Under the Banner of Liberty

I got an email from a friend a couple of weeks ago with a link to this interesting post at Positive Liberty by an accomplished libertarian blogger, decrying (in no uncertain terms) present-day polygamy of the sort practiced by the FLDS Church but defending consensual adult polygamy, which he rather generously likened to the sort practiced by the 19th-century LDS Church. This rather unusual constellation of positions is due in part to the author's recent reading of Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. I like Krakauer and have posted on him before (Responding to Krakauer; Krakauer Walks the Walk; The Land That Time Forgot; and, from the old blog, a post on Into Thin Air). Here I'll just comment on the post at Positive Liberty.

I don't think that Krakauer's polygamy themes themselves were particularly controversial for most Mormons. I think it was his depiction of Mormonism as a potentially violent religion, and the suggestion that all religion sets believers up to slip into violence under the banner of any charismatic zealot, that really irked mainstream LDS readers. It's the sort of view that sounds reasonable to those who already believe it but sounds lame to anyone else.

Here's a short quote from the last paragraph of the Positive Liberty post that develops the violence theme:

What Krakauer convincingly documents is that religious faith, because it appeals to something other than reason, is incapable of demonstrating the truth of its claims or the untruth of its opponents. Having abandoned the standard of rationality, then, there are no sensible criteria for judging the goodness or badness of a religious claim, and that leaves religions and religious people vulnerable to fundamentalist exploitation. The dividing line between “mainstream” and “fundamentalist” religions is, epistemologically speaking, an illusion.

I can see what the author is getting at and there may be a grain of truth to it, but how would you discredit such a theory to one who accepts it? Show a bunch of peaceful, happy believers, and they'll say fine, peaceful now, but they are potentially violent. Show them secular regimes that practice widespread violence (e.g., Stalinist Russia), secular gangs that live by violence and coercion, or non-believing criminals, and their secularity is dismissed as having no connection with their violent disposition. After all, how could it? Religion is what causes people to be vulnerable to violent impulses. Just look at Dan Lafferty if you need proof. It seems like an argument based on filtered evidence.

The quote from the post takes a better whack at it, but still comes up short I think. If religion is incapable of demonstrating the truth of its claims, so are psychoanalysis and socialism, but that doesn't make psychiatrists or socialists liable to the charge of having abandoned rationality or of being particularly vulnerable to fundamentalist exploitation. "People believe what they want to believe" is not limited to just religious people. And if the quality of a person's moral and philosophical thinking is not a function of their beliefs (that is, if religion doesn't make people think differently), then it's unclear how religion can enter the discussion as an explanatory variable. I think most reflective people would agree that the causes of violence (whether personal or corporate) go much deeper than one's conscious beliefs.

Comments

[Dave]

Just to give Krakauer his own say, I'll give a link to a BYU NewsNet article that features several comments from Krakauer vis-a-vis his book and the Mormon Church.

[Nate Oman]

It seems to me that the central problem with the faith-abdicates-rationality-which-leads-to-violence argument is that it mistakenly assumes that avoiding violence is primarily about rationality. This seems quite dubious to me. It seems to me that avoiding violence probably has much much more to do with very strong norms against violence. Norms, however, don't really seem to get established by rational argument.

[Christian Y. Cardall]

I agree. I suspect reason is more often deployed in the justification of violence than its restraint. Except for rather rare circumstances I suspect avoiding violence is more instinctive.

Of course reasoning may begin from extra-rational premises and faith commitments that ultimately lead to religiously motivated violence, but it will be deliberate and rationally planned; it's not like even al Qaida types simply become uncontrollable raving lunatics.

[John Mansfield]

Regarding violence and rationality, I recall reading years ago that it had been rather difficult in World War II to get soldiers to shoot at the enemy instead of over him. Similarly, soldiers in the Civil War were too prone to swing the butt of their rifles as a defensive club instead of stabbing with the bayonet. This problem was addressed in training for the Vietnam War by setting up more realistic practice for shooting at people. This training worked; soldiers in Vietnam were more prone to shoot to kill. It was suggested this improved training may have increased the psychological toll on soldiers in Vietnam compared to earlier soldiers. This is all vague remembrance of something heard or read years ago whose correctness I can't vouch.

[Hellmut Lotz]

Well, a lot of socialists were vulnerable to violent exploitation. Stalin is merely the tip of the iceberg. You might enjoy Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies, which discusses the problem of irrational knowledge claims that bolster power claims. Volume 2 engages socialism but there are already a lot of gems in volume 1.

While I share the concern of the libertarian blogger, I don't think that religion necessarily renders adherents vulnerable to exploitation. If religious people carefully distinguish faith and knowledge and do not allow faith to coerce themselves or others then they will be just fine.

[Clark Goble]

I was going to bring that same point up Hellmut (minus the Popper reference). The problem is that "irrational" knowledge claims are part and parcel of acting in the real world. There's no way to effectively live if we only acted on what could be scientifically demonstrated.

Consider the following problem for Krakauer. How can he "rationally" defend that killing is wrong, or any other moral claim? Yes you can appeal to say utilitarianism. But ultimately to accept utilitarianism over some other ethical foundation one must make an irrational jump. Then there are the problems of determining what is ethical in the particulars.

While this problem certainly does plague religious people, and perhaps more so than others, it seems to me that the ultimate problem is less reason vs. irreason than simply countenancing breaking society's norms.

[Hellmut Lotz]

The problem is that "irrational" knowledge claims are part and parcel of acting in the real world. There's no way to effectively live if we only acted on what could be scientifically demonstrated.

I agree with that. People have to act despite ignorance. That's not Sandefur's concern, however.

The problem of knowledge claims is that they become power claims. Religious adherents who follow leaders who claim to possess knowledge beyond reason are vulnerable to exploitation.

[Clark Goble]

But Hellmutz, you miss my point. We all, as we act treat knowledge claims as power claims.

The issue isn't whether we do this, but rather the degree to which these power relations are moderated and controlled by social norms. The issue is ultimately one of societal power and that power is ultimately irrational.

The difference is between the power of the individual and the group. In these cases, that of revelatory religion, the "danger" to the community is that the individual has power rather than the community. Normally that's less of an issue. When someone does something outrageous and violence like the Lafferties, then it is targeted. Yet, when a community does it, such as the "scientific" view of say Africans in the 19th century, people don't.

[Clark Goble]

But Hellmutz, you miss my point. We all, as we act treat knowledge claims as power claims.

The issue isn't whether we do this, but rather the degree to which these power relations are moderated and controlled by social norms. The issue is ultimately one of societal power and that power is ultimately irrational.

The difference is between the power of the individual and the group. In these cases, that of revelatory religion, the "danger" to the community is that the individual has power rather than the community. Normally that's less of an issue. When someone does something outrageous and violence like the Lafferties, then it is targeted. Yet, when a community does it, such as the "scientific" view of say Africans in the 19th century, people don't.

[Hellmut Lotz]

Action implies neither knowlege nor power claims. Action implies only intent, other forms of behavior not even that.

[Clark Goble]

Action must imply more than intent to be action. To act, as oppose to merely form an intent, I must have the power to act.