Christian Is Not a Religion (and Jews Have a Cross to Bear)

October 9, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

In the flap over Sonia Sotomayor’s gender and ethnicity, when the right went nuts over her “wise Latina”comment, I noted (here) the invisibility of dominant characteristics.

White male is the default setting. White is not a race, male is not a gender. Only blacks, Hispanics, and others have race. Only women and gays have gender.

I should have added that usually these are invisible only to the whites and the males. I also should have added that, in the US at least, Christian is not a religion.

From Wednesday’s New York Times

As the Supreme Court weighed a dispute over a religious symbol on public land Wednesday, Justice Antonin Scalia was having difficulty understanding how some people might feel excluded by a cross that was put up as a memorial to soldiers killed in World War I.

“It’s erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead,'” Scalia said of the cross that the Veterans of Foreign Wars built 75 years ago atop an outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve. “What would you have them erect?...Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Muslim half moon and star?”'

Peter Eliasberg, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer arguing the case, explained that the cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity and commonly used at Christian grave sites, not that the devoutly Catholic Scalia needed to be told that.

''I have been in Jewish cemeteries,'' Eliasberg continued. ''There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.''

There was mild laughter in the packed courtroom, but not from Scalia.

“I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion,” Scalia said, clearly irritated by the exchange. [emphasis added]

Just as white is the universal race (in the eyes of whites) and male the universal sex (in the eyes of males), Christianity is the universal religion. The Times writer says that Scalia did not need to be told that the cross is the symbol of Christianity. But Scalia says that it’s “outrageous” to think that the cross honors only Christians. In other words, the Christian religious symbol is the universal religious symbol . . . at least in the eyes of Christians like Scalia. I think Justice Ginsburg might disagree.

UPDATE. The Times this morning published a letter which says, in part, “The cross does not represent ‘establishment’ of a particular religion. It is a simple, and neutral, recognition that those honored were, by an enormous margin, Christians.” The writer, Ron Holdaway, is a retired judge in Wyoming.

What a persuasive choice of words. Neutral! Neutral is good (by Polonius). The old neutral cross.

That saying, “It’s Sinatra’s world, we just live in it,” is funny when it’s about Ol’ Blue Eyes. But when it’s changed to “It’s Christianity’s world; we’re just allowed to live in it,” it loses much of its humor.

(As for Judge Holdaway, I picture my grandmother, were she alive: “Holdaway, Ron Holdaway,” she muses, rolling the name around in her mind, looking at it from different angles for several seconds. Then, “Doesn’t sound Jewish.”)

Losing a Teachable Moment

October9, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

Bureaucracy was the topic in class yesterday, and a student had a wonderful anecdote. The trouble was that I couldn’t figure out what it was an example of. I still can’t.

Here’s the story.

She needed a copy of her birth certificate, and eventually she found the right government building and the right office, only to find a sign on the door saying that the person she needed to see was away for a one-day seminar. She went home and returned the next day. Same sign.

Maybe the person was late in getting back. When she came back a third day and the same sign was still there, she went into another office to find out what was up.

Another worker explained that the person in that office was off for a week vacation, but they didn’t have a sign that said that. The only sign they had was the one-day seminar sign. So that’s what they posted.

There are some lessons to be learned here – don’t believe everything you read, close enough for government work, etc. Beyond the practical implications though, I had the feeling that story also illustrated some more general sociological concept or principle. But whatever that might have been, it was, and still is, hidden someplace in the shadows.

Any ideas? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Before It’s Too Late . . .

October 6, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

Act now — while there’s still time.

A Preference for Bad News

October 4, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

Brad Wright links to an article by Rod Dreher claiming that “our news media, through heavily biased reporting and analysis, are turning significant numbers of American voters against religious conservatives.”

I was skeptical that the media have this power. The “media elite” may be secular, and their views may be be at odds with those of conservative Christians. But the only evidence Dreher gives that their politics influence viewers is the finding that people who watch more TV news are more likely to think that “Christian fundamentalists are ideologically extreme and politically militant.” That’s probably because extremism of any stripe is what gets on the news. Or maybe it’s because it’s true, and people who pay more attention to the news have a more accurate view of what’s happening.

Besides, Dreher goes on to maintain that the US is still a religious nation with a populace that generally takes a dim view of nonbelievers. That contradicts his main point. If we are still religious, even after decades of our media being dominated by secularists, their anti-Christian influence must be very weak. So why get all worried? Why pay so much attention to the beliefs of the people who write the news?

Then on Friday, David Brooks echoed my sentiments, not about religion but in reference to the right-wing media. Limbaugh, Beck, and the rest, he said, make a lot of noise, but their ability to change votes is minimal.

Now I found myself in the position of Dreher. Although I had scoffed at Dreher’s idea that the secularism of US newsrooms was swaying the country, here I was, insisting that Limbaugh and Fox TV had to be having some effect. But why did I react that way? Why would we (Dreher from one side, me from the other) insist that the people we didn’t like were so influential?* Why wouldn’t we take comfort in the idea that they were, as Brooks says, like the Wizard of Oz – seemingly large on screen, but in reality small and powerless behind the curtain?

At first, I was reminded of the joke my mother told me long ago about the old Jew who subscribed to the newspaper of the American Nazi Party. His neighbors were appalled. “You should read the Jewish Daily Forward” they insisted. “Why do you read that garbage?”

“If I read the Forward, what do I see? Jews killed in Germany, pogroms in Russia, anti-Semitism in Poland, Jews persecuted everywhere. If I read the American Nazi paper, what do I see? Jews control the government. Jews own all the banks. Jews have all the money. . . .”

My second thought was that our preference for bad news – our insistence that our enemies must be having some nefarious impact – was yet another instance of what Lindesmith called the “evil-causes-evil assumption.” If something is evil, it must have evil consequences. This assumption must be a very powerful indeed. Even when faced with the possibility of good news – that our enemies are ineffectual – we’ll cling to our assumption and keep reading the bad news in the Forward.


* I’m referring here to my initial gut reaction. In fact, Brooks doesn’t provide much convincing evidence that the right-wing voices go unheeded. He cites only one systematic study of the absence of a Limbaugh effect, but that study was focused on one narrow issue – Rush’s urging Republicans to cross over and vote for weaker candidates in the Democratic primaries.