The Progressive
By Annie Laurie Gaylor, November 12, 2010
It’s not a happy birthday for Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
The leading suffragist was born on Nov. 12, 1815, but her 195th birthday comes amid a concerted attack on the nation’s highest elected woman.
The despicable attempt to demean Nancy Pelosi’s achievements as the House Democratic leader and to belittle her determination to keep her leadership role shows how precarious a woman’s place in U.S. politics remains.
It was Pelosi who insisted that President Obama deliver meaningful health care reform instead of abandoning ship. It was Pelosi who got the House to pass crucial bills on jobs and global warming, which the Senate unfortunately squashed. She kept a fractious Democratic Party in line in the House, which is no small task.
No male politician with her skills and accomplishments would be treated so badly. The double standard lives on.
Stanton would applaud Pelosi’s grit and determination, in the face of ridicule, to carry on in the leadership position she has rightfully earned.
Stanton was not only among the first to call for women’s suffrage. She was the first woman candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. She firmly believed in the importance of women’s political power.
When Stanton grew up, there wasn’t only a glass ceiling; there was a “no woman allowed” sign at every door.
Despite a brilliant intellect, Stanton was barred, as a woman, from college, from a respectable career, and from the rights and duties of citizenship itself.
As a newly married abolitionist, Stanton was silenced and curtained off from participation at the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention — a humiliation that opened her eyes to the civil enslavement of all women. As a disenfranchised citizen, Stanton called the ballot “the mightiest engine yet . . . for the uprooting of ignorance, tyranny, superstition, the overturning of thrones, altars, kings, popes, despotisms, monarchies and empires.”
Even some friends castigated her when she had the temerity to insist that suffrage be part of the plank of the first women’s rights convention in 1848. The press, the clergy and representatives of polite society piled on.
Stanton later recalled “how the Bible was hurled at us from every side” by critics citing scripture and verse to gag “uppity” women. And the very women’s movement she had co-founded scorned her for writing “The Woman’s Bible,” which criticized religion and fearlessly urging women to replace superstition and belief with “science and reason.”
But Stanton never backed down. Neither should Pelosi.
Annie Laurie Gaylor is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., and is editor of the newspaper Freethought Today and the anthology, “Women Without Superstition: No Gods - No Masters.” She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.
Source: http://progressive.org/mpgaylor111210.html
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
REFLECTIONS OF A POST-MODERN HUMANIST
Living Philosophy: The Philosophical Tradition & S.F. Bay Area Secular Humanist Communities
by Jason Smick - lecturer, Santa Clara University
Last month I discussed some of the reasons that I think philosophy and humanist communities need one another. This week I would like to amplify one aspect of that discussion. More specifically, I want to discuss why it is that I think the academic philosophical community could benefit from a closer involvement with humanist communities.
From the beginning, philosophy was indeed a distinct way of thinking. Yet in the ancient period, this way of thinking was related to and served a distinct way of life. To paraphrase a point made in different but complementary ways by the French philosopher and historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot, one might say that most contemporary philosophers regard philosophy as a theoretical discourse, one not bound necessarily to a lived community that includes, in addition to philosophical theoreticians, persons devoted to the ways and cause of philosophy but who are themselves not philosophical theorists as such. This is to say that philosophical theorists today ordinarily do not see, let alone enact, philosophy as a way of life and type of community. The consequence would seem to be that philosophical communities in the ancient sense have disappeared.
But is this the case? Can one show that, contrary to appearances, there remain philosophical communities analogous to the ancient Greek and Roman schools such as Epicureanism and Stoicism, or, even more recently, to the Enlightenment-era Philosophes or the Marxist revolutionary movements of the 20th century?
I would like to suggest that the philosophical communities associated with academia do not exhaust the reality of philosophical society at present. There continue to exist philosophical communities, which, like their ancient and modern antecedents, include philosophers who are not philosophical theorists. There are communities that use the language of philosophy, see the world in a philosophical way, enact philosophical practices, and structure their self-understanding and understanding of others with the help of distinctly philosophical ideas. These communities are constituted by lawyers, doctors, computer programmers, and schoolteachers who are philosophers not because they write treatises or give papers at conferences, but because they think and live a philosophical life.
What communities do I have in mind? In my view, contemporary secular humanist associations are living examples of philosophical community in the broader, deeper, and more inclusive sense. Take as an example, and one that is close to home, the Humanist Community (HC). Most of HC‘s members are not professional philosophers, though some are. Rarely, if ever, is the term ―philosophy‖ used by its community members to describe the kind of community to which they belong. Yet every week, its membership gathers and repeats one of the most ancient of philosophical practices – dialogue. The weekly ―Sunday Forum‖ ‖ is less akin to Sunday church services than it might seem, though the comparison is sometimes made. More so, these forums are philosophical dialogues informed, ideally, by reasoned presentations and discussions carried out in a spirit that is generally charitable and open-minded. In this way, and perhaps without realizing it, HC does on a weekly basis what philosophers have done on a regular basis for the last 2,600 years in both formal and informal contexts. Where the two differ is in their practical life. The HC‘s collective advocacy on social justice issues and its children‘s program are two examples of the way that humanist groups continue to preserve and cultivate the practical dimensions of a philosophical life, that is, one oriented primarily to the world and worldly concerns. The very fact that HC is understood to be a community, and is carried out as a community, is another example.
These observations reveal an at least implicit, and, at times, explicit commitment on the part of humanist groups both to a philosophical account of life – a philosophical worldview – and to a philosophical approach to the project of life that necessitates acts that found and/or perpetuate a community. The aforementioned HC practices of dialogue, social action, and children‘s educational programs not only serve as means for fleshing out ideas and issues, or addressing social issues, or caring for the young. They are also practices that draw its membership into community with one another so as to renew their commitment to the community itself.
That few, if any, professional philosophers see humanist communities as philosophical communities is perhaps partly due to the complex historical relation of philosophy to Christianity. This is Hadot‘s claim, and it is one that I would accept as a provisional, working hypothesis. The same complex relation might also help to account for why it is that humanist communities ordinarily do not see themselves as philosophical communities. Hadot argues that one consequence of the Christian tradition‘s efforts to consolidate its intellectual, social, and political influence and to comprehend its own meaning and goals, was the reduction of philosophy to a theoretical activity directed toward the formalization and rationalization of the Christian faith. Christianity recognized in philosophical thinking a resource that could and did provide a good deal of the conceptual language for articulating and expressing the Christian worldview and way of life. The practical dimensions of philosophy – its various communities, ethical codes, and ways of dealing with loss and death – offered an alternative to the Christian life. It quite rightly, therefore, saw philosophy as one of its competitors. It thus suppressed existing philosophical forms of life while retaining and further developing philosophical theory and its methods and concepts within the context of Christianity. But it also incorporated many of the non-theoretical practices philosophy such as ―examination of the conscience. As a consequence of this reduction and incorporation, over the course of the modern era, even as philosophy recovered itself as an autonomous tradition, it continued to see itself as a strictly theoretical activity. One might say it had forgotten that it was ever anything more than a community of theorists.
It is perhaps for this reason that a book Reginald White published in 1970 on the 18th century Enlightenment philosophers known as the Philosophes could be called The Anti-Philosophers. Why ―anti-philosophers‖? As White recounts, the Philosophes were considered such by some philosophers because they were interested in practical affairs like education and political reform and not just questions related to epistemology, metaphysics, or natural philosophy. Perhaps this is one reason that most philosophers, for their part, do not see humanist communities as philosophical communities. And the professional philosophical community is the poorer for it, I believe. This is why I would encourage members of the HC to explore the claims I have made here. And if you find that they can be substantiated, I would further encourage you to experiment with your assumptions about what humanism is. For example, do your studies of philosophy suggest that humanist communities can reasonably be redescribed as philosophical communities? If so, and if that led to a dialogue between philosophy and humanist communities, groups like the HC could serve as a living reminder to contemporary philosophical theorists that they too belong to a community as meaningful and real as their ancient and modern precursors; or at least that they once did, and perhaps could again.
This column was first printed in the Humanist Community Newsletter November 2010, vol.16, issue 11)
____________________________________________________________
(Jason Smick is a lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at Santa Clara University. A native of the Sacramento area, he holds degrees in philosophy, theology, and religious studies. His work focuses on the practical and communal dimensions of ancient and modern Western philosophical traditions, and the relation of secular cultures and traditions to both the religions and Western philosophy.)
by Jason Smick - lecturer, Santa Clara University
Last month I discussed some of the reasons that I think philosophy and humanist communities need one another. This week I would like to amplify one aspect of that discussion. More specifically, I want to discuss why it is that I think the academic philosophical community could benefit from a closer involvement with humanist communities.
From the beginning, philosophy was indeed a distinct way of thinking. Yet in the ancient period, this way of thinking was related to and served a distinct way of life. To paraphrase a point made in different but complementary ways by the French philosopher and historian of philosophy, Pierre Hadot, one might say that most contemporary philosophers regard philosophy as a theoretical discourse, one not bound necessarily to a lived community that includes, in addition to philosophical theoreticians, persons devoted to the ways and cause of philosophy but who are themselves not philosophical theorists as such. This is to say that philosophical theorists today ordinarily do not see, let alone enact, philosophy as a way of life and type of community. The consequence would seem to be that philosophical communities in the ancient sense have disappeared.
But is this the case? Can one show that, contrary to appearances, there remain philosophical communities analogous to the ancient Greek and Roman schools such as Epicureanism and Stoicism, or, even more recently, to the Enlightenment-era Philosophes or the Marxist revolutionary movements of the 20th century?
I would like to suggest that the philosophical communities associated with academia do not exhaust the reality of philosophical society at present. There continue to exist philosophical communities, which, like their ancient and modern antecedents, include philosophers who are not philosophical theorists. There are communities that use the language of philosophy, see the world in a philosophical way, enact philosophical practices, and structure their self-understanding and understanding of others with the help of distinctly philosophical ideas. These communities are constituted by lawyers, doctors, computer programmers, and schoolteachers who are philosophers not because they write treatises or give papers at conferences, but because they think and live a philosophical life.
What communities do I have in mind? In my view, contemporary secular humanist associations are living examples of philosophical community in the broader, deeper, and more inclusive sense. Take as an example, and one that is close to home, the Humanist Community (HC). Most of HC‘s members are not professional philosophers, though some are. Rarely, if ever, is the term ―philosophy‖ used by its community members to describe the kind of community to which they belong. Yet every week, its membership gathers and repeats one of the most ancient of philosophical practices – dialogue. The weekly ―Sunday Forum‖ ‖ is less akin to Sunday church services than it might seem, though the comparison is sometimes made. More so, these forums are philosophical dialogues informed, ideally, by reasoned presentations and discussions carried out in a spirit that is generally charitable and open-minded. In this way, and perhaps without realizing it, HC does on a weekly basis what philosophers have done on a regular basis for the last 2,600 years in both formal and informal contexts. Where the two differ is in their practical life. The HC‘s collective advocacy on social justice issues and its children‘s program are two examples of the way that humanist groups continue to preserve and cultivate the practical dimensions of a philosophical life, that is, one oriented primarily to the world and worldly concerns. The very fact that HC is understood to be a community, and is carried out as a community, is another example.
These observations reveal an at least implicit, and, at times, explicit commitment on the part of humanist groups both to a philosophical account of life – a philosophical worldview – and to a philosophical approach to the project of life that necessitates acts that found and/or perpetuate a community. The aforementioned HC practices of dialogue, social action, and children‘s educational programs not only serve as means for fleshing out ideas and issues, or addressing social issues, or caring for the young. They are also practices that draw its membership into community with one another so as to renew their commitment to the community itself.
That few, if any, professional philosophers see humanist communities as philosophical communities is perhaps partly due to the complex historical relation of philosophy to Christianity. This is Hadot‘s claim, and it is one that I would accept as a provisional, working hypothesis. The same complex relation might also help to account for why it is that humanist communities ordinarily do not see themselves as philosophical communities. Hadot argues that one consequence of the Christian tradition‘s efforts to consolidate its intellectual, social, and political influence and to comprehend its own meaning and goals, was the reduction of philosophy to a theoretical activity directed toward the formalization and rationalization of the Christian faith. Christianity recognized in philosophical thinking a resource that could and did provide a good deal of the conceptual language for articulating and expressing the Christian worldview and way of life. The practical dimensions of philosophy – its various communities, ethical codes, and ways of dealing with loss and death – offered an alternative to the Christian life. It quite rightly, therefore, saw philosophy as one of its competitors. It thus suppressed existing philosophical forms of life while retaining and further developing philosophical theory and its methods and concepts within the context of Christianity. But it also incorporated many of the non-theoretical practices philosophy such as ―examination of the conscience. As a consequence of this reduction and incorporation, over the course of the modern era, even as philosophy recovered itself as an autonomous tradition, it continued to see itself as a strictly theoretical activity. One might say it had forgotten that it was ever anything more than a community of theorists.
It is perhaps for this reason that a book Reginald White published in 1970 on the 18th century Enlightenment philosophers known as the Philosophes could be called The Anti-Philosophers. Why ―anti-philosophers‖? As White recounts, the Philosophes were considered such by some philosophers because they were interested in practical affairs like education and political reform and not just questions related to epistemology, metaphysics, or natural philosophy. Perhaps this is one reason that most philosophers, for their part, do not see humanist communities as philosophical communities. And the professional philosophical community is the poorer for it, I believe. This is why I would encourage members of the HC to explore the claims I have made here. And if you find that they can be substantiated, I would further encourage you to experiment with your assumptions about what humanism is. For example, do your studies of philosophy suggest that humanist communities can reasonably be redescribed as philosophical communities? If so, and if that led to a dialogue between philosophy and humanist communities, groups like the HC could serve as a living reminder to contemporary philosophical theorists that they too belong to a community as meaningful and real as their ancient and modern precursors; or at least that they once did, and perhaps could again.
This column was first printed in the Humanist Community Newsletter November 2010, vol.16, issue 11)
____________________________________________________________
(Jason Smick is a lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at Santa Clara University. A native of the Sacramento area, he holds degrees in philosophy, theology, and religious studies. His work focuses on the practical and communal dimensions of ancient and modern Western philosophical traditions, and the relation of secular cultures and traditions to both the religions and Western philosophy.)
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Election Turned On Economic Issues, But Constitution May Suffer Collateral Damage, Says Americans United
Religious Right Forces Are Certain to Demand Action in Congress on Divisive Culture-War Concerns, Says AU’s Lynn
WASHINGTON - November 3 - Voters want Congress to focus on fixing the economy, but Religious Right groups are sure to demand that attention be paid to their divisive agenda, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Exit polls show that more than 60 percent of voters cited the economy as their top concern in yesterday's voting. The figure was even higher in states hard hit by the financial setbacks.
But the changes in Congress, says Americans United, will empower Religious Right leaders who will insist on action on controversial social issues.
"Voters sent a strong message that they want Congress to focus on fixing the economy," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, "but the election results may inflict collateral damage on the Constitution. I think the Religious Right will seize this opportunity to advance its agenda in Congress."
Lynn said he expects the Religious Right to push for religious school vouchers, publicly funded "faith-based" hiring bias, creationism in the public schools, laws allowing electioneering by churches, "Christian nation" resolutions and other measures that undercut church-state separation.
Lynn noted that likely House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have long records of working with the Religious Right on a wide variety of social issues.
"Americans did not vote to stoke the fires of the culture war," said Lynn, "but they may have done so inadvertently."
Lynn noted that many candidates who openly attacked church-state separation were defeated.
Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, Delaware House candidate Glen Urquhart and Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle all lost. (Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck was trailing in his race, but a vote count was still under way.)
Lynn noted, however, that the Religious Right remains a potent political force in some situations. In Iowa, for example, a concentrated campaign by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and their allies resulted in the ousting of three state Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of civil marriage rights for same-sex couples.
"Church-state separation is going to be under sustained fire for the next two years in Congress and in many state legislatures," said Lynn. "Religious Right leaders are re-energized by the election results, and they are going to want action. Those of us who believe in individual freedom and equality are going to have our hands full."
###
Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.
WASHINGTON - November 3 - Voters want Congress to focus on fixing the economy, but Religious Right groups are sure to demand that attention be paid to their divisive agenda, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Exit polls show that more than 60 percent of voters cited the economy as their top concern in yesterday's voting. The figure was even higher in states hard hit by the financial setbacks.
But the changes in Congress, says Americans United, will empower Religious Right leaders who will insist on action on controversial social issues.
"Voters sent a strong message that they want Congress to focus on fixing the economy," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, "but the election results may inflict collateral damage on the Constitution. I think the Religious Right will seize this opportunity to advance its agenda in Congress."
Lynn said he expects the Religious Right to push for religious school vouchers, publicly funded "faith-based" hiring bias, creationism in the public schools, laws allowing electioneering by churches, "Christian nation" resolutions and other measures that undercut church-state separation.
Lynn noted that likely House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have long records of working with the Religious Right on a wide variety of social issues.
"Americans did not vote to stoke the fires of the culture war," said Lynn, "but they may have done so inadvertently."
Lynn noted that many candidates who openly attacked church-state separation were defeated.
Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, Delaware House candidate Glen Urquhart and Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle all lost. (Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck was trailing in his race, but a vote count was still under way.)
Lynn noted, however, that the Religious Right remains a potent political force in some situations. In Iowa, for example, a concentrated campaign by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and their allies resulted in the ousting of three state Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of civil marriage rights for same-sex couples.
"Church-state separation is going to be under sustained fire for the next two years in Congress and in many state legislatures," said Lynn. "Religious Right leaders are re-energized by the election results, and they are going to want action. Those of us who believe in individual freedom and equality are going to have our hands full."
###
Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Atheists for Christ? - Discussion followed by dinner
Dear friends,
You are invited to join us for a fun discussion followed by dinner. See details below.
Date and time: November 13, 2010 at 5:30-7:30pm.
Donation: A $3-$4 donation to cover cost of room would be appreciated.
Place: 2251 High Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301
Moderator: Lynn Austin
Readings: Please download readings from: https://sites.google.com/site/sanfranciscobayareahumanists/home/november-13-201
Note there are two items to download: (1) Red Letters of the King James Bible for the press.pdf and (2) Discussion.pdf.
Format: You can (1) read any or all of the article(s) that is provided for each meeting, (2) read something somewhat related to it, or (3) be prepared to share a situation that has some connection to it. We'll have a moderated discussion of all the above.
Rules: Listen and contribute to a diversity of views respectfully, especially ones you don't agree with.
Dinner: After our discussion we'll walk to Szechwan Cafe for dinner. (406 South California Avenue, Palo Alto, CA - (650) 327-1688.)
If anyone has another somewhat related reading they wish to share please let me know.
I look forward to seeing you and anyone you wish to bring along.
Armineh
You are invited to join us for a fun discussion followed by dinner. See details below.
Date and time: November 13, 2010 at 5:30-7:30pm.
Donation: A $3-$4 donation to cover cost of room would be appreciated.
Place: 2251 High Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301
Moderator: Lynn Austin
Readings: Please download readings from: https://sites.google.com/site/sanfranciscobayareahumanists/home/november-13-201
Note there are two items to download: (1) Red Letters of the King James Bible for the press.pdf and (2) Discussion.pdf.
Format: You can (1) read any or all of the article(s) that is provided for each meeting, (2) read something somewhat related to it, or (3) be prepared to share a situation that has some connection to it. We'll have a moderated discussion of all the above.
Rules: Listen and contribute to a diversity of views respectfully, especially ones you don't agree with.
Dinner: After our discussion we'll walk to Szechwan Cafe for dinner. (406 South California Avenue, Palo Alto, CA - (650) 327-1688.)
If anyone has another somewhat related reading they wish to share please let me know.
I look forward to seeing you and anyone you wish to bring along.
Armineh
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Amnesty International USA 2010 Western Regional Conference November 5 - 7, 2010
Amnesty International will be celebrating 50 years of human rights activism and they would like to invite you to kick off the celebration with them at this year's Western Regional Conference!
Amnesty International USA's Western Regional Conference is an annual meeting that brings together Amnesty members and human rights activists from across the 13-state region. This year they will be featuring prominent speakers from the human rights community: Amy Goodman, the host and executive producer of the award-winning independent news program Democracy Now!; Rebiya Kadeer, Uighur human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience; Jorge Bustamante, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants; and Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA.
Join Amnesty International members and activists for an inspiring weekend full of dynamic speakers, ground-breaking workshops, and amazing panel discussions with human rights defenders.
Location:
University of California, Hastings College of the Law
200 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
For further information and registration:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/regional-conferences/west/page.do?id=1691093
Amnesty International USA's Western Regional Conference is an annual meeting that brings together Amnesty members and human rights activists from across the 13-state region. This year they will be featuring prominent speakers from the human rights community: Amy Goodman, the host and executive producer of the award-winning independent news program Democracy Now!; Rebiya Kadeer, Uighur human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience; Jorge Bustamante, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants; and Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA.
Join Amnesty International members and activists for an inspiring weekend full of dynamic speakers, ground-breaking workshops, and amazing panel discussions with human rights defenders.
Location:
University of California, Hastings College of the Law
200 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
For further information and registration:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/regional-conferences/west/page.do?id=1691093
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Christian Right Insiders Reveal Racism, Virulent Anti-Immigrant Attitudes and Homophobia in Prominent Religious Group
"I'd much rather be working in the secular world than for a ministry," said the founder's former secretary, still a conservative and devout Christian. "The secular world is nicer." To read more, go to http://www.alternet.org/story/148488/christian_right_insiders_reveal_racism%2C_virulent_anti-immigrant_attitudes_and_homophobia_in_prominent_religious_group?page=entire
Monday, October 18, 2010
Humanist Ethics and the Problem of U.S. Militarism - by Armineh Noravian
The following is a transcript of a talk I gave at the American Humanist Association Conference in San Jose (June 2010).
___________________________________________________________
We live in a world where we see hunger, poverty, cruelty, and injustice; we see human rights violations. As humanists we have causes that are morally justifiable to fight for. But to be consistent with our humanistic values, it is obvious that just any means to that end will not do. We need to always remember the words in the humanist manifesto that define our means loud and clear. Those words are: “differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly spells out universal human rights in 30 articles. Nowhere in this document does it condone war as a means to achieving human rights. Nowhere does it suggest that the life of human beings should be jeopardized or sacrificed in defense of deeply held rigid beliefs. In fact, the whole spirit of the Enlightenment and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is to preserve the rights of each individual human being, with the primary right being the right to life.
The United States is currently involved in two war fronts, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. I am going to talk about both these wars from the perspective of a humanist and attempt to put a human face on these conflicts.
Let me begin with 9/11.
9/11 was a horrific and unforgettable experience for our country and certainly for those who were directly affected by it. 2,993 people from over 90 countries lost their lives. This attack was orchestrated and carried out by Al Qaeda, a terrorist group, hiding out in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is a militarized and politicized Islamic group that developed partly as a result of CIA recruitment and training of the Mujahideen militants to defeat the Russians in the 1980s. 9/11 became President Bush’s justification for attacking Afghanistan in October 2001 and we’ve been there ever since.
Since the 9/11 attack was not carried out by the government of Afghanistan, but by a terrorist group made up of mostly Saudi citizens hiding in that country, it would be reasonable for humanists to ask, if a terrorist group hiding out in England were to have been behind the 9/11 attacks, would the United States have declared war on England and attacked England?
I don’t think so.
The attack on Afghanistan held the entire Afghan population responsible for the terror attack.
After 9 years we have not caught Bin Ladin. We have not eliminated Al Qaeda. We have not brought peace or stability to Afghanistan. We have not made Americans safer. We have not diminished the threat of terrorism.
We have however helped Al Qaeda morph into a real 21st century organization of “terrorists without borders.” We have avenged the deaths of the 2993 people who were killed on 9/11 by killing many times that number in Afghanistan.
The invasion of Afghanistan does not seem to have been based on reason, but on vengeance.
Remember, Humanists are big on reason.
The justification for this war has evolved. What began as a war against those who carried out 9/11 nine years ago, is now touted as a good war that is “liberating” the oppressed women of Afghanistan from the hands of the Taliban.
Some of the women of Afghanistan have a very different perspective on this topic. RAWA, which is the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, says, “The US ‘War on Terrorism’ removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism, which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr. Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.”
So we can pat ourselves on the back because in 9 years we have managed to replace one group of thugs with another.
The story of the war in Iraq is even worse.
The war in Iraq was begun in March 2003. President Bush repeatedly asserted that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, even though the UN inspectors said they could not find any evidence of such weapons. As humanists we are big on evidence. But even though there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, some of the supporters of this war were people who call themselves humanists. The reason for this support was obviously not evidence, but fear. This preemptive strike was a strike based on an emotional justification, not a reasoned justification.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, to rid the country of Saddam Hussein and his two sons (a total of three people), has been the cause of over one million Iraqi deaths , and countless who have been maimed, traumatized, displaced, shell shocked, and forced to live in desperate conditions around the world.
As the war raged on and the death toll rose, and as weapons of mass destruction were not found, President Bush and all those who supported this invasion made up other reasons to justify this war, reasons that fit the myth of “spreading” democracy and human rights, to those uncivilized others, the Arabs and the Muslims.
Women and minority groups who were said to have been repressed by Saddam Hussein and who were also used as justification for the invasion, have now lost virtually all of their rights.
Some claim one of the benefits of this invasion is a democratically elected Iraqi government. But this so-called democratically elected government was elected in an atmosphere of fear, violence, and intimidation.
Let me switch gears here.
People like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi have moved mountains through peaceful means. The changes they have brought about are long lasting. Our Humanist Manifesto captures their deeds with the following words: “Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.”
Neither the war in Afghanistan nor in Iraq has brought about a change that can be considered long lasting or for the good of humanity. Neither war has been based on reason or evidence; both have been justified by pure emotion – vengeance and fear.
King and Gandhi fought with nonviolent means, and they won. They brought about changes that improved the human condition. Compare that with the outcome of the violent, deadly and costly wars we have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although these wars have significantly improved the profits for corporations involved in the military industrial complex, they have not improved the overall human condition.
Unfortunately, I have observed that there are people who hold their belief system dearer than the lives of other people, and would kill people to defend their belief. Our humanist belief system, at its core, is fundamentally about appreciation of human life. It is therefore an absolute contradiction to kill human beings to further such a belief system. In other words, you cannot kill to further humanism.
As an ethnic Armenian, I have inherited a painful history. The Armenian Genocide, which historians call the first genocide of the 20th century, was not something that I experienced, but my grandparents did. Even so, after two generations, I find it difficult to talk about it or to look at photographs of the dead bodies of Armenian men, women, and children without feeling pain. Pain is passed along from generation to generation.
What we have done in Iraq and in Afghanistan will leave a painful legacy that will be suffered for generations to come. The grandchildren of survivors will look back and feel the pain that we, the United States, caused them. They will not forget or forgive us for what we have done.
I was born in the Middle East. I would say that I look like a typical person from the Middle East. I could pass for a person from Afghanistan or Iraq; I could pass for an Arab or a Jew from the Middle East. When I look at those people in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Palestine or Israel, when I see their photos, I think of my parents, my relatives, my cousins, my siblings; I think of them as me.
I feel for their loss as I would feel for the loss of someone who was part of my family. They are not faceless or voiceless for me.
I have two boys who are not too far off in age than the average American soldier who has been either killed or maimed for life in these wars. Our soldiers or their families are not faceless or voiceless for me.
As a humanist, I see all people on this planet as part of one gigantic family. I don’t see their lives as something that I can casually dispense with for any end.
Those who defend these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq often gloss over the lives of people who have been killed, as if they are disposable. In conversations you sometimes hear people say something like, “the deaths toll can’t be ignored, BUT, Saddam was a bad guy who killed people.” There is always the BUT, to justify the deaths of people.
Sometimes they call the killing of civilians “collateral damage”. These deaths are spoken of almost as a side issue, and often not tracked or reported. They are deemed as necessary to achieve an uncertain end.
I could have been born in Iraq or Afghanistan. Life’s circumstances could have dictated that I remained there. I could have been declared collateral damage by those who justify killing civilians in the name of liberating them. I could have been one of the women who is displaced because her home was destroyed, or her spouse and children were maimed and killed. My kids could have been those kids who saw their parents killed right in front of their eyes.
As human beings, we are limited in our ability to imagine the pain of other people. If we are not connected to the pain we cause, we can become good at inflicting pain. If all we see are images that appear like fireworks on TV when our air power is attacking Iraq at night, or dust rising in the distance from our bombs, we don’t feel the pain of those who are maimed, killed, and suffer as a result of our attacks.
As an American and a person who has her roots in the Middle East, I am deeply disturbed to see human beings killed in countries of this region funded by our tax dollars, cheered on by those who support wars, under the guise of defending human rights.
And now to close: As humanists we should remember that deeply held beliefs make it easy to accept the absurd. It can create hubris. Propaganda such as “we are going to war to liberate people” or “we are bringing democracy to people” or “we are protecting America” are the new myths that have replaced the older ones that said “we are bringing civilization and Christianity to the native Americans, or the Mexicans.”
As humanists, we should be able to differentiate between propaganda and facts: War is violence and violence does not bring about security.
As humanists, we should not outsource our moral responsibility; we should seek out those who present pseudo-rational arguments in favor of war and expose them for their lack of reasoning and lack of compassion.
There are numerous possibilities between the extremes of all out war on one hand and appeasement on the other. It is our lack of imagination and our failure to envision other possibilities that limits our options to these two extremes.
Just envision what real diplomacy could do.
Conflict is natural. Conflict resolution is natural. But war is not conflict resolution. Just imagine what a humanistic foreign policy could do.
From a humanist point of view, war is a human catastrophe. As Humanists, we should advocate diplomacy to prevent situations that ultimately lead to wars and to identify solutions that would pave the path for peaceful alternatives to war.
Lastly, one cannot be a humanist and advocate militarism.
_____________________________________________________________
Armineh Noravian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley between 2007-2010, where she served as Vice President in 2008 and President in 2009 and 2010. She was also President of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and state from 2005-2006, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU, Santa Clara Valley chapter from 2006-2008. She holds a M.S. in Engineering and a M.A. in Applied Anthropology (cultural).
___________________________________________________________
We live in a world where we see hunger, poverty, cruelty, and injustice; we see human rights violations. As humanists we have causes that are morally justifiable to fight for. But to be consistent with our humanistic values, it is obvious that just any means to that end will not do. We need to always remember the words in the humanist manifesto that define our means loud and clear. Those words are: “differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly spells out universal human rights in 30 articles. Nowhere in this document does it condone war as a means to achieving human rights. Nowhere does it suggest that the life of human beings should be jeopardized or sacrificed in defense of deeply held rigid beliefs. In fact, the whole spirit of the Enlightenment and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is to preserve the rights of each individual human being, with the primary right being the right to life.
The United States is currently involved in two war fronts, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. I am going to talk about both these wars from the perspective of a humanist and attempt to put a human face on these conflicts.
Let me begin with 9/11.
9/11 was a horrific and unforgettable experience for our country and certainly for those who were directly affected by it. 2,993 people from over 90 countries lost their lives. This attack was orchestrated and carried out by Al Qaeda, a terrorist group, hiding out in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is a militarized and politicized Islamic group that developed partly as a result of CIA recruitment and training of the Mujahideen militants to defeat the Russians in the 1980s. 9/11 became President Bush’s justification for attacking Afghanistan in October 2001 and we’ve been there ever since.
Since the 9/11 attack was not carried out by the government of Afghanistan, but by a terrorist group made up of mostly Saudi citizens hiding in that country, it would be reasonable for humanists to ask, if a terrorist group hiding out in England were to have been behind the 9/11 attacks, would the United States have declared war on England and attacked England?
I don’t think so.
The attack on Afghanistan held the entire Afghan population responsible for the terror attack.
After 9 years we have not caught Bin Ladin. We have not eliminated Al Qaeda. We have not brought peace or stability to Afghanistan. We have not made Americans safer. We have not diminished the threat of terrorism.
We have however helped Al Qaeda morph into a real 21st century organization of “terrorists without borders.” We have avenged the deaths of the 2993 people who were killed on 9/11 by killing many times that number in Afghanistan.
The invasion of Afghanistan does not seem to have been based on reason, but on vengeance.
Remember, Humanists are big on reason.
The justification for this war has evolved. What began as a war against those who carried out 9/11 nine years ago, is now touted as a good war that is “liberating” the oppressed women of Afghanistan from the hands of the Taliban.
Some of the women of Afghanistan have a very different perspective on this topic. RAWA, which is the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, says, “The US ‘War on Terrorism’ removed the Taliban regime in October 2001, but it has not removed religious fundamentalism, which is the main cause of all our miseries. In fact, by reinstalling the warlords in power in Afghanistan, the US administration is replacing one fundamentalist regime with another. The US government and Mr. Karzai mostly rely on Northern Alliance criminal leaders who are as brutal and misogynist as the Taliban.”
So we can pat ourselves on the back because in 9 years we have managed to replace one group of thugs with another.
The story of the war in Iraq is even worse.
The war in Iraq was begun in March 2003. President Bush repeatedly asserted that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, even though the UN inspectors said they could not find any evidence of such weapons. As humanists we are big on evidence. But even though there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, some of the supporters of this war were people who call themselves humanists. The reason for this support was obviously not evidence, but fear. This preemptive strike was a strike based on an emotional justification, not a reasoned justification.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, to rid the country of Saddam Hussein and his two sons (a total of three people), has been the cause of over one million Iraqi deaths , and countless who have been maimed, traumatized, displaced, shell shocked, and forced to live in desperate conditions around the world.
As the war raged on and the death toll rose, and as weapons of mass destruction were not found, President Bush and all those who supported this invasion made up other reasons to justify this war, reasons that fit the myth of “spreading” democracy and human rights, to those uncivilized others, the Arabs and the Muslims.
Women and minority groups who were said to have been repressed by Saddam Hussein and who were also used as justification for the invasion, have now lost virtually all of their rights.
Some claim one of the benefits of this invasion is a democratically elected Iraqi government. But this so-called democratically elected government was elected in an atmosphere of fear, violence, and intimidation.
Let me switch gears here.
People like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi have moved mountains through peaceful means. The changes they have brought about are long lasting. Our Humanist Manifesto captures their deeds with the following words: “Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence.”
Neither the war in Afghanistan nor in Iraq has brought about a change that can be considered long lasting or for the good of humanity. Neither war has been based on reason or evidence; both have been justified by pure emotion – vengeance and fear.
King and Gandhi fought with nonviolent means, and they won. They brought about changes that improved the human condition. Compare that with the outcome of the violent, deadly and costly wars we have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although these wars have significantly improved the profits for corporations involved in the military industrial complex, they have not improved the overall human condition.
Unfortunately, I have observed that there are people who hold their belief system dearer than the lives of other people, and would kill people to defend their belief. Our humanist belief system, at its core, is fundamentally about appreciation of human life. It is therefore an absolute contradiction to kill human beings to further such a belief system. In other words, you cannot kill to further humanism.
As an ethnic Armenian, I have inherited a painful history. The Armenian Genocide, which historians call the first genocide of the 20th century, was not something that I experienced, but my grandparents did. Even so, after two generations, I find it difficult to talk about it or to look at photographs of the dead bodies of Armenian men, women, and children without feeling pain. Pain is passed along from generation to generation.
What we have done in Iraq and in Afghanistan will leave a painful legacy that will be suffered for generations to come. The grandchildren of survivors will look back and feel the pain that we, the United States, caused them. They will not forget or forgive us for what we have done.
I was born in the Middle East. I would say that I look like a typical person from the Middle East. I could pass for a person from Afghanistan or Iraq; I could pass for an Arab or a Jew from the Middle East. When I look at those people in Iraq or Afghanistan, or Palestine or Israel, when I see their photos, I think of my parents, my relatives, my cousins, my siblings; I think of them as me.
I feel for their loss as I would feel for the loss of someone who was part of my family. They are not faceless or voiceless for me.
I have two boys who are not too far off in age than the average American soldier who has been either killed or maimed for life in these wars. Our soldiers or their families are not faceless or voiceless for me.
As a humanist, I see all people on this planet as part of one gigantic family. I don’t see their lives as something that I can casually dispense with for any end.
Those who defend these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq often gloss over the lives of people who have been killed, as if they are disposable. In conversations you sometimes hear people say something like, “the deaths toll can’t be ignored, BUT, Saddam was a bad guy who killed people.” There is always the BUT, to justify the deaths of people.
Sometimes they call the killing of civilians “collateral damage”. These deaths are spoken of almost as a side issue, and often not tracked or reported. They are deemed as necessary to achieve an uncertain end.
I could have been born in Iraq or Afghanistan. Life’s circumstances could have dictated that I remained there. I could have been declared collateral damage by those who justify killing civilians in the name of liberating them. I could have been one of the women who is displaced because her home was destroyed, or her spouse and children were maimed and killed. My kids could have been those kids who saw their parents killed right in front of their eyes.
As human beings, we are limited in our ability to imagine the pain of other people. If we are not connected to the pain we cause, we can become good at inflicting pain. If all we see are images that appear like fireworks on TV when our air power is attacking Iraq at night, or dust rising in the distance from our bombs, we don’t feel the pain of those who are maimed, killed, and suffer as a result of our attacks.
As an American and a person who has her roots in the Middle East, I am deeply disturbed to see human beings killed in countries of this region funded by our tax dollars, cheered on by those who support wars, under the guise of defending human rights.
And now to close: As humanists we should remember that deeply held beliefs make it easy to accept the absurd. It can create hubris. Propaganda such as “we are going to war to liberate people” or “we are bringing democracy to people” or “we are protecting America” are the new myths that have replaced the older ones that said “we are bringing civilization and Christianity to the native Americans, or the Mexicans.”
As humanists, we should be able to differentiate between propaganda and facts: War is violence and violence does not bring about security.
As humanists, we should not outsource our moral responsibility; we should seek out those who present pseudo-rational arguments in favor of war and expose them for their lack of reasoning and lack of compassion.
There are numerous possibilities between the extremes of all out war on one hand and appeasement on the other. It is our lack of imagination and our failure to envision other possibilities that limits our options to these two extremes.
Just envision what real diplomacy could do.
Conflict is natural. Conflict resolution is natural. But war is not conflict resolution. Just imagine what a humanistic foreign policy could do.
From a humanist point of view, war is a human catastrophe. As Humanists, we should advocate diplomacy to prevent situations that ultimately lead to wars and to identify solutions that would pave the path for peaceful alternatives to war.
Lastly, one cannot be a humanist and advocate militarism.
_____________________________________________________________
Armineh Noravian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Humanist Community in Silicon Valley between 2007-2010, where she served as Vice President in 2008 and President in 2009 and 2010. She was also President of the Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and state from 2005-2006, and a member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU, Santa Clara Valley chapter from 2006-2008. She holds a M.S. in Engineering and a M.A. in Applied Anthropology (cultural).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)