Emile Durkheim in Orange County

Julie writes an interesting meditation on the idea of some white Americans -- she uses her childhood home of Orange County, California, as a paradigm -- feeling like they lack culture. The OC she describes is sort of an anti-Cheers, where nobody knows your name, and where all social activities, from meals to music, are purchased rather than made together. Against this background, it's unsurprising -- though no less problematic -- that discontented members of such a society go out an appropriate elements of other cultures. Julie would rather frame this not as people in the OC having less culture than the other groups they jealously appropriate from, but as their culture being shallower.

In the comments, La Lubu (riffing on a comment by chingona describing the contrasting cultures of shallow Phoenix and deep Tucson) makes an interesting point:

What is culture, if it isn�t something shared by people? I think that sense of anomie is that disconnect with other people. That's what's shallow, to answer waxghost's question on "who determines depth?" Isn't the function of culture to connect people? I mean, "culture" isn�t just something that exists in the background like air. It's a collective enterprise. When it is no longer serving that purpose, it isn't inaccurate for the people whom that "culture" does not serve (say, the way Orange County's culture affects Julie) to state that it's shallow. Culture is belonging. It's not just continuity with history, it's continuity with other people�right now.

This reminded me of a point made by Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of modern sociology. In Durkheim's day (as in ours), it was common to take greater connectedness as a sign of the presence of culture, whereas disconnectedness and individualism were un-cultured states. This is paralleled in "state of nature" theories, in which people are fundamentally separate and community is a further accomplishment. Durkheim's insight was that both community and individualism were equally cultural. Individualism must be established, defined, and upheld by culture just as more solidarity-filled community does. Just think of all the norms Julie's neighbors and family in the OC have to internalize in order to maintain their isolation -- rules about keeping monetary exchanges at arm's length, about not prying in anyone's business, etc. After all, that's why discontented white Americans so often seek authenticity not by becoming truly immersed in a richer culture, but by purchasing the trappings of other cultures (kanji tattoos, dream catchers, etc.). Purchasing is their existing cultural model of interaction. These norms are shared -- hence a culture in La Lubu's sense -- even though their function is to hold people apart. A similar point can be made, I think, about cultures that emphasize rootedness in a long past versus those that try to be ahistorical. Culture is a model for how to interact, but that model may or may not constitute "connecting people" as we normally understand the phrase.

Culture exists in order to enable people to get along in the world. We can therefore judge the adequacy of a given culture, in the context of the needs of the people involved and the demands of their situation. It seems clear from Julie's description that the culture of the OC is seriously inadequate for many people, because it is unable to satisfy their deeply-felt need for a particular type of interaction. Though diagnosing the problem in this way does not necessarily tell us how to fix it.

Miscellaneous roundup

First, a little Plus Ca Change Watch. Obama released the Bush-era torture memos with minimal redaction yesterday, so he gets a cookie for following the law there. Disturbingly, though, he effectively pardoned all the people who actually did the torture, because holding people accountable for their actions would be living in the past. He obviously knows he needs the support of civil libertarians and anti-Republican partisans who seized on the torture issue. But his concern to establish a precedent for immunity from responsibility for torture makes me wonder what the real message was that the CIA was sent about how to interpret his public promises to stop torturing people.*

In related news, the NSA has been (accidentally, they swear!) spying on Americans, and even prior to the latest revelations the current administration was earning a marginal grade on civil liberties.

Moving to immigration, we have a bit of "actual change" news -- the people arrested in the recent Washington state raid have been released and given work authorization. My cynical side wonders how much this represents an actual change in policy versus punishing ICE because they embarassed Janet Napolitano by springing the raid on her.

For folks who were arrested in circumstances other than the Bellingham raid, immigration continues to be a black hole of human rights, even for detainees who are U.S. citizens (my wife's coworkers were the people who helped out Rene Saldivar, the guy pictured in that story).


*I'm realizing through all this that I have a much stronger structuralist tendency than I thought -- I simply don't trust the office of the presidency, and I'm less reassured than most people by a change in which dude's butt is in the chair. Or maybe I'm just an across-the-board pessimist -- while I expect a bad institution to corrupt even a good officeholder, I wouldn't expect even the best-designed institution to be able to rein in a truly bad officeholder.

Clark U.'s punt to procedure on Norman Finkelstein

My graduate alma mater, Clark University, has gotten into some controversy over canceling a lecture by Norman Finkelstein. What I find interesting in the affair is not the question of whether Finkelstein should be giving a speech -- I know far too little about the Israel-Palestine issue, much less Finkelstein's personal oeuvre, to make a judgment on that -- but the rationale that Clark President John Bassett gave for canceling the speech.

The root of the issue is the broad philosophical tradition of liberalism. Liberalism arose as a reaction to the European wars between Catholics and Protestants, in which each side was convinced it held the deep truth about the universe which the other side needed to be made to see, by force if necessary, to save their souls and discharge the evangelistic obligation of one's own side. Rather than proving the truth of Catholicism or Protestantism, liberalism sought to make the substantive question about what will send you to hell irrelevant to the political arrangements for living together. A fully-developed liberal political system would allow people to hold to and pursue whatever substantive commitments they want, because disputes could be resolved on a purely procedural basis.

Liberalism is a great thing. But unfortunately, there is not always a procedural solution to be found -- some substantive decisions need to be made (I generally tend to see a smaller scope for pure procedure than the major modern exponents of liberalism like Rawls and Habermas). Yet the allure of a purely procedural solution, which allows you to sidestep hard (even intractable) substantive disputes, leads people astray. I call this fallacy of groping for a procedural rationalization in situations where none exists the "punt to procedure."*

Now let's return to the question of Finkelstein. In general, we can divide the people who might be invited to speak at a university into three groups:
A: Those whose views are correct and who therefore will enlighten the audience.
B: Those whose views are incorrect, but who are part of the reasonable debate and who students will therefore benefit from engaging with.
C: Those whose views are so bizarre and/or dangerous that it would be detrimental to give them a wider airing.

Deciding that someone falls into group C is, I think, a perfectly reasonable basis for canceling their speech. To allow a C to speak would both spread their dangerous views (and/or cause distress among their opponents) as well as give the university's implied endorsement to their participation in the reasonable debate. As a general rule I think universities have a duty to err on the side of taking the most generous reasonable interpretation of where the line between B and C falls**, but it's a dereliction of duty to wash your hands of ever declaring anyone a C (thus in effect asserting that everyone is an A or B). The trick, though, is that deciding which group a person falls into is a substantive question -- it requires analysis of their positions and a judgment as to their reasonableness.

Since he has to be the president of both Students for Palestinian Rights (who think Finkelstein is obviously an A) and Hillel (who think he's obviously a C), it's no surprise Bassett would hope to find a purely procedural reason to cancel (or, less plausibly, defend) Finkelstein's speech. Here's what he came up with, according to the Globe story linked above:

In a letter to the university's campus newspaper, Clark's president, John Bassett, wrote: "The university remains committed to inviting a wide range of speakers to encourage diversity of opinions on controversial topics. My decision was predicated on its untimely and unfortunate scheduling."

Finkelstein's address would conflict with a similar conference hosted by the university's Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, scheduled for April 23-26, two days after Finkelstein's speech, Bassett said in his letter. That conference could draw Holocaust scholars who MacMillan said may disagree with Finkelstein.

... "It is possible that our understanding of the Middle East conflicts would be enriched by conversations with Professor Finkelstein," Bassett said in the letter. "It is my judgement, however, that having Professor Finkelstein speak on the same evening as our planned conference would only invite controversy and not dialogue or understanding."

Bassett is ostentatiously non-committal about whether he thinks Finkelstein is an A/B or C. But his stated rationale seems quite weak -- the Finkelstein speech is two days before a conference of scholars who disagree with him. Were the events on the same day, I would grant a procedural out here. But as it stands, Bassett's argument is simply a punt to procedure, a procedural rationalization to avoid taking a substantive stand.

It's quite possible Bassett doesn't actually have a position on the substantive question here -- rather than secretly believing Finkelstein is a C but using a punt to procedure to avoid having to defend his view, he may simply be looking for the option that creates the least controversy and fewest headaches for him. But Students for Palestinian Rights has dumped a problem in his lap that obligates him to make a substantive decision -- to come out and say either "Norman Finkelstein is a provocative but important scholar who students will benefit from engaging with even if they disagree with his conclusions," or "Norman Finkelstein is soft on anti-Semitism*** and therefore Clark will not elevate him to a position in the reasonable debate."


*The term is an allusion to the "punt to mystery," the fallacy by which a religious person dismisses challenges to their theological position's apparent contradictions by asserting "God works in mysterious ways."

**Thus I think Clark was justified in its decision, during its previous big speaker-related controversy, to let Paul Bremer speak.

***Or whatever the precise allegation his critics make is.

Obligatory tea party post

I think it's in the Blogger terms of service that I have to post something about today's Tea Party protests. The reversal of the roles of "righteous demonstration to wake the people up" versus "showcase and mock the other side's wackier and stupider members"* after eight years of left-wing anti-Bush demonstrations is interesting. The "hur hur hur 'teabagging' hur hur hur" bit got old really fast -- though perhaps this just shows I read too many liberal blogs. I also think it could be fascinating to read a historical study of the use of the Boston Tea Party motif by protest groups in American history. It's a very striking and unique event that played a key role in our country's formation, yet it's open to a multitude of reinterpretations placing it in the lineage of different contemporary concerns. After all, the last notable use of the tea party motif before today's conservative protests was by Howard Dean in the 2004 Democratic primary.

*Yes, I know, the "Bu$Hitler" signs were the work of lone wackos or possibly agent provocateurs, whereas the "Hang 'em high" guy is the precise statistical mean of the views of the tea partiers.

Non-Christian Easter rituals

We all know about the rituals that Christians practice on Easter. But I think it's important to recognize the rituals practiced by non-Christians -- particularly those of a secularist bent* -- on this holiday. I'm not talking about the pagan celebrations of spring that were incorporated into Christian Easter practices, though some people do still practice those. I'm talking about pointing out the existence of pagan celebrations and their incorporation into Christian Easter. (A similar ritual, with slightly different liturgy, is observed at Christmas.)

This ritual has the appearance of making an argument -- #many Easter traditions have a pagan origin, therefore Christianity's righteousness is somehow compromised.# But it doesn't really function as an argument. These things are mostly said not to Christians, but to other non-Christians -- e.g. in this Pandagon thread. And I doubt many Christians who are otherwise secure in their faith are particularly troubled by these historical facts (certainly I wasn't). Either they already reject all the aspects of Easter that aren't found in the Bible (including, sometimes, the very idea of an Easter celebration), or they don't see enriching their holiday with elements from another tradition as necessarily threatening the remembrance of Jesus' resurrection (coloring eggs can be just a fun thing to do, not an act of worship of Oestre).

Instead, pointing out the pagan roots of Easter functions as a ritual for affirming non-Christian identity and solidarity (a quite useful function, I might add, given the dominance of our society by Christians). It's a way of reminding everyone in the group of non-Christians' superior critical thinking skills (which are held to be the basis of non-Christianness, much like faith is the basis of Christianity), and holding up Christianity -- particularly Christianity as unthinkingly practiced by the masses -- as ridiculous to anyone who knows some historical facts. Indeed, there's an interesting parallel in that both Christian and non-Christian Easter celebrations are about affirming the group's knowledge of a hidden truth that they want to spread.

*I use the term "non-Christian" here for lack of a better one -- this ritual is not particularly common among devout practitioners of Islam, Hinduism, etc., but neither is it exclusive to people who entirely reject religion. I've even seen it among a few rationalist liberal Christians.