This strikes me as a bad analogy. Seeing pictures of Mohammed is only offensive to Muslims because of their conviction in a poorly evidenced falsehood, whereas punching someone in the face is an offense regardless of what they believe.
I don’t think this is completely true. Speaking as a former Orthodox Jew, the idea of someone desecrating a Torah scroll fills with me with deep emotional pain even though I know that there’s nothing at all holy or sacred about it. Once that sort of offense becomes ingrained it is very hard to remove even when one understands that it isn’t based on any actual part of reality.
Speaking as a former Orthodox Jew, the idea of someone desecrating a Torah scroll fills with me with deep emotional pain even though I know that there’s nothing at all holy or sacred about it. Once that sort of offense becomes ingrained it is very hard to remove even when one understands that it isn’t based on any actual part of reality.
I don’t think this offense is without any basis in reality. If someone goes around desecrating Torahs, you would be completely rational to conclude that he probably has an issue with Jews in general and feel threatened. Even if you no longer believe in Judaism, and even if you no longer identify as a Jew, this doesn’t mean that Jew-haters will leave you off the hook. You may disown your religious, ethnic, or tribal affiliations, but this doesn’t mean others will stop perceiving and treating you as still bound by them. (As many found out the hard way in Germany in the 1930s, to give only the most dramatic example.)
To get back to the question from the original post, this also implies that it may be rational for Muslims to sense hostility and feel threatened by people who go around committing blasphemy according to their norms, and similar for every other religion. However, it still doesn’t mean that every feeling of offense is a legitimate response to hostility—as with any human interaction where interests clash, we see a complicated interplay of signaling, Schellingian strategy, and dancing around focal points looking for ways to move them in a favorable direction. Of course, things also depend on the more explicit relations of power, wealth, status, alliances, etc. between the parties involved.
The error of the original post is to assume that these complex and highly situation-dependent questions can be analyzed with a naive consequentialist approach, but it would also be an error to simply reverse its conclusion. In different situations when offense is felt and expressed, many different scenarios may be taking place.
If someone goes around desecrating Torahs, you would be completely rational to conclude that he probably has an issue with Jews in general and feel threatened.
Here’s a possible litmus test: how would you feel about another former Orthodox Jew desecrating a Torah scroll as a symbol of eir change in belief.
Interesting. I seem to have the same flinch effect JoshuaZ described, despite believing that religion in general and Judaism in particular are great evils of the world which separated my family from me.
Can you tell how much of that flinch is because it’s the Torah specifically, and how much is just because it’s a book period?
“Okay, so there’s a run-away train bearing down on a copy of ‘Godel, Escher, Bach’, and a really fat copy of the Torah standing at the edge of a cliff above the track. You are standing behind the Torah, and it’s immediately clear to you that if you push it, it will fall on the tracks, stopping the train and saving the copy of GEB...”
Personally, I once found the B volume of some encyclopedia on top of a mountain while hiking, and carried it home through a thunder storm, even though I certainly wasn’t expecting me or anybody else to ever actually read it.
A Torah scroll isn’t the same thing as a book. It’s hand-written on parchment, and it’s a long rectangle (rather than on pages) wrapped around rollers. It will probably have an ornamented cover, and more ornaments on the ends of the rollers.
Simchat Torah is an annual holiday at the end of the cycle of reading it in which the scrolls are paraded around the synagogue. “On each occasion, when the ark is opened, all the worshippers leave their seats to dance and sing with all the Torah scrolls in a joyous celebration that often lasts for several hours and more.” I have to admit things weren’t that exuberant at the synagogue my family went to.
If a Torah is too worn out to be used, it is buried in a Jewish cemetery.
So we aren’t just talking about reactions to a book being damaged. though they may certainly be part of what’s going on.
One thing that’s occurring to me is that you really can’t make reliable guesses about the details of religions you aren’t familiar with.
Oh right, I actually remember that thing about the ‘book funeral’ and all. They do the same thing in Sikhism with their own super special book, the… whichamacallit… ah yes, the “Sri Guru Granth Sahib”.
In fact, it’s so similar that it leads me to suspect that there are some details about unfamiliar religions that you should be able to make reliable guesses about :P
Anyway, the ‘flinch’ could still be produced for secular reasons. Not only is the ‘preserve books’ thing in force, but also the ‘preserve works of art’ thing.
I mean, I definitely flinch at the thought of someone desecrating a Torah or an Adi Granth (different, shorter name), and that’s certainly not due to a religious upbringing or any ingrained respect for it. I mean, I’d even forgotten about the ‘book funeral’ stuff with the Torah, and had to google to double check the spelling of the Adi Granth.
And it’s not even that I’m worried about offending adherents. I’d feel the same way if all religions were extinct and the books just museum material (what a wonderful world!).
I guess it’s just a flinch towards violently/hatefully wrecking things in general. So the idea of some deconvert burning one copy of a mass market paperback of their former holy book in some sort of secular ceremony, peacefully symbolizing that they’re personally moving on, not intending to uselessly provoke anyone… that shouldn’t bother me. And I don’t think it does.
I think i have some further interesting datapoints to add here: I feel I’d flinch away from unbending a papperclip or disturbing a prime numbered heap of pebbles, much more strongly than before reading the LW material where those were used as examples.
I think i have some further interesting datapoints to add here: I feel I’d flinch away from unbending a papperclip or disturbing a prime numbered heap of pebbles, much more strongly than before reading the LW material where those were used as examples.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one.
Edit: Although now that I think about this, I feel this much more strongly about paperclips than heaps of pebbles. This is probably because of the more long-term influence of interacting with User:Clippy.
I used to unbend them all the time when I was a little kid, and use rubber bands to make em into little bows for shooting pencils. “Ka-twangers” I called em.
So when the revolution comes and you guys are going, “Well I for one welcome our new paper-clip maximizing overlords!” I guess I’ll be the first against the wall.
Hm. I think it’s fair to say that I would probably be about equally reluctant to wreck any other artwork containing an equal amount of painstaking effort.
I see it more in terms of economic value. A Torah is worth about as much as as a new Honda Civic at the low end and a luxury car at the high end. I would be reluctant to wreck anything worth $20,000 - $60,000… presumably the owner of said material object is going to be upset. And if you are the owner, why are you blowing up your own car? You’d almost always make a better statement by selling your Torah/car and giving the money to charity.
And if you are the owner, why are you blowing up your own car? You’d almost always make a better statement by selling your Torah/car and giving the money to charity.
Do you think that would have the same degree of emotional satisfaction as a symbol of their break with the religion?
Personally, I don’t get that flinch thinking about a person desecrating their own Torah, but I’d caution anyone planning to do so to make sure that the symbolic action is actually worth tens of thousands of dollars to them, because it’s a very expensive way to purchase fuzzies.
“Refurbished Torah?” That is hilarious. But when you say, “I see it more in terms of economic value”, you mean, “economic value is another secular factor”? I mean that you also get the general “avoid wrecking painstakingly produced artwork” feeling regardless of its resale value :P
Here’s a possible litmus test: how would you feel about another former Orthodox Jew desecrating a Torah scroll as a symbol of eir change in belief.
That’s an interesting test. My background (never belief, exactly) is Conservative (that is, intermediate between Orthodox and Reform), and that scenario makes me queasy. My first thought was that it represents a level of rage which I’m not comfortable with (and this isn’t totally nonsense), but I do find it more distressing than imagining an ex-Christian doing the same to a Christian bible, even a hand-lettered bible.
Wow, really? From an atheist background, to me I’m much more horrified by the thought of any unique hand-created book being burned than any printed thing for which there are endless copies.
Wow, really? From an atheist background, to me I’m much more horrified by the thought of any unique hand-created book being burned than any printed thing for which there are endless copies.
Er, Torah scrolls are hand-written. The scroll form is always made by a scribe, not printed.
I think you missed what ciphergoth was reacting to—I said that I’d be more upset at a Torah scroll being destroyed than a hand-written Christian bible. This doesn’t mean that I’d have no reaction to the Christian destroying a hand-written Christian bible.
What I was imagining for the hand-written bible was one without illustrations, but that probably wouldn’t make any emotional difference for ciphergoth.
If it’s detailed enough that sufficiently advanced technology could rebuild it indistinguishably, I’m happy. I’m curious how other people feel about this!
It’s interesting that you find a hypothetical Torah scroll desecration to be indicative of rage. Before I lost my Jewish faith I, too, would have associated Torah-desecration with villainy and hate — partially because there were stories and legends about villainous Torah-desecrators, and partially because the Torah evoked such feelings of sanctity and purity that the idea of desecrating a Torah only made sense if there was rage or depravity involved. But of course, I can now easily imagine other emotions that would motivate hypothetical Torah desecrators, like trollishness.
I think it’s more that I’m generally apt to underestimate the impulse to trollishness, though I do think it overlaps hate. Pissing people off for the lulz has something to do with malice towards those people, though I grant that rage has a lot of emotional intensity while trolling has some distance.
Here’s a possible litmus test: how would you feel about another former Orthodox Jew desecrating a Torah scroll as a symbol of eir change in belief.
“Another”? I assume this question is directed at Joshua Z. I am not a former Orthodox Jew, nor any other kind of Jew for that matter. I’m Catholic.
That said, as I wrote in my above comment, clearly the context of an offensive/blasphemous act or utterance matters a lot. As for the concrete scenario you list, I find it hard to imagine that a Jew who has left the religion would symbolically desecrate Torah—the act has such a strong connotation of anti-Jewish pogroms that I’d imagine even a non-religious Jew would find it scary, almost like brandishing swastikas. That’s my outsider’s impression at least; I’d be curious to hear the opinion of someone more knowledgeable.
Just out of curiosity, in what sense are you Catholic (heritage, culture, belief)?
Well, legally, I am a Catholic in good standing (I’m baptized, and I’ve never renounced it nor been excommunicated). In my practices, I am largely lapsed, though I value the heritage, the art, the community, and the folkways a lot. As for beliefs, obviously there is a lot that doesn’t stand up to rational scrutiny, though like in any long-standing tradition, many things that may seem irrational or backward are in fact closer to reality than various modern fashionable beliefs. (Clearly, a simple blog comment can’t do justice to this topic.)
What I would point out however is that I often find the North American (presumably Protestant) attitudes in this regard quite alien and strange. What I mean is the tendency to see one’s belonging to a church as an either-or matter, and breaking with it as a grand and dramatic event. Among Catholics, the normal thing to do is simply to adjust the level of your practices and your closeness to the community to whatever you find to your liking. (ETA: Though conversion to a different religion, as opposed to merely neglecting one’s own, would be a big deal.)
As for beliefs, obviously there is a lot that doesn’t stand up to rational scrutiny, though like in any long-standing tradition, many things that may seem irrational or backward are in fact closer to reality than various modern fashionable beliefs. (Clearly, a simple blog comment can’t do justice to this topic.)
I assume you’ve read his blog as well. In that case there are several things I’d recommend. If you haven’t read all of Paul Graham’s essays, you should. There’s also Walter Mead’s essay of what he, rather anachronistically, calls the “Blue Social Model”. He also talks about these ideas in more depth on his blog (along with all kinds of other stuff ETA: mostly on current events).
Also possibly John C Wright’s blog if you’re more interested in religious stuff.
Just to bring in the real world, I’ve never heard of an ex-Orthodox Jew desecrating a Torah to symbolize their break with the religion. I have heard of them eating emphatically non-kosher food.
If someone goes around desecrating Torahs, you would be completely rational to conclude that he probably has an issue with Jews in general and feel threatened.
Here’s a possible litmus test: how would you feel about another former Orthodox Jew desecrating a Torah scroll as a symbol of eir change in belief.
I think I’d still feel emotional unpleasantness although probably not as much as in the generic case. This suggests that Vladimir’s concern is partially correct but that that’s not the whole thing and some really is just residual emotional feelings. There’s another side issue that may also be involved, in that the burning of books of any form or similar objects (such as scrolls) makes me deeply pained regardless. But that connects to what Vladimir M was talking about in that part of that deep pain is the historical connection between book burning and censorship.
it may be rational for Muslims to sense hostility and feel threatened by people who go around committing blasphemy according to their norms …
Particularly when the ‘blasphemy’ is committed for the express purpose of committing blasphemy. By contrast, a Jehovah’s Witness considers it blasphemy when someone salutes a flag, but probably realizes that every act of reverence for a flag is not done for the express purpose of offending the JWs.
Even so, the offense in your case is still the result of your previous belief in a falsehood. If you had never been an Orthodox Jew in the first place, it’s unlikely that you would feel the same indignation/offense/pain upon contemplating that particular sacrilege. This may be a case of your visceral reactions not having caught up to your conscious beliefs.
So holding communion wafers hostage is still a better analogy than punching someone in the face (in fact, there are probably former Catholics reading this who would take some kind of visceral offense at the former, and I’d likewise encourage them to try to get over it if they can).
Agreed that communion wafers are a better analogy than punches in the face, and that the offense is a product of cultural indoctrination. (That said, the question of how offensive a punch in the face is is not completely separable from cultural indoctrination, either.)
Disagreed that the truth or falsehood of the belief itself has anything to do with the issue, though.
My getting offended if you disrespect my cultural icons has to do with my (true) belief that I am a member of the culture being disrespected. Someone who identifies as an American might be offended by someone urinating on an American flag in the same way that someone who identifies as a Jew might be offended by someone urinating on a Torah scroll or someone who identifies as the child of their parents might be offended by someone urinating on their parents’ wedding photo; talking about any of that in terms of true or false beliefs seems unnecessarily confused.
My getting offended if you disrespect my cultural icons has to do with my (true) belief that I am a member of the culture being disrespected
Yes—but my feeling is that if you no longer believe X, you should accept the fact that you’re no longer a member of the culture-defined-by-belief-in-X.
In general I am suspicious of the often-heard argument that religion is not really about belief. You only hear this from people looking for an excuse to remain in a tribe they’ve been in their whole life, because (understandably) it’s psychologically difficult to leave a tribe. But sometimes it has to be done—and I see religion, quite frankly, as one of the clearest examples of a case where one simply needs to let go and be over with it.
That’s not to say you can’t embrace your identity as a former religionist. But that’s a distinct cultural identity, involving your fond memories of formerly being offended by sacrilegious acts, as opposed to still currently being offended by them.
That’s not to say you can’t embrace your identity as a former religionist. But that’s a distinct cultural identity, involving your fond memories of formerly being offended by sacrilegious acts, as opposed to still currently being offended by them.
Trouble is, your identity is about much more than that in practice. It’s deeply entangled with your way of life, your family, community, and social network, and also with the way others see and treat you. An offensively blasphemous act may (note: may, depending on the situation) be a credible signal that someone is hostile towards the group you identify with, and given the power to do so, would act so as to endanger your way of life, your community, and perhaps also your personal well-being. (This could range anywhere from making your life miserable in petty ways to outright violence.) In many cases, you must also take into account that those hostile to your group see it as your inherent identity that you can’t disown and escape from even if you wanted to.
With this in mind, often it is irrational to get riled up over some provocative act that is best ignored, or that isn’t even meant to be provocative but has it as an unwanted side-effect. However, sometimes it is also irrational to ignore clear signs of genuine hostility, some of which can plausibly translate into real danger. In the latter case, the visceral reaction is well adapted to reality.
(There are of course also various other cases where it’s less clear if a visceral reaction can be reasonably called “rational,” such as when some instrumental goal is best furthered by throwing a tantrum and creating drama to extract concessions.)
Well, you can be as suspicious as you wish, of course.
And, sure, if I agreed with you that cultural affiliation was contingent on belief—for example, if I agreed that to be Jewish I must embrace whatever theological beliefs are consensually held among Jewish theologians (supposing that there are any, and that I could figure out what beliefs they were)… or at least embrace only theological beliefs that are held by some Jewish theologians (though there’s a circularity there… who counts as a Jewish theologian, after all?), or… well, to be honest, I’m not actually sure what beliefs you’re saying I need to embrace in order to genuinely be Jewish, but regardless, if I agreed with you that there were some beliefs that fell into this category, then it would follow that when I stop believing those beliefs (whatever they are), it follows that I’m no longer Jewish.
But I don’t in fact agree with that—in fact, as above, I’m not sure it’s even coherent enough to disagree with.
Just to make this more concrete: I don’t believe, for example, that the universe was deliberately created by anything remotely person-like, nor that any such entity (supposing I were wrong about that first belief) shares in any singular sense identity with whatever entity or entities provided to early Jews the laws and tribal history currently known as the Torah, nor that those entities have any relationship worth mentioning to do with what happens to me upon my death.
If (as I suspect) you consider Judaism to be contingent on those beliefs, you would conclude that I’m not Jewish, and I would disagree.
Also: you seem to be saying, in addition, that I’m mistaken if I respond to expressed disrespect of Jewish cultural icons as though it were my culture being disrespected (for example, by being offended). I’m not quite sure that’s true, either, leaving aside the whole question of whether it actually is my culture.
I am in no sense a Canadian, for example, but I’m not sure I’d be mistaken if I respond to expressed disrespect of Canadian cultural icons as though it were my culture being disrespected (for example, by being offended on their behalf).
I don’t believe, for example, that the universe was deliberately created by anything remotely person-like, nor that any such entity (supposing I were wrong about that first belief) shares in any singular sense identity with whatever entity or entities provided to early Jews the laws and tribal history currently known as the Torah, nor that those entities have any relationship worth mentioning to do with what happens to me upon my death.
If (as I suspect) you consider Judaism to be contingent on those beliefs, you would conclude that I’m not Jewish
More specifically, what I would conclude is that your self-identification as “Jewish” (rather than “of Jewish parentage”) is a misguided effort to continue affiliating with a tribe that you’re used to belonging to, but that you would never have joined in the first place had you had your current beliefs at the time of joining and had you been taking them into account in deciding which tribe to join; and if, for example, it turned out that you were avoiding the use of electric lights on Saturdays, I would have no hesitation in labeling such behavior as irrational, even silly—and I would be entirely unsympathetic to the extent I viewed the behavior as a tribal affiliation signal rather than, say, a psychological compulsion (which I can understand and relate to).
I am in no sense a Canadian, for example, but I’m not sure I’d be mistaken if I respond to expressed disrespect of Canadian cultural icons as though it were my culture being disrespected (for example, by being offended on their behalf).
In all honesty, I would tend to view that with suspicion also—my instinctive perception would be of an obsequious attempt to curry favor with Canadians. This perception could be overridden, of course, depending on the circumstances; but I would sympathize with disapproval on the part of a non-Canadian more than offense per se.
Mostly, I think the place I disagree with you is that you see the beliefs as primary and the tribal membership as contingent on beliefs, at least when it comes to Judaism, and I see them as largely unrelated.
That is, I no more decided to be Jewish on the basis of religious beliefs than I decided to be American on the basis of national beliefs, and being Jewish no more constrains my Saturday activities than being Hispanic does. They are all affiliations I was born into and choose to endorse, despite not practicing them in traditional ways.
So holding communion wafers hostage is still a better analogy than punching someone in the face (in fact, there are probably former Catholics reading this who would take some kind of visceral offense at the former, and I’d likewise encourage them to try to get over it if they can).
I’m a former Catholic, and I read the story linked by desrtopia. I must admit that I felt a visceral sense of rage that I never expected. But not in the direction that you predicted! I wanted to shout to Webster Cook (through my computer screen and more than two years back in time) to flush the bread down the toilet.
I don’t write this as any sort of reasoned advice on how people ought to behave. I’m just reporting my emotional response.
I’ve never been Jewish, and I personally find the act of deliberately desecrating objects of belief, faith and following—from blowup up Buddhas to burning flags to pissing on crucifixes to be extremely distasteful in ways ranging from mild annoyance at juvenile attempts to shock (Piss christ, Dung Madonna) to rather enraging (Blowing up thousand year old statues or burning flags as a political protest).
Things like the Torah, the Koran and the Bible (a bit less so, but still) (I have no idea about the Shruti/Smirtis, but I’ll lump them in here anyway) are not just religious texts, they are cultural icons, relics and touchstones to hundreds of millions of people. By desecrating those artifacts you are desecrating those people’s beliefs and culture. This is, at minimum rude and is a mind killer.
Now things like shitting on a torah, blowing up a church or burning a flag are distinctly different than drawing Mohammad in that drawing Mohammad (or anyone else really) is not desecration, but blasphemy. It is roughly the same as me, or anyone else “taking the lords name in vain”.
Now things like shitting on a torah, blowing up a church or burning a flag are distinctly different than drawing Mohammad in that drawing Mohammad (or anyone else really) is not desecration, but blasphemy. It is roughly the same as me, or anyone else “taking the lords name in vain”.
Can you explain what criteria you’re using to draw that distinction? Do you expect people with different cultural norms to be able to acknowledge those criteria as objectively valid?
The distinction between them is difficult for me to articulate clearly—it seems my operating definition of desecration and blasphemy were a little more narrow than common usage, but to me desecration is something you do to an object or an idea that reduces it’s utility as a sacred object or icon—essentially some sort of vandalism. Blasphemy is a secular or profane expression of a sacred idea—you can’t desecrate Mohammad’s memory by drawing him because (1) we don’t know what he looked like, and (2) drawing him isn’t doesn’t render him profane in the eyes of his believers, except where it challenges their beliefs and causes THEM to change their mind.
A desecration reduces a sacred object profane, while blasphemy is either an insult to a sacred belief or entity or the questioning of that belief or entity.
And yes, I do expect people with different cultural norms (for bounded values of different, super intelligent shades of blue may have a different enough sensory apparatus and processing engine that those concepts don’t apply) to be able to at least acknowledge those distinctions. Now, I don’t expect all members of any given culture to—after all even our culture has people who think the world is flat etc.
And there are some cultural norms that aren’t worth giving a fuck about.
Note there is a difference between “tolerate” and “accept”.
I don’t think this is completely true. Speaking as a former Orthodox Jew, the idea of someone desecrating a Torah scroll fills with me with deep emotional pain even though I know that there’s nothing at all holy or sacred about it.
Someone damaging physical artifacts of one’s religion is a reasonable thing to make into a Schelling point. That’s quite different from someone creating media that is counter to your religion.
Someone damaging physical artifacts of one’s religion is a reasonable thing to make into a Schelling point. That’s quite different from someone creating media that is counter to your religion.
Sure, we can make that distinction (and there are other possible distinctions). I was merely making my remark in the context of Derstopa’s claim that the offense is that strongly tied to the actual belief.
Huh. That sort of reaction is completely alien to me. Do you still have a strong cultural allegiance to Judaism which you feel is being affronted by this?
I can’t speak for JoshuaZ, but speaking as another nonbeliever-raised-Orthodox-Jew, my reaction is similar to his.
And, yes, I think it’s fundamentally a cultural thing. That is, the Torah scroll in this example is functioning as an icon of cultural Judaism, much as flags do for various kinds of nationalism.
Just to unpack that a little: if someone behaves disrespectfully towards an icon of a culture, I react as though they’d expressed disrespect towards that culture. If it’s a culture I identify with, I react as though they’d expressed disrespect towards me. All of this seems entirely unremarkable and to be expected, to me at least.
The idea that any of this (be it with respect to Torah scrolls or the image of Mohammed or American flags) has anything to do with specific beliefs about divinity is, I think, a complete distraction.
if someone behaves disrespectfully towards an icon of a culture, I react as though they’d expressed disrespect towards that culture.
True enough. There can be also other motivations for finding damaging an icon of a culture to be distasteful. When the Taliban was destroying Buddha statues in Afghanistan I found that sad, simply because the statues were ancient and irreplaceable, irrespective of their religious significance.
I may have overgeneralized from my own mentality. My own outlook is very different from yours or joshua’s; I am of Jewish extraction, but after a couple of years attending Brandeis university, I found the in-group dynamic sufficiently oppressive that I now refuse to self identify as Jewish, and become offended when people refuse to accept my distinction between being Ashkenazic on my mother’s side and being Jewish. That sort of cultural affiliation, absent any particular beliefs or ideals to associate it with, is something I’ve only observed from the outside.
I think it’s worth asking though, whether, once you winnow out all the absurd and unjustified beliefs in these various cultural packages, there are any sane beliefs that justify taking offense at actions such as drawing pictures of Mohammad, keeping a transubstantiated wafer rather than eating it, or urinating on the Torah. I think that the first two are only comparable to the last one if they are performed as deliberate attacks on a cultural icon, and if they’re not, then I’m not sure what sane reason that could leave to object to them.
I’m not quite sure what a sane reason for offense is. More generally, I’m not sure what a sane reason for any emotional reaction is.
But I guess I can see saying that since fear evolved “in order to” encourage us to avoid danger, it’s sane to feel fear with regards to genuinely dangerous situations, and insane to feel it with regards to situations that aren’t dangerous. On that account, being scared while standing on the edge of a cliff in high wind is sane, but continuing to feel scared after someone someone clips a safety cable to my belt is insane.
And adopting the same stance with respect to offense, I would say that offense evolved “in order to” encourage us to defend our status, and is therefore sane when our status is genuinely at stake and not when it isn’t. Using that standard, it seems entirely sane to be offended at the actions you list: they all have the effect of lowering the status of various symbols of my tribe, which in turn lowers my status.
That said, you seem to be using some other standard for a sane emotional reaction, one I don’t entirely understand. Can you clarify it further?
But I guess I can see saying that since fear evolved “in order to” encourage us to avoid danger, it’s sane to feel fear with regards to genuinely dangerous situations, and insane to feel it with regards to situations that aren’t dangerous.
Careful, if you judge the validity of your emotions by whether they’re serving their evolutionary role, you’ll end up arguing that the purpose of life is to maximize your inclusive genetic fitness.
I agree, sort of, modulo your introduction of the rather ill-defined term “purpose of life”.
Which is why I started out saying I don’t know what a sane reason for offense is.
I suppose one could say, instead, that X is a sane reason for offense if feeling offense in the presence of X achieves useful results in that environment.
On that account, if taking offense at actions such as drawing pictures of Mohammad increases my status within my community, and if increased status is useful, then drawing pictures of Mohammad is a sane reason for offense within my community.
I was pretty sure that wasn’t what desrtopa was looking for either, though.
My first thought was to characterize a sane belief that justifies an emotional reaction reaction as one that creates a connection to one’s terminal values without being clearly counterfactual, but I’m not sure whether this is adequately transparent; I’m biased by having my own meaning in mind.
Using that standard, it seems entirely sane to be offended at the actions you list: they all have the effect of lowering the status of various symbols of my tribe, which in turn lowers my status.
I’m not sure this is true. For instance, in the case of urinating on the Torah, it’s an act that would be widely agreed to represent contempt for a symbol. It would be reasonable to interpret it as a deliberate assault on a representation of the group with which you affiliate.
In the case of drawing Mohammad, it’s not an act which generally denotes contempt; drawing symbols of various other cultural groups doesn’t constitute an attack. So for it to be a sane source of offense, you would need some justified belief which could complete the connection between the drawing and an attack on your group’s status. If you had reason to belief that the artist had drawn it to make a mockery of your traditions, that would be a sane belief which could complete the connection, but if you know the act was not done in ill spirits, what might you believe which could complete the connection?
(EDIT: You edited the parent after I replied; I take no responsibility for whether my reply has any relationship to the new parent. I really wish people would stop doing that. I may come back to this later and reconcile.)
Not quite transparent.
I more or less understand what it means for a belief B to not be clearly counterfactual, and what you mean by my terminal values V.
I don’t understand what it means for B to “justify an emotional reaction” E, and I understand what it means for B to “have a connection to” V, and I’m not sure what the relationship between B and V has to do with E.
(EDIT: You edited the parent after I replied; I take no responsibility for whether my reply has any relationship to the new parent. I really wish people would stop doing that. I may come back to this later and reconcile.)
For what it’s worth, your response wasn’t there when I started making the edit, and I didn’t see it until after I had changed my comment. I frequently find a few seconds after leaving a comment that I had more to say, and revise my comment to reflect it.
Yes, I understand that people do this. One consequence of doing it is that other people’s replies are retroactively disconnected from the thing they appear to reply to.
I just don’t like my replies being treated that way, is all.
Of course, I can’t do anything to prevent it, and nobody else is obligated to respect my preferences. The best I can do is edit my replies to note that any disconnections might be retroactive, which is what I did.
I don’t think this is completely true. Speaking as a former Orthodox Jew, the idea of someone desecrating a Torah scroll fills with me with deep emotional pain even though I know that there’s nothing at all holy or sacred about it. Once that sort of offense becomes ingrained it is very hard to remove even when one understands that it isn’t based on any actual part of reality.
I don’t think this offense is without any basis in reality. If someone goes around desecrating Torahs, you would be completely rational to conclude that he probably has an issue with Jews in general and feel threatened. Even if you no longer believe in Judaism, and even if you no longer identify as a Jew, this doesn’t mean that Jew-haters will leave you off the hook. You may disown your religious, ethnic, or tribal affiliations, but this doesn’t mean others will stop perceiving and treating you as still bound by them. (As many found out the hard way in Germany in the 1930s, to give only the most dramatic example.)
To get back to the question from the original post, this also implies that it may be rational for Muslims to sense hostility and feel threatened by people who go around committing blasphemy according to their norms, and similar for every other religion. However, it still doesn’t mean that every feeling of offense is a legitimate response to hostility—as with any human interaction where interests clash, we see a complicated interplay of signaling, Schellingian strategy, and dancing around focal points looking for ways to move them in a favorable direction. Of course, things also depend on the more explicit relations of power, wealth, status, alliances, etc. between the parties involved.
The error of the original post is to assume that these complex and highly situation-dependent questions can be analyzed with a naive consequentialist approach, but it would also be an error to simply reverse its conclusion. In different situations when offense is felt and expressed, many different scenarios may be taking place.
Here’s a possible litmus test: how would you feel about another former Orthodox Jew desecrating a Torah scroll as a symbol of eir change in belief.
Interesting. I seem to have the same flinch effect JoshuaZ described, despite believing that religion in general and Judaism in particular are great evils of the world which separated my family from me.
Can you tell how much of that flinch is because it’s the Torah specifically, and how much is just because it’s a book period?
“Okay, so there’s a run-away train bearing down on a copy of ‘Godel, Escher, Bach’, and a really fat copy of the Torah standing at the edge of a cliff above the track. You are standing behind the Torah, and it’s immediately clear to you that if you push it, it will fall on the tracks, stopping the train and saving the copy of GEB...”
Personally, I once found the B volume of some encyclopedia on top of a mountain while hiking, and carried it home through a thunder storm, even though I certainly wasn’t expecting me or anybody else to ever actually read it.
A Torah scroll isn’t the same thing as a book. It’s hand-written on parchment, and it’s a long rectangle (rather than on pages) wrapped around rollers. It will probably have an ornamented cover, and more ornaments on the ends of the rollers.
Simchat Torah is an annual holiday at the end of the cycle of reading it in which the scrolls are paraded around the synagogue. “On each occasion, when the ark is opened, all the worshippers leave their seats to dance and sing with all the Torah scrolls in a joyous celebration that often lasts for several hours and more.” I have to admit things weren’t that exuberant at the synagogue my family went to.
If a Torah is too worn out to be used, it is buried in a Jewish cemetery.
So we aren’t just talking about reactions to a book being damaged. though they may certainly be part of what’s going on.
One thing that’s occurring to me is that you really can’t make reliable guesses about the details of religions you aren’t familiar with.
Oh right, I actually remember that thing about the ‘book funeral’ and all. They do the same thing in Sikhism with their own super special book, the… whichamacallit… ah yes, the “Sri Guru Granth Sahib”.
In fact, it’s so similar that it leads me to suspect that there are some details about unfamiliar religions that you should be able to make reliable guesses about :P
Anyway, the ‘flinch’ could still be produced for secular reasons. Not only is the ‘preserve books’ thing in force, but also the ‘preserve works of art’ thing.
I mean, I definitely flinch at the thought of someone desecrating a Torah or an Adi Granth (different, shorter name), and that’s certainly not due to a religious upbringing or any ingrained respect for it. I mean, I’d even forgotten about the ‘book funeral’ stuff with the Torah, and had to google to double check the spelling of the Adi Granth.
And it’s not even that I’m worried about offending adherents. I’d feel the same way if all religions were extinct and the books just museum material (what a wonderful world!).
I guess it’s just a flinch towards violently/hatefully wrecking things in general. So the idea of some deconvert burning one copy of a mass market paperback of their former holy book in some sort of secular ceremony, peacefully symbolizing that they’re personally moving on, not intending to uselessly provoke anyone… that shouldn’t bother me. And I don’t think it does.
I think i have some further interesting datapoints to add here: I feel I’d flinch away from unbending a papperclip or disturbing a prime numbered heap of pebbles, much more strongly than before reading the LW material where those were used as examples.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one.
Edit: Although now that I think about this, I feel this much more strongly about paperclips than heaps of pebbles. This is probably because of the more long-term influence of interacting with User:Clippy.
I used to unbend them all the time when I was a little kid, and use rubber bands to make em into little bows for shooting pencils. “Ka-twangers” I called em.
So when the revolution comes and you guys are going, “Well I for one welcome our new paper-clip maximizing overlords!” I guess I’ll be the first against the wall.
Drat.
Yea, that seems likely. I do not but I have not had that much interaction with him.
Hm. I think it’s fair to say that I would probably be about equally reluctant to wreck any other artwork containing an equal amount of painstaking effort.
(Whew!)
I see it more in terms of economic value. A Torah is worth about as much as as a new Honda Civic at the low end and a luxury car at the high end. I would be reluctant to wreck anything worth $20,000 - $60,000… presumably the owner of said material object is going to be upset. And if you are the owner, why are you blowing up your own car? You’d almost always make a better statement by selling your Torah/car and giving the money to charity.
Edit: You can get a refurb Torah for only $9,500! o.0 http://www.ahuva.com/prod-Sefer_Torah_Scroll-1279.aspx
Do you think that would have the same degree of emotional satisfaction as a symbol of their break with the religion?
Personally, I don’t get that flinch thinking about a person desecrating their own Torah, but I’d caution anyone planning to do so to make sure that the symbolic action is actually worth tens of thousands of dollars to them, because it’s a very expensive way to purchase fuzzies.
“Refurbished Torah?” That is hilarious. But when you say, “I see it more in terms of economic value”, you mean, “economic value is another secular factor”? I mean that you also get the general “avoid wrecking painstakingly produced artwork” feeling regardless of its resale value :P
Yeah, I second that “whew!” I was afraid for a second there that I might be a secret jewish sikh, and I have a feeling that would be complicated.
That’s an interesting test. My background (never belief, exactly) is Conservative (that is, intermediate between Orthodox and Reform), and that scenario makes me queasy. My first thought was that it represents a level of rage which I’m not comfortable with (and this isn’t totally nonsense), but I do find it more distressing than imagining an ex-Christian doing the same to a Christian bible, even a hand-lettered bible.
Wow, really? From an atheist background, to me I’m much more horrified by the thought of any unique hand-created book being burned than any printed thing for which there are endless copies.
Er, Torah scrolls are hand-written. The scroll form is always made by a scribe, not printed.
is enlightened thanks!
I think you missed what ciphergoth was reacting to—I said that I’d be more upset at a Torah scroll being destroyed than a hand-written Christian bible. This doesn’t mean that I’d have no reaction to the Christian destroying a hand-written Christian bible.
What I was imagining for the hand-written bible was one without illustrations, but that probably wouldn’t make any emotional difference for ciphergoth.
Is the emotion the same if someone made a sufficiently detailed scan of it before they burnt it?
If it’s detailed enough that sufficiently advanced technology could rebuild it indistinguishably, I’m happy. I’m curious how other people feel about this!
It’s interesting that you find a hypothetical Torah scroll desecration to be indicative of rage. Before I lost my Jewish faith I, too, would have associated Torah-desecration with villainy and hate — partially because there were stories and legends about villainous Torah-desecrators, and partially because the Torah evoked such feelings of sanctity and purity that the idea of desecrating a Torah only made sense if there was rage or depravity involved. But of course, I can now easily imagine other emotions that would motivate hypothetical Torah desecrators, like trollishness.
I think it’s more that I’m generally apt to underestimate the impulse to trollishness, though I do think it overlaps hate. Pissing people off for the lulz has something to do with malice towards those people, though I grant that rage has a lot of emotional intensity while trolling has some distance.
“Another”? I assume this question is directed at Joshua Z. I am not a former Orthodox Jew, nor any other kind of Jew for that matter. I’m Catholic.
That said, as I wrote in my above comment, clearly the context of an offensive/blasphemous act or utterance matters a lot. As for the concrete scenario you list, I find it hard to imagine that a Jew who has left the religion would symbolically desecrate Torah—the act has such a strong connotation of anti-Jewish pogroms that I’d imagine even a non-religious Jew would find it scary, almost like brandishing swastikas. That’s my outsider’s impression at least; I’d be curious to hear the opinion of someone more knowledgeable.
Just out of curiosity, in what sense are you Catholic (heritage, culture, belief)? (No need to answer if you prefer not to.)
Well, legally, I am a Catholic in good standing (I’m baptized, and I’ve never renounced it nor been excommunicated). In my practices, I am largely lapsed, though I value the heritage, the art, the community, and the folkways a lot. As for beliefs, obviously there is a lot that doesn’t stand up to rational scrutiny, though like in any long-standing tradition, many things that may seem irrational or backward are in fact closer to reality than various modern fashionable beliefs. (Clearly, a simple blog comment can’t do justice to this topic.)
What I would point out however is that I often find the North American (presumably Protestant) attitudes in this regard quite alien and strange. What I mean is the tendency to see one’s belonging to a church as an either-or matter, and breaking with it as a grand and dramatic event. Among Catholics, the normal thing to do is simply to adjust the level of your practices and your closeness to the community to whatever you find to your liking. (ETA: Though conversion to a different religion, as opposed to merely neglecting one’s own, would be a big deal.)
I’d recommend Nick Szabo’s essay Objective Versus Intersubjective Truth as a good first explanation of the topic.
Note: The website appears to be down at the moment, Google cache available here.
Yes, I second that recommendation. It’s a magnificently good essay.
Any other recommendations in a vaguely similar vein? (I’ve already read Szabo’s other stuff.)
I can’t think of anything of similar quality right now.
Any other recommendations in a vaguely similar vein? (I’ve already read Szabo’s other stuff.)
Szabo’s website is up as of May 4, 2012.
I assume you’ve read his blog as well. In that case there are several things I’d recommend. If you haven’t read all of Paul Graham’s essays, you should. There’s also Walter Mead’s essay of what he, rather anachronistically, calls the “Blue Social Model”. He also talks about these ideas in more depth on his blog (along with all kinds of other stuff ETA: mostly on current events).
Also possibly John C Wright’s blog if you’re more interested in religious stuff.
Yes, the question was for Joshua Z; I should have made that more clear.
Just to bring in the real world, I’ve never heard of an ex-Orthodox Jew desecrating a Torah to symbolize their break with the religion. I have heard of them eating emphatically non-kosher food.
I think I’d still feel emotional unpleasantness although probably not as much as in the generic case. This suggests that Vladimir’s concern is partially correct but that that’s not the whole thing and some really is just residual emotional feelings. There’s another side issue that may also be involved, in that the burning of books of any form or similar objects (such as scrolls) makes me deeply pained regardless. But that connects to what Vladimir M was talking about in that part of that deep pain is the historical connection between book burning and censorship.
Particularly when the ‘blasphemy’ is committed for the express purpose of committing blasphemy. By contrast, a Jehovah’s Witness considers it blasphemy when someone salutes a flag, but probably realizes that every act of reverence for a flag is not done for the express purpose of offending the JWs.
Even so, the offense in your case is still the result of your previous belief in a falsehood. If you had never been an Orthodox Jew in the first place, it’s unlikely that you would feel the same indignation/offense/pain upon contemplating that particular sacrilege. This may be a case of your visceral reactions not having caught up to your conscious beliefs.
So holding communion wafers hostage is still a better analogy than punching someone in the face (in fact, there are probably former Catholics reading this who would take some kind of visceral offense at the former, and I’d likewise encourage them to try to get over it if they can).
Agreed that communion wafers are a better analogy than punches in the face, and that the offense is a product of cultural indoctrination. (That said, the question of how offensive a punch in the face is is not completely separable from cultural indoctrination, either.)
Disagreed that the truth or falsehood of the belief itself has anything to do with the issue, though.
My getting offended if you disrespect my cultural icons has to do with my (true) belief that I am a member of the culture being disrespected. Someone who identifies as an American might be offended by someone urinating on an American flag in the same way that someone who identifies as a Jew might be offended by someone urinating on a Torah scroll or someone who identifies as the child of their parents might be offended by someone urinating on their parents’ wedding photo; talking about any of that in terms of true or false beliefs seems unnecessarily confused.
Yes—but my feeling is that if you no longer believe X, you should accept the fact that you’re no longer a member of the culture-defined-by-belief-in-X.
In general I am suspicious of the often-heard argument that religion is not really about belief. You only hear this from people looking for an excuse to remain in a tribe they’ve been in their whole life, because (understandably) it’s psychologically difficult to leave a tribe. But sometimes it has to be done—and I see religion, quite frankly, as one of the clearest examples of a case where one simply needs to let go and be over with it.
That’s not to say you can’t embrace your identity as a former religionist. But that’s a distinct cultural identity, involving your fond memories of formerly being offended by sacrilegious acts, as opposed to still currently being offended by them.
Trouble is, your identity is about much more than that in practice. It’s deeply entangled with your way of life, your family, community, and social network, and also with the way others see and treat you. An offensively blasphemous act may (note: may, depending on the situation) be a credible signal that someone is hostile towards the group you identify with, and given the power to do so, would act so as to endanger your way of life, your community, and perhaps also your personal well-being. (This could range anywhere from making your life miserable in petty ways to outright violence.) In many cases, you must also take into account that those hostile to your group see it as your inherent identity that you can’t disown and escape from even if you wanted to.
With this in mind, often it is irrational to get riled up over some provocative act that is best ignored, or that isn’t even meant to be provocative but has it as an unwanted side-effect. However, sometimes it is also irrational to ignore clear signs of genuine hostility, some of which can plausibly translate into real danger. In the latter case, the visceral reaction is well adapted to reality.
(There are of course also various other cases where it’s less clear if a visceral reaction can be reasonably called “rational,” such as when some instrumental goal is best furthered by throwing a tantrum and creating drama to extract concessions.)
Well, you can be as suspicious as you wish, of course.
And, sure, if I agreed with you that cultural affiliation was contingent on belief—for example, if I agreed that to be Jewish I must embrace whatever theological beliefs are consensually held among Jewish theologians (supposing that there are any, and that I could figure out what beliefs they were)… or at least embrace only theological beliefs that are held by some Jewish theologians (though there’s a circularity there… who counts as a Jewish theologian, after all?), or… well, to be honest, I’m not actually sure what beliefs you’re saying I need to embrace in order to genuinely be Jewish, but regardless, if I agreed with you that there were some beliefs that fell into this category, then it would follow that when I stop believing those beliefs (whatever they are), it follows that I’m no longer Jewish.
But I don’t in fact agree with that—in fact, as above, I’m not sure it’s even coherent enough to disagree with.
Just to make this more concrete: I don’t believe, for example, that the universe was deliberately created by anything remotely person-like, nor that any such entity (supposing I were wrong about that first belief) shares in any singular sense identity with whatever entity or entities provided to early Jews the laws and tribal history currently known as the Torah, nor that those entities have any relationship worth mentioning to do with what happens to me upon my death.
If (as I suspect) you consider Judaism to be contingent on those beliefs, you would conclude that I’m not Jewish, and I would disagree.
Also: you seem to be saying, in addition, that I’m mistaken if I respond to expressed disrespect of Jewish cultural icons as though it were my culture being disrespected (for example, by being offended). I’m not quite sure that’s true, either, leaving aside the whole question of whether it actually is my culture.
I am in no sense a Canadian, for example, but I’m not sure I’d be mistaken if I respond to expressed disrespect of Canadian cultural icons as though it were my culture being disrespected (for example, by being offended on their behalf).
More specifically, what I would conclude is that your self-identification as “Jewish” (rather than “of Jewish parentage”) is a misguided effort to continue affiliating with a tribe that you’re used to belonging to, but that you would never have joined in the first place had you had your current beliefs at the time of joining and had you been taking them into account in deciding which tribe to join; and if, for example, it turned out that you were avoiding the use of electric lights on Saturdays, I would have no hesitation in labeling such behavior as irrational, even silly—and I would be entirely unsympathetic to the extent I viewed the behavior as a tribal affiliation signal rather than, say, a psychological compulsion (which I can understand and relate to).
In all honesty, I would tend to view that with suspicion also—my instinctive perception would be of an obsequious attempt to curry favor with Canadians. This perception could be overridden, of course, depending on the circumstances; but I would sympathize with disapproval on the part of a non-Canadian more than offense per se.
Mostly, I think the place I disagree with you is that you see the beliefs as primary and the tribal membership as contingent on beliefs, at least when it comes to Judaism, and I see them as largely unrelated.
That is, I no more decided to be Jewish on the basis of religious beliefs than I decided to be American on the basis of national beliefs, and being Jewish no more constrains my Saturday activities than being Hispanic does. They are all affiliations I was born into and choose to endorse, despite not practicing them in traditional ways.
I’m a former Catholic, and I read the story linked by desrtopia. I must admit that I felt a visceral sense of rage that I never expected. But not in the direction that you predicted! I wanted to shout to Webster Cook (through my computer screen and more than two years back in time) to flush the bread down the toilet.
I don’t write this as any sort of reasoned advice on how people ought to behave. I’m just reporting my emotional response.
Not true.
I’ve never been Jewish, and I personally find the act of deliberately desecrating objects of belief, faith and following—from blowup up Buddhas to burning flags to pissing on crucifixes to be extremely distasteful in ways ranging from mild annoyance at juvenile attempts to shock (Piss christ, Dung Madonna) to rather enraging (Blowing up thousand year old statues or burning flags as a political protest).
Things like the Torah, the Koran and the Bible (a bit less so, but still) (I have no idea about the Shruti/Smirtis, but I’ll lump them in here anyway) are not just religious texts, they are cultural icons, relics and touchstones to hundreds of millions of people. By desecrating those artifacts you are desecrating those people’s beliefs and culture. This is, at minimum rude and is a mind killer.
Now things like shitting on a torah, blowing up a church or burning a flag are distinctly different than drawing Mohammad in that drawing Mohammad (or anyone else really) is not desecration, but blasphemy. It is roughly the same as me, or anyone else “taking the lords name in vain”.
Can you explain what criteria you’re using to draw that distinction? Do you expect people with different cultural norms to be able to acknowledge those criteria as objectively valid?
The distinction between them is difficult for me to articulate clearly—it seems my operating definition of desecration and blasphemy were a little more narrow than common usage, but to me desecration is something you do to an object or an idea that reduces it’s utility as a sacred object or icon—essentially some sort of vandalism. Blasphemy is a secular or profane expression of a sacred idea—you can’t desecrate Mohammad’s memory by drawing him because (1) we don’t know what he looked like, and (2) drawing him isn’t doesn’t render him profane in the eyes of his believers, except where it challenges their beliefs and causes THEM to change their mind.
A desecration reduces a sacred object profane, while blasphemy is either an insult to a sacred belief or entity or the questioning of that belief or entity.
And yes, I do expect people with different cultural norms (for bounded values of different, super intelligent shades of blue may have a different enough sensory apparatus and processing engine that those concepts don’t apply) to be able to at least acknowledge those distinctions. Now, I don’t expect all members of any given culture to—after all even our culture has people who think the world is flat etc.
And there are some cultural norms that aren’t worth giving a fuck about.
Note there is a difference between “tolerate” and “accept”.
Someone damaging physical artifacts of one’s religion is a reasonable thing to make into a Schelling point. That’s quite different from someone creating media that is counter to your religion.
Sure, we can make that distinction (and there are other possible distinctions). I was merely making my remark in the context of Derstopa’s claim that the offense is that strongly tied to the actual belief.
Huh. That sort of reaction is completely alien to me. Do you still have a strong cultural allegiance to Judaism which you feel is being affronted by this?
I can’t speak for JoshuaZ, but speaking as another nonbeliever-raised-Orthodox-Jew, my reaction is similar to his.
And, yes, I think it’s fundamentally a cultural thing. That is, the Torah scroll in this example is functioning as an icon of cultural Judaism, much as flags do for various kinds of nationalism.
Just to unpack that a little: if someone behaves disrespectfully towards an icon of a culture, I react as though they’d expressed disrespect towards that culture. If it’s a culture I identify with, I react as though they’d expressed disrespect towards me. All of this seems entirely unremarkable and to be expected, to me at least.
The idea that any of this (be it with respect to Torah scrolls or the image of Mohammed or American flags) has anything to do with specific beliefs about divinity is, I think, a complete distraction.
True enough. There can be also other motivations for finding damaging an icon of a culture to be distasteful. When the Taliban was destroying Buddha statues in Afghanistan I found that sad, simply because the statues were ancient and irreplaceable, irrespective of their religious significance.
I may have overgeneralized from my own mentality. My own outlook is very different from yours or joshua’s; I am of Jewish extraction, but after a couple of years attending Brandeis university, I found the in-group dynamic sufficiently oppressive that I now refuse to self identify as Jewish, and become offended when people refuse to accept my distinction between being Ashkenazic on my mother’s side and being Jewish. That sort of cultural affiliation, absent any particular beliefs or ideals to associate it with, is something I’ve only observed from the outside.
I think it’s worth asking though, whether, once you winnow out all the absurd and unjustified beliefs in these various cultural packages, there are any sane beliefs that justify taking offense at actions such as drawing pictures of Mohammad, keeping a transubstantiated wafer rather than eating it, or urinating on the Torah. I think that the first two are only comparable to the last one if they are performed as deliberate attacks on a cultural icon, and if they’re not, then I’m not sure what sane reason that could leave to object to them.
I’m not quite sure what a sane reason for offense is. More generally, I’m not sure what a sane reason for any emotional reaction is.
But I guess I can see saying that since fear evolved “in order to” encourage us to avoid danger, it’s sane to feel fear with regards to genuinely dangerous situations, and insane to feel it with regards to situations that aren’t dangerous. On that account, being scared while standing on the edge of a cliff in high wind is sane, but continuing to feel scared after someone someone clips a safety cable to my belt is insane.
And adopting the same stance with respect to offense, I would say that offense evolved “in order to” encourage us to defend our status, and is therefore sane when our status is genuinely at stake and not when it isn’t. Using that standard, it seems entirely sane to be offended at the actions you list: they all have the effect of lowering the status of various symbols of my tribe, which in turn lowers my status.
That said, you seem to be using some other standard for a sane emotional reaction, one I don’t entirely understand. Can you clarify it further?
Careful, if you judge the validity of your emotions by whether they’re serving their evolutionary role, you’ll end up arguing that the purpose of life is to maximize your inclusive genetic fitness.
I agree, sort of, modulo your introduction of the rather ill-defined term “purpose of life”.
Which is why I started out saying I don’t know what a sane reason for offense is.
I suppose one could say, instead, that X is a sane reason for offense if feeling offense in the presence of X achieves useful results in that environment.
On that account, if taking offense at actions such as drawing pictures of Mohammad increases my status within my community, and if increased status is useful, then drawing pictures of Mohammad is a sane reason for offense within my community.
I was pretty sure that wasn’t what desrtopa was looking for either, though.
My first thought was to characterize a sane belief that justifies an emotional reaction reaction as one that creates a connection to one’s terminal values without being clearly counterfactual, but I’m not sure whether this is adequately transparent; I’m biased by having my own meaning in mind.
I’m not sure this is true. For instance, in the case of urinating on the Torah, it’s an act that would be widely agreed to represent contempt for a symbol. It would be reasonable to interpret it as a deliberate assault on a representation of the group with which you affiliate.
In the case of drawing Mohammad, it’s not an act which generally denotes contempt; drawing symbols of various other cultural groups doesn’t constitute an attack. So for it to be a sane source of offense, you would need some justified belief which could complete the connection between the drawing and an attack on your group’s status. If you had reason to belief that the artist had drawn it to make a mockery of your traditions, that would be a sane belief which could complete the connection, but if you know the act was not done in ill spirits, what might you believe which could complete the connection?
I might believe that the existence of the drawing lowers my group’s status, regardless of the artist’s intent.
(EDIT: You edited the parent after I replied; I take no responsibility for whether my reply has any relationship to the new parent. I really wish people would stop doing that. I may come back to this later and reconcile.)
Not quite transparent.
I more or less understand what it means for a belief B to not be clearly counterfactual, and what you mean by my terminal values V.
I don’t understand what it means for B to “justify an emotional reaction” E, and I understand what it means for B to “have a connection to” V, and I’m not sure what the relationship between B and V has to do with E.
For what it’s worth, your response wasn’t there when I started making the edit, and I didn’t see it until after I had changed my comment. I frequently find a few seconds after leaving a comment that I had more to say, and revise my comment to reflect it.
Yes, I understand that people do this. One consequence of doing it is that other people’s replies are retroactively disconnected from the thing they appear to reply to.
I just don’t like my replies being treated that way, is all.
Of course, I can’t do anything to prevent it, and nobody else is obligated to respect my preferences. The best I can do is edit my replies to note that any disconnections might be retroactive, which is what I did.