n]ews reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ, and "civilization." There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority.

But of course one has to wonder whether Madonna, buying children across Malawi, operates so much in the spirit of affirming the superiority of her culture, whatever that is, or the superiority of her self. Our saving celebrities are as poor partisans of Western Civilization, or Christendom, as you are likely to find. Whether the sheen is kabbala or rock and roll or United Nations world ambassadorship, the content is a human enlightenment measured by a depth of conviction as individual member of global, human society -- a society which does not exist until one helps create it, which carries no divine sanction because it is self-evident enough as a matter, as Hitchens puts it, of a "human solidarity" "in some way innate" without which "we could not have evolved."

It seems self-evident to me that the latest wave of self-anointed Africa saviors are precisely not cultural imperialists, working the deep vein of Christian (or Christian lite) evangelism, but instead evangelists of progressive utopianism, secular or mystical humanists (the line begins to blur) for whom suffering is the worst thing we (humans) experience and cruelty, the worst thing we do, is the toleration of suffering of which we are aware. So I wonder about how Iweala would respond -- because it's also true that Christianity is being steadily drawn into a cultural framework in which Christianity (or certain altered versions of it, anyhow), is just one beautiful and worthy variety of the larger humanism, which is where you get all this Martin Luther King-plus-Gandhi stuff. When I read this paragraph, at any rate, I think much less of a cultural wank as I do a long series of personal ones:

Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Yes, but if Africans can and do fix their own problems, what is a feeling and fantastically wealthy celebrity humanist to do? More importantly, how are they supposed to access the authenticity of suffering and the psychological gratification of saving that only the continent of Africa seems able to provide? For once I'll spare Oprah from this line of attack because she appears really to have cultural reasons of some significance to set up schools in South Africa.

Hitchens meanwhile takes Gerson to task for admitting that people do nice things sometimes for non-religious -- even non-cultural -- purposes -- "a huge concession to the ethical humanism to which he so loftily condescends." Well, yes, but where has ever a loftier condescension been found than in the comfortable armchair of the ethical humanist? Hitchens would point immediately to George Orwell and other ethical humanists who spent a lot of time out of the armchair, getting indeed shot through the neck and nearly killed, in Orwell's instance, on behalf of ethical humanism, and he's right, but though they both made up new names for themselves that is where the similarities between Bono and Orwell end. Again, the point is not to say Bono is a waste of space or insincere or counterproductive because he isn't. The point is that ethical humanists, in Hitchens' words, tend by my lights to be among the most insufferably arrogant and loftily condescending people around, people for whom no one religion is adequate to themselves or the world but the progressive and strictly secular solidarity of the whole human race.

Which is why Hitchens' challenge to Gerson is absurd because beside the point:

Let Gerson name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever.

The whole point of religion, any religion involving a god, is that ethics is inadequate to the good life. Not pointless, not useless, but an insufficient and subsidiary part of the good life. Religion does not reduce to ethics, and whenever it does it stops being religion. Yet curiously all the uncompromising fanaticism of religion remains stubbornly present in those convinced they know what's right and for whom. I suppose the big difference is the equally stubborn departure of the ethicists from religion's old ground of bloodletting as a fine way to make truth manifest. But there are other ways to coerce, of course, wars to fight by law against the present, by ideology for the future and against the past. Simply because Africa's progressive utopian saviors are no mere Christians does not mean they are to be welcomed as the Enlightened Beings They Are by the local population. Post-religious nobles might think they have emancipated themselves from the parochialism and partiality of religious evangelism, but they have not. Secular faith in world solidarity is no less a parochialism, and ethical humanism, though it purports to speak for the species, is no less partial.

Of course the final question on the matter may be whether, in spite of everything, there are no really persuasive arguments to level against the Angelinas and Bonos of the world -- that even if they're irritating to Africans or others, the work they do is good enough that we can hardly tell them to stop. But the moment we lose the ability, or the right, to tell them how and why they irritate is the moment that ethical humanism takes on the coercive character of which all its champions either publicly deny or in which privately they delight.

Comments

[Ted]

Wow. You're magnanimously stupid. Kinda reminds me of Jonah Goldberg.

[Philboid]

Hitchens challenge to Gerson would be 'beside the point' if Gerson hadn't made an ass of himself by declaring that morality isn't possible with belief in an Invisible Friend. The only absurdity here is coming from Dr Poulus.

[Philboid]

correction: "declaring that morality isn't possible withOUT belief in an ..."

[Steve]

ethical humanists, in Hitchens' words, tend by my lights to be among the most insufferably arrogant and loftily condescending people around...

Is this true of ethical humanists who are not celebrities? Isn't Bono's or Madonna's arrogance and condescension a product of their celebrity status, rather than their ethical humanism?

Look at it this way: back in 2003, there were millions of "ordinary" Americans who were opposed to invading Iraq, but the public face of the peace movement was Sean Penn. If you were irritated at Sean Penn's presumption that his celebrity status gave him some special expertise on matters of foreign policy, then ask yourself this question: why did CNN choose Sean Penn to be one of the few anti-war voices it was willing to broadcast, instead of Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, or Phyllis Bennis, or Medea Benjamin?

The fundamental problem here isn't the arrogance of celebrities, or of "ethical humanists", it's the media's refusal to report on an issue or give voice to dissent unlesss a celebrity is involved.

[Bat Guano]

Wow, can you say bloviating? I knew you could. That was a whole lot of effort that went to waste. I agree with Ted.

[Righteous Bubba]

But the moment we lose the ability, or the right, to tell them how and why they irritate is the moment that ethical humanism takes on the coercive character of which all its champions either publicly deny or in which privately they delight.

You must be in real danger posting such inflammatory material. Remember to wear a helmet: windmills don't give way when you bump into them.

[Rugosa]

Religion does not reduce to ethics, and whenever it does it stops being religion.

So what is religion? Ethics + superstition?

[Angelos]

While my mother-in-law lies in a hospital bed after a bad car accident, her fellow choir-members/church-ladies/bridge-and-pinochle-players have pretty much figured out the schedule for the next two months of visitation/meal-cooking/wheeling-her-around-her-apartment-and-into-the-fresh-air. Beyond, of course, what my wife and I are in for.

They are Lutheran. They could have been anything. Or nothing, like myself. It just doesn't matter. This is humanity at its best.

I don't begrudge anyone their beliefs, but I sure as hell won't stand for the assumption that, because I have none, my capacity for empathy and compassion and morality are diminished. I don't need a book of fairy tales to tell me what's right. I don't need it to encourage the checks the wife and I write, or the man-hours we put in, for charity. I didn't need a book to tell me to go to my friend Bryce's house to build a wheel-chair ramp after he fell off a ladder and broke both legs. I didn't need one to go to another friends's to help after a pipe freeze-n-burst flooded half his house last winter. I don't need one to get my ass up at 5AM every Thanksgiving morning to go sell T-Shirts and coffee and hot chocolate at my town's Turkey Trot, to raise $2000 or so for Clothe-A-Child. I just do. Why? Well, I got roped in about 16 years ago, and I stayed. It's a major pain in the ass, let me tell you, because by the time I do that and then drive 2 hours down to the family, I'm already ready already for my Thanksgiving nap, and I haven't even had turkey yet! But I tell myself I just put 80-100 winter coats on kids that need them this winter, kids that don't have Mom's 255-acre farm to go to for Thanksgiving dinner. So I STFU, smile, and take two naps if I need to.

None of this is bragging, btw. It's just, unfortunately, a necessary self-defense against certain cock-knockers that would tell me I'm somehow less worthy than them because I don't bow to the same Being In The Sky.

Fuck that.

[Teaflax]

tend by my lights to be among the most insufferably arrogant and loftily condescending people around

But, alas, there is no condescencion higher than thinking you have The Path to the One True God and all who do not agree will burn in hell. So, getting a little haughty with the credulous from time to time can really be considered very minor payback.

[Shawn Macomber]

Wowsers, stirring up the hornet's nest, no, James?

I have no worthwhile comment to add except I like James and think he is vewy, vewy smart, not bloviating, absurd or magnaimously stupid--Christ, he's like the walking effing antithesis of those last three!

[Joules]

I agree. Please don't waste our time with obnoxious, nasty personal jibes at James. It only comes off as jealousy or ignorance on your part. James, I've never met you but if you were my brother or son I'd be enormously proud. (My own bro has a blog with gorgeous photos of his year working and traveling in New Zealand.)

As a mom with a special needs son, I see this in terms of need. I act to respond to his many needs and a lot of other concerns go out the window. I think the needs in Africa are great enough that it's neither here nor there why anyone is helping as long as they are. But you gotta blog about something!