I'm poring through a friend's report on the nature of emotion, and hopefully whether and in what ways emotions should be involved in legal decisions. This is a store for my comments:
It seems that Solomon, Taylor, Nussbaum and Greenspan need to learn some evolutionary psychology. Biologists can sometimes offer some help when considering the nature of cognition. Emotions are indeed a judgement (well done, Solomon!): they are a short-cut that allow us to make good decisions most of the time without complex analysis. They are not that complex analysis done at a subconsious level, and nor are they always correct. Our brains are compartmentalised, such that many reflexes and responses we have are uncontrollable, and the response to a snake, for example, that is behind glass, remains even when we know where it is. Thankfully we are able to give conscious judgement priority, and deliberately ignore the snake because we know better. I would argue that complex analysis is always better than emotional 'analysis', which has evolved precisely to be a short-cut, and that therefore emotions have no place in law as long as we afre able to think.
This understanding of unconscious judgement that is separate from conscious thought and judgement neatly addresses the philosophical debate that my friend summarises.
We rapidly move on to subconscious emotions, as distinguished from 'emotional episodes', which are emotions of which we are consciously aware. I regard an 'unconscious emotion' as an oxymoron. Long-lasting changes in priority are merely that; character traits, and not emotions. While we're looking at definitions, I'm happy to go along with the distinction between emotions and feelings that emotions have an object, but feelings are more akin to moods, in that they're diffuse and untargeted. I am glad to say that I am not much of a sufferer from the disease of feelings, and that I also don't suffer from having feelings caused by emotions. The idea of emotions spilling out beyond their targets is a rather revolting one.
However, emotions and feelings share an affective element ('affect' being a third term that in more general usage means the same thing as emotion or feeling), in that they are feelings rather than thoughts. Of course, having already defined 'feelings' as something specific (diffuse, untargeted emotions), I need a new word for the 'having the character of a feeling or emotion'. Perhaps I should stick with emotion continuing as targeted feeling, feeling being a general term for emotions and moods, moods being diffuse feelings, and affect being the category for everything conscious that is not thought or perception.
My friend addresses the problem that in the case of grief, the emotion is not felt at the same intensity all the time (it fades), causing her to question whether affect is necessary in emotion. This is only a problem if we postulate subconscious emotions of which emotional episodes are merely upwellings. Otherwise the episodes are separate, and when no affective element is present it is no longer an emotion! The reason is as she says: one finds new emotional anchors and attachments in life, and so the absence of old ones is no longer the gaping wound it was.
Triggered by a sentence describing affect as part of the thought-content of emotions, rather than a separate element, I want to take a little detour. Firstly, emotions are not thoughts; we have seen that evolutionary and cognitive scientists can separate them. Emotions are not thoughts because they necessarily have an affective component: they are of the limbic system. Emotions mimic rational thought, but are distinctly in the 'affective' category of cognition. Without affect, there is no emotion, solely a reflex. When Darwin recoils from a snake strike he might feel emotional. When an unfortunate American who had a tumour in a certain part of his brain sees a snake striking at him he recoils despite being entirely unable to experience any affect whatsoever.
In the case is dispassionate emotion, I admit to having trouble understanding the point. If we can say that someone is angry with another when that someone feels nothing, then how exactly are we defining emotion? Emotions have become a diffuse concept that in this case are merely judgements. The ability to simulate anger because we know that it is appropriate does not mean that the emotion is there, but in a dispassionate form: it is a simulation. It is the same problem Plato has with his theory of forms: our minds do indeed categorise items as if there were a perfect example of each item (proven in cognitive tests), but just because we simulate a perfect form in our minds does not mean that such a thing really exists, or can exist.
In fact, my friend seems to get into problems precisely because of these few points:
1. A puzzlement regarding the notion of Solomon's 'judgements of the body', which is remarkably close to cognitive scientists' descriptions of compartmentalisation of the mind. Well done Solomon! Without compartmentalisation of processes, one can be swamped by problems of knowing that emotions represent judgements (heuristics), but not having a way to separate them from conscious judgement. Therefore one links them with conscious judgement, which conflicts with point 2:
2. An insistence on subconscious emotions, which leads her down problems of defining when and how emotions do and do not have affect, when affect is an intrinsic part of emotion. If emotions are subconscious, and necessarily judgements, then we have another contradiction.
Compartmentalisation is key to another argument she makes: that emotions and thought come simultaneously. She argues that the thoughts 'there is such a thing as a snake' must precede fear of a snake, and that therefore although we often do consciously notice our feelings before we rationalise them the two occur simultaneously. If one understands that the 'snake-recognition' part of the brain is separate from the brain of conscious, rational thought, then the overall emotion can be entirely separate from rational thought.
Do emotions focus one's rational thoughts on certain facts, or do they motivate us directly through discomfort? Personal reflection suggests the latter; my friend the former. She finds the idea of grief motivating us to wallow further unconvincing. I on the other hand do not assume it be normal function: it is better understand as the unusual result of an imperfect system, which normally motivates us to change things that discomfort us, but in this case discomforts us about something we cannot change. In so far as we can distinguish the two effects, I find that discomfort is first, and the focussing of thoughts a natural consequence of it.
If emotions seem especially effective at focussing the thoughts, it is probably more to do with the general human fallacy of ignoring contradictory evidence: of 'confirmation bias'. Humans want to do something through emotion, and confirm this course of action by focussing on reasons for, not against.
When considering the value of emotions, they can convince us of moral truth, but the decision that emotions act by focussing thought, rather than directly through affect, makes my friend overlook the explanation for the equally possible (and more usual, in modern society) problem that emotions convince us of moral falsehoods. This is because we actually focus our thoughts through confirmation bias. When seeking an objective truth, something that drags us from considering evidence solely on its merit, as subjective emotion does, is more likely to be a problem than a help.
Are emotions not only instrumentally valuable, but intrinsically valuable because they are constitutive of social relationships? I'd first point out that this assumes that social relationships are intrinsically valuable. Secondly, I don't think that emotions are essential to relationships. I have had Platonic relationships that are based on mutual understanding and discussion, not emotional reactions.
My friend brings up an interesting argument by Harry Frankfurt, that caring about something is investing in it (in the context of whether it can be appropriate or inappropriate to care about something). If you identify with something, then if it gets better or worse, so will you; you have made yourself vulnerable. This is interesting; it ties in nicely with what Epictetus has to say: 'no man can be free who is not master of himself'. If you rely on external things then you are not free. If Frankfurt is right, caring about things inversely correlates with being free.
It certainly throws a new light on 'romantic' relationships; one desires to enslave the other when one desires love in return. It rather supports my idea (summarised elsewhere) that jealousy and exclusivity are similar and unjustifiable things. People who assume that freedom and jealousy are right and proper are contradicting themselves. A woman (whom I had the misfortune to know closely) once desired love over and above kind, principled action. She wanted to be important to me and in control of me (the two being similar) not through Frankfurt's first possibility of being important whether or not I care, because of independent value; but through his second possibility of being important because I care. This slide into questions of importance also casts new light on people's desire to be special to a partner, rather than merely cared for. For many people, intrinsic to a good relationship is being the most important thing for the other person, not merely important. This raises issues of self-belief and how the possibility of actually being important is contrasted by people with the 'easy' route of simply being cared about as the most important.
I once knew another girl who became more important to me in both ways through her own action. Rather than requiring of me a change in emotion (the easy route) she herself acted to do nice things and help me, and I cared for her as a consequence.
I've mentioned this at least twice before, so let's move on to a related topic: of requirements to feel.
In the case of a conflict of two rights (as in Greek tragedy), when we choose one over another, is it appropriate to feel guilty? Philosophers seem to think so, but I find that strange. One can feel sorrow, but guilt is different. I'll ignore the suggestion that people don't exist but only actions as equivalent to the idea that this computer doesn't exist and only individual key presses.
Not feeling guilty after making a choice does not imply a refusal to focus one's attention on the wrongs of not choosing one case; or an ability to regard these facts with detachment. It implies a refusal to focus solely on on these facts, and an ability to focus on both sets of facts at the same time. Furthermore, both my friend and her source are rather pessimistic about human nature when they agree that humans cannot detach themselves for long periods of time. It is possible to ignore all urgings from emotions for lifetimes.
If one is required to feel an emotion, it is, in effect, a requirement not to think, since the complex analysis that is thought short-circuits the short-cut of emotional responses. Requirements of emotion are antithetical to the recognition of principles, rules or laws because these are rational, objective and consciously chosen. One holds principles with one's rational mind; requirements of emotion deny the value of those principles. So, for example, if a person claimed that I had not been wronged because I did not feel angry he would be wrong: injustice is determined by evaluations of principles and actions, not through consequences (Consequentialism being a failed and ridiculous doctrine).
I do agree that requiring emotions, when a person cannot control them, is a joke. For my friendm this needs distinction because I am using emotions to mean what she might define as '(affective) emotional episodes'. For me the two are the same.
We have some control over emotions, but really only over time. I would phrase it that we have control over our character, which determines our emotions, but no immediate or direct control over emotions themselves. We can induce feelings by recalling specific events and the related emotion, but cannot induce another emotion through the primitive magic of 'like induces like', just as rain dances do not cause rain.
And that, abruptly, is the end. Responding to other people directly, rather than in the form of an essay of my own, doesn't lead to carefully crafted, flowing prose.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Thursday, 10 March 2011
School letter
In the same issue of Private Eye there is a letter about comprehensive education which makes a case that is better than grammar schools.
1. Emmanuel, Cambridge, has the best results of the Cambridge colleges and the highest proportion of state-school students.
Something smells... my nose is detecting the whiff of cherry-picking! Why this fact? Why not Oxford? Why not an analysis of overall state-school student performnce? Surely the state-school children who get into an academic hothouse are likely to be as good as those from other backgrounds? In fact, might we not acknowledge that those who overcome adversity, in the form of state education, to be selected for one of the best places on the world, are likely to go on to do better than those who have faced less adversity and achieved the same thing?
Surely we can explain these results by saying that state education is worse?
2. The Sutton Trust has found that students from comprehensive schools do better at Russell Group universities than students from elsewhere, including grammar schools.
This is the same argument, but slightly better: it's been broadened to look more like a sound analysis of an overall effect, rather than a tiny little piece of the whole, that doesn't reflect any sort of overall picture. I'd still be suspicious of someone who thought point 1 worth making though. This point is still not comprehensive enough, however. My previous answer still applies: it could be that the students were so good that they triumphed despite state education, and therefore do better than those who achieved to the same level with better education. Therefore private education is better because it allows 'worse' students to achieve the same results.
These students are at the upper end of the distribution. Unless we can be sure that we have the same segment of the distribution then we can't reliably compare achievement levels and ascribe it to education rather than naturally different ability. Given the vast differences in resources available, and teaching ability, it is more natural to conclude that there are differences in ability independent of the teaching, rather than that having worse funding makes students do better.
3. Countries at the top in the 'Programme of International Student Assessment' have all their children go to state schools.
What about countries at the bottom? What's the distribution? This doesn't even show that there's a clear correlation between state schools and attainment, even before we start to ascertain whether such a correlation is actually the causation he proposes.
This is before we start to assess different types of state education. When he says that these countries all use comprehensive schools, does he mean that none of them uses streaming, setting or other forms of selection to differentiate students by merit?
If these state schools actually do involve selection then they're not like the ideal of comprehensives as currently propounded by politicians, which is that everyone should be thrown in together and hopefully some scum will rise to the top. Is the most important feature of the Chinese attainment the state control, or is it rigid discipline, motivated parents and long hours?
This leads nicely onto the final point, which is that achievement in exams does not predict future success. The ability to find the one right answer in a prepared question does not translate very well into the ability to find good jobs, solve problems and discover one (and preferably the best) of many answers to a question.
Because it's not worth a separate post, I'll also point out that when the Eye mocked the police because an officer tried to infiltrate a peaceful and tiny village campaign group. It might well have been clear to the police that this was a peaceful group, but their undercover operatives need a background in low-level campigning before they're likely to get the trust of more militant people.
1. Emmanuel, Cambridge, has the best results of the Cambridge colleges and the highest proportion of state-school students.
Something smells... my nose is detecting the whiff of cherry-picking! Why this fact? Why not Oxford? Why not an analysis of overall state-school student performnce? Surely the state-school children who get into an academic hothouse are likely to be as good as those from other backgrounds? In fact, might we not acknowledge that those who overcome adversity, in the form of state education, to be selected for one of the best places on the world, are likely to go on to do better than those who have faced less adversity and achieved the same thing?
Surely we can explain these results by saying that state education is worse?
2. The Sutton Trust has found that students from comprehensive schools do better at Russell Group universities than students from elsewhere, including grammar schools.
This is the same argument, but slightly better: it's been broadened to look more like a sound analysis of an overall effect, rather than a tiny little piece of the whole, that doesn't reflect any sort of overall picture. I'd still be suspicious of someone who thought point 1 worth making though. This point is still not comprehensive enough, however. My previous answer still applies: it could be that the students were so good that they triumphed despite state education, and therefore do better than those who achieved to the same level with better education. Therefore private education is better because it allows 'worse' students to achieve the same results.
These students are at the upper end of the distribution. Unless we can be sure that we have the same segment of the distribution then we can't reliably compare achievement levels and ascribe it to education rather than naturally different ability. Given the vast differences in resources available, and teaching ability, it is more natural to conclude that there are differences in ability independent of the teaching, rather than that having worse funding makes students do better.
3. Countries at the top in the 'Programme of International Student Assessment' have all their children go to state schools.
What about countries at the bottom? What's the distribution? This doesn't even show that there's a clear correlation between state schools and attainment, even before we start to ascertain whether such a correlation is actually the causation he proposes.
This is before we start to assess different types of state education. When he says that these countries all use comprehensive schools, does he mean that none of them uses streaming, setting or other forms of selection to differentiate students by merit?
If these state schools actually do involve selection then they're not like the ideal of comprehensives as currently propounded by politicians, which is that everyone should be thrown in together and hopefully some scum will rise to the top. Is the most important feature of the Chinese attainment the state control, or is it rigid discipline, motivated parents and long hours?
This leads nicely onto the final point, which is that achievement in exams does not predict future success. The ability to find the one right answer in a prepared question does not translate very well into the ability to find good jobs, solve problems and discover one (and preferably the best) of many answers to a question.
Because it's not worth a separate post, I'll also point out that when the Eye mocked the police because an officer tried to infiltrate a peaceful and tiny village campaign group. It might well have been clear to the police that this was a peaceful group, but their undercover operatives need a background in low-level campigning before they're likely to get the trust of more militant people.
Objectification of women
I was, as always, entertained by the latest Private Eye. One of the letters struck me, though, complaining that The Eye should attack live objectification of women, just as it does televised pornography from Richard Desmond.
I've seen these attacks, and mostly they're about Desmond's hypocrisy, not solely because he's a pornographer: they contrast the prurient 'family values' that his publications support with the pornography he also broadcasts. But that's a different subject.
What I object to is that the letter writer regards the sexual objectification of women to be intrinsically wrong, such that linking an activity to it makes that activity worthy of being banned. She has a go at Private Eye for talking about loss of revenue and local economics, comparing pornography to 'the brutal mass rape and murder or women as a means to controlling [sic] the coltan trade'.
If women are co-erced into working in, and then voicing support for, the sex industry, whilst feeling exploited and trapped, it is the co-ercion that is the problem. On the subject of exploitation, however, I have to disagree that there is anything special about it: I am exploited, as is everyone in western/capitalist society, because I need to work in order to earn money. If I earn too little, then it is better for me to be part of a regulated and legal industry where I have options available to me to seek more money for my work. Opposing the industry so that I either can not get this work, or must work illegally, will not help me.
Exploitation is a separate issue from one of working. Anyone can be exploited in any job, and can feel exploited in any job. If a woman values her bodily privacy as worth more than she gets paid in the sex industry then as long as she is not forced to work there, then there is no exploitation.
Secondly, there is the myth of exploitation in the sex industry being based on need. This is the argument that I have already addressed by pointing out the nature of life and capitalism. We all need food, drink and shelter to survive, and we need to work to get these things. Work is forced apon us. That a woman is able to choose to sell her body is a benefit, not a problem: it is one more means to support herself. If a person can either starve or sell her body then she is not being coerced by anyone: there is no wrong being done to her by her customers. In so far as she is being coerced at all, it is by life, just as we all are. A man in that same situation (starve or sell his body) would starve because no-one would buy his body. If anything, that sort of sex industry is an example of life favouring women. but I think it is just an example of the force that compels everyone, man and woman, to find some means of support.
The next argument is that normalisation of the sex industry is cited by women as the reason that they can't become fully equal with men at work. This is well dealt with in research showing that sex is not one of the important factors in determining income, and that if it does, women earn more!
http://www.warrenfarrell.com/pages.php?id=39
http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=1834
Perhaps we shouldn't assume that the workers we interview are omniscient and that what they say is a barrier is really the only hurdle?
But let's move on. Finally the writer says that it's an issue of how we choose to portray and promote sexuality for all. I find this statement genuinely offensive. The writer is implying that we should tell people like me that their attraction for attractive women is dirty and wrong, and we should instead promote her (presumably) ideal of sexual relationship. I can't help but wonder who decided that my desires are filthy and perverted, but that hers are pure and wonderful? If we're going to change how we portray and promote sexuality, it should be to a system that allows people choice, not a system that promotes any one version.
I find the objectification of men despicable. The idea that one can and should muddy something as pure as sex with something as stifling as romance is a nasty one. Sex is no more intrinsically linked to deep, lasting, exclusive emotional attachment than it is to underpaid work. Men are routinely objectified as suppliers of money, comfort, stability, support or romance. It is even customary for magazines and women to talk of getting what you want from a man by withholding or offering sex. That sounds much worse than the open and honest process of directly paying someone for something you want and he (or she, in the case of the sex industry) has. Manipulation is exactly the same only without even any pretence of consent from the other party, and is therefore worse.
[I can imagine a situation in which a woman is forced to do the bidding of a man who then sells her as a prostitute. I think that this is better addressed as slavery, rather than a perfect example of how the sex industry must necessarily be]
Along the same lines, a far greater evil than pornography are romances. Pornography portrays and unrealistic world in which women behave just as men would like them to behave, desire what men wish they'd desire (and what men themselves desire: unrestricted sexual gratification) and on which no other aspect of the drudgery of real life impinges. Romances portray an unrealistic world in which [the important] men behave just as women would like them to behave, desire what women wish they'd desire (deep, committed and exclusive emotional attachment) and on which few aspects of the drudgery of real life impinge.
Romances seem a little better, since they do include 'nasty' men and some nasty aspects of real life. This is necessary for the hero to rescue the heroine from them. Romances however suffer from the additional problems of pretending to be realistic and actually distorting people's expectations (I have encountered many women hoping to be a heroine of a romantic story, but no man who seriously expected to experience a situation from a porn film without paying for it). Given the similarities, it is shocking that I am the only person I have ever known to criticise romances, but there are vast numbers of people who despise pornography for its supposed effects on how men treat women (which have repeatedly failed to be shown in studies).
If we're examining sex discrimination, I will also mention the disturbing portrayal in many films, programmes and advertisements of men as bumbling clowns incapable of arranging anything but a piss-up, and women as clever beacons of enlightenment and perfection. A photo of a pretty model says nothing about her character. It does not say that she is worthless apart from her looks; it takes her looks and leaves the rest unsaid. Similarly, pornography takes attractive women and sells their looks, leaving the rest of the women uncharacterised. Only when it comes to men do we have media portrayals that are typically negative, rather than merely silent.
'postscript':
What I have to say about this is probably echoed in a debate that I haven't yet watched here:
https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=4143
I could also point out that this is a nice example of when 'do as you would be done by' really does not work. I would not mind being sexually objectified by strangers (or even sometimes by friends). Women (stereotypically/ as a trend) do not mind someone lusting after a deep and exclusive emotional connection with them. But it turns out that some women get offended if they're lusted after exclusively sexually, and some men, such as myself, object to being lusted after for exclusivity.
I've seen these attacks, and mostly they're about Desmond's hypocrisy, not solely because he's a pornographer: they contrast the prurient 'family values' that his publications support with the pornography he also broadcasts. But that's a different subject.
What I object to is that the letter writer regards the sexual objectification of women to be intrinsically wrong, such that linking an activity to it makes that activity worthy of being banned. She has a go at Private Eye for talking about loss of revenue and local economics, comparing pornography to 'the brutal mass rape and murder or women as a means to controlling [sic] the coltan trade'.
If women are co-erced into working in, and then voicing support for, the sex industry, whilst feeling exploited and trapped, it is the co-ercion that is the problem. On the subject of exploitation, however, I have to disagree that there is anything special about it: I am exploited, as is everyone in western/capitalist society, because I need to work in order to earn money. If I earn too little, then it is better for me to be part of a regulated and legal industry where I have options available to me to seek more money for my work. Opposing the industry so that I either can not get this work, or must work illegally, will not help me.
Exploitation is a separate issue from one of working. Anyone can be exploited in any job, and can feel exploited in any job. If a woman values her bodily privacy as worth more than she gets paid in the sex industry then as long as she is not forced to work there, then there is no exploitation.
Secondly, there is the myth of exploitation in the sex industry being based on need. This is the argument that I have already addressed by pointing out the nature of life and capitalism. We all need food, drink and shelter to survive, and we need to work to get these things. Work is forced apon us. That a woman is able to choose to sell her body is a benefit, not a problem: it is one more means to support herself. If a person can either starve or sell her body then she is not being coerced by anyone: there is no wrong being done to her by her customers. In so far as she is being coerced at all, it is by life, just as we all are. A man in that same situation (starve or sell his body) would starve because no-one would buy his body. If anything, that sort of sex industry is an example of life favouring women. but I think it is just an example of the force that compels everyone, man and woman, to find some means of support.
The next argument is that normalisation of the sex industry is cited by women as the reason that they can't become fully equal with men at work. This is well dealt with in research showing that sex is not one of the important factors in determining income, and that if it does, women earn more!
http://www.warrenfarrell.com/pages.php?id=39
http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=1834
Perhaps we shouldn't assume that the workers we interview are omniscient and that what they say is a barrier is really the only hurdle?
But let's move on. Finally the writer says that it's an issue of how we choose to portray and promote sexuality for all. I find this statement genuinely offensive. The writer is implying that we should tell people like me that their attraction for attractive women is dirty and wrong, and we should instead promote her (presumably) ideal of sexual relationship. I can't help but wonder who decided that my desires are filthy and perverted, but that hers are pure and wonderful? If we're going to change how we portray and promote sexuality, it should be to a system that allows people choice, not a system that promotes any one version.
I find the objectification of men despicable. The idea that one can and should muddy something as pure as sex with something as stifling as romance is a nasty one. Sex is no more intrinsically linked to deep, lasting, exclusive emotional attachment than it is to underpaid work. Men are routinely objectified as suppliers of money, comfort, stability, support or romance. It is even customary for magazines and women to talk of getting what you want from a man by withholding or offering sex. That sounds much worse than the open and honest process of directly paying someone for something you want and he (or she, in the case of the sex industry) has. Manipulation is exactly the same only without even any pretence of consent from the other party, and is therefore worse.
[I can imagine a situation in which a woman is forced to do the bidding of a man who then sells her as a prostitute. I think that this is better addressed as slavery, rather than a perfect example of how the sex industry must necessarily be]
Along the same lines, a far greater evil than pornography are romances. Pornography portrays and unrealistic world in which women behave just as men would like them to behave, desire what men wish they'd desire (and what men themselves desire: unrestricted sexual gratification) and on which no other aspect of the drudgery of real life impinges. Romances portray an unrealistic world in which [the important] men behave just as women would like them to behave, desire what women wish they'd desire (deep, committed and exclusive emotional attachment) and on which few aspects of the drudgery of real life impinge.
Romances seem a little better, since they do include 'nasty' men and some nasty aspects of real life. This is necessary for the hero to rescue the heroine from them. Romances however suffer from the additional problems of pretending to be realistic and actually distorting people's expectations (I have encountered many women hoping to be a heroine of a romantic story, but no man who seriously expected to experience a situation from a porn film without paying for it). Given the similarities, it is shocking that I am the only person I have ever known to criticise romances, but there are vast numbers of people who despise pornography for its supposed effects on how men treat women (which have repeatedly failed to be shown in studies).
If we're examining sex discrimination, I will also mention the disturbing portrayal in many films, programmes and advertisements of men as bumbling clowns incapable of arranging anything but a piss-up, and women as clever beacons of enlightenment and perfection. A photo of a pretty model says nothing about her character. It does not say that she is worthless apart from her looks; it takes her looks and leaves the rest unsaid. Similarly, pornography takes attractive women and sells their looks, leaving the rest of the women uncharacterised. Only when it comes to men do we have media portrayals that are typically negative, rather than merely silent.
'postscript':
What I have to say about this is probably echoed in a debate that I haven't yet watched here:
https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=4143
I could also point out that this is a nice example of when 'do as you would be done by' really does not work. I would not mind being sexually objectified by strangers (or even sometimes by friends). Women (stereotypically/ as a trend) do not mind someone lusting after a deep and exclusive emotional connection with them. But it turns out that some women get offended if they're lusted after exclusively sexually, and some men, such as myself, object to being lusted after for exclusivity.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
'David Cameron's governing Conservative Party is a big fan of faith schools. He wants more of them, and he's changing the law to make it easier for faith schools to be set up in this country. Faith schools, especially in rough inner cities, where comprehensive education is hit-or-miss at best, are far and away the best way for poor children to get a good education, and offer an excellent path to university and success in life. They consistently rank among the best in whatever region they operate in, and parents jump through all sorts of hoops to get their children into faith schools. This is true of faith schools of all faiths: Church of England, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish -- they all provide a consistently and substantially higher standard of education than comprehensive schools in the same area, producing students with consistently and substantially better results at GCSE and A-levels. The overwhelming majority of faith schools are Christian.
I believe that parents have the right to decide how their children are brought up. Their education is part of that, and if a parent wants to teach his kid to be a Christian, he's going to do that irrespective of whether the kid goes to a Christian school or a state comprehensive.Faith schools clearly deliver the goods, so I find arguments against faith schools existing at all rather arrogant. It would be great if we could throw money at comprehensive schools and attract the kind of staff that magically makes faith schools better, but we've been doing that since 1997, and it hasn't worked. To me, faith schools offer a cheap way of raising educational standards in this country.'
I saw this, and thought it deserved a considered reply.
If faith schools are better, and I'm not willing to believe that outright, then are we sure that it's due to faith? That'd be an astounding claim: that religious belief itself makes you more intelligent. It would lead us to ask why such a huge proportion of top academics are atheists or agnostics. Certainly the evidence suggests that more academically successful people have less religion than the rest of the population.
I have no problem with selective state schools pursuing higher standards than comprehensives can or do. I would fully support a grammar school system.
I do not support a system in which good education goes mostly with religious indoctrination and parents. I can't think of a good reason why it would be faith, rather than independence and selectivity, that makes faith schools better. Since faith is not something that we ought to allow children to be taught or told to have or mimic, we should cut the 'faith' part out of faith schools, but keep the rest. The most likely reasons for faith schools being better include determined parents (children who attend tend to have pushier parents who get their children into selective schools); better funding and more resources (from the religion in question); independence (so that teachers are better able to respond to context-dependent situations and manage the school and classes as needed); selectivity (of the school selecting good pupils, as well as, as mentioned, better pupils selecting the school); and teaching quality (teachers might be better motivated when teaching pupils in an environment and culture that they feel more comfortable with, and when they therefore feel closer to the pupils).
I am not keen to forgo good results just because of an emnity for the sloppiness of thought and indoctrination that are religious education.
I take the opposite attitude to that described, though, in that I don't see why we should give faith schools a chance just because they're faith schools. We know that faith schools have many factors that we know lead to better results. Why should we support the introduction of something that is either neutral or harmful to education (i.e faith) before we're sure that it's worthwhile? Why do we not simply have independent, selective state schools?
Any school run independently by a private organisation is likely to tilt towards bias in some aspect of education: that's why the private organisation wants to teach children! The government has no place in promoting faith as a reasonable bias over political or economic beliefs. If there were a Labour school and a Conservative school each would be the focus of vicious condemnation from the other party and the media. Faith schools are no different: they are set up with the specific purpose of teaching children what to think.
It doesn't matter if we regard that 'what' as harmless to good results. Schools should not be teaching what to think: they should be teaching how to think, and facts to consider in those thoughts. It is possible for indoctrination schools to teach critical thinking whilst also promoting its absence in one field, but the overwhelming incentive is not to do so, because those two lessons directly conflict. We therefore need to regulate such schools very carefully, if we allow them at all.
There's a fine line between the secular ideal of allowing religion to be a personal, private thing and allowing due expression of beliefs, and preventing children (who are especially vulnerable) from questioning and thinking about a dominant and culturally imposed regime.
A perfect faith school would be run according to that religion's tenets: children would be allowed to avoid mixing their fabrics, not go on school trips on Sundays or whatever they chose, and school activities planned around such requirements, but children would not be taught that these values are anything special. They would be taught critical analysis of faith and religion just as they should be. Thus the school would be particularly compatible with the religion, but no more.
That sort of school is unlikely to happen. Faiths want to run schools specifically to overstep the boundaries of secularism. We need to decide whether secularism is more important than the little extra funding or organisation a faith brings to a school. Given that we can explain faith schools' performance without invoking their faith, it seems silly to make faith an important feature of good schools.
This touches on the previous dissection of secularism. Here I have neatly defined it in an educational context as being taught how to think, not what to think. As it happens, little teaching of how to think occurs at any school nowadays, so we're talking in ideals already. Nonetheless, moving in the wrong direction in pursuit of exam results is hardly sensible. We can certainly question the importance of exam results as a test of anything useful or as indicators of later success, as sir Ken Robinson has done when analysing education, and others have done when considering social background and its importance.
Beyond that, we need to ask whether this improvement in performance in pointless and irrelevant testing is worth the burden it will bring: of indoctrination of children into beliefs that they have not been equipped to assess. That faiths wish to run schools is evidence enough that indoctrination works. Many people have observed, in aphorisms and academic papers, that children are vulnerable to indoctrination. We need to protect children until they are adults and ready to cope with such things, not sacrifice their freedom to decide their own goals, desires and ambitions on the altar of exam results and parental freedom.
School is the only access the state has to children, given the way we raise children in nuclear families, and so it is necessarily the place in which we can protect them and equip them to protect themselves. Until we discard the isolated, nuclear family as a way of raising children we must use school as a wedge to insert or help germinate the seeds of rationality in children whose parents are abusive and stifle their intellectual growth. We should not cave in to parental demand and extend their abuse and power over their children to state institutions, or allow replacements of them. If we are to accept secularism, we must ensure that religion truly is a private and personal thing, and is not taught in schools. If we do not accept secularism, then this should be made clear: that we are a theocracy or an anarchy of rival and incompatible attitudes.
Finally, I have already implicitly expressed my disregard for 'parents' rights' over their children. Children are independent beings, vulnerable, and therefore in need of extra protection from the state. If we do not allow husbands' rights over their wives, nor owners' rights over their slaves, then why the rights of parents to dictate the lives of the children they own? Someone who believes that parents have a right to decide how their children are brought up, to the extent that this conflicts with individual autonomy and freedom, is espousing the same principles that justify any sort of subjugation and slavery. If we cannot trust individuals to do what is best for their wives, but recognise wives' rights to decide for themselves, why should we trust individuals to decide for their children? Of course, children are vulnerable and still learning, so the state must help them learn to decide for themselves and help them decide for themselves. Supporting indoctrination is not compatible with this aim.
Research into faith schools can be found here:
http://accordcoalition.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/Databank-of-Independent-Evidence-on-Faith-Schools-updated-May-2010.pdf
I believe that parents have the right to decide how their children are brought up. Their education is part of that, and if a parent wants to teach his kid to be a Christian, he's going to do that irrespective of whether the kid goes to a Christian school or a state comprehensive.Faith schools clearly deliver the goods, so I find arguments against faith schools existing at all rather arrogant. It would be great if we could throw money at comprehensive schools and attract the kind of staff that magically makes faith schools better, but we've been doing that since 1997, and it hasn't worked. To me, faith schools offer a cheap way of raising educational standards in this country.'
I saw this, and thought it deserved a considered reply.
If faith schools are better, and I'm not willing to believe that outright, then are we sure that it's due to faith? That'd be an astounding claim: that religious belief itself makes you more intelligent. It would lead us to ask why such a huge proportion of top academics are atheists or agnostics. Certainly the evidence suggests that more academically successful people have less religion than the rest of the population.
I have no problem with selective state schools pursuing higher standards than comprehensives can or do. I would fully support a grammar school system.
I do not support a system in which good education goes mostly with religious indoctrination and parents. I can't think of a good reason why it would be faith, rather than independence and selectivity, that makes faith schools better. Since faith is not something that we ought to allow children to be taught or told to have or mimic, we should cut the 'faith' part out of faith schools, but keep the rest. The most likely reasons for faith schools being better include determined parents (children who attend tend to have pushier parents who get their children into selective schools); better funding and more resources (from the religion in question); independence (so that teachers are better able to respond to context-dependent situations and manage the school and classes as needed); selectivity (of the school selecting good pupils, as well as, as mentioned, better pupils selecting the school); and teaching quality (teachers might be better motivated when teaching pupils in an environment and culture that they feel more comfortable with, and when they therefore feel closer to the pupils).
I am not keen to forgo good results just because of an emnity for the sloppiness of thought and indoctrination that are religious education.
I take the opposite attitude to that described, though, in that I don't see why we should give faith schools a chance just because they're faith schools. We know that faith schools have many factors that we know lead to better results. Why should we support the introduction of something that is either neutral or harmful to education (i.e faith) before we're sure that it's worthwhile? Why do we not simply have independent, selective state schools?
Any school run independently by a private organisation is likely to tilt towards bias in some aspect of education: that's why the private organisation wants to teach children! The government has no place in promoting faith as a reasonable bias over political or economic beliefs. If there were a Labour school and a Conservative school each would be the focus of vicious condemnation from the other party and the media. Faith schools are no different: they are set up with the specific purpose of teaching children what to think.
It doesn't matter if we regard that 'what' as harmless to good results. Schools should not be teaching what to think: they should be teaching how to think, and facts to consider in those thoughts. It is possible for indoctrination schools to teach critical thinking whilst also promoting its absence in one field, but the overwhelming incentive is not to do so, because those two lessons directly conflict. We therefore need to regulate such schools very carefully, if we allow them at all.
There's a fine line between the secular ideal of allowing religion to be a personal, private thing and allowing due expression of beliefs, and preventing children (who are especially vulnerable) from questioning and thinking about a dominant and culturally imposed regime.
A perfect faith school would be run according to that religion's tenets: children would be allowed to avoid mixing their fabrics, not go on school trips on Sundays or whatever they chose, and school activities planned around such requirements, but children would not be taught that these values are anything special. They would be taught critical analysis of faith and religion just as they should be. Thus the school would be particularly compatible with the religion, but no more.
That sort of school is unlikely to happen. Faiths want to run schools specifically to overstep the boundaries of secularism. We need to decide whether secularism is more important than the little extra funding or organisation a faith brings to a school. Given that we can explain faith schools' performance without invoking their faith, it seems silly to make faith an important feature of good schools.
This touches on the previous dissection of secularism. Here I have neatly defined it in an educational context as being taught how to think, not what to think. As it happens, little teaching of how to think occurs at any school nowadays, so we're talking in ideals already. Nonetheless, moving in the wrong direction in pursuit of exam results is hardly sensible. We can certainly question the importance of exam results as a test of anything useful or as indicators of later success, as sir Ken Robinson has done when analysing education, and others have done when considering social background and its importance.
Beyond that, we need to ask whether this improvement in performance in pointless and irrelevant testing is worth the burden it will bring: of indoctrination of children into beliefs that they have not been equipped to assess. That faiths wish to run schools is evidence enough that indoctrination works. Many people have observed, in aphorisms and academic papers, that children are vulnerable to indoctrination. We need to protect children until they are adults and ready to cope with such things, not sacrifice their freedom to decide their own goals, desires and ambitions on the altar of exam results and parental freedom.
School is the only access the state has to children, given the way we raise children in nuclear families, and so it is necessarily the place in which we can protect them and equip them to protect themselves. Until we discard the isolated, nuclear family as a way of raising children we must use school as a wedge to insert or help germinate the seeds of rationality in children whose parents are abusive and stifle their intellectual growth. We should not cave in to parental demand and extend their abuse and power over their children to state institutions, or allow replacements of them. If we are to accept secularism, we must ensure that religion truly is a private and personal thing, and is not taught in schools. If we do not accept secularism, then this should be made clear: that we are a theocracy or an anarchy of rival and incompatible attitudes.
Finally, I have already implicitly expressed my disregard for 'parents' rights' over their children. Children are independent beings, vulnerable, and therefore in need of extra protection from the state. If we do not allow husbands' rights over their wives, nor owners' rights over their slaves, then why the rights of parents to dictate the lives of the children they own? Someone who believes that parents have a right to decide how their children are brought up, to the extent that this conflicts with individual autonomy and freedom, is espousing the same principles that justify any sort of subjugation and slavery. If we cannot trust individuals to do what is best for their wives, but recognise wives' rights to decide for themselves, why should we trust individuals to decide for their children? Of course, children are vulnerable and still learning, so the state must help them learn to decide for themselves and help them decide for themselves. Supporting indoctrination is not compatible with this aim.
Research into faith schools can be found here:
http://accordcoalition.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/Databank-of-Independent-Evidence-on-Faith-Schools-updated-May-2010.pdf
Secularism
I was fortunate to attend yesterday a Lee Lecture in Examination Schools by Wendy Brown, entitled
'Civilizational Delusions: Equality, Secularism, Tolerance'.
I can summarise this talk as suggesting that secularism views itself as separate from cultures, but that actually it's just another culture. Professor Brown didn't go so far as to invoke cultural relativism (she specifically stated that she wasn't going for the 'bogeyman of moral [sic] relativism'), leaving possible solutions to her 'analysis' unaddressed.
She identified five assumptions of secularism that she disproved.
1. Secularism generates a religiously neutral state
2. Secularism is equally available to all religions
3. Tolerance is a practice of mutual respect
4. Secular regimes are culturally neutral
5. Secularism leads to women's freedom and equality
Her derivation of western secularism, that requires a personal and private religion, and personal relationship with God, from Protestantism, was interesting and believable. But just because secularism and protestantism are compatible, and the former grew from the latter, does not mean that secularism is necessarily based on protestantism. This point is crucial.
That secularism is not religiously neutral because some religions are more compatible with secularism than others is not necessarily true: it takes a consequentialist understanding of neutrality to get to that conclusion. My opinions on consequentialism can be found elsewhere; I find it ridiculous and unjustifiable to make moral judgements on the basis of consequences. Secularism can be called neutral, despite being more compatible with some religions than others, because its precepts can be derived without needing to adjust them to give bias towards or against certain cultural or religious attitudes. That, once derived, secular precepts might be more compatible with some beliefs than with others, does not mean that secularism is somehow not neutral after all.
In describing her second point, she mentioned that secularism is purported not to transform religions, but defines public and collective expressions of religion as zealotry: improperly tamed, excessive and pre-modern. I agree with her that secularism is not equally available to all religions: I disagree that this is a common assumption about secularism, or a necessary one. It is verging on a straw man argument, as any attempt to describe a broad and vaguely defined ideal (or deliberately undefined, in her case) will be.
She had some interesting things to say about tolerance: how it manages but naturalizes inequalities, normalizing the tolerators and their opinions and maintaining the excluded and different nature of the tolerated. She suggested that no definition of what to tolerate can be justified a priori (which says a lot about her opinion of secularism, which does just that), but is instead defined by government, culture and hegemonic institutions. It's mostly quite decent stuff, except for that little part giving the game away about not knowing what to tolerate.
I'll quickly insert assumption four here, but hold that last paragraph in your mind. Assumption four was that secular regimes are culturally neutral. This one is very much like number two, which in turn was rather like assumption one. She argues that secularism assumes rationality in the west and that we have no intrinsic culture, but that forcing immigrants to internalize what might have been a very external culture, whilst enjoying our own external culture which we call cultureless, is hypocrisy.
If we cannot justify anything except solely within our culture, and if any attempt to extract ourselves from cultural bias simply gives rise to another culture (a culture of not having culture?) then there is indeed no way to judge cultural demands, and despite her avowal that she didn't think we needed to resort to the spectre of relativism, and that we could find other solutions, she has, through her other arguments, given no option but to accept cultural relativism.
If we accept cultural relativism, that no culture can be objectively better than another, and we accept her basic idea that objective justifications for cultural institutions is itself a culture, then we might as well overtly promote our culture anyway; we find it the most pleasant, and so we should protect it, rather than going through the whole rigmarole of pretending to judge objectively things which apparently cannot be judged objectively. Although she refused to examine the consequences of her argument, it does therefore lead to the sort of culture wars and intolerance that I guess she'd find actually quite objectionable.
Let me now return to that accusation of hypocrisy on the part of secularists. Certainly there are some people who regard Western culture as decidedly Christian, and conflate the two (mostly self-aggrandizing or deluded western Christians). However, these people are not the same secularists who believe that we are cultureless, or objective in our culture. The secularists who wish immigrants to accept secularism because of its objectivity are not simultaneously allowing Christianity: they typically bemoan all insidious religious influence in their countries. The Christians, on the other hand, make exactly the same claims to objectivity that other religions do, and are not secretive about defending their religious culture.
So there is no hypocrisy, bur two rival attitudes that are not part of the same system of belief.
But beyond this, her analysis offers no change in behaviour as a solution. She has not argued that defending one's culture, or promoting it within one's own region, is wrong. Promoting secularism, even if it is merely another culture like all the rest, is no worse than publicly espousing and promoting any of the rest, even if she can justify suggesting that it is no better.
Her last point is separate from these arguments, and is about women's rights. Her sympathies pretty clearly lay with either second wave feminism, or else inaccurate understanding of women's current position in society. She pointed out that the secular French revolution made women worse off. She also points out that the nuclear family, with its relationships of need and female inferiority, was and is supported by western 'secularists'.
At this point my brain melted with the effort of remembering all the errors she was making in reasoning. Let's start by saying that just because secularism is not sufficient for women's equality does not mean that it is not necessary. Next, I've had a few snipes at the nuclear family myself (e.g http://whirlingsilently.blogspot.com/2010/05/marriage.html), so secularism does not necessarily support it. Finally and similarly, those 'secularists' who support the nuclear family most are actually religious zealots of the sort she says shouldn't be called zealots! These are mostly religious people who are imposing cultural attitudes that we (including professor Brown) find unpleasant. Secularism explicitly fights such discrimination (or, at the very least explicitly allows the absence or it, and allows people to fight it, unlike many other systems). To conflate secularism with the discrimination it aims to fight simply because of the historical growth of secularism from Christianity is either very confused, or a very cunning attack on it. Either way I'm not convinced that secularism is simply a label we use to conceal cultural imperialism rather than being an ideal in its own right. Maybe some people find their aims allied with secularists at times and co-opt the secularist's arguments, but that does not make secularism hypocritical.
There are some interesting questions that she did raise, but only right at the end!
Questions of whether wearing burkas involve more coercion than wearing high heels, about whether sex separation in sports is justifiable, and whether the nuclear family is intrinsically discriminatory (I'd tend for yes).
The point about secularism is that you might find yourself persuaded to wear high heels, but there is no means of redress for those who wish you to do so except through personal relationships. This is not true for burkas, hijabs and nikabs: these are mandated by doctrine, and punishments are specified for unchaste or blasphemous women. Children should not be governed by doctrine; adults we must assume have the ability to choose. These garments are far more problematic for society than high heels because they cover the face, which we need for recognition, and therefore accountability.
It's harder to justify the current system of sports teams, but given that humanity does divide quite clearly into a roughly binary system of potential athletic ability it seems plausible to split adults up.
As for the nuclear family... well, it's better than orphaned children or single adult families.
'Civilizational Delusions: Equality, Secularism, Tolerance'.
I can summarise this talk as suggesting that secularism views itself as separate from cultures, but that actually it's just another culture. Professor Brown didn't go so far as to invoke cultural relativism (she specifically stated that she wasn't going for the 'bogeyman of moral [sic] relativism'), leaving possible solutions to her 'analysis' unaddressed.
She identified five assumptions of secularism that she disproved.
1. Secularism generates a religiously neutral state
2. Secularism is equally available to all religions
3. Tolerance is a practice of mutual respect
4. Secular regimes are culturally neutral
5. Secularism leads to women's freedom and equality
Her derivation of western secularism, that requires a personal and private religion, and personal relationship with God, from Protestantism, was interesting and believable. But just because secularism and protestantism are compatible, and the former grew from the latter, does not mean that secularism is necessarily based on protestantism. This point is crucial.
That secularism is not religiously neutral because some religions are more compatible with secularism than others is not necessarily true: it takes a consequentialist understanding of neutrality to get to that conclusion. My opinions on consequentialism can be found elsewhere; I find it ridiculous and unjustifiable to make moral judgements on the basis of consequences. Secularism can be called neutral, despite being more compatible with some religions than others, because its precepts can be derived without needing to adjust them to give bias towards or against certain cultural or religious attitudes. That, once derived, secular precepts might be more compatible with some beliefs than with others, does not mean that secularism is somehow not neutral after all.
In describing her second point, she mentioned that secularism is purported not to transform religions, but defines public and collective expressions of religion as zealotry: improperly tamed, excessive and pre-modern. I agree with her that secularism is not equally available to all religions: I disagree that this is a common assumption about secularism, or a necessary one. It is verging on a straw man argument, as any attempt to describe a broad and vaguely defined ideal (or deliberately undefined, in her case) will be.
She had some interesting things to say about tolerance: how it manages but naturalizes inequalities, normalizing the tolerators and their opinions and maintaining the excluded and different nature of the tolerated. She suggested that no definition of what to tolerate can be justified a priori (which says a lot about her opinion of secularism, which does just that), but is instead defined by government, culture and hegemonic institutions. It's mostly quite decent stuff, except for that little part giving the game away about not knowing what to tolerate.
I'll quickly insert assumption four here, but hold that last paragraph in your mind. Assumption four was that secular regimes are culturally neutral. This one is very much like number two, which in turn was rather like assumption one. She argues that secularism assumes rationality in the west and that we have no intrinsic culture, but that forcing immigrants to internalize what might have been a very external culture, whilst enjoying our own external culture which we call cultureless, is hypocrisy.
If we cannot justify anything except solely within our culture, and if any attempt to extract ourselves from cultural bias simply gives rise to another culture (a culture of not having culture?) then there is indeed no way to judge cultural demands, and despite her avowal that she didn't think we needed to resort to the spectre of relativism, and that we could find other solutions, she has, through her other arguments, given no option but to accept cultural relativism.
If we accept cultural relativism, that no culture can be objectively better than another, and we accept her basic idea that objective justifications for cultural institutions is itself a culture, then we might as well overtly promote our culture anyway; we find it the most pleasant, and so we should protect it, rather than going through the whole rigmarole of pretending to judge objectively things which apparently cannot be judged objectively. Although she refused to examine the consequences of her argument, it does therefore lead to the sort of culture wars and intolerance that I guess she'd find actually quite objectionable.
Let me now return to that accusation of hypocrisy on the part of secularists. Certainly there are some people who regard Western culture as decidedly Christian, and conflate the two (mostly self-aggrandizing or deluded western Christians). However, these people are not the same secularists who believe that we are cultureless, or objective in our culture. The secularists who wish immigrants to accept secularism because of its objectivity are not simultaneously allowing Christianity: they typically bemoan all insidious religious influence in their countries. The Christians, on the other hand, make exactly the same claims to objectivity that other religions do, and are not secretive about defending their religious culture.
So there is no hypocrisy, bur two rival attitudes that are not part of the same system of belief.
But beyond this, her analysis offers no change in behaviour as a solution. She has not argued that defending one's culture, or promoting it within one's own region, is wrong. Promoting secularism, even if it is merely another culture like all the rest, is no worse than publicly espousing and promoting any of the rest, even if she can justify suggesting that it is no better.
Her last point is separate from these arguments, and is about women's rights. Her sympathies pretty clearly lay with either second wave feminism, or else inaccurate understanding of women's current position in society. She pointed out that the secular French revolution made women worse off. She also points out that the nuclear family, with its relationships of need and female inferiority, was and is supported by western 'secularists'.
At this point my brain melted with the effort of remembering all the errors she was making in reasoning. Let's start by saying that just because secularism is not sufficient for women's equality does not mean that it is not necessary. Next, I've had a few snipes at the nuclear family myself (e.g http://whirlingsilently.blogspot.com/2010/05/marriage.html), so secularism does not necessarily support it. Finally and similarly, those 'secularists' who support the nuclear family most are actually religious zealots of the sort she says shouldn't be called zealots! These are mostly religious people who are imposing cultural attitudes that we (including professor Brown) find unpleasant. Secularism explicitly fights such discrimination (or, at the very least explicitly allows the absence or it, and allows people to fight it, unlike many other systems). To conflate secularism with the discrimination it aims to fight simply because of the historical growth of secularism from Christianity is either very confused, or a very cunning attack on it. Either way I'm not convinced that secularism is simply a label we use to conceal cultural imperialism rather than being an ideal in its own right. Maybe some people find their aims allied with secularists at times and co-opt the secularist's arguments, but that does not make secularism hypocritical.
There are some interesting questions that she did raise, but only right at the end!
Questions of whether wearing burkas involve more coercion than wearing high heels, about whether sex separation in sports is justifiable, and whether the nuclear family is intrinsically discriminatory (I'd tend for yes).
The point about secularism is that you might find yourself persuaded to wear high heels, but there is no means of redress for those who wish you to do so except through personal relationships. This is not true for burkas, hijabs and nikabs: these are mandated by doctrine, and punishments are specified for unchaste or blasphemous women. Children should not be governed by doctrine; adults we must assume have the ability to choose. These garments are far more problematic for society than high heels because they cover the face, which we need for recognition, and therefore accountability.
It's harder to justify the current system of sports teams, but given that humanity does divide quite clearly into a roughly binary system of potential athletic ability it seems plausible to split adults up.
As for the nuclear family... well, it's better than orphaned children or single adult families.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)