Stanley Fish's latest steaming pile of shit in the New York Times

[PVnRT]

More garbage from Stanley Fish

Nevertheless, Smith observes, the self-impoverished discourse of secular reason does in fact produce judgments, formulate and defend agendas, and speak in a normative vocabulary. How is this managed? By “smuggling,” Smith answers.

. . . the secular vocabulary within which public discourse is constrained today is insufficient to convey our full set of normative convictions and commitments. We manage to debate normative matters anyway — but only by smuggling in notions that are formally inadmissible, and hence that cannot be openly acknowledged or adverted to.

The notions we must smuggle in, according to Smith, include “notions about a purposive cosmos, or a teleological nature stocked with Aristotelian ‘final causes’ or a providential design,” all banished from secular discourse because they stipulate truth and value in advance rather than waiting for them to be revealed by the outcomes of rational calculation. But if secular discourse needs notions like these to have a direction — to even get started — “we have little choice except to smuggle into the conversations — to introduce them incognito under some sort of secular disguise.”

And how do we do that? Well, one way is to invoke secular concepts like freedom and equality — concepts sufficiently general to escape the taint of partisan or religious affiliation — and claim that your argument follows from them. But, Smith points out (following Peter Westen and others), freedom and equality — and we might add justice, fairness and impartiality — are empty abstractions. Nothing follows from them until we have answered questions like “fairness in relation to what standard?” or “equality with respect to what measures?” — for only then will they have content enough to guide deliberation.

That content, however, will always come from the suspect realm of contested substantive values.

Oh, Stan, you're much more entertaining when you're whining about those evil liberals taking over college academic departments.

[trotsky]

1. Fish is ignoring the 700 pound gorilla in the room.

While he lambastes secularism for not being able to precisely define "freedom and equality" or justification for either, he never points out how religion CAN do this. In fact, if we analyze religion's answers, we find even LESS in common between various religious viewpoints. What does Islam consider equality of the sexes to mean? How much personal freedom does the Catholic Church think people should have, especially w.r.t. reproductive matters?

Nothing follows from them until we have answered questions like “fairness in relation to what standard?” or “equality with respect to what measures?” — for only then will they have content enough to guide deliberation.

So religion answers these questions how?

Surprise, surprise, he doesn't say.

Insofar as modern liberal discourse rests on a distinction between reasons that emerge in the course of disinterested observation — secular reasons — and reasons that flow from a prior metaphysical commitment, it hasn’t got a leg to stand on.

Unlike religion, which simply makes up an imaginary leg and says "we can stand on this!" TOTALLY superior! :eyes:

[PVnRT]

4. He had an article similar to this a couple of months ago

I'd go back and find it, but I don't feel like wading through that much manure.

[onager]

2. What did the English language ever do to this asshole...

...that makes him want to torture it so?

Using "normative" twice in two paragraphs? "Adverted to?" Pfft!

And justice is an "empty abstraction?" I bet Stanley could get a lively debate on that idea if he visited San Quentin. He can count how many times the Aryan Brotherhood drop the word "normative" in their conversations.

[PVnRT]

3. Stanley is a solipsist (sp?)

He likes using big, important-sounding words to make his weak arguments look more "scholarly."

[MrModerate]

8. And Rube Goldberg syntax to simulate erudition.

Under the theory if you find it hard to figure out (that's "parse" for you pedagogues) then you must be a little on the simpleminded side, and deserving of Mr. Fish's dismissive sniff. Also known as the "Philosophy 101 Essay Gambit."

[Synnical]

5. That was my first thought, too.

Use big words to make it seem like your words have meaning. The New Agers do that a lot. Cripes.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[realisticphish]

7. quantum

the nuclear weapon in the woo arsenal

[Synnical]

6. The UKs Guardian expressed some concern on this 02/23/2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/feb/23/republicans-religion-secular-america

Republicans v secular America

With blatant disregard for the first amendment, Republicans' intolerance of US secularism means things are turning ugly

Dan Kennedy
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 February 2010 19.00 GMT

If you're part of secular America – that is, if you're an atheist, an agnostic, a religious liberal or even a mainstream believer who thinks religion should be kept out of politics and vice-versa – then you should be very afraid of what the Republican party has in store for you in 2012.

No news there, you might say. The Republicans, as we all know, have been in thrall to the Christian right since the Reagan era. But there's something new, something more intolerant, something truly ugly in the works. And if you don't believe me, let's start with Tim Pawlenty, unassuming governor of Minnesota in his day job, fire-breathing Christian warrior and aspiring presidential candidate in his spare time.

"I want to share with you four ideas that I think should carry us forward," Pawlenty said on Friday at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC. After invoking "basic constitutional principle and basic common sense," he continued:

"The first one is this: God's in charge. God is in charge ... In the Declaration of Independence it says we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. It doesn't say we're endowed by Washington, DC, or endowed by the bureaucrats or endowed by state government. It's by our creator that we are given these rights."

. . . .

The other would be former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who fell far short of the prize in 2008, but whose legendary self-discipline has put him in a strong position for 2012.

. . ..

As New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote the next day, "Romney described a community yesterday. Observant Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Jews and Muslims are inside that community. The nonobservant are not. There was not even a perfunctory sentence showing respect for the nonreligious." Brooks – a conservative, though a secular one – warned that Romney was calling for "a culture war without end".

. . . .

(I realise that I am leaving out Ron Paul right after he won the CPAC straw poll. As best as I can tell, Paul actually does believe in a secular government. But Paul is a libertarian who's entirely out of step with the Republican party, regardless of how adept he is at mobilising his devoted followers to pack events like straw polls. He was unable to establish himself as a serious candidate in 2008, and there's no reason to think he'll do any better in 2012.)

Barack Obama, in his inaugural address, said that "our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth."

It is that simple, inclusive vision that we're in danger of losing if Romney or Pawlenty – or, God help us (so to speak), Palin or Huckabee – is elected president in 2012. In truth, the founders made it clear in the first amendment that we need not just freedom of religion, but freedom from religion, especially given that 79% of Americans believe in miracles.