Secularism and Reverse-Engineering (and, an announcement)

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The debates about secularism we’ve had over the months I’ve been on Sepia Mutiny have sometimes gotten stuck due to differences in terminology. People have different ideas of what “secularism” means, and not simply because one party is “right” and the others are “wrong.”

In fact, there is some slipperiness in the way many people use the term on a day-to-day basis. Some people think of secularism as a cultural attribute, indicating the opposite of religiosity. A society where people are not very religious might be termed secular, and under this terminology, Europe would be very “secular,” while the U.S. would be less so, even if (and Razib has often pointed this out) there is actually more religion taught in public schools in most northern European countries than is allowed in the U.S. system. India is a society that is also very non-secular by this definition, partly because the overwhelming majority of its citizens would identify themselves as belonging to one or another religious community. Moroever, one of the unique features of life in the Indian subcontinent is the fact that a person’s religious identity is often publicly visible to others –- it’s built into one’s name, as well as various kinds of bodily markings and religiously-coded attire. A Bindi might mark a woman as a Hindu; a turban and beard might mark a man as a Sikh; and any number of identifying marks are possible for Muslims. (Christians and Buddhists, interestingly, are less visibly marked.)

The problem with the cultural definition of secularism is that it seems very difficult to think of changing anything. If the people in a given society are seen as religious, one could claim that thereÂ’s no need for a legal or political system that requires separation of church and state. Nor need there be any particular incentive to reform aspects of a traditional culture that are incompatible with the idea of civil rights. Also out the window are specific protections for religious minorities, as well as vigilance about protecting individuals (as in, women) from religious coercion. If a woman (or even, as is often the case, a girl) is being pressured by her family to accept a marriage she doesnÂ’t want, under the culturalist definition of secularism there isnÂ’t really justification to help her: thatÂ’s simply the culture, one could say. A better way of defining secularism is more strictly political: for me, “secularist” refers to a political system where the government derives its authority without reference to any religious institutions (as a shorthand, we can call this “separation of church and state”). Under this definition, you can disentangle ideas of “modernity” and “democracy” from “secularity” -– very modernized and even democratic nations might choose not to follow the path of secularism, and very secular nations might end up as non-democracies. As many people have pointed out over the years, Iran has elements of a democratic system of government, but that government has to be legitimated by the “Supreme Leader” who is always a religious cleric. It is procedurally “democratic” (there are regular elections) without being “secular.”

Similarly, it’s equally possible to have coercive state secularism where democracy and civil rights are absent. Turkey is certainly more free now than it was, say, 30 years ago -– when the automatic imprisonment of both Communists and Islamists was a regular fact of life. But even now -– with a nominally Islamist party running the government -– there are questions about how democratic the country is, as writers continue to get in hot water with the government over things they write.

In the political definition, some of the positive value of secularism is lost, and the concept becomes a bit more technical. And admittedly, secularism is not always used in the most intelligent way even by secularists. It can also be pushed too far -– and actually work against the interest of individual rights. Turkey has sometimes gone in this direction, as has (arguably) France, with the recent Hijab ban.

But such excessive applications are relatively rare. On balance, political secularism in most nations seems to be a good thing –- especially when those nations are pluri-religious (most are, these days), have serious internal sectarian divides (Iraq, Afghanistan), or other major cultural differences (as in, between urban and culturally secular people and rural societies that are more religious). Secularism as a political term, in short, need not be understood as “opposed” to religion.

And political secularism can be a good thing even if the term (“secularism”) itself may be foreign to a given society, and even though the term has a “Christian” genealogy (in the sense that the word “secular” comes from the Latin “saeculum,” and came into European languages through Christian theology). But the idea that “secularism” is an extension of colonialism -– an imposition of the west -– doesnÂ’t really hold water, and I disagree with people who have used that argument (such as Ashis Nandy; see this post from the early days of my blog).

Secularism is a legible concept pretty much everywhere -– itÂ’s been successfully translated to multiple cultural frameworks, and most societies are capable of adapting and incorporating political ideas like this one without any trouble. (Another term that has high translatability might be “democracy.”) Secularism can be “reverse engineered” to be compatible with, say, predominantly Hindu societies like India and Nepal, or predominantly Muslim societies in the Middle East, North Africa, or Southeast Asia. Even if there arenÂ’t strong philosophical or historical justifications for doing this, there are, in nearly every case, very good pragmatic ones. That is to say, it is quite clear that many countries would fall into civil war if political secularism were abandoned. And secondly, the civil rights of dissenters, atheists, and members of small religious minorities would likely be trampled without some protection from the state.

In an essay called “Modes of Secularism” (in Rajeev Bhargava’s collection, Secularism and its Critics), the philosopher Charles Taylor has worked out a way of thinking about how what I am calling the reverse engineering of secularism might work. Taylor uses the term “overlapping consensus,” coined by John Rawls, to describe how different groups can agree upon a common political framework (secularism) even if they might do so from dramatically different points of view:

I want to use this term [overlapping consensus], even while I have some difficulties with its detailed working out in Rawls’ theory. I will come to these below. For the moment, I just want to describe this approach in general terms. The problem with the historical common ground approach is that it assumes that everyone shares some religious grounds for the norms regulating the public sphere, even if these are rather general: non-denominational Christianity, or only Biblical theism, or perhaps only some mode of post-Enlightenment Deism. But even this latter is asking too much of today’s diversified societies. The only thing we can hope to share is a purely political ethic, not its embedding in some religious view. But its problem is that it too demands not only the sharing of the ethic but also of its foundation–in this case, one supposedly independent of religion.

The property of the overlapping consensus view is just that it lifts the requirement of a commonly held foundation. It aims only at universal acceptance of certain political principles (this is hard enough to attain). But it recognizes from the outset that there cannot be a universally agreed basis for these, independent or religious. (Charles Taylor)

In the U.S. context, overlapping consensus is what allowed dissenting Protestants (who were extremely religious, but also extremely individualistic) and Deist/humanist types like Thomas Jefferson to agree on a governing framework. The Protestant dissenters of Virginia didnÂ’t want to have to say an oath or pay a tax that would benefit an established (Anglican) church, and Jefferson had the strong conviction that religion and politics should be kept separate. The two parties agreed on a system of government (in Virginia) that incorporated their quite different beliefs, even if they came to that agreement for different reasons.

With large numbers of immigrants who adhere to non-western faiths now in the U.S., itÂ’s also become acutely clear that overlapping consensus can allow, say, a conservative Muslim immigrant (someone who trusts the Quran more than Thomas Jefferson or John Locke) to agree on a common governing principle with a secularist like Andrew Sullivan, even if they disagree on how to adjudicate specific issues, and even if they donÂ’t even base their understanding of secularism on the same philosophical principles. Secularism, according to people like Taylor (and by extension, Rawls), is a political system that can work just fine without its philosophical foundation.

(A bit more on the idea of overlapping consensus can be found here)

In India, the story is a bit different. But itÂ’s undeniably the case that the Indian constitution was written with a clear awareness that a country with significant populations of people belonging to eight different religions (Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism), as well as serious caste issues, had to have an expedient way of keeping the society together. The principle of secularism wasnÂ’t named originally, though it was clearly indicated in Articles 15-18 of the Indian constitution (in a subsequent emendation of the preamble to the constitution, the word “secular” was in fact added). There are other unique features of the Indian system (and yes, flaws), and IÂ’ve addressed some of them here.

If you’re still with me, hereÂ’s the announcement I promised earlier: my first book on “Literary Secularism” is now out in England, and IÂ’ve created an information page about it here.

The argument IÂ’ve presented in this post overlaps with the argument of the book, though there are some significant differences (my goal in the book is to tie the concept of “secularism” to the modern novel, so questions of philosophy and political theory remain in the background most of the time. One exception to that rule might be Chapter 7, where I talk about Indian feminism and the Uniform Civil Code)

ItÂ’s an academic book, and itÂ’s only been published in cloth/hardcover, so itÂ’s a bit too expensive for people to actually go out and buy (believe me, I didn’t set the price, nor will I ever be able to buy more than a Starbucks Mocha with any royalties received). Most academic books like this are mainly bought by libraries, especially college and university libraries. If youÂ’re interested in the topic, my request is that you suggest the title to your library.

47 thoughts on “Secularism and Reverse-Engineering (and, an announcement)”

  4. out of curiosity amardeep, how is it that your book is first being published in the uk instead of the us where you teach? is it because it’s a uk publisher and they are obliged to publish there first, or can it not be done simultaneously in the us? sorry if these questions are dumb.

  5. Whose God, they are a small/mid-size British press and they don’t have a formal U.S. distributor at present. The book might still be distributed in the U.S. at some point if I found a press that wanted to take up the project, though that is by no means a given.

    (I’m actually starting to work on the next book already!)

  8. Yes, congratulations Amardeep on having your first book published here in the UK. The subject of your book is fascinating.

  9. Congrats Amardeep! Wow you are on a roll, first you have a beautiful baby and now this! Will try and get a copy.

  10. Congrats, Amardeep.

    Yes, in India there is added layer of complexity where even in politics and elections, religious parties have a significant say. Not to say, religiousity also plays significant role in American politics.

  11. thanks for the explanation. good luck on your next book! (is it top secret?:))

  12. Whose God, it’s not a secret — look at all my longish posts on South Asian literature. The second book, will likely be a survey of subcontinental oddballs and eccentrics, from Sukumar Ray to Manto to G.V. Desani. I’m thinking of calling it “Rigmarole, English” in honor of Upamanyu Chatterjee.

  13. Thanks, guys! Trust me, more people will read this post in the next three hours than will ever read the book 😉

    not if it becomes “required reading” in someone’s class … tee hee … Congrats!

  15. The second book, will likely be a survey of subcontinental oddballs and eccentrics, from Sukumar Ray to Manto to G.V. Desani. I’m thinking of calling it “Rigmarole, English” in honor of Upamanyu Chatterjee.

    Amardeep, that sounds really interesting too! Everyone who can, suggest to your local library or college to order Amardeep’s book, I certainly am going to.

  16. Interesting and thought-provoking essay, Amardeep.

    I have a question and a comment. The question is this: you name Turkey as an example of a place with secular but not necessarily democratic political norms. Why do you suppose that the repression of a writer’s free-speech rights might be anti-democratic? Perhaps I have too simple a view of democracy–relegating it to the question of leadership and representation–but I’d think the trials of Pamuk and Shafak were really a question of a failure of secularism. After all, we can imagine perfectly democratic states that are also perfectly repressive, as long as it’s what the people want.

    My comment has to do with the notion of “overlapping consensus”: I wonder if even this idea is robust enough for the almost unique diversity of our times. Sure, ancient Rome, medieval Byzantium, renaissance Spain, and countless other places had do deal with populations comprised of diverse minorities. But I doubt that even these places at their peak had populaces as ill-matched as modern-day London, New York, LA, Paris and, increasingly, the various countries to which immigrants are drawn for political and economic reasons. So, I wonder if there really would be sufficient consensus for the requisite political stability. In the past, for instance, most people at least agreed that there was a God, or at least a supernatural order, and the disagreements went from there. These days, there are increasing numbers of us who won’t budge on the God or “ultimate meaning of life” issue.

    Perhaps the concept can be enriched if we look at it from the opposite side: taboo. Not what everyone agrees on, but what everyone agrees is disagreable. So, while it might be hard to get the mullah and the atheist to come up a list of things they both assent to (“Whaddaya mean free speech?”), it should be easier for them to at least determine the boundaries of what’s definitely not allowed. Negative consensus, in other words. Wouldn’t that in some ways be easier? In fact, I think that’s already what happens in practice. The law, for example, isn’t so much about what you should do, but about what you shouldn’t (at least the way it’s understood and lived by most people).

    We can’t agree on what’s good, but we seem to be able to reach formal consensus on taboos–no paedophilia, no racism, no murder, no violent acts of protest against the established order (i.e. no terrorism), no drunk driving. Sure, we might be divided on our “no”s but I think there’s even deeper division on the “yes”s. Well, this is all some off-the-cuff thinking on some material that you’ve been attending to for a good long while.

    Excellent essay, and congratulations on the book, boss. Per adua ad astra.

  17. Thinking further, we do need both. Positive consensus and negative. Shouldn’t be either or. But I think negative consensus is easier, and I point it out because the word “consensus” tends to have warm-fuzzy connotations.

    Oh, and my half-assed Latin up there should say “ardua.”

  18. to better comprehend secularism i think we need to also clarify what religion is. in the united states radical protestants and deists conceived of religion as a profession of a particular set of beliefs, and so the salience of an oath. with the arrival of large number of roman catholics and later jews into the american republic we were confronted by a more liturgical and orthopraxic (as opposed to doxic, practice vs. belief) sensibility. the american system responded by aggressively confronting roman catholicism and operationally forcing it to adapt, instead of developing a ‘pillar’ relationship with the church as in the netherlands. to be short, we won our kulturkampf. same with american judaism, though the reform tradition started in germany it is in the united states that it has flourished. in the 19th century it repudiated most aspects of rabbinical judaism, that is, judaism qua judaism for 1,700 years, and forged a jewish religious sensibility which was pretty obviously in a ‘protestantized’ mode (in other words, ‘americans of the mosaic faith’).

    church vs. state issues become more problematic when a religion is less based on belief and more on ritual or practice. in the south asian context sikhs have confronted this. for muslims some have issues with the fact that halal is not normally kept in a non-muslim society. chasidic jewish groups in new york who insist on maintaining their rituals in a plural society have also encountered problems when attempting to secure public monies which might be diverted to perpetuating sectarian customs.

    i think church vs state separation is easier in a polity where the majority of the populace conceives of religion as a batter of professing a set of beliefs, or voluntarily joining a religious organization (even if the voluntarism is tempered by family tradition and communal expectations). on the other hand it is more problematic when religion is part of an ethnic self-identity, and, when religion suffuses aspects of day to day life in a ritual manner, because religious plural societies often have problems with conflicting and contradictory ritual requirements from competing customs. in the american context we’ve compromised with this, the larger religious organizations do get special considerations in accommodating their sensibilities. muslims have now been added to protestant-catholic-jew, to some extent. later on buddhists and hindus will. i doubt though that sikhs or parsis will ever be numerous enough to warrant accommodation in the USA.

  21. later on buddhists and……….

    I agree with your broad analysis.

    However, according to NYT a few months ago, the fastest growing faith (has become the 4th largest) is Buddhism in America. Buddhism in America is acting a team faith, and even Dalai Lama has openly discouraged conversion. There Buddhist-Catholics, Buddhist-Jews. Buddhism, I guess is the dharmic component to people’s life here, may more deeper than yoga.

    In fact, there are some priest in America and Europe who openly wear two hats – Christianity and Buddhism.

  22. I’m afraid I don’t have time right now to digest the entire essay and all the comments, but I wanted to offer my hearty congratulations. I will definitely take a closer look.

  25. However, according to NYT a few months ago, the fastest growing faith (has become the 4th largest) is Buddhism in America. Buddhism in America is acting a team faith, and even Dalai Lama has openly discouraged conversion. There Buddhist-Catholics, Buddhist-Jews. Buddhism, I guess is the dharmic component to people’s life here, may more deeper than yoga.

    be careful of such assertions, there is no centralized census of american religions. some will claim that pecontacostalism is the fastest growing religion, or wicca, as well. from american religious identification survey: Some groups such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses appear to attract a large number of converts (“in-switchers”), but also nearly as large a number of apostates (“out-switchers”). It is also interesting to note that Buddhists also fall into this category of what one might call high-turnover religious groups.

    the number of raw converts is balanced by deconverts (though the number of converts currently is greater than deconverts).

  26. be careful of such assertions, there is no centralized census of american religions

    Sure, I agree.

    However, I wanted to point for most of the people here, connection to Buddhism or Buddhism like practises is not formalized and firm. Here is the wiki article.

  27. I think most everyone agrees that a secular government is required for a pluralistic society, but I doubt many intend to say they wish for a secular society. Part of the reason why a secular government is conflated with a secular society is the belief that the government is a full representation of society’s interests whereas a (secular) government is intended to be a minimalistic power structure providing law and order without steering culture or shepherding society. The separation of Church and State is really a separation of Culture and Legislation. While culture undoubtedly influences a nation’s sensibilities of right and wrong and hence the nation’s legislation, cultural dogma is not automatically imbibed into the legislation.

    Okay, so a secular government is great. Why is a culture-driven society good, then? Well, for starters, what is culture? Culture does not meet heritage, it does not mean what your circa 500 BC ancestors were doing. Culture comes from your memes and dictates how you walk, how you talk, which god(s) you pray to if any, how you pick your wardrobe, et cetera. Culture is not that you know how to shuffle cards or that you play the piano or know the storyline to Mamet’s Oleanna/Antigone — those are skills for which there is a definitive (i.e. non-controversial at the macro-level) right way and a wrong way. Employer’s are not supposed to evaluate you on your culture, but they’re permitted to discriminate based on your skills. Of course, many employers still pass judgment on accents and clothing, even if never officially. While culture is excluded from political and economic life, it’s essential for one’s social life because it makes life seem less antiseptic, less definitive, less deterministic. Culture is seen as fun, much like a video-game; it’s the part of a freeman’s life for which we pay taxes and work hard in the workplace.

    Now, some may say that religion and culture are distinct. I disagree. Religion is merely one form of culture. The burqah is a religious symbol? I argue all articles of clothing are. We now culturally accept cross-dressing women to the point a school may enforce a uniform that girls wear pants (unthinkable in 1890). If a school similarly enforced a uniform that boys wear skirts, that school’s administration would be locked away in an asylum. As a pluralistic society we are more lenient about choices than a monolithic society, but we still have entrenched dogmas that allow us to hypocritically accept some things while refusing others on a purely cultural and not rational basis. Plurality of culture, and hence plurality of theistic views, is in society’s interest. Secular, however, does not mean plural. Secular means an absence of something, not a proliferation of it. It’s best if the government is secular for reasons mentioned earlier, that it’s absent from involvement in certain areas. Society, however, needs to be involved, needs to fulfill that area of people’s hearts and minds. A plural society helps give choice in how that area is fulfilled.

  28. connection to Buddhism or Buddhism like practises is not formalized and firm.

    this is an important point, and different religions differ in this sort of thing. e.g., roman catholics restrict communion. it maybe hard to envisage a separation of american buddhisms and state because the former is so diffuse and institutionally unrooted.

  29. church vs. state issues become more problematic when a religion is less based on belief and more on ritual or practice.

    Razib:

    I don’t see why this would be so. While there are various interpretations of the first ammendment, it’s mostly accepted that it allows people to define religion any way they want. I don’t see why a ritualistic religion would demand more state accomadation or support than the other one. Examples?

    I can see how an ethnically defined religion would be more problematic for the American/Liberal project than an idea-based religion as the first ammendent ties free speech/press/religion together for a reason; to religate religion into the realm of freely debatable ideas. So to connnect religion to an ethnicity would make it harder to debate and harder for those coming from the old world to shed old world identities in favor of the new.

    But in practice the 1st ammendment seems to be able to accomodate both, as long as we don’t have an extreme secularist interpretation where religion is given less accomodation than other non-religious ideas/philosophies. After all, the phrase “seperation of church and state” apppears nowhere in the constitution for a reason…as bill o’reilly like to remind people.

  31. I don’t see why this would be so. While there are various interpretations of the first ammendment, it’s mostly accepted that it allows people to define religion any way they want. I don’t see why a ritualistic religion would demand more state accomadation or support than the other one. Examples?

    that’s false. see peyote. in fact, the assertion that it “allows people to define religion any way they want” is so dumb that it almost seems trollish (least taking into account the common joke, “it’s part of my religion!” to attempt to get out of opprobrium that would otherwise be warranted common among youth in this country). as for ritualistic religion, consider the ramification of prohibition and the usage of wine during communion for roman catholics (an issue during the 1920s). there had to be a religious exemption granted. as for the issue of ritualistic (or religion which requires particular practices), consider myself as a brown skinned man walking into a public place with a knife in broad view vs. as a brown skinned man walking into a restaurant with a beard, turban and a knife in broad view. in the former case i wouldn’t have a case if i was arrested, in the latter case i strongly suspect more slack would be granted because sikhism is a recognized religion, and recognized religions are granted particular dispensations from sanction because of the sincerity we grant them (i don’t tend to share this sympathy, but unlike most of humanity i don’t believe in god or think it is a profound concept). or, consider new york state’s attempt to adjudicate kashrut fraud.

  32. is so dumb that it almost seems trollish

    i retract the nastiness of the comment. but seriously, if you end a post with “as bill o’reilly like to remind people” it really makes it hard to appear substantive with a non-orthodox (e.g., non-liberal) view on this weblog.

  33. some will claim that pecontacostalism is the fastest growing religion

    And they would be right:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/weekinreview/09good.html?ex=1263013200&en=75c169ad9704c297&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

    “The world’s fastest growing religion is not any type of fundamentalism, but the Pentecostal wing of Christianity”

    “Most scholars of Christianity believe that the world’s largest church is a Pentecostal one – the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, which was founded in 1958 by a converted Buddhist who held a prayer meeting in a tent he set up in a slum. More than 250,000 people show up for worship on a typical Sunday.”

    “If I were to buy stock in global Christianity, I would buy it in Pentecostalism,” said Martin E. Marty, professor emeritus of the history of Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a coauthor of a study of fundamentalist movements. “I would not buy it in fundamentalism.”

    http://www.glo.org/?q=node/476

    “Few people realize that one of the fastest growing religious movements of the 20th century was born in Los Angeles. Pentecostalism, the second largest segment of Christianity with a half-billion adherents, was born in a ramshackle stable in the downtown Los Angeles area where Little Tokyo is currently located.”

    ” To half a billion Pentecostal followers, it is the most important address in the world: Azusa Street, where in 1906 an African American preacher named William Seymour and his followers experienced a radical outpouring of the Holy Spirit that led to one of the largest religious movements in history.”

    Think about it folks: Pentecostalism, which traces its origin to an african-american church in Los Angeles, has a lot in common with african voodoo. And it is the only belief system that is succeeding in converting muslims in large numbers: in Nigeria, Indonesia….

    Notice how easily the the christian Ethiopians routed the islamists in Somalia? Thats the future…

  34. I would prefer Charles Taylor use of “a political etic” to your “political secularism”. The problem with “political secularism”, as deployed/mobilized by you in your mail, is that it conflates the idea of politics with that of governance. At least within the Indian context, such a straight deployment seems to be not only simplistic but unworkable. The idea of politics – a complex but unstructured negotiation – and governance – a method, written and codified – is itself fractured. We need to assess (and be exasperated in the process of assessing) this schism as it unfolds along the legislative, executive and judicial levels. Each one of these levels – especially the legislative one – itself is a socially complex negotiation. Each legislature representing a constituency represents in effect a crudely worked out “consensual overlapping” that Rawl speaks about but without the conceptual foundation to which Taylor wishes to refer his “political ethic”.

  35. Kobayashi,

    Perhaps the concept can be enriched if we look at it from the opposite side: taboo. Not what everyone agrees on, but what everyone agrees is disagreable. So, while it might be hard to get the mullah and the atheist to come up a list of things they both assent to (“Whaddaya mean free speech?”), it should be easier for them to at least determine the boundaries of what’s definitely not allowed. Negative consensus, in other words.

    The problem of negatives and positives in political theory is almost always reducible to the idea of freedom: is freedom a negative (absent of restraint), or a positive (ontological) state? For the most part it’s negative, and I actually think Taylor and Rawls’s liberalism is largely negative, so “negative” consensus is pretty close to what is substantively meant by “overlapping” consensus.

    Taylor does want it to be more than negative though, at least in terms of its effectiveness. For him, the shared commitment to a negative/liberal concept of the secular is what enables “collective agency”:

    You, like the rest of us, are free just in virtue of the fact taht we are ruling ourselves in common and not being ruled by some agency that need take no account of us. Your freedom consists in your having a guaranteed voice in the sovereign, that you can be heard and have some part in making the decision. You enjoy this freedom by virtue of a law that enfranchises all of us, and so we enjoy this together. Your freedom is realized and defended by this law, whether you win or lose in any particular decision. This law defines a community of those whose freedom it realizes/defends together. It defines a collective agency, a people, whose acting together by the law preserves their freeedom. (from Modern Social Imaginaries)

    In other words, the sense of community defined by popular sovereignty might at some fundamental level be a negative one (we are free, and ruling ourselves), but it is the building block of a sense of community that is in fact quite strong in actuality.

    Is that robust enough to work? I think so, though the danger is always that populations will democratically decide to de-secularize themselves. Constitutional protections can slow that down (in India or the U.S.), but a persistent turn to politicized religion will eventually overcome those blocks.

  36. in fact, the assertion that it “allows people to define religion any way they want” is so dumb that it almost seems trollish (least taking into account the common joke, “it’s part of my religion!”

    razib, i meant by this statement that the prevailing opinion is that the govt cannot define what constitutes a religion, not that all practices within a religion are constitutionally protected b/c they are religious…as I gather is your interpretation of what I wrote.

    consider myself as a brown skinned man walking into a public place with a knife in broad view vs. as a brown skinned man walking into a restaurant with a beard, turban and a knife in broad view. in the former case i wouldn’t have a case if i was arrested, in the latter case i strongly suspect more slack would be granted because sikhism is a recognized religion, and recognized religions are granted particular dispensations from sanction because of the sincerity we grant them

    i think early precedents leaned toward privileging recognized religions, but later SCOTUS opinions have argued that govt “should not prefer one religion to another or religion to irreligion”, which i think is the correct interpretation (i paraphrased from recent kiryas vs. board of ed SCOTUS case)

    But back to your original statement:

    church vs. state issues become more problematic when a religion is less based on belief and more on ritual or practice

    i think the former is still more problematic and represents the real target of the establishment clause. after all, those who believe they hold the ultimate truths do not have a need for free speech, press, or religion…all of which are included in the 1st ammendment for a reason. rituals, while important, don’t quite represent the same threat and can easily be resolved if we recognize that religious freedom and the concept of seperation of church and state does not exist in a vacuum, but is rather a cog in a larger philosophy–liberalism–that has a seperation (of various strictness) between state and all sorts of private behaviour, including economic.

    so, in other words, the peyote problem you cite would be resolved by regonizing what one does with their own body is an inalienable right (life, liberty, persuit of happiness) protected by the 9th ammendment…though we are far away from this interpretion in reality.

    but seriously, if you end a post with “as bill o’reilly like to remind people” it really makes it hard to appear substantive with a non-orthodox (e.g., non-liberal) view on this weblog.

    i used o’reilly b/c he’s been the only well known jounalist i know of who has been documenting the abuse of the establishment clause to retrict free speech and religion…like the case where a valedictorian at a public school was not allowed to refer to jesus in her speech. the left would be screaming fascism if the same was doen to an athiest.

  38. Amardeep:

    I understand cultural secularism, and I have a grip on political secularism; but what is literary secularism?

    My mind went to Nietzsche, and his famous “God is Dead” soundbite. At first it sounds like an attack on religion, but upon closer inspection it’s really an attack on modern democracy and its rationalism. After all, a scientist would never say such a thing which leads one to believe it’s really an affront to the whole scientific, not religious, worldview.

    In other words, the artist benefits from secularism–its rationalism and egalitarianism–but knows at the same time it’s the enemy of creativity. Obviously, Nietzsche calls for a revolution against liberal democracy. Other artists haven’t gone as far but they are rarely in the frontlines–at least in the West–of Liberalisms defense.

    Anyway, if the above has absolutely nothing to do with your book then please disregard it as the random thoughts of a man drinking cheap merlot when he should be in bed on a schoolnight.

  40. …the danger is always that populations will democratically decide to de-secularize themselves. Constitutional protections can slow that down (in India or the U.S.), but a persistent turn to politicized religion will eventually overcome those blocks.

    I concur. And, as religiosity deepens, I see little reason for optimism. I do think a great number of other countries are at more severe risk than either India or the US (who will both continue to retain a critical-mass of dissenters). Thanks for a lucid response, Amardeep.

    And though I’d like to promise that I’ll run off to read more Rawls and Taylor (I’m sure Ennis will remind us it’s not that Charles Taylor), the truth is that I’m actually more interested in questions of one-on-one ethics as framed by Levinas and Merleau-Ponty. So, that’s where I’ll start, then follow through to the political aspects. Thanks for setting the wheels turning.

  41. First of all, a heartfelt congratulations to Amardeep !

    Excellent article and brilliant discussion too. Now this is what SM’s really all about. I really liked Abhi’s monkeys/tigers article & thread yesterday for the same reason.

    Very impressive, guys. Cyber-jalebis to both of you.

  43. i used o’reilly b/c he’s been the only well known jounalist i know of who has been documenting the abuse of the establishment clause to retrict free speech and religion…like the case where a valedictorian at a public school was not allowed to refer to jesus in her speech. the left would be screaming fascism if the same was doen to an athiest.

    I swear to God, I was having a discussion with someone yesterday where I made the point that I am not aware of anyone who has ever referred to Bill O Reilly for anything and Bill’s whole routine is a joke with hyperbolic pronouncements to get more viewership as his show is entertainment and not news/serious opinion.

    I am not sure if Manju above is being facetious or serious, but surely no one who knows anything about the constituion will credit Bill with even the most remotest understanding of the establishment/free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment.

  44. like the case where a valedictorian at a public school was not allowed to refer to jesus in her speech. the left would be screaming fascism if the same was doen to an athiest.

    Hmmmm…seems a little over the top. What were the other facts?

  45. I am not sure if Manju above is being facetious or serious,

    i’m serious. i credit o’reilly in #29 b/c he has been properlly pointing out that the phrase “seperation of church and state” appears no where in the constitution. As you point out, the real test is establishment/free excercise, for a reason. a strict seperation would mean church buses could not use public roads.

    but this confusion has lead to more violations of induividual free speech/expression/practice of religion than any other i can think of, especially in cases involving equal religious access to public facilities. these cases, of govt officials restricting religious expression, are so numerous one does not have to rely on o’reilly as a source. here one from the aclu.

  46. Well done Amardeep, that’s excellent. I hope it is a great success and I know several places I can suggest it to. Free delivery here. Now now, enough with the modesty and plug your book relentlessly. Where’s the launch party? Are you coming over here to do a book-signing tour? Are you performing in Foyle’s with Zakir Hussain? Can we have literati conversations insisting the other one’s book will sell more? No your book’s better, no your book’s better, no really YOUR book’s better!

    And so forth.