Nice Christians
Nov 7th, 2007 by Micah Tillman | 11 Comments |
The Christian Science Monitor has a long piece on conservative Mike Huckabee’s progressive stances on being nice to people. Which is nice.
Time has a shorter piece on how Christians are starting to be nice about divorce. It’s one of those things where a writer expresses shock about how strict other people are. (Which means he’s very strict about not being strict. Go self-contradiction!).
It’s a frustrating article in that it assumes marriage entails co-habitation, and therefore accuses Evangelicals of being inhumane if they think that physical abuse is not a legitimate reason for divorce. Logic would have helped the piece significantly, but it’s very interesting nonetheless.
I also think it’s amusing when people whose morality is fundamentally Judaeo-Christian (but who do not realize this) judge the Bible for being immoral. They should read more Nietzsche. (On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life, from his Untimely Meditations, or The Genealogy of Morals, or Beyond Good and Evil might help them get a better understanding of the connection between Judaism/Christianity and their value system).
Reuters (like many others) has a piece about the Pope and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia making nice. Which is kind of cool. Feels kind of historic.
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I have never found Nietzsche to ever have a single interesting thing to say on the subject of morality (or anything else). The man was a lunatic and almost entirely incoherent. I am shocked that you take the man seriously.
Anyway, Nietzsche was almost certainly wrong about most of the connections between Judeo-Christianity and morality (as he was about just about everything else). Judeo-Christianity does make some odd moral judgments (humility is more highly prized than in most other moral systems), but for the most part Judeo-Christian morality is pretty much identical to every other moral system that we find throughout the world. (Marriage predates Judeo-Christianity, for example.) Honestly, Mr. Tillman, you really ought to know better, given that you were discussing Buddhism in another post. Nietzsche may have had the excuse of not having much experience with other religious and ethical systems.
Whoa! :-)
Really? Hmm. I’m not sure how to argue whether something is interesting or not. And I’m not sure how to argue that Nietzsche was or wan’t a lunatic, or that he was or was not coherent.
I take him very seriously. I find much of his analyses of culture to be lucid and insightful.
Your comment is fascinating to me as it has taught me something new: Christians aren’t the only ones who dislike Nietzsche.
He claimed that the current dominance of the preference for pity, for the poor and weak that exists in the West was a historical consequence of Christianity. You disagree, I see. I thought it was obvious, but it must not be if it’s not to you. You’re an intelligent fellow.
I’d be intrigued to see an example of what you think Nietzsche was wrong about.
Indeed. That is consonant with how I understand Nietzsche’s claim about the West.
I really should, and I’m always working on that. But what is it that I should know better about specifically?
I take it you think I’m making some kind of claim that shows an ignorance of other religions. I’ve only claimed that modern, Western morality is a historical consequence of Judaeo-Christian morality. I must be missing something about your comment, because I don’t see the problem.
I don’t see a lot of things, however, so that’s why I have people like you (and my wife, and Nietzsche, and Aristotle, and Husserl, and St. Paul, and Moses) around *grin*
Rereading my post, I certainly came off as awfully strident. Sorry about that; I certainly didn’t intend it that way. My wife is forever telling me that I express myself more forcefully than I mean to and, rereading my comment above, that was definitely one of those times. I will get back to you on my opinions about Nietzsche and the development of moral philosophy over the ages. On a quick note, the East also had a moral strain running throughout it which emphasized pity, the poor, and the weak, that being Buddhism which predates Christianity and was quite likely not very much influenced by Judaism (though that’s hard to say). None of this constitutes an argument against Christianity, of course. If Christianity is true, we would expect virtually all cultures to have adopted its moral philosophy quite independently of the religion itself.
My wife says similar things to me about my writing *laugh*
What you say about Buddhism and Judaism sounds completely correct to me.
It’s nice to see some sense of universal morality!
Why I Dislike Nietzsche
Principally, I dislike his sneering condescension. In ‘Ecce Homo’ his chapter titles included “Why I Am So Wise,” “Why I Am So Clever,” “Why I Write Such Good Books,” and “Why I Am a Destiny.” I have two main problems with this. 1) It is pretty clear that he is not indulging in “Limbaughic irony” here; he was simply a megalomaniac. 2) He’s not that wise, he’s not that clever, and his books aren’t terribly good. (Perhaps he was a destiny. His influence, almost entirely baneful, has been quite profound on the 20th century.) One could easily argue that Aristotle was equally impressed with himself, but this doesn’t really bother me; Aristotle really was as clever as he thought he was. (I find Aristotle’s intellectual elitism and his belief that the wise should have absolute rule over the unwise rather distasteful, however.)
Nietzsche’s books aren’t really philosophy; they’re polemics. The man never even attempts to argue for his opinions; he merely asserts them. His books are full of ad hominems and emotional appeals. It is perhaps valuable that we have the philosophy of a man of passion committed to paper. Most writers are intellectuals, men of reason, and there is probably too little published from the opposite perspective. You’re not the first person who has made me think perhaps I ought to reevaluate Nietzsche and maybe I will. It has been many years since I last read him and it’s possible I could be more charitable now than I was when I originally waded through his works.
But most of all, because I once had a conversation with a very intelligent man who was surprised to discover my interest in philosophy. He assumed that, as a rational man, I would have no use for a discipline full of “the ravings of madmen.” I blame Nietzsche almost entirely for the disrepute that philosophy seems to have acquired.
Why Nietzsche Was Wrong
The largest difference between ancient morality and modern morality is not so much in what rights we grant (in all cultures, murder, theft, etc. of members of the in-group has always been proscribed), but in who we grant those rights to. Should we grant them to women? the poor? foreigners? foreigners of a different race? homosexuals? animals? The process of history is an ever-widening circle of who we believe is entitled to rights. Nietzsche claims that this is due to a “master-morality” being supplanted by a Christian “slave-morality.” But this change wasn’t revolutionary as his theory would suggest. When Constantine converted to Christianity, putting all of the Roman Empire under Christendom, no slaves were freed. It would take Christianity another 1500 years to abolish slavery entirely.
The confusion I believe Nietzsche is making is that this is not a conflict between two different systems of morality, but between morality (what Nietzsche calls the “slave-morality”) and immorality (the “master-morality”). If someone came in to the invalid Nietzsche’s room and beat him up and took all his stuff, I seriously doubt that Nietzsche would have said that this was okay since the felon had the correct “master morality.” I believe he has confused how the ancient “masters” treated non-members of the in-group as if it were their entire morality, which it wasn’t.
Thanks for the detail!
About Ecce Homo
I’ve never read Ecce Homo, but I imagine you are totally right about the difference between Nietzsche and Limbaugh. *grin* Nice distinction.
As regards his not being clever:
I have often found him insightful (which is different, I think). I even frequently find him amusing (which is something like clever) from time to time. I sometimes find that I understand the world more clearly after reading what he has written (which is the ultimate mark of good philosophy for me).
Other times I find him petty. His personal problems, especially regarding women, mark a lot of his work. Still other times I find him confusing.
Re: Aristotle.
He would call that megalopsychia: thinking that you deserve respect when you actually do deserve respect. What Nietzsche has, you are claiming, is what Aristotle would call the vice-of-excess associated with megalopsychia, whose name I can’t remember at the moment.
His mark on the 20th Century
The only mark on the 20th Century left by Nietzsche of which I am aware (other than the fact that his writings continue to have an impact on philosophers) is the Nazi appropriation of his book The Will to Power, which was, in fact, not his book. I have been given by my teachers to understand that it was compiled by his anti-Semite sister (he loathed anti-Semites, and his sister’s choice to marry one).
It’s very easy as an editor to make Nietzsche say that the Jews are bad because it’s very easy to make him say any group is bad (he especially didn’t like the Germans). And it’s very easy to make Nietzsche say that the Jews are wonderful because it’s very easy to make him say any group is wonderful.
On his polemicism
Nietzsche does write a lot of polemical stuff. But there’s also plenty of analysis in some of his books. His understanding of the three kinds of history in On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life (or On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, depending on which translation you get of Untimely Meditations [or Thoughts Out of Season, it's title according to another translation]) for instance, is particularly helpful.
It may be creepy that he uses the title “slave morality” in his analysis of how language is used to gain power (see the “Good/Bad” vs. “Good/Evil” distinction in Beyond Good and Evil) but I think he was the first person to point out the phenomenon. And I think that after reading what he has to say about language and power, you see how the world works more clearly.
About the disrepute of philosophy:
I had never considered that theory. Plato talks about why people generally dislike philosophy and philosophers in The Republic (see the stuff about the Philosopher King and the Cave). “Philosophers are useless cranks,” was what he said the general opinion was back then.
I was of the opinion that this was just how it always had been and always would be. Do people know enough Nietzsche for him to taint their view of philosophy?
On the lack of radical change to the slave morality with the conversion of Constantine
Nice point about Constantine. My progressive Christian friends would claim that this was because it was Christianity, not Constantine, that was converted. They call Christianity since that time has been a “religion of Empire,” and say it was not what it was meant to be.
About morality vs. immorality:
Is there a difference between a morality and a value-system? Because it seems to me that what Nietzsche calls the “master morality” is a value system.
About his opinion of someone who robbed him:
That’s an interesting thought experiment. Nietzsche does claim that the need to overcome other people is actually a sign of weakness, and that it is self-overcoming that is his true goal.
If you need other people to have someone over whom to exercise your power, then you’re still dependent on others and aren’t as strong as you’re pretending to be.
Also, Nietzsche said that one should only destroy in order to create. The “No!” must be followed by a “Yes!” If the robber took whatever it was from Nietzsche and created something great out of it, he might applaud.
Now you might be entirely correct about that. That’s a great distinction. (I love distinctions, so long as they make the world clearer :-)
Actually, Nietzsche was fairly clever, just not as clever as he thought he was. His aphorisms were very often quite witty.
As for Nietzsche’s effect on the 20th century, I wasn’t actually thinking of the Nazis or the Fascists (he was also used by Mussolini in this way), but his influence on various thinkers like Freud, Camus, Derrida, Sartre, Heidegger, and others. A lot of what could have been fine minds spent their lives tied up in knots because they fell under the spell of Nietzsche. (However, this is largely because of his anti-Christian critique. Nietzsche was the 19th century equivalent of Howard Stern.) I am not as convinced as you about Nietzsche’s anti-anti-Semitism. As you point out, I think it’s pretty easy to make a case for the fact that Nietzsche hated both anti-Semites and Jews. Which you care to emphasize is going to depend on whether you wish to whitewash him or tear him down. I do believe his nihilistic philosophy made it easier for Nazism to flourish.
I have not read ‘On the Use and Abuse of History for Life’ so I cannot comment on his three histories very knowledgably. After reading ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra,’ ‘Beyond Good and Evil,’ ‘On the Genealogy of Morality,’ and ‘Ecce Homo,’ I gave up Nietzsche for good.
On the ‘good/bad’ and ‘good/evil’ distinction, I thought it was pretty obvious that he was confusing aesthetics and morality, a not uncommon error, but it rather undermined his whole thesis for me. I could be wrong on this; I speak no German and cannot read him in his original language. It is possible I am reading nuance where none is intended or missing nuance where it is intended. On the ancients, I believe he was discussing their aesthetics, but on Christians he was critiquing their ethics. It is appropriate here to comment that I wouldn’t have made a distinction between morality and a ‘values system’ before writing this comment, but I would now. A ‘values system’ can also include non-moral aesthetic judgments. I value a good steak. I don’t believe a steak has any moral properties (unless they are negative ones if you support vegetarianism).
This ties in with what I was saying earlier. I believe Nietzsche thinks the Christians invented morality to supplant what he believed was the ancients’ purely aesthetic values. However, Nietzsche is very confusing. He also seems to be saying that ancient morality is consequentialist while Christian morality is deontological, but then he lumps in utilitarianism which is clearly consequentialist. That’s one of my problems with Nietzsche. It’s hard to have a conversation about the guy, because I honestly have no idea what he means half the time or, indeed, if he means anything at all.
I can’t guarantee that Nietzsche is the only cause of philosophy’s disrepute. I think partly you’re right about people always being opposed to it. Many people seem to take issue with Descartes, for example, and his skeptical experiment. I agree, of course, that skepticism is obviously false. What is important is what we can learn from its refutation.
Your progressive Christian friends might be right, but it should also be pointed out that it’s awfully hard to find anything in the Bible condemning slavery anyway.
Oh, my! I feel that I dare not comment in the presence of such knowledgeable people. I’ve enjoyed reading your comments very much. I read a bit of Nietsche in a World Literature class, but I’m not familiar enough to comment on him.
The point about your original post, Micah, that struck me, was the way that people condemn Christianity (and/or Judaism and/or the Bible and/or the God of the Bible) by assuming its value system to be true.
For example, when people say, “You Christians are hypocrites,” I feel like answering, “That’s right!”
Another example is when people say, “We just know that certain things are wrong,” I want to reply, “That’s just what St. Paul said!”
Part of the point of my post (which was lost somewhere) is that it’s quite possible to believe in an objective universal morality and still be an atheist. That is my position, for example. So I prickle a bit at the suggestion that Christians (or religions in general) have a monopoly on morality. If, however, you are merely criticizing those atheists who do not believe in objective morality (most of them), then by all means have at them. I consider their position to be mired in numerous inconsistencies and absurdities.
My second-order ethical system (i.e. the system that justifies my ethics) is called “moral intuitionisn,” made famous by G.E. Moore and others, the view that we have an intuitive understanding of (some) moral truths (except psychopaths, apparently). My first-order ethics (i.e. the things I actually think are right and wrong) are fairly banal. I daresay most people would agree with them. Don’t hurt people, don’t be overly selfish, be honest, be kind, etc., etc. I disagree with Christian ethics on a couple of points. I think they overvalue humility and self-abnegation. I have always been baffled by Jesus’s dictum, “Love thine enemy.” By all means, I make every effort to turn any enemies I have into friends, but I’m simply not going to love the man who murders one of my loved ones as much as I loved the loved one. And I’m more skeptical of the whole “turn the other cheek” thing than Christians are.
I think many Christians have a poorly thought out sexual morality, even within their own ethical context, nevertheless in mine. If you read the Hebrew Bible and all its many laws, you will find that almost all of the onerous rules and regulations are aimed at maximizing the population, both through safety and through reproduction. Don’t eat pork, which is dangerous if not cooked properly. Separate milk and meat so the raw meat doesn’t infect your uncooked food. Lay with a woman only when she’s most likely to be ovulating and do not when she isn’t. The underlying subtext is “More Jews, more Jews, more Jews.” The Bible’s prohibitions on homosexuality, in my opinion, should be seen on this basis; homosexuality was wrong because they wanted men who would breed. Thus, I will argue, the anti-homosexual evangelicals are mistaken (and the Catholic Church is probably, though not certainly, similarly wrong about contraception). I would argue that prohibitions on homosexuality are among those parts of the purely legal Laws that Jesus overturned. They should be considered along with circumcision (also a health commandment which is no longer necessary), pork, the “uncleanliness” of woman during menses, etc. It is not one of the moral commandments (like the prohibition on murder and theft) which Jesus left untouched.
Sorry about that digression. In general, though, I largely agree with Christian morality, but almost all of that is pretty universal. Buddhism isn’t much different, neither is Confucianism, and neither are most other culture’s ethical systems. Most apparent moral disagreements aren’t even disagreements about morals at all; they’re disagreements about facts. Here is a simple pro-life argument:
1. It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
2. A fetus is an innocent human being.
3. Therefore, it is wrong to kill a fetus.
The pro-choice argument is almost always a straightforward denial of premise 2. However, premise 1 is the moral premise. Premise 2 is a factual premise. Similarly, the Hindus believe it is wrong to slaughter and eat cows. You would too if you believed your dead grandma might now be in the form of a cow. But this is a factual dispute, not a moral one. How likely is it that your dead grandmother is now a cow?
Occasionally, people believe that there are (or were) wholly immoral cultures. Usually, this is based on slanders about little-known cultures. For example, sometimes people will mention the Aztecs and human sacrifice. But the Aztecs almost never sacrificed each other; they sacrificed defeated warriors. Only once a year did they sacrifice one of their own. He was called the Perfect Victim and it was considered a great honor to be chosen. Many other claims about cultures are simply outright lies.
Andrew–
On atheists and morality
I’d prickle too, were I you. I don’t wish to criticize atheists here, specifically. What I find ironic is that so many people assume a morality that is currently dominant in the West due to the historical influence of Christianity, without acknowledging that fact.
Regarding turning the other cheek
I really like what Walter Wink has to say about that section. He shows how each thing Jesus says (walk the second mile, give the cloak too, turn the other cheek) is a way of reasserting your own power/authority in the situation.
On the different kinds of law
I like the distinction between various types of law. Jesus referred to “the weightier points of law” (Matthew 23.23).
On the universality of morality
CS Lewis, my hero, would heartily agree. In The Abolition of Man he speaks of the universal constants of morality as “the Tao.” He even gives a list of what “the Tao” says (the moral concepts he claims are the same the world over/throughout history).
On the claim-of-fact/moral-claim distinction
Great point! Really helpful.
I was actually responding to Renaissance Guy, who I’m certain meant no offense either. I am hardly surprised that Christians are given to think that the Judeo-Christian religion is the sole source of morality, and I was simply pointing out that this isn’t so. I don’t think Christianity has even had a whole lot to do with what I believe is the largest evolution in morality over the millennia: the gradual widening of the in-group on which we confer the benefits of our morality. I believe this has occurred due to greater and greater prosperity which allows us more latitude to be generous to strangers and others. Life is no longer “nasty, brutish, and short.” I do grant the oddity of the non-Christian Left’s absorption with certain parts of morality which I think are specifically Christian (or Buddhist): an emphasis on humility and an extremist pacifism. But then I doubt that most people, left or right, give a whole lot of thought to trying to distinguish between which parts of cultural morality are actually true and which have been merely transmitted to us by our culture.
I’m not familiar with Mr. Wink’s work, I’m afraid. I suppose that’s a possible interpretation. It’s been a number of years since I last read the Gospels, so I’m not sure I can either get behind it or try to refute it without revealing my ignorance (not that that’s ever stopped me before).
St. Paul, of course, goes on at length about the Law. When members of the Left point out that nobody keeps all the laws of the Hebrew Bible, it is quite obvious that they have never bothered to read the Epistles of Saint Paul, in which it is plainly explained why Christians do not keep all parts of the Law. Of course, equally clearly, the anti-homosexual Christians believe homosexuality is morally wrong and therefore not part of the Law that was overturned. I believe they are mistaken on this issue. However, I am speaking on my purely intuitive understanding of morality, and not as a Biblical authority. Leviticus does describe it as an “abomination” (at least that’s how the word is usually translated) rather than a ritual uncleanliness so they probably do have some scriptural support for their position. However, the Hebrew word used, to’ebah, when it was translated into the Septuagint (sometime between the 3rd and 1st centuries B.C.) was translated into the Greek word meaning ritual impurity. (Perhaps the translators just didn’t want to offend the Greeks, given their famous proclivities.) Since I have no Hebrew at all, I have no idea who is right.
I’ve read Lewis’s ‘Abolition of Man’ (along with, I think, everything else he published in his lifetime) and agree with virtually everything in it, including his slams at the positivists — thankfully, logical positivism has, as far as I know, not a single living defender left. I think Lewis does make an Argument from Morality case for God in one of his books, but he went a mile out of his way to avoid making it in ‘Abolition of Man,’ which I greatly appreciated. Moreover, I think it was the correct strategy to adopt. Had he spoken from a Christian perspective, most of the audience he wished to reach would have tuned him out. It’s nice to see, by the way, that we can agree on Lewis, even if we can’t agree on Nietzsche. I quite enjoy C.S. Lewis’s apologies. Anyway, I believe Lewis was correct in his diagnosis of ancient morality in ‘Abolition of Man’ and Nietzsche was incorrect in his diagnosis in ‘Beyond Good and Evil.’ I think this is because Lewis actually studied the ancients. Nietzsche, as Santayana memorably said, “was not humble enough to learn very much by study.”
There is something to what Nietzsche said. If we focused exclusively on martial cultures, like that of the Romans, we do find something similar to what Nietzsche describes as “master morality,” which I believe is simply an aesthetic preference for extreme masculinity. (Although the Romans famously used to joke, “We rule the world and our wives rule us.”) Such cultures, I believe, were selected for by the conditions of the time. Of course, the Romans were often plagued by civil wars and tyrants and the Roman Republic eventually destroyed itself. Even so, the Romans produced a great many men who espoused something much more similar to Nietzsche’s “slave morality,” such as Cicero.
By the by, I should point out at this time (if I didn’t make it obvious in my long comment defending Christianity’s record in the Crusades) that, on the whole, I believe Christianity has done a great deal more good than harm. I think about moral issues virtually every waking hour of my life. It remains a surprise to me that most people do not. (The first thing you ought to do, it seems clear to me, is figure out what you ought to do.) A dominant religion has frequently had the effect of focusing people’s minds on ethical issues, in a way that ethics alone does not seem to have. I do think the decline of Christianity’s hold on Western culture shows up in a number of unfortunate ways. For example, people have always committed adultery and probably at about the same rate as today. But once upon a time, people had the grace to be ashamed of it. Nowadays, books are written extolling its virtues (see ‘Bridges of Madison County’), which is surprising since it has precious few of those.