Taking an Incomplete in Religion

October 13, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

In comments on my “Christian Is Not a Religion” post, Man of Letters says that minority and majority perceive things differently. Stephen Colbert’s, “I don’t see race” nicely illustrates the idea that privilege, when it’s working well, is invisible, especially to the privileged. Nonwhites may find it harder to unsee race.

The privileged position (white, male, etc.) is the default setting. As with default settings for machines or software, most people don’t even notice that these settings exist. After a while, the default setting just seems to be the “natural” way, the way things are. The default also comes be seen not just as the way things are but as the way things should be. To say that male is the default setting for sex implies that other settings, female for instance, are, well, faults. Being male is right and natural; it’s what we all should be doing. Women just aren’t as good at it.*

A similar set of assumptions seems evident in Justice Scalia’s idea that it is “outrageous” to think that the cross honors only Christian war dead. In Scalia’s view, even if you’re not a Christian, the cross is still for you. And if you don’t feel honored by that cross, well maybe there’s something wrong with you. In Scalia’s case, these ideas still seem to be unexamined assumptions. Others make the case more explicitly. Theologian Ann Coulter, among others, says that in relation to Christians, Jews are “uncompleted” or “unperfected.” When Jews are completed and perfected, they will be Christians.

Jews, given their centuries-long experience with others seeking to perfect them, may understandably be less than enthusiastic about Ms. Coulter’s beneficence.


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*This assumption has been the basis of TV sitcom plots going back to “I Love Lucy.” Lucy tries to do something that men usually do (for example, working or having a job), only to fail hilariously.

The New York Walk - High Line Edition

October 11, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

Our semi-annual New York walk yesterday took a different route from any previous walk. We hit the High Line, the elevated train tracks that had long fallen into disuse and that the city converted into a pedestrian walkway. Here’s a before-and-after.

(Click on the picture for a larger view.

If you give people in the city a place to walk, they will. The High Line is fairly narrow, as you can see, and not all that long. But people walk up and walk back, even though there are not a lot of things to do – no shops or displays to look. But people stop and take photos of one another. Here’s part of our group.

(George, Paulo, Joe)

Our itinerary was briefer than in previous years. It included another recent New York innovation – the conversion of several blocks of midtown Broadway into a pedestrian area, with chairs. We had lunch at the Chelsea Brewing Company at Chelsea Piers, which was offering a menu of about 30 locally brewed beer, ale, and stout.

But the New York Walk is about walking. Especially on the High Line, I was reminded of the passeggiata, the non-utilitarian walk that Italians take after dinner, strolling about town talking and looking at the other people who are strolling and looking. Italians may be more aware than New Yorkers that they themselves are the attraction, what others have come out to review. But in either case, walking for no purpose but to look at other people is a pleasure afforded almost exclusively by cities. It is to New York’s credit that it recognizes this special urban possibility and has tried to enhance it.

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?